Richard Dee's Blog, page 88
August 22, 2018
The Indie Showcase presents, Marjorie Mallon
Today on the Showcase, I’m pleased to welcome Marjorie Mallon.
Marjorie, the Showcase is all yours for the week.
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Thank you so much to Richard for inviting me to write a piece for his blog. I feel truly blessed.
Writing and blogging is an integral part of my life. I’d be lying if I said that the process of becoming an independent author has been all rosy. It is far from easy. To be a self-published author you have to sacrifice time and work until your knees stiffen up and your eyes hurt! But listen to your body, stop for the occasional break to eat, drink, take a walk, or do tai chi or yoga.
There are many positive, life-affirming aspects of becoming an author. I have never been happier and more at peace with myself. I have rediscovered who I am and through this process, I now know where I will go.
My only regret is that I didn’t start this journey earlier, but a friend of mine once said: the time you start to write is the time you were meant to.
I believe this is one of the most perceptive and profound comments I’ve ever heard.
I write YA fantasy. This is a clue. I’m a female Peter Pan who never grew up. Recently my husband was teasing me for watching the UK TV series: Love Island. I remarked that it was great material for me to watch TV programmes which featured young adults. Which is true, but, I confess I enjoy watching all the drama unfold on a daily basis! I identify so much with young people and with a desire to be young at heart. A condition I share with several family members who are still up to mischief in their old age! So it seems to be the natural choice to gravitate towards writing YA fiction.
Why fantasy? Fantasy is like breathing. All writing is fantasy unless it is non-fiction but true fantasy takes us on a magical ride exploring the deepest, darkest facets of our imagination. That’s what attracts me. I write from the source of my imagination. I rarely plot. This has its pitfalls. It needs a considerable amount of restructuring, but the story evolves in a unique and imaginative way.
Blogging has facilitated so many writing and creative opportunities. I started writing short form poetry encouraged by Ronovan Write’s Haiku and Colleen Chesebro’s poetry challenge. I discovered that I love writing poetry and to my delight, my haiku and Tanka poems seem well received. So I took the plunge. I introduced Tanka poems to my debut novel – The Curse of Time – Book 1 Bloodstone as tiny puzzle pieces at the beginning of each chapter. There are thirty-nine chapters in my novel, so that equates to thirty-nine Tanka poems plus a few extra too!
I have had success with flash fiction. This has been encouraging and illuminating.
I won first prize with my winning entry to The Bloggers Bash Blog Post Competition with The Queens Dress Down Day. The prompt for this – to write about Royalty – gave me a massive headache. What could I say that would be fresh and inventive? I came up with a humorous piece of flash about her Majesty the Queen. Sorry your majesty! https://mjmallon.com/2018/05/24/winners-of-the-2018-bloggers-bash-blog-post-competition/
I won first prize in The Carrot Ranch murderous Flash prompt with Mr Blamey: https://carrotranch.com/2017/12/19/winner-of-flash-fiction-contest-7/
This latter win surprised me too. I’ve never written murder mysteries! What’s going on? These two winning flash fiction entries have made me realise that I have an arsenal of genres at the ready.
Community
Writing can be an isolating activity. In my case, I don’t even have a dog or cat muse to keep me company!
It is crucial to be part of a community. I am a member of several: Cambridge Writers, SCBWI, (Society of Children’s’ Writers and Book Illustrators) Founder of Authors Bloggers Rainbow Support Club on Facebook #ABRSC and a proud member of The Sisters of The Fey. Recently, I joined RRBC (Rave Reviews Book Club,) as I am a keen book reviewer too.
I read a very interesting blog post from Ari: https://arimeghlen.co.uk/2018/06/22/why-you-need-to-be-part-of-the-writing-community/ Those who suffer from mental health issues such as anxiety and depression find it difficult to meet up in person. This is where the benefit of a supportive online community becomes paramount. With this in mind, I founded The Authors Bloggers Rainbow Support Club on Facebook. This wonderful club of writers, bloggers and book reviewers is growing daily and is having a positive influence on the blogging community. My vision for #ABRSC is to be a supportive, caring community of writers, bloggers and book reviewers who come together to help each other.
Mental Health
The rising tide of suicide continues to disturb. Carolina Russo, my artist friend who painted two portraits of my characters, recently painted a tribute to Scott Hutchison of the indie rock band Frightened Rabbit: https://yesterdayafter.com/2018/06/20/new-release-scott-hutchison-tribute-portrait/ Scott Hutchison was a fellow Scot from Glasgow who spoke openly about his troubles. Sadly, until his death, I had never listened to his music or heard of his band.
Mental Health is a growing issue which we need to address. In Book One I explore how a normal family can change beyond recognition, altered by a curse to become dysfunctional, prone to depression and sadness. One of the subsidiary characters in my novel – Esme – The Mirror Girl suffers from self-harm. I hope to express my thoughts about mental health, depression and self-harm in a sensitive, caring and positive way as the series progresses.
We need to have an open dialogue about mental health, be supportive of those who we know are suffering, and not judge. Unless you have experienced mental health issues, you cannot understand what that particular person is going through.
My motto for the #ABRSC club and for my writing life is: Together we are stronger.
Buy Paperback Book link: http://mybook.to/TheCurseofTime
Unique Selling Point: Unique, Imaginative, ‘Charming, enchanting and richly layered this is purely delightful.’
“This delightful book will appeal to teens and young adults who love stories filled with magical crystals, dark family curses, and mysteries waiting to be solved around every corner. Each chapter leads you on a journey of discovery where Amelina earns the right to use three wizard stones to reset the balance of time and finally break the curse that holds her family hostage. A captivating tale!” – Colleen M. Chesebro (Editor)
Social Media:
Authors Website: https://mjmallon.com
Collaborative blog: https://sistersofthefey.wordpress.com
Twitter: @Marjorie_Mallon and @curseof_time
Founder of Facebook Authors/Bloggers Support Group #ABRSC:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1829166787333493/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17064826.M_J_Mallon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mjmallonauthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mjmallonauthor/
Tumblr: http://mjmallonauthor.tumblr.com/
Artist Portraits of Esme The Mirror Girl and Eruterac, The Creature by Carolina Russo:
Community Links:
http://www.cambridgewriters.net/
https://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordpress.com/
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Thanks, Marjorie for a great post, interesting and thought-provoking. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
If you want to be featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever (within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a great week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents, Marjorie Mallon appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
August 19, 2018
Abbie and the Portal, a Time Travel Adventure
This week, I’m concentrating on a book that I found via a social media group that I belong to.
I like a time travel story, as an author of Sci-fi myself, I have to admit that I’m envious of the skill that’s required to write a good one. All the things that must work in order, it’s like a prequel, story and sequel, all in one. Everything has to line up, things that don’t make sense at the start need to be properly explained by the end. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to write it backwards. I wrote a time-travel story a few years ago and found that it quickly became very complicated. Instead of a novel, it ended up as a short story.
Abbie and the Portal begins with a simple idea, a note left in a book. “Help me, I’m trapped!” it says. The note claims to have been written by a young woman of the present named Abbie Concordia. The trouble is, the book and the note are over one-hundred years old! That’s the sort of premise, the random discovery of something that 1) shouldn’t be there, 2) doesn’t fit, and 3) suggests an adventure, that gets me excited. If you remember the film Timestalkers, with a screenplay written by the brilliant Brian Clemens, you’ll get the idea. It calls out for an explanation.
So far so easy, the author’s skill comes in relating the detective work that finding the note induces. All the facts that need to be set up. Proving that Abbie exists. Overcoming the totally logical idea that it must be a hoax. In placing objects that make no sense until the big reveal. Then, there must be a plan to go and rescue her and a way of carrying it out. And, through it all, there has to be a logical, realistic explanation of how you travel through time. As I said, it requires dedication to organise a story like this.
Any rescue mission makes a great story, there’s always excitement in triumph over adversity and all that. Especially if its achieved against the odds. When it’s done across time, the chances of success diminish, there is so much more than can go wrong. The man of the present stands out in the past. The clothes are wrong, the language, money, everything is different. One false move and you can change the present, or even worse, the future. The grandfather paradox rears its head at every turn. Fortunately, our hero has an able sidekick, and a set of useful skills to help him on his way.
I’m glad to say that David avoids all of the pitfalls in telling a story that had me engrossed from the start. Great atmosphere and a realistic recreation of the times (all of them). In short, Abbie and The Portal is a well-constructed romp. Great fun and easy to read.
Five Stars from me.
Author
David John Griffin is a writer, graphic designer and app designer, and lives in a small town by the Thames in Kent, UK, with his wife Susan and two dogs called Bullseye and Jimbo. He is currently working on the first draft of his fourth novel. His first novel published by Urbane Publications in October 2015 is called The Unusual Possession of Alastair Stubb. The second is a literary/psychological novel, entitled Infinite Rooms. His novella and collection of short stories called Two Dogs At The One Dog Inn And Other Stories was published in January 2017 by Urbane Publications. One of his short stories was shortlisted for The HG Wells Short Story competition 2012 and published in an anthology. He has had several more stories published in other anthologies. David’s on-going mission as an author is to produce absorbing, page-turning stories with a literary depth. His novels, with genres covering mystery, gothic and psychological, always have elements of magical realism within. He also writes short stories and at the end of each, aims for that surprising “twist in the tail”. David John Griffin’s website is: https://www.davidjohngriffin.com
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I’ll be back with another Showcase post on Thursday
The post Abbie and the Portal, a Time Travel Adventure appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
August 15, 2018
The Indie Showcase Presents – Paul L. Arvidson
“How to Write a Book When the World’s Going to Hell and Live to Tell About it!”
Hi. *coughs awkwardly* I’m Paul L Arvidson and I write SFF books. I didn’t used to. I used to have a crazy job, I used to be a Lighting Designer. That’s the bod who makes the pretty bits happen for Theatre Shows and Music Gigs and Car Launches. I used to travel the world, largely with a theatre company called Stan’s Cafe from Birmingham (look them up, they’re awesome).
Me up a ladder at the Edinburgh Festival 2007
Then we had a family and it still worked out for a while, but during night feeds of our eldest, an idea started to germinate in my mind.
One that wouldn’t go away.
People living in a place in the dark.
Fast forward to child number two. (We were getting on a bit and thought we’d better get on with it!) She turned out to be different.
Super different. She has an undiagnosed condition, follow the link for syndromes without a name, and has lots of complex needs. All of which are incompatible with “life on the road”. So slowly but surely, I needed to be home more and more as her life and our lives became more complex.
And reader, it drove me bonkers. The readjustment for all of us was crazy – medical appointments, trying to sort out how to live at home as a carer when you can’t go out to work, lots and lots of personal care, physio and all whilst trying to remain normal as a family for each other and our eldest non-special needs child. It was tough. We adjusted. I missed being out working, but I enjoyed all the extra time with the kids, having come from a life in theatre, what I was doing felt real. We reached a new normal and everything moved along.
But something still felt wrong. I was down, but couldn’t put my finger on why. We were struggling, but whenever we asked for help and got it. There was something else missing. And the idea that I’d had during midnight feeds, started to come back to haunt me.
Me doing what I do now
That place in the dark. With the people that lived there. It had grown. The people were friendly, lived in different tribes, were they entirely human? The place felt like it was a huge, long abandoned maze of passages and pipes, ducts and crawlspaces. But abandoned by whom and why? The whole civilisation of these ‘Folk’ whoever they were, lived there in total darkness. But they survived, more than survived, had a thriving culture, ate and drank and danced and told stories and had adventures. All in the dark. Was that possible? How was it possible? I had to know.
So I started to write.
I’d never written a book before. The longest of anything I’d written was 10,000 words. Trying to write anything over 80,000 just seemed like a mountain. I had no idea what a ‘pantser’ was (look here if you don’t!) so I had no idea that I was one! But that story was banging around the inside of my head, looking to get out. I’d love at this point to say, so I got super organised and religiously wrote 2,000 words a day, but if anyone reading this knows me, they’d comment, once they’d stopped laughing.
But in fits and starts, sometimes at a hundred words at a time, it built up. I got into the habit. I learned to write by ‘just write and fix it in the edit’. I realised that I don’t need to be ‘in the zone’ to write, just writing, every day, is enough.
And in the end, I got there. The #indie self-pub bit? That’s a different story, but Book 1 of Dark got released in 2016, eight-ish years after I’d started.
I’d created a world, or maybe it created itself and I just wrote it down. I had characters, who seemed to have lives of their own. I had a place, that was unlike anywhere else I’d read, but that definitely had its own rules and ecosystem and history. A quest that our adventurers needed to go on, mysteries to solve for them and the reader. It felt like there should be a sequel or should it be a trilogy?
Blurb
Welcome to Dark IN THE STRANGE labyrinth of pipes on the planet called Dark, things are falling apart. Dun doesn’t want to be a hero, he just wants to find an answer to the terrifying dreams he’s been having. But the answers, the real answers, are going to take him places he’s never imagined and tear him from the only home he’s ever known. With a half-finished map from his missing father, an old friend, a new friend and the mysterious Myrch to guide him, he journeys through parts of his world he’s never imagined. Are his dreams real foretellings? Who can he trust to be who they say there are? What are the strange forces that seem to be literally pulling their world apart? As he travels through a world that is much bigger than he thought it was, what he won’t know will kill him. And everyone he knows
The sequel? Darker (what else was I going to call it?) didn’t take nearly so long to write – total about 12 months, if you count from concept to the first sale. It felt I’d jumped a huge hurdle the first time around, but now, looking back at that book 1 hurdle, it didn’t seem so huge. Getting to 80 thousand words didn’t seem like an unscalable mountain any more. That ‘journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step?’ Turns out not to be B.S after all.
Blurb
Can Dun help stop a War? The problem is, he started it. Dun didn’t want to be a hero and the war has cost him dearly: his friends, his innocence. Maybe his mind. Now he’s a fully-fledged Shaman, Dun’s mind is a receiver for those who can transmit, but what will he do when starts getting messages from someone who’s dead. Dun’s new powers might allow his Underfolk, victory. But he must quiet the demons inside his head, and find his oldest friends Tali and Padg if they stand a chance of defeating the merciless Rowle of the Cat-People. And she is about to release demons of her own. Read “Darker”, the thrilling sequel to the “Dark” series by indie sensation Paul Arvidson, and discover the darker side of SFF today.
So, I guess my takeaway from this bit is “If you’re feeling totally daunted like I was, don’t be.” A whole book is huge. But a chapter? A paragraph? A line? Not so huge. Start there, who knows where it might lead.
Ooh, I guess one more thing! Don’t take my word for it. Here’s my latest review, from Author F.D Lee.
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Thanks, Paul for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
If you want to be featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever (within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a great week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase Presents – Paul L. Arvidson appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
August 12, 2018
The Lost Princess – Coming Soon.
I wrote a post a while ago, entitled Where do they all come from. In it, I talked about the origins of my characters and even suggested the possibility that it was all more than a figment of my imagination. As I said then, I don’t claim to make this stuff up. I merely watch a film in my head and write what I see, never really knowing what will happen next.
Very often, I get a story as a biographical timeline, with a wealth of background on my characters and locations. This is great to put into the stories, it all helps to create the atmosphere and explain motivation, it also gives me pages of information, which it would be a shame to waste. And it forms the basis for prequels, sequels and spin-off projects, which I’ve also talked about recently.
The way I work means that I seldom know what I’m going to write about when I sit down, which explains why I have so many half-finished novels and short stories. What I’ve been doing over the last week ties in with my thoughts on free books, perhaps it was all prompted by that discussion.
I’m finally getting on top of a project that I started a long while ago. When I was writing Ribbonworld, the first of my Balcom adventures, I developed a lot of backstories. Particularly around the main character, MIles Goram. It turned out that there was so much more to him as a person. Most of it never appeared in the final book. In a way, the story that I had constructed was almost like an episode of This is your Life. Or the legend, the detailed false life so beloved of spies, undercover police and the like.
I hate wasting a good story. When it came to writing the sequel, Jungle Green, I used more of it and started developing the same history for my other lead character. It was my intention to use it all in the third part of the series, tying up the loose ends. It all got saved and I lost interest in it as other projects took over for a while.
In the same way that my stories come to me, the idea for a prequel started to worm its way into my consciousness. “Use some of the Miles Goram backstories to create the prequel, save the rest for the third part,” was the message that I kept getting.
Ribbonworld is currently free, it occurred to me that if I did what I was told and wrote a prequel, I could make that free instead. Ribbonworld took me a while to write, it was never intended to be given away. As I said in a recent post, the idea of offering it for free started as an experiment, to see if it would attract readers. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not cheapening it by valuing it at zero.
So I’ve been devoting some time to the prequel and The Lost Princess was born, at the time of writing this post, it’s twelve-thousand words long. I have a pretty good notion of where it’s going. I’ve already written most of it, it’s only a case of fitting it all into a coherent narrative. I’m hoping the completed story will be around thirty-thousand words in length and will get you up to speed on what happened before Ribbonworld. It will explain a lot about Miles Goram, why he thinks and acts as he does in the subsequent books. Once it’s finished, it will replace Ribbonworld as my free offering.
I’ve written it specifically to be free, which means that I won’t have the same feelings about giving it away.
Look out for a sample soon. And here’s a clearer version of the cover.
Cover and Blurb
Miles Goram is a journalist, a reporter on the lives of the rich and famous.
Layla Balcom is the darling of the celebrity circuit, an heiress who wants to be taken seriously.
When Layla goes missing, Miles sets out to find her. The more he searches, the more he wishes that he hadn’t got involved.
Find out what happened before Ribbonworld in part zero of the Balcom saga.
I’ll be back with the Showcase on Thursday, featuring another Indie author.
The post The Lost Princess – Coming Soon. appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
August 8, 2018
The Indie Showcase presents, Errin Stevens
Welcome to another Showcase, this week my guest is Errin Stevens,
Cello Babies.
In my early 30s, I fell into an unlikely obsession with all things cello. I couldn’t have told you why at the time, although I’d identified a nagging sense of unfulfillment within myself, one I didn’t want to attribute to the correct cause. As it will do, life prodded me back onto the self-honesty platform… and the cello became my conduit, not that I understood back then how my preoccupation would develop.
But. It was a grand love affair that began with lessons on a starter cello marked with tape on the neck so I could learn to play in first position. I’d had ten years of voice and eight years at the piano, so I wasn’t as unschooled as I could have been, but I was still awful. With time, though – and, on a few occasions, earplugs – I managed to improve. Over the years, I progressed to a better cello, then to another; until eventually, I commissioned a custom instrument from American luthier, Chris Dungey. My baby was stunning and perfect and I named her Annabelle. I felt like the luckiest girl on the planet to get to play her.
My hidden unhappiness did not disappear despite my efforts and good musical fortune, however. My solution? Study harder! Broaden my cello horizons! Through the lens of relative sanity today, I can laugh at the absurd lengths I went to, from unearthing obscure video performances by Yo Yo Ma, Pablo Casals, and Jacqueline Du Pré (which led to a trip to London with my mother once and a search through Golders Green for Du Pré’s grave); to a private session with Minnesota’s former principal cellist, Bob Jamieson, wherein I was given the very undeserved opportunity to play his Montagnana and was rightly admonished afterwards to spend more time practicing, less time on history.
Outside of these shenanigans, my husband and I both worked for a living, in the same way people trying to advance do, which is to say excessively and perhaps desperately. We were also frustrated at the time that we hadn’t had children, even though initial tests revealed no reasons against parenthood for us. I thought it was perhaps my travel schedule or his, which often enough had us in different zip codes during key times of the month. I took a different job, and Mike started his own company to stay closer to home.
Toward the end of my thirties as we remained childless, I came to understand exactly what my focus on the cello distracted me from, and as rich as the study was, it wasn’t taking the place of what I really wanted. I began consulting with a fertility specialist, underwent three cycles of entry-level, drug-supported protocols. No dice, or rather, ‘dice’ in the form of an ectopic pregnancy and a burst fallopian tube, but no infant. The next step was invitro fertilization, which we tried and failed at. Did we want to try again? It was expensive, but we did want to try. I sold my cello on a gamble, knowing I might end up with no cello and no baby.
I remember with brutal clarity how my M.D. greeted me in the waiting room before the ultrasound and blood test that would confirm that next success or failure for us. I’d been giving myself hormone shots for over a year by then, had committed all of our emotional and financial resources toward the possibility of motherhood… and I was admittedly unstable. I barely controlled myself when Lisa led me, shaking and tearful, toward the imaging room. She hadn’t seen me since the day of the transfer, but she was optimistic. “You’re going to like what you see, Errin,” she promised. I didn’t and still don’t know how she could be so confident.
But she was right. One of our two embryos pulsed away on the monitor, and my blood test predicted viability. I was stunned. I was euphoric. My husband wept. Within a year we had our gorgeous, healthy little boy.
I haven’t touched a cello in years, but two months ago, my former teacher reached out. Her last student recently stopped playing due to health issues but wanted to know her cello was being used by someone. It was at our preferred luthier’s shop at the moment having some work done. Would I like to take it home and play it? The owner would be grateful.
Now, I’m just waiting for the call to go get it. I’ve dusted off my score of the Bach Cello Suites (and have my earplugs at the ready!), and I’ve dragged out my cello chair and music stand, putting them in the same corner of the front room where I used to practice. I’m looking forward to relearning the prelude for my son, who’s never heard me play. I’m grateful for the chance to change that situation.
Curious what my cello babies look like? Here they are. I love one a great deal more than the other… but apparently for now, I won’t have to choose between them.
Errin Stevens writes paranormal romantic suspense stories from her home in Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and son. Her first novels, Updrift and Breakwater, are available at Amazon and other fine retailers. She can also be found at https://errinstevens.com/
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Thanks, Errin for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
If you want to be featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever (within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a great week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents, Errin Stevens appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
August 5, 2018
Book Reviews, Duck Egg Blues
Hi everyone, this week I’m on tour with Rachels Random Resources,
Duck Egg Blues is funny, sad, mysterious and thrilling. “A robot butler detective, what’s not to love?”
Martin Ungless is a WCN Escalator Prize winning author who has twice been shortlisted by the Crime Writers’ Association for their Debut Dagger Award.
What the CWA Judges said about his work:
‘A clever and ambitious story’
‘I was laughing and crying and hugging the sheets to my chest’
This perfect slice of ‘cozy crime’ is narrated in the voice of a pre-war English butler and concerns a rich and powerful businesswoman whose daughter goes missing from their country house estate. That the story- teller is a robot belonging to an impoverished detective brings a fresh and original take on ‘cozy’, and as for ‘crime’… well, it does begin to escalate, what with MI6, criminal gangs, corrupt police, and that’s not to mention international cybercrime!
As the plot strands weave together, we discover that behind one mystery lurks a greater threat. No one is safe, not even PArdew…
This is without doubt the robot-butler-detective thriller you have been waiting for!
Purchase Link – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Duck-Egg-Blues-PArdew-Book-ebook/dp/B071226XSW
For the duration of this blog tour, Duck Egg Blues will be on a Kindle Countdown Deal, so if you are tempted, purchase before the price rises
Author Bio – Following this year’s success, Martin Ungless had now been shortlisted three times by the Crime Writers’ Association for their Debut Dagger. He has won a WCN Escalator Award, and been successful in a number short-story competitions. Martin started life as an architect though now lives in the Norfolk countryside and writes full time. Martin is currently studying for the prestigious MA in Fiction (Crime) at UEA.
Social Media Links – https://twitter.com/UnglessM
My Review
If you are of certain age, you will remember Kryten, the Series 4000 mechanoid from the sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf. In an episode called Back to Reality (1991), the hapless android is transformed into a cybernetic policeman called Jake Bullet. In his mind, he was an ace crime fighter, in reality, his duties involved traffic control.
I mention this because PArdew, the robot in Duck Egg Blues reminds me of Kryten. But in a good way, as an inspiration. PArdew is actually a very cleverly constructed character. He might be a robot, with a missing foot, but he is human enough in his neuroses. His inner thoughts reveal that he is more human than he could perhaps realise. He would probably say that it was just his programming.
I digress, PArdew and his human master, an irascible ex-policeman now a private investigator, have a crime to solve. Initially involving a missing person, it becomes so much more than that. There’s enough action to keep the story ticking along nicely, a clever analysis of human behaviour which is at times hilarious and at others poignant. The cast is rounded out by a taxi driver, several questionable villains and a host of others, all sharply drawn and interesting. The world is a cross between now and a sort of slightly futuristic now.
The writer excels in describing the minutiae of life as seen by PArdew. It could have been geeky and got on my nerves, the fact that it never becomes boring, annoying or repetitive shows just how cleverly it’s been written. And how strange our behaviour is, once you see it through the eyes of an observer whose worldview is based on its own brand of logic.
Moving further into the case, the story involves all sorts of criminal goings-on and exciting incidents, all subjected to the wry interpretation of PArdew. His description of them is worth the price of the book alone, a car crash, a train journey, even a telephone call become something else when subjected to PArdew’s interpretation.
Partnerships work well in lots of genres, particularly the “chalk and cheese” pairings. Here the fact that one half is human and the other not give it a fantastic dynamic. This is a partnership worthy of the name.
And above all the clever construction, the actual crime part of the story is well thought out, very topical and brilliantly paced.
This is definitely a case (?) of a book requiring a sequel, or preferably a series. The whole thing is a joy to read!
Five stars from me! Catch up with the rest of the tour here,
Don’t miss the next Indie Showcase on Thursday, I’ll have another great post with a new guest.
The post Book Reviews, Duck Egg Blues appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
August 4, 2018
Is it worth giving a book away?
This post is a day early, due to my participation in a blog tour tomorrow.
I’m asking a big question this time. Should you give away your work? I do, am I crazy?
My novel Ribbonworld had received around a dozen reviews (mostly positive) but was selling slowly when I decided to give it away. I thought that it would be an enticement to attract new readers.
I’d been recommended to do this by various marketing experts, the question is, several months on, was it worth it?
Since it’s been free, it’s had over 2000 downloads, but only 8 reviews on all the platforms it’s been available from, varying from 2-5 stars. Judging from them, it’s been read like most books are, with lovers and haters. I’ve had the following comments,
I got about halfway through before giving up. 2*
I found Ribbonworld completely engrossing. 5*
slightly predictable 4*
Self-published, but just as well-written and interesting as some of the best novels you can get from established authors 4*
Sci-fi plays such a small part in this book I just wasn’t feeling it. 3*
Finally! A great, believable, rollicking Scifi novel. 5*
A mixed bag and probably very similar to the variety of reviews that most titles get. After all, you can’t expect everyone who reads any book to love it. And I should be quite clear, I don’t. The fact that people loved the book, or hated it, was never the point. The real question was always about the worth of giving it away as an advertising tactic. I really wanted to know how many of the people who liked it, actually went on to buy the sequel or one of my other novels? That was the whole idea of the exercise.
While it’s hard to tell in any detail, I suspect that the answer is hardly any of them. While I’ve had some sales, I haven’t made the same amount of royalties that I would have got from 2,000 sales of Ribbonworld. And it’s difficult to attribute them. I certainly haven’t had eight new reviews of Jungle Green (the sequel), so in that respect, it could be said that the whole idea was a failure.
Which brings us back to the original point, am I devaluing my work by offering it for free? Do people only download it because it’s free and then never read it? Do people think that it must be rubbish because its free?
And, moving on from that, if you shouldn’t give it away, how else can you get people to read it?
Let me know what you think.
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August 1, 2018
The Indie Showcase presents Michael Forester
Welcome back to the Showcase. This week I have a short story for you from Michael Forester.
But first, a bit about the man himself.
Michael Forester was born with a pen in his hand. He writes at the fulcrum of perceived reality – sometimes spiritual/inspirational, sometimes metaphorical fiction and creative non-fiction.
Michael is close to being profoundly deaf and his first published creative work, If It Wasn’t For That Dog, was about his first year with his beloved hearing dog, Matt.
Michael is a Winchester Writer’s Festival prize-winner and has been short or longlisted three times in the International Fish Writing Contest.
During February-March 2018 he undertook a four-week book-signing and speaking tour of South East Asia, visiting Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines where he spoke at several conferences, academic institutions and on national television. This was his second such tour in two years.
His first novel, Vicious (a story of Punk Rock and the second coming of the Messiah) was showcased by The Literary Consultancy in November 2015 and was published on 3rd April 2018.
Details of Michael’s books and speaking tours appear at his website, www.michaelforester.co.uk
More details about his work can also be found at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Forester/e/B015NF5SXU
And now, here’s the short story.
The Power Giver
“What do you crave most at this moment?” I ask, my voice barely audible in the falling twilight.
The Returner stands before me, dishevelled, weary. His long grey beard is unkempt, his hands are callused from a lifetime of physical labour. He looks at me momentarily, considering his answer carefully. “Power,” he replies, making no attempt to embellish the response with implausible justifications. Clearly, this man is a Truth Speaker.
I knew the answer already, of course. Long, long ago I learned to read the hearts of The Returners by looking into their eyes. Some might make a feeble attempt to resist me, hoping I see nothing but my own reflection when I peer into their souls. None succeed. Always, I win. Always, I see the visions of frustration etched on their irises. For they have done battle with The Fire and with The Ice, The Returners. And they have lost.
Thus, they have had to suppress their weariness, their howling, screaming exhaustion a little longer as they approach me once more. For they know and I know it is I alone who can offer them The Change they seek. For this is Journey’s End and there is no other to whom they can turn. I am The Gate Keeper. I hold the only Key to the Change. And they know that without The Change they cannot have The Power they crave.
Once I sought to influence their use of The Power. I tried to tell them that it held great danger, that it needed to be exercised with utmost care. But that was long, long ago. Now I have acknowledged that once I grant The Change I can exercise no further influence over how The Power is utilised. Some of The Returners will use The Power to become enlightened, bringing warmth and illumination to those they love. Sadly, others – the Unwise Ones – will misuse The Power. These are they that will burn and be burned.
But I cannot fool myself, for I am answerable to a Higher Authority. So long as the Returners furnish me with The Note I have no right to withhold The Change.
As I look into the eyes of the one who stands before me now, I know that this time there is no risk. He will use The Power wisely. He has lived long and understands its dangers. And yes, he is indeed holding The Note in his outstretched hand. I take it and study it closely. The illustrations are exquisite. The signature is one with which I am familiar and clearly genuine. The Note contains a Promise which I evaluate carefully, for one cannot be too sure of Promises. But in this case I believe I can trust the Signatory to keep the Promise. I therefore accept The Note and place in The Returner’s outstretched palm the Five Golden Coins that are The Change that will give him The Power.
He looks at me with gratitude and relief. “Sorry,” I hear myself saying, “I should have mentioned when you arrived here at Journey’s End Holiday Park that the meters in the caravans take only one pound coins.”
The Power Giver appears in Michael Forester’s short story collection, The Goblin Child and other stories, published in 2016. ( www.Michaelforester.co.uk/books/the-goblin-child )
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Thanks, Michael for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed the short story, I thought it was brilliant!!!
While you’re here, why not have a look around my site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
If you want to be featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever (within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a great week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents Michael Forester appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
July 26, 2018
Part Zero, writing a prequel. What can possibly go wrong?
There comes a time when you realise that the story you’ve told is incomplete. In a lot of cases, this just means that you write a sequel, to carry on and tell everyone what happened next. However, that might not always be the case, it’s always possible that you might want to explain in more detail what happened before. Thinking about the backstory may have given you an idea for previous adventures. Although you may have used some of it to set the scene and get the reader up to speed, there’s always more to say.
Perhaps it’s about the past life of the leading character, their motivations and how they got to where they were when the story started. Or it might have more to do with the peripheral characters and the setting. There’s a whole new world in the past of your novels.
This post might confuse you, with all the moving about between the prequel and the story. I’ll try and keep it simple. In it I will refer to parts one, two and zero. The finished and published novels are parts one and two, the unwritten prequel to them is part zero. As well as in the laws of thermodynamics, Isaac Asimov used this numbering system in his Laws of Robotics, where he produced a law which preceded the others. As I write Sci-fi, it seemed fitting to use it here.
I’ve written a prequel before, but that one was easy, I only had one point of contact between the two times. I had also written a lot of the back story when I was writing the novel, so I knew roughly what I could or couldn’t say in the prequel. There is also a long gap between the end of the prequel and the start of the novel. As the overlap was minimal, there was nothing much in book one that could prove awkward to explain or prepare for in book zero. All I had to do was get to the point of contact.
This time, it’s been a lot harder. I’ve given out a lot of backstory in books one and two, largely because I never thought that I would be writing book zero. In fact, I was intending writing book three and putting all the book zero stuff in there, as a sort of soliloquy. Then I realised that I had enough ideas for four books. It made sense to make one of them a prelude to the others. Not only that I figured that I would be free to expand the backstory and maybe drop a few clues for the adventures that took place in parts one and two (and three).
While that’s true, I’m finding that I must do a lot more checking when it comes to continuity, to make sure that the stories line up properly. I’ve found that readers check and will soon let you know if there’s a hole in the narrative.
The major problem with prequels is that, as well as setting out your stall, so to speak, you have to come up with a convincing past to explain what the reader of parts one and two already knows. In a sequel, you can take liberties with a lot of the stuff, you can give people bad memories or see what happened in a different light. You can change the effect that things have on the present. In the same way that history is written by the winners and might not be a true representation of what actually went on.
It’s all very well deciding on what you wanted to happen before the events you have already described, it would appear that you have a lot of freedom. But in a way that’s an illusion.
When you wrote part one, you probably had no idea that one day you would be writing about what led up to it in part zero. In all likelihood, you didn’t bother to set anything up to make your writing life easy. Things have been said and done, now you have to go back and justify them. And there’s the tricky bit.
If you say something in part one, then you can refer to it in part two, even change its meaning or significance if you need to. But if you want to describe the events leading up to it, it has to be logical and consistent. You can’t change it around, it’s fixed. In part two you can interpret it differently, in part zero, as far as your characters are concerned, it hasn’t happened yet. BUT AS YOU’VE ALREADY DESCRIBED IT, maybe even the circumstances that led to it, you’re stuck with constructing a sequence that ends with you arriving at it. Not only that, you need to include all the information that you’ve already given about it in books one and two
I hope that’s not too complicated, let me give you an example.
My main character in Ribbonworld has his life shaped by an event, it’s something crucial to the plot in book one. I allude to it throughout books one and two. Obviously, I can’t change it in the prequel. Instead, I must contrive events, using the snippets of information that I’ve already given, to get to the point that we know about. Or the whole thing will make no sense. I have to work out how a logical way of leading up to it happening. The past must be written to fit with the future.
Or, to put it in an easier to understand way, if I wrote about Elisabeth Bennett’s childhood, she would be totally unaware of Mr Darcy. But I would still have to include events that were mentioned in Pride and Prejudice.
This is the same reason that I don’t write about time-travel, you’re almost required to write things backwards, that gives me headaches.
You can say, “but you can’t change things that you refer to in book two either,” of course that’s true. However, as you’re moving forward towards an unknown future, it doesn’t matter. As I said before, you can always revisit them and amend their importance to the way the story’s developing. When you’re moving towards a fixed future, it does. It means that there is a lot of reading of parts one and two, to gather all the points and set them out in order. I might miss something, I can guarantee that my readers will not! As a confirmed non-plotter, it’s something that I’m not used to doing.
In the future (?), perhaps I’ll stick to sequels.
Don’t miss the Showcase on Thursday, then next Monday, I’m on tour.
The post Part Zero, writing a prequel. What can possibly go wrong? appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
July 25, 2018
The Indie Showcase presents Imogen Matthews
Today, the Indie Showcase welcomes Imogen Matthews, with a story of a change in genre.
The Hidden Village – a forgotten piece of WW2 history
Just over a year ago, I was a self-published author of Run Away and The Perfume Muse, both contemporary fiction books written under my pen name Alex Johnson. Like so many authors, I’d be lucky to get a few sales on Amazon, even though the reviews were all pretty good. I kept on writing, because I loved it, not because I expected to be a successful author.
Everything changed with my next book, The Hidden Village. It’s a historical novel set in WW2 Holland in a place that very few people have heard of. That place is the Veluwe woods, which I’ve visited on family cycling holidays for 28 years.
Cycle path in the Veluwe, Holland
I also had another very personal reason for writing The Hidden Village. When I was a child, my Dutch mother would often recount her stories of life as a young woman under the German Occupation in Holland. Despite the increasing hardship and depletion of food supplies resulting in near-starvation (The Hunger Winter occurred during the winter of 1944-45), she spoke of her adventures and terror mixed with excitement in evading the Nazis. It was only when she reached her nineties that I thought about writing these stories down. I asked her to write down her memories in her own words and asked her questions to help fill in the gaps. This provided me with enough material for a short memoir for the family – I had no intention of doing anything more than keeping a record for posterity.
Until one summer, when I was cycling with my husband along the beautiful cycle paths through the Veluwe beech woods and I noticed a large rock at the side of the path. It was a memorial to the local people from the nearby village who had help shelter Jews in a purpose-built village at this spot.
Memorial at the spot
where the hidden village
existed in the Veluwe woods,
Holland
We left our bikes near the memorial and followed a sign through the trees to Het Verscholen Dorp (Dutch for hidden village). Ahead we found three underground huts, reconstructed to resemble the dwellings that housed nearly 100 people. In addition to Dutch Jews, there were people of other nationalities living there, including English and American downed pilots, a Russian on the run, a German defector and a number of Dutch men who refused to go and work for the Germans.
Reconstruction of an Underground hut
These huts were as dark and secluded as the one shown here, designed to be invisible to the naked eye. Whole families lived inside these cramped spaces and many were so relieved to have somewhere safe to live that they were prepared to put up with less than perfect conditions.
I came away tingling at my discovery. I was intrigued by how it was possible to hide 100 people for all that time, whilst providing them with food, clothing, medicines etc.
The idea of a novel was forming in my mind.
Back home, my research threw up little information about this forgotten place, which strengthened my resolve to write a story of my own. I was particularly interested in how young people would have felt and behaved: my two main characters are Jan, an 11-year old boy, who enjoys roaming the woods looking for adventures and fallen pilots; and Jewish girl, Sofie, a teenager who resents being torn from her family and friends and forced to live in an underground hut in order to escape persecution.
As the story was so personal to me, I wanted to publish it under my name and started to look for an agent/publisher. I had some interest from an agent, but it came to nothing (sounds familiar?) Then, one day on Twitter, I came across Amsterdam Publishers, an international publishing house based in the Netherlands, specialising in WW2 fiction and Holocaust memoirs. They asked to see the first three chapters of my novel. I was delighted when the owner, Liesbeth Heenk, came back almost immediately wanting to read the whole manuscript.
That was last year in January 2017 and things started to move fast. The Hidden Village was published as an ebook on Amazon in May. Shortly after, the paperback appeared. With an international publisher behind me, I didn’t know what to expect and wasn’t prepared for the sudden surge in interest for my title in the US. The book rose rapidly up the rankings and by the end of June was #1 in no less than 5 US Amazon sub-categories. It’s also become a bestseller on Amazon UK and sells strongly in Canada and Australia.
Earlier this year, I took another step along my journey by working with Essential Audiobooks to produce an audiobook version of The Hidden Village. I was fortunate to be able to link up with a professional actor and voiceover artist, Liam Gerrard, who has brought my words to life in a way I hadn’t thought possible. It’s a very strange and wonderful feeling, hearing the words I’ve written being narrated. Liam added layers of meaning and tension to the story I honestly hadn’t realised were there.
So what’s next, I keep being asked! I’m writing the next book, also set in Holland during WW2. My main characters appeared in The Hidden Village and I have now given them their own voice and their own story which picks up where The Hidden Village left off.
Meanwhile, I continue to get the word out about my novel and library talks are a big part of my book promotion. I’ve been asked to give talks in a number of Oxfordshire libraries about the inspiration for my writing, the most recent, featured above, at Carterton library.
But I haven’t stopped writing contemporary fiction and have a further novel on hold while I concentrate on fictionalising little-known events from history.
You can take a look at my work here:
Book links:
The Hidden Village: getBook.at/hiddenvillage
Run Away: https://amzn.to/2LBGwhM
The Perfume Muse: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00V5EZEPG
The Hidden Village audiobook is available on Audible and iTunes.
My Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imogen-Matthews/e/B072PRBDPS/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
Social media links:
Imogen Matthews Twitter: https://twitter.com/ImogenMatthews3
Alex Johnson Twitter: https://twitter.com/oxfordnovelist
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TheHiddenVillagenovel/?locale2=en_GB
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/prembeauty/inspiration-for-the-hidden-village-novel-on-amazon/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YO0IWJSjj0&feature=youtu.be
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Thanks for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
If you want to be featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever (within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a great week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents Imogen Matthews appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
