Aaron D. Key's Blog

This is a test. I’ve transferred my web page from the aar...

This is a test. I’ve transferred my web page from the aarondkey.wordpress.co. to aarondkey.com but I don’t know how to write new blogettes.

The Wind in the Willows

I’ve finally read this book. I knew the story before. Surely everyone knows the awful Toad escaping from prison dressed as a washerwoman, solid Badger, the entrancing friendship of Ratty and Mole, and the fight for Toad Hall. All powerful images that have ensured the story’s popularity.

Terrible animations based on this story. “Poop poop!” The mournful longing for the excitement of a car. The strange intermixing between animals and humans. The easy access to food that even mice can access at their local shops. The idea that Toad can escape from prison, return home and there be no one in authority to think of re-acquiring him. (It is almost Kafka-esque in its bizarreness.) There are so many reasons to dismiss this book as childish nonsense.

And yet, it is a story that has the power to move one into thinking that your life has been changed because of it.

There are two particularly beautiful scenes in this book which both emphasise to me how different my viewpoint of books is to the general public. There is plenty of ‘action’ and ‘excitement’ in this novel to keep what I imagine the average reader is, satisfied. These sections are to me distractions: like car chases, or fight scenes in movies – time to make a cup of tea, to have a wee, or glance at twitter.

I don’t believe I can ever be a successful writer without pampering to this desire for action that I don’t understand. I can’t explain the glorious feeling of bewilderment, off-ness, and yet at the same time glorious enrapture I get when contemplating Kafka and the two scenes I’m about to talk about in this book. I want to capture this feeling with my writing – perhaps only for one in a hundred, one in thousand readers but to those readers the feeling will be precious. I don’t know if I have the skill. But I have the desire. Is that enough?

Back to the book. Sometimes I feel like Toad. My enthusiasm runs away with me. I become too full of myself. I need taking down a peg or two.

These two scenes then.

First there is the time that Otter loses a child. Mole and Ratty can not sleep and decide to go down the river in a search. They are overcome by a sense of yearning, of longing. Music intertwined with perfect silence that shows the world in all its glory – colours and scents that surpass normality.

“Trembling he … raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked into the very eyes of the friend and helper; saw the backwards sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight,”

They come face to face with Pan, the God of wild animals and between his hooves they find the missing otter child. This is such a beautiful moment of rapture. It makes the senses stir. Language used like wine.

The other scene happens later. Ratty meets a sea rat and listens to tales of adventure, of the sea, of warm sun-lit lands. Tales that transform themselves into sea- shanties, sea-gulls cries and “the soft thunder of the breaking wave.” Ratty is mesmerised and begins to follow the sea rat to his next voyage before Mole comes and holds him back and eventually cures him of this unbearable longing to find adventure.

Yearning! This is what I think the two scenes have in common. In each of them you can feel the longing which is a pleasant sensation even when the need is not met, perhaps even more so when left unfulfilled.

 

Author’s Meandering Homage

by Aaron D. Key

The wheel of Eight.

Well I’ve taken some time to release the 2nd book of my series. “A Wheel of Eight.” It’s still not ready. Fans will have to sit on their hands in glorious anticipation for another few months.

Why?

** A lack of feedback for the first book knocked my massively fragile confidence.

A few more reviews have started to come through now which is definitely helping. I seem to need a drip feeding of ego massaging. So I will copy two of the new ones here.

“Herai is an interesting tale of two versions of the same world. The characters and the ways their relationships develop is excellent, and the different plots had me engaged until the very end.“

“ I rate Aaron D. Key’s “Herai” 5 out of 5 stars. I like how the author uses both third person and first person narratives to give us a better insight into all the characters’ thoughts and emotions. This really helped me care about what happened to the characters and got me excited for each new chapter. I look forward to another book in the series. “

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**Also if I am honest my head was not in the right place for editing a substantially written second book with a few obvious and annoying flaws.

But I’m back

A Sudden Realisation of Clarity and Hope.

I was listening to My life, My love as sung in Mamma Mia; Here we go again. I think it is clear in this film that the lyrics refer to a parents love for a child.

Then out of curiosity I listened to the same song sung by Abba. Although I am not an avid Abba fan (so can’t say this is definite) but my view changed. The lyrics seemed to be sung by one human, newly in love, to the object of their love. And it felt strong and all to familiar.

My older and more cynical self interrupted – but no person should be able to generate that feeling. No person is that worthy. No one person can really change the world to that extent. So where does the feeling come from? It must be lurking in the heart of the one who loves.

And if it’s lurking there then it should be possible to activate it without the presence of the loved one.

This was my radical thought. And I’m going to investigate it until the logical conclusion becomes reality.

Thanks Abba.

It helps if you listen to the music while reading the lyrics. Perhaps you would have the realisation too. I’d love to hear your views.

“I’ve never felt this strong

I’m invincible, how could this go wrong?

No, here, here’s where we belong

I see a road ahead

I never thought I would dare to tread

Like an image passing by

My love, my life

In the mirror of your eyes

My love, my life

I can see it all so clearly

All I love so dearly

Images passing by

Like reflections of your mind

My love, my life

Are the words I try to find

My love, my life

But I know I don’t possess you

With all my heart, God bless you

You will be my love and my life

You’re my one and only

I held you close to me

Felt your heart beat

And I thought: I am free

Oh yes, and as one are we

In the now and beyond

Nothing and no one can break this bond“

Some Hope

I have had an interesting time as Herai was the book of the day on the 18th July 2018 with the onlinebookclub.

I have to admit that this didn’t result in the massive number of sales that I might have hoped for but as the book has been virtually ignored for over a year the experience has given me new hope.

A few sales means more to me than a million sales could mean to a best-selling author.

Also, as part of The Book of the Day program 10 pages of the book were sent to 50 random onlinebook club reviewers for their opinions on whether the cover, the blurb and the sample would tempt them to want to read the book and the results were hugely reassuring to me. There were a lot of ‘No’ answers but 18% said ‘Yes’. I’m very happy with this number.

The lack of interest I have experienced in the massive sea of amazon where my little raindrop has suffered from my rubbish and disorganised marketing attempts led me to believe: that the title was wrong, the story was too complicated, that the cover was inadequate, that my writing style was awful and the whole project was doomed to be a complete failure. Now I am reassured. Some people hated my writing admittedly, but other people liked it – odd and unique, different and refreshing (I think they liked it.)

The title and the cover definitely didn’t seem to be a turn off. Quite a few people really liked the cover. I did myself, many thanks to Design for Writers.

All in all I am greatly cheered up; with more determination to get to grips with the marketing and to finish editing the second book in the series.

The next book is really going to blow their minds, I cannot help but gloat.

Amazon Prime Day

For the USA

For the UK

I’ve been told that I’ve got to add to my keywords ready for Amazon Prime Day but I don’t seem to be able to do this on the KDP site where it allows me just 7 keywords.

These are the 7 keywords I have used under the general heading of fantasy.

– dystopian

– gay

– crime

– politics

– dark

– mystery

– adventure

I think it sounds great already but these keywords have not enabled readers to find it already so I probable need to add more keywords.

So I’ve tried my best below.

1.Love

2.Obsession

3.Betrayal

4.Friendship

5.Immaturity

6.Darkness

7.Addiction

8.Light

9.Nature

10.Freedom

11.Servitude

12.Drudgery

13.Violence

14.Recovery

15.Exploitation

16.Wine

17.Loyalty

18.Dignity

19.Survival

20.Ingenuity

21.Outside

22.Minimalism

23.Mushrooms

24.Poison

25.Knives

26.Compassion

27.Understanding

28.Decay

29.Scheming

30.Leadership

31.Necessity

32.Pragmatism

33.Jealousy

34.Sustenance

35.Guards

36.Sibling Rivalry

37.Torches

38.Caverns

39.Power

40.Intertwined

41.Devious

42.Watchers

43.Healing

44.Shame

45.Honour

46.Honor (for my USA friends)

47.Alternative Realities

48.Tunnels

49.Sacrifice

50.Intrigue

And there I think I’ll end. I’ve used up so many keywords you probably don’t need to read the book now but I hope you will.

Ponderings on Tom of Finland

“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.”

Just in my mind. Had to learn that while studying Hamlet for A levels and it’s kind of stuck. Which is good news in a mind forgetting things by the year.

Just watched Tom of Finland – the film biopic. It leaves me thoughtful. I do not understand the modern – post war – distaste for any sexual activity which is considered different.

How was it that Homosexuality became such a crime? It could only been a notion, and presumably this is also behind Roman Catholic’s dislike of contraception, that sex should not be enjoyable. That its only purpose was the begetting of children.

Presumably in some dim and distant past that must have been an important role. When people were dying in flocks of disease and hunger and the inhospitable nature of the world – off and on – it must have seemed a duty to make sure that the human race survived. But those times have long gone. We have plenty of children, plenty of humans to carry on.

In a very objective way I see that it is quite clear that society’s disapproval led to much of the behaviour that society particularly objected to. By creating a whole strata of people who felt dirty, different and unclean and whose desires could not be met by normal means their subsequent behaviour was inevitable. The inevitability of everything was what struck me most in that film.

It is really time for people and religions to accept that sex is a healthy and enjoyable experience in adult and consensual relationships. Just as we do not consider the sex lives of our parents, we do not need to consider the sex lives of others especially if it takes place in private.

#sex

Reflections of a Disappointed Author

It is now almost a year and a half since I published my book. I tried to do it properly. I used a professional editor and cover designer. I was hoping, not for overnight success, but that the sales would help to pay for next book in the series to be published. I have just completed my tax returns and I made the grand total of £1.48 in royalties.

I started 2018 in high hopes, in spite of previous experiences. I was going to publish the second book of the series. People would like it, better than the first one. Then the market would be ready and eager for the third book.

But gradually the doubts crept in. People I knew were not reading my first book. They made reasonable excuses. They didn’t like fantasy or the idea of parallel. They were busy or they were just ominously silent. Perhaps the book really was awful? Perhaps my tone, my writing was terrible. I hoped that it was not that. That it was only my marketing skills that were terrible.

Then I started to doubt the second book too. I knew that there bits I loved, scenes that I hoped other people would love too but there were also areas I really needed to work on. And then I began to think what was the point. With no money for the final edit would my efforts be wasted. If no one was going to read the book did it need to be perfected, in my eyes at least?

And then there was the third book; the story of my youth with imagination obviously. In a way this was my favourite book because I had lived this story, not all of it, but enough of it to make me feel deeply connected. But then again – what was the point of tidying up the lacklustre end section? What was the point of anything?

If I do not write – and I have not written for nearly a year – then I am just a lump of flesh, trying to find droplets of pleasure in the passing years, waiting for death.

I hope that tomorrow will bring a more optimistic turn of mind.

Check out this review of The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Here is a review by Aaron: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2169172791

Check out this review of The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

Here is a review by Aaron: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2162491306