Andy C Wareing's Blog, page 3

Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

The belief was that the soul of the dead person could easily become entrapped within the hidden realm of the mirror, unable to depart and find peace.

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Mr. Crowley – did you talk to the dead?

Many modern concepts of magic, wicca and the paranormal stem from the philosophies of the Golden Dawn and the teachings of Crowley himself.

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Did the printed page make us who we are?

For 99 percent of the tenure of humans on earth, nobody could read or write. The great invention had not yet been made.

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Back to the Paranormal

The slang of the era lends an additional element of authenticity to a time and place, which was already a dark and dangerous time and place to live

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Wiccan’s wearing tin foil hats

I was doing some research into Wicca for a new book project. Turns out spirituality is one of the three groups of motives that draw individuals to conspiracy beliefs.

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The bullet hole paradox

I saw a post the other day, on LinkedIn of all places, that piqued my interest. It was titled "the bullet hole paradox." A more accurate term is survivorship bias.

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‘Oti Rawa Ati’ – Finished at last

Six months and 73,000 words later I have finally finished my latest WIP – “River is Rising.”

Well what a long slog that was. The book began simply enough. Set in the not too far distant future, antimicrobial resistant pestilence forces humankind’s hand to strive for the stars. Three vast galaxy cruisers are created and set off for the far-flung reaches of the galaxy.

The twist that gave me complications as a writer, but hopefully depth and interest to the reader, is that a chance discovery based on an abundance of Bismuth in New Zealand, leads to the discovery of a highly oligodynamic metal compound, one that kills bacteria on contact. The race that rises to sudden wealth, and to fill the political vacuum, are the Māori people. At once the book took on another angle, the richness of the Māori language coupled with their ancient myths and legends, all set amidst a world ready for decolonialism, provided the flawed character of River Te Toa with a broader path to travel.

River has to navigate a new world founded on the brittle friction between ancient Māori traditions and science, while she strives to understand why the fleet of galaxy cruisers are being destroyed by some unknown means.

It was complex to write, but at the same time, carefully weaving the threads of custom, language and song into the tapestry of the story was a joy. I love research, so to gain an insight, even at a very basic level, into that rich culture was fascinating. The symbolism of Tā moko and moko kauae became central themes. You can read about the meaning, and the resurgence, of this art form by clicking on the image below.

Moko Kauae

I have moved to querying to see if I can hook a literary agent (any out there who happen to be reading this – don’t be a stranger!). In the meantime I have started book two, in what I believe will end up as a trilogy, I already have the outlines for all three books. If traditional publishing doesn’t work out I will self-publish all three towards the end of the year.

Follow the blog to keep updated on the status of the new book and the writing of the next two.

You can read two prior blog posts relating to the themes and topics within the book here:

As my flawed and personally challenging female protagonist, River Te Toa might say “Ko te tumanako i pai ki a koe te korero, whai mai i ahau mo etahi atu whakahou.”

Or in English (thank goodness for Google translate) – I hope you enjoyed the update, follow the blog and join the newsletter for more updates.

The post Blog first appeared on Author & Novelist.

New Year my arse! Give me a good old Solstice anytime

Ahh, the New Year, isn’t it the worst time of year? Brimming with hope, good resolutions and rancid pies, seemingly lost, but now found, festering in the backs of dusty cupboards.

Like most things in history The New Year has moved around the calendar. For the ancient Romans it originally corresponded with the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring. But the Romans were great tinkerers with dates and many other things, you know, sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health?

If you remember Etch-A-Sketch and Hungry Hungry Hippos you are old enough to understand the reference.

If not, Google it. Anyway, after years of tampering with the solar calendar they eventually established that the year should start on the now familiar date of January 1. For the Romans, the month of January carried a special significance. Its name was derived from the two-faced deity Janus, the god of change and beginnings. Janus was seen as symbolically looking back at the old and ahead to the new, and this idea became tied to the concept of transition from one year to the next.

Here in sleepy, drippy, mud and apple filled Somerset, land of druids, witches, and Arthurian legends, we prefer the Winter solstice. A genuinely astronomical event that is truly worthy of celebration. The incredibly welcome transition from dark winter nights towards the, admittedly distant, anticipation of Spring.

In expectancy of Spring and longer days, better weather and pretty white apple blossoms, my latest WIP is finally done! 71,000 words, it is in final edit. I am going to query for six months while I write the sequel. If that doesn’t work out, it will be self-published later in the year.

Only one ask in this blog. My last book “The Haunting of Edgar Allan Poe” is currently entered into a writing competition run by Inkitt. During the competition you can read the entire book for free. All I ask, given the competition is driven by social media engagement (what is not…sigh) is that if you like it, give me a like, a share and a review.

Click on the Inkitt icon to give it a read.

The post Blog first appeared on Author & Novelist.

A writer’s winter’s tale

Good lord don’t you just hate the endless plethora of tedious self indulgent, self-gratifying, self-aggrandizing end of year summaries that plague our lives during the Holiday season? I certainly do, but I hope you are in the minority coz here comes mine!

I started my marathon of a journey as a writer and author on the 1st of January 2021, so we are fast approaching my first anniversary. We are two self-published books into that long haul trip. One more book is essentially complete and is in its final edits.

I have made a lot of mistakes and learnt an enormous amount about the business. Here are some stats from this last 12 months:

Stats (12 month period)

201 Total units sold

6074 KENP page reads

69 KENP full reads

43 Global Amazon ratings – average 4.7 out of 5

Stats (6 month period)

328 Total units sold

7298 KENP page reads

32 KENP full reads (much longer book)

12 Global Amazon ratings – average 4.5 out of 5 (this should be 4.8 but some wretch, you know who you are, gave me a single 3 star rating – no review mind, just a rating in the same week the book got released), not bitter, just saying…

So, you know what? Not amazeballs, I didn’t set the world alight if I’m honest. A solid B—, could do better, see me at the end of class.

For you few foolhardy souls who have read the books, you have generally really liked the writing and a lovely few have even taken the time to email me and let me know that, which is massively motivating. I started the journey wondering if anybody would bother to read them, and when strangers started to do so, I sat waiting for the 1 star reviews and criticisms to roll in. That definitely did not happen, quite the opposite. So I guess I proved I can actually write a bit, and possibly even craft a tale sufficiently well to engage with my readers. You know what, for year one, I’ll take that!

I started with something like 6 twitter followers and currently have 1,708 followers. To be honest I am not sure what to do with them, and 95% are fellow writers, they certainly are not buying my books! Maybe next year I will be struck with inspiration and find a way to leverage Twitter more meaningfully.

I played around with Instagram and TikTok but lets be brutally honest with each other, I’m a 56 year old bald white guy, I have no idea what I’m doing and its all just too embarrassing. Not for me.

I posted a total of 24 blog posts (this will be the 25th). I do enjoy writing the blog and it gets good traction and always drives traffic to the website. You can read them all, and sign up to follow the blog, here:

I finally got started on Goodreads and have a few reviews and a handful of followers. Give me a follow here:

I launched the website which has been a great success, not in sales you understand, but I think it’s pretty and represents well the brand I am trying to build.

The website received 1,390 views from 891 individual visitors originating from 26 different countries, that obviously included the USA, Canada and the UK but also from such unexpected outliers as China, Romania, Malaysia, Tanzania and Vietnam. My biggest referrer was Facebook which tells me (too late, because I just ran the report) that I should pay attention to my FB page. Sorry FB followers! I will do better next year i promise.

Follow me here:

I did start a newsletter and managed to get an email list started with 102 subscribers. but the percentage of “opens” was very low and I got disheartened and lost interest in this midway through the year. Genuine apologies to you, my sad and lonely friend, if you were my one subscriber waiting for the next release, I commit to a different and more innovative approach in 2022.

As far as narrow vs wide, I liked to keep this, as one might define, on a “loosey goosey” strategy, as in I just couldn’t decide what to do. As we move into 2022 I have decided to keep “Mistakes” on Amazon exclusively but move “Haunting” wide so that is now available on the following bookstores.

I am also going to have “Haunting” available, at a discount, on a niche boutique site that supports Indie Authors, called Godless. This is partly because the owners give a better margin than Amazon but they also support a cool charity called Children of the Night who provide intervention in the lives of children who are sexually exploited and vulnerable to or involved in prostitution and pornography.

Lessons learned:

Series sell better than standalones. That’s why I am writing a Sci-Fi trilogy. It’s not really the book, it’s more to do with the ability to flex one or more books in marketing to drive sales of subsequent books. With a standalone, it…well…it stands alone.

Write to your audience – hint #1 – you need to figure out who that is. Hint #2 unless you are writing about your friends and family, it is not your friends and family.

Amazon ads drove better sales than Facebook ads for me, but many authors state the opposite.

Reviews drive sales and ratings. BUT. It’s really, really hard to get reviews. Please consider that when you read any book by any Indie writer. Stephen King and Dean R Koontz really don’t need them, Indie authors live or die by them.

If you are new to the blog – welcome. If you have followed along its been a great year because of you. Your feedback, reviews and the occasional personal email telling me to keep going has been truly inspirational. In 2022 I plan on completing the trilogy and will try and seek representation within the first 6 months. If that isn’t successful I will self-publish towards the end of the year. I am also considering adding a series of books to Haunting.

As always, ping me on the website, on Goodreads or email me at author@andycwareing.com

Have a great Xmas and see you all in 2022!

The post Blog first appeared on Author & Novelist.

Hard Sci-Fi (ciencia ficcion dura)

This blog is the long-delayed follow-up to the previous blog on Hard Science Fiction. Read the previous blog post here.

The original blog was posted on August 16th, so I have been extremely remiss in not getting around to the sequel. In my defense, I did move countries again (!) and have almost finished the 60,000 word Sci-Fi book around which this post is based.

So, in the last blog, I promised a discussion on Qualia and Quantum Consciousness. It is an extremely central theme of the book.

Qualia? Yup, it’s a word I hadn’t come across before I started writing the book. But in running through some research it popped up and I was hooked. My book’s (soon to be published, follow me here or on Goodreads for updates) major theme is interconnectedness, even across vast spatial distances and temporal barriers. Qualia helped me bridge those issues.

First termed by C. S. Lewis in 1929 (a bit of a pervert old CS, so factor that into your consideration of what follows), Qualia can be referred to as the phenomenal properties of experience, and experiences that have qualia are referred to as being phenomenally conscious.

OhhhhKayyyy? So let’s dumb that down a little. In terms that I can understand, it is the concept of why we all share a common set of properties of things that defy scientific explanation. The smell of a fine Bordeaux, the touch of the skin of a peach, the pain of a paper cut.

These things are essentially experiential, not experimental.

TBH – it is mostly a philosophical discussion, but it begins to touch on the subject of telekinesis which of course makes scientists balk. For full disclosure, I am as far from being spiritual as is possible, but as one of the characters in my book states:

“But isn’t that puzzling to you?” Aroha looked around at the faces of the other researchers. They all looked back, serious as they considered the conundrum. “We all recognize the sensation of red, and we all agree when we see it, but we have no way to communicate it, and there is nothing in science that tells us what it should be like. The color red and the smell of the rose are examples of qualia. We humans perceive them as strong and firmly unified properties of our surroundings, of the real world, whereas in actual fact they are simply products of our consciousness.”

It made me sit up and think, and the concept that perhaps we “share” what we consider to be unified properties, precisely because we “share” elements of our consciousnesses, lent itself to what I think is a very strong chapter and a lead-in to the later stages of the book.

I am 5 (FIVE!) chapters from finishing the first draft. Close to the current word count of 60K, I am certain it will end up at 63-65K. I always add even as I edit.

Shannon Hale said it best “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that I can later build sandcastles.”

It is such a true quote. I am both exalted and at the same time dismayed by some of the chapters and the work that lies ahead, but it is by far my most adventurous and far-reaching novel and I am excited to get it finished.

Good grief!

Did you really read to the end of that blog? You may be the target reader for this book!

Go on, go on, go on…sign up for the blog to keep posted on release dates. I honestly think it might be more than OK.

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