Ken Magee's Blog, page 2

And Then Three Come Along All at Once

Is there anything more satisfying than finding a great, new writer to feed your reading habit? Well, how about discovering three all at the same time? These guys all have their own styles and unique imaginations. Even the way they describe themselves gives you a clue about their fascinating backgrounds; backgrounds which enrich their writing.

Give yourselves a treat and check out their books via the links below.

Guy Donovan

In the 1990s and 2000s, I worked on both television and feature films as an animator and storyboard artist/designer for Marvel Films, Hanna-Barbera, Sony Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, and Warner Bros Feature Animation, amongst others.

Now I work for the U.S. Government in return for a steady paycheck and job security, allowing me to continue my wasteful habits of eating and providing for my family.

I live in North Dakota, USA with my wife and daughter. Creatively starved by my government job, I turned to writing at the advice of my wife, a fellow Hollywood expatriate who writes both screenplays and novels. That led to my current obsession with 5th century Wales, which is the setting of my ‘Dragon’s Treasure’ series. The first two novels, ‘The Forgotten Princess of Môna’ and ‘A Cold, White Home’ are currently available as e-books and I continue toward completing the final two installments, which are written but as yet untitled.

Find out more at Guy’s Amazon author page.

Nav Logan

Many years ago, when I was just a small boy gazing in wonder at his first chest hair, I decided that I was going to become a tramp. I was going to drop out and go to Strathclyde. Why Strathclyde? God only knows, but every man must have a goal in life. Being an engineer or a pilot didn’t cut it for me. My soul was filled with wanderlust and the need for adventure.

So, after leaving home, I dropped out. I even went to Strathclyde, passing through it in a sleepy haze while being rocked gently to slumber in the passenger seat of an unknown truck.

Since then, I have done many things and seen many places, always following my instincts and trusting in my destiny. I am self-taught in many things; a jack of all trades and a master at none, but I’ve always got by. A strong self-belief has brought me through many adversities. I try to be the best I can be and often fail, but I continue, nevertheless.

I’ve been writing since I was that small boy, mainly poems and an occasional short story. Maerlin’s Storm was first written over a decade ago. It wasn’t something I planned to do. I didn’t wake up and say, I’m going to be an author. Far from it. Like many things in my life, it all started with a dream. The next morning, I wrote a poem. Later, it became a story and this small seed became my beanstalk. People read it and enjoyed it, but then life became busy again. For many years the story sat, collecting dust. It would have stayed on the shelf, forgotten, but fate had other plans.

I now have 5 published novels. Three are part of the Storm-Bringer Saga, an Epic Fantasy series. I also published a collection of drabbles and poems: Little Words … Full of Big Worlds, a collection of short stories and drabbles: Bananas in my Shorts, and a collaboration short story.

Find out more at Nav’s Amazon author page.

Rick Haynes

Hi, my name is Rick Haynes. I am an author and award winning Drabblist.

My passion is medieval fantasy but I also write short stories and Drabbles in many different genres.

This is my world.

Ever upwards, never stopping, the staircase to the heavens awaits all those wishing to dream.

And all you have to do is place one foot on the first step.

Consider the endless possibilities, as you climb higher and higher.

Boredom is unknown in my time and space, for can you not see the stars sparkling bright, ready to enlighten you?

Is your mind ready to absorb the endless possibilities of a million words?

And are you ready to join me on a magical journey?

I will embrace you with open arms.

And welcome you into the world of my imagination.

Find out more at Rick’s Amazon author page.

ART – Authors and Readers Together

ART is a banner under which a group of like-minded authors are working collaboratively with their readers to create stories designed to entertain, enchant and amaze. I’ll be using this logo on all ART related posts so keep your eyes peeled.

 

A Darker Shade of Chocolate

I’m delighted to welcome Rosen Trevithick here on a leg of the blog tour to launch her Chocolate Making Adventures book.

When an author is ‘on tour’ to promote a book, it can be difficult for them to write new and original content, particularly when trying to link the content to a particular theme. Well, I have a lot of wizards on my site and, fortunately, making a wizard is just the kind of thing which her Chocolate Making Adventures teaches you to do.

So without any further introduction, Rosen explains how to make a chocolate wizard from scratch!

How to Make a Dark (Chocolate) Wizard

Firstly, you need to make your own silicone mould. In my book, I demonstrate using a troll mould as an example, but the same technique can easily be used to create a wizard. Without giving too much away, you need to buy some silicone putty and some oven-hardening modelling clay. You make a wizard from the clay, bake it until hard, then press the putty around it. Once the putty sets, you remove your clay and are left with your very own wizard mould.

The next thing to do, is make some plain chocolate. Yes, I did say make plain chocolate – none of that buying chocolate and melting it down malarkey – this isn’t the 00ies. My book tells you how to make the darkest chocolate in the universe, using cocoa butter, cocoa powder and honey. Making chocolate involves heat, so your chocolate mixture will turn out molten. Pour it into your wizard mould, plonk it in the fridge and wait.

After an hour, carefully press the chocolate from the mould, and there you have it, your very own dark wizard.

If you would like more detailed instructions about how to make your own chocolate wizard, you can buy Chocolate Making Adventures in both paperback and eBook formats.

To see lots of other exciting chocolate ideas why not check out my recipe blog or to find out more about my book please click here Chocolate Making Adventures.

Photo by Claire Wilson lle-photography.co.uk

Thank you and remember to eat chocolate responsibly!

Rosen Trevithick has a variety of books in print including My Granny Writes Erotica – Threesome, Pompomberry House and two Seesaw collections, as well as over a dozen digital titles.

In 2013 she founded the Smelly Troll series – children’s chapter books written by Rosen and illustrated by Katie W. Stewart. The series, which begins with The Troll Trap, has inspired hundreds of children to get involved in creative writing.

Rosen writes in a variety of genres with a strong leaning towards comedy. She has also dabbled in psychological fiction and mystery writing.

 

Festival of Drabbles 2015

The amazing Micheal Brookes has come up with the idea of a festival of drabbles. In his words, here are his ideas so far and I’m certainly delighted to support his endeavours.

The first Festival of Drabbles will start on November 9th and run until the 15th. It will be a week long celebration of drabbles and the art of drabble writing including some of the finest drabblists in the world.

If you’re new to drabbles then they are a form of flash fiction in which the story is told in exactly 100 words. I’ve been a fan of the drabble form since they were introduced as a daily feature in the Indie Book Bargains newsletter (now Book Hippo) a few years ago.

As a writer it’s a challenge of economy and editing to tell a story in so few words. It’s also an excellent way to play with new ideas and to explore areas that you normally wouldn’t. As a reader I enjoy a bite sized tale in those few quiet minutes in the day. They’ve also introduced to me to new authors whose work I would otherwise have missed.

It’s a form that deserves greater recognition and so Michael is organising a week of drabble related reading and activities. He already has plans for how his blog The Cult of Me will contribute to International Drabble Week. He’ll share these nearer the time, but one thing is certain, it will include a drabble competition.

How can you help? For now the first job is to raise awareness for this first Festival of Drabbles, so if you have access to any of the following channels then please do the following:

If you have a blog or website then post an announcement for the Festival, you are free to use the logo and text for this purpose.

If you are on Facebook then join the event, invite any friends that you think would be interested and share the event on your timeline and any appropriate groups you participate in.

If you’re on Twitter then tweet a link to this event and if you can use the #festivalofdrabbles hashtag that would be great!

Learn more about Michael at his The Cult of Me blog or check out his guest drabble Clowns.

And don’t forget, if you fancy having a go at a drabble, please check out Are You a Secret Drabblist?

Good luck, Michael, I hope your Festival is a stunning success.

Ken Magee Has Got a Website!

I've created my own website, so I've migrated my blog over to KenMageeAuthor.com.

Please nip over and check it out... I'm rather proud of it. While you're there, it would be fantastic if you subscribed to my quarterly newsletter... four emails a year won't destroy your inbox!

Thanks for all your support over here... I hope to see you all over there.

Screenshot of the KenMageeAuthor.com site.

Win a free copy of Dark Tidings

Simply pop your name and email address into the box on the right and you’ll be entered into a raffle for free eBook copies of Dark Tidings… book 1 in the ‘ancient magic meets the Internet’ trilogy.

Here’s the blurb…

What happens when ancient magic meets the internet? One thing is certain, modern life will never be the same again.

A thousand years ago, a young thief, Tung, and a disgraced wizard, Madrick, are thrust together in an executioner’s dungeon.

In the darkness, Madrick reveals an incredible secret about a legendary spell. The great spell helps them escape their prison cell… and eventually their century. Catapulted into the present day, their lives collide with Michael, a computer hacker who plans to destroy the world’s largest bank. But sinister people are tracking their every move and they will stop at nothing to steal their spell.

Dark Tidings is book one of the spellbinding Dark Tidings trilogy. It’s funny and frightening… and it will open you eyes to the dark conspiracy which is going on all around us.

Collective Nouns

What do you call a pair of crows? Answer – attempted murder.

This type of joke is from a genre called highbrow humour. Why… because you have to have some specific knowledge before you can understand the joke. In this attempted murder case (pun intended) you have to know that the collective noun for three or more crows is a murder. Ah, now the joke makes sense… and leads us nicely into what this post is actually about i.e. collective nouns.

It never ceases to amaze me just how many collective nouns there are in the English language. For example, we have a murder of crows (you knew that!), a belt of asteroids, a cackle of hyenas, a flight of stairs, a sentence of judges, an impatience of wives and a den of thieves. These ones are fairly normal and, I’d guess, fairly widely known. If you Google ‘collective nouns’ you’ll find a wealth of words describing nearly every group imaginable. Even with the abundance of official collective nouns, there are still a lot of groups which have yet to be allocated their own special word.

Here are a few suggestions which could fill the some of the gaps:

A blaze of firemen
A smothering of Social Workers
A gathering of combine harvesters
A shoal of nudists
A wunch of bankers
A collection of philatelists
A camp of bell-ringers
A heard of listeners
A number of mathematicians
A drift of castaways
A pouch of Chewbaccas

Any more for any more? For example, what is the above group of collective nouns called?

The Black Conspiracy

Ancient magic has infected the Internet… is this the end for civilisation?

The ancient magic which transported Tung, a young thief, and Madrick, a has-been wizard, across a millennium has now infected the Internet and civilisation simply can’t handle the consequences.

To make matters worse, evil wizards have followed the pair through time. They’re determined to hunt them down, steal the great magic scroll and use its power to destroy our modern way of life.

Saving the world just got a whole lot harder.

The Black Conspiracy is book two of the spellbinding Dark Tidings trilogy.

One big happy family

This is the first time I've hosted a guest post on my blog and I'm delighted to have Michael Brookes as my very first contributor. 
Michael is an Executive Producer with a leading UK games developer. Working in games and writing are two of his life passions and he considers himself fortunate to be able to indulge them both. He lives in the east of England, enjoying starry skies in the flattest part of the country. When not working or writing he can sometimes be found sleeping. Which is good as apparently that's where many good ideas come from.
He's touring the Internet this month with his 'Conversations in the Abyss' show! So now, without further ado, let me hand over to Michael.______________________________________________________________________
First, let me thank Ken for inviting me to his blog as part of my month long blog tour in support of my latest novel release. We’ll get to that later. I first encountered Ken on the Kindle Users Forum, one of many communities that actively support indie writers. Soon after setting my own blog I started conducting author interviews, one of those was with Ken.
Why did I start these interviews? From the moment I released my first novel I discovered a wonderful thing – other indie authors. Indie authors are a friendly and helpful bunch. In communities like KUF and Goodreads they provide advice and assistance to other authors.
As a recipient of this help it seemed only reasonable that I return the favour, so I started conducting the interviews. At first I posted one a week, but quickly became ever more popular, so I expanded to two posts a week and recently to three.
Indie authors face a number of challenges. The first is writing a good story. That challenge is the same for any author, published or not. It’s the next step that differs. With a decent publisher then they will provide the required support for the book’s release. This includes a number of specialism’s, such as editing, proofreading and marketing.
Indie authors have to find these services for themselves and that’s where I thought I could help in some small way. Hence the author interviews. Doing so also provided another benefit. I’ve now interviewed dozens of authors, interesting characters in their own right, all with great stories to tell.And now Ken is doing the same favour for me and allowing me to tell you about my new book. All because indie authors help each out. Thanks Ken!______________________________________________________________________
Conversations in the Abyss



‘Conversations in the Abyss’ is the sequel to the 5 star rated supernatural thriller ‘The Cult of Me’ Stealing Lazarus’s miracle gifted him immortality. Combined with his natural ability of invading and controlling people’s minds this made him one of the most dangerous people on Earth.
But the miracle came with a price. His punishment was to be imprisoned within the walls of an ancient monastery and tormented by an invisible fire that burned his body perpetually. To escape the pain he retreated deep into his own mind.
There he discovers the truth of the universe and that only he can stop the coming Apocalypse.
Buy now from Amazon:UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCP08JU... http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BCP08JU/
A few of Michael Brookes' other books
The Cult of Me
For too long he dwelt apart, watched those who passed him by. With his unique abilities he entered their minds and inflicted terrible suffering upon them. They didn't even know who he was. The game has lasted for years, but now the game has become stale. On an impulse he decides to make a final and very public last stand. After surrendering himself to the police he enacts his plan to seize the prison for his final bloody act.
There he discovers that he's not as unique as he once thought.
An Odd Quartet
A quartet of dark short stories (10,000 words) to thrill and chill.
The Reluctant Demon
A young demon prepares to take his possession exam.

Seasonal Drabbles

For the last few months I've been writing drabbles in my spare time. A drabble is a story which is exactly 100 words long, excluding the title. The stories have been posted on the kindleusersforum and subsequently used on the Indie Book Bargains site.

I thought I'd share a couple of my seasonal efforts.


Peace on Earth, good will to all trees
The big fir stood tall, watching over his siblings; mere saplings really. Heaven.
Then the men with chainsaws arrived; cutting a swathe though the forest. Soon it was his turn. The harsh metal teeth ripped into his bark. They tore through his trunk. He fell; felled. He screamed silently for his mother; Mother Nature.
He was tossed unceremoniously onto a truck with other fallen comrades.
***
Then he was standing again, but the sky was gone. No wind. No friends. His roots amputated. Glittery foreign objects weighed heavy on his branches. This was hell on earth.
“Please let me die.”

Not just for Christmas
He dropped the puppy and a big stone into the sack.
“You said you’d look after him. I’m off to the canal.”
Sarah wailed and pleaded, but he was gone.
He parked just around the corner and opened the bag.
“Sorry pup, but she has to learn.”
The puppy bit him and escaped.
No-one believed his story. He was jailed for animal cruelty once the Tetanus had healed. Sarah never forgave him. At fifteen she left home, got herself pregnant and developed a chronic alcohol problem.
And the puppy? He bought some boots, ran off to London and became mayor.


And I got a badge for my efforts!

nobooko - a new place to hang out

I still think that the Kindle is the eReader of choice for an awful lot of people, particularly here in the UK. That's why my favourite forum at the moment is the KindleUsersForum (KUF). It is one of the friendliest places on the net for authors and readers alike. The only problem is that you can spend all day there if you're not careful.

And things might be about to get a whole lot worse! With the popularity of the Nook and Kobo rising, a sister forum of KUF is emerging.


The nobooko forum is new and it looks great. It does, however give me a couple of new problems... I need to buy some more technology and I need to get by books onto these exciting new platforms.

Maybe I'll stop going to bed, who needs sleep anyway?