Thomas W. Devine's Blog, page 17
February 6, 2016
Lotto Luck
“Woman’s claim to $73m lottery prize doesn’t wash” was a headline in The Dominion Post (January 29, 2016). The article it headed was about the tribulations of a German woman trying to prove her claim that she had bought the winning ticket in a British lottery.
Truth is as strange as fiction.
Last year I published a novel - “Losing & Winning” - which starts out with the lead protagonist trying to prove that he was the owner of a winning Lotto ticket.
https://www.createspace.com/5802934.
Truth is as strange as fiction.
Last year I published a novel - “Losing & Winning” - which starts out with the lead protagonist trying to prove that he was the owner of a winning Lotto ticket.
https://www.createspace.com/5802934.
January 29, 2016
Knowing
Knowing
The problem of doing research (in embarking on writing a novel) is not knowing what you don’t know and thinking you know when you don’t.
Thank God for manuscript assessors and editors, as well as book readers.
Call Centre-it is
Yeserday I had to make three domestic business phone calls to two large corporations. First the recorded voice then the multiple options then the music and waiting, waiting, waiting.
Once, a long time ago, calling a business or government agency, you got straight through to a live telephone receptionist who listened to your needs and transferred you directly to the relevant expert. Delays were few.
If you are too young to recall that time then you’ve never known a better standard of service than the one you get today.
The problem of doing research (in embarking on writing a novel) is not knowing what you don’t know and thinking you know when you don’t.
Thank God for manuscript assessors and editors, as well as book readers.
Call Centre-it is
Yeserday I had to make three domestic business phone calls to two large corporations. First the recorded voice then the multiple options then the music and waiting, waiting, waiting.
Once, a long time ago, calling a business or government agency, you got straight through to a live telephone receptionist who listened to your needs and transferred you directly to the relevant expert. Delays were few.
If you are too young to recall that time then you’ve never known a better standard of service than the one you get today.
January 23, 2016
The Commute
The Dominion Post (January 18, 2016) re-published a column by Sydney Morning Herald columnist, James Adonis, “In praise of boring day jobs”. It was the preamble to the main thrust of the article that interested me most.
He writes about his observations of commuters in trains . I remembered my own first experiences as a train commuter in Wellington, New Zealand. There weren’t any cell phones or other computer gadgetry then. Most of my fellow passengers read or listened to music on walkmen or did both.
Even then, as Adonis still finds today, there were other commuters who just “sat in the carriage staring straight ahead, occasionally glancing out the window”.
He found it odd that these people “actually seemed content... They were happy just sitting alone with their thoughts”.
If you are a commuter, what better time to use for restful R&R from today’s even more hectic lifestyle?
My five-day-a-week personal commute used to be a mixed bag – sometimes just thinking, sometimes reading (newspaper, magazine, novel, or textbook) and, rarely, preparing for something I would be doing at work.
It was when I began my then secondary job as a novelist that I changed to taking an interest in the appearances of those around me and tried to overhear conversations to help me add interest to characters in my books and improve their dialogue.
He writes about his observations of commuters in trains . I remembered my own first experiences as a train commuter in Wellington, New Zealand. There weren’t any cell phones or other computer gadgetry then. Most of my fellow passengers read or listened to music on walkmen or did both.
Even then, as Adonis still finds today, there were other commuters who just “sat in the carriage staring straight ahead, occasionally glancing out the window”.
He found it odd that these people “actually seemed content... They were happy just sitting alone with their thoughts”.
If you are a commuter, what better time to use for restful R&R from today’s even more hectic lifestyle?
My five-day-a-week personal commute used to be a mixed bag – sometimes just thinking, sometimes reading (newspaper, magazine, novel, or textbook) and, rarely, preparing for something I would be doing at work.
It was when I began my then secondary job as a novelist that I changed to taking an interest in the appearances of those around me and tried to overhear conversations to help me add interest to characters in my books and improve their dialogue.
January 16, 2016
Research
I thought of an idea for my tenth novel (to be written this year) while viewing a heart-wrenching Child Fund commercial on television.
I’ve started background research.
Did you know that Assyrians were an indigenous people of ancient Mesopotamia with a homeland (now largely part of Iraq) centred around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
Their civilization dates back to 2500 BC and Assyria existed as a geopolitical entity until Arab-Islamic conquest in the mid-7th century. Mesopotamia is where mankind first began to read, write, create laws, and live in cities under an organised government.
The Assyrians of Iraq, north east Syria, and elsewhere are not ethnic Arabs but retain non-Arabic languages and identities. They became a Christian people around the 1st century AD and follow various Eastern Churches.
Around forty per cent of all Iraqi who have fled their country since 1993 were Assyrians, but not the only minorities running from ethnic and religious persectution at the hands of Islamic extremists.
Maybe 200,000 Assyrians remain in Iraq, a remnant of a Christian population of 1.4 million in 1987. They are either unwilling to leave their homeland or are too poor.
I’ve used this and other information for a “what if?” to create a modern story.
I’ve started background research.
Did you know that Assyrians were an indigenous people of ancient Mesopotamia with a homeland (now largely part of Iraq) centred around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
Their civilization dates back to 2500 BC and Assyria existed as a geopolitical entity until Arab-Islamic conquest in the mid-7th century. Mesopotamia is where mankind first began to read, write, create laws, and live in cities under an organised government.
The Assyrians of Iraq, north east Syria, and elsewhere are not ethnic Arabs but retain non-Arabic languages and identities. They became a Christian people around the 1st century AD and follow various Eastern Churches.
Around forty per cent of all Iraqi who have fled their country since 1993 were Assyrians, but not the only minorities running from ethnic and religious persectution at the hands of Islamic extremists.
Maybe 200,000 Assyrians remain in Iraq, a remnant of a Christian population of 1.4 million in 1987. They are either unwilling to leave their homeland or are too poor.
I’ve used this and other information for a “what if?” to create a modern story.
January 8, 2016
Words
My knee-jerk reaction to what I read was complex and visceral. To state the outcome simply, I not only disagreed but deeply resented, even despised, those who thought that way. I thought to myself, I’ll use whatever bloody words I like.
I guess a feeling like that assails us all from time to time.
What got me going this time? It was a letter to the editor of The Dominion Post (January 1, 2016). The correspondent (a woman) asserted that a man saying “thanks, sweetiepie” or “thanks, luv” or “thanks, dear” to a woman “is sexist, patronising and outdated”.
I saw red until I considered blogging about it and taking a more rational look at my initial reaction.
Terms of endearment can certainly be used in a patronising way; there’s no denying that. But are they intrinsically patronising? I think not.
Are they sexist? They do discriminate, I’ll grant you. There’s no way I’d be calling a man “sweetie pie”.
Out of date? Possibly. But not everyone has the same attitude and I resist censorship of words for adult use. I, for example, dislike hearing foul language, but I don’t write letters to the editor using derogatory put-downs about people’s freedom to use it. The characters in my novels even swear a little when driven to extreme.
We sanitise language (including endearments) at the risk of creating a duller culture, a greyer world.
www.thomaswdevine.com.
I guess a feeling like that assails us all from time to time.
What got me going this time? It was a letter to the editor of The Dominion Post (January 1, 2016). The correspondent (a woman) asserted that a man saying “thanks, sweetiepie” or “thanks, luv” or “thanks, dear” to a woman “is sexist, patronising and outdated”.
I saw red until I considered blogging about it and taking a more rational look at my initial reaction.
Terms of endearment can certainly be used in a patronising way; there’s no denying that. But are they intrinsically patronising? I think not.
Are they sexist? They do discriminate, I’ll grant you. There’s no way I’d be calling a man “sweetie pie”.
Out of date? Possibly. But not everyone has the same attitude and I resist censorship of words for adult use. I, for example, dislike hearing foul language, but I don’t write letters to the editor using derogatory put-downs about people’s freedom to use it. The characters in my novels even swear a little when driven to extreme.
We sanitise language (including endearments) at the risk of creating a duller culture, a greyer world.
www.thomaswdevine.com.
December 31, 2015
Peace on Earth
I set out with the intention of posting on my blog over the Christmas period. It just turned out that I didn't, what with gift buying, family events, a bad back and the summer heat.
However, resuming posts didn’t need to be a New Year resolution. I enjoy blogging.
On the world stage this past week, what struck a chord with me was a letter to the Editor of The Dominion Post (December 31) from one Midge Janssen of Palmerston North. She posed the question: Why are wealthy and advanced Islamic countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia) not approaching war-torn countries (in North Africa) to offer help to refugees of their own religion, language, customs and culture?
It puzzles Janssen (as it does me) why the refugees are fleeing to non-Islamic countries in far away Europe.
Maybe Islamic governments are actually helping with the humanitarian crisis. I don’t know; nor does Janssen, apparently. Maybe the international news media just hasn’t picked up on it.
What the news media has spread around the world are images of the appalling destruction of homes and other buildings. There appears to be little left for refugees to return to if that benighted region ever finds freedom from strife.
The “peace on earth” of Christmas never reached it. Nor are “men of goodwill” driving the war there.
How do the common-good benefits of peace figure so low in their estimation?
However, resuming posts didn’t need to be a New Year resolution. I enjoy blogging.
On the world stage this past week, what struck a chord with me was a letter to the Editor of The Dominion Post (December 31) from one Midge Janssen of Palmerston North. She posed the question: Why are wealthy and advanced Islamic countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia) not approaching war-torn countries (in North Africa) to offer help to refugees of their own religion, language, customs and culture?
It puzzles Janssen (as it does me) why the refugees are fleeing to non-Islamic countries in far away Europe.
Maybe Islamic governments are actually helping with the humanitarian crisis. I don’t know; nor does Janssen, apparently. Maybe the international news media just hasn’t picked up on it.
What the news media has spread around the world are images of the appalling destruction of homes and other buildings. There appears to be little left for refugees to return to if that benighted region ever finds freedom from strife.
The “peace on earth” of Christmas never reached it. Nor are “men of goodwill” driving the war there.
How do the common-good benefits of peace figure so low in their estimation?
December 12, 2015
The Right to Bear Arms
I reside in New Zealand. A daughter-in-law is an American, from the home state of David Letterman (Indiana, for those who don’t know.) I have an Australian niece heading to the USA shortly for a holiday.
I told them both that I’d love to see America too, but only from inside a military tank. Lol.
The United States, by reputation, is a gun-toter’s paradise. I feel for those relatives who’ve lost loved ones because easy access to firearms is a contributing factor. Any innocent life being cut short is a tragedy.
Praying for a better world brings me the consolation of hope. That may sound like a platitude but, as they say, don’t knock it if u ain’t got it.
No, I’m not challenging the right that some Americans hold dear. No outsider should dare do that. I’m just saying I’d prefer not to run the risk, as a tourist, of being randomly shot by a thug, policeperson, or a terrorist.
I told them both that I’d love to see America too, but only from inside a military tank. Lol.
The United States, by reputation, is a gun-toter’s paradise. I feel for those relatives who’ve lost loved ones because easy access to firearms is a contributing factor. Any innocent life being cut short is a tragedy.
Praying for a better world brings me the consolation of hope. That may sound like a platitude but, as they say, don’t knock it if u ain’t got it.
No, I’m not challenging the right that some Americans hold dear. No outsider should dare do that. I’m just saying I’d prefer not to run the risk, as a tourist, of being randomly shot by a thug, policeperson, or a terrorist.
December 6, 2015
Atheism
Does God exist?
A growing number of people in the secularised Western World seem to think there is no God. Christian practices are being sidelined – like attempts to disconnect the celebration of Christmas and Easter from the biblical birth and resurrection of Christ.
As with many things in the modern world, that process of de-Chritianization seems to be speeding up.
Christians are increasingly being put in a position of either being expected not to publicly display their Faith and values, or to be at least apologetic for them.
Newspaper columnist, Rosemary McLeod (The Dominion Post, November 19, 2015) owns up to it being “embarrassing to admit to a Christian background”. She’d resorted to mocking it, she says, for its past and for its “prudishness about sex, resisting the pill and opposing abortion”.
She also says we “have become cringey (sic) about possibly offending people from other religions by observing our own (Christianity).”
As far as I’m concerned, knowledge of Christianity is no more harmful than knowledge of atheism or non-Christian faiths.
Gaining a diploma in religious studies in my senior years has given me back the Faith I’d lost. That’s a beautiful thing. I’m no angel but I can recognise good and evil and make informed choices.
I also believe in freedom of religion.
It would, therefore, be hard to disagree with Rosemary that: “Intolerance is destructive and pointless”. Still, she rails against extremes, so maybe there’s a line that has to be drawn in the continuum.
A growing number of people in the secularised Western World seem to think there is no God. Christian practices are being sidelined – like attempts to disconnect the celebration of Christmas and Easter from the biblical birth and resurrection of Christ.
As with many things in the modern world, that process of de-Chritianization seems to be speeding up.
Christians are increasingly being put in a position of either being expected not to publicly display their Faith and values, or to be at least apologetic for them.
Newspaper columnist, Rosemary McLeod (The Dominion Post, November 19, 2015) owns up to it being “embarrassing to admit to a Christian background”. She’d resorted to mocking it, she says, for its past and for its “prudishness about sex, resisting the pill and opposing abortion”.
She also says we “have become cringey (sic) about possibly offending people from other religions by observing our own (Christianity).”
As far as I’m concerned, knowledge of Christianity is no more harmful than knowledge of atheism or non-Christian faiths.
Gaining a diploma in religious studies in my senior years has given me back the Faith I’d lost. That’s a beautiful thing. I’m no angel but I can recognise good and evil and make informed choices.
I also believe in freedom of religion.
It would, therefore, be hard to disagree with Rosemary that: “Intolerance is destructive and pointless”. Still, she rails against extremes, so maybe there’s a line that has to be drawn in the continuum.
November 28, 2015
Childless
New South Wales (Australian) senator, David Leyonhjeim, has spoken out in support of childless couples (The Dominion Post, November 24, 2015).
He bemoans the cost of other people’s children to taxpaying childless couples.
What he doesn’t appear to have regard to is that other people’s children will help care for childless couples in their old age.
That’s if today’s children don’t (by economic triage) decide that it isn’t worth the cost.
He bemoans the cost of other people’s children to taxpaying childless couples.
What he doesn’t appear to have regard to is that other people’s children will help care for childless couples in their old age.
That’s if today’s children don’t (by economic triage) decide that it isn’t worth the cost.
November 20, 2015
Lotto Luck
I left my previous profession with the prospect of writing fiction fulltime. In the 9 years since, I’ve averaged one novel a year, 8 of them published through CreateSpace in the United States and the other through ExLibris.
I don’t think I’d have persevered was it not for my first novel becoming a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Then, as the titles in my list grew, came encouraging comments from other writers and from my coterie of readers. Most recently, my 8th novel “Hillsend” was recommended by a judge in the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
My latest book, “Losers & Winners”, is a thriller that weaves its way around the globe from its New Zealand setting.
The plot:
“Will New Zealand teacher, Ryan Gibson, get to claim his Lotto win? Or will Kristen Piper, his girlfriend, collect the prize for herself as a way out of the double-life she’s been living for five years?
“With the best of intentions, Ryan follows her across the globe, and eventually to the island of Sicily, cradle of Mediterranean culture. But someone else is also out to find her, and they will stop at nothing.”
When I started writing this novel, a trickle of refugees from North Africa had begun arriving by boat on European shores. It was that unfolding circumstance which led me to set part of “Losing & Winning” in the waters of the Ionian Sea. The story had to reach a climax somewhere other than where it started, and the refugee situation and the tradgedy of drownings, was what drew my attention to the eastern Mediterranean.
Writer, Tina Shaw, calls “Losing & Winning” an excellent story with the intrigue of a slow reveal.
Freelance editor, Andrew Killick, says it has a fast-paced storyline with a colourful array of rogues and ordinary people caught up in devious plots.
Killick further describes it as an engrossing tale of betrayal, love, fear and obsession.
Try it for yourself.
Available at www.createspace.com/5802934
I don’t think I’d have persevered was it not for my first novel becoming a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Then, as the titles in my list grew, came encouraging comments from other writers and from my coterie of readers. Most recently, my 8th novel “Hillsend” was recommended by a judge in the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
My latest book, “Losers & Winners”, is a thriller that weaves its way around the globe from its New Zealand setting.
The plot:
“Will New Zealand teacher, Ryan Gibson, get to claim his Lotto win? Or will Kristen Piper, his girlfriend, collect the prize for herself as a way out of the double-life she’s been living for five years?
“With the best of intentions, Ryan follows her across the globe, and eventually to the island of Sicily, cradle of Mediterranean culture. But someone else is also out to find her, and they will stop at nothing.”
When I started writing this novel, a trickle of refugees from North Africa had begun arriving by boat on European shores. It was that unfolding circumstance which led me to set part of “Losing & Winning” in the waters of the Ionian Sea. The story had to reach a climax somewhere other than where it started, and the refugee situation and the tradgedy of drownings, was what drew my attention to the eastern Mediterranean.
Writer, Tina Shaw, calls “Losing & Winning” an excellent story with the intrigue of a slow reveal.
Freelance editor, Andrew Killick, says it has a fast-paced storyline with a colourful array of rogues and ordinary people caught up in devious plots.
Killick further describes it as an engrossing tale of betrayal, love, fear and obsession.
Try it for yourself.
Available at www.createspace.com/5802934
