Debbie Bennett's Blog, page 15

Guest Post: Christine Cunningham - Please Respect my Intelligence

I love books. Let me rephrase that I love good books. Though the course of reading throughout my life, I gorged myself on the informative, bizarre, fantastic, and hysterical. More recently I have chosen to function as a reviewer to the independent author community. I have a few requests before you decide to put pen to paper. Unless you're writing a book, specifically for children don't treat me like one. I can handle three syllable and above words.Attempting to infuse your character with depth by associating them with a culture outside your own is sketchy at best and purely racist at worst.Please mention classical and modern literature in your text properly. "Title dropping" in a book is just as annoying as "name dropping" in a conversation.Let your women breathe! The archetypal virginal, beautiful (but charmingly unaware of it), and flawless do-gooder is the bane of my existence. Please give your women characters a true voice.Let your men be men. Reading a male character that sounds like he's just a man's skin covering a woman's body is very frustrating. There is a difference between the sexes for a reason. It builds tension, and that, my friend is exciting to read.There's a difference between paying homage to an author/book and lifting a storyline from a book that has already been written. You have a unique voice and perspective. Please don't shy away from using it.Edit your work! This means more than grammar and punctuation. Ask a few people to read your story prior to publishing who will give you an honest appraisal. Consider the poor fools on American Idol, who had no one who would be honest with them. Save yourself much pain and heartache by asking always how you can improve.I want to read your story, and I want to be the one that tells everyone in my social circle about you. I found you first, and all of my friends are drooling with envy. You are the only one that can make that happen.
 
Christine Cunningham writes fictional stories to uplift and inspire. She is a life-long student of happiness and how to attract it. She compiles what she learns and weaves it into an understandable, enjoyable story. She is the author of Eternal Beginning Amazon bestseller, First Snow Amazon bestseller and 30 Day Guide to apply Eternal Beginning .

Connect with Christine through: Amazon, Facebook, Twitter or via her blog.

Are you Homophonic?

Diagram from wikipedia by Will Heltsley
Here is an interesting diagram I found today on wikipedia while researching what the correct term was for two words which are spelled differently but sound the same and have completely different meanings. The word I wanted was homophone.

Why? Well I found an interesting thumbnail image of a self-pubbed ebook cover in one of the many facebook forums I frequent. And yes, if I was being my usual pedantic self, I would probably have written fora, but forums seems to be the accepted norm these days and God forbid, I rock the boat often enough as it is.

This thumbnail looked interesting so I read the post and clicked on the link to amazon. The blurb didn't blow me away but I thought I'd look further so clicked on the "look inside" feature. And what did I find? The second line of the first chapter had a mistake that clearly indicated the author didn't understand the difference between a common word and its homophone. Now I'm not naming names or even the word, because that wouldn't be fair, but wake up, self-published and indie authors! This isn't a game. You're putting your book out there as "published"; you are asking people to pay money for it. Amazon is not a critique site and you can't expect readers to edit your work for you. If you can't afford to pay an editor, then trade beta-reads with a friend or writing colleague - sometimes just a fresh pair of eyes can be enough.

In my opinion, even typos are a no-no, but they are at least forgivable. Punctuation can be tricky and we don't always get it right, but we owe it to ourselves and our readers to do our best. But not understanding words - the tools of a writer's trade - is unforgivable.

Virtual London

In my current work-in-progress, I wanted to engineer a prison visit. Not so that I could describe the inside of HMP Wandsworth - my first-hand knowledge of the inside of a prison is about 20 years out of date, and I don't entirely trust tv documentaries - but simply so I could have my main character in a set place at a set time that would fit the context of the plot.

So I googled HMP Wandsworth. I didn't expect to find much, but there's a wealth of information as to how the prison visiting system works, right down to times it is "open". I suppose there are real people who want to go and visit their loved one and friends and find this sort of information useful. Then of course, there's Google Maps and the satellite view that shows you the buildings and roads, so you can place a person and estimate distance and travel time.

And London Undergound has convenient tube maps online. It's over 15 years since I worked in the capital, so  while I used to be able to count stops in my sleep (and frequently did in the mornings), I can't quite remember the order of the stations anymore. So I can have my character taking a tube journey with some degree of realism, even though I live 200 miles away in rural Cheshire. If you are interested in the many and varied alternatives to the standard tube map, have a look here at the alternative guide to the London Undergound. Bizarre, but fascinating.

But meanwhile... Michael took the District Line into town and got off at Embankment. He dithered around the interchange for a good ten minutes, reading the local street maps, the tube maps – anything really to take his mind off what he was or wasn't about to do. Then he went down to the Northern Line platform and got the first train southbound before he changed his mind. By Stockwell, his hands were shaking again and he desperately wanted to light up. By Clapham North, his knee was bouncing up and down so hard people were looking at him strangely, and at Clapham Common he had to get off the tube before he threw up. He stood on the platform, watching the train speed away and kept his lunch down by sheer willpower. Out on the street, he lit up a cigarette and stood on the edge of the common, realising that by getting off the tube too early, he now had a long walk.

And then we are back on Google Maps again for a walk across Wandsworth Common and up to the prison.

Of course nothing is ever straightforward, is it?  Michael actually ends up in a naff café up near Euston station, not entirely by choice, but that sparks off a whole new storyline.

Psst... Wanna Be a Spy?

Today's Daily Mail reckons that women have been watching too many episodes of Spooks on television. So much so that they've been put off applying to join MI5.
I remember watching the very first episode of Spooks. As I recall, a major character was murdered rather graphically by having his head stuffed into a chip pan of boiling oil - it set the boundaries for the rest of the programme in that no character was ever "safe" and MI5 went through officers with alarming rapidity. There were some glaring errors in the storylines in my opinion. How Fiona ever got recruited is a mystery - given that she was once married to some Middle-Eastern terrorist, yet somehow managed to keep it so secret that her second husband and the British Government never knew about it. And the ability of their techies to find and follow a suspect on the streets of London by security cameras alone remains more than improbable in my book. But it was a good series.


And women got their fair share of deaths and dirty jobs. No sex discrimination or chivalry in the BBC's MI5. Maybe that's what puts women off applying. Jo went from journalist to fully-functional operative in a few episodes, only to be deliberately shot by one her own team (it made sense in the story context, trust me). We've had hangings, poisonings, kidnaps, shootings - I'm amazed anybody in MI5 is still sane. Of course, it's fiction, but it still conveys the idea that you can't be a spy and have a normal life and family. How can you have kids when you are putting your life on the line every day?
I have to admit, I never realised you could actually apply to be a spy. I thought it was one of those jobs you got the nod for, the tap on the arm in a lift somewhere, the passing of a business card, followed by a swift resignation from current job and a disappearance off the face of the known world, where you can't even tell your wife/husband what you do for a living. Now I've worked as an investigator; I've done jobs where you go to work on Monday morning and don't get home until a week later. I've spent several nights in one hotel room with six blokes and gone to breakfast with a different one each morning (and that got some interesting looks off the hotel staff, I can tell you). But there comes a time when you look forward to knowing you will be at home every night, when you can eat at more-or-less the same time and actually see your partner rather than just meet in the bathroom occasionally. The warm fuzzy feeling you get from knowing your small efforts might help to keep the country safer is replaced by the warm fuzzy feeling you get from tucking your kids into bed at night. So I have no desire to join MI5.
But now you can apply online! Like ordering your groceries or buying a book off amazon. You can take MI5's recruitment test and presumably if you score highly, you may be invited to proceed further. Here's the job description. Interesting stuff - if you're young, free and single. Good luck!

Trading In Teddies

There was a news headline a few years back about  a British woman living and working abroad in a muslim country who inappropriately named a teddy bear in the classroom where she was a teacher. This infringed the blasphemy laws of that country and I believe she was jailed. Leaving aside opinion as to the nature of the crime, the fact is that she broke the law of the country in which she was resident and paid the price.

But what if she hadn't been in that country? What if she'd been in Britain and committed the same act? It might be distasteful, maybe even disrespectful, but it doesn't infringe UK laws so you'd think she'd be OK. What if she'd set up a website, selling teddies with inappropriate names? Would that be illegal?
So why is the USA hounding student Richard O'Dwyer who built a website that had links to sites allowing illegal downloads of films? As far as I am aware, his site only contained links, not actual films nor the direct ability to download them. Yes, pirating films - pirating anything - is wrong and I'm sure he knew that and was making money off the back of it, but last time I looked, stupidity wasn't a crime the UK. There may even be a case of fraud or theft in this country but I don't see what that's got to do with the USA.
Now the internet is a grey area and the laws of supply of goods and services often don't bear much relation to the real world or common sense. For instance if you're a UK business and you supply goods via the internet, UK VAT law says that VAT is applicable according to the country of dispatch - if you sell a hardback book to America, you don't declare VAT on that sale as it's an export. However if you supply services via the internet, UK VAT law says that VAT is applicable according to the country of origin. So if you sell an e-book on amazon.co.uk (e-book sales are classed as supplies of services, bizarrely), the VAT applicable is that which is currently in force in Luxembourg (where amazon.co.uk is based). Which is why all the e-books appeared to reduce in price on 1st Jan 2012, when Luxembourg's VAT rate went down to 3%.
How does this relate to Mr O'Dwyer, website supremo? Well, I don't really know. Apparently he hasn't broken UK law, but where was his website hosted? I find it worrying that our government can even contemplate extraditing somebody who hasn't broken our laws and hasn't been to the country in question. Hacking the Pentagon's computers (or whatever Gary McKinnon, the other UK national currently facing extradition for computer-based offences did) is one thing - he directly accessed computers in a foreign country - but simply showing foreign website links is another altogether and a dangerous legal precedent to set.
Today's Daily Mail says that O'Dwyer's extradition will now go ahead, pending approval by Home Secretary Theresa May. And a British student might well spend 10 years in a US jail for what? Being greedy and foolish. Maybe I don't have all the facts. Maybe there's another layer in this that I am missing. But I find it really quite scary.
And where does that leave anybody else trading online in any way? Treading very carefully, I would say. Make sure you know who is hosting your websites, where they are based and what national or international law applies. And have the phone number of a good lawyer.

What's the Story?

I just sent off an entry for a short story competition. It was a crime story and had to have the theme of "Ten" and the prize is a weekend at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in July, which I'd love to go to but can't afford. Much as I love my husband, he's not remotely interested in writing or reading and therefore it wouldn't be a weekend break for both of us but would just be me spending money on me - something I'm usually pretty good at!

I don't find writing short stories at all easy: getting a whole story across in a few thousand words is a true art form and not something I think I've yet mastered. I'm a bit of a traditionalist and think that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, and I'm not much of a fan of the stories that just show you a slice of life with no real point to it. Having said that, I've edited a good number of anthologies for the British Fantasy Society over the years, and quite a few of the stories went on to win awards and be included in further "Best of" anthologies. I've also been a first round judge in the BFS short story competition on several occasions and am still involved in an online anthology.

My first short story sale was a crime story, which won a competition in the women's magazine Bella and was published way back in the mid 1990s. From then on I've written mostly fantasy, with the occasional nod towards sf and horror. I even had the opportunity to adapt a television script into a story for an anthology which was an education in itself - I pitched for a chance to be included, got it and then realised I had to deliver the goods! At 12,500 words, it was practically a novella but at least the bones of the story were actually there for me to work with.

Having the bones of the idea is always the problem for me. For this recent crime competition, I had the theme "Ten" and a vague idea of how I wanted to interpret the theme but that was it. For me a potential story is a hard shiny ball and I have to find the way in, mull it over for days, weeks - sometimes even months - until suddenly I'll find a chink in the armoured casing. A few paragraphs, deleted, rewritten and coated in a bit of literary semtex and if I'm lucky I can blow the chink wider and suddenly I'm inside the story and I'm off. From that point it's an easy run and I can have it written in a few days. Another couple of days for editing, then leave it to mature for a week or so, maybe pass it around a few friends for comment, edit again and it's done. In this case, I found a short scene I'd written a few months ago for no particular purpose - it was just a mum in a car on a school run and went nowhere. Suddenly I could fit the competition theme around it and see the direction it was going in. And I had it written within 24 hours (it was over the Christmas break).

You can see a list of my  short stories and where you can find them  on my Short Fiction page. It'd be nice to win the competition and actually get to Harrogate, but I won't be holding my breath!

Magic Mushrooms

Do you believe in magic? I've always liked to think there is something else out there - other worlds, other dimensions. Things that if we knew about them, they'd explain all the odd happening, inexplicable events, strange co-incidences. The stuff we read about in Fortean Times . I mean there's got to be more, hasn't there? I remember reading books like Alan Garner's Elidor as a child and wondering if it was true. Anything other-wordly, that hinted there might be another layer to this world - and I'm hooked.

But real magic? The illusionists on tv look so convincing until you see the how-do-they-do-it shows, which make it all look so obvious and you wonder how you ever fell for it. And yet we want to believe it all, don't we? It's that sense of wonder you have as a child when the tooth fairy leaves a coin under your pillow, that acceptance of everything without trying to pigeonhole it into adult reality and common-sense. Are we trying to recapture our childhoods or is a genuine belief that there are other worlds, if only we could get to them.

I was reading a post on another blog earlier and it made me recall an incident from nearly 17 years ago. Andy & I had moved up to Cheshire from Surrey with his job. We'd been married 5 years and had wanted children but after 4 miscarriages and a lot of tests, we'd more-or-less decided not to waste our lives and money on something that clearly wasn't meant to be. So we bought a cottage that needed some serious renovation work and got stuck in.

The house was a mess - ceilings down, no plumbing and we were living in two rooms. Then I sat in the front garden in late August looking at the spectacular view across Cheshire towards Peckforton Hills (one of the reasons we bought the house) and saw a complete fairy ring in the grass. So I stood in it and wished. Just because.

I was pregnant within a month.

Maybe it was co-incidence. Maybe it was because we'd stopped trying and worrying and were concentrating on other things. Maybe it would have happened anyway. Or maybe there was a little bit of magic around that night.

But the fairy ring never came back.

You can just see the curve of the fairy ring on the right.

Give me an A ...

Here's something light-hearted on which to end the year:

Hands up if you like fruit smoothies. Innocent do a great range in the UK, in handy little cartons for kids - expensive, I know, but they keep longer that way. Recently they've been doing a giveaway of fridge-magnet letters (3 per pack) and we'd managed to collect quite a few before they stopped. But we were missing a few letters - crucially an A. You can't spell a lot of words without an A and you can't spell my teenage daughter's name Clare.

So she wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek email to the company and asked them pretty-please to send her an A. This is a company whose lists of ingredients frequently say "no socks" or "no trumpets", so we thought they'd have a sense of humour. They replied back saying they'd be delighted to send the missing letters which duly arrived, so my daughter put together a short video of thanks...


Happy New Year!

Reflections

And so this is Christmas and what have you done....


In the words of John Lennon, what exactly have I done with 2011? Well one of the most important things to me has always been writing and up until this year, it's something I'd neglected for a long time, for a variety of reasons. And then my wonderful dad bought me a kindle in early February and I don't think he'll ever realise how much he changed my life. It probably doesn't mean much to most of you, but apart from being a great present, it opened so many doors to me into the world of indie publishing. Suddenly I don't need to be commercial. I don't need to sell thousands of books, to prove to a traditional publisher I can earn back an advance.

So in February I released my thriller Hamelin's Child and a collection of short stories Maniac onto Amazon's kindle platform, followed by a young adult fantasy Edge of Dreams later on in the year. A bit more formatting and they were soon on Smashwords platform too - and from there distributed to Sony, Barnes & Noble, WHSmith, Apple and all the major e-book retailers. I've worked with some great cover designers and taken out some online adverts - which more than paid for themselves in volume of sales. It's been a steep learning curve but I've sold thousands more books than I ever imagined I would and had fantastic reviews from people all over the world - strangers I've never met and who have no vested interest in being nice to me. I've even had fan email. And I'm writing again and loving it all.

The negatives: the near implosion of the British Fantasy Society, seeing friends hurt and egos inflated, realising that the internet can sometimes be a bad place and that some laundry really should be cleaned in private. Hard lessons and ones that make me less likely to volunteer my time and experience in the future. But I've also strengthened friendships and come out wiser and in the end probably happier.

My teenage daughter made her tv debut as an extra on Waterloo Road this year. Tiny acorns, those fleeting seconds on screen, but she's set for a stage career and let's face it, she has as good a chance of a job in the entertainment industry as anywhere else these days. And hubby finally got his stained glass business up and running after more than five years renovating the outbuildings (he's not that slow, but he had to start by underpinning the entire building with reinforced concrete, rebuilding much of the walls and putting on a new roof). So Moulton Glass now has a proper home and he is already making local sales.

And what for 2012? My resolutions are as follows:
To stop procrastinating, get bum on seat, computer off facebook and actually writeTo stop being embarrassed about what I do. I find it hard to promote myself - especially as I write some dark and graphic stuff. But I need to learn to be proud of myself and my successes. I AM A WRITER. More than that: I AM A BLOODY GOOD WRITER!Watch this space, 2012.

Ebooks For Soldiers

I'm involved in a new initiative to keep soldiers entertained while on active service away from home. Now, I don't have any friends or family currently serving in the military, but I can imagine that e-readers are an absolute boon to anyone with a limited amount of luggage or personal belongings. Ebooks For Soldiers was set up so that authors with books available in electronic format could donate free copies of their books to serving military personnel, especially over the festive period when our men and women are far from home and family.

One of the authors involved is Michael Lorde, whose thriller ebook Blind Veil is available from amazon.  Michael is also the instigator of the entire project and has put most of the hard work into getting it all up and running. You can find out more about Michael here, but in the meantime, I put some questions to this talented author:

So tell me a bit about yourself –where you are from and what you write.
I was raised in New York State. I lived in Virginia Beach for thirty years, but I missed the seasons and I'm glad to be back up north. I now live in Michigan with my ten year old daughter. It's Christmas time and we have snow. I'm smiling.

I write fiction. Blind Veil is a psychological thriller, so it has creepy elements, so of course some of it's pretty disturbing. The first few chapters are different than the rest of the book, and take place decades ago; but then the story switches up to the here and now. Everything else in the book occurs as a result of that unreported past crime.

I'm currently working on the second Blind Veil book as well as edits for a fantasy book. In the fantasy book, the main character is a young woman. That storyline is not as intense as the Blind Veil Series, though it has its own disturbing moments… just not as consistently. That book is a softer read.

I also dabble in scripts. I have two that I'd like to see produced and I work on new ones all the time.

When did you start writing seriously and why?
I've always written. Some of my teachers told me that I should pursue writing, but I didn't pursue getting published until Blind Veil. This was the book that demanded me to pen it down and get it out; to share it with others. I'm probably happier now in this work than I've ever been; now that I'm writing all the time. Looking back, I don't know what took me so long to make that decision.

How much and what type of research do you do for your writing?
I actually did no research for Blind Veil. I have a background as an investigator, so I knew the terminology. The rest came to me when I got the idea for the book. The plot came to me instantly. It was the first time that had happened, and I found it pretty amazing. I had a similar 'epiphany' with the second book, the fantasy book. Both are the first of a series.

What do you enjoy reading? Do you have a favorite author?
I love to read, though I stay away from reading novels when I'm heavy into a plot. That way I'm not picking up terminology, or writing styles from other author's works. I read everything. I'm the type of person who has to learn things all day long. I've always been that way. As a kid, I read constantly and really loved school, so yes; I enjoy reading just about anything. As far as a favorite author… There are way too many to be able to pick just one. King is definitely on the list because I like oddities and he's the 'king' of oddities. I also enjoy 'Lord of the Rings' type of story lines, so I'm a fan of J.R.R Tolkien. I like Baldacci, Grisham, Clancy. There are way too many to list. I'm big on espionage, conspiracy, and psychological thrillers; so I enjoy anything that includes those elements. A writer's style means more to me than the 'technical' aspect that might captures some reader's attention. I want to feel a strong pull into the characters and the storyline; not like I'm watching it, but as if I'm next to them the whole time, or close enough to walk a few steps in their shoes.

Tell me something about yourself that not many people know.
That's easy. I have a water phobia that I've never been able to shake. I'm a great swimmer and was even on the dive team in high school, but I'm never totally comfortable swimming in the ocean, or in a large body of water. I went white water rafting years ago thinking that would rid me of it, but it didn't. It was fun enough, but I wouldn't do it again. I love boating and tubing and in the past I've water skied and wind surfed. I'm fine with all of that; but put me over my head in the ocean without a device nearby, and I am not a happy camper. I hated the swim training I had to go through in a dive tank that the navy seals train in. It was a grueling experience. Impressed? Don't be… our training was nothing like Navy seals training; we just used their tanks. There was nothing intense or life threatening about it, and water boarding and survival training was the furthest thing from our instructors mind. Still, I would never want to go through it again. Like I said, I'm a good swimmer and more than capable. I just don't like the feeling. I love being at the ocean, but not in it. So, now you know my secret. I have four kids who are all part fish. Go figure.

So Hollywood wants to make film of your book. Who is going to play your main characters?
Being very visual, I knew the answer to this when I was writing the book. Ioan Gruffudd (or Christian Bale), Denzel Washington, Ian McKellan, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Bridget Moynahan.

Oh no! The film director says that the sponsor will only put up the money if your book can be set on a desert island. How will this affect your story?
That's funny! Okay, the way my main character's feeling, he may as well be on a deserted island; and while part of the book does take place on the ocean, I don't think the whole island scenario will work.

It's a psychological thriller, so the main character is stuck with his situation. No matter where he tries to run, he can't run away from his own thoughts. Nothing is easy for him. He faces challenges whether he's on an island or smack dab in the middle of New York City. The problem with the deserted island is that it's deserted. His situation requires that others are around and in fact things get pretty intense for him because they are around. I hope I bring the reader in close enough that they can feel that intensity of what he's going through. Many of my readers have said that they couldn't put Blind Veil down, so I'm hoping that I've accomplished that. One reader told me 'I was there' which being an author, was of course music to my ears. As long as I can bring the readers into my character's 'island', I'll be happy. But deserted island? We'll just have to hire a different director.

And finally…

Vampires or zombies?
Definitely Zombies. I got bitten by a Great Dane once… while deciding whether or not to adopt him. He answered that question really fast, well before I arrived at the E.R. That was the closest encounter I ever want to have with a creatures teeth. (I'm a huge dog lover. The two great dogs I do have, know enough to keep their teeth in their mouths where they belong.)

Apples or bananas?
Apples.

Commercial best-seller or literary prize winner?
Commercial best seller would be nice. Recognition is wonderful, but it won't pay for the kid's colleges.

Thanks for answering those questions, Michael - and apologies for the oddballs. I have a strange sense of humour at times.

So if you're reading this and you are currently away from home and serving in the military, hop on over to Ebooks For Soldiers and take a look at what's on offer. Or email your son or daughter and get them to take a look. Sign up and you could soon be reading Michael's book Blind Veil for FREE on your e-reader. And if you're not eligible for a free copy, then why not buy one instead? There are more authors signing up all the time on the site and you're bound to find something you like.

Michael's website, blog and video trailer are all worth a visit and you can also read reviews of Blind Veil.