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Do We All Have a Bit of Dexter’s Dark Passenger

It is almost October, and that means the new season of Dexter is almost upon us. I am so excited I even named my son after the best character in TV and Book history. Anyway, my love for this show has often led me to think about the ‘Dark Passenger’ as Dexter so aptly names him, and I wonder…

Do we all have a Dark Passenger of our own that we need to live with?

Especially us writers. We live with a constant chatter and plethora of voices whispering to us. Uttering dulcet tones and ideas, promises of glory and wonder. The only difference is, that most of the time, our ‘passengers’ don’t tell us to burn things or to kill – real people at least.

If we are to look at the book representation of Dexter, and while I love Michael C Hall and is character, the book delivers a more powerful character in my opinion. In the novels, it is not only suggested but shown to us (in book 3) that the Dark Passenger is an actual entity. A spirit of sorts, which is older than time itself. He chose Dexter, and as such made his home within the lovable blood splatter analyst.

We are all born the same; naked and innocent to the ways of the world. We grow up and are educated by a system and by those around us, influenced to a degree by the environment that surrounds us. Put any spin on it that you want, we are all free of hate and beliefs. At some point darkness comes into our lives. We are introduced to hate, to fear and inevitably, ignorance.

Where does this come from, how do we learn it, from those around us, from those whose duty it is to raise us, or does it come from some other source?

This is where you can look at both faces of Dexter and find answers to both forms of Dark passenger and associate them with the real world influences. Whether spiritual or more physical in their beginnings.

It is easy to write it off and proclaim the voices that we hear to be our conscience, but it goes beyond that. Especially for writers. The voice is our drive, it is the source of our urges. We all say that we have to write, it is close to painful if we ignore those urges, we get moody, dark and at times angry, maybe even depressed. That is not the work of a conscience.

Could that be part of what makes Dexter so much fun. I mean let’s face it, we all meet people, at least one a day, where we stop and think, ‘if only I could send you to Dexter.’ Is there perhaps something in the character that tickles the dark presence within our minds, that goads it out of its slumber and makes it smile. How many of us have written a character we didn’t like, with the express purpose of his existence being his death. We play god with the people we create and do it with a song in our hearts and a smile on our face.

We are deranged, let’s be honest about it.  Neurotic, Sociopath, Psychopath, you name it all such terms could be adjusted to encompass a writer’s personality. The question is, who is behind the wheel? You… or the passenger??

 

 

I Am Still Awesome… You Are Not

To continue from my previous post, and to highlight something that has also since come to light during my early morning wandering through the informative Google mountains, I just wanted to say that I am still awesome, but to prove my point, I will show how you are not.

Once again, thank you for reading that sentence and sticking with me. It’s bollocks right!! I know… it is , you can say it.

To go one step beyond leaving fake positive reviews of your own work, which is bad enough, I have discovered that professional authors are even posting negative reviews of their colleagues work, in order to boost their own reputation. Can you believe it.

Now, I am not naive enough to believe that this sort of thing didn’t happen, but I always thought that the people who left such terrible reviews for no reason at all were just people out to cause trouble. People who didn’t care and had no idea of, or involvement in the writing process.

How wrong could I be.

This month I read about how a famous Crime author (let’s call him E.L. Ory) has been caught and admitted to posting not only positive reviews of his own work, but also negative reviews of his competitors.

The writer in question had two false accounts and would go through amazon leaving awful 1 star reviews of other crime / thriller fiction, and then posting 5 star, over the top with praise reviews of his own. The word ‘masterpiece’ was a common feature.

Now, this isn’t just some little unknown author we are talking about, but one of the genres mainstream names.

It makes you think that if this happens at the top of the ladder, what on earth is going on in the gloomy depths were we all must begin. It is already a dog fight to get ahead, and with this sort of backstabbing behaviour filtering down, you have to ask… where will it end.

I Am Awesome

I should shout this to the world, then everybody will know how awesome I am. But wait, I can´t do it that blatantly, people won´t understand my awesomeness… not straight away. I know, I´ll pretend to be someone else and then that person… or many people, will tell the world how incredible I am. I will … I mean, they will proclaim my excellence from the rooftops, and soon my name will be shouted in the streets and my books will fly from the shelves quicker than anybody believed possible. Yes… oh good god, I am just so awesome.

If you are still reading this post, then thank you. That bit above is a pile of steaming (Insert animal of choice) shit isn’t it. Yet, why is it that the more I looked around online, the more I find that people are doing exactly what I have outlined above?

I don’t get it, I mean are people really that desperate to read a good review that they will fabricate one themselves? Surely that speaks volumes about the confidence they have in their own writing, and should be an indicator to the author that maybe, the book wasn’t ready.

In the last week I have read not one, nor two, but three articles involving different people each time, who have been trapped posting glowing reviews of their own work under different aliases across a number of forums. Is this a growing trend that we should all be aware of? Or is it rather something that has always been there, but is now being shown under a spotlight in order to remove it from the playing field?

I for one could not do it. I just don’t think I have it in me to create something so blatantly false. I would feel too guilty.

What do you think?

What should be done with these writers? Should they be named and shamed? Prosecuted in some way, surely it is an electronic form of fraud or mis-representation? I don’t know. All I am certain of is that Independent and small press writers (all writers when viewed on a larger scale) have a hard enough time making their name, climbing the ladder to a place where their books are searched for and not stumbled across.

The world of publishing is changing, and the pendulum will not stay with the Indies forever, we will need to work and hard keep evolving in order to stay in the game, and it is idiotic things like the above, posting your own reviews, or creating social media accounts to do nothing but talk about how amazingly talented you are, is not going to help us improve.

Review: LZR-1143: Perspectives

LZR-1143: Perspectives by Bryan James

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This collection of short stories, in my opinion started well and got progressively weaker. The final story felt rushed. A quick attempt at trying to create some emotion filled piece that ultimately fell flat and to be honest too my thoughts of the collection from a solid 3 and a half to a nervy 3.

The stories, unlike many other collections, were not just based around a common theme, but rather one central event. Each tale was an alternate point of view piece surrounding the same outbreak. There were a few nice tie ins that ran from story to story which I thought were nicely effected.

However, the use of adverbs throughout the collection made it rather hard work in some places, and also there was a repetitive feel to some passages, with the same or incredibly similar words appeared four or even five times within a single paragraph.

The stories were solid in their structure however, and the author did a nice job of creating the atmosphere that most of us have come to expect from Zombie pieces. Blood, terror and mayhem. A break down of civilisation.

The only real cringe moment for me in the collection was during one story, the same page contradicted itself about four times. The approaching station was quiet, then suddenly it was very busy, only to be overshadowed by one that was ten times busier again in the readers own words. The zombies at the station was quiet, but made a lot of noise, hundreds of them groaning and hammering at the train sides, yet the character could hear someone urinate on the floor somewhere in the carriage. Amidst all the screams.

For the rest, the stories had a logical flow through them, and were largely entertaining. If you like zombie fiction, then this collection is certainly worth a go. In terms of story telling, the work is strong, in terms of finished product, it could have benefited from an extra edit; removal of adverbs and repetitive phrases in specific.

Aside from my feelings towards the final ‘POV’, the biggest let down in the book, and a theme recurring through many books, and something that comes with experience, is that the stories felt oddly flat. The central characters were ok, although could have benefited from a bit more ‘fleshing out’, however, there was nothing else. There was no depth around them. Ok, this is harder to create in short almost flash fiction tales, than it is in a full novel, but depth should never be overlooked. The importance of background characters, even if only in passing; a glance out of a moving train or figures moving among the shadows. It is the attention to detail that is necessary to make every book pop, to stand out from the crowd.

I would certainly be interested in reading other work by the author, and seeing him grow as a writer, for the talent is there for him to go a long way.

View all my reviews

Call me Writer 007 ~ I take my Coffee Shaken or Stirred with Words on the side

Reblogged from Wrestling the Muse:

Image courtesy of: Trying God’s Patience (Facebook)

This image came up on my Facebook feed this week and sparked the idea for this blog post…

Coffee and Writers go together like Petroleum and Grand Prix.

Coffee and I began our love affair lustful addiction in a town on the southern coast of Greece, 50kms from Athens. I was 21 and on my first overseas trip to visit my BFF in Greece.

Read more… 1,191 more words

Going That Extra Mile

Books need to be three-dimensional, they need to grab us and pull them in. I love it when a book just grabs me and takes my mind to the places the pages describe. Sure, I don’t want everything laid out for me, a little bit of brain power is the best way to create this pull, but you get what I mean.

I have read a fair few books this month – of varying lengths – and have noticed one thing in a lot of them. They lack depth, that final something that gives the book its je ne sais quoi

One such detail is not in the storyline, or in the main characters, but rather in those smaller interactions that make life what it is. In other words… the extras.

One of the books I read had this down to an art, and as a result the book was wonderful. I remember one scene was made not because of the emotional revelation, nor the interesting dialogue between two central characters, but rather because of an extra. The wife of one of the conversational participants. It was her one and only appearance in the book, and her role in the scene was minimal, but the description of her, and the presence of her at the table, made the scene what it was.

It should not really come as a surprise to us that these finer points play such an important role. Throughout life, the impact of strangers affects us. Chance and fleeting encounters. The same person seen on a daily commute; that stranger on a train, surrounded by mystery. We never approach them, because we know that the truth will not beat the mystery, the intrigue. As writers, we too must understand that some characters need to remain in the distance. Their role in our lives played out from afar is much more influential than we could ever realize… until it is too late.

Do Horror Writers Give Themselves Nightmares?

Reblogged from Sonia G Medeiros:

horror: hor-ror (noun)

 An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.
A thing causing such a feeling.

Do you ever have nightmares after watching a horror flick or reading a horror novel? Maybe just a case of the heebie-jeebies? Do you find yourself making double sure all the doors are locked when you’re home alone at night? Do you check the closets and under the bed?

Read more… 419 more words

Autism and the introduction of a baby

Having a child with Autism, you automatically become aware of the world on a much wider spectrum than you ever realized.

Now, my son Logan has yet to be placed on a specific level of the spectrum, but he can speak, although it is not conversational, he is improving every day and can say short sentences, thanks to hard work and a mild Dora the Explorer addiction he has developed…. or rather Nick Jr as a whole. He also goes to school full-time and with a class of four in total, and so gets the help he needs.

We are pretty well prepared for things, we plan ahead and have everything mapped out. He has a communication board with pictograms that he needs to ‘check in’ with and then match the picture on the board with the corresponding image in the house; playtime, eating, school bus, shopping, shower, bed, etc. This he does with no problem, and you can see how much more fluid his day goes with this system in place.

However, pause all of that for a second, and add a newborn baby to the mix… what is the result.

We had no idea what to expect from Logan when we brought Damon home. We expected him to ignore him completely, to just continue in his own way. We understood he would be out of sorts for a few days while he adjusted to the new family situation, however, what we had never truly considered was that he just accepted it all.

He comes to look at his baby brother, he touches him, or rather strokes his head like a pet, and he holds his hand. He has done this twice now in as many days. He says baby when he looks at Damon, and seems to understand that things have been altered, but has not been affected by it. If anything, he seems even more relaxed and at ease. Even his school commented that he was so laid back and happy that they too were surprised with the ease with which Logan has adapted.

To put it in a context that may sound strange to those who do not know anybody with autism, it is a truly fascinating thing. The spectrum is so broad and the people diagnosed so varied. I would love to be able to see what my son sees, to look at the world through his eyes. He is a treasure, all my children are, and helping him through life is going to be a challenge, but it is one I am looking forward to.

Going Dutch

The weirdest thing I find about having children in Holland is the help you receive once they have been born. A nurse or rather, home help, comes around and basically stays with you all day. In theory they are there to look after the mother, who is on a semi enforced week of bed rest, and the baby. If you have other children they are also supposed to help with them. They do the housework, and even cook for the family if needed.

All of this is of course in a theoretical world.

What we once again seem to have is a woman who comes, sits and drinks coffee, and does a few things with the baby, makes the bottles or gives a bath, something I (and my wife) are perfectly capable of doing, and then she goes home.

She vacuumed yesterday morning around 10am. Now in a house with three kids aged under 5, all of them home for the day, vacuuming that early is either pointless or part of a multi-staged process. This woman however simple continued to state. “Wow, this floor is dirty again.”  and so once she left for the day, I got down to the cleaning work.

Now, I don’t want.. well, I guess more don’t expect her to be a maid. But the job description is to make lunch for the kids, and help in the house. This is our fourth experience with the “Kraamzorg”  and once again they have failed thus far to live up to their supposed reputation.

I don’t particularly like having a stranger in my house all day. I mean, you take something out of a cupboard, how hard is it to put back in the same place. Apparently, for these people it is very hard, because everything just gets moved. It irritates me.

She doesn’t even sit upstairs with my wife, but down on the sofa.

Before Damon arrived, we had called them and explained about our son Logan and his autism, and they said that it would be taken into consideration. Yesterday when the woman arrived, I sat down to explain things to her, about his routine, but she barely even listened, and ended up just kind of moving away to do something else. Later on, while he was doing something, she just kept saying, ” Logan, don’t do that.”  and seemed to have absolutely no understanding of the situation, and no interest in learning about it.

Luckily it is only for a few days, and she is more friendly that the woman we had when my daughter was born, but still, if you have a job to do, I would very much expect you to do it, or at least make it look like you are.

I don’t know if any other countries have this. I know that the UK don’t. If you ask me, it is a bit of an annoyance, and more than anything, the woman is in the way. I would rather they just come twice a day or a short period, bath the baby or do their checks and then leave. That way I can get on with my life, and get things done in the way that they always are.