David Rory O'Neill's Blog, page 12

First page puzzle.

The first few pages of any novel is so critical, whole books have been devoted to how to write them. I’ve read a few and honestly can’t say I learned anything useful I didn’t already know. One does read first pages that have obviously followed the creating writing class formula to the tee. It’s obvious and makes me wince. I’ve done twelve novels now so I know when I’ve got it right. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s a bloody struggle. Just occasionally it’s so right it makes me smile and feel guilty for feeling so satisfied. I wish I could pass on the formula. I really wish I could because then I could get right every time myself.

The most difficult starts I have is on one of my series novels. I am mindful of wanting each to stand alone and be enjoyable without having to read any others in the series. That presents a great challenge. How much back story can I put in without annoying those who’ve read the pervious novels in the series? How much character introduction do I need to achieve the same thing? How to intrigue and draw the reader in without being too obvious?

I have two examples here which I believe do the job well enough to give me that grin. The first is from number 2 in the Daniel Series: Challenge. The task here was to set the plot historically; the opening of the Falklands War in 1982 and describe the role of the principal characters. I also needed to introduce the two main protagonists: Lauren and Bonny and ease the reader into an understanding of  their unusual relationship. I think it worked.

What do you think?

Challenge.

Chapter 1. April 1982. Bad News.

To: Mrs B.A. Dawes. From:CINCFLEET Operational Headquarters, Northwood, Middlesex. It is my sad duty to inform you that your husband, Lieutenant Commander Daniel Dawes DSC/Bar FAA 826NAS R.N. has been reported missing (presumed dead) while on active service in the South Atlantic on or about the 29th April 1982. I regret I have no further information at this time but will be in touch immediately if any further information becomes available. Captain F.L.W. Jones RN.

“That’s it word for word, Lauren,” said Bonny. She set down the note and held the phone with both hands to try to stop the quiver.

“I’m coming now, darling. Hang on. I’ll make a few calls first and see what I can find out, but please don’t worry. I don’t believe this and neither should you. Hold on, Bonny, I’m coming.”

           Bonny went to the front door, opened it and stood gripping the frame to steady herself. The wind was chill and strong. Twenty yards away across the lawn, the waters of the Dart estuary were being whipped to a muddy brown soup. The great weeping willow at the water’s edge danced and flailed as its thin branches whistled and wind-wailed. This can’t be true. Lauren is right, this is crap. My DD isn’t dead. I’d feel it. I would know. Daniel won’t die so easy. Oh bloody hell, am I kidding myself. This is a proper war. A big gun and bomb and missile war, not like… no, no, Daniel’s not dead. Bonny shivered and stepped back inside. She slammed the door hard, threw her head back and howled and cursed as loud as she could. When she felt herself grow faint with the exertion and breathlessness, she sank to her knees, laid her head down on the old-oak floor boards and cried. The warm musky smell from the boards suddenly intruded on her anguish as she had a vivid recall. She was laid on the floor near the roaring fire. The big rug had not masked the warmed wood scent rising beneath her. Bonny’s senses were on fire as Daniel lay beside her, playing her body from toes to bliss-closed eyes. The smell of burning logs mingled with wine and the male musk of Daniel and her own arousal and lingering perfume, all there, but that old oak wood scent had stuck uppermost in her sense-memory and now it brought all those associated memories flooding back. Bonny sat up and touched her finger to her lips, remembering the touch of Daniel’s lips there. No, my Daniel is alive and he will be back to kiss me again.

           Bonny had only been Mrs Dawes since just before Daniel had sailed for the Falkland Islands and a possible war. He had insisted on marriage for very pragmatic reasons to do with pensions and life insurance and had pulled some strings to get the whole thing pushed through quickly. Bonny and Daniel had been living together for a little over three years. Their first six months had been spent in a lovely apartment at Cultra on the shores of Belfast Lough. When Daniel had come for flight training to Cornwall, they’d found their idyllic cottage overlooking the Dart estuary. The cottage had been advertised for sale on a postcard in a local shop and they’d bought it the same day. The owner was also navy and the cash price agreed was very reasonable. Bonny had used an inheritance from her father and Daniel had put in his savings.

Bonny-Ann Dawes was twenty-three years old but could pass for sixteen at a casual glance. She was a little less than five foot tall and had long thick black hair framing a round girlish face with prominent cheekbones and huge bright hypnotic eyes. They were palest grey blue with rings of yellow and emerald flecks. She had thick dark eyebrows and plump ripe lips and her skin was that flawless white that only Irish girls seem to have. Her small stature only became apparent when you stood close, because her figure was so well proportioned it made her look taller from a distance. She had curves, abundant curves to hips, thighs, waist and bum and, most noticeable of all, breasts. These, her most prominent feature, were near melon-sized and -shaped and sat high and firm on her chest. All these female curves were not soft and girly but taut and well muscled. Bonny had spent the past three years exercising twice a day and it showed in her hard-defined low-fat athletic physique. Much to her delight but less so Daniel’s, she had also dropped three bra cup sizes. This athletic quality to her body had been encouraged by her relationship with the woman she had phoned. Lieutenant Lauren J. Greer. She was a Physical Training Instructor at the Britannia Naval College in Dartmouth. Daniel and Lauren had worked together in their native Belfast for a highly secret military intelligence unit known as detachment 16. They had used a driving school as cover for their operations and it was as a pupil there that Bonny had first met Daniel and later Lauren. Bonny’s father had been one of the people det16 were targeting.

           Bonny was in a daze and time passed unnoticed. Again, Bonny thought about the meaning of this note and over and over she thought about why she didn’t believe. Daniel had survived four attempts on his life during his time in Belfast and had come through unscathed. Other people died, two of his team had died and Bonny’s cousin Ray and her own father and many others but not Daniel. He didn’t do dying. Daniel was the rock. She and Lauren and his det16 intelligence team all depended on his unflappable calm and razor sharp awareness of danger to keep them safe. He couldn’t possibly be dead.

The war had not even started on the 29th. How is this possible? It’s a mistake and Lauren will fix it. Wonderful organised sorted Lauren will get the truth and make this inconceivable message go away. She will bring our beloved Daniel back to us.

           Bonny heard a car on the gravel as Lauren’s little blue Renault 5 Gordini screamed up the long drive and skidded to a dusty stop. Lauren erupted out of the car and sprinted to the door. She was wearing a dark blue sweat top with navy badges, very brief running shorts and short white socks and trainers and was carrying an incongruously ornate and girly handbag. Her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore a long fringe cut straight across her eyebrow line. Her skin was tanned bronze and shining. Her remarkable sprinter’s muscles popped and bulged as she flew up the garden path, a picture of athletic perfection. Bonny ran to the door and, as she opened it, Lauren scooped her into her arms and hugging her, held her face and kissed her. Bonny’s eyes filled with fear as she fought back tears: “Tell me it’s not true, Lauren. Please tell me it’s a mistake. It can’t be true, I’d feel it if he was gone, but I feel him in me strong. He’s not dead.”

           Lauren, at five ten, was much taller than Bonny and so strong that she had lifted her off her feet so Bonny now hung with her arms around Lauren’s neck, looking into her eyes, searching for clues of what she might know. Lauren lowered her to her feet, took her hand, led her to the couch and sat close beside her: “Bonny darling, I have phoned some people who are looking into it as we speak. They have this number and will phone us here soon. I phoned Rear Admiral Ranson. He was our boss at det16, remember. I also phoned my father. He still has many friends high up at the Admiralty and a few others I know at Northwood. I think you’re right, sweetheart – Daniel is not dead. This letter is bollocks.”

           Lauren made them tea as Bonny talked in the spontaneous nervous way people in shock do. “If he hadn’t wanted to fly he would be all right. He’s a submarine hunter. Surely that’s not very high risk even down there and the news has made no mention of any accidents apart from that one Sea King that went down on a transfer flight. That crew was named. There’s something screwy here. Someone knows and isn’t telling. It’s spy stuff for sure. I’ll bet they’ve dragged him back into sneaky stuff again. Do you think that could be it, Lauren. Spy stuff again? Could he be in Argentina?”

The next is from number 5 Judgement. I really like this one. The task here was complicated by the need to introduce four children and three adults. Plus set the back story.

Judgement.

Chapter 1. Mimosa Again.

Dee Josephine Dawes stood at the foot of the bed and looked at her father as he lay snoring. She was well used to the sound and found it comforting if she awoke at night. If she didn’t hear his distinctive night call she would feel ill at ease and have difficulty getting back to sleep as she worried where he was. Sometimes, like tonight, she would get up and come to her parents’ bedroom to listen at the door or peek in to reassure herself that all was well. Tonight she hadn’t heard the sound and had come for her reassurance. As she opened the door and peered in, she heard Mammy Bonny making her usual puffing sound. Bonny lay on her back one arm over her head with the huge white globes of her breasts silver in the moonlight. Beside her in the same bed was Dee’s mother, Lauren, silent and still with the sheet cast off as usual. Her long golden hair looked like pure silver in the moonlight streaming in through the huge windows that made up one wall of the bedroom.

                  Papa was not in the same bed and Dee was alarmed for a second until she stepped into the room and saw him in the small double bed by the wall. He was curled up on his side and when she came to the foot of his bed he rolled onto his back, grunted and began to snore. She could see the big plaster just below his neck that covered the wound. Dee shivered when she saw that and had a vivid flashback to the moment when Papa had been shot and she had thought he was gone. She made herself stop thinking about it and instead remembered the night she had spent in the hospital bed with him when she had woken frightened from her dreams. He had talked to her about her fears of death. That had been so nice and she wished she could get into his bed now and cuddle to make herself feel better and to hold him so he wouldn’t go away or die.

                  Suddenly there was silence and Dee saw his eyes shining bright and open. He lifted the side of his sheet in invitation and she came and snuggled up by his side. She laid her head on his chest and felt the soothing beat of his heart and the heat of his body. His arm came down her back and he patted her bum gently as he whispered: “Bad dreams, sweetheart?”

“No, Papa. I just woke up and couldn’t hear you and wanted to make sure you were alright.”

                  He lifted her long strawberry blond hair from her face and kissed her softly on the forehead, and that was all she needed to relax and drift away to the familiar lullaby of his heartbeat.

                  Across the room Lauren had opened her eyes and saw her daughter standing at the foot of Daniel’s bed, looking at him. Her first instinct was to call her but she waited and saw Daniel beckon Dee to the comfort of his cuddle. Tears came to Lauren then and she had to suppress the sigh she felt rise in her. Daniel had been right when he had warned that Dee would take the trauma of the past weeks harder than the others. Little Dee was so serious and such a thinker, even at just six. “No, six and a half, Mama.” She could be startlingly perceptive and would say and do things that made her seem much older. Ever since her father’s latest brush with death, she had been ill at ease when he was away from her. During the time when he had remained in hospital and the family had returned to the sanctuary of Bonny-Mimosa,Dee had been unhappy and fretful and insisted on speaking to him every day on the phone. Everyone, including the other children, tried to reassure her without success. They had been in the pool this afternoon when Daniel and Dave arrived. Daniel had shouted from the road above in the valley. Lauren had watched Dee’s reaction as she leapt from the pool with the others. Kathy, Christine and David had stood by Bonny’s side and bounced and yelled. Dee had come to Lauren, taken her hand and said very softly over and over, “It’s OK now. Papa’s here now, it’s OK.”

                  When they emerged from the car five minutes later, Daniel had been nearly bowled over in the stampede to hug him, a charge led by Bonny. He had staggered in with Kathy, David and even the usually reserved Christine clinging to him, and Bonny bouncing by his side. Lauren had put on her swimsuit but Bonny was as usual, completely unaware of her nakedness, and the presence of Dave made no difference. Dave tried hard to avert his eyes but Bonny’s so female abundance was impossible for any heterosexual male to ignore. He busied himself getting their stuff from the hire car as the naked squealing scrum came into the house. Daniel collapsed on the sofa buried in children and Bonny. Dee stood holding Lauren’s hand, grinning and waiting. Daniel managed to shuck the excited huggers off and opened his arms to Dee, who let go her restraint and threw herself into his embrace, crying tears of relief and happiness.

                  Lauren heard the bedroom door again and Kathy’s round pale face appeared like a little moon. There was a whisper, then Christine appeared and they came to the side of Daniel’s bed. They stood holding hands obviously unsure about disturbing their father and sister. Kathy was only a week younger than Dee, and Christine fifteen months, but Dee was the big sister and thought she was the boss. Kathy challenged that assumption frequently, but still they were reluctant to risk annoying her now because they were well aware how upset Dee had been. Without opening his eyes, Daniel lifted his sheet and they got in beside him. Kathy couldn’t contain her excitement and let out a little squeak that woke Dee. As they all settled, enveloped in their father’s arms, Dee looked at Kathy across his chest and whispered: “Bugger.”

                  Kathy stuck out her tongue but didn’t rise to the challenge as she usually would. A few moments later the door opened again and David appeared. He looked at his sisters cuddled up beside Daniel and he too let go what was becoming the family’s familiar curse: “Bugger.”

                  Lauren waved him to her, and when he was close she lifted him and set him between Bonny and herself. Bonny whispered: “Never mind, darling, it’s much nicer for you here between the soft Mammies.” She hugged him and got a muffled. “Ummph, Mammy I can’t breathe in here.”

                  She released him from the pillows of her breasts and he curled up on his mother’s shoulder and was soon asleep. Lauren turned towards Bonny and in the silver rays could see her big round luminous eyes open and moist with emotion. Lauren reached across and put her hand on Bonny’s cheek and felt the damp of her tears, as she too was moved, shedding happy sad tears of relief and loving empathy.

 Like I said, I know when it works but I can’t say how it works. 

The Mythology of Flags.

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What colour is this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What color is this?

 

 

 

 

 

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What color is this?

 

 

 

 

 

Put them together and what do you get?      The Irish flag perhaps? Well no. This is not the Irish flag and there lies a tragic tale. People often call the Irish flag green, white and gold. It’s almost standard and it’s a myth. A damaging myth based on intolerance and sectarian divide.

 

 

?

 

What color is this? Yes orange.

 

 

 

 

 

True Irish flag.

What flag is this?

 

This is the true Irish Flag. The founding fathers had an idealistic idea:Green to represent traditional Irish cultural identity and orange to represent the other cultural identity in the island with white to be peace between them.  A noble idea and one we have still not achieved fully and nor will we so long as people still refuse to acknowledge that noble idea by describing the flag as green white and gold instead of the truthful and meaningful: green, white and orange.

In calling it gold, refusing to say orange, they are disrespecting that ideal. Refusing it.

It’s time we started being bold and brave and using our flag with respect.

Whitepark Bay.

Whitepark Bay and Portbradden.

 

Whitepark Bay lies between the tourist hotspots of the Giants Causeway and the rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede. At one end of this beautiful sweeping bay, sheltered below the cliffs from the prevailing winds,  lies  the small fishing hamlet of Portbraddon and at the other end the basalt islands that surround Ballintoy harbour.

 

Whitepark Bay was one  of the first settlements of man in Ireland and evidence of these Neolithic settlers are continually being exposed  on the raised beach and sand dune system. It is known that the manufacturing and exporting of axes and arrow heads took place from here, the limestone cliffs being a rich source of  flint nodules. Three passage tombs stand on the high points of surrounding hills overlooking the bay, the most striking being the dolmen known as the Druid’s Altar which was placed on the highest point above the bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The old hostel.The original White Park Bay Youth Hostel can be seen in the middle of the bay. Beyond, almost buried now, are the remains of an old ‘hedge school’. This 18th Century ‘school for young gentlemen’, included on its roll call – a certain Lord Castlereagh for his early education years. What a location for a school! The modern youth hostel has a commanding position overlooking the bay. (More of that later)

The original White Park Bay Youth Hostel can be seen in the middle of the bay. Beyond, almost buried now, are the remains of an old ‘hedge school’. This 18th Century ‘school for young gentlemen’, included on its roll call – a certain Lord Castlereagh for his early education years. What a location for a school! The modern youth hostel has a commanding position overlooking the bay. (More of that later)

 

A hedge school (Irish names include scoil chois claí, scoil ghairid and scoil scairte) is the name given to an educational practice in 18th and 19th century Ireland, so called due to its rural nature. It came about as local educated men began an oral tradition  of teaching the community. With the advent of the commercial world in Ireland after 1600, its peasant society saw the need for greater education. While the “hedge school” label suggests the classes always took place outdoors (next to a hedge), classes were sometimes held in a house or barn. Subjects included primarily basic  Irish language  grammar , English and maths. In some schools the Irish bardic tradition, Latin, historyand home economics  were also taught. Reading was generally based on chapbooks chapbooks, sold at fairs, typically with exciting stories of well-known adventurers and outlaws. Payment was generally made per subject, and brighter pupils would often compete locally with their teachers.

 

On personal note: Whitepark is significant to me because it’s where I was living when my daughter was born. She spent the first six months of her life there. At the time I was warden of the YHANI Youth Hostel. It has changed hugely since then. Much extended and now in different ownership, it is more a hotel like than the simple back packers hostel I managed. I spent an idyllic time living there. I used to go down to the dunes early in the mornings to hunt the rabbits which were very numerous. I had my dog, Pod and a shotgun.  We got fairly sick of eating rabbit but Pod never tried of it and would often bring a young rabbit home for me to peel. She didn’t like the fur in her teeth. Sheep used to graze in the dunes. That has now been stopped so the flora of the bay has also changed. Wild flowers are now beautifully abundant.

We kept a goat and she produced great milk which was used to make ‘Soda Farls’, an Irish specialty bread made on a griddle or hot plate. Fresh soda off the griddle and dripping with butter was a great seller as breakfast for the hostellers. Maude the goat, had to go when the Belfast middleclass members of the hostel association decided that they wanted their ‘private retreat’ to have a rose garden and prim lawn. They didn’t like the rural reality, come to think of it, they didn’t like school children or strangers from abroad in their hostel.

This is one of the few places that gets no mention in any of my novels. I think I’ve avoided it because it’s a place that’s filled with both happy and painful memories. I’ve felt unable to share it – unitil now.

When the chairman who appointed and supported me left, my time there was over. I left and left Northern Ireland too. I had no intention of raising my daughter in that beautiful but troubled place. As an adult, she choose to return to her roots and now lives near Belfast.

 

B and I spent a lovely day poking about the bay and found a few interesting visitors.  The Goose barnacle encrusted tree must have come all the way from the Mediterranean where they are native. There they are called Percebes and are a great delicacy. They have festivals devoted to them in Galicia. I suppose the tree may have come all the way over the Atlantic from Canada where they are also abundant.

 

 

 

 

The other visitor was Helge Mast from Leonberg in Germany. He was driving the splendid Unimog world tour van shown here. He’d traveled the length of North and South America in it and was now doing Europe.  I used to have an ambition to do this and to have such a splendid vehicle but I find driving such a chore now, I couldn’t face it.

 

Characters visualized.

Here are the next character creations.

These are the heroines of Blue Sky Orphan. http://bit.ly/RwOO74

Emma.

 

Emma, a pilot and flame haired beauty with a tragic past who pushes herself to dangerous extremes in an attempt to escape that past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JJ.

 

And her co-pilot Julie, known as JJ. Another feisty young Irish beauty who is struggling with her lesbian identy and trying to escape her ultra-conservative family background.

Creative Recharging.

We took a last minute break and travelled north to the Causeway Coast in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. (NI)

The village of Portballintrae or Port-balance-your-tray as it’s been nicknamed as an aide-mémoire – is a sleepy little holiday village with a small sandy bay, a harbour and 50% second homes. It has also got what we think is one of the best small hotels in the world: The Bay View. The premier rooms all have big bay windows with a lounge for viewing … the bay!

Room 202

The place is simple, unpretentious and offers spectacular value for money. We were lucky and found two days of sunshine in a summer of otherwise unrelenting gray and rain. When we arrived about four, we sat in the bay window, sighed a lot and watched the Oystercatchers and Redshanks following the tide up the beach.

That lounging area in the suite is supremely sigh-worthy and we drank tea, took in the views, sighed and smiled a great deal and felt a year of care drop off us.

The view from the room.

We watched the wet-suited youth throwing themselves squealing into the harbour. The boys were trying to outdo each other with athletic excess to impress girls who were much too cool to notice. Cool in attitude and body. The water looked very cold.

Bush Foot bay.

Later we took a stroll round the harbour and into the next bay Bushfoot where the Bush river enters the sea. (The water from this river is used in what is reputed to be the oldest whiskey distillery in the world: Old Bush Mills). The river was pregnant with dark brown torrent water off the peat-moors so the surfers looked like they were riding creamy crests of Guinness. Across the bay stands the Causeway Hotel and the entrance to the Giants Causeway. The columnar basalt formations that are such a tourist honey spot.

Runkerry House

On the far shore stands the gothic looking Runkerry House, built by the Macnaughtons They were given most of North Antrim in times past. They gave the house back to the NI government in the 1930s. They used it up to the 1990s when they decided to sell it. £4 million changed hands and it went to a US based developer with big ideas for a golf centre. One thing NI doesn’t lack is golf facilities so that didn’t happen. Now the place is being sold off piecemeal as apartments.

As we came back, B captured a stunning sunset over the harbour. We sat in our room, sipped a Black Bushmills whiskey and watched the sun sizzle into the sea in the west.  Refreshed and delighted we retired glad we made the impulsive trip north.

Next day, after a hearty breakfast and a reading of the world’s oldest newspaper in continuous print – The Belfast Newsletter (first published in 1731), we drove round the coast to Whitepark Bay. A place of great significance to me but that story can wait for tomorrow.

Imagined

How characters look in images as opposed to imagination and prose description is interesting. I’ve taken some time off writing to create such images. My Photoshop and Illustrator skills are getting a little rusty but I’m pleased with the results. I’ve created images of Lauren and Bonny.  Plus their female children as young adults, as they appear in the West Cork Trilogy and the final of the Daniel Series. I did this because I may use some or all of these images for the cover design of Trial. People who have read the novels and who have seen these images think I captured the characters as they imagined them – that I take as success. I must admit to a kind of sexisim – I didn’t attempt any male characters. I wonder why?

Lauren.

Bonny.

Dee, Chrisitne and Kathy.

The art of imaginative escape.

This past three months, Ireland has been blanketed in the worst rain filled clouds on record. The gray has been unrelenting and the sun a source of bitter jokes. Yesterday we saw it most of the day. I stopped at the village shop to pick up a parcel of books from Createspace. Kevin the shopkeeper and I had an interesting conversation:

Me: “What’s that bright thing up there. I seem to rememeber seeing that.

Kevin: “Yes that is the sun I’m told. You must have been travelling and seen it somewhere else, not in Ireland.”

Eze-Bord-De-Mer

Weather complaints are not a new thing for we who live in soggy green Ireland or indeed the neighbouring islands of Great Britain. It’s the subject starter of almost all conversations. I have been writing the last of the Daniel Series – Trial and the chapter I’m on now is set in the Dawes home near the village of Eze Bord de Mer.

Nice.

That’s an area I know well and have escaped to many times both in reality and in my imagination. I think I set this chapter there as an escape. The grey dullness outside my study window drove me to the bright sparkling azure blue skies and seas of the Mediterranean.

The smell and vivid yellow light of the Mimosa. The cheerful studding of Oranges and Lemons on the trees. The liberation of few clothes and the caress of the sun.

The beach Nice.

The sight of bare golden (mostly) beautiful people worshiping beneath it.

Wandering on the Promenade des Anglais taking in the sights. Calling into the Negresco Hotel to see the art opulence and old-world jet-set glamour.

Negresco

La_Rotonde

Eating in it’s quirky La Rotonde restaurant amid bright hobby horses, funfair music and ancient women in furs cradling pampered poodles.

View from roof. Musee d’Art Moderne et d’Art. Nice

Walking on the roof garden of the Museum of Modern Art taking in the panorama and marvelling at being aloud to be in such precariously exacting place.

Eating Socca and Pissaladiere in the old town and trying not to notice the graffiti that is smeared on every wall.  Mostly though its draw is the Alps behind and the blue sea in front and the light, that very special light that drew the great artists to live and work in the area. That light penetrates deep and lifts the spirit.

I’m there now in my imagination, escaping the gray. Oh – the sun has come out as I write this. I must get out and say hello and maybe lay in the garden or see if the sun will make the water lilies in the pond bloom at last.

It’s Astounding, really.

To people of my age, let’s say those born before 1960: life is full of astonishment.  One need only consider this – this blog, this Mac, I’m writing on, this internet, this whole world that’s opened to us now.  When I was a teen and getting into wordcraft,  books, poetry and the magical world of the great literature I discovered in libraries – I was astonished.

I was enthralled by the possibilities and the newness.  My little world expanded hugely, fed by books and photographs and films and imagination.  Since then, I have watched the technological explosion brought about by PC’s and the web and the resulting avalanche of world wide instant communication with glee and joy.

I think younger folks don’t really appreciate what they have because it’s always been there for them. They don’t rememeber when there was only print and film and then TV. They don’t recall how rare even phones were. I do and I celebrate the liberation and true freedom of expression we now have. I am a still a little in awe of it. And yes, some of the evils that hitched a ride are nasty and unwelcome – but still – sit back and think about what we can do now? Really think about the possibilities of this communication revolution and then tell me it’s not really astonishing.

I am still struggling to keep up with the speed of change. Twitter is still a challenging stranger I’m trying to make friends with but I’ll get there, just as I got there with Indie publishing. Thanks to the new modern communication giant Amazon – I can speak to the world through my novels and my voice is not muted by the gatekeepers of the commercial publishers seeking the next big thing that fits their formulas.

Yes I really am astonished and celebrate this new smaller big world.

Judgement or Judgment?

Judgement or Judgment? Color or colour, gray or grey, all are correct. It depends where you are and which dictionary you use.

US or English?

Judgement or Judgment?

 

I had a big dilemma when I was using the word Judgement for a title in the Daniel series. Some who see this cover will think – the fool made a typo on his cover. I hope and pray most will know that either spelling is correct. I plumped for the common English usage because that’s my language, that’s what my copy of Word for Mac is set to use.

The West Cork Trilogy used US spellings as an experiment since I believed that’s where most of the readers would be.

It is not an experiment I intend to repeat. It leads to small inconsistencies that neither myself nor my English educated editor will pick-up 100% of the time.

I think we should all stick to our own usage and try to allow for the differences.

I personally do not mind or even notice if it says gray or grey.

What do you, who read this in the US, think?

What is your judgment on my Judgement?

The new covers.

I’ve had to change the covers for the Daniel series. I was never very happy with them and printing issues decided me on the need to for a new design. I think these are a big improvement.

The final cover

The final cover.

The final cover.

The final cover.

The final cover