Anita Dawes's Blog: http://jenanita01.wordpress.com, page 18

Short Tales of Twisted Wishes...Review

 



“Wishes come in many sizes and intents. People often make them subconsciously, without thought to consequences. Just as often those wishes twist during execution, leaving the person with an unexpected outcome. So it is with these fantasy tales. A promise made can have hellish results if broken. One man's straightforward outlook on life can get a boost of celestial prodding without warning. The ins and outs of death aren't always what they seem. And children are sometimes issuers of retribution. These flash fiction stories cover magic, faith, and more--and all with a twist”.





Described as a Chapbook of Flash Fiction, it was my first encounter of such an assemblage. Flash fiction is a story like any other, but far more concise than the average short story. Everything unnecessary to the story is stripped away, leaving the pure essence or bare bones behind.
This genre or format is quite new to me, and subsequently I am not sure of its merits as I always feel a little cheated when I get to the end. Claudette’s stories are a joy to read, but I was left wanting so much more.
This genre is popular among those readers who love the format, and for very busy people I can see the attraction. However, I am old fashioned and probably stuck in my ways, preferring to lose myself in the length of the average paperback.
Having said all that, I thought they were brilliantly written, and I did enjoy reading them.
My definition of a good short story has always been this, that it would benefit from being extended into a full-length novel. You know the ones, the ones that literally cry out for more detail, plot and drama.
The eight stories in this Chapbook could all be precursors to a much longer tale, and are just detailed enough to demand more.
Short creepy stories, with twisted endings. Stories that are mind boggling, clever and perfect for those who don't want to read long novels.
These were really good short reads. A lot of them are flat out brilliant.
I wouldn't call them scary, but I would say they are creepy and mind boggling. A very good read,  and I will be looking for more from Claudette very soon.

Editing the Hedge

posted by Jaye Marie...



I took the afternoon off the other day to cut the rather large and long hedge in our back garden. All the time I was doing it, my mind was editing the last chapter of the sequel to The Ninth Life I had written that morning. My mind is like that, give it something to do that doesn’t involve a lot of thinking, and it will entertain itself.
Just down the road from me, someone has trimmed their hedge to look like a dragon. Must have been very difficult to do, and quite something to see.



As I was clearing up, piling all the cut leaves into my garden waste collection sack, I was struck yet again by the similarity to life that editing a book and trimming a hedge really is. You start with an untidy mess, overgrown and out of control. You look at it, wondering where to begin, doubtful of your ability/capability to do the job justice.
Plucking up the courage to begin, you chip away, trimming here, shortening there, trying to make it perfect. Standing back from it, you notice all the small things that need your attention, and you go back to it, determined to get it right.



At least that’s your intention.
Unfortunately, either the hedge in my garden is too long, or I am not as fit as once was, but the finished result was not perfect. Mostly down to the fact that the cordless hedge clipper ran out of juice long before I had finished. Yes, I know you can get electric ones, but having cut through three cables and narrowly missing frying my good self, I am giving them a wide berth!
Thankfully, editing a manuscript is a lot easier than trying to trim a seven foot high, thirty foot long monster of a hedge.


Thank God for that at least.


See you all soon... be careful out there!

The Importance of Keywords

Moss, on an old tiled roof...
  I have read a lot of information about the correct use of Meta data, and all the technical mumbo jumbo involved with marketing and promoting our books. And most of it, I will admit, went right over my head.But eventually, some of it filtered through.I have heard that keyword research is really only important for nonfiction, but I can see the importance of it for almost anything.I have tried several of the so-called keyword tools that were recommended to me, but to be honest, I couldn’t get most of them to work for me.
What is a Keyword?
A keyword is any word or phrase that helps people to find your book, and when I tentatively first uploaded one of our books to Amazon, I was asked to fill in a box with seven keywords. I thought they were just the words that best described your book.But I was only half right. There is so much more to keywords than that.Having the right ones is one of the most important steps you can do, to market anything on the internet. Choosing the right ones, apparently, can make all the difference in the world.


The Secret of Keywords
I discovered that the best way to start is to come up with a really good blurb or description, using as many emotive and powerful words as possible. Once you have done this, study it well and choose seven of the best words. (Amazon allows you seven, but other places may vary)You will use these keywords in the relevant box when you first upload your books. But it doesn’t end there.
Extend the Magic
These same seven words can be used extensively. In the title of your book, for example, or the subtitle. They are already in the description or blurb, but you should extend the magic by using them on your website, blogs and social media. Wherever your books are, these seven words should be there also.The minute you do all of this, you are apparently enabling all of those Nano bots (or whatever they are called) to connect all the Meta data for your books to create far more links than you could ever come up with.In addition, every time someone enters a word that is even slightly like your keywords, a connection occurs and up pops your book!I shall be monitoring any changes in our marketing efforts, just to see of any of this research has produced significant improvements, and will report back here when they do!
Creating Links
Of course, this is just how to use keywords when uploading and launching a book. Now all I have to do is discover how to use them every time I post a blog!When (or if) I do, I will be back!
Of course, if anyone disagrees, or knows how to do these things better or more effectively, I am all ears!
 

Five Things We Should Know By Now...

The Perfect Book?


These are some of things I have been reliably informed, are essential if we want to make a success of our writing. In retrospect, there is possibly too much information out there, and all of it supposedly the right way to write that it can be downright confusing. At least I have found it to be so. And to think, all this time I assumed it was a simple as picking up a pen!
1. There is no such thing as the 'perfect' book.
This came as quite a surprise to me, because I'm sure I have read quite a few books that are perfect, at least in my opinion. But according to some of these experts, I shouldn't be striving to produce the perfect book. (I shouldn't?)All this time I have been trying to write well, constantly comparing my feeble efforts with that of my idols, something I have been told in the past was a good idea. But what I should be doing, apparently, is simply the best I can. (now who would have thought of that?)
2. That no matter what you do, it takes time.
I have discovered that writing is all about improvement.
Every time you pick up a pen or switch on your computer you will have improved since the last time you did. That's how the brain is supposed to work when we let it, you know, practice makes perfect? The trick is not to argue with it, which is something I still do sometimes. It has been hard to trust in something, which let’s face it, has let me down big time in the past; but by using what I have learnt, I think I may have found the right work ethic with my writing. And the experts were right; it did take an awfully long time.


 3. How do you make readers care?
This one still stumps me, either they will care or they won't, how can you make them? And if you do find a way to do it, how is it real? Then I read that you should try to treat writing like any other job. One that doesn't make you feel good every day. One that frustrates the hell out of you, but one you have to commit to, for better or worse.That makes it sound like a marriage, doesn't it? But maybe it is a partnership of sorts. In a marriage, you usually get out what you put in; in other words, if you care, so will your partner, so I do get their point.But trying to get anyone to care has never come easily to me. In my youth I was convinced that I was unlovable; indeed, I have several failed relationships behind me, nothing to be proud of, ever. Now I am older, I find I can communicate better, so that might be the answer. Personally, I think becoming a silver surfer was the solution. Through the Internet, I have met so many interesting and lovely people all over the world, far more than you could meet in a lifetime without a PC.The Internet also removes the awkward shyness that most people have, meeting people for the first time, for which I will be eternally grateful.

4. How to make friends and influence people.
I try to make our posts interesting; although I am still not sure I'm doing the whole blog thing properly. Being self-taught can be a problem, I think. You can never be sure if you have absorbed all the information needed, or missed a valuable point that would make all the difference in the world. Let's face it, some of the stuff we have to learn would try the patience of Job and I didn't have much of that in the first place!


We are supposed to be trying to attract the kind of people who would be interested in us as writers, who might like to read our books; and although we are getting more interest these days, not many people comment which leads me to believe that maybe something vital is still lacking.

5. Whatever happens, don't give up.
Sometimes it seems an impossible task, all this marketing and promoting. As if writing wasn't hard enough. You don't have to self-publish, I hear you say, but we have tried the conventional route. To say we are stubborn is probably an understatement, but we are great believers in 'how hard can it be?' and despite finding out that self-publishing is, indeed very hard, we have no intention of giving up just yet. We are having too much fun and meeting so many lovely people!


Signing off now...
Jaye

The No Strings Attached Award

The No Strings Attached Award

This award was created by bloggers on the Almanac Blog. You can see the original post here.
There are no rules to accepting this award, no instructions or guidelines as such. You do not have to nominate anyone else, but you can if you want to. It would be polite to thank the person who nominated you, but that is optional too.
The No Strings Attached Award is simply an acknowledgement of respect from one blogger to another. If you are given this award, it means a fellow blogger likes your work and your blog.
Anita and I are honoured to have been nominated by Charles French (frenchc1955) Pleased beyond words that he likes our blog and what we do.
Our blog is over a year old now, and we work hard to keep it current and enjoyable to read, while helping to promote other writers and bloggers.
We are both writers now and never thought we could be bloggers too, as in the beginning it seemed far too complicated for us, but gradually we have come to enjoy the opportunity to meet so many different and interesting people from all over the world.
We would like to nominate the following bloggers for this award. There are far too many to list here, but hopefully you all know who you are from our continued support, and will forgive the omission.
Laurie27wsmith
Daily Echo
Cynthia Harrison
A Delectable Life
Jenny in Neverland
Confessions of aMystery Novelist

The Perfect Day

The Perfect Day
The morning is still, the clouds barely moving, scattered across the deep cerulean blue of the sky.
Weak sunshine filtering through the trees would indicate the arrival of a good day, which would make a lovely change from all the cold and rain of late.
Yesterday, the trees she could see from her window were thrashing around like whirling dervishes; today, they gently rippled, probably grateful for Mother Nature’s change of mood.
As she watched, the clouds began to thin out, leaving fine gossamer whispers that even now, were beginning to dissipate.
A perfect start to a perfect day…

The Language of Flowers...

The reader picked up the book at her local charity shop. The cover was worn, the spine creased. Someone had enjoyed reading it, she thought, always a good sign. She turned it over in her hand to read the blurb and it sounded interesting enough. The title might indicate it was a romance, possibly what they called a holiday read these days.
It turned out to be the bittersweet, painful story of Victoria, someone who desperately wanted to love and be loved, but whom life had taught to run away.As she read the book, a part of her found a truth, some recognition inside her. It could have been written about her, and as she read on the pain became more unbearable, and she wondered how it would end. Will it confirm what she already knew, or would it revert to a happy ending?


We all need to know love, to receive and share it. We seem to be born with the knowledge of how special it should be, how perfectly beautiful it will be, should we ever find it.For many of us though, the dream is impossible and elusive.Even when we get a glimpse, the breath of possibility, it always escapes us, never matching what we feel inside.We are always left wanting, having to settle for what little we get.
However, the author had not finished. She would show the reader everything she had done wrong, what she should have done.The reason she could not love was because she had never been show how. This was where she, and the character in the book, differed. Victoria had been offered help, many times, only to refuse it. Whereas the reader never had, no one had ever tried to help her. Sometimes someone would want to, but life decreed otherwise and it never happened. She was not raised. No one reared her. She was unattached, unloved and unwanted.
It said on the cover that ‘Anyone can grow into something beautiful’ but the optimum word there is, ‘can’. She knew that other people believed this and sometimes it was true. But it had never been for her.
 



She didn’t know what to expect when she began to read the book. A pretty love story perhaps, centred on the Victorian language of flowers.
As she progressed through the pages, she found herself reading about her very own painful and miserable life, and tears dampened nearly every page.
The ending was a typical Hollywood finale, love conquers all, forgiveness and happy ever after, the whole nine yards.
Perfect ending for the book…
                                                  ************************
Grateful acknowledgements to the author, Vanessa Diffenbauch, for one of the most beautiful books I have ever read...

The Power of Books… 2

This week, I have found myself paying more attention to all the work my sister, Jaye Marie does, not just for her own work, but mine as well. We do share a website, but I don’t think I have fully appreciated how much work is involved with all this marketing and promotion.
She says it’s not really work as she enjoys doing it so much, but I was still staggered to discover just what she does every single day, and still finds the time to write, garden and all the other jobs she gets around to.
Jaye Marie, my very own editor-in-chief, without her expert help, none of my five (soon to be six) books would ever have been published, for I couldn’t do what she manages to achieve, if my life depended upon it.
Here follows an excerpt from her first mystery/thriller, The Ninth Life…

 The daylight was beginning to fade, although Jack hadn't noticed. He wasn't aware of anything, locked in his own private world of pain and anger. Not even the pain from his fingers as he chewed them unmercifully in his frustration.Darkness was gathering in pools all around him as he sat at the kitchen table, Kate's carton of cigarettes in front of him. He wasn't seeing them anymore, her face occupied his mind again and no matter how he tried to distort her image with every ounce of hatred he possessed, he failed miserably as usual.He had never understood the power she had over him, the way just looking at her made him feel unworthy. Kate was not beautiful in the classic sense, her nose was a little too big, her mouth lopsided, but a light seemed to glow inside her and the more you looked the more you were compelled to.If he didn't know any better, he would describe the aura that emanated from her as saint like, for he could almost hear the soft chords of a church organ and in her presence he felt touched by something divine.Anger sparked and flared again as he remembered the day she had vanished, throwing his love away and all he had given her. He reached out and grasped the box in front of him, gripping it so hard his fingers shook and began to bleed. She probably thought she had succeeded, even now.He relaxed his grip and slowly stroked the packet, spreading a smear of blood and imagining her fingers touching the paper, fingers that should be touching him.White-hot anger seared through his brain and he ripped the carton open, destroying the contents in a frenzied rage that seemed unending.
Sometime later, when the rage had abated, he stared at the rubbish in front of him. Of all the things to steal from her, he thought, why these? Because he knew she would miss them the most. She always seemed to need a cigarette much more than him and that had always infuriated him and driven him mad...

There will be a Kindle Countdown Deal on Amazon, from 19thMay to 25th May, when The Ninth Life will be FREE for a week.Your support would be amazing, and gratefully received!

The Chair...

             The Chair
             One small empty room with nothing but a chair,
             As I entered, I felt the warmth that lingered there.
             My heart was gripped with sudden fear, 

              As I sat upon that lonely chair.
             The silence grew like angry whispers, their voices clear
              Do not close the door and leave me here.
              Their need to tell their stories filled my eyes with tears,
               If only they could speak with one voice
               I would tell their stories for those who want to hear.
               I will not close the door and leave them there…
Anita Dawes 2015

The Joker...

The  cleverest card in the deck… care and trouble free…  (posted by Jaye Marie)
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I think my brain has reached another tipping point.  Since we began this journey into the weird and wonderful world of self-publishing, an avalanche of confusing and often unhelpful information has assaulted my poor brain.I have tried my utmost to assimilate what I thought (and was told) was necessary to be successful in this new digital publishing world.  You know what I mean... that you must have a good and interesting blog, you must be on Facebook, and Twitter... the list goes on and on.
Well, I have tried to do all of those things, but it doesn't help to discover you might be using an unsuitable website provider... and that Facebook keeps changing the rules (which I didn't understand the first time) to maybe our keywords are not good enough. (More about keywords in another post)  Not forgetting the most important one, have we forgotten something crucial?


Remembering last year…
All of which made me remember something that happened last year.  I had been gazing out of my window to where all my bonsai lived on their shelves, hoping for some divine inspiration, when I noticed something odd. I had to go and have a look, for my eyesight is not what it was and I sometimes see things that are not there. But not that time. It was real and I had to take a photograph to prove it.  On the shelf, nestled between a pine tree and a Ginko, I had placed this huge pine cone that we found in a forest. It must be about six inches long and it really does tell you about the weather. It closes up tight when it rains and opens wide when the sun comes out.
But what was special that day (as you can see in the photo above) was the fact that tiny mushrooms had sprouted from inside it. Don't ask me how... it just had. I think it is magical, and it got me thinking differently about many things.





An impossible dream?
That maybe we were trying too hard on all the wrong stuff. Because one of the things that has started to annoy me big time, was the fact that what with all this networking, blogging and searching, there seemed to be precious little time left for what is important...writing. And as hard as I tried, I couldn't squeeze everything in. It was simply impossible.
That was then and so much has changed. It is still hard to fit everything in, but I have written my first book since then, so it wasn’t as impossible as I thought. The sequel is well under way too.Overall, I am pleased with our progress. Anita has added another book to her repertoire, shortly to be followed by another, later this year.We are told that what you really need to be successful, is to keep producing brilliant books, so that is what we are doing... and loving every single minute!