A.C. Flory's Blog, page 28

Dog Bone Soup – on sale for 99c

No, I haven’t suddenly taken up butchering! Dog Bone Soup, by Bette A. Stevens, is one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read. I gave it 5/5 stars when I first reviewed it, and I still give it 5/5. Here’s a short excerpt from Bette’s blog:

“BOYS, GET IN HERE. Hurry up!”

We set the groceries on the table and ran in to see what Mum was so worked up about.

“President Kennedy’s body’s back in Washington. Look, they’re switching from the Washington to that Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. The world’s at a standstill and no wonder. I can’t believe that someone’s gone and killed the President…Sit down. Watch.”

“What’s for dinner?” I asked when I handed her the change.

“Good. We have more than a dollar left for the week.”

“What about dinner, Mum?”

“I’ll fix us some supper, later. We had plenty of hotcakes to tide us over this morning,” Mum sat there, captivated by the news.

Coverage went on all day and long into the night. Willie and I went out to cut and split fire wood for the week. Then we grabbed our fishing poles and ran down to the brook. I figured if we caught something, we could have a nice fry for supper, even if I had to fix it myself.

Willie peeled and cut potatoes while I figured out how to mix flour and cornmeal and get the fish going. I set the fish on the stove to keep warm while I fried up the potatoes.

We never did get Mum away from the darned TV.

https://4writersandreaders.com/2022/11/22/dog-bone-soup-99%c2%a2-thru-november-27th-holiday-sale-remembering-thanksgiving-1963-excerpt/comment-page-1/#comment-66766

If you prefer a trailer, here’s a short, two minute video to watch:

Or go to Bette’s blog and check out the entire post here.

Whatever you do, I strongly suggest grabbing a copy of the book while it’s on sale.

You’re welcome,
Meeks

Making videos and other bits and pieces

It’s been an odd week, with lots of rain and too little sleep, but I have been fairly productive. First up is my latest how-to video: ‘ESO – how to build a pointy wall’. It’s quite a long video so I don’t expect anyone to watch it all the way through!

The reason I’m showcasing this video is because of the new skills I’ve learned using VideoStudio Pro 2021, my video editing software.

The first thing I learned was how to create short, animated visual directions. The video below is only a few seconds long and demonstrates what I mean about a ‘visual direction’:

The animation is created from within VideoStudio Pro 2021 using the Painting Tool. I can see this tool getting a lot of use once I start making how-to videos for self-publishing.

The second thing I learned was how to manually fade the background music in and out. VideoStudio Pro 2021 has a feature called ‘Audio Ducking’ which is supposed to make the music go quiet when there’s narration on the video. The feature is okay, but I wasn’t too impressed with when it decided to raise and lower the volume of the music. So I went looking for a manual solution and found one.

The blue track is the music track, and the purple one is for narration. When I’m talking, I want the music to be very soft, but when there’s a gap in the narration, I want the music to swell. The section of the tracks I’ve circled in red is one of those gaps. As you can see, the white line showing the volume of the music goes up – i.e. becomes louder – while I’m not talking.

To make VideoStudio Pro display the audio controls, press the icon circled in red below:

Controlling the volume of the music manually is a bit time-consuming and ‘clunky’, but I think the end result is much better.

In case anyone is interested, the music was created by Peritune, a Japanese composer who writes lovely, non-jarring music that compliments my videos beautifully.

And last but not least, I’ve just made my new Youtube ‘handle’ :

I’m not quite sure how the handle is actually supposed to work, but apparently in time, it will be used to personalise the URL of my Youtube channel. A small thing, but Indies have to grab their branding where they find it!

It’s Sunday here in Melbourne, and for a wonder the rain has stopped so I’m going to do a garden promenade with the animals.

Have a great weekend,
Meeks

Some of the novels I have loved in October 2022

I believe in writing reviews, but like most people, unless I write one the moment I finish reading, I tend to forget. As a result, I do catch-up reviews. These are some of the ones I’ve reviewed on amazon.com recently.

The Corfu Trilogy, by Gerald Durrell. Fell in love with the TV series, loved the books.

‘This must be one of the few times when a visual representation of a work actually complements that work of prose. Both endearing and beautiful.’

Amazon link

p.s. There are over 4,000 reviews of this trilogy on amazon.com so mine was more of an ‘I loved it too!’ than an actual review.

For those who’ve never heard of the Durrells of Corfu TV series, or the books on which they’re based, the author, Gerald Durrell was the brother of Lawrence Durrell of the Alexandria Quartet fame.

All four of the Durrell siblings lived on the island of Corfu in the years leading up to WWII. The Corfu trilogy was written by the youngest Durrell, Gerald, and details the glorious, golden years he spent growing up there. The books are funny and snarky and make you want to go back in time and share that life with them.

If you get the chance, read the books and watch the TV series. You won’t be disappointed. Promise.

Val Hall: the even years, by Alma Alexander. Shorts with Heart

‘I’m not usually a fan of short stories because they end just as I’m getting into them but… Val Hall is like snippets of the same, glorious song. Each story showcases a different resident with a different 3rd class superpower, but the gentle caring of Eddie the orderly weaves all the disparate stories into one narrative. And I literally fell in love with each superhero. On to book two. :)’

p.s. As with the Corfu trilogy, my review is kind of superfluous, but I thought I’d explain that the premise of the stories is that there are three tiers of superpowers.

The top tier is godlike, the second is like Superman,

while the third is made up of almost ordinary humans who have one special power that they can use in special circumstances. That’s why they’re only third class. Each story talks about one of these third class powers and the person who wields it.

Amazon link

Cage of Souls, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Papillion at the end of the world.

‘The time is some unimaginable point in the future when our sun is starting to die. The place is the Island, a prison for those that Shadrapar, the last city on Earth, rejects. The story is told in the first person by Stefan Advani, an intellectual sentenced to the Island for…helping to write a book that the powers did not like.
I’m not a fan of first person POV because what we learn of the character is generally unappealing. It’s like seeing someone naked with all their warts and saggy flesh exposed. That said, however, I can’t stop thinking about the story and the world it portrays.
It’s memorable.

I’m a voracious reader but much of what I read disappears soon after I finished reading. It’s not memorable. The Cage of Souls is different. It’s tunneled into my imagination and won’t let go.
To me, that is the defining characteristic of a great story.’

Amazon link

I have a stack more reviews to publish so I’ll try to do a post a week. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

cheers,
Meeks

What is a ‘solar garden’ and why we should want one

I put solar panels on my roof soon after I built this house because I was trying to plan for my retirement. That makes me one of the lucky ones, but what about those who are renting? Or simply can’t afford to put solar panels on their roofs?

Given the soaring cost of energy, this article by Citizen Mum, an Aussie blogger, really hit the nail on the head:

‘The concept of a solar garden is new in Australia, and is being developed by Pingala, a citizen led co-operative focused on developing people-centred and socially just energy solutions. At its core the concept is very simple and based along the lines of a community garden, in that cooperative members have the opportunity to purchase plots (panels) in the solar garden and have the energy that is generated from the plot credited to their power bill. It is ideal for people in rental accommodation, apartments or homes that are not suitable for rooftop solar.’

https://citizen-mum.com/2022/11/01/mid-scale-solar-can-ease-pressure-on-the-nem/

To give a little context to that quote, Citizen Mum is talking about ‘mid-scale solar arrays’. These are like the solar panels we’re used to seeing when we see photos of solar farms – fields and fields of solar panels almost as far as the eye can see:

https://www.justsolar.com/blog/solar-farms-australia

Yeah, like those but smaller, much, much smaller. Mid scale solar arrays are big enough to provide a decent amount of solar energy, but small enough to be ‘owned’ by a small town. Or as the quote suggests, owned by the individuals of that town.

If you’re interested in mitigating climate change, and perhaps saving yourselves some money long term, I strongly suggest you read the whole article on Citizen Mum’s blog.

cheers,
Meeks

A bit of YouTube news

Just a few days ago I reached my first major milestone on Youtube – 100 subscribers! Thank you to everyone who visited my channel and subscribed. You made me feel that I wasn’t wasting my time. On such a new venture, that kind of support is gold, pure gold.

In further news, two of my videos have reached milestones of their own: 1000 views, and a couple more are getting there very quickly so I’m thrilled. This is one of the new ones that’s getting a lot of views:

If you click on ‘Watch on YouTube’ you’ll be able to see a larger version of the video.

I would like to say that my how-to and reading videos are doing as well, but they’re not, at least not yet. I hope that in time I’ll be able to use YouTube for other aspects of my work. Till then, I’m still learning, still improving and, most importantly, still enjoying the process. D

cheers,
Meeks

Why is Amazon HIDING books from readers?

I’ve been buying books from Amazon since the days when the company didn’t make a profit, and the pundits thought that Jeff Bezos was mad. That’s a long time and an awful lot of books. Yet suddenly I can’t be trusted to choose books for myself????

For those who do not yet know, Amazon has a new ‘feature’ whereby an algorithm decides which books you should see when you go to an author’s ‘Author Page’. The ‘feature’ is called Top Picks and:

‘…allows Amazon customers to see personalized recommendations from your catalog of books. Customers will see this on your Author Page and it will suggest books based on these traits:

• New releases and pre-order books matching their interest.
• Unread books from a series they started.
• The customer’s reading and purchase history.

The goal is to help them find more books they want to read from you. Each customer will have a different recommendation, including you, if you’re logged into your Amazon account.’

That quote comes direct from a reply I received from Amazon support just this morning.

Sounds reasonable, kind of, until you realise that these Top Picks aren’t simply the first books you see when you go to an author’s page, they’re the ONLY books you see.

My Author Page is now more ‘normal’ than it was a few days ago when I took this screenshot – amazing what an angry email will do – but I’ve just looked at Robbie Cheadle’s Author Page to see her latest release, ‘Haunted Halloween Holiday, and this is what I see when I go to Robbie’s author page:

No Haunted Halloween. I have to scroll to the right on the carousel to finally see the book I’m looking for:

But what if I scroll down? That should bring it up shouldn’t it? Nope:

There are only three ‘Sir Chocolate’ books shown in the list, and NONE of them is her new one. Oh, but it’ll be on page 2, right?

Wrong. There is no ‘page 1 of 2’ at the bottom of the list the way it used to be.

Why? Because the list is automatically set to display by Kindle and popularity. When you try to change the ‘Sort by’ you get this:

Oh, ok, so a new book would be the one most recently published, right? If I sort by ‘Publication date’ I should see it straight away…

WTF? Why am I still not see it?

The reason is that Robbie’s new ‘Haunted Halloween Holiday’ is a paperback. So no matter what I sort by, it won’t show because the category is automatically set for Kindle…and only Kindle.

To see all of Robbie’s books I had to click ‘All Formats’ as shown above.

But what if I didn’t realise that the book was paperback only? Which I didn’t. Or what if I didn’t try the ‘All Formats’ option just to see what would happen?

Amazon? How is this feature supposed to make finding and buying a book easier?

First, I had to click twice just to get to Robbie’s author page…

CORRECTION: on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk you no longer have to click twice. BUT… you no longer get the little popup box that says “Find all the books….” either:

The screenshot above was taken from the amazon.com.au website which is still displaying the old, pre ‘new feature’ interface. I guess someone at Amazon finally realised that promising to show all books AND THEN NOT SHOWING THEM would be….misleading.

I repeat, how is this new feature making it easier to find a book on Amazon? Why do I have to work this hard to find a book when I already know the author and the name of the book?

Before this effing stupid new feature was dumped on us, an author’s page automatically showed all of an author’s work – including all of the available formats. These formats used to include paperbacks and foreign language editions. Now, I have to know how to work around the ‘feature’ in order to find what I want.

But what if a reader doesn’t already know that an author has a heap of other books? Why would such a reader go to so much trouble to find what’s been hidden?

The answer is that they wouldn’t.

Instead of making things more convenient for readers, Amazon’s new feature has made it harder.

And just for the record, how in heck is a new book supposed to ‘compete’ with an author’s older books for visibility? How can a new book be ‘more popular’ on launch? More importantly, how does it become more popular when it can’t be seen, even on the author’s own page?

Lack of visibility is hard enough for Indie authors at the best of times, but when our own author pages hide our books? Really Amazon?

The worst part of this new ‘feature’ however is what it does to reader choice. Quite frankly, I’ve always found Amazon recommendations to be laughable. They NEVER get it right, not for me, so from now on, this useless algorithm is not only going to recommend books that I don’t want to read, it’s going to hide the books it thinks I won’t want to see?

What kind of insanity is this? Amazon used to be about consumers, and consumer choice. Well, I’m a consumer and I hate being bullied by an algorithm. Worse, I’m now wondering who came up with the idea of restricting consumer’s choices. And why.

Is this step 1 in a downward spiral that will result in us only seeing books and products that have massive advertising budgets? Advertising budgets that fill Amazon’s coffers to overflowing?

Tin hat theory? Maybe, but this new feature has shaken my trust in Amazon, badly. I read a lot, and finding new books on Amazon that aren’t just the same old same old is already hard. How will I keep my reading addiction going if half the books I might like are hidden from me?

How can I make good choices when I don’t know what I don’t know? And where does Amazon get off bullying me like this?

Please, if you’re a Reader, contact Amazon support and tell them that you don’t want or need their ‘help’ in choosing a book. Or at least, not this kind of ‘help’. And if you’re a writer, for heaven’s sake, check your Amazon listing.

Meeks

What’s the good of ideals if you don’t live them?

To me, being a good person requires that you live by your ideals. But what if your ideals require that you heal the dead, even though everyone else thinks necromancy is evil?

That conflict between personal integrity and societal mores is one of the central themes of the Necromancer’s Daughter, the new book by my good friend D.Wallace Peach:

“A healer and dabbler in the dark arts of life and death, Barus is as gnarled as an ancient tree. Forgotten in the chaos of the dying queen’s chamber, he spirits away her stillborn infant, and in a hovel at the meadow’s edge, he breathes life into the wisp of a child. He names her Aster for the lea’s white flowers. Raised as his daughter, she learns to heal death.”

To me, the key phrase is ‘heal death’. Not ‘raise an army of zombies’ or ‘use necromancy to gain personal power’ but to heal. And that raises the question of motivation, another key theme in the story. This is the review I left on Amazon:

‘Aster is born dead and is brought to life by Barus, a necromancer. Not exactly what you would call normal people, and yet…two more loving people would be hard to find. And /that/ begs all sorts of questions about good and evil, love and hate, integrity and lies.
How can giving life be evil when taking it is not?
How can kindness be evil when cruelty is not?
How can living according to one’s beliefs be evil when deception is not?
These are vital questions, and give The Necromancer’s Daughter a depth that I absolutely loved. Brilliant story masterfully told.
Very highly recommended.

Both Barus and Aster are forced to flee in separate directions as a powerful, angry man uses his position to hunt them down. The reason? Revenge. He wanted his young son raised from the dead, but the child’s injuries were too severe. Had he been brought back to life, he would not have been able to stay alive. Not all deaths can be healed.

Many years later, that man’s younger son, Joreh, is caught in a conflict between Aster’s goodness and the repugnance he was taught to feel for necromancy, and necromancers. Another choice, but this time between what Joreh sees with his own eyes and what he has been taught to believe.

To get an insight into the author’s own motivation, I asked Diana whether these themes evolved during the writing of the book or were there right from the start. This is what she said:

Thanks so much, Andrea, for the beautiful review and the question. I’d say you hit the themes of the book on the head. What more can an author hope for?

I’m an outliner, so the theme of a book usually presents itself before I start writing. It bubbles up as I shape my characters and start plotting the sequence of the action.

I often find my inspiration in real life. We live in an opinionated world, where assumptions about whole groups of people are salted with cruel and dangerous righteousness. It’s easy to get sucked into battlelines, and I’m no saint, that’s for sure. In The Necromancer’s Daughter, I wanted to challenge those kinds of harmful preconceptions.

To that end, I created a character who, in common fantasy fiction, is considered pure evil, someone who is feared and ungodly, physically hideous and possessive of dark power. I wanted to challenge readers to discover the exact opposite of the typical expectation. Barus and Aster are truly good human beings who, by healing death, are risking their lives to save others.

At the same time, I wanted to create “good guys” who, through their narrow and rigid vision of the world, end up committing and justifying acts of evil. In other words, I tried to flip all assumptions on their heads!

In a way, young Joreh Graeger is the most important character in the book. He’s the one who questions the truth of his biases. He gets to know Aster as an individual, and goes through the tough process of changing his mind when his assumptions no longer apply. He learns that what is good and evil isn’t defined by power or doctrine or wealth or what he was taught as a child, but by love, kind intentions, and a desire to do no harm.

Thanks again for having me over to your blog today. You’re the best!

Ah, Diana, this sentence resonates so much! ‘He [Joreh] learns that what is good and evil isn’t defined by power or doctrine or wealth or what he was taught as a child, but by love, kind intentions, and a desire to do no harm.’ In this age of polarized battle lines, we could all do with some Asters in our lives.

I honestly can’t recommend The Necromancer’s Daughter more. If you haven’t started reading this story already, please go to one of the following sites and download your copy today. You’ll thank me. And you’re welcome.

Amazon US, UK, CA, AU, IN

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

And just in case you’ve never read any of Diana’s books before, here’s a little bit about her:

A long-time reader, best-selling author D. Wallace Peach started writing later in life when years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books. She was instantly hooked.

In addition to fantasy books, Peach’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of the arts in her local community, organizing and publishing annual anthologies of Oregon prose, poetry, and photography. Peach lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes.

One of the things I love most about the internet and blogging is the ability to make friends with people on the other side of the world. Diana is one such friend. Her blog has attracted a community of writers and readers, many of whom I also call friend. I hope to see you there too.

Amazon Author’s Page: https://www.amazon.com/D.-Wallace-Peach/e/B00CLKLXP8

Website/Blog: http://mythsofthemirror.com

Website/Books: http://dwallacepeachbooks.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dwallacepeach

I’ll finish this post with the beautiful video trailer Diana created for the book:

cheers,
Meeks

Woman builds her own Hobbit home

I just stumbled across this video on Youtube and started drooling…I want!

cheers,
Meeks

Why? Because it’s Whittier…

I stumbled onto this video about Whittier, Alaska, by accident, but I kept watching because it reminded me of how I imagined life would be in the Undercity, except above ground.

So what’s so special about Whittier? It’s the fact that all 200-odd residents of the town live in one building, a building that contains a store, police station, church and pretty much everything you’d expect to find in a small town. Oh, and in winter, the kids go to school via a tunnel that connects the two buildings!

But wait, there’s more! You can only reach the building by boat, or via a long, rather scary tunnel. The tunnel is only open at certain times of the day, and at 6:00pm it’s closed to cars so the trains can come through!

If I’ve roused your curiosity, please watch the video:

At about 12:13 minutes, the lovely lady doing the tour of the building points out photos from when the building housed the officers of the US army stationed in the town. A little later on she mentions that the reason everyone withdrew from the shore was because there was an earthquake followed by a tsunami that washed much of the original town away.

At about 15:50 minutes, the tour guide casually mentions that they had to get a self-closing mechanism installed on a ground floor door because…bears would wonder in when residents forgot to close it. <>

That bit about the bears actually got me thinking about my Undercity concept. If the doors topside were like those big, self-opening doors installed in shops, what if a kangaroo came in to check things out? Or maybe a wombat looking for a pre-dug hole? lol

Okay, my imagination is getting a little carried away now. I’d better go outside and do some work before it starts to rain, again. Huge swathes of Melbourne and Victoria are flooded at the moment, but as we’re on a ridge, we’ve had no issues.

Have a great weekend everyone,
Meeks

Inching towards an audiobook

There, I’ve said it! At some point in the not-so-distant future, I’m going to try my hand, or voice, on an audiobook, and this 3 minute video is my first attempt at ‘acting out’ a scene:

I’ll probably cringe with embarrassment tomorrow, but for now I’m kind of proud of my first attempt, especially as it was miles harder than I thought it would be. Narrating something à la Sir David Attenborough is one thing, trying to make a story come to life is another thing entirely. It has been an immensely valuable learning experience though.

You know how we’re told to read our writing out loud to help with the editing? Well, acting it out loud exposes the shortcomings of the prose even more! I actually had to change what I’d written to give the scene enough oomph.

See if you can pick the differences. This is the ‘original’ :

“The Senior had just reached the alcove again when it finally saw the obvious: only the Triad, and the Acolyte, knew who had actually done what. And that meant the truth could be told. Only the roles needed to be re-imagined, leaving itself as the conscientious healer who stayed by the Female’s side until the other returned!
The truth, but not the truth. It was perfect, or almost so. The Second already knew about the threat from the Seven, so it would see why the truth could not be told, plus the lie was close enough to the truth for it to carry off the deception without giving everything away. Which left only the two younger iVokh to worry about.
In its weakened state, the Junior might not even remember the rescue, but if it did, casting it as the hero would mesh with how it saw itself. Plus it already disliked the Acolyte, so that would fit quite nicely, leaving only the Acolyte itself.
The young iVokh would not like being blamed for the Junior’s faults, but it was intelligent and ambitious. If it were told about the Seven’s ultimatum, it would see itself as being both important and trusted. That would appeal to its ambition, and it would feel proud to be trusted with such a vital task…
…ki, not task, mission…
If the Acolyte could be made to believe the fate of the Triad depended on its intelligence and resourcefulness, it would not betray them, at least not to the Voice…
…but afterward?…
Being no stranger to ambition itself, the Senior had no doubt that the young iVokh would try to profit from its knowledge at some point, but as it had no intention of allowing any of them to return to the Settlement, it was not particularily worried. Kohoh was a dangerous time of year, for everyone.”

Book 2, The Suns of Vokhtah series

Messing around with videos is starting to become useful as well as fun. Who knew? lol

cheers,
Meeks