Lance Greenfield's Blog, page 69
January 6, 2016
Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Travel is my Education
I wish you and yours a very happy and, most importantly, healthy new year!
This is my first contribution of 2016 to Silver Threading’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday and Ronovan Writes‘ BeWoW (Be Writing on Wednesday). I am writing it while sitting in the waiting area of St Pancras International railway station about to board the Eurostar to travel under the sea to Paris, Gare du Nord. In the next month, I will also travel to Barcelona, Utrecht (Netherlands) and Naples (Florida).
I have always loved travelling and have been lucky enough to travel to around eighty countries in my life. I love to immerse myself in the huge variety of cultures, languages and cuisines that abound in this wonderful planet of ours. The differences are there to explore and to celebrate. But I have discovered that the similarities outnumber the differences.
People who use the differences to fuel conflict, hatred and fear between peoples should pause to reflect and maybe they could come together to understand, to tolerate, and to celebrate the wide variety of cultures, languages and cuisines, as I do.
Life is an adventure!
By sitting in a corner, drowning in media stories and fermenting like a bucket of effluence, one can only hope to turn bad. We should go out and explore. That is why I like the following quote from Mark Twain so much.
“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.”
Mark Twain
During my extensive travels, I have met many people who are simply aghast that I have chosen to visit some of the places that I have been to.
“Weren’t you scared?”
“Isn’t that such a dangerous place?”“Gosh! You could’ve been killed”
…. are some typical reactions that I have encountered.
Listen! Everywhere is dangerous. Anything could happen at any time. I am sitting in a railway station in London. In 1973, I was in another railway station in London until I ran to catch my train at the last minute. When I arrived at my destination, I found out that, five minutes after I ran for that train, a bomb went off in the cafe where I had been enjoying a coffee. Three people were killed. I am as much in danger sitting here, right now, as I am in any place on the planet.
A tornado could rip through here any second. My train might crash. I will not live in fear. I would have a horrible life.
We should not believe everything we are told about countries, cities and villages that we have never visited. We should go out and find out for ourselves.
Hence my second quote for this week.
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
Aldous Huxley
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January 5, 2016
Subscribe to Lance’s Book News
I am really pleased to have finally worked out, with a little help from my friends, how to build a subscriber list on my blog. I am using MailChimp.
The primary reason that I set about doing this was so that I could participate in The Mega Mailing List Rewards Promo being run by E.B. Brown on Facebook. This is a group of authors who promote each others’ books with bargains, prizes and giveaways.
Once I started, I realised the value of building such a list. I’ll be able to give subscribers news about the progress of my writing. As many of you will know, I already have one novel published, Eleven Miles, and I am working on a second, Knitting Can Walk! I am doing my best to get the latter published by the end of this month. To celebrate, I intend to run a three day giveaway of Eleven Miles on Kindle.
Subscribe now, using the link in the sidebar to the right of this blog page, to receive further news.
January 4, 2016
Review: The Devil’s Feather
The Devil’s Feather by Minette Walters
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Psychological non-thriller
Having been totally captivated by every Minette Walters book that I have picked up in the past, The Devil’s Feather came as a huge disappointment to me. It has to be the most unthrilling “thriller” that has ever appeared on my bookshelves.
It took some stamina to plough through nearly five hundred pages of the fictional ramblings of a self-obsessed woman who doesn’t trust anyone around her and just moans and groans about her circumstances. To be fair to the author, there are a couple of chapters of action towards the end of the book, but they are far from convincing and I was willing the protagonist to put the narrator out of her misery. Sadly, she survived to inflict more tedium on the reader.
Had this been Minette Walters’s first novel, she would have sunk into oblivion along with thousands of other wannabe authors. Let’s hope that her next effort returns to her usual brilliant standards.
Original review posted in Goodreads in November 2006
Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A very moving story which could change your life.
This is a work of fiction which is beautifully woven using many threads of both harsh and loving reality. I cannot believe that it could be possible for any reader to get through this book without shedding a tear. I shed many.
It is about the collision of the life-paths of two women who come from very different family backgrounds, but become the wives of the same, cruel husband in Kabul. They form an unlikely, strong, and loving, alliance.
The story takes us through over three decades of recent Afghan history, through the many ruling regimes and conflicts during those times, and the consequences of what is termed as collateral damage suffered by many during the battles between the many factions involved.
You must read this book. For those who are familiar with many of the cultural and individual personality variations to be found in all the peoples of the world, you will still discover more amongst these pages. For those who believe the single, simplistic view of Muslim society that the western media portray, this book will be a huge revelation. However, many of those people would rather bury their heads in the sand. Those people should overcome their fear, and drag themselves into the opening pages of this book. I can guarantee that they will be quickly captivated, and they will soon be shedding tears with the rest of us.
Original review posted in Goodreads in December 2012
January 3, 2016
Review: The Book of Human Skin
The Book of Human Skin by Michelle Lovric
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Difficult to put out of my mind
Michelle Lovric has obviously put a huge effort into the research that she weaves into a carpet upon which the story can walk and play. This story is shocking, yet, in places, amusing. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that any reader would agree that the conclusions are satisfying.
This story is so cleverly written, and the publishers have helped the author to present a unique style. There are five, very different narrators. The author gives them their individual voices, and the publisher has added to the effect by giving each of them a different font.
The narrators include Minguillo Fasan, who suffers from persecution mania and spends his vengeful life making the lives of all those around him as miserable as possible. He is also a collector of books bound in human skin. Yes, it is true that these repulsive objects actually existed, and may still. His sister, Marcella, the second narrator, is consequently much persecuted, and is forced to leave what should be a comfortable, aristocratic life in Venice to eventually arrive in a convent in the Andes of Peru.
The third narrator is a self-made doctor, who makes skin his speciality, and perhaps his obsession. Amongst others, he has the questionable privilege of treating Napoleon Bonaparte, even through the infamous Russian campaign.
The fourth is Minguillo’s valet, Gianni, who is almost, but not quite, illiterate. That assumption costs his master dear, as his loyalties lie elsewhere. Who could ever be loyal to such a despicable character, anyway?
The final narrator is the craziest nun you could ever imagine. I won’t say much more about her, but you will discover for yourself just how crazy she is, before you have waded more than ten pages into this book.
The pace seemed to slow down a bit in the middle, which almost had me awarding a mere three stars, but I am so glad I persevered as it soon picked up again. By the time I closed the book, I was feeling a little harsh when I awarded four stars. However, I think that this is a genuine rating.
Read it for yourself, and I will look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.
December 31, 2015
OUT with the OLD – and IN with the NEW!
These were my New Year Resolutions for 2015 . . .
And this is how I did . . .
I have written most of my second novel, entitled “Knitting Can Walk”, and I have the plan for the rest of it. I had better hurry up. The Kindle version is available for pre-order on Amazon with a publishing date of 28th January 2016. I don’t want to let my readers down!
I almost made it. I got my Personal Best down to exactly 24 minutes. With Olympic class timing, I swear it was 23:97, which means that I achieved my goal!
Failed by a long way! I have posted only 19 reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. It is just that I have had so much to deal with this year: it’s a long story. And I have been concentrating more on writing and editing than on reading. To balance out, I have taken the trouble to re-publish some of my top reviews from previous years onto my blog, and these have proved to be very popular with my followers.
Over-achieved by a long way! I revised this goal after only a couple of weeks as I had already almost met it by the end of January. I re-set the target to be 250, which I achieved last week. My total now stands at 254. I think that my time-traveling coach tours attract a lot of new followers. Maybe they hop on the bus in previous centuries and return to our time unnoticed.
Just about did it, but not quite. Maybe I was a bit too strict on myself here. I have relaxed the weight range slightly for this year. I managed to keep myself between 80 and 84 kg, so I aim to repeat that in 2016. I am pleased that my BMI has maintained at around 22 for the whole year. I feel quite fit at the age of sixty.
So here we go.
Moving into 2016, my NEW New Year Resolutions look like this . . .
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of my followers a very happy and very HEALTHY New Year!
Now tell us what your New Year Resolutions are for 2016.
December 30, 2015
My Fourth and Final Tattoo
Yesterday, on 29th December 2015, my son, Dave, inked my skin for the fourth and final time. It was his birthday present to me for my 60th, which I celebrated two weeks ago. I have always planned to have four.
The latest is my clan badge. The maternal side of my family are from the Chisholm clan. My grandmother and her sisters were the last generation of crofters to live near Bonar Bridge in Sutherland, before moving south to the Fair City of Perth in the 1030s. I am proud of that history and heritage. The badge is now permanently emblazoned on my left thigh.
In size and position, my latest tattoo balances with my first tattoo on my right thigh, which perfectly captures my entire family heritage. It depicts the white rose of Yorkshire for my father and the purple thistle of Scotland for my mother. The two flowers are entwined and grow out of the Celtic knots of Britain which represent the interconnectedness of life and eternity.
My other two tattoos are my regimental badge, Royal Engineers, on my upper right arm, and the badge of the football team that I have supported for almost fifty years, Dundee United, on my upper left arm.
Dave is very talented. He is the principal tattooist at the new Scream’n Ink studio in Romsey, Hampshire. If you’re in the area and you fancy getting some class art on your skin, give him a call and discuss your requirements. He is very creative and specialises in portraits, 3D and fantasy art. View the contact details and his gallery at www.screamnink.co (site created by myself).
And please let me know what you think of my fearsome four!
Author Interview: Howard Loring
Welcome back everyone. Today, Howard Loring has stopped by to visit with us from somewhen and somewhere on Earth. Howard, will you get us started with a little about yourself, and where (or when) you are from?
Sorry, such information is held in strict confidence and the reasons why are contained in my books
Would talking about what got you into writing be a little less classified then?
I approach Literature as a Discipline and I’m interested in all Disciplines, and this construct is contained and discussed in my books also. I’ve always written, but commitment to writing is a different matter
What started your commitment to writing that resulted in your first book?
Friends who knew my situation urged me to tell my story and, having an opportunity while repairing my Time Machine, I simply went with it
Being trapped in this Timeframe while my machine is repaired has…
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December 23, 2015
Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Foolproof Designs
This is my Christmas week contribution to Silver Threading’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday and Ronovan Writes‘ BeWoW (Be Writing on Wednesday).
I am a great admirer of Douglas Adams. He shows great insight, originality and humour in his science fiction books such as Hitchhiker’s Guide series and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, and everyone should read Last Chance to See. It is such a shame that he died so young. He had so much more to give.
Of course, in his writing there are many quotable quotes, but one which struck a chord with me.
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
Having worked in technology for most of my life, I have striven to write programs that trap all possible errors. It is impossible! No matter what I anticipate, users will always find some way of breaking the software solution. I fix that problem, and they manage to find another way to break it.
I’ve noticed the same with writing. I have read novels which I think are marvelous. When I read the reviews, I find that many people agree with me, but there are always some who will find fault. I am not saying that those reviewers who disagree with the majority are fools. What I am saying is that no author can possibly hope to write the perfect book. No designer can design the perfect, or foolproof, solution.
But that is no reason to give up. We should all try. We should all strive for perfection, no matter what we do.
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December 22, 2015
An Open Letter From a Dead Child To His Mother On His Death Anniversary
This letter is so beautifully written and is straight from the heart.
Reading it has my tears flowing and I wish that this had never happened and that it would never be repeated.
Why are some people so cruel? What do they hope to achieve? If it is seriously martyrdom and eternal glory, then I believe that they are mistaken. Whatever name we give to God, Allah, Jehovah, the Creator, if we accept that He gave life and that it is His to take away, then, when it comes to judgement, He is going to be extremely upset with the perpetrators of such abhorrent atrocities. They might be expecting to enter Paradise, but they may find that the gates are locked against them.
Oh. I feel so sad, but I admire you for being able to write such a wonderful piece. Thank you, Lala Rukh, for sharing that love.
A mother crying on the death of her child- Peshawar School Attack 16 December 2014, Pakistan.
Ma!
It’s 16 December. The day you saw my blood stained dead body. The day you died along with me. It’s our first death anniversary Ma.
I can see your red swollen eyes today, you didn’t sleep Ma, I know it. I can see your hands tremble while you make tea for Baba. I can hear that painful unspoken conversation between you and Baba. When you look at each other and say nothing, your silence tells me all. The wails of your heart and the cries of Baba’s eyes, they pierce my heart. It’s been a whole year since that happened, but you still live in the moment I died. The days after that, they didn’t pass for you.
I know you can see the wound of bullet on my head bleeding again today…
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