Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 777
March 21, 2013
...a few minutes of yer time please?...for a wee bit of HONESTY on 'Paying It Forward'...#TBSU...
Reblogged from Seumas Gallacher:
...I lay no claim to possession of any deep philosophical verities...but I wanna have yeez indulge me for a couple of minutes in this post...y'see, I'm reading a lot lately on Blogs, and Facebook, and Twitter...the usual suspects...I think maybe it's something to do with the time of year... lots of new indie authors are bringing their first-born masterpieces on to Kindle...and like most of us when freshly here, hoping, praying, p'raps foolishly even…
So, this is how you do it!
Is blogging worth it?
Having struggled with the whole concept of ‘the blog’, the sheer befuddling mechanics of it, for six months now, I think I’ve got something that looks attractive, the menu works as it should, and the content is interesting. But now I’ve got it, what do I do with it?
I have done my best to make the articles interesting, they’re nicely illustrated, and easy to navigate. But who reads them? I read other blogs where each post has yards of comments. True, many of them will be thanking the blogger for having visited another blog, but they are comments nonetheless. How do they do it?
I don’t follow that many blogs, no time, but there are a few whose posts I read assiduously. Those blogs might get a lot of visits, I can’t tell, but they certainly don’t get the dozens and dozens of comments gleaned over a period of many months that some less well-put together blog posts do. All I can suppose is that those very popular bloggers spend a lot of time visiting other blogs to incite return visits.
As a tactic, it obviously works. My question is: is it worth it? If someone reads your blog because you read theirs, does it have any impact for you at all? As a soon-to-be-published writer, I would like my blog to attract people, to read my words because they are actually interested in what I have to say, and eventually to buy my books. Of course, I hear you say, if you don’t publicise your blog nobody’s going to find you among the hundreds of thousands of other bloggers.
A friend pointed out that most people like to read about personal, everyday stuff, and the point is often made that nobody wants have the blogger’s book thrust in their face in every post. People lose interest very quickly in your struggles with writer’s block, they don’t necessarily want daily wordcounts of the WIP, and get frankly annoyed by constant exhortations to go-out-and-buy-my-book. So, I go easy on the spam and write about Trixie, the cat and her personal problems. Any other suggestions?
What do you do to promote your blog? Anything? Does it work? To put it bluntly, does blogging translate into sales? I’d be interested to know.
March 19, 2013
Migraine and worse
Today has been a migraine day. One of those days when I wake up with a crashing headache and what feels like morning sickness. Vision is fuzzy, ‘things’ flit about in front of my eyes, and my head feels as if somebody is pounding my skull, just over the left eye with a mallet, possibly to find out if my head really is stuffed with old newspaper, or Kapok.
Migraine sufferers will know what I mean.
The only thing to do is to take one of mother’s special pills and go back to bed. Not to sleep—sleep is impossible with the disjointed images, snatches of music, conversation, passages from the book I was reading the night before—simply because I am of no earthly use to anyone in an upright, or even seated position.
The worst aspect of a migraine for me is the nightmarish world it pitches me into. Everything seems hopeless, ‘change and decay in all around I see’. I find myself unable to stop the thoughts of suffering, held at bay when I am absorbed in work, that surface when my defences crumble. The images that flood the internet, rapidly glossed over with a grimace, are still there, recorded on the retina, tidied away, until the physical pain and the scattering of mental resistance lets them out.
Tomorrow the pill will have worked and the pictures will have gone back in their box. But the box is still there, and what it hides is the awful reality for all the helpless victim of man’s violence and unthinking cruelty.
Today an anniversary service was held in Toulouse for the children and the young father who were murdered, shot dead at their school by a stupid, deluded, ignorant young man with a chip on his shoulder. He was shot too, the angel of death, and frankly, who cares? He doesn’t have to see the eyes of the woman whose husband and two young children were butchered, so casually, random victims because one Jew is a good as another. Their lives have been snuffed out, but the mother is left, and the murderer does not have to see the emptiness in her eyes. We see them though, the eyes of all the victims of violence, looking into the camera with a depth of suffering most of us will never know.
Tomorrow the pill will have worked, but today, with no defences, the eyes watch me and all I can do is weep.
March 18, 2013
The Dark Citadel3
A third and probably last go at trailers. I just can’t get Mozart’s Requiem out of my head.
March 16, 2013
The bridge and The Belem
This morning there was a lot of animation down on the Garonne. Police speedboats were charging up and down; police cars were doing their best to keep up despite having to use roads and bridges. Most of Bordeaux had turned out to see the President of the Republic inaugurate the new bridge.
It being our quay, our bridge and our river, I hadn’t really given much thought to the festivities, and we trolled upriver as usual. However, the crowds making their way to join the thousands already assembled by the new bridge made Finbar nervous. He stopped, nudged my hand gently with his nose and gestured homeward with his head.
I looked at the heaving crowd, and wondered where François was. I watched the policemen showing off in their speed boats, blocked my ears against the wailing of sirens as their land-bound colleagues raced in a great circuit over the new bridge then back across the old one.
We were about to turn back when I noticed the boat gliding under the bridge. It was The Belem, a Mexican navy training ship, a beautiful three master that always turns up for Bordeaux’s nautical extravaganzas. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. Neither what the arrangement Bordeaux has with the Mexican navy, nor why their training ship is over a hundred years old. It’s a lovely sight whatever the reasons, and once again, I didn’t have a camera with me. The one on the picture is similar, slightly smaller, and Russian.
Finbar was not impressed, pulling in the direction of home, and I found myself looking at the scene not as a human being avid for excitement, but through the eyes of a dog who sees only dense crowds and uncharacteristic movement disturbing the river. So what? The new bridge is officially open, but it will still be there tomorrow. So, the President is in the throng, he’s not such an oil painting, is he? The river police might be thrilled to bits with their high-powered boats, but I’d rather watch the gulls fishing.
You go down that way of thinking and you find yourself listening for birdsong rather than your telephone while walking along the roadside. You look at the wildflowers growing at the edge of the pavement rather than the shop windows, and the clouds scudding overhead instead of the gorgeous shoes of the woman walking in front. You find yourself drifting away from what anchors us to society, and longing for something that can’t be bought, that doesn’t need to be photographed to exist, that might be found in the depths of a dog’s eyes, or the patch of moss growing on a stone wall.
Book details
The new release date for The Dark Citadel is June 14 2013. It’s time to post the book cover details.
Tagline:
Evil is slouching into Providence. Will the awakening memories of a rebellious runaway be enough to send the demon back into the shadows?
Blurb:
Fifteen-year-old Deborah is angry and bitter. Rebelling against an arranged marriage to an idiot, she flees the oppression of Providence’s religious Elders to search for her exiled mother, the legendary Green Woman.
Zachariah, dark, brooding and unhappy crosses Deborah’s path as they both plot escape from the House of Correction. Dislike is instant and mutual, and Zachariah blunders off alone to seek the Green Woman’s magical Garden. In the desert wasteland, Jonah, the dog boy takes Deborah’s hand, first as a friend and guide, then as something more.
Abaddon, Lord of Hell is waiting to crush the green magic that will destroy his realm on earth. Deborah is discovering love and the mysterious power of her memories, but will this be enough to defeat the demon and the Elder’s regime, and dispel the shadows cast by the Dark Citadel?
Excerpt:
As always, the pups trotted in front at a steady lope, their bushy tails held low. One night, in the darkest hour before dawn, they stopped, hackles raised. As Jonah and Deborah listened to the throbbing darkness, they heard a shriek, like the call of a giant bird. The call was answered, again, and again.
“What is it?” Deborah whispered.
“Wyverns hunting.”
“Wyverns?”
“Some people, the desert wanderers, call them grave worms.”
Jonah clicked his tongue to warn the pups and pulled Deborah beneath a clump of spiny bushes where they huddled together, not daring to breathe. The air turned icy cold, and they felt the rush of leathery wings on their faces. The wind passed but they were aware of a presence hovering above them. Their flesh crept in revulsion, and an icy trickle of fear made its way down their backs. They could see nothing, but they could hear a reptilian hissing and the sound of sniffing. The steady flapping of broad wings sent waves of fetid air to rattle the bushes of their hiding place.
Deborah felt sick with terror. This is it, she thought in a panic, this is where it ends.
Jonah pushed Deborah’s head down into the sand. “Close your eyes,” he hissed. “Whatever happens, don’t look up.”
Suddenly, there was the swoosh of displaced air, and the bird-shriek rent the heavy air, followed by a cry that might have been the beginning of a bark and ended in a scream of agony. Jonah pulled Deborah’s head towards him into the shelter of his shoulder, grinding his clenched teeth. Then the cold air quivered, viscous and evil smelling, and the presence departed. They lay, clinging together until the darkness began to break up.
* * * *
“What is a wyvern?” Deborah’s voice trembled. “I mean, what does it look like?”
“Ugly. A great winged serpent,” Jonah’s voice too was unsteady, “two-footed and venomous. It got one of the pups, the filthy vermin! They smell warm blood; they see body heat. Nothing escapes them.” He shook his head to clear the nascent tears and tried a feeble smile. “It’ll be light soon, we should find somewhere better to hide.”
But he didn’t move, just carried on gazing at Deborah’s face. With her finger, she touched away the damp beneath his eyes then kissed the place where it had been. As they got slowly to their feet, Deborah slipped her hand shyly into his.
March 15, 2013
March 14, 2013
The Dark Citadel 2
A second book trailer. They are very short after all. I’d be interested to know which one people prefer. Maybe prefer’s not the right word, they might both be naf.
