Jo Robinson's Blog, page 113

Guest Blogger Day - The Story Reading Ape on Public Lending Libraries

Reblogged from Lucy Pireel #asmsg:

First of all, I'd like to thank Lucy for letting me loose inside her beautiful home (oops, sorry Lucy, that chair was a bit weak, it's poor legs just gave way) and for the lovely snack, sorry – MEAL - she laid on for me – banana cake, apple pie, fruit fritters, banana split ice cream (with cherries and pineapples), banana milkshake and everything – YUM.

Read more… 1,177 more words

Keep the libraries open!

Indie Scribe Magazine September Issue.

Reblogged from roseshadows:

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Hi Everyone,

I'm really pleased to say that the September Issue of Indie has now been published.

With Poet: Paul Chapman. Featured Author; David Rory O'Neill.  Blogging with....Michael Lai and lots more. It's a great read.

You are invited to visit Indie's Facebook page to introduce yourself or to make comments which are welcome if you wish to do so or, you can email me at: indiescribemagazine@gmail.com…

Read more… 13 more words

Here's your latest Indie Scribe just out!

Purist, or Maybe Just a Mule

I need to get into some sort of routine now. Before, I lived so far away from everything and everyone, I could just bang away at my computer for days without taking much notice of anything at all. Now life seems to be happening all over the place. This is most cool – don’t get me wrong – I just think that a list or two would be in order, so that I don’t lose perspective on what the most important thing to be doing is. Writing. I’ve zoomed through about a thousand emails so far, with about four thousand left to go. You have to be careful with zooming through and just deleting too. I almost missed a couple of important ones.

I think that the pucker scribbling can resume in a day or two. First I have to edit a short story I wrote for an anthology. With an editor. A pucker. Real. Live. Flesh and blood. Editor. I’m about halfway done, and finding the process quite intriguing. I’m managing to distance myself a little from the process, so as not to take anything personally, or have an epic tantrum, as you do. So far I’ve managed to avoid being so chuffed at being picked by any publisher at all and signing any sort of contract that’s come my way. And I haven’t succumbed to handing over any of my scribbles to the couple of small presses that have offered to take them off my hands. Slippery slope that. I’ve either run like hell or hid under the bed when anyone offered to edit anything for me also. Now I don’t have the excuse of not having PayPal anymore, I have no reason at all not to have my very own editor.

It really is fascinating to have a friendly someone with a vested interest take an interest in something you’ve written, look at it from a new and professional perspective, and then make suggestions to improve it. I’ll be tweaking and twisting quite a lot for the rest of the day, following this very sweet editor lady’s suggestions, and then I’ll have a big think about whether I’d ever do such a thing again willingly. If I do, it probably won’t be any time soon. Proof-reader – most definitely, I’ll hire one now, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough to have a permanent editor.

I don’t like being constrained to rules. Sometimes I like to “play” with a story, and write it in an unusual way. I write what I love, the way I like to write, and I think that maybe if I started changing everything around according to established and accepted rules, I’d stop loving my stories. Then I probably wouldn’t write anymore at all, if it became a job with rules.

I don’t understand why it’s so much cooler to have your own publisher anyway these days. Unless it’s some huge place that will have your paper books plonked in stores and libraries across the globe, why on earth would you hand over your earnings to someone else when you can do what they do yourself anyway? All for having their name stamped in the frontspiece of your book? Naah. I don’t think so. I like the clean cut way of having total control of everything. Publish what you want, where you want. Charge as much or a little as you like. Pick your own covers, and write the words you like the way you like.

But the meantime – just for today – I’m basking in the glory of having my very own editor. And so I’d better get back to editing, or I might get into trouble too. Ha haaaa! Scary stuff. Then just a little zoom around my dear old Twitterverse. And a cool catch up on lovely blog awards, I think. I hope my friends will have MORE patience with me as I catch up now. You know I will though. Even though I’ve got the added challenge of avoiding “popping out to shops” now. And don’t get me started on the sweets. Temptations. Temptations.

Till next time friends.

News and Deployments

I wrote the post below a couple of days ago while innocently expecting the internet guys to come and connect me to the internet. Well. Seems they decided to have a laugh instead. We ordered it a couple of weeks ago and waited the required seven to ten days, then Wednesday morning we got loads of sms’s from them saying that the installer guys had been deployed. Yes. Deployed. I had a good laugh picturing those techies being “deployed” in their camo outfits, ducking and diving behind bushes to avoid enemy fire. Then, after loads more deployed messages – nothing happened.

We phoned them to see what had happened, and they said that there was a technical problem in our area that had nobbled said deployment. When asked what the technical issue was they said that they weren’t at liberty to divulge such sensitive information, but that redeployment would definitely take place by Friday at the latest. Very cloak and dagger, this internet business. Our new friends have said that the posse deployed could very well have been ambushed by a cool lager or three, thereby causing the technical issue of not being able to see the street numbers. You never know. Anyway. The guy pitched up yesterday and zoomed through so fast that my hair’s still standing on end, and I haven’t got a clue what’s going on. Situation normal really. I’ve got the laptop connected, but I need to get an epic cable before I can hook up my desktop. I really don’t operate well from the laptop, so, grumpy, grumpy, grumpy… Never mind. I’ve really been missing my friends online. It’s really lonely scribbling without the whole writing world with you every day. You get so used to it, it’s a bit like losing a part of you being in the dark for so long. Now to dive in again. Most cool indeed! So, here’s my pre-internet guy deployment news…

Desktop computer finally unpacked and set up. Waiting for the internet guys to come and hook me up to the ol’ world wide web any minute now. The whole “working on the laptop” plan while briefly homeless and unemployed didn’t work out for me at all. There was no time, I couldn’t figure out the pay-as-you-go wi-fi internet thing properly, and the stress levels were just way too high. The one time I did boot it up, I only managed to delete the entire My Documents library. Then I managed to retrieve it and accidently saved it to the My Music library, and of course I couldn’t get it out again, which was worse than deleting it in the first place. Not good for my slight OCD trying to work on something that’s in the wrong spot. So I shut it down before I messed up anything else, and got on with all the other bits of life that had to be seen to.

I never thought I would be so long getting back online. The previous months have been wildly crazy. Luckily the crazy bad turned to crazy good. The last couple of weeks in Zimbabwe were appallingly crap. In retrospect, after seeing how that “election” took place, it’s obvious now that the outcome was a dead cert all along. Planned. Which is why all the threatening, violent bullying, and total disregard of any sort of law, that we and a few others were subjected to, was so easy to get away with by people aligned with those who were so sure to win. At the end of it all, we pretty much walked away from all that we’d built there over the years. By the time we started on the actual trip to South Africa, the sense of urgency to just get the hell out of there was so intense it was all we could focus on. So we left everything behind except what could be squeezed into the car, and the portion of our finances we could lay our hands on. Amazing how easy it is there for institutions to just say “No” when it comes to accessing your own lucre. Anyway. We have no regrets, and I don’t feel the loss of any of it except the animals. Sometimes what appears to be a loss is actually a gain of much more though. And I do feel that I’ve gained more than I’ve lost with this mindbogglingly (new word) speedy transition. Sanity and safety at the very least.

We found brilliant homes for Sprite and the chickens. It still hurts to have had to part with that dog, but the couple who took him over are absolutely in love with him, and the feeling was so obviously mutual that it took the edge off a little. Only a little though. The birds, of course, had to come with us. Nothing would induce me to leave my horde behind. Feathery, squawky, road trip it was. The parrots were really good, considering that it was a five day road trip, with being caged on the back seat of the car during the days, and then being squished into tiny travel lodge rooms at night. Jelly was his usual cool self, checking out the passing scenery, and munching on little hotel soaps in the evenings, but Button complained bitterly, and loudly, every inch of the way. He really hated every minute of it, and got well freaked out towards the end. Trying to catch those two slippery little yellow buggers every morning to put in the cages was like a bad Carry On movie too. They’re all fine now though. Loving zooming around their new house, and crapping on all the new stuff.

We’ve settled nicely in South Africa. Having lived in Zimbabwe for eighteen years, I’m still having it sink in that I’m back home. Safe. In my own country. And slowly realising how badly the culture of fear, that’s been firmly entrenched up there for the last years, affects the way you think and behave. Affects your whole life. Since we crossed the border, we’ve come across friendly, kind, helpful, and generally fantastic people. They probably don’t realise how cool we think they are, because they’re just being normal. Our normal has been very, very different for too long I think. Seeing a policeman here, or a member of the armed forces, instils a sense of safety and comfort. Not fear. Suddenly you feel so relaxed and happy, you’re horrified to find that there’s been a physical tension, for years, in your body and mind, that you were so used to having you didn’t really notice that it was there. You thought it was normal. But you really do notice when it leaves. It’s weird not to be wound up all the time. But… Loving my sunny South Africa! The roads are awesome. So are the shops. My lady friends will be appalled to hear that I’m so sick of shopping I have no intention of going near any sort of shop again for weeks – at least.

We had to buy everything new, from furniture to teaspoons. It started off really cool. No self-respecting shopaholic, such as myself, could not find such a thing anything but awesome. I zoomed around huge malls, with bulging eyeballs and poking out tongue, with a grumbling husband battling to keep up, trying to handle multiple trolleys, and then move furniture around back home till things were in the right spots, for more than a straight week, having a ball. Buying piles of exactly what I wanted was beyond cool. Proper colour coordination going on here, I can tell you! Then, as I limped down an aisle on Saturday, looking for a nice stainless steel colander, I realised that for the first time in my life I really was all shopped out. The colander will have to wait till I get my shopping mojo back. Now, I’ll just be back to hanging around here, over a hot keyboard, where I belong, and poor long-suffering husband can flee to the peace and quiet of his new job every day, without fear of having to move stuff about all the time.

I’ll need to sort out my Amazon and PayPal accounts before I publish African Me now. Woo Hooo – PayPal and Smashwords for me now! And it will be most cool not to have to worry about being arrested for sharing my opinions too, so publishing will happen soon. I must apologise to my friends for not publishing it before I left, as I said I would, but things were really way too scary for me to be able to think overly clearly, and it would have been a wet squib to publish and then just go dark for so many weeks. Now, publishing it will be as publishing any sort of book should be. An absolutely joyful, exciting thing, and not a furtive, frightening procedure, as it would have been if I had. Still. I’m really sorry for the disappearing. I doubt that sort of thing will happen here though. The power stays on all the time. And the internet too apparently. Amazing!

I haven’t had time to sit down till now, let alone give anything much proper thought. I’m still reeling a little too much over what happened to us personally to have figured out my own opinion on what has just happened in Zimbabwe. There’s not a lot in the news. I’m really relieved that the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have announced that they don’t see the election results of the 31st July as free and fair, or I’d be wondering if I’d totally lost the use of my faculties. I don’t understand why the rest of Africa has accepted the election results as legitimate though. I can only assume that the powers that be around the continent have good reasons for accepting the results. Maybe the rumours that he has terminal cancer are true, and he’s being allowed to go out on a high on the merit of his early days as a fighter for the freedom of colonial oppression. Even I thought of him as a hero back then, although in the light of all he’s been up to since coming to power, I really don’t any more at all. Maybe it’s some sort of experiment. A new way to reclaim Africa without having to compensate anyone for anything. Who knows? Something’s definitely dodgy though. My opinion is that this ambush has been planned all along. Without Morgan Tsvangerai, Zimbabwe was finished. He was used to pick it up, and then tossed aside.

I was still there at the time, and if those elections were free and fair, then I’m a monkey’s bum. The weeks leading up to it were unnaturally quiet, true enough. I emphasise unnatural though. I’m guessing now, that there must have been some very busy bees behind closed doors during those weeks. We all stupidly dared to imagine that a “real” honest election would actually be allowed to happen. More fools us. Among other things, over a million voters were turned away on the day for the most ridiculous reasons. Dead people voted. Miracles all around! A pile of marked – marked for the opposition that is – ballot papers were fished out of a bin in a street. Not sure what happened to them at the end of it all. The campaign photos of the president seemed to be around thirty years out of date. The opposition was not allowed an electronic copy of the voters roll. And… And… And… It may have appeared to be outwardly peaceful. But it was NOT fair by any stretch of the imagination.

I’m not a political animal, and talking politics bores me to tears, so I can’t do too much of that. I will say though, that my heart bleeds for Zimbabwe now. A few will be genuinely happy with their ill-gotten gains. But not the majority of people, I don’t think. As we drove down the length of the country when we finally left, I saw no joy at all. Only sadness. The restrained fear of a people resigned to their fate. How can they fight a leader who uses the armed forces and paid thugs against them to get what he wants? Why should they have to anyway? No citizen of any country should have to lay down their life for the right to peace, food, health and democracy. There’s no help for them now though, and nothing for them to do except go with the flow. With the support of the rest of Africa, things might turn out not too terrible now that the economy is out of the toilet. But I personally doubt it. Either way, most Zimbabweans are gentle, friendly people. They’ve had more than their fair share of bloodshed, poverty and death just lately, so they won’t fight. I wouldn’t either.

I’ve been really surprised watching the news lately. Robert Mugabe was inaugurated on Thursday last week. He’s also been elected Deputy Chairperson of SADC at the regional bloc’s summit in Malawi. The United Nations world tourism body has chosen Zimbabwe to lead its Commission for Africa. Tourism? Zimbabwe? Really? They’re planning on building a Disneyworld at Victoria Falls too. The mind just boggles. Bit by bit that election is being legitimised. Kudos! Accolades are flowing in. Congratulations. I just don’t get it. What a farce.

And another bit of news that made me queasy. So far all the news on Zim that I’ve seen lately has made me queasy. In his first public speech after his inauguration, Robert Mugabe showed how not to be a gracious “winner”. If winner he truly was. Here are a few excerpts of this speech, given at a funeral ceremony at the country’s National Heroes Acre, him speaking about his opponent, Morgan Tsvangerai.

“… Working with him required real patience and endurance, because he was an ignoramus who was woefully unaware of his ignorance…”

“… You see. An illiterate person, who is aware that they are ignorant, you can deal with better. You are better off with an ignorant person who is aware. Conscious of his ignorance. Who accepts that he is ignorant. But if you are ignorant of your own ignorance, then it’s a big problem…”

And then, reacting to Morgan Tsvangerai’s (withdrawn) attempt to challenge the results:-

“… I hope our people will never repeat the same mistake, and choose an ignoramus, when you have bright children who went to university. I wonder what you admire in him…”

“…What section reform can you, a lone stray locust, implement? When has the frog aspired to be the crocodile?…”

In a country that HIS actions brought to its knees, to the point where most of HIS people didn’t have the option of an education for a very long while, let alone access to food or medication. How horribly condescending. How incredibly petty and unfair. Gloating. And calling a man a locust brings back memories of people being called cockroaches in Rwanda for me. There’s just no dignity in these words, and no reason to respect the person who utters them. The saddest thing is that it was Morgan Tsvangerai, varsity education notwithstanding, and his MDC party, who picked Zimbabwe up from the pit that it ended up in after the farm invasions, the violence, the killings, the corruption, and the scrabble for personal enrichment by a few. Not to mention the huge amounts of money spent on bribery. “War Veterans”, who must have fought as really strong sperm back in the day, were given land, pensions, tractors, food, and allsorts, to repay their equally brave actions in viciously evicting farmers, and beating the crap out of the opposition. There was a “camp” down the road from where we lived just before the last elections. People were taken in. People came out battered. Broken. Some people didn’t come out at all. And still they lost that election. They clung on though. It should never have been allowed. The only ignorance that anyone displayed has been in trusting those who lost it that time. Morgan Tsvangerai saved thousands from starvation, picked up a broken economy, a broken country, and now the man who broke it in the first place has taken it back, by fair means or foul – foul, to be sure – purely for the further enrichment of himself and his inner circle, and possibly because he believes that this last term in office, and the baffling support of most of Africa, will consolidate his “legacy”, as a respected statesman. Well…

Let’s totally forget Gukurahundi, shall we? His Fifth Brigade’s attempted genocide of the Matabele people. Twenty thousand were killed then on his instruction. Farmers were killed during the farm takeovers. People were killed for belonging to the opposition party. There’s no reason to think that anything’s not possible there now. He does what he wants and God help any who gainsays him. Life seems to have become a cheap thing in Zimbabwe. If a man’s been prepared for such a long time, for so many to be killed, starve to death, or die for lack of medicine, just so he can remain in power, he isn’t going to stop now. And to mock the uneducated seems to me to me the final insult. Break a country to the point where every government school has to close its doors, and education becomes not even an option. Turn a nation into acquiescent, unquestioning, poor peasants, then who will there be to fight you? You can call them all stupid as much as you like too, and all they can do is take it. What a shame that it means nothing that they take it because they fear you, not that they respect you. What a terrible shame.

Anyway. That’s enough of that now. I want to be “normal” for a bit, and reacquaint myself with my forgotten South African culture, live my life in this mellow, peaceful suburb for a while, get used to people who aren’t frightened or frightening. And have a little fun even. After African Me, I’ll be back off to Lapillus, where the scariest things are eight foot tall demons who want to torture you for eternity. A lot less scary place to be than my poor Zimbabwe right now or the people who have control of it. So. I’d better get to work. I’m champing at the bit to get writing again. Books. Books. More books. That’s all I’ll be jabbering on about from now. Well… Probably not, but mostly. It’s fantastic to be back! HI GUYS! I missed you all. Should I try and catch up on the thousands of emails, do you think? I’ll have a go, and spend days getting a proper Twitter fix too. If there’s anything I might miss on my catch up that I shouldn’t, please yell. Back to zooming….

Exciting Day!

Reblogged from roseshadows:

A serious blog today.

This is an exciting day for me, I have just published the first issue of Indie Scribe Magazine which can be found on Facebook, a periodical for all Independent Writers: authors, poets and bloggers.

If you have the time to check it out, that would be great! The more the merrier and if you would like to contribute a review of an Indie's work or a piece of flash fiction, poetry or anything along those lines, I will be pleased to hear from you at:   indiescribemagazine@gmail.com…

Read more… 19 more words

Check out the new Indie Scribe magazine!

Moving Swiftly On

We’ll be moving to less hostile climes pretty soon, so I won’t be able to spend much time on line for the next couple of weeks. I’ve never been so enthusiastic about a move in my life. Bring on the boxes! Much as I’ve loved the wilds, I’m really looking forward to being a townie again, and save the wilds for the weekends. After I’ve caught up with all the cool city stuff that is – may take a while doing that. I’m not sure what this week will bring, but there is a lot going on right now, and lots to be done, but I’m feeling very positive about our decision to head on out.

I’m not shifting any deadlines though. African Me will still be published on the 9th, even though I won’t have much time for marketing till I reach my destination, and there will be a couple of days between when the satellite dish comes down and goes up again. That will be fine though. I’ll just be happy when the book is finally locked and loaded. And even happier to just get back to being a normal scribbler again. Things have been unbelievably crazy here lately, and I’m not generally impressed with people right now at all.

On the move over here, we had a fourteen hour drive with the birds in cages on the back seat, and Sprite in the hatch behind them. None of them liked it, apart from Jelly who thought it was all kind of cool, and sang like a canary most of the way, with Sprite barking at anyone who got within ten metres of the car. This time it will only take a couple of short hours, so it will be much less stressful for them, and less strain on our ears too hopefully.

Right now, I have piles to do, so I’ll be scarce as I said. I’ll try and zoom through everywhere as often as I can though. Funny that. We all complain a little or a lot about the time we need to spend on the internet away from writing, but life wouldn’t be the same for me without my online buddies. Now I’m off to do more packing.

Till next time friends.

Rant

Yep – been MIA again. I’ve seriously considered giving up on the whole idea of writing books, or anything at all this week. My “always look on the bright side” attitude has taken a tumble lately. We moved here a year ago, and from day one we have had rotten things happening. Killer bees, diseases, weird, sponge like people, more horribleness than a really cool life view could make up for a lot of times. But – not being keen on being overly ranty, I’ve tried really hard to justify it all, and just shut up – blog wise. Life. Lessons. Normal.

If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all – my dear old mother used to say. Theoretically a really cool idea, but life being what it is, you’re going to have to be a saint if you claim to have never said anything not so nice. But – good for me! Not said a word so far. This week has been “interesting” in all the wrong kind of ways, and I actually do have quite a lot that I’d really like to say right now. But so far I’ve managed to hold my tongue and not utter not a word. Sorry though – limit reached. I’m pissed off. And as soon as I’ve gathered my thoughts, I will be saying something. A lot. Indeed I will. Not cool letting rotten people get away with attempting rotten deeds, so – you nasty guy who thinks you are above all the laws of this land because of your greatness and awesomeness, oh yes, I will be discussing you, and people like you, so drunk with their own power that they think they can do just what they like. You really suck. Soonish too. Note to you. You picked on the wrong “victim”. Guessing I’m going to out you for being a tool? Oh yes I am.

It’s never been my plan to involve myself in any sort of politics here. Still isn’t. My target has always been racism and the results today of the abuse of the African continent. That abuse is far from over. But I honestly think that all politicians everywhere are the biggest tools on the planet. Can’t stand the posturing buggers. Not a one. Really not partial to politicians. Not many of them set out on their careers with human rights on their agenda, I don’t think. I’ve always got the impression that they’re a bit like wannabe film stars, and that they all think they look really cool in suits and are really keen on the lifestyle – and the sound of their own voices. They earn big money, and live in mansions, and that’s what it seems to be all about. Power and money. Considering the state of the planet, they really haven’t much clue about running things anyway, so their aim really can’t be trying to fix things. This world is well buggered. People are dying of hunger right now. As you read this, some poor, uneducated woman is watching her baby die from lack of food or medicine – right there in her arms. Not cool at all. I don’t think that there has been one tiny part of recorded history where there wasn’t a war going on somewhere or other. Bring on the powerful guys. Yeh. There are arbs all over the place who have shot to fame, done something really cool, garnered the adulation of grateful peoples, and then forgotten all about what they started out to do in the first place, and proceeded to crap right on the heads of those that they set out to help in the first place. Lost your way a bit guys?

Sorry about that. I’ve not lost my motive. To highlight the abuse still going on – and all those crappy people who are doing it – nor have I lost my love for Africa and its unheard voices. I never will. But just lately, finding myself and my family in the way of a “powerful” black man, I’ve personally felt what it’s like to be targeted by someone only concerned with personal gain – squishing all in his path regardless. Yes dude, I have heard that you strongly believe that women should hang around really, really, quietly in the background, looking after your children, in the kitchen preferably, and well out of earshot, but I really don’t give a damn what you think fella. Or what you do. I’m not one of those women. I have every intention of speaking out as loudly as I can – see how weak us wimmen are then – oh not so clever one. At this point it’s not about race or colour – but about the blackness of your heart and spirit – and I really mean black – as in demon black.

I’m not a Zimbabwean, so I haven’t felt it was my place to comment on what’s been going on here – still don’t – apart from using it as a locale for my book. But really guys – you are not gods. Trampling over people for the sake of your bank account sucks. And this hasn’t really got anything to do with politics – just the most outrageous kind of bullying.

We have lately been subjected to all sorts of outrageous treatment. Being a South African citizen, even though I’m rooting for Zimbabweans to have a cool election on the 31st and move on forward to the happy nation you deserve to be, I really never for one second expected to be exposed to any form of threat of actual violence or harm. But in these last few weeks I have been, and I don’t like it at all.

So – pardon for my absence and lack of upbeat blog posts just recently guys. I’ve been trying really hard to maintain my online presence. And failed dismally. Trying to pretend that all is rosy and most cool. But it hasn’t been. Apart from Pestilence having taken up residence here from the day we moved in, I’ve come face to face with the first African person I’ve met in my entire life that I really don’t like at all. No saving graces at all. A really horrible kind of guy. And yes – I really, really, do plan to name you dude – just not today. I’m going to research you first – that’s what we scribblers do – even the female variety who shouldn’t be able to read. And I’m going to lay your soul bare, and all the rotten things that you’ve done out there, for all the world to see.

Right.

Normal fluffy birdy blogs will resume shortly.

Written in the Stars

SETI’s been listening to the universe for years, hoping to detect a signal coming from an intelligent alien civilization. Apart from one unexplained anomaly, so far they’ve been listening in vain. They say that as our technology progresses, they’re quite confident that they’ll pick up something with better or different equipment. That’s if there’s anything out there to pick up at all. Maybe there aren’t thousands of planets buzzing with life out there. Then again, maybe those funky little green guys are blocking the signals. If there really are super advanced civilizations out there, they might not want anyone to see or hear what they’re up to anyway. If you don’t know who’s watching you, you might want to be a little careful with what you share.

If all that gets posted on the internet zooms on through satellites into outer space, just like all the television and radio programmes do, we might have cause for concern if really civilized aliens were to have a squiz or two. If some three-eyed profiler was instructed to submit a report on the human race based on these online things, I wonder what the result would be. I’m guessing that it wouldn’t put Earth on any list of favourite holiday destinations for any decent sort of alien. The way our communications systems work up to this point in time, everything that we’ve sent out so far can’t be retrieved. Not only pictures of fluffy bunnies and chubby kittens are floating around in outer space, but also everything that every troll and evil guy has posted. If at some point aliens were to come around, bearing recordings of just a tiny portion of what we’ve put out there for all the universe to see, I’m guessing the whole planet will mainly suffer toe-curling shame.

There could be races out there much more technologically advanced than we are, but just a whole lot meaner. Here we are making a lot of noise and not at all concerned about anyone reading our interstellar mail, while they could already be getting their recipe books out. We won’t know till we’re floating around in warming water with a couple of nice fresh parsnips, and a bit of parsley. If life evolves in similar ways all over the place, it’s highly unlikely that they’re all going to turn out nicer than we are, and then head on over to show us the way to peace and nirvana, the minute they see our Facebook pages. They could pop us in labs to experiment on, munch our bones, or just simply squish us to turn off all the space racket we’re making.

Although… From an indie point of view, there’s a whole new untapped market out there, and when I click the publish button this post will be flying off to a whole universe of potential new readers. Hhhmmm! Oi! You! Yes – you with the blobby eyeballs! Buy my book! There could be book stealing space-pirating going on already out there. 50 Shades of Grey could be HUGE on Epsilon 52. Better bite my lip.

Till next time friends.

Photo credit: NASA

Introducing Author Stanley Gazemba

Reblogged from Chris The Story Reading Ape's New (to me) Authors Blog:

The following is a transcript from a soundbite which can be heard HERE

Every day, men and women pour out of Nairobi slums in Kenya to become the guards, housekeepers and gardeners at the gated houses of people with money.

Stanley Gazemba is one of them. He's a gardener. He's also a prize-winning novelist — and one of Kenya's young literary lights.

Read more… 846 more words

This is SO inspiring - I'm really looking forward to reading this one!

Cover

Hopefully I’ll get good covers for the Shadow People books with my painting, but I’m losing too much time trying to tweak the picture I started for African Me into something good enough to use for its cover. I’ve only got a few weeks till D-Day, and I still have lots of tweaking to do all over the place. After quite a lot of bad language, and making things that look like this:

I got a tiny grip on how these things work now, and finally managed to make a cover I like.

It’s totally appropriate to the story, and I think it will translate well on the paper book. I hope so anyway. It’s amazing how much you learn as you cruise along the self-publishing road. When I think of my bright-eyed, bushy-tailed self a year ago, zooming around and just “doing stuff”, I really have a good laugh at my cheek. What I thought was really awesome back then, isn’t so much any more. Blush. Never mind. Learning all the time.

Till next time friends.