Clare O'Beara's Blog - Posts Tagged "publishing"

I'm thrilled to have recently released a Young Adult book and hope to have a second one out this autumn too. SHOW JUMPING TEAM is a young adult story featuring horses in Ireland. The second tale takes an Irish girl to stay in Arizona. Watch this space!

FREE READ of my 2014 award-winning crime short story 'London Calling' on the Simon and Schuster website: http://the-dark-pages-blog.blogspot.i...

My review schedule is packed with books ranging from space operas to Christmas romances. I have several books translated into English to read, besides factual looks at the coming global fresh water shortage and fiction from Irish history to steampunk.

Currently on my website you can find reviews of my books, lots of fun stuff for readers and a writer's page. This explains how to go about independently publishing and gives a few tips on matters such as editing and exposition. We've recently added a page for my new releases. There is also a signup for my newsletter and members of the newsletter list will be entered in prize draws for books. See you there!
http://homepage.eircom.net/~silvertrees/

Octocon 2019 went off well, and in keeping with my tradition I’ll now tell you what happened at last year’s Octocon in Dublin. At that time, we were preparing for Worldcon, and the many Worldcon organisers were not involved in Octocon 2018 for that reason, so my offer of help was gladly accepted and I was kept busy. I also went around interviewing several people to make podcasts for my college course on multimedia journalism.

Panel on Dragons

This included me, and two of the other guests, Diane Duane and Peter Morwood, arrived at the very last minute due to public transport.
We had a great time and chatted about how dragons could evolve (I said the wings would be heat radiators from such large beasts and would develop into useful appendages) and history (Beowulf in Europe, water dragons in Asia) and our favourite instances. Anne McCaffrey’s Pern dragons were most favoured, along with Tolkien’s Smaug and Ursula leGuin’s dragons.
I mentioned allegory, saying The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo would have been less impressive as the girl with the Chihuahua tattoo. A question mentioned Robin McKinley’s books about Dragonhaven, which I was delighted to discuss. I also raised The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly – Jurassic Park with dragons in China. Diane was struck by the possibilities and asked why this hadn’t been filmed yet.

Book Launch: Sean Williams and Garth Nix, for their latest collaboration, Let Sleeping Dragons Lie, and the entertainment was high as they held sword fights with mock swords during a reading / re-enactment.

I bought the first in the series, Have Sword Will Travel for my nephew and niece, and got it autographed. The authors told us that they get on well but in a collaboration there needs to be a veto person selected.

Panel on Comics and Graphic Art

Michael Carroll, famous for his Judge Dredd work, told us that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. He said if research is measured in units, 100 units are needed and 2 or 3 appear in the story.
Colleen Doran, graphic artist, warned us not to give artists an excuse to go on the internet. Give enough detailed specs that she can work, or three hours later nothing is done. Put a picture in the document file of her script and let her work from that. She uses an app to show her what she does in time stages on her computer and locks selected sites. This makes her twice as productive.
C.E. Murphy, author, said it was so amazing to have someone turn her works into pictures. Such a different process to writing novels. Writing for a comic is collaborative and continually exciting, fast. Not as isolating as novel writing.

M - there are restrictions when scripting for someone else’s world like Judge Dredd. But you only rise by climbing. Some of his best work came from these series.
CD - she does not want to draw simple, easy art. She wants challenges. Presented with an eight page script which was very complex, she had to dissect it with highlighter – the writer had gone into sounds and smells and she had to animate it and draw in the style of another artist.
Comics are a separate medium to graphic novels.
Colleen admires Watchman, saying she can read the pages backward and forward. She once drew a page that could be read forward, backward, in a circle and across diagonals. Nobody got it. Pictures are narrative, not illustrations. There is a different way to read them. In the 1960s comics, a caption described the image. Today, it is all deconstructed. She recalled a useful caption in Avengers – “Later, after they escaped...” the caption plastered over holes in the plot.

Panel on Being Human

Juliet E. McKenna, Garth Nix, Sean Williams, Ruth Frances Long and Karina Steffans.
Juliet made a conscious choice to exclude non-human races from her fantasy. Just wizards and dragons. Is there a desire to be human or just accepted by humans among races in SF&F? Why is human best? She thinks it’s easier for writers than a character who wants to be the best American citizen or British Empire citizen. Superheroes often are not humans, who want to be accepted. Those who are adopted or mutated, made into a robot etc. are human.
Garth said dogs may have characters that humans value, like loyalty. Sean said you can be human but bad, or inhuman but good.
J – creatures may live a different lifespan to us. Aliens, cyborgs etc. have their own frame of reference.
S - they are heroes of their own stories. Nonhuman characters are a very valuable tool for writers.
J - the bicycle was introduced in the 1880s and killed the village idiot. The rural marriage circle widened because people could now travel 21 miles instead of 7 miles to seek a wife. Thus, people were marrying people from further away. This was an unintended consequence of technology.
Question - Cyberpunk – can your brain be hacked?
S - bots and fake news are the same thing.
R - when printing arrived governments and churches tried to control it and control translations.
J - medical tech and genome studies show tech starts at the top and trickles down.
K – racism exists when there is just one race, humans. If there are altered races, it could be worse.
G – “those other people are not human” = institutional racism. Often an excuse for a power grab in history.
S – looked up the definition of human – walks on two feet, has opposable thumbs – so is anyone with less than this not human?

J - The Ship Who Sang.
G – Asimov’s robots. Is sentient a better term?
J - Social media equals bread and circuses. It’s distracting from serious threats to democracy.
G - Corporations get human status rights but humans do not get corporation rights.
K – she’s living in Ireland 22 years, passport 10 years ago, nobody believes she is Irish.
Question – what is the new class of better than human? After royalty, etc of the past.
G – Billionaires.
J - the Little Mermaid had to mutilate herself for acceptance as a human. She wants to rewrite stories in a positive way.

Colleen Doran, Guest of Honour, Masterclass

And screen viewing of her work Trollbridge.
Neil Gaiman wrote Good Omens and he would fax pages of work in progress to his pals. Neil wanted to have Trollbridge adapted in 1998. This was not her preferred work by him. Thus she did not look into the mythology behind the Norwegian troll tales. She sat down to adapt without realising what Three Billy Goats Gruff is about. The goats arrive in order of size, smallest first, and Gaiman’s book had one person, Jack, at three ages.

Twenty years later she was asked to do a GN version. The twelve pages would expand to 64 pages. Now she is more mature than in her 20s and Gaiman was older too, giving new perspectives.
She doesn’t like her work to look like digital art. Handmade paper can be used as a background, with the image drawing pasted over it. Oil emulsion and silver paper, with final colours added on a separate layer.
She added to be careful about your jobs. She took one to make a GN of an Anne Rice book – the publisher needed a page a day. She started great but that didn’t continue. People remember your bad work. She didn’t get asked to do a GN again for 20 years. Be sure you only take work you love and that will make you look good.

Story to Script. Mood, pacing, characterisation, symbolism, subtext, subversion.
Mood - colour or the lack can show mood.
Pacing – rural time is slower, people walk a long time and distance between adventures.
Characterisation – body language, clothes, motions, facial expressions. Embellishment, suggesting a fairyland for instance.
Symbolism – the child has a yellow t-shirt, the young teen a black and yellow striped t-shirt, the older teen a black shirt. No capping stones on the bridge to show danger, no protection.
Subtext – subtextual abuse of a child.
Subversion – evokes a children’s book but it is Jack’s choose your own adventure, a more mature story. The editor suggested a final page of a lonely troll. Colleen was tired and had not got an ending she liked, but the editor’s suggestion worked.
She took a photo of the side of her house and Photoshopped brickwork, which saved her from many hours of drawing bricks. In some cases, a page took longer in PS than it would by hand, due to layers of transparency and brush effects. Not practical for comics as they can’t pay someone to spend two days on one page.
Pagination – got to do this as a cartoonist for a comic. The big reveal needs to be on the left page as you just turn the page. Comics may have ads. They fall on the same page in each book, so put a big reveal on the left page after a right page ad. This affects pacing.
A block of thumbnails is good to show the art. She can work on her strengths first and then whatever is left.
She needs to draw the important characters’ faces first. In the past, artists drew in metal. Silver, copper, lead, wire in a stylus. Metal on treated paper, trace corrodes, tiny strokes.

Panel on the Monster’s point of view (POV)

Sarah Maria Griffin – in a retold Frankenstein, a woman makes a partner, but she is the monster. She’s a teenage girl and people find it hard to relate to her, but he is quite nice as a programmed robot.
Jan Siegel – the writer’s journey needs to make the reader see the monster’s lair.
Peadar ÓGuilín – he never goes to the monster’s POV but grew up in Donegal where nationalists got the raw end of the stick for generations. The Sidhe (the Fae) in his book The Call experienced what the Irish did. Many generations later the Sidhe try to be revenged upon Irish children. This is like the POV of Texas Comanches versus white settlers. Colonialism is brutal.
Jan – sins of ancestors are visited on descendants, when everyone needs to move on.
Michael Carroll – favourite monster is Jekyll and Hyde. The author wrote it in three days, but his wife destroyed the manuscript, so he wrote it again.
S - We see evil queens in Disney. Feminine rage and female revenge. Poison is used. As a child this led her to fear older, superior women.
J – a school play cast her as the evil queen in Snow White and she was pleased. There is a glamour turning to ugly women trope (the Shrek type) but no glamour to ugly men. Often elegant, sexy, evil women are shown. “What scares you is not differences but similarities,” Robert Bloch. Also, in Scooby Doo, the monsters turn out to be human.

Panel on Fighting

Peter Morwood said for swordfighting he enjoys The Three Musketeers.
Juliet McKenna said 50% of the fight is not getting hit. She is in an Aikido club. A policeman had a few weeks of training there and it helped him in a riot.
Gerry McEvoy – films show a lot of circling and posturing.
J – inflict nerve pain rather than try to do physical damage. Fiction is entertainment, so go for light realism. Don’t use all the technical terms you researched, in the story. Watch it on YouTube and describe it in your own words. In Aikido the better someone is, the less there is to see. She has taught brown and black belts and has been doing Aikido for 35 years.
Oisin McGann – film choreography has got very good, the actors no longer telegraph punches. Small moves.
J - readers have a low tolerance for pages of cut, thrust, parry, that’s repetitive.
O - use props from the environment to vary the action.

J - nobody is holding a sword correctly, does nobody teach them?
G - Female fighters are terrifying. They tend to go for a decisive move.
J – women training don’t have to unlearn being strong. Her husband is 6ft and a black belt in Judo and Aikido, but women make progress quicker. They use the strength of hips. Men tend to use upper body strength. The longer the arm, the more leverage.
O – a boxer has the advantage for the first few years, then the martial artist’s technique wins as they have more options, like hip throws.
J – researches in Royal Armouries at Leeds.
P – sports have been developed to be safe.

Guest of Honour chat with Colleen Doran

She posts on social media, not about politics but about women’s rights. She said on social media it’s important to block trolls, don’t just mute them. They have thirty sockpuppet accounts and will just move on to the next target.
She reads authors’ blogs, and if she doesn’t enjoy the content, why would she buy their books?
A woman constantly hears “You must have slept your way to the top,” but a man doesn’t.
She said online abuse is very serious in America. If she says representing gay people in comics is okay, someone turns it into a political statement. She once worked for a black-centred comic imprint and what was said about them was foul. Women are getting called liars even for backing up what other women are saying.
Colleen grew up believing that what you did would determine your fate. But she saw no matter how talented or hardworking some people were, other people would still hate or put them down. An artist was called a token minority hire by racists. There is no level of talent that can protect you from other people’s hate.
Now, a lot of guys are getting trouble – which women got all along. Social media brings horrible stuff. All women creators get this hatred – some deny it but will admit in private messaging, because they know if they admit in public, they will get more. She puts nothing personal on her pages, as others tried to dox her. Some women use a non-gendered username to avoid the trolls.
A middle aged man got fixated on her when she was a teen, and stalked her for thirty years. He would get other people to follow her and hit her on the head. He worked in a comics house in the ‘bullpen’ and sent impressionable young geeks. Now there are laws against stalking. She called the police and security to him two years ago at a public event and he was dragged away.

Panel on Book Publishing

Juliet McKenna – the mid list writer is dead. Writers can now cut out the middleman. There is still a significant market for paper. Producing one book a year is not enough to make a living. Two or more, often under other names. No backlists are carried anymore. Writers all want the rights to their e-books. As a writer you are a small business. You can still make a living, but in a different way to 10 – 15 years ago. Small press gets a prize winner, and big London firms want to move in on it. Small houses are publicising by social media and word of mouth.
Claire Hennessey – when reviewing go into detail about what you did not like, to explain which reader would enjoy it.
Edmond Barrett – you need momentum. Need books regularly. He left a couple of years between books and the sales did not pick up again.
J – really prolific authors will be published from two houses.
CH – frequency of publication may be decided by the publisher not the author.

Closing Ceremony

Thanks went to the Guests of Honour Pat Cadigan and Colleen Doran. Thanks to John Vaughan for running the Golden Blasters. Dave Lally announced the winner of the best of winners of this short film contest; Einstein-Rosen. As I had seen this during the 2017 Octocon, I didn’t mind having missed the 2018 Golden Blasters; I was staffing a table in the Dealer Room for any author who wished to have their books sold at the Con. Thanks to main organiser Sakura.
The announcement was made that 2019 would see a smaller Octocon, as a Worldcon was too large and expensive for every regular Con attendee, and next year would be a community event.

Later I made two podcasts from my interviews with Dr Edmund Schluessel, Peadar ÓGuilín, Eris Byrne, Sakura, Eileen Gormley, C.E. Murphy and Liz Bourke. Find them on my website.

I’m sure you’ll agree that Octocon 2018 was a fantastic and informative occasion, and that’s only a flavour of the panels I attended; there were many more events of other sorts including a Doctor Who panel and creative workshops, masquerade and film events.

This month I am making The Prisoner In The Tower: Short Story & Big Cat Bones free. Download it 9th – 12th November. This is a short story followed by an article on lynx and lion in the British Isles; we now have lynx, bear and wolves in a wildlife park in Donegal. The three bears were rescued from terrible conditions.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prisoner-Tow...

https://amazon.com/Prisoner-Tower-Sho...

Any reader not in UK or US should use the Amazon.com link and the site will then offer to take them to their local store. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...
Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie
for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. I blog here about disability access and places to visit. You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.

That was a summer break like no other as the coronavirus affected everyone’s lives. I wrote. I photographed, edited and published. I turned out four books. Some authors like blog tours, publicity launches and more, or the standard book launches we all love to attend. I just wrote another book. We wanted to travel either to Britain or a nice location in Ireland. Instead, we stayed at home, I wrote until 10.30pm most nights, and my talented husband made my book covers.
Here is my fourth book this year, already selling in multiple countries. A Dog For Lockdown, second in the Irish Lockdown YA series which began with A Pony For Quarantine. Coronavirus, cyber-bullying and canine care feature in this tale about a 13 year old boy in Ireland.

Find it here:
https://amazon.com/Dog-Lockdown-Irish...

College is starting next week. My classmates of last year have graduated, and I’m proud of them, all great young people with a bright future… provided the post-Covid environment leaves them work. Because I had a course change from part-time to full-time two years ago (a long time, looked at today) I was asked last year if I would take eleven modules – nine journalism, two state-required employability – to complete my
course, in one year. I said no. Therefore I am taking the last few modules this year. This was the only solution, because I could not possibly have fitted in all that work and got good results. I am trepidatious, because now my friends are absent, I’m the only journalism student, the buildings and library won’t be available most of the time, and I’ll take online classes. I’ll complete my journalism thesis modules without being able to travel, take in conferences like COP26, or interview people easily.

Well, it will still be fun. The classes will still be good classes and I’ll be learning. My new classmates will be great young people with bright futures. The library will lend e-books and periodicals. I’ll presumably be in college some of the time, the schedule still being finalised, and on those occasions I’ll resume my wary acquaintance with the Apple Macintosh computers in the media lab to run Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Audacity (or Pro Tools if I have no option), Indesign and the rest.

My spare time includes being a Peer Mentor which means I can be a steadying influence for younger students, and pass on some of the knowledge of how to navigate college that I’ve gained, mainly over Zoom.


The outgoing President of the Journalism Society asked me to fill that position, and while trips to the RTE studios may not be possible, we will see how many activities we can pack into the year. How many stories and interviews we can find. How much fun we can have.
Because it will still be fun.

Follow my published articles on my JournoPortfolio page – a site I highly recommend. Most recently I had a journalism article, on a surprising result from a public train ticket machine, published on The Register.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

My paperback of A Pony For Quarantine gained a delighted reaction from a young person and her family recently. All my books are in the Kindle Unlimited programme too. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie

for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. I blog here about disability access including my Top Ten places to visit. You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.

I have submitted my thesis and final assignments. Life is suddenly different. I don’t have exams to invigilate as in previous years; the computers have taken my job. Who would have imagined this would occur so swiftly and entirely?
Students now sit at home and complete the exam in the required time, then upload. Some may be monitored via webcam to check they don’t leave the room or get assistance, but some exams will be open-book, and of course copy-pasting is still not allowed and will be uncovered by plagiarism-checking software. I advised some of the younger students that when they graduate, whatever job they do, try to look for a job the computers can’t take.

Lucky me, no exam was to darken my door this year. My thesis project is a multimedia website. Author and environmentalist Ryan Mizzen kindly responded to my Goodreads mail and provided an interview on the offshore windfarm industry, and I surprised everyone, myself included, by making this into a short film, then a podcast version.
Ryan gave permission for the film to be released on YouTube so watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-Jr...

The NGO Brooke, which helps horses, donkeys and mules and their owners in developing nations, also provided me with great assistance through footage and photos, and an interview with Megan Sheraton, their Media Officer.

Aside from this, I visited a Virtual Reality planning consultation, covered a United Nations conference and an African conference, investigated Dublin’s rubbish, looked at coal mines and brick kilns in South Asia,
photographed wonderful dogs, and read science papers about how relaxing outdoors is beneficial for us during the pandemic.


The website topics are:
The Dublin Array proposed windfarm;
Sea of Solutions the UNEP Conference;
Working horses and donkeys in developing nations;
And finally, a look at people relaxing in the park.

Website: https://clareobeara.wixsite.com/my-site

I also had to write a reflective essay, which might give future generations a good laugh. I started by quoting a Tom Stoppard play, Travesties, in which James Joyce is fictionally asked, “What did you do in the Great War?”
Joyce replies, “I wrote Ulysses. What did you do?”

The worst effects of lockdown – boredom, confinement, illness – have chiefly not affected me, due to being in college. Yes, this had its difficulties, chiefly technological ones. But we made it through the year. I took employment classes with a group of film and media students, some of whom assumed I would be writing a formal thesis while they were planning to make a group film. I enlightened them about my chosen multimedia journalism project option. But I could at any stage have written a thesis.

I found that of the previous students on my course, nobody else had created a website. The most popular choice was the thesis; I expect this was because the writing was easiest to fit in around third-year’s learning and assignments. Next choice was a series of five written articles, and third most popular was a podcast. One final-year class collaborated on a class magazine, which won an award.

I have been recalling a series I watched on TV as a child, called The First Years. This was based on The Paper Chase about a set of new students in Harvard law school. (We didn’t have all the options for young viewers now available, so the whole family watched all evening’s entertainment.)
When the students worked together, they helped one another and provided moral support and advice as well as practical essay-requirement help. This series seems to have been forgotten and replaced by the more recent film Legally Blonde. But I found a YouTube film in which an actual American law professor views and comments on the original. I don’t remember everyone’s hair being so long. But I do recall Prof. Kingsfield.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SEZD...

Thanks to my husband for his support and good cooking. Thanks to all at Dublin Business School, especially my lecturers, the librarians and the friendly Student Services students who kept us all entertained and supported.
During the Student Awards ceremony, hosted online, my cat won Zoom Pet of the Year Award. Here she is on YouTube making a Zoom call.

https://youtu.be/A6R4fXoZnGI

I was honoured to be nominated in several categories, either as a Peer Mentor or Volunteer, or for being part of a committee running events and producing blogs. Sustainability Society won Most Improved Society of The Year, and I was awarded the title of Volunteer of The Year.
This may be due to my blog editing, in which I gave many students their first published article to put on their CV; but it could also be because I kept showing up on Zoom calls and bringing my cat. Students like cats in meetings.

This month I am making a book free for the first time: May 13 – 16, grab a download of Dogs of Every Day: New Edition. This is turn-of-20th-century poetry and art republished by me with my own updated information and photography – all concerning British and Irish dog breeds and the countryside. Enjoy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08CJG12SP

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CJG12SP

Anyone not in the UK or US stores should click the US link and they will be brought to Amazon.com which will offer to take them to their nearest store. All my books are in the Kindle Unlimited programme. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.

Follow my published articles on Inside DBS, Medium or my JournoPortfolio page – a site I highly recommend. I recently wrote up an article about how to cover an international conference over Zoom.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie

for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. We have created a new page for Young Adult readers. This contains plenty of horses and dogs! You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.

Seems like a week ago that I wrote my blog for April. While I’ve been busy, the waiting for results is tough. My work has all been graded and results are ready to release, according to the college site. But I’m still waiting. I also have the honour of being placed on four shortlists so far.
The 2021 National Student Media Awards
EPA Award for Journalism Relating to the Environment
Clare O’Beara – DBS
People’s Choice Award
Clare O’Beara from DBS with DBS Journalism Society blog.
Blog / Vlog of the Year
Clare O’Beara – DBS
Feature Writer – News and Current Affairs
Clare O’Beara, DBS
https://www.oxygen.ie/smedias-2021-no...

https://www.oxygen.ie/shortlist-annou...

The awards will be announced on June 2nd, so between the two sets of results, it’s quite nerve-wracking for us students right now! I am certain everyone on the shortlists has completed a fantastic project or created an excellent blog, and whoever wins a prize will deserve it.

If I had known earlier in the year that the SMedias included prizes for road safety writing, of course I would have held a contest for that in my Journalism Society blog, to get people ready with entries they could submit. As it was, I held a contest for fire safety awareness. And the SMedias don’t have a class for that one.

The blog mentioned above, Inside DBS, is not just my content, it includes all the Journalism Society and everyone else we interviewed, or whom I persuaded to send in a piece. This really reflects the whole college and the activities and aspirations of the students. So I am hopeful. I’m the editor, and I submitted the entry, and that’s why my name appears. Wish us luck.

Since I’ve had some time available I have been doing decluttering of various sorts, including online. I’m recycling, I’m gardening a bit, I got my van through the mandatory vehicle test with flying colours – well, she was barely on the road all last year. All tasks I needed to clear up – and I got a haircut yesterday, the last time I’ll get a student discount for a while.
I hadn’t had a haircut since the salons were briefly allowed to open last December. Having a head of hair made me very warm, so now I’m sleek again.
Ready for summer! Enjoy your summer and read great books.


I’m making a book free this month from June 11 – 13.
Murder At Kildare Mensa will get you out and about in Ireland over summer, with racehorses, stud farms and ill deeds. Solve the mystery with Cara Cassidy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E79D9K8
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E79D9K8

Anyone not in the UK or US stores should click the US link and they will be brought to Amazon.com which will offer to take them to their nearest store.
All my books are in the Kindle Unlimited programme. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.

Follow my published articles on Inside DBS, Medium or my JournoPortfolio page – a site I highly recommend. I recently wrote up an article about how to cover an international conference over Zoom.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie
for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. We have created a new page for Young Adult readers. This contains plenty of horses and dogs! You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.

I met with the friends who are working towards publishing a book. They’re about ready to upload to make a Kindle version, but didn’t know you don’t upload a chapter at a time, and didn’t know how to put a title on a cover image file. That kind of issue. Luckily, due to being a student among young students in recent years, I know how to give tech instructions simply, even when I’ve never used an iPad or the particular program in front of me. When you have independently published a book once, the next time is easy; but I remember being quite nervous the first time I uploaded my work to Amazon and filled out all the electronic forms. That was over a decade ago, and I wouldn’t want to publish any other way.

There are legal issues too, about library accession rights, tax requirements and ISBN registration, which I’m guiding my friends through ahead of time. One of the ways I helped them establish copyright protection involves taking a Goodreads author page. The Amazon bot now imports a book automatically to Goodreads, and can accidentally place a title with a different author who has a similar name. By claiming the author page, the real author can straighten out any misplaced tomes.

We have a new Bank Holiday for St. Brigid, but the weather was so poor I doubt most people went anywhere. Last year I enjoyed the Lunar New Year festival in the city centre, but again, the weather really didn’t permit setting out this time. The Year of the Wooden Dragon got off to a blustery start. However, I have plenty of fun lined up for March, when the weather should improve.

Two goldfinches came to the bird feeder in my garden. The two collared doves who also showed up, are not able to cling to the wire mesh, so scouted for seeds falling to the ground. I scattered some seeds for them to pick, and they’ve been back a few times. I report the birds I see to the Birdwatch Ireland garden birds count each year.

I have been reading with great delight and most of my reviews are placed on Fresh Fiction. When I get time, I add a different review on Goodreads.

This month I am making an Irish novel free, ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, so download Murder At Irish Mensa and enjoy with your favourite Irish themed food and drink, 15th – 19th March.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E5JMQP4

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E5JMQP4

If you need another store’s link, ask below in the comments box. If you enjoy a book, please consider leaving a rating or review to help other readers.

You can follow me on Linked In to see some of my photography. Catch up with my news, events and Young Adult Page on my website. You can also sign up for my seasonal newsletter. I have a page devoted to helping writers publish independently.
www.clareobeara.ie

The weather has not been great this year in Ireland, but we’ve made the most of the fine days. One Sunday we had a sunny day so we visited Malahide Castle and enjoyed lunch and a stroll. A local art group was exhibiting.


I was invited some weeks ago, to become joint owner of the Science Fiction readers, writers, collectors and artists, Group on Linked In, and that has now got under way. My connection Wilke Ebeling, Owner of the Group, kindly invited me to assist him. I shall find out my duties in due course, but straight away I got to put a masthead image of Curiosity the Mars Rover, on the Group.


I attended a Dublin Book Festival event, which was the launch of a book and talk about The Parks and Gardens of Dublin by Christy Boylan. This was held at Farmleigh House, in the Phoenix Park, coinciding with a plant sale and craft fair.


I met my writing friends for coffee and proofread their book, with the author beside me to ask him about detail. They are now ready to publish and I hope that will have happened by next month’s blog.


I recently filled out a poll on the reasons why I exercise. One reason is for my work with trees. The poll left out a motivation for exercise, namely that walking is better for the environment than driving and saves money as well! If I am not spending on fuel I have that money for another purpose, such as nicer food, savings or a holiday. Or books. Short trips use more fuel as the vehicle engine is most efficient when it is warm. So walk to the shops, the glass bank, the library, the bank, the post office, and combine a few purposes - make a run in the car for a major shop less often.


Getting 20 - 40 minutes of exercise twice a week outdoors is the best thing you can do for your health. This forces oxygen to every part of the body and improves circulation, it improves balance, judgement and memory. If you are carrying something you are also strengthening bone and muscle. Think of your posture while walking, and look around, all these factors help your mental attitude. The location is weather dependent, of course.

If you need a stick, crutch or walker, carry a small backpack for anything you will need or for shopping. This makes it much easier to open doors.

A fitness watch will record your steps and you can see how they change over the month. These watches do not have to be very dear or complicated, but the problem with the cheaper ones is that the straps break. So you might get a cheap one to get used to the idea, then next year spend more on a watch with better longevity. They work best when paired with a smartphone.

This month I am making Dogs Of Every Day free. Download 21 – 24 September.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08CJG12SP

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CJG12SP

If you need another Amazon store’s link, ask below in the comments box. If you enjoy a book, please consider leaving a rating or review to help other readers.

You can follow me on Linked In to see some of my photography. Catch up with my news, events and Young Adult Page on my website. You can also sign up for my seasonal newsletter. I have a page devoted to helping writers publish independently.
www.clareobeara.ie

The Daily Mail which is based in London, bought one of my photos of the Tube and used it in a story about money spent on transport. Photojournalism is such a useful skill for me, as an article like this one does not need a photo taken yesterday. The portfolio of images I’ve been building this and last year is paying off. My photos of the Dail, the Irish Parliament building, are particularly useful. While I enjoy creating the art, it’s also great to fill a genuine need.

I did the work involved in taxing my new van, which could not be done on line as it was my first time taxing this vehicle. Then I was waiting for the disc in the post, which did arrive. The van passed the safety test with flying colours, of course.

I was invited to an art group coffee morning in The Bell Building, Darndale, a civic centre I hadn’t visited previously. This turned out to be one of the biggest art gallery spaces in Ireland, and most works are by local artists. The manager told us that the childcare unit which is part of the complex, is the biggest single childcare location in the world. Everyone was friendly and we had some great chats. Something as simple as a coffee in a new location is good for us, exercising the brain and building new layers of memories. Maps are stored in the hippocampus and my personal map has been expanded. I also got to talk to a happy ginger and white cat as I was leaving.

Decluttering. Recycled a computer, a box of pens that didn’t work, and other bits and pieces. This made space for me to move things around and clear out a drawer.

I completed proofreading my friends’ book and getting it ready for Kindle. Amazon decided that someone trying to access an account that hadn’t been used in a few years was suspicious, so it locked my friend’s account. I had been telling him to use it, but he’s 80 and couldn’t recall the last time he’d needed anything from Amazon. Then because he could not sign in, he could not access the help department. We had to get in touch with Amazon and ask them to communicate with him. Anyway, it’s delayed the publishing.

Amazon did not send anything to my senior friend to help with his blocked account, so my husband used his own account to get live chat and asked them for a phone number my friend could ring. I sat in my friend’s kitchen with him, ringing the number repeatedly, never answered. Eventually I worked out a plan of action with him and we wrote down the steps and passwords he would need.

We set up a new Gmail account, to be used only for books, and linked it to his existing one. Then we used the new mail to open a new Amazon account, after I had gone through clearing the browser history and deleting all possible Amazon cookies. With the new account, he was able to download a Kindle app and a free Kindle book. Then we set him up as a Kindle author and got started on forms. Some he will have to fill out with his wife as I don’t want to know about banking details. By then it was pretty late so we left it for another day.

My husband and I are volunteering to help senior men use computers – since I am doing it anyway, why not give a few more hours a week. Age Action are running this scheme and are glad of volunteers, so we will start in October. They sent training material, which I found helpful.



I’m volunteering with work at Octocon, which is the national SF & F convention, in the city centre in early October. To celebrate, I’m making an SF book free. Download Dining Out With The Ice Giants from Kindle 17 – 20 October.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MW8IQXG

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MW8IQXG

If you need another Amazon store’s link, ask below in the comments box. If you enjoy a book, please consider leaving a rating or review to help other readers.

You can follow me on Linked In to see some of my photography. Catch up with my news, events and Young Adult Page on my website. You can also sign up for my seasonal newsletter. I have a page devoted to helping writers publish independently.
www.clareobeara.ie