Clare O'Beara's Blog, page 5

May – Thinking local, thinking global

Summer has arrived and I am awaiting the final results of my Data Visualisation course. By contrast with pre-Pandemic years, I have not been out working on trees very often. I’m walking to shop, walking to the library which has re-opened after refurbishment.


While writing another YA book, I’ve been preparing a paperback version of A Dog For Lockdown. The plan is to release a series of three Irish Lockdown paperbacks, because A Pony For Quarantine and the 2014 book Show Jumping Team are the most popular paperbacks I produce. I sold many around Christmas, presumably as gifts.

All my books are available on Amazon Kindle, and that is where most of my sales / page reads are made. While some people see Amazon buying as detracting from local businesses, I can safely say that my books would never have made it into Irish bookstores at the rate publishers were paying attention to me. Amazon sends me money each month, and I spend that locally. I spend most of it within walking distance of my home. Many independent authors would say the same. I do not buy palm oil products, nor soft drinks in plastic bottles. Spending locally, ideally on locally produced goods, is one of the ways I help to rebalance the world.

I was invited to the UN premiere of the short film Plastik. Here is the YouTube link; the film is less than three minutes long and shows a child seeing the world differently through a plastic bottle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fua7E...


Some of the environmental books I’ve been reading lately include Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock, which is a near future SF, strongly influenced (I feel) by Kim Stanley Robinson. Sea Turtles to Sidewinders provided superlative photos of on-ground wildlife and much info on finding, handling or not handling these creatures (mostly the latter). Vultures of the World didn’t have photos in my review copy, but provided excellent information. A Clouded Leopard In The Middle Of The Road studies purpose-built road crossings for wildlife. This is a must-read for ecologists and surveyors, among others.


Finally, an inspiring horsey book is Mini Horse, Mighty Hope. This memoir explains how a non-profit called Gentle Carousel was established, and works to bring mini-horses to provide cheerful company to those who need it. If you don’t think this is necessary, just imagine an elderly lady in a care home, who used to be a horse rider, seeing a tiny, beautiful, snow-white horse arrive at her bedside.

This month I am making Murder At Irish Mensa free, June 16 – 19.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992638682
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992638682

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

April – National Journalism Award

Category, Journalism Relating To Health.
Ireland's National Student Media Awards.
Judge, Paul Cullen, Health Editor of The Irish Times.
Winner, Clare O'Beara.

The awards evening was held at the Aviva Stadium, Lansdowne Road, Dublin, on 28th April. As I had submitted an article of photojournalism, I was thrilled with the nomination, but had not expected to win. The work was carried out and published while I was a full-time student at DBS. I’m delighted that this SMedias win reflects so well both on DBS and my current college, IADT. I gained a beautiful Tipperary Crystal trophy. I introduced it to the similar trophy I won last year for Blog/ Vlog of The Year, and they are getting on famously.

https://express.adobe.com/page/6UFGHp...

My award-winning article: And Finally - Relaxing In The Park.

Speaking of IADT, my course there has been on line so I was thrilled to visit in person. The occasion was a morning coffee to celebrate the Marchathon event. The folks who had walked most, staff and students, were awarded prizes. Mainly these people had been attending in person, which guaranteed them a walk on the days when I looked out at the rain and decided to stay indoors.
That’s okay, I was participating to participate and feel part of college life. We discussed the Camino among other famous trails.

I noticed that the coffee cups were compostable, and a separate bin was provided for compostable materials. I spent the rest of the morning walking around the campus, which, being suburban, includes lawns, horse chestnut trees, a former church and big house, and an old walled orchard with blossoming apple trees. Indoors I found the library, and departments for screen printing, photography, psychology, and electronics workshop, among many others. Then I had lunch in the canteen and found that the soup bowls and cutlery were all compostable too. I’m proud to be part of such a green campus.


I also attended a Masterclass on marketing for entrepreneurs, held online by the PR Training Academy run by Ellen Gunning. This talk was delivered by Iris Kavanagh who owns a firm called PennyPop, a marketing agency.
I really appreciate that these knowledgeable people give their time to help others. While I do not use some of the channels mentioned, on data privacy grounds, I do use others, such as LinkedIn and my own website.



During April I also had the honour to be interviewed by journalist Thomas Lyster. Twice in fact. We stayed on the side of caution and met in the fresh air of city parks.
The first time I spoke about one of my Irish Lockdown books, A Pony For Quarantine, in St. Stephen’s Green. The second time, I sat in Merrion Square opposite Leinster House (our Parliament building) and spoke about the need to reduce Ireland’s dependence on oil and gas, and some of the issues relating to climate change.

That’s been a busy April, the time has flown. I’ve enjoyed photographing the environment, from blossoms to oak leaves, from ducklings to compostable coffee cups.
Recently I read American Coming Home to Seashell Harbor and Australian Slow Road to Love, and I’m mostly through non-fiction Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go, and social history Scottish fiction This Side of Heaven.


As you can gather, I have not been in the mood for thrillers. They tend to demand more focus and they don’t like being put down after each chapter.
I do, however, have some juicy thrillers stored up for later this year.

This month I am making The Prisoner In The Tower free, so grab it May 6 – 9. This is a short story about a boy who works in the Tower of London.



https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NMWRM54
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NMWRM54

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

March – Graduation time and Spring flowers

This March I finally got to attend the postponed graduation ceremony for my class. The college had delayed in the hope of putting on a physical graduation as opposed to the on-line ones. The sense of occasion was wonderful; and we all felt grand and excited as we arrived in smart clothes and collected our formal robes.
My husband came to support and celebrate with me, while good wishes had already arrived from more than one continent. I was delighted to see some of the lively folks from Student Services and some of the admin and lecturing staff. The venue was the Royal Dublin Society's book-lined Concert Hall.

I was the only journalist to graduate from Dublin Business School in 2022. I sat with students from the Film and Media group with whom I’d taken employment classes.
As my course had been closed, I was the last journalist to graduate from that college.




The world needs principled journalism, so I have taken steps to continue my involvement in appropriate studies. This includes joining the Schuler Democracy Forum talks in Trinity College. I have also been attending masterclasses on Public Relations with the Global Institute of Public Relations. My Data Visualisation course at Master’s level at IADT is giving me a related IT qualification. I’m taking LinkedIn Learning courses at present, to expand my knowledge and get extra certifications. I’m keeping up with friends who graduated ahead of me and are now working and furthering their studies.


And while adding to my daily step count for the college Marchathon, I’m documenting this spring, both the gorgeous spring flowers and the blue and yellow flags flying across Dublin’s city centre. See some of my photos on LinkedIn.


As always, I’ve been reading. Some of the books I enjoyed recently were read for a Challenge in Horse Lovers Central Group. One was Spiral of Hooves a thriller about top-level three-day eventing across Britain and France.
Other mysteries I liked were a falconry mystery, Flightfall by Andy Straka,
and No Grater Crime a cosy crime story in a series about a shop which both caters and sells farm antiques.
I can highly recommend The Flight of the Darkstar Dragon to fantasy lovers, with its newly released sequel, The Return of the Whalefleet. Have fun!





I am making Dining Out Around The Solar System Part One free to download. Grab it April 14 - 18. Anyone not in the UK or Ireland should use the Amazon.com link.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SONOGF0

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SONOGF0


Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

February - Fact, fiction, and a free Irish mystery

Just as in last year, unaccountably someone ran away with my month of February. Some of the time was occupied by interesting issues at my new college, where I am a Class Representative. I attended meetings of staff and class reps, where the college looks for feedback on the course and provides information on the attendance, examining and marking system, in the interests of transparency.

One fact I learned is that the field of cyberpsychology in Ireland is small, so an outside examiner (the final sign-off on the marks to make sure a college is in line with expectations) was arranged for that subject from a college in Britain.
From my reading – authors like Mary Aiken, Irish cyberpsychologist, are extremely accessible - this will be a highly necessary field for the future.



IADT is also running a friendly team challenge throughout the college for March, in which we record our daily footsteps and note them on a tracker site run by a public transport firm. This is called Marchathon, to encourage people to use more public transport and walk more, now the weather is improving. I signed up at the end of February, adding that I did not expect to walk far until the weather was substantially improved, as we were in the midst of storms. Well, the variations in spring weather have caused my step counts to swing wildly, but I’m sure that will be the same for many others.

So far, my lecturers sound encouraging about my assignment work, all of which is now submitted. Data Visualisation is a relatively new field, although of course charts, graphs, maps and satellite imagery have been around for a long time. Tableau, our programme, got easier with practice. I found it enjoyable and interesting.

Do check out my page kindly provided by Shepherd.com. I recommend five SF books about people adapting to changing conditions.
My picks include Golden Witchbreed and Climate Change Captives 2035 and Project SAVE: Students Help Save the Earth.
https://shepherd.com/best-books/peopl...


I’m reading in any spare moment, as usual, and lately enjoyed historical fiction The Pink Mutiny about the Indian or Sepoy Mutiny. This followed a recent read of
The Himalayan Summer: The heartbreaking story of a missing child and a true love which depicts a disastrous earthquake; but The Pink Mutiny is partly told from the points of view of two Indian people, giving a wider look at social conditions and the conflicts inherent in colonisation.

For Fresh Fiction, I read and reviewed The Book Woman’s Daughter and No Grater Crime. And as a horse lover I was delighted to read Jubilee: The First Therapy Horse and an Olympic Dream about the first dressage rider with disability (and first woman) to win a medal for an Olympic dressage event. This is written for younger readers, but can be enjoyed by adults.
By contrast, Sanctuary: The True Story of an Irish Village, a Man Who Lost His Way, and the Rescue Donkeys That Led Him Home is an autobiography written for adults, about an Irish man who made most of the mistakes in life that he could have made, before returning to home and health working at the Donkey Sanctuary in Co. Cork which his father had started years previously.
Young people love reading about donkeys, so I hope an adapted version could be provided for them in the future.



I believe it’s important for young people to see that they can change their lives, can make mistakes and be taken back by family, can turn matters around by thinking about helping others and not about themselves. Guiding and Scouting teaches us to do a good deed every day. The karmic principle tells us that those who put good into the world will receive good in return (and the reverse is also the case). Let’s put some good efforts and helpful attitudes into a world where they are desperately needed.

As St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us, I am making Murder At Dublin Mensa free. Grab it 17 – 20 March.
Anyone not in the UK or Ireland should use the Amazon.com link.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E78QKP0

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E78QKP0

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

January – Data Visualisation and a historic Irish author

January was packed with content, from Data Visualisation for college, to a symposium on an Irish writer, and being invited to feature on Shepherd.com with my science fiction. I enjoyed recommending five books to SF lovers. See my page here.
https://shepherd.com/best-books/peopl...

My Data Visualisation course uses Tableau, specialist software that works with data analytic languages R and R Shiny. I have been learning to make graphs, tables, maps and satellite maps with this suite. We had a two-day class online, back at the start of December; I made copious notes and had excellent lecturer’s notes. The assignment had to be presented as a report, which would be a usual application for data viz work.
This is for a Certificate at Master’s Degree standard, so a few days were taken up in presentation finicking, typing the references and teaching myself how to put a border around an inserted screenshot of a chart. My last four years have been concentrating on journalism, but I had produced reports and regularly read science studies, which helped.

I had already submitted an essay on the context of data viz following a class in November. Instead of a presentation to class, as we were online, we each had to record in Word three minutes of spoken explanation to accompany a Word slideshow. My podcast skills came in useful for this aspect. I hadn’t recorded in Word, but it was actually easy. Getting it just right took longer. Thanks to IADT and the Creative Futures Academy for providing this course.

Trinity College’s Long Room Hub provided a fascinating day of talks about Padraig Colum, Irish author and poet (1881 – 1972). This man left Ireland for America in 1914, so compared to some contemporaries enjoyed a long and fruitful career. Colum was born in a workhouse, as his father was the manager, and the experience informed his writing. He wrote Old Woman Of The Roads and She Moved Through The Fair.

Colum was among the early members of the Abbey Theatre, along with founders WB Yeats and Lady Gregory. His plays were popular, with simple sets so they could be re-produced, and dealt with life in rural Ireland. 2 April, 1902, saw the first performance of his play Kathleen Ni Houlihán, an allegory for Ireland, with Maud Gonne (Yeats’s unrequited love) in the title role.

Later, in America, Colum wrote short stories and poetry. The short story was considered to be the major Irish literary form. One of his works was The Big Tree – a collection of stories and poems about a village, with frontispiece illustrated by Jack B Yeats. While Colum and his wife Mary (Maguire) Colum both continued writing, Mary Maguire Colum was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1930 and 1938.

Colum wrote a review of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Mary reviewed Ulysses. Newspaper reviews were essential to promote awareness and understanding of Irish literature in America at that time. Colum wrote the preface to James Joyce Remembered by Constantine Curran. He was also the biographer of Arthur Griffith, having accompanied that man to the landing of arms at Howth in 1914 ahead of the Easter Rising. Griffith was a printer, journalist and Irish nationalist, who became President of the Dáil in 1922.

Typical lovely little quotes from the day, shown on a screen:
“From Abbey St to College Green, a walk of five minutes, one could meet everyone of importance in the life of the city at a certain time of the afternoon.” [Dublin]

“Joyce operates like a general,” I remarked to Ernest Hemingway, who was in the shop. “A general of the Jesuits,” he returned.

Colum took US citizenship in 1945. He travelled widely, including to Italy. During his late eighties, he was still happily addressing college groups. The Governor of Hawaii asked him to write up the traditional Hawaiian myths in a book suitable for children. A first edition of this book was presented by Ireland’s Taoiseach to Barack Obama when the US President visited Ireland.

Many thanks to the Abbey Theatre Digital Archive, TCD, UCD and the Long Room Hub. A comment was that so many people do the heavy lifting, making pages and pages of notes on this kind of topic, and only publish a surface amount. A bibliography would be a good project.

And that’s a good place for me to announce that my BA (Hons) graduation will occur in late March.
My husband and I are greatly looking forward to the day. I’m delighted that this will be held in the Concert Hall of the Royal Dublin Society, of which I am a longstanding member.


Since I mentioned Trinity College, I am making this book free, Murder At Irish Mensa. Grab it, 17 – 20 February 2022.
Anyone not in the UK or Ireland should use the Amazon.com link.

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

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

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

December – Roundup of My Year

2021 has been a busy year for me, one in which I completed my thesis and gained a first-class degree, spent more time in my local park than ever, did minimal tree work despite a good summer, and volunteered a fair amount of time. Instead of book launches and art gallery openings, I attended public online lectures on AI and cybernetics, or local history; I participated in SF cons online.

Goodreads says I read 202 books this year.

I’m writing a third in the Irish Lockdown series. These stories about young people combine journalism, YA adventure and animal welfare. My local newspaper Dublin People has featured the first book, A Pony For Quarantine. I was thrilled to reach number six in the Amazon UK charts for children’s books dealing with disability, with this one, which includes a look at a family member on the autism spectrum. And the feeling that my books, whether paperback or Kindle, are part of many families’ Christmases, is just wonderful.

During the year I was delighted to achieve a first place in the National Student Media Awards or SMedias. I edited the Journalism Society blog for my college DBS and won Blog / Vlog of The Year. This was required to be edited by a full time student, who was not a paid journalist, to qualify. Not only was this great for me, all the contributors including the Publicity Officer Loreto Magaña are included in the praise.

Separately my Students Union and college community, voted me Volunteer Of The Year. And for her regular and charming appearances on Zoom sessions, my cat won Zoom Pet of The Year Award.

I founded and edited a blog for the Sustainability Society, reporting on our activities and on the Green Campus work of the college. DBS was runner up in the National Education Awards for Green Campus category.
I learned so much, and put in so much time, and I am still studying thanks to a innovative move called Creative Futures Academy, courtesy of IADT.

I had a wonderful couple of days with family, during high summer. Our activities ranged from completing an assault course to climbing on round bales of hay. During autumn, my husband and I visited Wexford for a break. I took photos pretty much non-stop all year.


In my spare time I have been helping out on Goodreads. I took on the Moderator post of Horse Lovers Central Group, and revitalised the group, whose membership has seen a steady increase. I also co-Mod the Green Group, providing news stories, books and science reports. And I add books to the site, particularly old ones, or help the Librarians by pointing out fragmented or double versions of quotes and so on, which they can tidy. Goodreads is a fantastic resource and by far my favourite place on the internet.

I had booked my place to attend COP 26 last year, but it was postponed, and this year when it occurred, I could not travel. We know climate change is the biggest challenge of our time, along with the biodiversity loss that accompanies human caused deforestation and intensive agriculture or industry. I’m doing my bit to help nature, and I hope my readers are too. There’s a saying that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, and the second best time to plant one is today. Let’s get to work.

For the turn of the year I am making a hopeful book free, Dining Out Around the Solar System Part One. Grab it January 8 – 11, 2022.
Anyone not in the UK or Ireland should use the Amazon.com link.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SONOGF0

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SONOGF0

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

November – Judge Dredd, Twitter Pitches, characters with age

As promised, here are the second day’s events of Octocon 2020, held online. And a free SF book is at the bottom of this post. I wrote these notes while helping to staff the Con. All opinions are those of the speakers.

Sunday, 11 Oct, 2020
Better with age
Gillian Pollack, Marguerite Smith, Cheryl Morgan, Ian McDonald, author of Luna.

MS – Representation is important, either an old character is ignored or a wise old man to guide characters on journey.
G – Authors who successfully wrote older characters into stories were better writers with deeper stories. Not everyone has skills and experience, they want young characters learning as they go.
Ian – We were all young once but we are not yet older than we are. Nobody ever feels their age. We can write younger characters more easily as we have been there. Not including parts of life like older people is narrow writing.
C – It’s our job as writers to learn to write people we haven’t been.

I – Has both heroes and villains, has followed characters from 20s to 40s incl. the people around them. In China, TV, Inheritance Show where something has to be passed on to heirs. Other genres may use this type better. Gandalf – but Miss Marple. Different abilities, not sword wielders. In film Tron 2 the actor played himself as a younger man but could not make his movements as a 30 year old’s.
C – Crime is a genre where the plot has to be about crime, but SF can include crime in a plot.
G – Publishers want to sell to a younger audience. Marketing is easier to YA. Genre labelling, selling labelling.
C - Older people will read about young people but young won’t read about old.
GP – Australia – was a feminist activist for 20 years but not associated with the current movement. Got out to write novels and sees a group of 80% women and 20% men who are behind the scenes campaigners which is why Australia has better health care than the US. Makes for wider stories – not one quest you can win.
GP – Immortality – we can’t hold too much knowledge – a burden.
I – We can’t have immortality – so he thinks we make it seem unpleasant – the fox saying grapes were probably sour anyway if he can’t have them. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a story about immortals who aged badly.
G - The trap is to ask for immortality but forget ever young.
Q - Do you write older characters differently from the outset?
GP – Yes and no. A woman might change gender at menopause in Celtic mythology. If everyone has a spiritual age they stay that way. We all know older people.
MS - The truly old immortals are hard to create as we have no experience of talking to anyone over 110.
Q from me: Tolkien’s elves were immortal – were they more or less willing to die in combat – would this end wars?
G – Elves were militant, got into battles all the time.
M - Phases of life.
I – Tolkien may not have thought it through.
C – Ents think nothing of sleeping for a year or two.

Military SF and drones
Damien Larkin– Story in which Irish and British soldiers fought together against a common enemy.
Edmond Barret – Alien craft lands off west of Ireland. We now have most advanced tech in the world. What will others do to get it?
Kate Sheehy – War blows away social cobwebs. Panel agreed.
Kate Dodd - WW2 easier to focus on as sides so good vs bad. WW1 more complex.
DL – Indie published, now a trad author after winning a competition. Wants to read book on the family of the SF warriors back home.

Judge Dredd genesis.
Michael Carroll – To begin we just explored Megacity and judge – did not need to know more. Later the creators were worldbuilding how it came about. Started in 1977 but written about 2099. Brought in links to other stories like the ABC Warriors.
James Bacon – Lead characters are judge, jury and executioner, is it right to feel empathy for them?
Panel agreed he is still a person, doing a job.
MC - SF predicts future but the writers are optimists, communicators on culture extrapolated from where we are. You would think we would know better as a race but collectively we are apparently not smart and good.
Maura McHugh – Thoughts, fantasies, not real just safety valve. If someone could read your mind that is dangerous to you. Orwellian thought control literally stops you thinking about crime. Mutants in 2000AD with psychic abilities, if they were not useful to judges they would be kicked out to the Cursed Land.

MC – Judge Dredd is not much known in USA, just the Stallone film. Judges are tools of fascist state, but cops anywhere are effectively enforcing the rules of the state.
Joseph Elliott – Colman – didn’t have to research as he knew much civil rights history.
MMH – Origins is the Bible when writing, also she had to net search a lot for arms, explosives etc. But it’s about humans, set in moments. Startlingly prescient origins.

Damien Larkin on Twitter Pitch events.
Damien Larkin
A short pitch for your book, agents and publishers may give a like, means you can contact them afterwards. Get the genre right, US timezones. Rules. May be all SF. Google “twitter pitches 2021” will get lists. Can be 12 hours but maybe only an author likes – stay off that, retweet instead.
Need a good tagline “Big Red – Irish soldier stuck on Mars. Saying this would be a good place to holiday if it wasn’t for all these pesky natives” – got him attention.
Twitter can be toxic sometimes but it’s great to have a writing community and bounce a draft off them for a comment. In pitch focus more on the story than character – but the agents don’t have hours to spend reading your backstory. Need strong key words to catch attention. Use any audience insights e.g. facebook can let you see some details to tailor ads. Type in "mil SF" to see what age group, gender, other interests, page views.
He suggested agent interested in your tw pitch will click into tw profile and you should have friends and fans review and like your work there. He doesn’t class this as the main way to submit.
Due diligence – predatory firms prey on authors taking off. The pitch organiser is aware but the vulture publishers can like them and are just vanity presses. Want to get the writer signed up to publish then ask for money for marketing etc. They are out in force. 2 out of 3 of his likes were genuine. On one, down at bottom of site the small print said they charge writer €4750 to publish a book.
Q. DL has not found tw helpful for building a fan base. Has made writer friends. If your tw says buy my book that won’t help, as thousands are doing that. He finds reading and reviewing others’ works more helpful as they read his then.
Indie presses pick up on outliers and new trends. Big 5 are slower. He went with an indie and his book is in libraries and he is at events.
Q on tw generally. As a platform he thinks it is toxic. Mob mentality, he has seen publishing deals destroyed. Find other platforms. Do not use tw for a normal approach to editor. Line between free speech and aggression is thin on tw.

Justice wearing a mask: underground of political comics.
James Brophy – we have not the first amendment of US here. Limits on free speech.
Journalist Niall Kitson – create what you want, but you don’t have the right to push it on others.



The Gothic–loving tradition
Kim Newman – There’s an internet story of a woman in an abusive relationship who rented Gaslight and sat watching it with her other half, saying “Oh that would never happen” and he shrank as these people all hit on the same methods of bullying and belittling others.
Mod Ian Moore asked if the wealthy class had gone.

Maura McHugh said no way. Kim Newman agreed with her. Sakura agreed.
Russel Smith - Underlying fears always in society, repression. Last phase of empire going on in various countries. You can write something and ask if it is already satire.
MMH - Landed aristocracy in past, now a technocrat elite and wealth disparity with homeless, huge source of anger. She and Sakura want to see how Covid is entwined with media in next years. MMH - people are haunted, not places, in one interpretation.
Q – what elements of classic gothic are absent now?
MMH - Marriage used to be about wealth and land and that is mostly gone now.
KN – Clergy bashing gone but not entirely absent from society. Conan Doyle, HG Wells, are 3rd or 4th wave gothic. Coronavirus going to spawn a lot of books but nobody is going to want to read about the lockdown for years. But lockdown is ideal conditions for reading long novels.
Sakura – could not settle to write. She is worried that upcoming horror will be too hard to read. Hit too close.
KN – Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year was published in 1772.

30 years of Octocon
Michael Carroll, Phillipa and Helen Ryder, Gareth Kavanagh, James Shields.
Told us how early they had attended.
MC – As we grow up we find new tribes and interests but since he joined the ISFA he felt he belonged. Great sense of family incl at Worldcon in Dublin.
HR – Early days – enjoyed a little chaos, too well run is boring. Bar at Royal Marine, started chatting to a guy, didn’t realise it was George R.R. Martin. Amazing number of fans.
PR – The Star Trek fans who came along found we had brand new episodes.
JS – Organising – feeling of never doing this again. A week later he was all for the next year.
GH – Artwork was amazing each year. Video room and its director Dave Lally sadly missed at online cons.
MC – If the committee is enjoying the con something’s gone wrong.
GK – Tell us you have a problem early so we can help sort it out.
PR – Not getting paid, paying memberships, so have fun.
JS – Make sure the treasurer knows what they are doing. Agreed optimistic chair and sober treasurer.
MC – Avoid feeling that we newbies can’t get involved as old hands know what they are doing. Need to encourage new blood as otherwise when committee get burnt out, there is nobody who knows how to take it on. All agreed.
JS – Step back from committee for a year or two, step back in with fresh ideas.

310 members with Discord; 23 countries, 404 unique viewers. 82 at closing ceremony. €1280 raised for Jigsaw, young people’s mental health charity.

To continue with the SF theme, and acknowledge that winter is well and truly here in Ireland, I’m making my wintertime SF story Dining Out With The Ice Giants set in future London free to download. Grab it December 3 – 6. Anyone not in the UK or Ireland should use the Amazon.com link.

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

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

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

October - means Octocon

I’ve taken up a place on an autumn semester course about Data Visualisation. We are using Tableau and will be attending online.
I attended 2020’s Octocon online as my first ever time to attend and assist with running an online conference. We hosted on Discus, filmed panelists using Zoom, and streamed live on Twitch. As a moderator, I got to wear a virtual red jersey. While I was doing this work, I was also taking notes as usual. Some panels have shorter notes because I had to go to other duties. All opinions shown are those of the speakers.

Saturday 10th October 2020

Myth building panel.
Juliet E McKenna – teenagers she asked did not know what the Marie Celeste was. Twilight is similar to Jane Eyre, but teens have not read Jane Eyre as it is not as accessible.

Oisin McGann – Lindbergh flew the Atlantic on his own six years after Alcock and Brown who flew non-stop in 16 hours – earlier, the US Navy flew it but not in one trip, in steps. Whose story got remembered? Who had more to gain from publicity? Lindbergh. Storytelling reinforces myth and belief – powerful with a core message.
J. Campfire stories were told to make sense of the world.
Q. how important were place names in myths?
O. Hillfort was the first place to light a fire on Hallowe’en. The fire was so hot it burned bone and changed the chemical composition of rock. In the days of the Hill of Tara, a series of tribes changed the landscape. In Australia, there’s a place where the tribes came and danced every year, and their feet had worn down a bowl shape into solid rock.
Jean Burlesk – Monetising myths today.
Oisin – we had to come up with a single strand of Celtic myth that everyone could learn about, a way to refer to this shared mythological reference.
Jean – interpretations change over generations. More complicated when mythology is still an active religion.

Peadar Ó Guilín – Marvel’s universe is opposite to mythology as there is canon which is changed by new creators.
J.B. A framework can unite us but we have to stay critical.
O – Balor of the evil eye – like Medusa – the evil stare is widespread, like Flood myths.
J McK – Romans adapted other tribes’ gods to their gods. "You have a lightning god, oh that’s our Jupiter, same god."

Queer characters
Quinn Clancy – side characters, urban fantasy includes this character in a werewolf story. Should not be just a token but the premise should add to the plot. Rowling announced Dumbledore was gay after the event, so it had no bearing on the plot.
Philippa Ryder – writer can add a character if they wish, adds depth.
Robert Simpson – like a person of different skin colour, can be a token add, for commercial reasons. Your sexuality does not come up in most day to day conversations. Can be more conflicted in the story.
Kate Corcoran – big secondary character in her story is gay. He has his own plot, but main role is to link two women’s narratives. Some people resent he doesn’t get enough screentime. Secondary character needs to have own story but also to advance main plot.

Michael Carroll Guest of Honour
First book published – terrific feeling. Doesn’t like his originals now but still gets a thrill from new releases.


Fourth Wave Feminism
James Brophy – 1) world is inherently unfair, 2) more unfair to women. If you understand that you are a feminist. Not about watching cartoon shows from 30 years ago, more about giving fair representation and thoughtfulness.
Valerie Estelle Frankel - Representation and agency – maybe we should have black people write Black Panther instead of another Stan Lee. Less sexualisation of women characters but Star Wars Force Awakens had one woman. Maybe you want more than one.
Helen Corcoran – more representing women in power – patriarchy hurts everyone, toxic masculinity affects men and women.
VEF - Intersectionality. I am not of your group, but I understand the problems your group faces. Hunger Games – protagonist is fully dressed through the story. Slight romance. A very feminine character. Some producers make female characters who are more like men.
Helen Ryder – The Bechdel Test; the story has more than one woman and they converse. [About something other than a man. Ed.] Xena, Warrior Princess was the only show to pass the test. Most others do not show more than one woman or not conversing.
Mod – why can’t this character have a friend, a mum, etc. Why just one woman character? Not much fun for her. The My Little Pony film had 6 females and 1 male protagonist.
Helen Ryder – a woman producer rather than a producer so channels on Netflix can be helpful to spread word.
James Brophy – some people don’t realise how difficult it is to get animation made in the first place. Huge economic pressures. So far the industry has not prioritised diversity in voice booths, also adage “green people are not representing anyone.” Cartoon normally has a boy’s name on top. Saw one show which included a journey to another planet, gay men kiss and talk about love. A Supergirl show, African Americans on the show were playing Martians. One AA character provided – the producers had to add a character for him to talk to.
VEF – saw Buffy but lived in L.A. and did not see the kinds of people she went to school with. Had to accept this was a Hollywood treatment. Glee was much more normal people.
Helen Corcoran – She-Ra sword was what a girl wanted, her dad didn’t see the difference between that and He-Man’s sword in the shop.
Q. Female heroes in Endgame take a kick-ass pose at the final battle scene; is it a box ticking exercise? Panel agreed.
VEF – Yes and then get back to Captain America’s personal life.
James Brophy – Black Widow – Perlmutter held it back for years. He did not believe in a female hero or villain. Skimpy outfits are for the male gaze, and more so when Supergirl meets up with other superheroes and has to keep smiling to make others comfortable.

A decade under Tharg
Maura McHugh said she read Misty but her brothers read 2000AD.
Michael Carroll agreed it was for him but not his sisters. But girls read it too. Judge Dredd was male but Judge Anderson was female.
PJ Holden – took him 20 years to draw a Dredd and see it as a pretty good Dredd and not as a fan art. Also he has to write / draw new material, not the exact same story again.
MC – there was an Irish Judges story in 1990s and he changed that, as he resented that these were all drunk, and he does not drink. He created a son of one of them and a very solid Judge.
PJ – Harder gig to write for young readers. Have to smarten it up not dumb down. So many more things for them to be entertained by now, it must be an entertaining story.

Gene Roddenberry
James Brophy – Gene was hugely important, but separate the art from artist. The fans were the ones who brought show back. TV executives said no – it was the popularity of re-runs.
Valerie Bronson – Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica came out, CBS wanted a dog in the race. SciFi TV found shows popular but reality shows were cheaper and still brought in money.
VB – Phase 2 proposed – Nimoy did not want to participate, a Vulcan character called Voss was proposed. The Motion Picture made instead. Voss’ name was used for a Vulcan science officer who immediately gets mangled by a transporter.
Helen Ryder. Roddenberry was atheist, hence a probe was self aware, godlike beings etc. They did touch on religion in many ways.
VB – The Bjorans were religious but this was at the heart of conflicts.

Carnality and Consent
Kim Newman - in early novels people didn’t realise stalking was real so films like Fatal Attraction was the first they knew.
RFL - The Craft was interesting because it was from the POV of a bad girl or monster not a good girl.

When I had typed out all my notes, they were clearly too long for one month’s blog, so I will post the rest next month. On the good side, that’s most of November’s post ready.

Some of my college final year research projects are available in this display of student research posters. This consists of entries to the HECA Research Awards which will be held for the first time this year. The posters will be available to view 1 - 5 November only.
Well done to all who entered!

https://heca.ie/hsra-digital-posters/

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.

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 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.
 

September - Sea Shanties

I was pleased to get an invitation to Co Ko Con early this month. While other commitments and technical issues (also, being several time zones apart) meant I only got to stroll around the Discus hub and take in one panel talk, that was highly enjoyable. Filking was a strong point of this SF Con. Filking is a match between fiction and folk music.

Valerie Ritchie told us about the origins and uses of Sea Shanties. These were always sung by men, and the purpose was to make shipboard work go more smoothly and enjoyably. They helped keep a group moving in the same rhythm. There were types of songs sung for hauling, for scraping and stamping (when barnacles were being cleared off hulls), for raising sails, and heaving capstans. An anchor and weighty chain might take twelve men some hours to raise.

Some examples: Roll the old chariot along, Haul Away Joe and Shenandoah. All hang together, from hauling a line reaching from a high point, when the shortest man adding his weight might literally have feet off the ground.
Hauling could be a short drag – hauling a halyard - or long, heaving a capstan, as Amsterdam Maid. Bruce Springsteen recorded Pay me my money down. In the Caribbean, some women also sang shanties, as they were involved in the work. Otherwise, these were not women’s songs.

https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2021/0...

I was interested all the more because I had recently watched a splendid film based on reality, called Fisherman’s Friends, about a folk singing group who are fishermen by trade and sing shanties for good causes, until a record producer takes up a bet to make them famous.

My husband reminded me that in Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at Sea, the author described how, when two ships’ crews met, they would exchange goods like fresh foods and exchange sea shanties so as to learn new songs.

From my reading I was able to make comparison with women. Women of the day would tend to sing at their own work, these might be lullabies, of course, or spinning wheel songs. But if women were employed, this tended to be domestic duties or factory work, and here the employer did not want to hear them singing, as it would imply the women were not giving their full attention and energy to the job.
Women didn’t tend to work in co-ordinated groups doing physical haulage, so they did not need a shanty. I’ve read about the herring lasses who cleaned, salted and barrelled herring for the fleet, but they seemed to talk as they worked.


What of today’s girls? Recently I met a little girl in the supermarket, aged about seven, who was chatting with her parents. “I’m not a normal girl,” she announced grandly, spinning with her arms out straight. “In fact, I’m not a girl at all. I’m… a camel!” Her parents wore expressions of consternation at the thought that an adult was hearing this strangeness.
“Good for you, I’m sure I was a horse,” I told the wee lass, and we all chuckled. No doubt this confident, creative young person will be just what our nation needs in the future.

My graduation has now been deferred until early in 2022, to give people the chance to attend in person. A college with its own grounds has been able to host its gatherings, but my college can’t do likewise. With luck most graduating students will be able to attend, though some are already studying or working in different countries.

Next month brings Octocon, Ireland’s National SF Convention, so as usual I will make my blog post the writeup of last year’s Octocon events.

This month I am making Murder At Dublin Mensa free, 1 - 4 October.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E78QKP0

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E78QKP0

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 Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.

August – the life lessons I learned outside class

Time to reflect on the life lessons I learned during the past four years as I worked towards my multimedia Journalism degree. Graduation will now be in the spring, in the hope that this event can be held in person. I have placed this reflective article on Medium, to include some of my photography, especially nature photography. The people at Medium have selected my article for further distribution, the first time this has happened. If I lived in the US, I would then be eligible for a payment every time someone read the curated work. As I don’t, I get nothing except a nice feeling that friends, including friends I have not met yet, are reading my article.

https://clareobeara.medium.com/reason...


Medium is free to join and non-intrusive, but you may only read three articles per month without paying. Generally, authors adorn the article with a stock photo or two, but I am working towards using only original photography. Today’s writing may be still the meat of the book, but it depends more than ever upon the presentation being attractive and appropriate.

My article also references the other skills I learned during my multimedia course. With a wide variety of media available online, potential readers may find your work in various formats and on various sites. Being able to blog, produce a film and produce a podcast, expands a writer’s options and potential audience.

The trophy for the National Student Media Awards Blog / Vlog of the Year arrived. This is made of Tipperary Crystal and I’ll be featuring it on my author’s website.

If you have time to keep reading and would like some tips on reducing paper use in your office or college, including home offices, here’s another recent Medium article, which I wrote in response to a request for information.

https://clareobeara.medium.com/using-...

Again, I took the photos myself. I asked my husband for his opinion and he suggested a photo of bulky waste – so I went for a walk and snapped a pile of cardboard boxes awaiting collection.


No college for me this year, but I am keeping up to date with the courses available, and friends will be keeping me informed. I’ve been busily catching up with promised book reviews, but I am not nearly finished climbing the TBR mountain (To Be Read) and new books keep arriving, however that happens. I think Fresh Fiction has something to do with it.

This month I am making The Prisoner In The Tower free, 4 – 7 September. The cover photo was taken on one of our visits to the Tower of London.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NMWRM54

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NMWRM54

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 Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
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 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.