H.M. Clarke's Blog, page 23

Site Redecorating!

Since Spring is here, I have decided to do a bit of redecorating...

My Website has now been revamped to what I think is now a better style and 'look'.

Please, go and have a look and tell me what you think.

-HMC

http://hmclarke.wordpress.com/

Keep Going: 7 Ways To Find Discipline & Fight Distractions

By Dominic Tarn

Anyone who thinks writing is easy, isn’t a writer. A few hours work, a little ‘creative thinking space’, involving a walk, a few friends, a few drinks. Then maybe some writing later on. It’s a nice image, but it’s very far from the truth. Writing is hard, writing is a discipline, a profession. Which is why to be a writer discipline is one of the more vital skills required.

“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.” William Faulkner.

It is easy to get distracted, especially in the world of social networks and 24/7 media. Here are a few ways you can get in the habit of writing, day in, day out.

Set a block of time. Just saying, “I’m going to do some writing today,” is one thing, but to actually block book a slot of time in your diary and make sure nothing else gets in the way is another. That’s the best way to get started with a habit of writing however many words you set yourself within the timeframe you have.
You will be resistant to starting. As Leo Babauta of Zenhabits writes (author and publisher of several books): “Let it go, and focus on just getting started. All you need to do is write the first few words — don’t worry about writing more than that.”
There will never be a perfect time. Acknowledge this. Like starting a business, having a child or traveling, there’s always a dozen reasons why another time would be the ideal time. As Margaret Atwood said, “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”
One page at a time. Within the sessions for writing you book remember that books are written one word, one page, at a time. Consistent action adds up and at the end of a long period of work you’ll come out the other side with a finished book.
Befriend the right people. Surrounding yourself with fellow writers is a great way to feel inspired, but are they professionals or other pre-published writers, or is this just a hobby for them? Fellow aspiring pro’s or other already published authors are the best kind of people to get to know.
Emotions lie. There’s always going to be other things to do, reasons why you can put off writing. The only way to get from the idea to the finished book is to put those emotions and excuses aside and write like your life depended on it.
Just do it. Whatever your stumbling blocks, other things to do, distractions and commitments – it all comes down to how badly you need to keep writing, and maintaining discipline over the months or even years required to keep writing. At the end of the day you will have done something many only dream of, giving you the chance to share your thoughts, ideas and imagination with the world.

Oh – don’t forget to sign up for my Newsletter here to get access to extra goodies, giveaways and contests! Also, receive the first two chapters to my Upcoming Release – THE ENCLAVE.

The Procrastinators Guide to Story Avoidance

Nice catchy title, and oh so true in my case.  (Case in point – me writing this blog post is a good example – I should be finishing Within Winter’s Reach).

I also have a horrible habit of going off topic, (yet another symptom of procrastination), so I’ll try my hardest not to do this too much.

Let’s get straight to the point here.  Writers generally drop into procrastination mode when either of the following conditions occurs:

Coming up to the point in their story where there is a difficult scene to plot out and write
Characters write themselves into a situation that the author does not know how to get them out of
Your Manuscript is in the editing stages of the second and third drafts (and everyone definitely wants to avoid that)
Any other situation that a writer can find themselves in that makes doing the dishes right at that very moment a high priority task.

Now, this blog is supposed to be about story avoidance.  That means, whenever any of the above conditions occur, you must immediately go and find something as far away from the object of avoidance as possible.

Avoidance strategies can be either very simple or extremely extravagant.  Strategies that I use regularly are:

House cleaning – it does help getting your mind off the hurdles in your writing and then gives you time to look at things from a fresh perspective and can actually be helpful in the long run.
Baking – This does the same thing as house cleaning except you get cakes, biscuits and cookies at the end of it.
Research – This can be anything ranging from historical to scientific or basically fact finding in general.  This again can be helpful in both finding plots and ideas for future stories, or for finding examples that can get you out of your writing quandary.
Taking the family on a day trip – This also does the same thing as house cleaning, except that you also get to exposure to daylight and spend quality time with your family.
Television – Um, television really is the procrastinators’ friend.  I never get anything useful done when the TV is on.  Unless I’m watching something in connection with point 3.
Internet – Same point as Television.  It is an incredible tool for procrastination.  But it can also help overcome your issues by going to relevant blogs, websites, and friendly communities that might help you by discussing issues or reviewing the piece of work or idea that is troubling you.  There are many of these writing communities around; it’s just a matter of finding one that suits you and your genre.  Also be aware when trying to find a writing community that there is a difference between constructive criticism and being downright mean.

I could make this list a lot larger, but I think I have procrastinated long enough.  I hope that I have given some good tips to successful procrastination methods and I would love to hear what works well for you and what doesn’t.

Happy Procrastinating

-HMC

Oh – don’t forget to sign up for my Newsletter here to get access to extra goodies, giveaways and contests! Also, receive the first two chapters to my Upcoming Release – THE ENCLAVE.

 

Giveaway Winners!

Congratulations to

Matthew from West Virginia, and

Roberta from Kentucky

for winning my Howling Vengeance giveaway.

I will be sending the books in the next few days and you should receive them in the next few weeks.  If you can read and either write a review or put up a star rating on both Amazon and Goodreads for Howling Vengeance, it will be much appreciated :)

Congrats!

-HMC

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Britain’s oldest settlement is Amesbury not Thatcham

Archaeologists discover Wiltshire site is forerunner to Stonehenge and has been continually occupied since 8,820BC

-Article by Mark Brown

Britain’s oldest settlement is not where we thought it was, a team of archaeologists said on Thursday as they announced with confidence that Amesbury should now hold the distinction.

It was previously considered that Thatcham in Berkshire held the distinction but researchers from the University of Buckingham are certain we need to look 40 miles west, to the parish of Amesbury, in Wiltshire, which also includes Stonehenge.

Carbon dating of bones of aurochs – the giant cattle that were twice the size of today’s bulls – at the Blick Mead dig site, has shown that Amesbury has been continually occupied for each millennium since 8,820BC. Older than Thatcham, occupied since 7,700BC, it is in effect where British history began.

David Jacques, research fellow in archaeology at the University of Buckingham, led the dig. He said: “The site blows the lid off the Neolithic revolution in a number of ways. It provides evidence for people staying put, clearing land, building and presumably worshipping monuments.

“The area was clearly a hub point for people to come to from many miles away and in many ways was a forerunner for what later went on at Stonehenge itself. The first monuments at Stonehenge were built by these people.

“For years people have been asking ‘why is Stonehenge where it is?’ Now, at last, we have found the answers.”

It was the same dig, at Blick Mead, which last year led to the discovery that Mesolithic Britons were enjoying eating frogs legs about eight millennia before the French.

At the time, Jaques expressed confidence that evidence would prove it was Britain’s oldest settlement. That has now been confirmed and on Thursday it was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.

The dig also unearthed the largest number of Mesolithic worked flints ever found; 31,000 were discovered in just over 40 days, all in a 16-sq-metre (172-sq-ft) area.

The discoveries put a date to the activities of those who built the first monuments at the Stonehenge site, using enormous pine posts. It shows their communities lived in the area for a further 3,000 years, close to the dawn of the Neolithic era when Stonehenge itself was built.

Archaeologists say the results provide something of a missing link between the erection of the posts, between 8,820 and 6,590BC, and of Stonehenge, in 3,000BC. The findings provide evidence which suggests that Stonehenge, rather than a Neolithic new-build sitting, at first, in an empty landscape should be viewed as a response to long-term use of the area by indigenous hunters and home-makers.

Bill Dunn, spokesman for the Amesbury History Centre, said: “We are naturally delighted at the confirmation of Amesbury’s longevity as the oldest continuously inhabited place in England. We have always known Amesbury as somewhere special and this confirms it. All the visitors to the museum are amazed at what they find, and we hope even more people will now visit.”

Click here to view the article

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Cover Reveal – The Enclave!

I am very proud to present my newest cover!

The Enclave is due out mid May 2014 and will be available from your favourite online bookseller.

Cover Design by Cheryl Ramirez, www.ccrbookcoverdesign.com

THE ENCLAVE 

Katherine Kirk lived only for vengeance.

Vengeance against the man who destroyed her home, her family and her life.

Sent on a babysitting mission to Junter 3, RAN officer Katherine Kirk, finds herself quickly embroiled in the politics between the New Holland Government and the Val Myran refugees claiming asylum.

After an Alliance attack Kirk and her team hunt the enemy down and discover that they have finally found the lair of the man they have been searching for…

And the captive who has been waiting patiently for rescue.

“What would you do to the man who destroyed every important person in your life?”

I hope everyone loves this cover as much as I do :)

-HMC

“Mhm” and other sounds that help in conversations

Sounds that fill in the spaces in conversations serve a vital function.

 By: Ida Kvittingen

We have all confirmed what others say with a frequent use of mhm, uh-huh or if you are a Scandinavian, a wheezy “ya” made while breathing in, rather than out.

These sounds are more important than we might think, according to Mattias Heldner, a professor in phonetics at Stockholm University.

“We use the sounds to show that we are listening and that the message from the person we are talking to is getting across. It creates a common ground within the conversation,” says Heldner.

This is particularly important when talking on a phone, when the lack of visual signals makes it hard for either party to tell if they are being understood.

Heldner has led a project called Prosody in Communication, which ended last year. In linguistics prosody is the study of the rhythm, stress, intonation and the melody of speech. Linguists think that melody and rhythm are so vital to communication that children learn it before learning to ever utter a word.

We are humming 

 Hedner explains that most languages have sounds that aid in the flow of a conversation.

Some are listed in dictionaries, others are just sounds.

Heldner calls it humming when we say “mmm”, “mhm” or “uh-huh” in a conversation.

“Maybe ‘mmm’ should be in the dictionary. It has a big function in a conversation,” says Heldner.

Heldner and colleagues analysed 120 Swedish conversations lasting a half hour each to see how the sounds were used.

The researchers noticed that the conversational partners have a tendency to mimic the person they are speaking with. Their hummings were in the same pitch.

They also have seen that this humming arises as interplay between the conversational partners.

The Swedish researchers also looked into how long people wait for such feedback.

“The person talking gives room for the humming with occasional halts,” says Heldner, and pauses a little so that the journalist can also let out an “mmm-hmm.”

Waiting for those who don’t understand

 But the listener in a conversation already knows before the break in speech what is coming – perceives that it is time for humming.

“The melody rises in the last syllable before the speaker’s pause. We also signal this to the other person with eye contact,” says Heldner.

Jan Svennevig, a professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo (UiO), doesn’t wholly agree.

“As a rule, we don’t wait for the humming. It often comes while we talk. The person speaking only waits when he thinks the other person isn’t picking up what’s being said. It’s to ensure that the message has been received,” he says.

Norwegian variations

 Jan Svennevig says Norwegians have many of these sounds too. He prefers to call them acceptance signals.

“We actually need to say ‘mhm’ when the other speaks for a long time, to signal that they can continue,” says Svennevig.

His colleague Hanne Gram Simonsen, another professor of linguistics at UiO, concurs.

“I think these sounds are totally necessary. We have become so used to them that we get nervous when they are left out,” says Simonsen.

Keeping the ball in your court

Such sounds are not always confirming, explains Svennevig. They just say something about how the communication is progressing. If you get a “huh?” that means it isn’t going so well.

Other sounds like this are signals to keep the verbal ball in your court, to continue speaking if you don’t want to let the other have a turn yet. You can utter an “uhhh” or “ehhhh”. But these are not confirmations.

The sounds mustn’t be used inappropriately. Actually such sounds and this conversational behaviour are not supposed to be given real attention, or be consciously noticed. If the sound deviates from the pitch in the conversation, or comes at the wrong time, it will disturb the discussion.

“The person who hums incorrectly can be perceived as a nuisance,” says the Swedish researcher Heldner.

Making robots more human

 The finer aspects of perception are among the things that separates a machine from a fellow interlocutor of skin and bone.

The goal of Heldner’s research is to create computers which can converse with us in a human way. But it’s currently impossible to program a computer with all the nuances found in a normal conversation.

“We have far to go before computers comprehend as much as people. But we can get them to act as if they understand,” says Heldner.

Computers have already been talking to us for some time in games and in customer service centres. Heldner thinks a little humming interjected in the right places will make it easier to conduct conversations with them.

Service telephones should be able to gather information better if the computers ask open questions and let the customer talk, following up with the occasional “mhm”.

Heldner and his colleagues plan to do further research on the unspoken parts of a conversation – things that happen face to face. This includes the direction of eye focus, head motions, facial expressions and the ways we breathe. It could be much harder to make machines that can duplicate these aspects of conversations.

 

Click the link to see this article on Sciencenordic

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Book Review – Chronicle of the Roman Emperors

Chronicle of the Roman Emperors: The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial Rome by Christopher Scarre

This is an excellent history book.  It is well organized and a useful reference work for projects and information purposes.  It is also well enough written to be an enjoyable read. It does not pretend to be a general/complete history of Imperial Rome; instead it covers the emperors themselves, giving a coherent unbiased picture difficult to get from most traditional histories.  It gives an account of each emperor from Augustus to Romulus Augustulus.

This book provides a history that acknowledges the reports of historians from all areas (including enemies of Rome), these are critically analyzed for their biases (e.g., that of senatorial authors against emperors who ignored the senate, or of Christian authors against the persecutors) to attempt to give a balanced account.  The author does not blindly accept what either group has to say about emperors who they either demonize or deify. This is a very worthwhile practice, and so overall the book is a very helpful primer for a novice on the subject.

Especially interesting was the family information as well as the timelines, maps and illustrations. This book is concise and complete for its size and also manages to include text sketches of other prominent people of the day as well as each emperor’s most famous construction projects, laws or other interesting tid bits.

The smaller details of imperial titles, etc., are pulled out into handy sidebars where they can be ignored if desired or enjoyed by those who like that sort of thing.

The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs of portrait busts of most of the emperors as well as the monuments they built. There are also many drawings and plans showing reconstructions of their palaces and monuments.  It is very easy to read and Latin concepts are easily explained.  An excellent book for author research or school projects.

-HMC

Recipe – ‘Spuds’

Here is a simple recipe that I made tonight – they are basically sweet coconut balls rolled in coco powder which makes them look like freshly dug up potatoes (Spuds) – NOT for people on diets!  Perfect for sugar addicts.

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 bag of desiccated coconut

1 cup of Icing (Confectioners) Sugar

Cocoa Powder

In a large bowl,  mix together the condensed milk and the coconut (start off with 1.5 cups of coconut, then add more for individual tastes – I like about 4 heaped cups).  Then add the icing sugar – add this a quarter of a cup at a time until the whole mix becomes thick with a consistency like play dough.

Pour some of the cocoa powder onto a plate.  Wet your hands and take ping pong ball size spoonfuls of the mix and roll it in your hands until it becomes a ball, then roll this in the cocoa powder until the ball is coated. (The wet hands stops the mix from sticking to them – if you wear rings I recommend you remove them before you do this step).

Place these onto a plate and let them sit in the fridge for about an hour to set.  Then they are ready to eat :)

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-HMC

Book Review – The Cold Dish

The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson

I just read this book and loved it.

Sheriff Walt Longmire is a beautifully drawn character.   Longmire is a likeable, gruff and a very decent man who is just trying to do his job and hang out with his mate – Henry Standing Bear.  He is also a man just emerging from mourning the death of his long time wife and missing a daughter who works in Philadelphia.

The reader is drawn effortlessly into his world.  The author skillfully immerses the reader in the rhythms and mores of the West, smoothly integrating history and folklore into the evocative landscape of the Big Horn Mountains.  You can sometimes feel the wind and cold and taste the winter in your mouth as you read.  (Or I could just have a good imagination J)

Longmire’s small town enforcement duties are suddenly interrupted when a murder forces him to revisit an old case that had left a rather sour taste in his mouth. His search to find the murderer is a compelling story that both unravels a mystery and reflects Longmire’s inner struggles as he seeks to regain control of his life and maybe find a little justice along the way for everyone involved.

But, once you hit the middle of the story however, it does slow down and seems to get bogged in the nitty gritty of life in small outback regional centres.  It is probably amusing if you haven’t experienced this for yourself but for those of us that have, this just felt like padding to make a little time pass before the next break (or shot) in the case.  It did make me want to put the book down and wait until I was in a more suitable mood to want to read all the small town nuances.

However, I’m glad I pushed through with the book. Things really started coming together in the last third, but it’s more the land and the history of the place that brings the edge to the story and the writing. There are some really nice touches that echo the Old West and the supernatural without ever stepping over the line and becoming ‘cheesy’.  And there’s enough action and adventure to finish out the rest of the story nicely.

I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Westerns, Mysteries, well developed characters and language that is written well in the American vernacular.

-HMC

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