A.J. Sendall's Blog, page 7
February 21, 2015
January 31, 2015
How To Win Sales And Influence Algorithms | David Gaughran
How To Win Sales And Influence Algorithms | David Gaughran.
This refreshing perspective on ebook marketing from Matt Iden & Nick Stephenson is definitely worth a read for all you indies.
January 30, 2015
The End Of The Street
Flank Street, that is …
I closed the door on Flank Street a few days ago, the story complete and ready for the editor and beta readers. It felt good, although I will miss some of the characters’ daily visits, and nightly intrusions into my dream world.
The title, Flank Street, was just a working title, something to give it form, and initially, direction. Whilst writing the concluding chapters, my mind roamed around the story looking for a more appropriate title. I came up with a few possibilities, including … nope, it’s gone again. It sounded great at three in the morning.
For now, I’ve retained the original working title. In part because it is a story of the street, and also just out of a liking of the name. What are your thoughts? Any suggestions after reading?
I was going to release this book in two parts. It does divide up quite nicely, but in the end, and partly influenced by my daughter who was one of my early beta readers, I decided to tell the complete story in one book. After sober consideration, the other way felt like a rort, like selling a car, then telling the unwitting buyer that the engine was extra. There seems to be a profusion of stories on Amazon, divided into three or more small books, and I’m not going to join in with that, regardless of how it looks impressive having that string of titles.
The story is written in first person through the eyes, and in the mind, of career criminal Micky DeWitt, and picks at the scab hiding the dark side of human nature that we all carry. Greed, shallowness, and cowardice are all in there waiting to leak out.
Micky washes up in Sydney with nothing other than a run down yacht and his wits. Needing to earn, and not wanting a regular job, he ends up working in a bar in Kings Cross, and on the lookout for opportunity. Nothing is what it seems, as Micky falls into a honey trap that spins his life out of control. He’s faced with an impossible decision, and no matter which way he jumps, someone’s going to get hurt.
Original image via Flikr Commons courtesy of Chris Woodman photography
His decision leads him into a hedonistic free-fall, and then close to the edge of sanity before finding a warped redemption.
Some characters from Heather make an appearance, including Mitchell, Sonny, and the enigmatic Ray Peterson. Maybe even Heather herself …
If you think you would enjoy reading this book, you can sign up here, and get a free pre-release review copy. All I ask is that if you do read it, consider writing a short review on Amazon.
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For those of you who don’t like free, Flank Street is due for release in May 2015, and will be available for pre order on Amazon in early April.
If you enjoy gritty novels written in a noirish style, consider subscribing to this blog, and receive occasional update about my work. You’ll never get spammed!
Until then, happy reading.
November 30, 2014
Flank Street – In The Sydney Underworld
I took a different approach to writing Flank Street (working title) than I did to writing Heather. I wrote the last page first, called it a prologue, and then worked out how the MC would get there. It was fun and the writing went fast.
It’s written in first person from the view of Micky DeWitt, a shiftless criminal. Micky arrives in Sydney by boat, broke and on the lookout for opportunity. After taking a job as barman in a Kings Cross pub, he’s eventually approached by a high-end escort who needs something stolen.
Nothing is what it seems, as Micky falls into a honey trap that spins his life out of control. Some characters from Heather make an appearance, including Mitchell, and the enigmatic Ray Peterson.
Set in Sydney’s Kings Cross, Coffs Harbour and Tamborine Mountain, Flank Street is due for release in May 2015. If you would like to be notified of release, or when pre-release orders can be placed, sign up for my newsletter over there >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Read an excerpt and leave a comment
Get a free pre-release review eBook
Flank Street Volume One- Another Story From The Sydney Underworld
I took a different approach to writing Flank Street (working title) than I did to writing Heather. I wrote the last page first, called it a prologue, and then worked out how the MC would get there. It was fun and the writing went fast.
It’s written in first person from the view of Micky DeWitt, a shiftless criminal.
Micky arrives in Sydney by boat, broke and on the lookout for opportunity. After taking a job as barman in a Kings Cross pub, he’s eventually approached by a high-end escort who needs something stolen.
Nothing is what it seems, as Micky falls into a honey trap that spins his life out of control. Some characters from Heater make an appearance, including Mitchell, and the enigmatic Ray Peterson.
Set in Sydney’s Kings Cross, Coffs Harbour and Tamborine Mountain, Flank Street is due for release in May 2015. If you would like to be notified of release, or when pre-release orders can be placed, sign up for my newsletter over there >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You can read an excerpt by clicking here.
October 30, 2014
The Voyage of The NaNoWriMo
I’d seen the word, the name, but knew nothing about it. It was a mention on another author’s blog—+MJ Bush, I think—that caused me to look at what it is; what NaNoWriMo meant.
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is an annual writing challenge. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel—or 50,000 words of a novel— in only 30 days. It seems like a tall order to average 1660 words a day. Being cripplingly introvert, my normal instinct is to close the door quietly and leave. However, something piqued my interest, and I read-on.
Public challenges and competitions are not my thing at all, but as I read more about the NaNoWriMo, I realised that it coincided with what I was going to be doing in November anyway. I hadn’t set a target of 50k words, or any target, but I did have an outline of a book in my head that I wanted to jam out by the end of the year. So why not use this challenge and try to get 50k words in a month.
As I read a few more posts and comments, I realised that I had taken up much tougher challenges in the past. Not writing challenges, but personal challenges that usually involved wind, and lots of salt water. I recognised other sailing parallels, such as the planning and preparation stage, laying in supplies and drawing up watch schedules. Expectations of outcome and arrival. I have no need of supplies, or schedule. The expectations are between me and my harshest critic.
I signed up, sat back, and thought.
Then I wrote the last page of the novel that had been sloshing around in my thoughts for the past two weeks. I added a paragraph, and called it a prologue. Now all I have to do is create the MC, and let him find his way to that final page.
Tomorrow the challenge begins, but today, just as before going to sea, it is a day of relaxing and quiet contemplation.
Happy Writing,
October 13, 2014
The Indie and the Ford Cortina
I suppose we all remember the firsts. The first job, the first car, the first kiss…
It was summer 1974 when I bought my first car. It was a ten-year-old Mk1 Ford Cortina, bottle green, the Deluxe version, and 1500cc. I almost stacked it that first day whilst driving home, sticking to the hot vinyl seats, and fiddling with the radio.
I thought about that car a few days ago, whilst walking through the deserted forest between home and the small village of Lutz. It was the second time in two days that the recalcitrant green Ford had pushed forward into my consciousness. As I walked, I pondered why…
That summer faded, and the cold autumn foreshadowed a bleak Norfolk winter. It wasn’t long before on one bitter morning, the Cortina refused to start, and I learned the art of bump starting.
Push starting, or bump starting, is impossible to do alone unless parked on a significant hill facing down. So one must recruit help from sympathetic passers-by. It takes at least two enthusiastic people pushing for all they are worth at the back, and the humiliated owner pushing on the front door pillar with the driver’s door open, and ready to leap in. When enough speed has been gained, jump in, slam the clutch down, hit second gear, slam the clutch up and pump gas, praying that it starts before the volunteers give up. It coughs, spits, belches white smoke, then with a couple more hard thunks of the engine mounts, it roars to life. Give it gas, lots of gas leaving it no room to wheeze and die.
That excruciating task of push starting a car, which after that first winter I became expert at, is what caused me to recall it forty years later. It reminded me of what I am attempting now; to be a successful indie author/publisher.
Like bump starting a car, launching a book needs outside assistance, willing volunteers that help get your engine running. It calls for an immense gut-busting effort, humility, and luck laced with technique and determination. And once running, you need to keep your foot on the gas, acknowledge those who pushed, and then offer them a ride.
October 12, 2014
Review of White Jazz by James Ellroy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dwell in the fractured mind of a bent L.A cop.
This book is not for the squeamish. It is laced with violence, gore, racism and brilliance. The first person narrative/stream of consciousness left me exhausted, as Ellroy packs more into a paragraph than most authors do into a chapter. The fragmented sentences and hard-hitting style add to the already high level of tension, making this a real page turner.
The ruthless Dave Klein is driven by greed and anger, and has no redeeming side to his character, other than protectiveness of his sister, which itself is engendered by an incestuous love.
All of the usual well-drawn characters are in there, including Ed Exley, Dudley Smith and of course Mickey Cohen.
Overall a great read if you are into that gritty, no-holds-barred noir style.
October 8, 2014
Autumn Change
Rain is falling, slow and steady like the progress on my WIP. The cool autumn change strips bare the plum tree beyond the window, and beyond that, the forest is turning from lush greens to red and gold, as if covered by emerging young flames. It is a good day to write. Cool and calm with little to distract.
I have been reworking the start of another novel set in Colombia. I considered writing the complete book in first person, but later decided to use third person close. However, I have left the prologue in first. Let me know what you think.
Cartagena – April 1994 08:45
The air was hot, sultry, and tasted of exhaust fumes. The surface of the harbour lay green and lifeless beyond the fractured rocks of the decaying breakwater. Somewhere above, a worker was drilling concrete. Fine grey powder fell through the polluted morning air, thick and dirty with the sound of rush-hour traffic. I walked on. The pavement was cracked and broken, holes, where once there were grids.
A dark Mercedes slowed as it passed me then stopped fifty feet ahead, its deep lustre incongruous in this broken street. The driver’s door opened, the chauffeur stepped out. From a back door, three children bubble to the kerb, then three suppressed shots spit through the damp air and collide with the sound of the angry traffic. A man falls. A child screams. The chauffeur’s blood is pooling.
No thoughts hinder my feet as I rush at the young deer frozen in the headlights of an assassin’s gun. I bundle them over the seawall and into fragile safety, as the gunman continues his work. Four hard fingers probe my back as he attempts to execute the three mute children. Brick dust flies, blood runs. I hear tyres squeal and an engine roar; the sounds of the fleeing assassin as sirens approach. The children stare at me, huddled in silent fear.
Unknown hands staunch the bleeding. There’s no pain, just a sensation of warmth and fear, and the smell of blood and dirty street. Soft touches and muffled words leaking through my clotting senses. Another squeal cleaves my skull, as tyres fight to grip asphalt. Voices and hands, urgent and foreign. Fingers part my left eye, and a shaft of light burns in.
August 25, 2014
Heather – Against All Odds
It is now three and half years since I left Australia in pursuit of a lifestyle that would facilitate writing. From the quiet comfort of Tamborine Mountain, I recalled that period of my life when I was sailing from place to place with, what I recalled as, abundant free time. I remembered tranquil days and months in the Caribbean, where time became meaningless, and leisure a way of life. I guess there was also an appealing romanticism to the image of writing on a yacht anchored off a tropical island. Sitting in the cockpit beneath an awning, tapping at the keyboard and glancing occasionally at the crystal water and white sand.
And then there are the days at sea. The long insulated passages of time that one spends sailing across oceans. I pictured myself relaxed at the salon table, contemplating the next chapter or reviewing the previous line.
And so it was with these idyllic images in the forefront off my mind that I set about buying and preparing a cruising yacht.
Six months later I anchored in the Canaries, and opened the manuscript I had written during my spare-time in Australia. It was semi-autobiographical, and not very good. Ok, it was rough first draft, but not one that I wanted to pursue.
However, whilst reading it I was reminded of some notable events from my past. As I sat and pondered, I realised that among the digital dross and detritus, there might be one or two small nuggets that could be mined and used. And that is how Heather was born.
However, my chosen lifestyle was soon to prove more of a hindrance to writing than a benefit. Tranquillity eluded me. Calm anchorages turned to chop-filled ponds and those days of endless time whilst on passage, became rigors of sail changing and watch-keeping in foul conditions. It was an unusual weather year, one that I had to endure. The following year would surely be better.
I set out across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and soon fell into the daily routine of life at sea, filling every spare moment at the keyboard. For the first few days it went well. The solitude of singlehanded ocean sailing seemed to be what I needed. Then the weather turned foul and made writing impossible. That foul weather lasted for most of the remaining 2500 miles of the passage.
After twenty–one day at sea, I anchored off the beautiful island of Bequia—at 02:00 in continuing foul weather and a high rolling sea. I thought that it was just the reinforced trades, known as the Christmas winds. It’ll calm down soon, It didn’t!
This adverse weather, strong winds and rolling anchorages became the norm. I tried to plug on, but the distractions were many and deep thought seem impossible.
I was still in Bequia three months later when Brigitte joined me. The weather was still blustery and with little chance of productive writing time we set about exploring things shore-side.
A year passed with little or no progress on the manuscript. It had taken a back-seat, but was often front and centre in my mind. I was probably distracted and lousy company at times.
However, what lay ahead, seemed to be very promising. I was to sail alone across the Pacific Ocean, about 8000 miles to Tonga where Brigitte would re-join me for the final leg to New Zealand.
That ocean, The Pacific Ocean, was named for its gentle nature and steady trade winds. Right! It wasn’t quite like that. In fact, the first 1000 miles was hell. To be fair, that first 1000 from Panama to the Galapagos, is not quite the Pacific, and it does have a reputation for being unpredictable. It was, and it wore me thin with constant course and sail changes for the fourteen days that it took to cover those thousand miles. With almost no sleep during those two weeks, writing was again almost impossible.
There were however another 7000 miles to go, and it was during the remainder of that voyage, during those long pacific days, that Heather finally started to shape up. I was pleased with progress and became engrossed in the writing to the detriment of sailing. But with no shipping, little chance of strong winds and absolutely nothing else to do I immersed myself in the Sydney underworld.
Toward the end of the first leg to Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia, the wind died away completely and left me becalmed amidst the gentle breathing of a blue ocean. I rolled up the sails and wrote. For days there was virtually no wind. I abandoned keeping watch, ignored any tempting puffs of wind and the manuscript grew accordingly.
By the time I reached Tonga in September, I had completed the first draft and was looking forward to publishing by Christmas. Once again in Tonga, the wind picked up and stayed up. With Brigitte back on-board, we dodged the worst of the weather, but much of the time it was far from relaxed cruising.
And so it went. I was wrong about the suitability of a yacht as a place to write. Other than the passage to Tonga, it was not conducive at all. I left the yacht, Next Chapter, to be sold in New Zealand, and after a few months travel that again involved no writing, we headed ‘home’ to Germany.
Two months ago we moved into our new home and I was ready to publish. However, I was frustrated once again when I learned that we will not have an internet connection here until January 2015 … AAAHHHHH!!!
I could hardly believe that here in technologically advanced Germany I could live just 700 metres from a small town and not get any form of connection—not even dial-up. Ok, six months is not forever, but …
I prepared as well as I could and then went to Cochem, about 20 kms away where there was an internet café advertised. It no longer existed.
Some days later, I mustered the enthusiasm to try again. This time we went to Koblenz, which is around 45 kms from home. And finally, after twenty–thousand ocean miles, months of frustration and three hours in an internet café, Heather is now available on Amazon and CreateSpace.
Thank you to all those who have tolerated and encouraged me. To those who critiqued and beta-read. To those who inspired me with their own writing and colourful lives.
And last but not least, to Heather.
Heather is now available on Amazon as an ebook and in paperback.
It is also available in paperback from CreateSpace.
In the meantime, I am hard at work in the boiler-room, working on Carlotta, a prequel to Heather. Carlotta is due for release … well, sometime next year.
