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R J Askew ~ One Swift Summer
Marc wrote: "I have my theories on HP, but I'm going to keep them to myself cos it will just get me into trouble."I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave recently... #selfcensorshipthebetterpartofvelour
R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "Yes I get that, cos that's who it's written for. I have no problem with books for teens, read by teens. It's the adult fans I struggle to understand.I think your analysis of the faul..."
had virtually all the review blog sites say yes to accepting a review copy of my book. Of course they may not see it through to the end, but still pleasing at this stage.
Seems sci-fi world more amenable than certain other genres...
Marc wrote: "I didn't think Coupland was particularly bitter in J-Pod. There was some experimental post-modern stuff where he inserts himself into the story as well"All things being relative, I felt it was a good proportion more bitter than the average Harry Potter novel that my girlfriend might otherwise be reading. It's a fair point, though. I wasn't totally sold on Coupland's appearance in the book as a character.
Andrew wrote: "Marc wrote: "I didn't think Coupland was particularly bitter in J-Pod. There was some experimental post-modern stuff where he inserts himself into the story as well"All things being relative, I f..."
Funny, I really didn't get the bitterness thing when I read it. But can't face re-reading it to check! :-0
I heard an English professor diss JKR this afternoon, to a few sharp intakes of breath in his audience. "She's a great story-teller but she can't write," said the prof.O to be a great story-teller!
R.J. wrote: "I heard an English professor diss JKR this afternoon, to a few sharp intakes of breath in his audience. "She's a great story-teller but she can't write," said the prof.O to be a great story-teller!"
Me, I don't really want to tell stories! I just want to be able to write. Story comes into it of course, but it's just one organising principle among several to me.
Yep their is pleasure in language for the sake of langauage. Poems are like that when they work. The language is stripped right back to the critical bits. Of course there are often stories in poems, esp ballads.I've been edging towards this John-Humphries-like question for a while: have you ever gone commando and written verse?
R.J. wrote: "Yep their is pleasure in language for the sake of langauage. Poems are like that when they work. The language is stripped right back to the critical bits. Of course there are often stories in poems..."not that I'm aware of, though some veer dangerously close...
Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Yep their is pleasure in language for the sake of langauage. Poems are like that when they work. The language is stripped right back to the critical bits. Of course there are often sto..."It's a creative cliff that you are perilously close too, perhaps. Close eyes, spread wings and ...
R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Yep their is pleasure in language for the sake of langauage. Poems are like that when they work. The language is stripped right back to the critical bits. Of course there ..."I don't have the sense of rhythm required. Plus I like to go forensic on words' a**, so antipodal to poetry's brevity
R.J. wrote: "My dog of a webbie is at last k-thunking around in cyberspace .. I've tweeted the hits higher .. but all my efforts have not produced a single sale .. maybe 'literarly fiction' is some kind of suic..."marketing: http://self-publishinguser.blogspot.c... from 2 years ago and not much has changed...
Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Yep their is pleasure in language for the sake of langauage. Poems are like that when they work. The language is stripped right back to the critical bits. Of ..."Tis true, you do wevil into them and some of the words you love to deploy are not always easy ones to enjamb n rhyme etc .. but there is still a poetry in the way you use them I wld argue. Poetic prose?
My dog of a webbie is at last k-thunking around in cyberspace .. I've tweeted the hits higher .. but all my efforts have not produced a single sale .. maybe 'literary fiction' is some kind of suicide tag and I am too stupeedo to know it.http://rjaskew.com/ THUN-K-THUNK! K-THUNKING your.. http://rjaskew.com/
R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Yep their is pleasure in language for the sake of langauage. Poems are like that when they work. The language is stripped right back to the criti..."tbh I don't mind what people call it. Some don't like the association of prose with poetry and others vice versa. I'm not a purist, I have no axe to grind (for once).
BTW is December 6th any good to you for meeting up? It would allow me to duck out early from works Xmas do. Just let me know.
OK .. I've removed 'literary fiction' from my zombie webbie .. cos the term is a turn off for many readers .. and I've removed the word 'poet' from the webbie's banner, cos using the P word is worse than farting in a lift. Removing the P from my actual story might be a tad harder. Perhaps I cld call it a gaia novel, worth a try. Zombie pauses mid stride to change direction of marketing blitz .. K-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK. That said I am rather fond of THUNK as he is my zombie and he does his best in the cause.
Maybe he can feature in my NEWEBBIE! iTweetYouNot.com *WHOOT WHOOT* if I can ever be bov'd to put anything on it. cos http://rjaskew.com/ sounds like some warmed up street BARF that evan a semi-dead London pigeon wldn't peck at. Quality.
Hi, my name is THUNK. And if you read the pvs post you will know who my boss is. Thank you. Qual-it-eee (said with thunk -adjective - Balkan accent).THUNK - verb - to market an ebook so ponderously .. zzzz
Does anyone know a dating agency for Ldn Zombs - THUNKp.s. see pvs TWO posts for context - eds
Don't have nightmares .. I DO bite.p.s. see pvs THREE msgs for context - Bruv Jayden
K-THUNK , my helpmeat (sp correct -eds) zombie , is now plodding awound the streets of London wired up to a couple of Toyota car batteries. I've programmed him to hand out Watching Swifts biz cards, esp to people reading kindles on the tube, esp the Metropolitan line in the Baker St and Paddington catchment area. He's got a million or so cards curtsies of that online marketeer who keeps hitting on me, so that shouldn't be a problem. The only issue if securing a good supply of K-THUNKS fave crispy dry roasted n salted fingers. Clearly one has to go some some to find supplies of such in the west. This is not China, right? Ha ha. But if you are a determined INDIE AUTHOUR such as my good self *bows* anything is possible in pursuit of THAT NEXT SALE. And so, I ham happy to report, I has secured a years supply of K-THUNKS favourite snack. That said I shall now eat my hand for an encore *bows* *genuflects* *tweets* *winks* *spins stick on plate* *spins seal on stick* *repeats repeatedly* *drops x2 rennies* *chills to a little light Rammstein* *blogs* *tweets* *repeats* *reflucts* Back story: k-THUNK was a shape-shifting Middlesburo fan who did a 5 stretch for dissing columnists in a newswoom who shall be forever nameless. THUNK-the-lunk then reads this self-help book for under-achieving zombies.. Film work dried up for him when he bit a focus puller's arm off on a shoot at Levington Green Studios. He was found sobbing in an Oak Wood just behind Stnalley Kubrics rambling gaff just outside St.Albans near Gorehambury Stoats. The goats' pelts used to he available through Bleeding Heart Yard in Cov Garnden not far from where the Poetry Cafe is, where YOURS TRULY HAS NOT ONLY PERFOMED ON MORE THAN ONE OPEN MIC NITE. But that is another kettle of blogs.
Anyway, where wasn't I? K-THUNK was found in Big Stan Kubric's wood SOB-bing, having tried to dig up Big S and revive his flagging directorial career. THUNK had got it into his PVS head that he -- K-THUNK -- was perfect to the lead in NAPOLEON WAS A ZOMBO SHAPE-SHIFTING VAMPIRE FUCK.
Constable Quick of the Hertfordshire constabulary was totally on message with all this and helped THUNK dig up Stan. The saucy plod even called in the *POLICE CHOPPER* to beam its spolight down onto the dig, it being a very, very, very dark. THUNK swears that he'd offered Quick a couple of seats for the premier in Leicester Sq. Evidently, Quick was romantically linked with a big cheese -- stoats' or otherwise I know not, but am checking -- in the forthcoming St.Albans *FILM FESTIVAL*. You have to agreen, THUNK is a spunky zombo when it comes to pulling a stroke. Quallo, as we say East of St.Pauls, not that I've ever been there in this life.
Anyway, should you be sitting on the Met/District/Circle n Hammerhorror line in the run up to Crimbo with your Hamleys carrier bags or whatever, and should my zombo and #1 fan lurch your way with a biz card for Watching Swifts you should be very alarmed as he does bite and is non too keen in the old orthodontic orthodoxy dept. That is to say his mouth is in worse shape that that of a Kimono Dragon, Kimono Komodo whatever.
My best advice is that you be alert to the possibility of his presence and 6) get off at Eusless Road, 2) change carriages, 7)shape shift into an indie nutrino, 9) pull the communications breakdown and tell Jimbo Page to ramble on cos big Robbo is no way gonna go for a 30 gig world tour.. Failing which.. Failing which..
I tweet you not, this indie authour biz is a quallo game to be in cos you can be whatever you wanna be, ain't right, THUNK, my old zombean fruit bat?
LET THE RECORD SHOW K-THUNK nodded -- great strands of glutinous spittle dangling from his jaws like crane hawsers -- and muttered but one word: "Quallo boss, quallo."
I am the worst salesman on the planet by far. In fact I am worse that than. To be just the worst on the planet wld be a step up. Hundreds of tweets. Thousands of hits. N'er a sale. This is quite fantastic. I am clearly tainted with some civet-like tang which I am unaware of, but which everyone else around the world recoils in horror from. At least one doesn't have a copious correspondence to deal with. Even a blatant arse-licker wld be welcome right now. Hell, no one even bothers to pitch me with their stories now. How on earth did I achieve this stupendous isolation? Waves of aue de civet waft all around like dry ice at a faux Abba gig. The more I try to catch the odd eye, the deeper I sink into this vacuum at the end of a void. Ha! I should enjoy this absolute peace. I can dad dance, tell bad jokes, pick my nose, doze off .. no one will notice.
How delicious that one can find such peace in a public place while furiously striving -- too hard -- to achieve the opposite! Dies. Eats hand. Revies. Dies again. Applies DIY CPR .. (think about it) .. breathes anew. Ahhhh, yes, Parfum D'Civet, by Ronelle.
Ron, my opening chapter of debut novel "A,B&E" has had 24,000 views on Freado website since it was published in 2009. Sales resulting from it? Zero...
Marc wrote: "Ron, my opening chapter of debut novel "A,B&E" has had 24,000 views on Freado website since it was published in 2009. Sales resulting from it? Zero..."I've worked it out. We form a Burke n Hare style partnership and set about raiding London's mortuaries with a view to finding compliant readers there, as we are clearly not going to find them among the (allegedly) living, being neither mean nor average enough. *Stamps foot and swirls cape more closely around sense of failure.*
Let the record show, gusts of Parfum d'Civet waft up through cracks in said failure's san - it - eeeeeeeee.
I'm a tad squeamish around dead bodies. Plus I don't have a cape. Will a boiler suit do? I do have my own (performance) balaclava for maintaining anonymity
Actually, we need the opposite of anonymity. It will all have to be youtubed, with appropriate cross-referencing across the socail media firmament. Clever hash-taggery will be needed also to intrude our messaged into the minds of the unwitting and unwilling. There are pockets #OutThere just waiting, nay begging to be picked. We are after all offering a #LegalHigh.
Have you any interesting flaws or deeper deficiencies that cld be harnessed to the cause? Alas, I am far too sane and mediocre to be interesting in any marketable way in these post-structural times where even Jane Austen has been given a zombie makeover. Might a zombie Hamlet work? Ach, you see, no idea, giving my best ideas away again. But then it has almost certainly been done.
Ahem, I am on several YouTube videos bringing literature to the masses behind balaclava/hoodie/bandages. I have even indulged in a flame war with a chav troll about my balaclava which he took objection to
I hope the chav troll was well toasted.
R.J. wrote: "I hope the chav troll was well toasted."that's the thing about trolls, I always trust to my lexicon to outduel them until they get fed up not being able to score hits & go elsewhere
On 21st Nov I will have been 'marketing' Watching Swifts for 1 year. What have I learnt? .. about the story .. about how to/how not to promote it .. readers .. people .. How do I feel about it? What is the next step? What precisely are the story's chances of winning eyes in this competitive market where real storytelling talent it commonplace and where social and technology skills and ruthless cunning count for far more than actual writing skills? How can a story that is not in a winning genre ever hope to prosper? How does one know the difference between determination and blind pig-headedness in all this? How can one tell if a story is a dead duck?
Yep, I'm up for it. How about the first week of Dec?
IN THE SILENCEA shape moves in its war-grave hole
Can't stop, you cannot stop, push on
Pained terrors arc live from its eyes
'Save me! it cries deep into you
Broken handclaw claws desert air
Dies anew nine silences through
You desapair, n'er must stop, live on
But nothing is the same back home
Not with this war-grave in your head
Condemned to live while they lie dead
Those friends of yours who died for you
Anew you see him in his hole
A life alive forever more
Beneath the silent desert floor
R.J. wrote: "Yep, I'm up for it. How about the first week of Dec?"6th Dec, save me from my works Xmas do
Hurrah, another sale! I love everyone set of eyes that takes in even one word of mine. I've accepted that my sales campaign is of the tai chi variety
But I am good with that. No point exploding like a shaken shampoo bottle. Pffffffff. Gawn.
Best to be a slow single malt.
Hi, call me Single, Malt, Malt Single.
Hi Single! Congratulation on your sale. YAY!
I am getting into this blog-reviewing .. I really put my back into this one .. I hope as many people as possible will read this one, even if it is unedited >>http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
A Darker First@
iNside this fox between the lines
paRtaking of a scavanged art
we cHew and tear in gory joy
is thiS mine eye you sleekly seek?
o how yOu dare! to dig this lair
we slinK into an other's sleep
to feast Unseen on dreams in dreams
between tHe conscious and the not
we rot, o how We rot and toy
to be so raveNous aware as this
behind the bubBle of their now
you are, my fox, betWeen the lines
and I am inmind readiNg you
my foxy flair a burning Hot
@
I do nothing but read and review, read and review .. it's what I do, read and review
R.J. wrote: "I do nothing but read and review, read and review .. it's what I do, read and review"and write?
Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "I do nothing but read and review, read and review .. it's what I do, read and review"and write?"
Zero writing now. Poems force their way out. I'd rather then didn't as they are a distraction and I keep feeling I shld organise them. But they are crap. So I won't.
R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "I do nothing but read and review, read and review .. it's what I do, read and review"and write?"
Zero writing now. Poems force their way out. I'd rather then didn't as ..."
Reading COSMOPOLIS .. I like Eric .. can't wait to see if he's got the yen right .. some great turns of phrase in it. I almost got the Mitchell story, but then realised he was CLOUD ATLAS, a book which drove me nuts. I didn't get on that well with HANGING MAN either, but I am into COSMOPLIS in part because i am a down-table cog in Eric's world.
Pssssst, it is also great to read a pbook again. I just love scribbling all over it.
I'm reading a collection of poetry on Kindle at the moment and it really ****** me off that I can't flip from page to page. I don't like the rigidity of the format. And the visual layout on kindle is brain dead. There is zero scope for visual artistry in the layout of poems. Beauty is totally lost to utiltiy. Maybe the new version will permit a little more visual elegance. Tehre is none on the version I have.
Actually, I hate reding poetry on a screen. It just feels barbaric in the extreme.
I wanted to kiss and punch Eric Cosmopolis in the first few pages on account of his views on poetry and words. As a mere billionaire, the smallest flea of a poet outranks Eric at every turn. I sort of hope Eric is not totally monstered by his creator though.
The Hanging Man? Was that one I recommended? Can't recall it
Noooooooo, your rec was the one I am actually reading COSMOPOLIS
I dips my bucked in the well of optimism and winds me up a couple of gallons .. glug .. glug .. glug .. glug .. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!Come on Tuesday, I loves ya baby! Let's R O C K .. show me the way to the next moshing mosh pit .. let's bodeeeee surf out way to H E A V E N ...
A cup of optimism anyone? >>>>> Watching Swifts .. Watching Swifts.. Watching Swifts
is that cup of optimism half full or half empty...
Doesn't matter as long as there's room to add vodka.
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Yes, away with curmudgeonlinesss .. tell me about the guuuuuud marketing day ..