UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Meet the Authors
>
R J Askew ~ One Swift Summer
My son starts a creative writing course tmr. He keeps asking me how many copies my story has sold. Ach, I wld have the most acutely mixed of feelings if he scoops me with his first go!
Be sure he joins the group when he's ready to publish, Ron!
Or sooner of course. I just meant...Oh never mind...
R.J. wrote: "My son starts a creative writing course tmr. He keeps asking me how many copies my story has sold. Ach, I wld have the most acutely mixed of feelings if he scoops me with his first go!"twin number 1 and I have a competition for whose YouTube vids get the most views. I'm winning, but then I do have 20 vids up against just his 3
this as cute as I can make it .. 14 lines, each of 8 syllabs, with an >> AA BCBC BB CC ABAB rhyme scheme and a few internal pairings .. the i/we/you line openers repeated thrice in homage to the trinity.the verse is positive in the extreme and I am happy with the outcome, but it left me profoundly sad because life is seldom like this ideal for most of us, and never like this for long for those lucky enough to ever experience such extreme emotional highs .. line 1 leaves me in total despair because it is true .. we, esp poets, put out lives into our writing .. we will soon die, our verses will not .. this is archly beautiful and so profoundly sad as to be unbearable .. it wld be better never to write than to feel we are dying as we do it, yet that is how I felt when I wrote this .. I was dying as I wrote it .. I love the verse with an intense bitterness .. it is as if our words are more than we are, as if we exist for them and not the other way around ..
.. that said it was also written for someone who loves to dance .. for pleasure .. so the feelings of the poet are unimportant .. all that matters is that it arouses pleasure ..
.. must break out soon from this metaphysical cage with 14 bars ..
~
DANCE IN KISSES
~
A part of me's alive in this
I breathe within your minds in bliss
We dance as one in ecstasy
You keep this flame of mine alight
In you I see myself made free
I am love new in your insight
We dance in kisses swirling free
You hold me close instinctively
New beauty spectrums through this light
I watch love's eyes in you see right
We dance, o how we dance in this!
You feel our life's a flame made free
To love forever in this kiss
We deep swirl dance inspirally
~
funny, I caught the last word as 'conspiratorially' as I was scrolling down the page
Gosh that's gorgeous. It makes me wish Mr Ignite danced!
weird cos I've also written piece on orgiastic/bodiless dance this week, though of course mine is not as life-affirming as yours...
St.Albans beer festival is drawing me ever closer .. time to forget it all and rub bellies with the beards of Britain and other beery hobbits.
REVIEW OF 52FF I have not yet met Marc Nash author of 52FF, but I will have no trouble spotting him when I do as he will be the one with the 1,000 word stare of the flash fictionalist. He will, it being the nature of the beast, either be coming down from nailing his latest ff or prepping to write his next.
Flash fiction seems the perfect genre, if that be what it is, for our times. You have an idea. You nail it. Forget beginning-middle-end, as to plan wld not be flash. We txt n tweet our lives into the real time river of whatever. Your flash fictionalist just grabs the raw juice and adds another 990 words to make it into a chunk of art. Is it a big poem? Nope. Is is a tiny novel? Nope. It's a stretched heartbeat of nowness, about a hundred tweets say. Those of us who can't live by txts n tweets alone, who crave more, but are super impatient and either unwill or incapable of reading a 100,000 novel should find the 1,000 word flash a perfect solution. You can flash read. You can take 1,000 words in a few minutes. You don't have to give up half your day. You don't have to work your way into it. Read. Change tubes. Read another. Move on.
To hold the flash reader's attention the flash fictionalist needs must to be nimble.
Marc Nash's creative intellect is exactly that ~ nimble.
I have so far read 17 of the stories in 52FF and can you assure you of this. Marc Nash is a writer who commands great originality in his choice of subject matter, great wit, great sensitivity and, this above all, great dexterity in his skill with da werds. He loves the the sheer pleasure of being in the creative spectrum in the wordfall. But this embellishment never gets in the way of the story, the mood, or whatever each fiction is about, but adds another reason for enjoying the read. My overall impression was of strong contemporay intelligence in full flow. We can learn from Marc Nash's fictions and perhaps adjust our own lives for the better.
I won't spoil your enjoyment of his stories by revealing any of the subjects but I will give you a couple of exmaples of his wording which caught my eye.
(Contemplating a lover who has left) "A labyrinth of hidden plumbing .. how she must still reside there, little tiny shards and spoors of hair, nails and other off-cuts. .. She persecutes me from within the pipes, blow-darting me to a slow ruin."
(A woman studying the elbow of her sleeping lover) "There you could witness the celluar architecture of the human body in all its intricacy. .. Tiny parallelograms .. The shifting orchestration was simply divine."
(An aged actress in her dressing room) "...her own mind's bulbs popped one by one .. no unseen stage hand in her head to replace the burned out filaments."
I love this sort of writing. I am happy when I find one such passage in 50 pages. But I kept coming across such passages ever few pages in 52FF.
I will return to dip into 52FF. And I know exactly how I will do so. I will come back at moments of disappointment, when I am stuck with something, at moments when I need a lift. Because I know that every third or second offering in 52FF will deliver a jold of some some true nourishment to refresh my jaded palette.
Ron Askew
cheers Ron :-) Am lost for words (ironic in light of the above)
Marc wrote: "cheers Ron :-) Am lost for words (ironic in light of the above)"Well, if it gets you another reader or two here that will be good as your little word machines definitely deserve it.
Wonderful words R.J. both in the poem and the review!
Philip (sarah) wrote: "Wonderful words R.J. both in the poem and the review!"Cheeeeeers thanks for that! *bows*
1) It's a career not a sprint. How many of the archetype authors you list above will have a second or third book in them?2) As a literary fiction writer, I do not see myself in competition withg any of them. They have their market, I have mine. However miniscule. They do not take sales away from me just as much as I don't deprtive them. I would be closer to your target audience than theirs, but even you are not my rival. My book will sell what my book will sell. And I accept that. It's not for everybody. It's not going to make me any money, or even probably establish/validate me as a writer. I don't care, I know I AM a writer, a forward-thinking one at that. Someone who tilts at the boundaries of where literature currently sits. That is enough for me. Sales are garnish on top of that. Moorish coriander leaves and lemon slices to be sure and what writer doesn't want to be read? I think any author has to answer the question what being a writer actually means to them. What aims and objectives they have by voluntarily taking up this profession/activity. What makes me smile is that most of the author types you cite above probably have no idea how to answer this question for themselves. They just want to spin yarns and I for one salute them for that; from the other bank of the Rubicon of course...
Marc wrote: "1) It's a career not a sprint. How many of the archetype authors you list above will have a second or third book in them?2) As a literary fiction writer, I do not see myself in competition withg a..."
Ach, it's true, we write what and how we do because we have to. I've read too much on the Harper Collins website about 'becoming a brand'. I hate all that stuff. And I esp loathe those pics of successful house authors looking all moody in their lofty studios. We are the warrior talents on the outside. I never want to be on the inside of old publishing. Their platform is burning. The kindling has been lit and has taken. Our future is here. Our problem is finding readers who want to savour the single malts we produce. We is not at the alcopop end of the market you and I.
Marc wrote: "1) It's a career not a sprint. How many of the archetype authors you list above will have a second or third book in them?2) As a literary fiction writer, I do not see myself in competition withg a..."
I have to say I smiled at the notion of a Flash Fictionalist blue seeing this as a career! (though I agree with you on that)
R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "1) It's a career not a sprint. How many of the archetype authors you list above will have a second or third book in them?2) As a literary fiction writer, I do not see myself in compet..."
I see myself first and foremost as a novelist. But flash fiction is the perfect literature for the modern age of little time, convenience reading, mobile devices etc etc. For me, flash fiction started as a marketing tool, but developed naturally into a literary form of its own. Now it sits in parallel with the longer novel form, perennially posing questions to me of whether a conceit that works within 1000 words can be sustained over a novel's course
I like how you've cut up & reconstructed the narrative of this thread à la Burroughs & Southern. Death to linearity.How was JCC BTW?
What a crackingly chaotic performance from John Cooper Clark last night. Old punk poets never die .. but they can get confused, lose their notes, ramble a bit, run over, yet STILL connect with their mercurial madness.
This recorded today, you may be the first to hear it if you are quick..http://soundcloud.com/r-j-askew/hear-...
Your metphysical poet *bows*
Have you read any of Stuarts books yet, Ron?
I think you'll love his writing style. Most poetic.
Patti (Migrating Coconut) wrote: "I think you'll love his writing style. Most poetic."Then I will definitely have a look post Pompomberry, which I might even finish tdy.
NEWS .. NEWS .. .. bestselling historical novelist Robert Low - for whom RESPECT - has made it known through goodreads ancient and medieval historical fiction thread http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5... that he wld like my goodreads review of his excellent The Whale Road attached to his story's amazon page.
I am chuffed that he even noticed the review here on goodreads. It should be on his book's amazon.co.uk page once amazon have given it the nod.
Here's a link to the review here (with spoilers) if you are curious .. http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
Hmmm, time to start thinking of my Christmas marketing campaign. Should I go free I wonder? Is going free a good tactic to bulk up? The big giveaway. Must, must, must find out how Rosen did it.
Rosen should write a book about how she cracked the charts; I watched the whole Pompomberry marketing campaign unroll with speechless admiration. And am happy to say having the top review on that book has done wonders for my Amazon reviewer ranking as well!
R.J. wrote: "Hmmm, time to start thinking of my Christmas marketing campaign. Should I go free I wonder? Is going free a good tactic to bulk up? The big giveaway. Must, must, must find out how Rosen did it."personally I'd say no, don't do it for free. Lots of people sweep it up to their kindles & never read it. I've not had one review from the 200 ppl who took me up on my free day for "52FF". Maybe if it's part of a sustianed promotion campaign wioth other planks of activity then it could work, but in isolation it does nothing. If you do still go ahead, make sure you get a screen grab of your place in the top 10 free chart of your genre.
Andrew wrote: "Rosen should write a book about how she cracked the charts; I watched the whole Pompomberry marketing campaign unroll with speechless admiration. And am happy to say having the top review on that b..."So much to learn here. I don't even know how the reviewer ranking works or what point there is to it.
So how did said campaign evolve? NOT that I plan to copy it! Esp being mindful of what happened to the copyists in PPH.
Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Hmmm, time to start thinking of my Christmas marketing campaign. Should I go free I wonder? Is going free a good tactic to bulk up? The big giveaway. Must, must, must find out how Rose..."Thanks for that Marc. The idea of peeps just sticking the freebie on their kindle cos it is free and then never bothering to read it is a sorry factoid for us all to face. It's like all those online 'friends' people squirrel away. Appreciate the 'doing it in isolation' point. But what the hell is a screen grab? Mr.Non-Techno-Man here!
A SCREEN GRAB IS A PHOTO OF WHAT'S ACTUALLY ON YOUR COMPUTER AT THAT MOMENT. SOZ 4 SHOUTING, HAD CAPS LOCK ON FOR A SPREADHSEET I'M WORKING ON
Marc wrote: "A SCREEN GRAB IS A PHOTO OF WHAT'S ACTUALLY ON YOUR COMPUTER AT THAT MOMENT. SOZ 4 SHOUTING, HAD CAPS LOCK ON FOR A SPREADHSEET I'M WORKING ON"Cheers Marc, I get it, then you can tweet/facebook said pic etc
.. ARTWORK .. art werk .. ART ART ART .. work ..I'm after an artist .. to collaborate with .. SE England ideally ..
.. will start casting my beady eye around the places where the talent hangs .. but if anyone knows someone .. you know where I am ..
R.J. wrote: ".. ARTWORK .. art werk .. ART ART ART .. work ..I'm after an artist .. to collaborate with .. SE England ideally ..
.. will start casting my beady eye around the places where the talent hangs ..."
are you talking book covers?
Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: ".. ARTWORK .. art werk .. ART ART ART .. work ..I'm after an artist .. to collaborate with .. SE England ideally ..
.. will start casting my beady eye around the places where the ..."
a bit more than that ideally ..
INSIGHT INTO AN INDIE AUTHOR'S IN-IN-INKSOMNIAI wonder if I can get from 70-100 sales. This indie author malarky feels like climing Everest. Hold fast! Don't look up! I look up. Noooo sigh of the summit, just jagged ice-covered rocks. More adept authors than I surge past with the assurance of flies scurrying up a window pane. How do they do it?
Fear refluxes into my throat. I gag. This is intensely physical. Each morning, the same: log on, hit dtp.amazon.com, go to 'reports', hit 'sales this month', the same, no change, cling on in grim desperation. Welcome to the 99cts 77p ebook cage fight.
A YA fantasy writer scrambles over my back with 10 new sales. I feel their foot on my shoulder as they subordinate me. A historical romance writer catches hold of my ankle, pulls herself over my contemplative liteary fiction body. She uses my rib cage like a ladder. She has 15 new sales today. I see them bulging in a sack on her back. She's tweeting with her left hand, txting with her right, while an indie camera crew is doing an arts docu of her 'Indie Author Experience'. The presenter stands on my head as he does voice to camera.
A shrill scream makes us all freeze. A broken-hearted childrens writer hurtles past us as she fall, fall, falls from somewhere up above. I catch a snatch of her parting cry: '..see what your bitchy review has made me dooooooooo..' And then she's gone, vanished, never to be heard of again, perhaps to take up yoga-golf.
The film crew move higher, their skinny arses vanishing into self-declared success. I have my nonentify to myself. I cling on. How much longer will this nightmare run and run? Will I, too, fall the fall of your wannabe talent? I should tweet, but dare not move. No money on my phone. Ach, no phone. I tweet you not, I am a mess.
AGGGGGGH-OWWWWWWWWWWWWW! MY FRACKING STORY'S JUST STUCK IT'S SPURS INTO MY KIDNEYS. BREATH COMES FAST N HARD. I LOOK UP .. 71 .. i reach up .. my weight pulls, pulls, pulls me back .. ANOTHER KICK! WHEN WILL THIS never END? .. i reach up, grab, miss .. up, grab, miss .. pant .. up, grab, miss .. HOLD FAST! My mouth is dry. I lick the water drippling down the rock. Water? This is no water. The bodily fluids of thouuuuuusaaaaands of toiloing writers high above me stream over the rocks. They offer no relief. Why wld they? I am their enemy, albeit a pathetic sub-literal to the majestic Mexican sombrero of their greatness.
I gag. The slipperyness of this place terrifies me. My story Watching Swifts (amazon.com 99cts amazon.co.uk 77p) falls asleep. I read the tattoo on its happening arm: 'Warning: this story WILL bite.'
I sigh in relieved disbelief. Time for a shave and a shower, to go into the world, to forget all this .. blissful desperation .. with the latest best advice of a reader ringing in my 50:50 hearing: 'put more S&M in (or even M&S)' .. and that other comment from the unsmiling Brazilian woman '..it's all about winning Ron..' The lack of M&S in said story is clearly a greater flaw than the lack of S&M, my image action analysis consultant intern, Biggles Gutz, informs me, sales wise.
And so, let this chRONicle of wasted time show, I look up and focus on 71. 'I will have you,' I snarls. 'I WILL have YOU!'
Another broken writer hurtles past me .. hundreds and hundreds of sales won spill said fading talent's sack. I shut my eyes and whimper in thrice distilled terror. A warm stream runs down my trembling leg.
Now what? What ifresh torment be this? A metallic HeiRONymous Boch demon with eight reticulated egos, scurries down and shines a beam in my eye. It shakes it head. It sees no worth, moves on. A kickass London literary agent for you.
Up above, I hears the dragon helicopter once more. There are cheers, a band, P.J.HARTLEY? champage storks, the sound of shortlists being formulated. Said dragon-copter flies back to the publishing houuse in the burning tower.
I press my cheek against the sheer rock face of creative death. My eyes meet those of a mocking nutrino just a-passing on through... 'Check this new yoga-golf offer out, dude,' yells said nutrino. 'I TWEET YOU NOT! You just won't believe the suite of seven star benefits we've made standard in one easy-to-own enhanced premier membership package, just for youza.'
And so, no arse knowingly unlicked, UNLESS YOU BUY Watching Swifts NOWZA! I *WILL* POST MORE HERE. i TWEET YOU NOT!
And if you have already bought said Watching Swifts feel how, behind this flamless flim I love you deeply, eternally, AND! sincerely. I really do. *bows* Licks your ankle and peers up with imploring puppy dog eyes .. please, o please, please, please, can you get your best friend to invest in Watching Swifts or your worst enemy for that matter as that wld be the very best way for you to reciprocate the warmth of this gigantic love I have for you *licks other ankle in the sheerest supplication to your 10-candle genius, wit-n-brilliance*
I just noticed that I was mentioned in this thread. Copy away, I've had my gun licence revoked so I can't hurt you. ;-)I'll even hold a clay seagull making workshop.
How are all things Watching Swifts?
Rosen wrote: "I just noticed that I was mentioned in this thread. Copy away, I've had my gun licence revoked so I can't hurt you. ;-)I'll even hold a clay seagull making workshop.
Will my feet of clay qualify for said workshop?
.TOUCHING BEAUTY
.
.
This dance of eyes we dance because ...
Psst, and were the role to fall to you ..?
We twirls and whirls and swirls around
Your untouch'ed'ness purring flies
Into this reeling fall of verse
Mesmerically shimmering
Inside this insubstance of all
Come! the interview procedes well!
Circles, circling, circles, circled
Yesssing ever deeper inwards
Out with it and other clusters
Of verbs in motion we are made
Metaphysically perfect
In this tumpsy-rumpsy-tumble
Down Cottage Down awaits your turn
Has come Cottage, come, dance with us
Eyes us, the verb, ussing us eyes
This creativity's alive
In creativity we swim
Alive in this creation's whim
The role is yours, there are no shores
Doors, chores, claws, pause.. Well? Bumble me
Deep into Nature we must flow
Out sane in love without hurry
You must not miss this bouncing bliss
Tickle creation's armpits ten
More lines soho! I dance for you
To dance with beauty in this soul
I raise up into life for you
To dance in two's a better state
Yes, meant to be, the role is yours
When can you start? I see you have
O how you dance! Now thirty-three
You dance in this forevermore
Touched, by me, in this made free
Love's in this dance that makes us three
.
A SPLENDID SALMAGUNDI ~ reviewI don't know exactly why it is so, and it does not really matter, but those two little eyes peering out from the hidey-hole on the bole of the oak tree on the front cover of this fine anthology really tickle me. There is something engaging about them that seems to perfectly capture the character of this tastefully eclectic salad of writerly talent.
This is not one of the numberless kissass covers to be found at every e-turn from rising authors stutting their 'brand'. I wonder which genius decided that authors now have to be brands? For some reason those two little eyes a-peering out really make me want me to peer into their realm. What shy little creature lurks within?
This is good. I am won more by those two little eyes than by a No.1. cacophany of tartly-branded visual hammer blows. Yes, I am a-judging a book by its cover. But then those two little eyes a-peering out really do make my eyes want to peer in. Because... I do not know why, and it does not matter. All I know is this, if you look at those two eyes for long enough, I swear to you that you will see them blink.
I know this is all a double rum, but I instinctively sense there is a link between those two little bewtiching eyes and the nature of the art to be found within the e-covers of A Splendid Salmagundi, an art which will charm-e the eyes of all those curious enough and wise enough to want to taste it.
The joy of reading anthologies is not knowing what will grab you until you stumbles into its outstretched arms and are half hugged to death by it. You dip in, you try a bit of this, a bit of that on a read-one-like-one-read-one-maybe-read-one-love-one-basis. It wld be a very picky reader indeed who does not find a good few read-one-love-ones here-e. You just don't know what's coming. It's a fairground of writerly rides and coconut shies. You can lose yourself in a book like this. You can hop around. It's great. A reading holiday. A change. New weather. A break from the all the know-where-you-are genres.
Yes, this is not kickass branded product, with a nailed-down narrative gunning for a film deal (yawn). That said, it has most definitely been painstakingly and lovingly arranged by an editor with a fine sense of creative balance - an art in itself - and I commend it to you strongly in the hope that you will enjoy it and in turn re-commend it to your friends, suggest it to your book group, e-gift it to your relatives in chilly Moose Jaw this Christmas, tweet it to Stephen Fry, facebook it, spread the word, Salmagundi, Salmagundi.
Just look into those little front cover eyes. If you see them blink - which I swear you will - have a look inside. You are sure to find something to charm your eyes. I know which is my absolute fave story is and my two next faves, but I am not going to tell you as that wld spoilt if for you and we most certainly can't have that. *add to your trolly now!*
Gulp, I am sitting with a guy who is going to, double gulp, buy my story. I am having to help him set up his amazon account first though. And no I am not holding a gun to his head. Yikes, he has his credit card IN HIS HAND ..
.. yess, I see my story on his phone. I'd better be off before he starts to read and demands a refund.
When it all stops, when we can write no more, for whatever reason ..FAREWELL TO WORDS
And when it's done and i am gone
What will become of you, my words?
How will you do when I am done?
O what thin misteries you are!
New inkly shapes arraigned in lines
With ii-s through whiich you're watchiing now
Even now! flying from this heart!
Down! Down! onto this virgin skin
I sense you seeing all i am
Alive in this i think myself
A-capturing creation's blink
In which you are my blood made ink
A pulsing rush of love made life
Performing life's farewell to strife
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
One Swift Summer (other topics)One Swift Summer (other topics)
Death and the Penguin (other topics)
Death and the Penguin (other topics)
The Owl Service (other topics)
More...
i gotta tweet that