How’s this for unbelievably stupid, not to mention short sighted!!!
School bus driver bans reading, because books are dangerous » MobyLives.
Month: April 2015
My favourite subject as a writer – my leading ladies
My latest leading lady – Lieutenant Lynne Crawford as I envision her
❤ xxx
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It’s a fact that with every book I write, I push the envelope that bit further. If you have ever read any of them you will know that without exception each and every one of my female characters is not only loyal, fiesty, beautiful and strong minded, but also determined and vulnerable. In my latest scifi WIP, The Guardian, Lieutenant Lynne Crawford is no different.
When it comes to creating each of them I always ask myself what it is about them that would make me, as a mere male, sit up and take notice. It is true to say that with each principal female character that I have created over the years, while writing about them, inevitably I always fall head over heels in love, even today at my age (67). After bearing my soul somewhat, by now the more astute among you will have deduced that I adore any and all women exhibiting all of the above qualities.
Remember, no matter the age of the writer, we’re all still human. By that I mean that specific characters we create, we absolutely want to get to know, even though its only in a story. The beautiful Lynne is the latest in a long line of my leading ladies who I’m currently spending time with – lucky, lucky me. 😉
With no more distractions other than my blog to contend with, I’m now back working full time on The Guardian, adding more personal details about my characters, not just Lynne. I have to say, the more she and Adler fall in love, the more I grow jealous of him. At this stage of the game I’m really beginning to hate him!
As their creator, while any story I come up with tends to write itself, I still hold the ultimate power of life and death over my characters. All I’ll add to that is to say he’d better treat her right – or else!
While I’m still uncertain how the story will end, I can tell you this, the love affair between them is rapidly gaining a full head of steam. To that end I’m leaving little to the reader’s undoubted vivid imagination when it comes to their relationship, as you will find earlier on in the story when I describe her on the day when Adler first encounters her out of uniform, dressed in civvies.
In the past I have merely skirted around any love affair between my hero and the woman in his life by employing the old writer’s standbys of insinuation, inference and allusion when it comes to what is actually going on between them. But not this time round. Because of the way the story is now developing, it demands that I spell this love affair out to a certain extent, making it definitely not a read for kids – i.e young adults. By that I mean that it has clearly wound up within the classification of erotic science fiction.
Like most writers of my aquaintance, I leave anything which could be vaguely described as pornographic to the E.L James’ of this world. Besides which, my publisher (Amazon KDP) would never agree to publish it if it was – something every writer has to bear in mind when writing about what their characters get up to in private, especially when dealing with some American publishers.
Now I’d better get back to it. The lovers will be waking soon along with everyone else. I left them all utterly exhausted after their last encounter with The Guardian.
PS – I defy any male reader not to fall in lust with my Lynne when they read the book.
PPS – I keep a copy of the above photograph handy while I’m writing The Guardian WIP, purely for the purposes of inspiration and soul searching you understand. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Oh to be her age again (sigh)…
😉
Bob Van Laerhoven
More about Bob 🙂
I discovered the writing of Bob Van Laerhoven recently when Jack Eason promoted his longtime friend. I took particular notice of this author, because he is Flemish-Belgian, just like my grandparents and mother who emigrated to Canada from Belgium in 1919. (I wrote about my grandfather previously on my other blog.) Bob has been a pleasure to work with in preparing this promotion post and I’m very pleased to now present to you “a fellow Belgian”!
Bob Van Laerhoven
What is your latest release and what genre is it?Dangerous Obsessions, published by the Anaphora Literary Press, is a collection of short stories, set in different countries and time-slots. It’s a bit difficult to describe the genre. In general, I try to write cross-over between literature and the mystery genre, but in this collection the “connecting factor” is that all the stories, except one, take place in…
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The Oddity Of Amazon Author Central UK | The Vandal
ATLANTEAN GARDENS: The Legendary Lost Continent of Mu
If you are one of those who read my scifi novella Cataclysm the lost continent of Mu is an integral part of it.
Bob Van Laerhoven’s review of Cataclysm
Think back a few days. If you remember, the Belgian novelist Bob Van Laerhoven and I agreed to read each other’s book and review it. In my case I read and reviewed the Kindle version of his short story collection – Dangerous Obsessions.
For his part Bob read the paperback version of my novella Cataclysm (click the above cover). Here is what he had to say in his review:
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I don’t know about you, but I wish that all reviews on Amazon were written like the above. In other words, non critical. Not once does he moan about anything in the story, or bitch about how the story was written, or even the New Zealand version of the English language used. If you are planning on writing a review for any book now or in the future people, pay attention to the way Bob composed the above.
Thanks Bob, much appreciated.
😉
Please don’t . . .
How to turn people off buying your books
Why We Still Need Socialism
Why indeed?
Not Communism. Not Marxism. Not Christianity.
I am the latest in a line of poets and writers enticed by the promise of Socialism in its many guises: Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, HG Wells, etc (no, it’s not a coincidence, that half of my list are Latin American writers: Latin America is the most poetic region on the face of our planet). Why is this?
Of course writers are a more political animal than most and Socialism (I use this as an umbrella term for moderate socialism to Communism to Marxism) was one of the most energetic, sweeping political movements of the last two centuries. It was born with the Industrial Revolution and this is as innate in our civilization as feudalism was to the post-Agricultural Revolution societies. Socialism will not go away. And writers will be doing, keep doing, their part to keep…
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All Good Books are Alike…Ernest Hemingway Quotes for Writers (and people who like quotes)
It’s true…
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
Ernest Hemingway
photo credit: Girl w/ book and purple sweater via photopin(license)
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