Month: November 2017

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Notes from a small dog: Your letters to Santa…

This from sweet little Ani the dog…

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo


Can I just remind you that I don’t want to wear the antlers again this year. Or a red hat with bobbles on or, even worse, a beard…

I don’t fancy a red nose or pointy ears either…

Which means I have to post something every day between the first of December and Christmas Day… or else I am doomed.

That’s the deal.

Now, much a I know a few of you might like to see me decked out all festive-like, I do not approve. I’m a dog, me, and that should be enough for any two-legs.

I have nightmares about what she could do you know…

So PLEASE help a small dog out and send me your letters to Santa…or a festive poem, flash fiction, or story… and I’ll post them every day through December.

I’d especially love to hear from other four-footed bloggers… but two legs will…

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Now We’ll See What Happens…

… although I have to say I’m not expecting anything positive to happen.

For the last five days my fantasy anthology of thirty interlinked tales (above) has been on offer for free. It wasn’t selling. So to give it any chance of being read, I did what I said I’d never do – give it away!!!

It says a hell of a lot about people, when fifty-one of you who didn’t want to support all my hard work by paying for it, got yourselves a free copy. Unfortunately this scenario is fast becoming the norm when it comes to ebooks.

So, if your conscience is bothering you now, do two things – read it from cover to cover. Then write a review and post it on the Amazon outlet you got it from. Don’t just file and forget it!!!

I have one hundred and eighty ebooks currently sitting in my Kindle for PC app on this laptop. I’ve read every one of them. Many of them several times. Guess what, I’ve reviewed them as well.This is how you should behave when it comes to ebooks in particular!

With the exception of eight that were given to me by their authors I’ve bought every one of them. If you haven’t figured it out yet – unlike fifty-one of you, I’m not a cheapskate…

Bah humbug

😦

 

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Tears on my Pillow

More from David…

barsetshirediaries

Monday.

Last night I was tired and prepared to sleep as long as sleep held me though in reality I knew I wouldn’t want to sleep beyond 4.00 am. So when I woke and got out of bed 3.59 am was flashing on my clock as it was on the kitchen clock when I got in there. I think there’s making a point and then there’s making a point. It hadn’t been the best sleep in the wold but I was satisfied and here was plenty of time to work which is what I did as soon as breakfast and the meds were done and I had coffee in hand raring to go.               I carried on until 8.35  am when I decided to get dressed but not until Joey’s yelling reminded me that he hadn’t got fresh seed and water and nor was his…

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ISIS: What’s going on?

Gone but not forgotten…

REDFLAGFLYING

Recent reports might have you believing that ISIS had been eliminated as a force to be reckoned with. Their apparent defeat in Mosul and Raqqa led to claims that thousands of their fighters had been killed, and most of their leaders too. Less well-publicised reports hinted that many had been ‘allowed’ to leave to avoid further conflict, and that opposition forces, including US-backed Syrian militias and Iraqi army units, had stood by and watched, as many ISIS fighters left unhindered, with all their equipment and weapons.

Whatever you believe about the situation in those places, one fact remains. ISIS have not gone away. In fact, events over the past few days show that they have even decided to change tactics. The attack on an Egyptian mosque, resulting in the deaths of over 300 people, many of them children, signals something of a different path. This group have usually reserved their…

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Epicurean Realism
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Epicurean Realism

From Justin in Malta…

The Champagne Epicurean

Ever since I was small I was fascinated by the big role little things played in people’s lives. Being an argumentative sort I always pitted imaginary battles in my heads: food vs. career; football vs. relationships; mementos vs. ambitions.

Of course now that I’m older and presumably wiser I know it’s not a case of versus but a matter of interactions.

A lot of novels I’ve read, especially more contemporary ones, I’ve found tedious because they go too far on either extremes of the spectrum: they are either too bogged down by metaphysical abstractions or they focus too much on minutiae. As an example: WG Sebald, although a terrifically gifted writer, is too meandering, too deep, dare I say. On the other side of the coin: War and Peace is far too detailed than any novel needs to be (although, somehow, it’s still readable, but only Tolstoy could pull that…

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The stripper and the boy scout…

More from Sue…

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

I stood, shivering, at the door, looking at the long expanse of pale, creamy carpet, glad that I had decided to start with the back garden. At least it is not overlooked. I began stripping off the filthy, sodden clothes that clung to every part of my body with the chill persistence of death. This was going to be awkward.

My mind went back to the first time this had happened. I had moved home. The removal vehicle had needed to make two trips…one for the furniture, books and all the usual stuff, the other for the garden. I had spent the weeks before the move encouraging cuttings to grow, preparing plants lifted from the soil and packed, their roots wrapped in old stockings stuffed with compost, and digging up trees and bushes. The garden at the new place was immense. I was not about to leave behind all of…

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