Thank God!!!

2015 was a particularly productive year for me…

Have We Had Help?

I’ve almost finished writing my latest novella The Guardian, traditional science fiction featuring an erotic love affair. By the time you read this, I will once again be busy with the last chapter. How it ends all depends on… Oh no, wait a minute. You almost had me then. I’m not telling you. You will just have to read it for yourselves to find out.

Like all of my previous books, when I reach this stage, if for no other reason than the state of my health, at long last I will be able to breath a huge sigh of relief. Why? Because unlike a lot of people, I always work at a level of intensity well beyond what is considered normal. I make no excuses. I know no other way to work. By the time the book has been published, one thing is certain. I won’t want to…

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Random thoughts (and drawings)

Ml does draw brilliantly, don’t you think?

Letters from Athens

January and February have never been my favorite months—it’s still SO DARK! Usually I’m a morning person, but I find myself feigning sleep so the dog doesn’t ask to be let out at 7 a.m. She also has to be dressed, alas. See below the latest in dachshund winter fashion…

We have been deprived of many little pleasures of normal life: sharing a bottle of wine and a nice meal with friends (preferably prepared and served by someone else!), wandering around an art exhibition, taking in a show…Moreover, in any wanderings we are surrounded by people wearing masks, so even exchanging a smile is not the same.

We are lucky at least that we can enjoy some entertainment at home. I really enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit (about chess) and Dickinson (a very amusing takeoff on the poet’s early life), and a wonderful documentary called My Octopus Teacher. Remember I…

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Advertising, paid or free – does it work?

I’ve yet to write this next one

How many of you regularly use an advertiser to make your book(s) known? Do you pay for the priviledge, or like me do you make each advertisement yourselves?

Many in our calling firmly believe that without advertising, a book simply won’t sell. This is only partly true. Unless you have a substantial following, no matter how hard you try, your book will not sell! Whether or not you pay for an advert is largely immaterial if readers aren’t waiting to read your latest in their hundreds or hundreds of thousands! I speak from long experience in the world of literature. So, I know what I’m talking about.

There was a time in the recent past when I enjoyed a healthy monthly royalty payment into my bank account. No longer! These days Joe and Jane Average want books for free, in my case ebooks. We who write for the ebook market no longer enjoy regular sales since Amazon et al decided to offer our books in an ‘all you can read for US$11 a month’ deal. A brilliantly simple way for Amazon to make money on the product of our collective sweated brows. Totally eliminating us from the equation financially!

I don’t blame Jeff Bezos for implimenting this strategum. From his point of view it makes good business sense! No, I blame the fickle readers. It’s human nature these days to not only want, but also to expect something for free!!!

Roll on the next World War – Bah Humbug!!!

Alluring and Entertaining

Valid points from my favourite school teacher 😉

e-Tinkerbell

I often  wonder what response I would get if I taught in the way I used to do at the beginning of my career. Because one thing teachers must learn quickly – and those who don’t will end their days behind a desk or screen bitterly disappointed –  : the communication model has to be modified again and again to be effective and have a positive feedback. Generations change and necessarily we have to change with them.  Any teacher’s repertoire, because we have one, has to be updated, refreshed, modernized in order to be appealing and above all, we always need to find new forms of expression to connect with our public. When I was a student, I was the one who had to find a way to connect with my teachers and if I did not, well, the problem was mine. Now it is just the opposite. If it…

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A Story For You

Here’s a story I originally posted here on my blog back in 2016 – enjoy…

Have We Had Help?

Eye of the Storm

“What ye got there, give it me, give it me now blast yer eyes,” One Eye snarled, as he snatched the pretty bauble from my grip.

Ever since I had become his unwilling slave aboard this stinking, barely seaworthy, ancient pirate hulk a few months ago when his captain and crew has captured our ship, One Eye had made my existence sheer hell. No matter what I did to please him it was never enough. Whenever I found something I thought I could call my own he instantly took it from me. He constantly beat me, telling me that it, “was for my own good.”

“Get below and fetch me vittles – quickly now blast ye, else ye’ll be sorry!”

I scurried below, relieved to be out of his cruel reach, however briefly. I searched among the debris of the food locker and the bilge.

“To…

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A Life Resolved

Life is not easy. If it was we’d all be at it. Oh, wait a minute, we are!

countingducks

I have always loved the voyage of life while showing little regard for safety or sense of a destination; I was always the sauce on the dish but never the main ingredient. Still there was one dish I wished to be at the very heart of it

Sheila was my oldest dearest friend from primary school, who I’d known since the age of eight and with whom I had always maintained the deepest, open yet strictly platonic relationship. “Once you are married, never look over the garden fence” I said to her when we were in our thirties during my second marriage and she had nodded saying, “You are so wise” which was embarrassing, it being the last thing I ever was: I had loved and longed for her since our early teens but such was her appreciation of my earnest monkish exterior I never had the courage to admit…

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The reviews still keep coming…

How many of you can honestly say ‘I’ve read this book’!

Have We Had Help?

5 out of 5 stars Fantastic Adventure Tale

By Adele Park on 22 September 2016

Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

This is a rollercoaster of a read. From the start, we know something is going to go horribly wrong and from then on we are hanging on to the coat-tails of the characters. It really is a race against time and I held my breath as they slipped past their adversiaries by the skin of their teeth.

The writing is fast paced and yet in a few sentences the author describes perfectly the country or area they are in. I cared about all the characters that we were introduced to and hated the evil ones. Fantasic read highly recommended. Don`t just take my word for it, buy a copy for yourselves you will not be disappointed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced easy read.

By Chris Graham on…

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The Small Dog has the Last Word…

Ani’s humans need taking in hand!!!

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

“Anu, old boy, how did you get here?”

Frankly, as a mention in their latest book, it isn’t good enough. Not only have they changed my name and gender, but I am pretty sure it is the only mention of me in the last of the ‘Don and Wen’ books.

I mean, the first three, the Triad of Albion? That was fine. They stuck to the facts, weaving the story of their adventures in the landscape and the old, sacred places with the things they were ‘seeing’ and discovering. And, as should be the case, I took a starring role. What would they have learned without me to guide them? To show them that Love was the true meaning of the Ball of Power?

They stuck to the plan with the second three books, the Doomsday series. Once again, they kept me centre stage… at least some of the…

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I tell you, it’s a wonder I’m still here

I wrote this six years ago…

Have We Had Help?

It’s hard to believe that I was born on this day, sixty-seven years ago. With everything that life has thrown at me since that day way back in nineteen forty-eight, it’s a wonder I’m still alive to tell the following tale.

***

When I was about ten months old, I had my first encounter with danger. Fortunately for me, when they realised I was missing from my pram, my parents searched the garden and eventually found me hanging in midair above the cold dark waters of the garden pond. All that was between me and death was a bit of barbed wire which had dug itself into the fleshy pad directly below my left thumb. Dad had put the wire up once I started crawling. Maybe that episode accounts for my later adventurous nature – who knows? I’ve still got the arrowhead shaped scar on my left hand. Mum said…

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Democracy is Fragile. We are Fragile

Ever noticed how each succeeding generation fails to learn from the previous ones’ mistakes?

lampmagician

http://Pinterest

Democracy is one of the oldest concepts of a word which still can’t be understood. Honestly, it is indeed a very complicated issue.

If you’ve guessed, you’re right! My motivation to write this post is what happened on Wednesday in the US Capitol in Washington DC. I couldn’t really believe what I was watching on this very evening on the TV screen, first, I thought that it was a report from one of those so-called “the third world counties” in which it happens after an election, and the oppositions don’t want to accept the results and want to storm the Parlement. The story was the same but, it was happening in a country that I’d never expect: The United States of America, one of the oldest countries in the matter of democracy and freedom.

“Democracyis a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort…

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