Email List

If you'd like to know about the latest promos, offers and publications, get on the email list by using the Contact Form on the sidebar. Thank you!

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Christmas Lites V - come and get it!

This little beaut just shot my Amazon Author rank up from to 154,387 from a shitty 478,841 (the lowest since August).
Christmas Lites V!
A collection of Christmas short stories from dozens of writers...mine's a sci-fi.
All put together by a great person, Amy Eye, and every cent you pay for this book goes straight to NCADV (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence)...in the USA.

Please, go and get it and read and REVIEW...the more reviews, the more 'alive' the book becomes.....(talking of reviews, any chance of a few on my other books I'm in?)

http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Lites-V-Amy-Eye-ebook/dp/B018O3SEP2



Saturday, November 28, 2015

WQ144 + update

The Firefly Magazine Issue 1 is out, and we're now working on Issue 2...Thanksgiving an' all...
Nothing much happening in the books, reviews and sales area...NONE, absolutely none...who is out there? Who are you? How do I get more of you to read my stuff? How do I get YOU to read stuff? I know you have....have you reviewed? Are you waiting for the one about the squirrel? ...I am...

I'm in the Iron Writer Challenge 137, in a week, it's a good story. I'll send a link... :-) Later...

...but now here's Weekend Quickie 144...
http://theironwriter.com/the-iron-writer-challenge-weekend-quickie-144

WQ144 – Elements: Black Friday, teamwork, describe something happening in slow motion

After a recon of the store before Black Friday weekend, we were ready when the doors opened on that fateful day. We all had our targets: my husband the sound system, my sister the TV and myself the Xbox. We left little Suzie with the babysitter and camped out at the main entrance. When the doors opened the teamwork began, the three of us dispersing through the store and crowd. Pushing past parents desperately searching for toys their children wanted, I ran for the aisle I knew my prize could be found. Turning the corner, I saw the shelves empty, shelves once full of Xbox Ones. My heart stopped and in complete despondency, I fainted in slow motion to the floor, my eyes passing each empty shelf as my face hit the cold, laminated floor. When I came to, I saw, kicked behind the bottom shelf, one beautiful Xbox...
...on Christmas day, Suzie stared at her presents and burst out crying.
"What's the matter, darling?" We had the TV screen that covered the living room wall, the 100W Surround Sound audio system and the sacred Xbox One with 10 fantastic games. What had we missed?
"I wanted a white one!"

















Monday, November 23, 2015

4 Murdered Shakespearean Plays!

So far in the last four years, I've re-written (murdered) 4 Shakespearean plays for the groups I teach in school so that they can perform them on the bard's birthday (which just happens to be the same official birthday of Éva Janikovszky, of whom the school is named after).
The first was Midsummer Night's Dream and although there are very few 'original' lines, it was long and kept to the 'style'. The kids had to learn A LOT of lines. But they did it. The performance was 30 minutes long!
The second, done by the same group, was Macbeth (renamed "Beth" because the role was played by a girl). Down to only 15 minutes, it was more concise, funnier, and had a LOT of 'blood'...Macbeth killed everyone and anyone.
The third, with another group, was Romeo & Juliet, with a LOT of silly lines and overacted 'love'...between Romeo (played by a girl) and Juliet (played by...a girl). The 10 minutes performance was 'punchy' and 'alive'. The kids had their own 'media' team that produced the video (I have videos of all 3 performances).
The fourth and latest, which we are working on now is Twelfth Night. Again, based on 'love' and confusion, it should make for a good performance around the 10-15 minute mark.
One day I'll put them all in a book so that people can read them...and other groups could play them! Maybe I'll do that this year, 4 plays seems a good number.

Firefly magazine Issue 1 OUT NOW!

Yes, the "Firefly" magazine Issue 1 is finally out! 46 pages of literary articles, short stories, interviews, reviews, and even a bit of fun!
I'm the editor of this great little magazine, and it's quite a thing for me. I hope we can get a few more issues out, you never know, it might catch on!
You can even "Read [a] Sample"! (Oh, and that's Jasper T. Scott on the cover, such a great guy!)
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1006232



Saturday, November 21, 2015

WQ 143 and Update!

And here's the weekly Iron Writer Weekend 200 word Quickie!
We were told to try something hard and not go the easy way...so I tried...hard.

Updates:
Firefly & Wisp October (?) issue coming out very soon!
Doing a collaboration!
Working on How to 2...
But first, here's...

Weekend Quickie 143...
(to see some others, here's the website...here)
Elements: image of an old man sitting on a bench, a sentiment from any song by Pink Floyd, Introspection


The feeling was so... wrong for him. What was this? Introspection? He raised his jacket collar, trying to hide any fact that he was thinking or feeling anything he shouldn't have been from the others as he walked amongst them through the streets. He remembered the old guy in the flat cap from yesterday. They'd followed him around for a while before beating the shit out of him after he'd sat down on a bench in the park. What got him was how that Pink Floyd song, 'Comfortably Numb' kept coming into his mind while his steel-toed boot smashed the old guy's hip into smithereens. That song created sentiments of pity and remorse within him using lyrics written by middle class gits for 'aren't I so cool' long haired dorks with no sense of the reality he knew all too well. The reality of the fist. Was he getting soft? Was he starting to feel something for those they relieved of their sad, petty lives? Tonight's mission was a four member immigrant family, spotted some hours ago moving away from the train station, heading towards the city centre. Easy targets. Maybe he'd hold back a little tonight. Nah. Stuff 'em.


Friday, November 20, 2015

One Step Away...from Repetition of History

About 6 months BEFORE the immigrants came through Europe, the Hungarian Government in their ultimate wisdom ran an anti-immigrant countrywide billboard propaganda campaign using tax-payers money. BEFORE. It was quite nasty. I thought I might have to wear a star or something, with "immigrant" written all over it, seeing as I'm a Brit here.
Then the immigrants came through and things REALLY got nasty. And now the terrorist attacks...which actually don't have much connection with the recent immigrant surge, but there ya go, and now Donald Trump has put his tuppence in, with the database idea...I think perhaps I've found the star that he and many others might be happy with...brings back memories for a few, I guess...

There will always be a few arseholes who have no respect for life and destroy everything.
We shouldn't discriminate others because of them. Where is our common sense? We are all the same people, only with different beliefs and ideas, nothing more. No God tells you to kill...if one exists, that is...oh, look at all those stars...in the sky...

Monday, November 16, 2015

Being an Unknown Writer (part one) + WQ142!

When you're a writer,especially an unknown writer, you get doubts, tons of them! Why am I doing this? Who does it benefit? Is anybody listening? (well, that would be reading, but listening to the messages within the writing). Does anybody care? I guess not.
Without getting in with a BIG publisher who can shove my books into shops and right up your noses, I will always be in the small goldfish bowl of other people trying to become an established name in literature. Sure, I can fool myself into thinking that one day, just one day...but really if you look at the market, there are 100s of thousands of people confessing to be writers, all trying to sell their books to...other writers...yes, other writers, because we can't connect to readers! They are in the shops, or waiting for the latest book from their favourite writer or believing reviews in big magazines. Little writers like me can't connect. The BIG publishers have the market sewn up with their money.
So...I continue....:-)
Here's the Iron Writer Weekend Quickie 142!!



WQ 142 – image of a boy reading a book in a ruined bookshop, machismo, facade

Tim couldn't believe it. The place was strewn with books, manuscripts, encyclopedias, all a fountain of knowledge and wisdom the likes of which he'd never seen before... and all in the back of Big Joe's. He sat down and browsed through a journal, shocked from what the air raid had revealed. The bombs had fallen through the night and once they heard the 'all clear', he'd come out of the bunker to this.
Big Joe was the local thug, big as a bull, thick as shit, with machismo seeping through his skin. He'd owned the meanest, most dangerous bar in the borough. Before the bombing. Now there was only rubble, the front of the building destroyed, showing an unknown personal library, richer in literary treasures than the one for the public down the street. Tim looked up when a large shadow loomed over him. It was Big Joe.
"Tell me, tell me it is not missing!" he said in an academic English accent, as he rushed in amongst the books and paper. What was this? Had Big Joe's rough, tough image all been a facade? "Mon Dieu! It is safe! My 1864 First Edition 'Voyage au centre de la Terre'!"



And if you wish to see more...here's the website!
http://theironwriter.com/the-iron-writer-challenge-weekend-quickie-142/

Friday, November 13, 2015

Fight Club to Bohemian Rhapsody?

Way-hey! 'Dani's Shorts 5' is at 50 FREE downloads after 3 weeks...!...mmm, not so cool...I remember when you could actually give things away and people would take them. The market is... quite savage at the moment.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/587914

Talking of savage, I watched "Fight Club" again and found it was filled with 'interesting' and thought-provoking quotes, but then I slept on it and realised they were just clever wordplay. But the more times you watch that movie, the more clues you find that he is in fact Tyler. Other than the dialogue and strange actions...even spotted two 'flash frames' where Brad Pitt was standing behind people 'the narrator' was speaking to. Just like the porno flash frames the character puts in childrens' films. Simple but clever.

Clever...I watched an old documentary about "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Freddie Mercury...those Oxford Uni lecturers are idiots, can't they see what is really in the lyrics (and music) of the song? Why does everybody say "I don't understand it, but I like it"?
Go and listen (and watch it) and then come back :-) (please)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ

Well? If you look through the best of Queen's songs, namely Freddie Mercury's lyrics, you'll see he has a certain worldview...just look at some of the titles of the songs, no not "Fat Bottomed Girls"...anyway, do some research. If I tell you, you ain't gonna take it...:-)






Sunday, November 8, 2015

Problems with Writing (part 1)

When you get into writing, you don't realise that one day, any day, and at any time, an idea will pop into your head. A simple idea, a clear, clever idea, and then you think about it, and expand on it, and then you realise "Hey, there's a book in that", and then you think about it some more, and time passes, and things you should be doing get waylaid, then you realise that "Hey, I should be writing this down", so you search for anything, paper, pen, pencil, beermat, tablet, mobile phone (scratch that, autocorrect is such a bummer), wall, and you write down what you already have, then you see some holes, you fill them in, realise you've gotta make a plot, gotta make it real, find out what and how and why and when and where and who and whose and then once you've written it down, you think, when, when can I sit down and write this one out? When can I take the time out to write this sick, sweet, mother of a book out, before it eats you up inside? Like, whenever you can, I guess...

Saturday, November 7, 2015

WQ 141 - Hummingbirds together!

Yes, it's Saturday, which means 'Iron Writer Weekend Quickie'!
Here's this weekend's...here's the website...
http://theironwriter.com/the-iron-writer-challenge-weekend-quickie-141
...and here's my take :-)



Weekend Quickie 141
 
Write a 200 word story...






Elements: image of two hummingbirds on a water dispenser (see above), persistence, an awkward reunion


"Long time, no see!" bobbed Jyle. Ronch hadn't seen him land on the water dispenser. Jyle was the last hummingbird he wanted to share this place with. "How are things?"
"Like you'd care," spat Ronch, putting his beak back down into the water.
"I...err...yeah, well, I thought..."
"You thought wrong." Ronch dunked himself into the water and fluttered his feathers.
"After all this time, I thought..."
"Well, you thought wrong!" His old flying buddy looked perplexed. "What did you expect, huh? After all that time, energy and persistence, all that dancing, calling and pruning, and what happened? I got to see you fly off with the girl you knew I loved!" Ronch picked at a lice.
"Well, you can't blame me..."
"What? You knew I'd been working on her all season! I thought we were friends!"
"We... we are friends, Ronch. Look, I'm sorry, alright?"
"It ain't 'alright'! Alright?" With another flutter, Ronch opened up his wings and cleared away a few more unwelcome guests. Living without a partner had put him on the outer boundaries, homeless.
"What if I get you a fish, eh?" Jyle tested his wings, ready to fly.
"Well, that might help...sure, okay!"

Friday, November 6, 2015

Jade M. Phillips - GOOD Vampire Series!

Yeah, yeah, vampires... what's new?
Well, sci-fi... what's new? Oh, yeah "Star Wars"...mmm, not new... good news, but not new. Nothing's new! What we all need is something GOOD!
I have a sci-fi writer I like, he writes smooth, easy to understand, fantasic books. Nothing new, but GOOD! Jasper T Scott!
http://www.amazon.com/Jasper-T.-Scott/e/B00B7A2CT4 


Now I have a new Vampire writer I like... Jade M. Phillips!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016H3VUCK 
 

It's nothing new, but it's GOOD! It has everything you need in a book! Action, heartbreak, adventure, life, death... I could go on but what I'm trying to say is, there is....Nothing new, but there is GOOD! There is also BAD, but why go there? Those writers will either stop... or keep getting paid large amounts of money from Huge Publishing Houses to write shitty books you think are good because some poster or magazine tells you it's good... when it's not. Those writers may die happy/dumb but their legacy are their shitty books.
So, like I said, nothing new, but there are some things which are GOOD! And this new vampire series is one of them!