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Friday, March 30, 2012

Read your own

Reading your own books blows your mind....is blow a good word here?? Mmmm....:-)
Can't believe I wrote this last one about Jesus. Where was my head? And where is it now? The 1st book sat me on another planet, writing about death . This 2nd one has taken me somewhere else. I can't concentrate on anything ATM.
Still wondering who I respect for my next project...I have an idea.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Typos typos typos

No matter how many times I run through a manuscript on my computer, there are always typos in the 1st print. Whether it was once, twice, six times, there are always there, hiding in the 'I missed it because I imagined it was there' eye. In my lastest, the 1st print is, how can I say it, pretty bad. Working on it right as I speak. If you ARE thinking of getting a copy of my 2nd, wait a little while, I'll write it up on this blog when version 2 is ready. My 1st, however, is 99.9%, maybe even 100% typo-free. No worries :-)

Publicity. How?


Publicity. Says it all, really. How? I don't wanna rob a bank, or kill a famous person to get my books noticed. I've written 2 great books, and where do I go from here? I've tried a few websites, nothing. I've tried a few agents, nothing. I've tried a few publishers, one wrote back, a rejection, of course. Publishers want sure-bets from already-known authors. Why take something on from an unknown with an unknown result..."No one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong" (Ace of Base)- so tacky, but so true!

Hello People!

Just had a quick look at my 'pageviews by country'. Hello to the Hungarians! And the British! What surprises me is the Americans!! Hi there! And even more surprising, there are the Russians... "Privet" !!
There'll be a few posts of quotes from 'The Bethlehem Fiasco" soon. I can't believe the amount of one-liners in the book. Where did they all come from? I really must 'go into one' when I write :-)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

What a feeling...the 2nd book

Just received some copies of my second book 'The Bethlehem Fiasco'. It's a different feeling than the first, which was kind of a 'I can't believe it' plus an indescribable, ENORMOUS buzz of having your own book in your hands. This time there was a similar buzz as the first, but in a different way, as I realised that I had the finished product of a life-long dream, to write about 'that'. Quoting from the Preface, it's about " Jesus, people, the loneliness and search for acceptance of the individual, money and power and greed, some dirty socks on the clothesline of humanity...etc." But really it's about whatever the reader thinks it's about :-)

Monday, March 26, 2012

Little Red Riding Hood

I was thinking whether I should respin the old fairy tales, like Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, even things like Chicken Licken, or the Old Woman with the Pig, but then once I read them to my youngest again, I realised something. They're all cracked anyway. I don't need to 'work' on them, they are already 'worked' on. It just depends on how you read them. If you haven't read any fairy tales recently, in the simplest form you can find, I recommend it.

A Great Comment

It's not every day someone says something like this about a book..."I have to say; what a superbly originally fantastic piece of writing. It’s as though someone put a rocket up Terry Pratchett’s derriere and then fired him into a drunken Adams. Captivating, humorous, easy-to-read and thought provoking... And there’s clearly some very deep latent messages here about us mere mortals."
Now that's what I call a GREAT comment :-)

Friday, March 23, 2012

Surprising analytical stuff!

I would never have thought that my books have something in common with the 'The Da Vinci Code', the 80+ million copy bestseller from 2003. I've just analysed the structural and discoursal qualities of some books, including this one for an essay, and I thought I'd look at my own. It just so happens that they both share the same Referential Cohension as 'The Da Vinci Code', and the 2nd 'The Bethlehem Fiasco' has exactly the same Syntactic Simplicity! Now what that all means, I have almost no idea, but at least I didn't title my book ' The Of Nazareth Fiasco'. But Brown's sold 80 million more than me - give or take a few...copies not millions :-(

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Speed Limit

The speed limit is there for a reason, it's the difference between life and death for some, and for a stress free drive for others. Watching them all fly by me, myself in a little Nissan Micra, and them in their BMWs, Mercs and Audis, I wonder why they break the limit - because they can. Put them in a Nissan Micra, see how they like driving at their car's max, shaking and swerving, one dodgy move and you're off the road. But is driving really about sitting back, relaxing, watching the world go by at 160 km/ph or more (when the limit here is 130)?

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

If I had a tenner...

If I had a tenner for every person who said they'd buy my books and didn't, well, I wouldn't be rich, but I'd have a very healthy wallet. It's not about the money, though, it's about getting my ideas across and trying to entertain. So far I think I've succeeded in putting my ideas on paper and entertaining those who've read my work, but getting it across, getting people to read, that's like moving a mountain.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Inspiration...listening to...

Been listening to 'The Raven' by the Stranglers for over three months now, nothing else seemed to hit the mark. It has just the right feel for writing about hobgoblins, the grim reaper, angels and such like. Just had a go at 'TheMeninBlack', and wow were these guys messed up when they wrote that one! Concept album, music kinda early 70's set in 1981, one guy just been in prison, two suffering from drugs, all of them feeling the dreaded hand of the French Police. Listening to that one now...

Inspiration

To publicise my books, I've opened myself up on the net, with this blog, and countless 'reading' and 'writing' websites, and along the way I've communicated with some great people, and some who weren't. Writers can be the worst when dealing with their 'art'. For both books, I started with one paragraph, which inspired me to write on and create a book, and those paragraphs were cut out of the final versions in both. It's strange that what I'd started out with just didn't cut it at the end.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Real or not?

When you self-publish a book, you really find out who is real, and who isn't. I got one git (one) telling me I should pay him to read my book. Others thought I could just give them away. That's why I haven't done ebooks yet. One buys, then uploads to the net...

Only Editors...

Ooo, my 1st post....well, whoever is out there, hi.
Have you ever tried to contact someone by email without knowing their address, and found someone else?
That happened today, I wanted to contact the Head Editor of a publishing company, and got in touch with the Accounts Manager. Spent the day emailing back and forth. It was great, it almost made me feel that publishers ARE human...well, I realised it's only the Editors who are inhuman.

Visit my website :-)
http://www.djc.yolasite.com/

I'll have to include these too :-)

'Man by a tree'
https://www.createspace.com/3731273

'The Bethlehem Fiasco'
https://www.createspace.com/3783797