AUTHOR'S CORNER;

WISE OLD OWL!

WISDOM DOES NOT COME WITHOUT A PRICE, NOR IS IT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED; WISDOM'S PRICE IS OFTEN INFINITE BOREDOM AND A PENANCE OF WATCHING THE REST OF THE WORLD HAVING FUN!

As many of my friends would like to nickname me; I am known amongst the group as the preacher!  They love me, I know, but they don't love having fun with me; I have been told that I seem to participate little and shake my head quite a lot when fun is being had.  Why, you (and I have often) ask, have I chosen this stick-in-the-mud attitude at the prime of my life. Have I taken up new religious vows or joined a convent of sorts?  No.  Do I profess to be holier than thou and have a squeaky clean background?  No.  Have I been blessed by a revelation and have sworn to be good, honest and true? No.  None of the above, in fact, I have a very bohemian appearance, quite a tolerant approach to all people, I believe in freedom of expression more than anyone.  So what then?

I am not judgemental, honest.  I am not a prude and I am no stick in the mud...well not in essence.  the problem I suffer is a problem which I think can be directly related to the fact that I am a writer.  You see, by nature of my ...nature, I am compelled to analyse and assess situations, I see potential and pitfalls in scenarios, I study faces and features and behaviours and in my mind, come up with an outcome to situations, personalities and actions.  It is not something I do on purpose, instead it is something that I find myself doing involuntarily.  The more adapt I become at writing, the more polished my writing becomes, the more intricate and complicated my plots become, the more my mind reasons and calculates and draws up a conclusion.

Ah, take me back to days of ignorance, where laughter and happiness were indeed real, where I could not see behind the masks of mirth that my companions wore!  Take me back upon the wings of illusion and let me soar up high into a bright blue sky!  The mist upon my eyes was the blessing in disguise; for now I see, I truly see!

And I find that this ability to read and see into scenarios has spilt into my real life; the more I write, the more I come up with morals in my stories, the more I see injustice, danger and untruth in the world.  Thus, compelling me to impart my knowledge on my friends and family.  I am beginning to sound like a pastor on a Sunday sermon, and the worst thing is, I can actually hear myself!  I can also feel my soul cringing as the words of so-called wisdom leave my pierced, opinionated lips!  Dancing on tables is no longer fun, getting tipsy is stupid and chatting up strangers is very dangerous. Entertaining any sort of trouble, be it a little Christmas debt or a sneaky white lie, becomes a potential for a disaster!  My friends have tried to understand, they have tried to humour me, they have even tried to appreciate me, but have begun to tire of me!  'Stop being a stick in the mud!' they all say.  I realise with great anxiety that I am probably turning into my mother!  'But I am not a stick in the mud,' I argue in my mother's voice, 'I'm only trying to warn you!' 

And as for my husband, he simply asks, 'What is the matter with you, you old crow?  I behave much younger than you, you never want to have fun any more!'  To which I puff my chest, pierce my lips and simply give a half hour long speech at the importance of being sensible, grown-up and mature!  

Read my novels though, and in them you will find, murder, sex, prostitution, fun and games and lots of foolish love!!  I guess I live my foolishness through the characters in my stories and reserve judgement for the world in which I live!

Where lovers' hands so easily entwined and lovers' promise too easily believed; what more can describe heaven, than a blissful union of two beating hearts?  The days of blind joy, and muffled voices and a clarity of the drunken soul.  

AUTHOR'S CORNER;

HOW DO I APPEAL???

Now, it's no lie that almost every author will write firstly for the pure love of writing.  Most of us, if not all, feel compelled by some obscure force to write and write and write!  Most of us see the world in different shades of colour and have a need to share with others.  We see characters enriched and have a desire to bring them to life upon the pages of our novels.  Nothing gives us greater pleasure than to create, animate and bring forth a character which is living and breathing and thinking upon page after page of a mini world, parallel to this, of our own creation.  Power in our fingertips, insight in our minds, stories at the tips of our tongues.  There is nothing that can compare to the power of imagination; because to imagine is to escape into a world of your own making, to let go of all inhibitions and spread our broken wings. To imagine is an alternative to reality and reality often drags!  

Now that's great; need met and desire fulfilled!  But now we come to the more difficult part, the part which every writer struggles or has struggled with at some point in their career; the appealing to others!  Remember, the writing part is the personal part, because that part was done in private, at the comfort of your own desk, in the safety of your own home. Now comes the real test, the bit where you have to put yourself out there and get someone to notice you.  Not as easy as it seems; for there are so many obstacles in your way, you'll soon realise that your resolve and determination are put to a very harsh test!  To mention a few, the obstacles in your way can vary from the style of your writing to the current market trend that's out there.  Not to mention that it is extremely difficult to break into the world of publishing; most big publishers do not want unsolicited manuscripts (which means, no author without Agent representation) and will not even give your manuscript a second glance!  Most Agents will be extremely picky (with good reason, they have to be sure they can sell your work) and they are often harder to obtain than publishers.....get the picture???  So one moves onto independent publishers in the hope of finding a platform.  And let me say, thank God for independent publishers, for they are a Godsend to most of us!  But then there is a catch, the catch?  you will find that you will need to do an awful lot of self promotion yourself!  Whilst the independent publisher will do a good job and give you very good treatment, they have not the bookshelf space a giant publisher might have in bookshops, nor the millions to put behind your promotion of that of the 'big boys', nothing personal, it's just a fact!  So the responsibility falls on you to promote yourself.  Easier said than done!

Don't ask me how it's done; if I knew I would be a millionaire by now!  The point is, one never really knows what or how to appeal to others.  You have tasks set out once you have published a book; mainly to sell as many copies as possible. And although your book is doing nicely on Amazon and other websites, you now need to spread the word to the masses. One way to do this is by book signing, but when you do approach shops, you are often told that the shop can not let you book sign because of blah, blah, blah!  Which basically means nothing to you, because they get the books free and only make a profit if they sell and never make a loss because they can send the books back!  Enough meetings with store managers and lame excuses can leave a writer quite disheartened!  You know you need to get the promotion but you can't pester the shop managers; you'll only end up making enemies and that is no good.  Remember, no matter how frustrating it may seem, you need the store managers' help at some point!  

The other way to promote yourself is to try and get yourself in the local paper; ring up, tell them you are a local writer and you've just been published!  Easy right?  Every local paper likes to write about a local writer, show some community spirit?  Wrong!  Basically, you are often regarded as wasting their time!  But come to them with a burglary story (as I did a few years back) and they will jump at your misfortunes, because it's juicy gossip!

The third way to promote yourself is to try and get yourself an interview on local radio....huh, have you tried?  It is like trying to get into Buckingham Palace!

The fourth way is to go on social media.  Yes, tweet, Facebook it and tumblr your way to the top.....um, right....okay, where the hell is the top???

The fourth way, of course, is to blog, get enough blog followers and your name will become popular.  

I personally have found this way to be effective, as many people on the web have   already approached me and expressed their pleasure in my blog!  At least with blogging, you know that you are reaching someone and yet you are sufficiently far enough not to be seen as pestering!

And as my friend Christine once suggested; perhaps a stint on Big Brother might do the trick!  Who knows, I might just put myself forward.......

AUTHOR'S CORNER;

THERE ARE...

There are stories to be shared, things that need to be said, people that need to be told.  There are a thousand reasons not to and a million reasons why we should.  Lest we forget and the suffering is all in vain,lest we comply with injustice and turn a blind eye.  

There are tears of despair, tears of anger and tears of regret. There are breaths taken in fear, breaths taken in desperation and gasps of anxiety.  There are breaths taken in sorrow as they predict the stories of the human race.  

There are stories to be told, names to be shared and things that need to be said.  As the hand of humanity beats against the rhythm of life, hearts beat to the rhythm of life, life beats to the drumming of the hearts, entwining in rhythmic

motion. 

Blood runs through veins, veins that run to arteries and arteries that run to the life force and saturate the human race. Imprinting and decoding and reinventing humanity.  

Seas that beat against rocks, rocks that crumble from the mountains and mountains that peak from out of the seas. All marking and shaping and coding and decoding and reinventing the life force. 

There is life that is born and life that dies, there is life which is brought about and life which is destroyed.  And there is life which lingers in the hollow eyes of memory, making good of its existence by haunting the rest for all eternity.

There are stories to be said, thoughts to be shared, things that should have been told.  Sweat that saturates the earth, tears that feed the plants and fear that clouds the skies.  

There are clouds that shelter the earth, rain that exposes the secrets, and lightening that jolts the people.  There is justice in injustice if hope is let go, and happiness in unhappiness if it serves the purpose.  An incorruptible corruptness in a world of manufactured dreams, where souls are ten a penny and tears are plentiful.  Where souls are bought for as little as an illusion and sold on at a profit to line the rich man's pocket; to keep him appeased.  

There are stories to be shared, love that needs to be told, things that haven't been said.  There is famine and war, there is pain and suffering.  There is the lost dream that lingers in the corner of the poor man's eye, the shattered hope that beats at the heart of the victim and the broken, wondering spirit that plays upon the mind of the lost.  

There is the lost world of make belief, the lost hope in the eyes of intoxication.  There is the sorrow that sits on the temple of the head, reminding us all of the inevitable.  There is the glare of the sun, exposing the secrets and the harshness of the night, under the vast and lonely universe. 

There are stories to unfold, hope that needs to be shared and things that must be told.

There are dreams in nightmares and nightmares in reality and reality which seems like but a dream.  There is illusion in deception and deception in the truth.  All held together by the poor man's hope and desperate need for salvation.  

There are ...there are stories to be told. 

AUTHOR'S CORNER;

ALONE IN MY BUSY MIND!!

Now, when life gives you lemons you make lemonade, right? There is always a positive side to every negative and the sun always, always shines, even if the skies are grey and overcast! The world spins to many different tunes and there is more than one way to find happiness.  In other words, there is room enough for all of us in this life!  Yet in my mind, in my writer's mind, amongst the jargon, words, ideas and half plots of stories that are all fighting to get out at the same time, I often find myself ..... well I often find myself beside myself with desperation and frustration and an unhealthy need to push ahead!  

The need to live and relive and act and react and bring to life the reality of my warped and confused fragile mind often overwhelms me to the point of mild depression.  Why? Simple, I am a writer; which means I have an over active imagination and a fragile self esteem.  I need to imagine in order to feel complete.  I need to create worlds at my finger tips in order to build walls of armour and fortresses of disguise.  My temper flares as do my plots and goes on a low as does my will to continue what I am doing!  I am basically the blank page on which I write and I shape and reshape myself image by plots and fantasies. I only ever truly belong when I am in my novels and the world, the real world, is but a fictional reality that I find myself forced to reside in.... insanity is never that far away!

Life in it's stark form tends to bore me and leaves me despondent, I need to create and alter it slightly in order to feel whole.  And though there is lots I love about my life, lots I appreciate and I do have a lot to be grateful for, this is a problem I have suffered from an early age; my imaginary friends always seemed to follow me around as a child, and when it came to choosing between them and the real world, they always seemed to come up trumps!  They understood me, they appreciated my quirkiness more than any real life person could, and yes, I am aware...it could be because they were merely an extension of myself, a world which I had created.

When days were grey, I could conjure up the sun and when friends were sparse I could have a whole crowd around me.  And criticism was not present in my world, only in the outside world.  Inside my mind, the world was how it should be....playing to my tune!  In my world the world was real; real in my perception and solid in my convictions.  In my world, I was able to explore dangerous situations safely, love without getting hurt, cry without shedding any tears.  In my world....in any writer's world, the world is a playground, full of adventure without limitations or taboos.  

I suffer what most writers suffer; I exist in two worlds, coinciding and colliding; often intruding on one another, sometimes crashing into each other and wobbling at my

sensitivities and making me temperamental.  I see the personalities of people as though I were looking through a microscope; I read several traits into one personality and understand far more the intricate body gestures and facial expressions.  I see human love, suffering, anguish and distress, I see poverty and wealth and read into all what I see.  And it overwhelms and overpowers and sometimes I just need to recreate it all on paper in order to make sense of it all!  To stop the story reel rolling, and to quieten the confusion in my head....I recreate it all in order to kill it all!

In order to revive it all again and make sense of the world in which I exist!  To quieten my dreams and sleep soundly, knowing that I have reinterpreted the world the way I see it.   Madness? Perhaps, or maybe just a different point of view. Whatever you want to call it, rest assured most of 'us' writers have the same predicament, live with the scenarios that play themselves out day in day out in our minds.  Dream of normality yet seek to find it upon the twisted pages of our stories.  It is how we make sense of the world.  And when we are not heard, when we are not picked up and read, it leaves us self doubting and empty.  When we pour our hearts and souls out upon the blank pages and nobody notices, it leaves us wondering, it leaves us doubting....it makes us invisible and renders us vulnerable.  

For what are we if not the ghosts that play upon the haunted house of the minds?  What are we if not the spirit that shapes and reshapes the cognitive thinking of our readers?  What are we if we are not able to pass in and out of people's senses and thoughts?  What are we, if we are not writing the world to rights?