Tag: Blog

A biography in how many words?

Since Twitter moved from 140 characters to 280 characters, it’s like being a new lease on life.

Not.

Still agonizing over what constitutes a ‘killer’ bio.

So much so that I have been trawling through thousands of other bio’s trying to understand what makes a good one.

Quite a lot preface theirs with Dad to or Mom to x wonderful children.  I think that goes without saying, so moving on.

Quite a lot advertise services using hashtags which is a great idea, perhaps in the hope people are looking for said services and will follow them, then to DM them with more information.

I haven’t quite mastered the art of doing that, so I’ll let that one slide for the moment.

But …

That brings up the relevance of using hashtags in the bio.  That gives me a bit more scope to make it to the point.

A quick search of relevant hashtags reveals:

writer, author, thriller, mystery, adventure, writing etc.

All are useful but it doesn’t really carry any pulling power.  We need something that grabs the reader’s attention and do it in the shortest, most succinct manner.

I am a writer, a wordsmith, who, I was once told, swallowed a dictionary.  But, in the light of the current task, you’d think it would be just a ‘walk in the park’ instead of the proverbial ‘pain in the neck’.

Perhaps I could compose a riddle that comes back to the answer of who I am, but who has the time to sit and work it out.

I think that might be a little pretentious.

So, back to square one.

At the moment all I have is ‘aspiring writer’.

It’s not possible that’s enough, is it?

Being inspired, maybe

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

2013-06-25 19.23.22

“Now you’re sure you got the instructions right?  This is the shortcut?”

Jim looked one way, then the other, and noticed, as I had, there were several other options available.

“Let me look at the map.”

What map.  There was no map that I’d seen when the boss was giving the orders.  It was simply a matter of, ‘go down here, cross there, go about 20 yards, then you’ll see the shortcut’.

I remember Jim asking, ‘what’s at the end of it?’.

It elicited a very terse reply.  ‘More water’.

Jim unfolded the map, expecting like I was, there’d be some lines to follow.

Nothing.  Just a map.  It didn’t even say, ‘you are here’, with a big red arrow.

I shrugged.  Too late now.  “Let’s go.”

 

Popularity, or the lack of it

I’ve been sitting around looking at several blank pieces of paper, thinking about how to become more popular or make a significant splash in the popularity stakes without having to sell my soul.

Amazingly I’m having a simultaneous conversation with my grandchildren about trending videos on YouTube, and it seems author interviews aren’t going to cut it.

When my eldest granddaughter listed the type of videos that are trending, I thought what hope has the rest of the world have.

But…

Who knows what the next trend in Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube might be.  I might just sit down and write a script of the interview that will, at that moment in time, be just what a million people want to see.

I’m sure I’m crazy enough to fit in because I’m not your average author.  I write more than one book at a time, in fact about five, I get my characters confused, and it takes about three re-writes to track down the idiosyncrasies, and worse, all the main characters are weird versions of me, so I play out as many different lives as I like.

Imagine what that would be like in an interview.

It’s been done before, I know, but so have a lot of other things, and people rarely get tired of good old-fashioned fun.

 

Being inspired, maybe

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

2013-03-10 15.27.44

“He said we were to meet at the bottom car park, and that’s it, right there in front of you, the bottom car park.  And no Davo.  As usual.”

Fred didn’t like Davo.  He didn’t trust him and it was not without good reason.  He’d let us down more than once.

“He’ll be here this time,” I said, in my most soothing tone.

Fred was on the edge of a breakdown.

“What were his exact instructions?”  Maybe there had been a miscommunication.

“He said lower carpark, Turoa.”

And there was the problem.  We were standing all alone at Whakapapa.

 

Being inspired, maybe

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

2013-06-17 09.16.24

“Are you sure Dave said to meet him at the second statue outside ‘the’ building?”

“That’s what the text message said.  I can show you.”  Fred pulled out his cell phone and started pressing buttons.

“Little good that’ll do.  Have you seen how many statues are here that could fit the description?”

Literally any one of a dozen, I thought.

Like I had a minute or so before, Will turned through a 360-degree arc, but at the end of it, he added a groan.  “He’s playing games again, isn’t he?”

And not for the first time.

Being inspired, maybe

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

walterpeakfarm

I was sitting back taking in the last of the afternoon sun, despite the fact it was only 15 degrees.  It was debatable whether it was a haze or low clouds that were beginning to obscure the mountains, and would no doubt obscure the building on the other side of the lake, where our target was hiding out.

Joe, lying flat on the rock next to me was watching him through high powered binoculars.

Thinking he was in an invulnerable position, our target had made the mistake of coming out into the open, not realizing that it was possible to see him from where we were.

I’d thought that too until Joe informed me otherwise.  And had the photographic proof to go with it.

Now, all we had to do was get there without him knowing we were coming.  Logistical was still working on it, a para drop, overland, or through the mountains.

I didn’t like any of the options, but my suggestion of going in by submarine had fallen, unsurprisingly, on deaf ears.

As for now, all we could do was wait.

 

 

The Devil You Don’t

The introduction of Zoe the assassin.

http://amzn.to/2o7ZtxZ

John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.  If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favor for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follows.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.

newdevilcvr3

Being inspired, maybe

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

I lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desire for revenge render me blind to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

Maybe not.  The car’s gearbox was going to wear the worst of my temper.

 

 

 

 

“One Last Look”, a thriller

A single event can have enormous consequences.

A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favorite restaurant with another man.

A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Who was this man?  Why was she having dinner with him?

A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required.  Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.

A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.

After a near death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.

From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.

http://amzn.to/2CqUBcz

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Thoughts, maybe

I was going to write more about the waiting game, where it is the peak hour for shoppers and there’s only two cash registers open, or the bank tellers at lunchtime …

On and on.  Nothing will change except for some of us, an increase in grey hair.

Time to move on, and get off my soapbox.

Perhaps we could delve into the online world of customer complaints.

It’s an interesting place,  when I want to buy something, or see something that is too good to be true, I hit the computer, dial-up google, and go into investigative mode.

But, here’s the thing,

The only people who go online, by and large, are there to complain. Yes, there are a few positives, like out of five stars, then the numbers show up for four stars, three stars, etc.

You get the impression that the owner of the product or service had written several 5-star good reports to counterbalance the negativity, which sometimes all belabor the same point.

For a long time, when I saw the bad reports and very few good reports I thought the product was no good, but recently, when talking to someone whose product was for sale, and had a few bad reviews, they said if a customer is satisfied, why did they need to file a report.  People had expressed their good opinion but had not added a review.

That might well be the case.

As an example, I looked at several river cruises in Europe, and the operators.  I then went online to check the customer ratings because these river cruises are very expensive, so you need to know you’re getting value for money.

Nearly all of the reviews were bad, but lacked any credible numbers.  I’m sure more than 46 people have been on those river cruises, considering how popular they are.

But, those that were on the site were critical of the food, the hygiene of the staff, the inability to get more than 1 ‘free’ drink with lunch or dinner, and substitute boats that were terrible.

Against this, however. is the word of mouth reports we have had from many people and is they are excellent.  So the theory of satisfied customers not bothering to add a review holds up.

Food and wine were the heart of this cruise, as well as cabin comfort, and the last thing you need is to be sick for the duration of the cruise.

I have to say, after going on the internet, I was put off.

Perhaps I might revise my policy of looking for information on the internet.  It seems that it sometimes can be quite misleading.