Day four of the Awesome Indies Grand Opening party is meet the author day. Pop over and find out the difference between indie and self-publishing, watch a crazy video and read the author’s stories.
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The 99c sale is still on, so if you haven’t been already, pop over there now.
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Do you enjoy quizzes? Then visit the Awesome Indies for a fun quiz on day three of their Grand Opening Party.
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And while you’re there don’t forget to check out the 99c sale, and see what else the site has to offer.
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Who is the piano playing dog? Visit the Awesome Indies Grand Opening Party today to find out. Watch an amazing video and vote on the best explanation for who the dog is and what he’s doing.
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And don’t forget to check out the 99c sale.
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Hello everyone, as you may have twigged from the sidebar, Few Are Chosen, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 1 has the Awesome Indies Seal of Approval and The Wrong Stuff, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 2 is Awesome Indies Approved but not sealed – because you can only have one Seal per series. Anyway, Awesome Indies is having a bit of a relaunch. A bit, a Hooooooge one! So for the next few days, I’m going to be featuring a series of posts from the site pointing you to lots of excellent books, competitions and, hopefully, showing you around. This is the first, the rest will come without preamble!
You’re invited to the Awesome Indies Grand Opening Party—a sale of 26 top reads at just 99 cents each, plus 5 days of fun. See the new website, meet the authors, join them for games, giveaways and giggles and be in the draw to win the latest generation Kindle.
Awesome Indies has found a way to take the risk out of buying indie. If it’s Awesome Indies Approved (AIA), a qualified publishing industry professional has determined that it’s as good as anything produced by the mainstream. Readers need no longer wonder if that book is really worth downloading. If a book is listed on the Awesome Indies, then it’s worth your time.
Click on the banner, or this link, to visit the Awesome Indies to browse the huge 99c sale and learn what you have to do to be in the draw for a Kindle Paperwhite.
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This week’s special guest was Michael Cargill, who writes all sorts of stuff because he hasn’t stuck to any particular genre. His latest work, Underneath, has been compared to Ruth Rendell – but he also likes writing humour and satire, as we’ve discovered. You can find more of that on his website here .
So Michael, ladies and gentlemen. I bet you’re absolutely ganting to know how the vote went. Quite well as it turns out.
Michael, thanks to your fine efforts, the world is no longer doomed to suffer the existence of the following three things:
Michael, thank you for joining me in Box 010. Now everyone, off you go and buy his book, Underneath!
Oh and in case you’d forgotten here’s where you can stalk Michael Cargill on the internet.
Website:- http://michaelcargill.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @MichaelCargill1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelCargillAuthor
Filed under Box 010, General Wittering
For a long time now, I’ve been thinking that I should explain why it takes me so effing long to write each one of my books and today I’ve been galvanised into it by reading this cracker of a post, here. As well as why it takes me so long to write a book this also brings me onto a subject dear to any writer’s heart; mojo management.
Basically, the premise is that a lot of people are a bit wishy-washy about art and not ‘forcing’ it and use the ‘don’t force it’ line as an excuse to give up and be lazy. He talks about how mood alters your perception and how you can write stuff you think is rubbish only to find, the next day, that it’s not so bad (unfortunately, in my world that process also works in reverse, but I digress).
Now, I get exactly what this fellow means, especially the bit about writing stuff that looks crap and then finding that it’s not so bad. I find reading the first draft of a scene incredibly depressing but I shut my eyes to it and edit. And then somehow, if I put in enough work, it becomes magically transformed and when I read it and think,
“Blimey, I can’t believe I wrote that.” I know it’s time to move onto the next scene.
However, for what it’s worth, I think most of the people talking about not forcing art are actually talking about burning out.
Burn out is way different. Burn out is dangerous. Let me explain.
OK, so, I’m a stay at home Mum with a very lively little 5 year old, elderly parents who aren’t too well and who live a long way away and as the result of a recent traffic accident I currently have to snarf painkillers like smarties. So my life right now features three things in sensurround; worry, constant interruption (welcomed but constant nonetheless) and chemicals.
Hmm… so as you can guess, none of these things are conducive to quality writing outside school hours and none of them make for a lively brain. The chemicals are temporary, so the background is usually just the two things; Mumzilladom and worry about my folks – I’m definitely not the dutiful daughter I always assumed I’d be, which is kind of grim face on.
What I mean is that in anyone’s life there’s a lot going on. Add the odd curve ball, traffic accident at the moment but things like family deaths, organising a surprise party or something like that and it’s easy to find that the heart, not to mention the diary, is too full to create. In my case that’s usually at the point where my mind is so fucking knackered it can’t be arsed to wander.
Trust me on this, I’ve been there and hit the wall and at that point if you don’t step back, you’re going to end up mental. This is not about laziness or procrastination or refusing to start in case we fail, this is about capacity. That’s the point when it’s almost physically painful to write – not at the end of the day, we all feel like that then – but at the beginning.
That’s when you’re in danger of losing the love, of becoming a slave to the addiction as opposed to in love with your characters and addicted to the process. When this happens to me, the only cure is to stop everything, rest my mind and spend a few days/weeks/months, however long it takes putting stuff back in until my mojo returns. It’s entirely natural so if this happens to anyone else, don’t worry, the mojo will return you just have to be patient and wait.
So the big trick, for supreme mojo-management, is never reaching that can’t be arsed to wander point; knowing when to stop spewing out words. There is no option, in times of impending burn out but to sit back and reset.
There’s no harm in redlining your mojo occasionally, except that… hang on… where is the red bit? Oh for heaven’s sake! Trust me to have a car with no red bit. Alright, look, just try to imagine it in OK?
So for me, never getting burn out means writing a bit less but giving it more welly when I do. It’s worth it because when I can’t write, I miss it. There’s no harm redlining your mojo occasionally to, erm, de-carb your chambers (phnark) just don’t keep it there. Burn out is why it’s good plan to have more than one project on the go. Burn out is deeply unpleasant because it leaves you desperate to create, but unable to.
However, burn out should not be confused with laziness. Writing, painting, any art is the most fantastic fun, more than fun, it’s a drug, but it’s also bloody hard work. And frankly, if it isn’t, I suspect you’re doing it wrong.
There are days when writing my book feels like weeing a full sized house brick, except that there are days when I think pissing a housebrick would be easier. What I’m trying to say is that I have never done anything so hard in my entire life. But I can’t let it go. Right now, I’m not writing, but that’s because it’s the holidays and trying to write now is the fastest short cut to burn out there is. I know my limitations and that, I’m afraid, is why I take two, whole, sodding years to write a book. I know, it’s shocking isn’t it?!
Please be patient, K’Barthan three is nearly there but it may well be next April before I can release it.
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Well hello again, and welcome, to Box 010; a bit of light whimsy which is, in no way, inspired by the popular BBC programme Room 101. Here’s now it works. Every two weeks, except in the holidays when I turn into Mumzilla and everything goes a bit mental, my special guest will pop in and then present us with five things they would like to see consigned to the dustbin of existence. This week’s special guest is Michael Cargill. He hasn’t stuck to any particular genre. His latest work, Underneath, has been compared to Ruth Rendell – you can find more details about it at the bottom of the page. He likes writing humour and satire, too – as you’re about to find out. You can find more of that on his website here .
Hello Michael. So, before you launch into your enormous and really quite splendid rant, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello there,
My name is Michael Cargill and I started writing about two years ago. So far I haven’t stuck with a particular genre as I like to just write whatever pops into my smoothly-shaven head. Along with my books and stories I also have a website of satire humour stuff that I update every now and then.
By day I work in IT and I have to force myself to traverse the world of office life just like everyone else. Getting up at 6am is such a drag, man.
You said it, I’m not a morning person either so I sympathise with anyone who has to get up at 6am, 7am is bad enough but where was I? Ah yes, Michael, without more ado, please tell us the first item you’d like to cast into the unending darkness of Box 010.
Whacky t-shirt slogans:
“Keep calm and drink tea!” advises a thin sheet of blue cotton.
“Oh wow, that’s so random!” exclaims a breathless 19-year old student called Jeremy. “£35 is a bargain, I’ll take three of them.”
Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy. What are we going to do with you, eh? Set you on fire and shove you in the direction of Primark, perhaps? Exactly what does this t-shirt give you? Sure, the local homeless guy might be entertained by your brief sojourn into sponsored hilarity, but let’s not forget that he also gets nosebleeds whenever a helicopter flies overhead. Never let your life be dictated by a thin-blooded anaemic.
Ah yes, right, MT hurriedly crosses her arms to hide the picture of snurds on her T-shirt… no witty slogan though, perhaps I’m safe. Oops, anyway, right, OK Michael, what’s you’re next pet hate?
Poo.
Mwah ha haargh! Really?
Yep, no shit. Poo: It smells and you can’t really do anything with it, unless you’re a monkey in a cage in a zoo, throwing it at passersby. If you try to use it as ink, your filing cabinet will soon be swarming with flies; if you try to use it as stuffing for a pillow, you really will have to worry about the bed bugs biting you during the night; if you bake it like clay and try to use it as a credit card, it will get stuck inside the cash machine and you’ll never be able to get a mortgage or a loan again.
It makes bloody great manure though, my geraniums are marvellous this year.
Hnur hnur hnur hnurrrrgh. Something makes me think you might not have got all that you might have done from any visits to the zoo you made as a child. OK, so after poo what’s the next item you’d like to throw into Box 010?
Three-quarter length trouser-short things: Let’s face it, no-one likes a cyborg. Robots are great, ‘cos they build cars and lift things wot are too heavy for us humans to lift. They can even speak in cute little voices if programmed to do so.
Humans are great as well. They can be pleasant to look at, they sing nice songs, and some of them can even make a right nice cup of tea if asked nicely.
Cyborgs? Yucky, ugly creatures that have bolts poking out of their eye sockets and bulging electric veins that dangle down from every nook and cranny. And so it is for those ghastly three-quarter length trouser-shorts. If it’s warm, wear proper shorts. If it’s cold, wear proper trousers. There is no such thing as warmy-cold weather that is too hot for trousers and too cold for shorts.
Ah but what about when it’s too hot for trousers but your knees are too scarred and vile for shorts? That’s when these three quartery length abominations become quite useful. Er… at least, that’s why I wear them, anyway. But I agree that, as a fashion statement, they are a bit pants. Then again, as a, lardy, 45 year old stay at home parent I’m probably about as close to making a fashion statement as I am to Alpha Centuri so I don’t expect it matters… sorry, gone off on one there. Right-o, please can we hear about your next item?
Audiophiles:
“Yeah mate, that would deffo sound better if you were using a gold-plated SCART cable instead of them earphones. It’s all about the conductivity.”
Really? How fascinating. And there was me thinking that listening to The Sex Pistols would be a simple affair of popping in the CD and hitting the play button. Had I known that I needed to pray to the God of Unicorn Farts at the Altar of Elbow Grease beforehand, my delicate wee eardrum would no doubt be bestowing me with flowers and blowjobs by now. Thank you, Mr Engineery Man, for your advice on the things that matter. May your moustache be forever neat and tidy.
All I can think of now is the Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch:
“I’d like to buy a Gramaphone.”
Cue about 20 minutes of laughter.
“A Gramaphone, do you mean a music system?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Oh about 30 years and a plastic casing to you Granddad.” etc.
Sorry, moving on. Michael, what is the fifth and final thing you’d like to put into Box 010?
Asparagus.
Noooooooo!
Yes, because it’s crap.
A bag of frozen green beans will cost about a quid. A bag of frozen asparagus will cost a ton. That is, if you can even find a place that sells frozen asparagus, as it’s clearly such an important and precious length of green that no-one dares freeze it, lest they risk the feeble wrath of asparagus worshippers everywhere.
Apparently asparagus is good for seducing women; I disagree. Vodka works perfectly and it’s cheap. Asparagus is expensive and is a far higher maintenance vegetable than it’s cousin the green bean. You also end up discarding half of it anyway.
The asparagus vs. beans debate is similar to the ebook vs. real book debate: “Oooooh, a real book is so much more engaging!”
No it isn’t, so stop lying.
Michael thank you for making us laugh so much with one of the most splendidly random Box 010’s so far. It was great! The results will be posted in a week’s time, when we will find out if my asparagus bed and halfway-house trousers are going to join my husband in Box 010.
Readers, you can vote on Michael’s choices here.
Underneath
Look at the person sitting just across from you. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a loved one, a friend, or a complete stranger.
Now look at their face. Are they happy? Are they sad? Or are they angry? Can you even tell?
How well do you actually know the people closest to you? Have you ever seen the real person that lies just underneath what you see…?
Here’s where you can stalk Michael Cargill on the internet.
Website:- http://michaelcargill.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @MichaelCargill1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelCargillAuthor
Filed under Box 010, General Wittering
Hello Ladies, Gentlemen, those who aren’t quite sure and, of course K’Barthans. This weeks’ guest on Box 010 was Lynda Wilcox writer of the children’s adventure books and light hearted whodunits, the latest of which, Strictly Murder. You can find her website here .
Right I hope you’re sitting comfortably, here are the results…
Lynda, you got a fine and dandy 3 items into Box o10 and they are.
Lynda thank you for joining us on Box 010.
Ladies and gents there will be a slight hiatus now as it ‘s the school holidays and I’m afraid I have to turn into Mumzilla for 6 weeks but Box 010 will be back in September… unless I do a rogue one in the middle of August.
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Hello Ladies, Gentlemen, those who aren’t quite sure and, of course K’Barthans. Welcome, once again, to Box 010; a bit of light whimsy which is, in no way, inspired by the popular BBC programme Room 101. Here’s now it works. Every two weeks, my special guest will pop in and then present us with five things they would like to see consigned to the dustbin of existence. This week’s special guest is Lynda Wilcox writer of the children’s adventure books and light hearted whodunits, the latest of which, Strictly Murder. You can find her website here .
Hello Lynda. Right before I let you rant, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself.
Of course, I was born in Derbyshire and, even as a small child, read voraciously, happily losing myself for hours in Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and Famous Five books. Looking for a new source of income when my husband was made redundant in his mid-fifties, I turned to writing. In the beginning I wrote the sort of children’s adventures I’d been so fond of myself when young, and then turned my hand to old-fashioned whodunits, which I’d enjoyed since my twenties. I’m happy to say that both have proved popular, because I have a lot more stories yet to tell.
That’s interesting, I reckon Enid Blyton got a whole generation of kids into writing. Most of the early stories I wrote were Famous Five style, too. So, the time has come… What would is your fist candidate for Box 010?
Celebrity chefs or, more properly, TV chefs: I learnt to cook at my mother’s knee, though I suppose I must have been taller than that or I’d never have reached the stove! In my day cookery was taught in schools. Now we have to learn how to prepare and cook our food from the likes of Delia Smith or Raymond Blanc. Everything is ‘fresh’, ‘crisp’, and ‘beautiful’ before it becomes ‘delicious’, exquisite, or ‘perfect’. Yes, well they’d hardly say their ingredients were stale, soggy or bland, now would they? Or that the resulting meals tasted disgusting. I’d love to be able to pout and flaunt my way around a kitchen the size of Nigella Lawson’s but I live in your average semi and cook in a kitchen where you have to close all the cupboard doors before there’s room to open the fridge. And we don’t all live in London with a bustling daily market just around the corner. Open my kitchen door and there’s a main road facing you, not a perfect pottager or herb garden. I’m as likely to get run over as I am to find a sprig of mint!
Hmm… I do enjoy a good cookery programme but I agree that many of them tend to make certain assumptions which are just plain daft! And Nigella does my head in.
What is the next item you would like to hurl, through a black hole, never to be seen again?
Chilli with Everything: Not everyone likes chilli, and even ordinary white pepper is too hot for me, but these days the wretched stuff turns up in everything — even chocolate and ice cream! Whatever next? Chilli flavoured Victoria sponge for heaven’s sake? I’ve no objection to those who like their food so hot they can’t actually taste it, but recently my local supermarket’s selection of barbecue meat didn’t include a single item that wasn’t hot and spicy or crammed to the gunwales with chilli, lime and coriander. Hey, all I’m asking for is a little choice, OK? Besides the idea of a barbecue is surely not to feel that you’ve cooked your own tongue on the damned thing.
Mwah ha hahargh! I am going to be thinking about cooked tongue for the rest of the day! Hmm another controversial one there, I reckon. I love chilli, but I do understand this, because I’m allergic to mushrooms and the amount of times I’ve explained this carefully and been served something stuffed to the gunwales with them are too numerous to count. Sorry, going off on one there.
What is the third verucca of existence that you would like to burn from the foot of time?
Council Profligacy and Council Speak:
Excellent, sounds like a good one!
Yes. It causes more chuntering, more dark mutterings in Wilcox Towers than any other. Less than half a mile from my front door, proudly displayed over the entrance to the District Council offices is a fancy sign saying, ‘Your District Council — Working For You’. I KNOW THAT! Who the hell else would they be working for? Patagonian llama farmers?
God know how many hundreds or thousands of pounds of tax payer’s money, MY money, they wasted stating the blindingly obvious. Just how dumb do they think the local residents are? Oh, OK, don’t answer that one. Just tell me why, when the council have removed all the cameras from speed traps around the county, they need to spend several hundred thousand quid painting the empty boxes? It’s madness. If you are thinking of going and working for them, you’ll need a degree in gobbledegook. A current vacancy calls for, ‘a portfolio holder for community engagement and wellbeing’. I’m applying myself — as soon as I’ve worked out whether they want an MC for bingo nights or a doctor!
Local Government Gobbledgygook excellent suggestion. I suspect we’ll all be voting for that one. OK, Lynda, what is the fourth item you’d like to put into Box 010?
Texting and mobile phones: Specifically those who insist on keeping their hands down, thumbs going nineteen to the dozen as they walk down crowded streets expecting everyone else to get out of their way or risk being barged into. They surge across busy roads, still typing Cul*r, oblivious to traffic and the world around them. Wherever they are, in supermarkets, libraries, on the train, they feel compelled to whip out their Nokias (and there’s a euphemism, if ever I heard one!) and call someone to announce the fact. They discuss the most personal details, medical or financial, in plain hearing of all around them, forcing you to listen. I don’t want to hear about your attack of dysentery on holiday, your gynaecological examination or how you had to transfer money to pay for your son’s new car. Please, please, please, just shut up!
Oh I heartily agree with this one. Come on readers, stuff it in! Right, Lynda, we’re coming to your fifth and final item. Please can you tell us what it is.
Rude people: whatever happened to common courtesy? To good manners? Don’t people bother with P’s and Q’s any more? I’m fed up with being barged off pavements, pushed out of the way in shops, and cut-up by other road users. For all that they get a bad press, it’s rarely young people who are guilty of such bad manners, either. While I was shopping last week, a forty-something woman cried, “Oh there it is”, and without so much as an “excuse me”, shoved out an arm right in front of my face to take something off the shelf. Similarly, whilst looking at the Alfred Jewel in the Ashmolean Museum, someone reached in front of me with a mobile phone to take a picture of it. Grr. I can find no excuse for such rudeness and it makes my blood boil.
In that case, readers, to reduce risk of Lynda’s blood boiling – which can’t be effecetious for her health, please, please, vote rude gits into Box 010.
Lynda, thank you so much for joining me. Readers, it’s now time to vote! Join me next week when we find out how many of Lynda’s choices are going into Box 010. To find out more about Lynda’s books you can visit her website here, more on her latest release, Strictly Murder, at the bottom of the page.
The Estate Agent’s details listed two reception, kitchen and bath. What they failed to mention was the dead celebrity in the master bedroom. Personal assistant Verity Long’s house hunt is about to turn into a hunt for a killer. It will take some fancy footwork to navigate the bitchy world of dance shows, TV studios, and dangerously gorgeous male co-stars. When Verity looks like the killers next tango partner, she discovers that this dance is… Strictly Murder
A reminder
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Few Are Chosen, K'Barthan Trilogy: No 1 has been awared the Awesome Indies Seal of Approval
A group of London teenagers judging the Wishing Shelf Book Awards awarded a silver award to Few Are Chosen, K'Barthan Trilogy: Part 1. Escape From B-Movie Hell was also voted a winner - of a bronze medal this time - in 2015.
M T McGuire Authorholic 