Dealing With Criticism

When I started writing, I was like a stubborn child stamping my feet if someone even dared to critique! I suffered from mild dyslexia when I was small (but was tub, matter was rattem, etc), and I guess the hate for being critiqued stemmed from constantly being corrected. When I grew into my teens, my spelling thankfully improved, my brain now able to put things in to the correct order. That didn't make my loathing for critics go away though!

Age hasn't mellowed me. What's changed now is the knowledge that I am not perfect and that even the cleverest and most highly thought of people in the world are where they are for surrounding themselves with experts.

Before you all gasp with horror, I am NOT admitting that critics are experts. In fact, they are far from it! Whether you like something or not is subjective. We are all different and all like different things. But if someone can tell me that I've not been logical, or can point out continuity errors in my stories, I will listen.
Everyone of us hears. We don't all listen. I recommend the art of listening in all aspects of life. What you hear is nothing compared to what you listen to. The critics may be harsh, but if what they are saying is true, act on it.

If someone says that the story is rubbish, that is SUBJECTIVE. The next person might love it! If they say it needs proof reading for errors, however, they are being OBJECTIVE and might be right. So proof your work again.

A 2star review for Being Grey on Amazon said "Humorous at times and mildly interesting but needs spelling and punctuation proofreading. I would read the next book in the trilogy." How bad could it have been if the reader wants to read the next book? They enjoyed it!

Subjectively, they want to carry on with the tale. PERFECT!
Objectively, they pointed out the errors that did need amending (which has since been done, thank you!).

You have to grow a thick skin, but also read between the lines. You never know where help might come from!

My Experience with Createspace

OK people... Tonight I decided to put my new book through the process of Createspace, so that all of those that asked can order a paperback version of it!
I want to share my experience with it if I may...

• Not too difficult to navigate and pretty simple to follow the instructions
• You can upload a basic word doc which makes life easier, but make sure you shrink your tabs - the standard on Word is waaaaay to large for the books and looks daft! (Think it's standard set 1.5cm - I changed mine to 0.6cm)
• I actually ended up editing the layout of the book a few times (maybe a bit more than a few...) before I saw the link to download a template! This is an EXTREMELY handy tool - download it and use it! The difference in the finished product is quite remarkable!
• You get to preview the inside pages of your book once uploaded - if you try that without using the template, you'll see exactly what I meant above!!
• The design page for the cover was not bad either, but would have been nice to be able to change the size and styles of fonts without using their styles only. There are a handful of templates for you to choose from, and bare in mind that you CAN change the colours, style and pictures... Adding my own picture and changing the colour of the background made a massive difference, so pick the 'layout' that you want, not the colours, etc. 
• They do need your IBAN and SWIFT numbers for your royalty payments, so have them to hand or you'll have to spend 30 minutes on the phone to your bank going through endless lists of pre-recorded menus before speaking to someone. Who in my case only wanted to talk to me about my current overdraft facility...
• At the end, they ask you to pay $25 for extended sales - I've not picked this as it meant that my royalties went down like a lead balloon! I wanted to try and keep the price of my book the lowest I could, but still make a small profit. This might be worth having a more detailed look at though.
• For a first timer, I got it all done in about 3 and a half hours. I'm pretty sure the next time I use it, it'll be quicker and smoother. I am pretty IT savvy though, so if you struggle, it may take you longer. I spent most time playing with the formats, so where I said above to download the templates, do it! It would have saved me a couple of hours, I'm sure!!
• And at the end of the ordeal, you get to download your eBook version and the cover picture. The picture is handy for your marketing activites... and here's mine!

So go ahead and have a go!! If you're like me and have only sold as ebook before, there's certainly no harm in trying...

See you on the best sellers list soon!!!

Where To Draw The Line - update

I have now uploaded the new book on to Amazon, so it should be live within 24hrs! The cover needed a lot of work, but this is what I finished on...

At what point do you choose to step over the line between what is right and wrong? How much will it take for you to break the law to uphold the law? When William helped Zoe into the back of his taxi, little did he know that it would change his life forever.

A murderer is on the loose, and Zoe tells William who it is. But the murderer also knows that William is after him. He battles his conscience, the law and a murderer, but does William know where to draw the line?

The Hunted... (a short story inspired by Kristen Slice's photo)

Jake casually rested the shotgun against his shoulder. His back pack was starting to weigh heavy on his back, but they had the scent, and had been tracking it forty miles over three days. Bogart was as impatient as always, tongue hanging out, panting, tail wagging. They were getting closer, and stopping now would lose them valuable time.

The sun was slowly lowering in the sky now. A few hours past midday. A few more hours, and they would have to find a place to camp. Jake was hungry, and no doubt the dog was famished too. But they were hunters, who worked well off each other and knew each others limitations. The dog had stopped before, not because he needed to, but because he had seen that Jake needed to. He had done the same for the dog. Jake and Bogart were a team.

The brush was thick and noisy underfoot. The hunted must have known that they were tracking it. This was no ordinary bear. He was intelligent. Clever. And evil. He had attacked 2 people in the town, and the local radio station had nick named him Yogi, "as he is not your average bear". It was a stupid radio show with a stupid DJ who'd come up with a stupid name. Yes, he was not average. He was intelligent. Clever. Careful. Calculating. He'd been shot twice by the rangers and survived. They should have named him Hannibal. And he was still out there.

Jake and Bogart planned to bring him down.

The dog stopped. Tongue in, tail still. Nose pointing due north.

Jake slowly slipped his back pack off and dropped it silently to the forest floor. He brought the shotgun around and silently made his way to the dog. They were at the edge of small clearing and there, stood in the sun shine about twenty feet away, was the bear. And it was staring straight at them, it's fur raised, head low. It knew they were there. It knew they were coming. The hunt was over.

Jake raised the gun to take aim just as the bear started to charge. Bogart knew not to run in to the line of fire, so started to bark ferociously at Jake's side. The bear took no notice.

The crack of the gunshot echoed through out the forest, followed by another straight after. The dog's barking followed and the birds in the trees took flight. And then silence.

The bear was never seen again. It never came back in to town, or seen at camp sites or on the trail. And neither was Jake or Bogart. It's said that in the pitch of night, you can hear the gun shots and the dogs bark. Hunters and hunted reliving their final confrontation. Or perhaps they are still hunting, roaming the forests looking for each other, never quite finishing what they had started...

Wall (a short story inspired by Li Alonso's photo)

This isn't just any old wall. It is a barrier, secluding us from them. Separating families, friends, communities. It had been built to protect us. It has been a long time that we have needed protecting. 

I come here often. I like to feel the concrete on my back and remember how it used to be before the soldiers had built it. Long before they had needed to build it.

There are times when we forget about what is on the other side. When we wonder what all of the bother is about. Social media will create a mob, who try to break down the wall, shouting their slogans about equality for all and their human rights. Occasionally, one of them scales the wall.

And drops over the other side.

Of course, the military have cameras over there. Every now and then, they 'leak' a few minutes of footage on to YouTube to remind us of the things that live there. The things that they caught. The things that escaped.

Over there, they cut the power, blocked all cell towers and internet traffic, and left the few that stayed there to fend for themselves. They were given the option to evacuate. They said no. 

It's estimated that over two thousand stayed. Twelve months after the wall closed, they stopped dropping supplies. The creatures had brought down one of the choppers by throwing a car at it, so they deemed it too dangerous to continue. 

People are afraid of what they don't know. They fear the creatures because we've not been told anything about them. I have seen one. It was an alien. Fallen to earth in a ship that was broken. Captured, tortured, experimented on. It escaped, with it's fellow aliens, and killed over 300 military personal in the process. Bullets didn't stop them. Once free, nothing could. 

We are waiting for them to die now. But I can't help feeling sorry for them. If that was me, on an alien planet, I too would have killed everyone who had hurt me and imprisoned me. I too would have escaped. They're trapped in there, like animals in a zoo. There is no technology in there to help them, just 26 square miles of forest and farming villages. 

I come here because I love the feel of the concrete on my back. And because sometimes, just sometimes, I can hear them.

Li's photo was taken at the Berlin Wall. I tried to think of a situation where segregating people like that would happen now, and sadly came up with far too many current situations and places... I decided it would be best to treat this as sci-fi instead!

Where To Draw The Line

For those of you who also follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you'll know that I've been working on a novel called Where To Draw The Line. Today, after 7 hours work and 8000 words, I've completed it! All I need to do now to polish it up, proof read it and set it all up for Amazon! Oh, and decide on a jacket cover - here's a rough idea of what it'll hopefully look like!

I found Zoe in the street, soaked through to the bone, crying and with blood on her. She asked me to take her to the hospital, and what should have been a ten minute journey irrevocably changed my life. 

When she later died, and the man she named got away with it, I carried the guilt of her death with me. 

He knew I was on to him, and this was no ordinary man.

The police had no evidence, so I knew that I had to find it myself. And what I uncovered was not just one murder, but a string of them. And he was still playing...

At what point would you stop yourself? How many shades of grey is there between whats right and wrong? Or whats legal or illegal? Where do you draw the line?

Smiles and Facebook

My Facebook update page is full of useful inspirational quotes that tell me how I should live my life, but I wonder how many of these do we listen to? I find them fascinating and thought provoking, but the quotes that make and change my life are the ones shared by friends across the world.They will never fail to put a smile on my face. 

Here are a few of todays nuggets of wonder for you.

Percy pigs - definitely the best sweets ever 


"My name is Odd Thomas. I have accepted my oddness. And I am no longer surprised that I am drawn to trouble as reliably as iron to a magnet." -DEEPLY ODD

Books are like Tardiss. Bigger on the inside

Just found out that we are established middle class!!!


This was a bad choice of meeting place. People might think we're planning to WATCH this show — at We Will Rock You

Just got back from st ives in cornwall, my feet are still sandy cos before I left me and my mate mark jumped into to surfy blue f###ing freezing sea, everyone on the beach was clapping and gasping cos everyone had scarfs hats heavy coats on etc, when I got out I couldn't talk cos it did literally take my breath away ! I'm now back in caerphilly and just noticed one of my testicles is still hiding from the cold, don't do it kids it's not big or clever.

Mummy snuggles

Of following too many rules with writing, I have this to say: 
"I don't follow too many rules. In fact, I have lascivious parties with adverbs and adjectives on a regular basis. It's quite stimulating and, believe it or not, even with a fertile mind, no one gets pregnant!"
LMAO!!!

Try taking a snippet of your friends and family quotes. I challenge you not to smile! And while you're at it, have a little look at the Smile Campaign page that my friend set up. A little page where you can share your smiles and witness other peoples too. No party poopers allowed.

Have a fun day, everyone. You only get one today. All the others are yesterdays and tomorrows!