Update:The Obedience of Fools

Just arrived at smashwords.com, the latest update of the 2013 NaNoWriMo entrant The Obedience of Fools, a work in progress free to download. Grab yours and keep up with the action!

UPDATE The Obedience of Fools

New chapters have gone up this afternoon, taking the story a further.. The Obedience of Fools at smashwords.com, help yourself, it is a work in progress and free to download. Feedback welcome! Drop me a line and say hello...

Who or what is Cheekyseagull?

Maybe the question should be where does the name come from? A comment from a fellow Commonwealther to this blog said the name piqued her curiosity and she re tweeted the post of the 9th February - Just to let you know, so there's a small piece on the home page at cheekyseagull  a touch less of the book plugging, but not entirely free - unlike Iceline which is now free on all the distribution channels on the left hand column. There will be more to come, the piece on the home page is just a part of it...

Iceline - New Year kick off

Happy New Year to everyone,:
Iceline has just gone live at feedbooks.com as a free download, readers and comments are welcome. Enjoy it, slide away to the wilds of Scotland for a few hours this holiday.

The first of the Grange novels introduced the usual suspects, the characters to be found in Control: Escape, What You Ask for and the current work in progress The Obedience of Fools.
All are available at Smashwords if you follow the links with the blog,

Just published - Obedience of Fools

This years NaNoWriMo entrant, The Obedience of Fools has just been published at smashwords.com here, a work in progress and free to download during November. Follow the link and grab yourself a piece of the action

Sun, Sand and an ebook

Long. lazy days, sunshine, time and space in the garden or on the beach, or simply time to catch up on your reading, you can't do it without the right material. Smashwords summer/winter promotion has started here. An incredible choice of books by Independent authors many of them available discounted or free throughout July. The Grange novels Iceline and Control Escape are available free with code SW100 at smashwords.com. The third novel in the series What You Ask For is free to download. Check them out now!

Letters from the Wilderness

The Office of Letters and Light Blog .Just had a few minutes reading the post from Camp Nanowrimo, the first challenge went off in April and the second thirty day blast of creativity starts in a couple of weeks on the 1st of July. I had my first Nanowrimo last November, and finished the draft of the novel late last Sunday night. What You Ask for is now preparing for the not so much fun bits of being a writer - proofreading and editing. The first fifty thousand had the thirty day deadline to keep the pace, after that I slowed down. It is finished now, and the draft text is available at Smashwords.com.

Check out the link above, if Nanowrimo is a challenge you have taken, and completed, I am sure you will sympathise with Mike Adamson and congratulate him and everyone else who took up the challenge to venture into the uncharted territory of the imagination and reaped a harvest of fifty thousand words in thirty days. I shall be heading that way myself in November once again - (You've done it now, you fool, there's no chance of backing out now!)

I am undecided about the July Camp Nanowrimo, That may be a last minute plunge into the wilds. 

There for the asking!

No need for caution, What You Ask For 2012 Nanowrimo winner published via Smashwords is now a completed draft; straight from the typeface and worth the read. Free to a good ereader, and a good home, while I sort out the proofreading and editing, and cover design for the final version.
Feedback is welcome, let me know your thoughts, suggestions and comments are via the link.

Nano, under a new canvas

I shall slow the posting down next week, less blog and more novel, you might say. Camp Nanowrimo has been announced for April - that's close- and July, which leaves a bit more breathing space.
Camp Nano is the summer outbreak of creative abandon from the people at Nanowrimo, and the itch to get in there and go for another word count challenge is starting to get into my fingers, but I have to finish the Nanowrimo winner from 2012 first, What You Ask for, is still under construction, definitely work in progress and you can help yourself to the story so far over at Smashwords.com. That makes any thoughts of Camp Nanowrimo more likely to be July; it does mean I can start a slow heat on the back burner and see what comes out of the smoke and maybe I'll try something different, have a change from the team at the Grange.

Camp Nano looks more relaxed than the November charge through the novel-ling world, with the choice of word counts, obviously set before you start, and by telling you all this I've just started the process explored by Chris Baty in his book that accompanies Nanowrimo; No Plot No Problem. He tells the story of the first Novel Writing Month and the abandon with which they launched themselves into the adventure totally unprepared (certainly by the usual standards) and went for it, and uses the experience to advise on how to do it and finish the challenge. A prominent piece of advice is tell your friends, garner their support, gather their encouragement and by doing so encourage yourself to stick to it, otherwise you have to explain why it all fell apart.

Their first venture was a few years before I started writing Iceline, under a different title but the method is one which appealed to me, for years I tried the traditional method of plotting and character outlines, spending time working out the storyline and the frustration drove me mad. It all changed with a chance conversation in the local Indie bookstore (Philip Howard Books) about an interview with Philip Pullman. He described how he wrote; working from a start point to a finish, both of which were known but letting the story unfold along the way.

I liked the idea; and applied it to Iceline and for me it works, get the story down on paper and sort out the details afterwards (What to do you mean it shows?). A similar thinking applies at Nanowrimo, the target of 50,000 words in 30 days is an incentive backed by a deadline. The latter in Chris Baty's book is explained as a vital tool, perhaps even the most important one. I certainly noticed the difference when the November ended and the rate of words per day fell through the floor in a pretty spectacular way.

Pre-planning is allowed, but the actual writing kicks off at midnight plus one minute on the first day of the month, and the frenzy follows naturally. The conversations about writing at home tend to be brief, and from my point of view, Nano month or not are usually restricted to the current word count, and the widgets and other devices that can be attached to your blog or website add to the tension.

I thoroughly enjoyed Nanowrimo last year and intend to go for it again this November, the July camp is an added bonus, and will be approached with the abandon required to put the word count down on paper.

Surprise yourself, how you approach either of these challenges, Camp Nano or the full blown November Fest is up to you, but if you have that urge to write a novel and it has been hanging around gathering dust in a cobwebbed corner of life, pick it up and dust it down. Sign up and give it a go. If 50,000 seems to big to start with, have a look at Camp Nanowrimo and choose a word count you think you can achieve (you will be surprised, once the words start flowing how quickly they pour out) and this time next year I may be reading your blog about your novel published at Smashwords, or wherever.

There should be an update on What You Ask For in the next few days, maybe early next week and we'll see where the story has got to, shall we?

The idea of writing a novel, without preparing for it properly, charging in, going live without any rehearsal.
Sounds like being alive to me!

Meanwhile, back at the typeface...

Area 51?

Area 51 - that got your attention; no, not the place that officially unofficially exists or doesn't somewhere in Nevada, although Google Earth seems convinced it knows where it is, but the 51st area for Apple's iBookstore - Japan. Now open for business

I admit there are certain oriental mysteries about the culture and people of the Japanese islands that have always intrigued me, and a favourite James Bond novel, You Only Live Twice, is set there. The book has a much more exotic element regarding poisons and volcanic vents than the film, but it catches something of the strangeness of the culture.

The news yesterday morning carried a link to the press release announcing the opening and tucked away inside it was a fascinating factoid, a conversational elephant stopper, 130 million iBook apps have been downloaded to iPads, iPhones etc.; now wind it back and run it again. That is a staggering figure, and imagine all that space waiting to be filled with books, 130 million iBook apps, we're already half way through Read an Ebook Week and time to go bobbing in Apple's barrel.

If you haven't had your fill yet, help yourself, my two books Iceline and Control Escape are part of the action this week and the notification emails have never been busier. The discount code until Saturday is RW100, don't keep it to yourself.
A week is said to be a long time in politics, not so when your working through the pages of a book, a week may put ten or fifteen thousand words on the story, more if you're working at it full time - a delightful luxury I'm not in a position to enjoy at the moment, but hey, I can dream.

Be part of it, spread the word.

130 million opportunities for an Indie Author like myself to connect with the reading public: you,  to entertain you, to share the adventures of my characters and hang in there with them through thrills, mystery and danger until  way off in the distance there is a hint of a large lady singing.

Whatever and wherever you're reading, enjoy.

Don't keep this under your hat!

Spotted this poster on the www.ebookweek.com site, the whole thing is news to me but it's sort of the parent site for all this fun, and I'm having a good time. I loved the atmosphere of this poster and have adopted it; my books are thrillers and this is the archetypal image. Running the whole gamut from The Third Man; the Maltese Falcon etc., all the way down ghetto line. The Give-Aways are going well and the "sales" are encouraging - OK, I've shifted more books in the last twenty four hours than the previous six months, but I'm fine with that. The word from the start was this was a long journey and I'm definitely up for it. I'm enjoying it, and the suspense is there right at the heart of it, wondering when the next ping on the email will log another book on the sales chart.

To all you lovely people who already have Iceline and Control Escape on your e-shelves, thanks for the thumbs up, have a good time with them, I had fun writing them.  Bag the brace if you haven't done so already; I should be cracking on with the third novel, What You Ask For. I'm already being asked when it will be available. It started with the gallop through November and Nanowrimo ( I logged 50,000 plus within the thirty days and the book became a winner) and then it lost impetus and the writing schedule has already been stretched, twisted beyond recognition and lobbed in a corner where it missed the wastebin. What You Ask For is published at Smashwords as a work in progress and free to download; stay with the story if you're following it, and if your new to Steel, Jardine and the people at The Grange, this week is an opportunity to say hello, and have them on me.

There is another story somewhere down the tracks, but that is still working its way out of the back of my mind and the problem with the brilliant idea and the notebook in last night's, or was that this morning's post, is all too familiar; maybe I'll go back to the old style tape recorder and try to look good talking to myself. Generally a fail, even with the ubiquitous bluetooth stuck in your ear. 

As the man in the poster says, this is read an ebook week, don;t keep it under your hat, spread the word and be part of the action; and I'm going to stir up the action in the next book,

 See you soon, I'm off to the typeface. 

Free ebooks for this week

Read An eBook Week starts tomorrow at Smashwords.com, the fifth annual celebration of books on the site, and Iceline and Control: Escape are free for the week. Enter the code RW100 for each book when you go to buy.
What You Ask For is free and downloadable, still a work in progress but updated yesterday.
Go with the links in this post or click on the cover image alongside, but don't forget the code.
(The official start time is one minute past midnight on the 3rd March Pacific time; then the Smashwords catalogue appears, it will disappear at the stroke of midnight pacific time on the 9th.)

Fresh from the typeface

The latest update of What You Ask For... 2012 Nanowrimo winner and a continuing work in progress is now available at Smashwords, here, and keep up with the story. Free to download from Smashwords.

Last few minutes,

Less than on hour left on the Christmas offer for my ebooks at Smashwords, the clock stops at midnight for the discount coupons, SZ97D for Iceline and XQ53N for Control Escape. What You Ask For... the 2012 Nanowrimo winner will still be free to download as a work in progress.

Cheeky Seagull took off again

Time flies when your head's buried in the shifting sands of the internet. www.cheekyseagull.co.uk has just had an overhaul, not specifically for New Year. There were one or two things lurking off line that needed a push forward and are now up with rest and revamped links pages for the various ebooks available through Smashwords et al,  -all the usual suspects.