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. 

Skulduggery and Scuba, smuggled in

Smuggling, skulduggery and scuba diving and he was in the right place at the wrong time. A late evening encounter outside the compressor shed and a moment of panic. A tourist joins the list of missing persons, literally whisked away one night and missing for weeks. 
Don Steel wasn't any tourist, his new enemies may have been unknown but their ignorance of who they had snatched would prove costly. Battered, bruised and bloody he turns up in a ditch high in the mountains above Glencoe; airlifted to hospital for treatment his recuperation is disrupted by an attempt to silence him. Steel would be neither silent nor compliantly lie down. Leaving his attacker in the care of and needing the attention of the ward sister he takes to the road and begins a cat and mouse chase across the highlands and islands of Scotland to a final showdown in Tobermory Bay backed up by allies colleagues and friends, and one friend discovers just how far he will go. 

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.

Get your discounts here.

Iceline and Control Escape have discount codes at Smashwords. Check in KG94R for Control Escape and SG33N for Iceline. Less than a dollar apiece with the codes.

A bloke in the pub said...

It could have been the bloke down the Pub, the idea behind Control Escape grew out of what could be a modern urban legend. There is a reality behind it, somewhere. The occasional news story of the bright kid who hacks the system of the government or the military, pokes around inside and gets caught on the way out.

It usually happens because of a slip on the way out. Hacking in is less complicated, looking around and leaving no trace of the visit is tough. That's what marks out the best, that you are not certain the hack ever took place until the information obtained pops up where it shouldn't.

Steve Arkwright was good,but left a trace, his concentration slipped and the marker was enough to set the hounds in pursuit. The handler was clever, with his own ideas and a persuasive tongue, his own handlers loosened his leash and let him run a little.

There was a trade off, the handler (Arkwright's Control) had the freedom he wanted but that needed results: no such leeway came to Arkwright. He was kept on a short leash and faced with the added burden of changing his identity, by the time he jumped again, he had a  handful of identities from his handler, and final name of his own choice. Known only to himself but as secure as any he had been given. Arkwright used the system against itself.

He finds himself with new allies when he staggers into Steel and Langhers from the Grange nosing around by the old gravels pits on the other side of the wire.

Find out more in Control Escape, with a discount code at smashwords.com go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/216761 and enter KG94R at the checkout. A thriller for less than a dollar. Can't say better than that!

Imagine that

The Angst of Acceptance, a recent post by Chris James at Indies unlimited taps into the discussion about who is worthy to sit at the literary table and pick over the spoils, he begins with a humorous story about a "Traditional" published writer being embarrassed to admit his status in the company of self-published authors.

A scenario that is pretty unlikely to happen today. The long road to acceptance for many self-published writers has been dogged by the stigma which has attached itself to the title for so many years but strip away the pretentious snobbery, and let's be honest isn't that where some of this comes from; didn't it all start with independent writers publishing their own works who gradually grew into the publishing companies of the past and then conglomerated into the bigger companies dominating the present day market?

I posted a comment at the foot of Chris's post and part of it reads

 Indies have always been part of the literary scene, but regarded as the eccentric relatives which maintained their status as curios and their output as a trickle. Today the trickle is a flood and the criticism of the Indie almost always falls against a technical criteria – proofreading, editing, or whatever, elements the traditionally published writer hands over to someone else to do!
Nobody ever said we are bad at storytelling,

I am an Indie Author, I have never made any secret of the fact, nip across to the writing page at www.cheekyseagull.co.uk  and there's a little note about my feelings on the matter. Chris has an excellent piece and links in the article itself and the comments provided by readers below expand on the discussion, including how a number of well established and respected literary groups are discussing their future relationships with the constantly growing self-publishing community and people firmly embedded in the "Traditional" publishing world are effectively being forced to shift their views on the new generation of self-publishing.

My comment touched on something that has niggled at me for a long time, the sub text that when it comes to checking the details of the finished work (proofreading, editing) somehow I can't do it! I wrote the book, and I can't spot my own mistakes? Paying someone to do the donkey work is fine, employing a professional is good, but being professional is not just about being paid. Being truly professional has nothing to do with being paid and everything to do with your state of mind.

Self-publishing is not the road of the damned and the desperate, not any more, and the names of established writers who are stepping out on to the road with the myriad of unknowns, hopefuls, dreamers and professionals are saying it loudly with each step they take along that road. People attack what they fear, they run down the things they feel threatened by, it's natural, but the writer, you, whoever you are out there, you are extraordinary. You have an independent mind, an independent spirit, enjoy them.

Whatever form of publishing route you take remember this, without the writer there would be nothing to publish. Our words, thoughts, ideas, the stories that catch the quintessence of humanity are served up for the reader to enjoy. We have a feast in our hands so bring what you have and share it.

So who tells the Wookie he can't park it there

Lego gave me hours and hours of pleasure as a kid, stretching the imagination inside my head to a physical reality through the box of bricks and the models I built.

E-junkie.info - Small Business, Self Publishing, E-Commerce Blog: World Largest LEGO Model - ‘Star Wars’ X-Wing Fighter Unveiled In New York

So how cool is that, to park an x-wing fighter in Times Square. Who wouldn't want to be the one to say I did that! Brilliant, well done to everyone involved at Lego.