The morning after...

Not an opportunity I could miss really, to post a comment on the EU referendum. Yesterday's vote has been discussed,  argued over and specffulated about for months. For some of us the opportunity to make our mark regarding the relationship with the rest of Europe has been a long time coming. Forty one years have past since the people of Britain went to the polls over Europe. Back then it was a 67% yes vote from 65% turnout.

Back then it was the European Economic Community, no-one was openly talking about fiscal and political union. I wasn't old enough to vote, a couple of years short of voting age. Now you're trying to do the maths and work out how old I might be, well, good luck.

The important factor is that I, along with the biggest turnout (72;2%) for any vote since the 1992 General Election, made our way to the Polling Stations and put our cross in the relevant box.

In the first past the post system in British politics, a vote over fifty percent of the votes cast is a majority. 51.9 voted to leave, 48.9 voted to stay across the country. A close call nationally but looking at the country region by region the vote was clearer. Across the Yorkshire region the split between the votes was 61,56% to leave, 38.44% to stay. A clear majority. The BBC website has an intriguing scale of how the regions voted

London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain, and had the lowest turnout. Flooding in parts of London may have had some effect. The south east mirrored the national vote almost exactly and in every other region the vote was to leave, only the margin varied.

I'm sure that will be investigated by future historians who look back on the events of the past few days.

The result throws up as many questions as it answered and the ripples of the vote were felt in the financial markets across the world almost immediately. The reaction from some of the figures at the heart of Europe was emotionally charged and maybe had the power to launch teddy bears out of prams. Behind all the flimflam, bluster and bull I think the establishment thought they had it in the bag.

It takes nerve to be the first to get up and leave the party, you just know everyone will be talking about you when you've left.

So how did I vote, well, it's a secret ballot, so I can't say.

Through the window from my desk I look out on trees, and the greatest tree in the English wood is the Oak. Roots planted firmly in the soil and its trunk, with a good solid heart pushes up to the heavens, gnarled time worn and weather beaten boughs reach for the sky, branches lift a crown fit for a king: a crown of... leaves.

I'm going for a beer now; a Spitfire, a good Kentish ale,  Seems appropriate to the day.
I waited a long time for this one!

Sliding back into the groove

I've had a slack couple of weeks from a writing point of view; the day job and life generally disrupting the yet to be achieved ideal habits of creativity. After I had spent April punching Gone to Earth further towards a conclusion and suffered an impromptu plot twist that threw me off course for a while.

Set the clock to do a bit of digging around on twitter yesterday, 23rd June, inevitably the referendum generated some amusing traffic and hashtags including #dogsatpolingstations and after the Internet poll to select the name for the new survey vessel,  eventually named the RRS David Attenborough, in honour of the Naturalist and broadcaster who recently celebrated his 90th birthday. The public vote wanted BoatyMcBoatface; the name was given to the small remotely operated vessel on the "Attenborough." Inevitably the referendum threw #voteymcvoteface into the mixture. 

Skipping past all that I tracked down some of the people I follow, and have done since I started out as an author. David Gaughran always come close to the top of the list here. I began reading his blog before Iceline hit the digital shelves and have found his book Lets Get Digital a valuable reference. It's currently on the updated second edition, and now free, maybe forever!

David has been grinding an axe against the machinations of Author Solutions for as long as I can remember and his twitter feed has been busy with traffic regarding the attitude of the big publishing houses and their relationship with authors. Go for the fifteenth of June and work your way back.

The sub-title of David's book, Let's Get Digital, is How to self-publish, and why you should, goes a long way to explaining the choices I made in my personal journey to authorship. 

I was tempted, honestly, before I took the plunge with smashwords, the adverts were very tempting especially to an Internet newbie. What saved me, what held me back from the promised honeypot? Cash was tight, there was no spare to throw away, and so I kept my wallet in my pocket and looked deeper. The shadows behind the glittering facade were deep and dark like the spooky cellar in the haunted house that you just know  the dumb ass hero is going down to their fate.

I had to find another way, and David's blog is worth following, for his dogged persistence, he is not alone, Victoria Strauss at WriterBeware weighs in with her own research, valuable stuff for the newbie and the more experienced. 

Finding David Gaughran still working the case for the self-published author against the vanity presses and their relationships with the big publishers rekindled a spark somewhere, breathed life on to an ember that seemed to be cooling. 

The past few weeks have been a reflective time, ideas percolating at the back of my mind have found their way forward and hopefully a resolution. Realistically, the end product may be a classic English compromise. Cheekyseagull, the name again, and I have been over this before, weighing up the pros and cons of sticking with it, well, the solution may be found in the header of the website. Reconfigured over the past couple of weeks, the tag is now cheekyseagullbooks.co.uk. The familiar cheekyseagull.co.uk is tucked underneath, just below "home of the Grange Thrillers by Martyn Taylor." 

The next question, where to go from here, and in the spirit of the re-ordered website, the new About Me page I have to make the journey myself, independently. I may have to rejig one or two other things before I'm happy with the result.

Thanks for stopping by to share this post.

Martyn.

Working the Angles.

The previous post "Who's the Man," touched on the identity of a character in Iceline, a voice heard over the telephone and referred to as The Man. Suggesting a person of power and influence, but leaving the details of legitimacy vague and unexplored, the insinuation of the context is that the power is illegal and beyond reach of the civil power.

The thought stayed with me and provoked a look at Rudyard Kipling, and his six honest serving men; What, Why, When, How, Where and Who! A handful of troops I've mustered to unravel a number of situations, both fictional and real.

Who's the Man?

Working through the text of Control Escape the other night, the regular plod of edit and check gave me a moment to stop and think. The writing time between Control Escape and Iceline was quite a few years - life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes - and although there is an element of continuity between the novels, Iceline has had a stand alone feel to it, until last year. 

Happy Birthday Bill

400 years, Four whole centuries since the greatest writer in English passed this way, April 23rd, the day he was born in 1564 and the day he died in 1616. William Shakespeare. A playwright, poet and actor from Stratford on Avon about whom we know very little but who left his mark on our language and culture like no other before or since.

A genius who scratched out the trials and tribulations of life, wrapped up in comedy tragedy and history. The aspirations of commoners, Kings and Emperors for our delectation and delight.

Love, lust, jealousy as well as honour and nobility;  all found in the pages of his plays and the words we've often sought for that moment then borrowed, adapted or plagiarised to make a point!

He was 52 when he died, not a bad innings for his day, and yet that vital spark never died, nor will it. Whenever an actor treads the boards, a movie director calls "Action!" or someone looking for the right words for that extraordinary moment where the whole of life hangs by a delicate thread, to draw the hushed "yes!" to a fateful question and Romeo wins his Juliet: that spark will glow brightly.

My uncle Bill called him Billy Wobbledagger and as a child it took me a while to work out who he was talking about, Scholars have spent years doing the same, compiling theories about who he really was, where he came from. The name behind the alias or whatever flights of fancy took them to unpack the history of the lad from Stratford, Blue-ing his blood to explain the extraordinary talent, convinced his real identity lay in grander circumstances, convinced no commoner could create such works.

Perhaps Shakespeare's greatest creation is himself, The puzzle that surrounds the genius. The imagination, wit and wisdom of his plays., the playfulness and passion of his sonnets. The chronicles of hard won lessons of life, of victory and defeat!

The blank pages of his life about which we know so little may tell us what is important; the source of the gift is a mystery but his gift to us is well known, loved, imitated and respected. He walked this way once, as we all do.Then left his words, his dreams and stories for us to hold, cherish and pass on.

So many times, the whispered homage, "I wish I'd written that!"

For every one of them... Thanks,.

Happy Birthday Will!

World Book Night

 Eleven days to go

23 April, a portentious date in English literature, the birthdate, and the day he died, of William Shakespeare, shared with the festival of George, England's patron.

Shakespeare used the saint as a rally; Cry Harry, for England and St George.

It's time to rally the forces again on World Book Night, originally celebrated with World Book Day in March but recently as a stand alone, volunteers across the globe will be handing out books; as a gift, genuinely something for nothing.

Statistically, 36% of adults in England are said never to read, and along with World Book Day in March, World Book Night aims to put books into the hands of people who might not usually read

.

There is the official selection of titles, but what can we do as individuals, as authors and readers?

Share what we love, spread the words. The official selection may not be to everyone's taste, but there is something out there for everyone; a novella, an epic, a cracking good read. Put the imagination in gear and share a book with someone you know, a book you have read and loved, your choice, see if you can work out what they might like...

...and let the adventure rattle onwards!

Deceptive Appearances

March 2015, a little over a year ago I posted "A Cautionary Tale from Becca Mills" which linked to Becca's own post at The Active Voice and recounts how her book Nolander was blocked by a DMCA notice,

Now via the Passive Voice, comes another tale of the perils of publishing; plagiarism

Eilis O'Hanlon recalls how her novels were swiped by a stranger in the Irish Independent newspaper. She unpacks a story worth telling and like most real-life stories the outcome for O'Hanlon and her co-author, Ian McConnell, writing as Ingrid Black is not tidy.

The discovery came through a tweet from @donnapatel asking the simple question; "Are you Ingrid Black?"