Welcome to the weekly blog hop.  Today’s topic is:

‘Are audiobooks considered reading?’

Of course audiobooks are considered to be reading.

What is the purpose of reading? To learn new ideas and expand your horizons; experience different cultures, religions and beliefs; improve your vocabulary and enjoy a good story.

Which of these can’t you do through listening to the story rather than reading it yourself? There are two benefits to reading you don’t get through audio books and those are improved spelling and improved silent reading speed, but there are benefits to audio books that you don’t get from silent reading such as developing good listening skills, not skipping over pieces of the story and, for me, a slower speed which means more time to appreciate the language and the message in the story.

I listen to two to three audio books a month, depending on their length, and I tend to chose books that I find more complicated to read myself like classics, poetry and intricate tales of espionage with lots of characters. So far this year I have listed to The Thorn Birds, The Red Badge of Courage, Anthem by Ayn Rand, The Great Gatsby, The Screwtape Letters, Evil under the sun and Letting go into perfect love, all of which are great books. I am currently half way through What Happened in Vienna, Jack? by Danny Kemp and have Haunted House Ghost and Poggibonsi: An Italian Misadventure lined up for March and April.

I also have Far from the Madding Crowd and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, both classics, on my list for the first half of this year.

I promote audiobooks for children, especially children who have a learning barrier and struggle to read quickly and fluently on their own. My son, Michael, has an excellent vocabulary despite his learning barrier and this is due to the numerous audio books he listened to as a young lad. We used to listen to children’s classics together such as The Coral Island and Treasure Island. It was a wonderful bonding experience.

I listened to The Great Gatsby as it was one of my older son, Gregory’s, set work books for this year and we did it as a buddy read and discussed it afterwards.

I listen to audio books when I do boring or monotonous tasks like cleaning or driving and when I am doing mechanical tasks like fondant art or baking. They are a great way of livening up an otherwise dull task and making the best use of your time.

What do other blog-hoppers think?  Click on the blue button below to find out, or link your own blog to the hop:

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

The Three Rondavels in Mpumalanga, South Africa [a rondavel is an African-style hut which is conical or cylinder shaped]

The esteemed Professor Charles F. French has written a fantastic post about how to world and character build in a horror novel series. I thought his points were great and certainly are not restrictive to horror novels only so I decided to apply his ideas and suggestions to my WIP, A ghost and his gold, and see how that panned out for me.

Themes

I had my general themes for A ghost and his gold in place prior to starting to write and these have expanded over the course of the book:

• The impact of greed and corruption on countries and people;
• Bad decision making and their effect on soldiers and civilians;
• Evil perpetuating the development of hatred and evil;
• The effect of war on the political and social development of a country;
• The individual mindset versus the group mentality including pro-war propaganda;
• Death; and
• The reality of war.

Over-arching ideas

My main intention with this book is to describe the events and circumstances of the Second Anglo Boer War which resulted in the emotions and feelings that remained among the different cultures and populations after the war and set the stage for the future of South Africa.

Gold is a repeated theme of this book and is included in the title, together with ghost as this book is historical but has a strong supernatural thread.

Conflicts faced by my characters

The story line runs on two timelines, the present and the period 1899 to 1902.

The modern timeline characters are Michelle and her older husband, Tom, an upper middle class couple living in Irene, near Pretoria in South Africa.

Michelle’s major conflicts are dealing with Tom’s deception and lies and Tom’s are dealing with his guilt and the fact that he did not take responsibility for his actions at a point in his life and this has come back to haunt him [literally].

On the historical timeline, there are three main characters, Pieter, an Afrikaans farmer who fights for his independence and country, Robert, a British soldier who is in Mafeking during the siege and Estelle, Pieter’s oldest daughter, who is interned in a concentration camp and witnesses the deaths of her mother, aunt, sisters and cousins.

Pieter’s major conflicts are justice, guilt, fear and anger which develops into hatred; Robert’s are disillusionment and an gradual loss of patriotism and idealism, internal conflict and anger and Estelle’s are anger which turns to hatred as a result of the lack of accountability by others for their actions and their effects.

The conflicts which face each main character all revolve around the war and its aftermath and illustrate how the past impacts the present and the future.

The lives of the characters are at stake due to the war and the circumstances that Michelle and Tom find themselves in at the current date.

The characters must fact their pasts and resolve their anger and hatred issues in order to find redemption in the present.

Thank you to Charles French for this useful post which has resulted in the above which I have found a useful way of pulling my thoughts together and ensuring my story is on track to achieve and deliver on my themes. Fortunately, it is.

You can read Charles’ original post here: https://charlesfrenchonwordsreadingandwriting.wordpress.com/2020/03/08/how-to-world-and-character-build-in-a-horror-novel-series-by-charles-f-french-part-three/

Sue Vincent’s prompt this week fit perfectly with one of my poems from the poetry collection I contributed to, along with South African poet, Kim Blades. You can find Kim here: https://kimbladeswritingblog.wordpress.com

The thunderstorm

by Robbie Cheadle

A deluge of rain tumbles from the sky

like a bucket turned upside down

the beggars impervious to its ferocity

faces impassive, no fear or frown.

***

Young boys stand on the roadside

eyes smouldering with hunger’s pain

need forcing them to continue standing

despite the lightning and drenching rain.

***

One holds a bedraggled cardboard sign

the other a tattered polystyrene cup

each hoping a passerby will pause

and give something to eat or sup.

***

A young mother stands shivering

an old umbrella sheltering her child

his eyes huge and frightened

he’s never laughed or even smiled.

***

In the middle of an intersection

an old man stands bent and alone

his head bowed in supplication to the torrent

he doesn’t complain, sigh or moan.

***

It’s rare to see the elderly on the street

poverty means many don’t live that long

my heart fills with a wrenching pain

for this anguished society to which I belong.

***

You can join in Sue’s challenge here: https://scvincent.com/2020/03/05/thursday-photo-prompt-torrent-writephoto/

You can purchase Open a new door here: https://www.amazon.com/Open-new-door-collection-poems-ebook/dp/B07K4RRC4W

Mountain Justice by Karen Black

My review

Mountain Justice is an intense and short read about a woman who is the victim of horrific physical and mental abuse by her husband. Anne is six months pregnant when her savage and mentally unstable husband beats her nearly to death because he thought she looked at another man with interest. Annie is discovered, beaten and bleeding, by her old school friend, veterinarian, Rob, who also helps her care for her horse, Czar. Due to his early intervention, Annie lives, although she loses her baby, and returns to live on the farm, which is actually hers. Her husband, George, is sent to prison for five years.

During this five year period, Annie continues her life on the farm while George nurses his hatred for her from afar. He blames her for his imprisonment and vows to punish her. At the end of the five years, George is released from prison and at the same time, Annie’s horse starts behaving in a strange and unsettled way.

This story is short so there isn’t a lot of character development, but Annie did come across as a strong woman with an inherent survival streak and quick reactions. Rob is sensitive and his attachment to both Annie and her horse allow him to tune in to out of place events and circumstance, thereby, saving Annie’s life early in the story and working out his help is needed later in the story.

George only features as a sullen and savage personality and it is distressing and awful to read about him, knowing that there are men out there like him who treat their womenfolk so badly.

An insightful short story which will keep you turning the pages.

Purchase Mountain Justice

Caste Metal: Short Story by Fiza Pathan

My review

This is an incredibly moving novella and I am astonished at how long I reflected on this story.
“He wore a clay cup the size of an English teacup with a thread under his mouth and a broom tied to his waist with a rag from his nineteen-year-old mother’s saree.” When I read this description, I thought it sounded rather odd. Why would an eight year old child where a cup tied under his chin? What could the broom be for? As this story unfolded and I grew to understood the meaning of these physical signs of the lowest caste in India, I was infused with a huge horror. It seems incomprehensible that an entire grouping of people could be so badly mistreated. Of course, I know that such awful systems existed in the past, in India and in many other countries in the world, but it is still difficult to get your mind around such an unfair and impossibly selfish system with my modern mindset.

The little boy in this story is a gifted child and it does seem rather amazing that such giftedness would be overlook and vilified in any society, but this was the law of the land at this time. Untouchables could not learn to read, in particular, they could not read the scriptures.

For me one of the best things about this short book is that it taught me so much about life in India at this time, but it still managed to end on an uplifting note and demonstrate that in every situation and circumstance there have always been those people who believe in love of their fellows and go to great lengths to demonstrate it, often at extreme personal risk.

Well done to the author on this intensely moving book.

Purchase Caste Metal by Fiza Pathan

Welcome to the weekly blog hop.  Today the topic is:

Share how you keep your characters, storylines, etc., organised. Do you use an outline? Notecards? Post-its all over your walls?

Am I organised with my writing, well, the answer to that is yes and no. I do work to a general outline of my story and idea, but I don’t do a lot of detailed planning. I have a general skeleton which I follow, and I have the ending in place when I begin my writing. From this starting point, I set about adding all the flesh, making sure it all heads in the general direction of the ending I have already determined.

I have discovered, over the past year, that the psychology of my characters is very important in explaining how they behave and why they do the things they do. As a result of this, I do a character outline and develop the personality traits and hints at intellectual prowess and abilities upfront as these need to unfold in line with the plot. The psychological revelations about my characters are entwined into the story line as I develop it. As the ending is already know, I know what kind of person is required to achieve the planned outcome.

I do research and editing as I go along and try to ensure that the historical principles I am using to support my story line are woven in along the correct historical timeline and path. For example, in my latest WIP, Robert, my British soldier, belongs to the Protectorate Regiment which played a major role in the siege of Mafeking, a small but strategically important town bordering on the Transvaal, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Bechuanaland (Botswana) at the time. When I progressed my story to the point of the scorched earth policy that was implemented by Lord Roberts and Field Marshal Kitchener, I had to follow the path of that regiment when it relocated to the Elands River camp. My telling of the scorched earth policy is thus told from the perspective of the old Eastern Transvaal.

My research is thorough and is all stored on my computer under various files. I need these to do the bibliography at the end of the book.

On the face of it, from the above, I would say I am organised. So why did I say yes and no. The answer to that is all my organisation is in my head. I don’t write anything down or keep any spreadsheets. Other than the research documents, I don’t have a single thing in a hard copy. I don’t write it down, for the same reason I never take a notebook to a work meeting. I just don’t need to. I never forget what I need to remember. Even years later, I can remember the detail of every work assignment I have ever done, what the issues were and I can find the documentation if I want/need to.

I do use a calendar for work, or else I get to involved in my work and forget to attend meetings, but that is the only electronic reminder I use for anything in my life.

What do other blog-hoppers think about organising characters and storylines?  Click on the blue button to find out:

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

A sudden flash of brightness caught his eye and he whipped his head in its direction. It was the glint of sunlight on the burnished metal of Creaky as the Boers brought its cannon up, ready to fire. Boom! The sound echoed across the rolling veld and a thick cloud of smoke rose up above the huge gun.

From the centre of town came the noises of the explosion as the shell burst among the buildings. Shouts and cries indicated that the projectile had caused damage and the few lady volunteers who had been resting on the stoep, hurried away to prepare for any casualties who might be sent to the hospital.

The Boers set about firing heavily on the town and Robert helped carry some of the wounded soldiers, who had been lying on the stoep, back to their wards. Those that could, limped away on crutches.

A short while later, a party carrying a stretcher appeared. It descended into the trench which led to the hospital and emerged at the other end. As it commenced crossing the recreation ground in front of the hospital, the large white flag waved by one of the stretcher bearers attracted the attention of the Boers, who started firing on the group. Robert’s stomach constricted in anger and frustration at this immoral behaviour by the Boers. They have no respect for the white flag.

Robert opened the door as they approached, and the stretcher bearers burst into the hallway where a waiting nurse assured them in the direction of the operating room. As the stretcher passed him, Robert caught a brief glimpse of the face of the victim. Mr Johnson’s eyes stared unseeing into the unknown from within bruised and dark circles of flesh in a grey and bloodless face

This piece is written for Linda G. Hill’s SoCS challenge: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “ect.” Find a word with the letters “ect” in it, and base your post on that word. (Not to be confused with “et cetera,” which is “etc.”) Enjoy!

You can join in here: https://lindaghill.com/2020/02/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-29-2020/

Papa is the one who enjoys sitting and talking to her, in the evenings when he relaxes on the stoep [veranda] after a long day’s work on the farm. When she was a little girl, he would speak to her in English and read to her from his few precious books. As she grew older, he had taught her to read in English, patiently helping her sound out the words until she could do it on her own.

Papa had told her that she was just like his grandmother, Anne, who had died when he was sixteen years old. He had a small suitcase containing a few of her things: her large leather-bound King James Bible, an old copy of a book called Aesop’s Fables, wrapped in plain brown paper, a few letters written in spidery handwriting on yellowed paper and some of her clothes. Estelle knew these few memories of his deceased grandmother were precious to him. He had told her once that he didn’t like to open the suitcase too often as her smell would evaporate, the letters become even more faded and her clothes would lose the shape of her body. He opened it for her though and showed her these treasured items. He had read to her from Aesop’s Fables and even allowed her to read from it, but he always turned the old and delicate pages. Estelle longed to touch those pages and feel the smooth fragility of the paper beneath her fingers.

Share for Sue Vincent’s photo challenge – Memory. You can join in here: https://scvincent.com/2020/02/27/thursday-photo-prompt-memory-writephoto/

I am over at Sue Vincent‘s lovely blog with a post about the Hungarian Jewish Museum in Budapest. Thank you, Sue, for hosting me, it is always appreciated.

The Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives

The Hungarian Jewish Museum was constructed on the plot where Theodor Herzl‘s, known as the father of the State of Israel, two-story Classicist style house stood, and adjoins the Great Synagogue on Dohány Street in Budapest.

The museum holds the Jewish Religious and Historical Collection, a collection of religious relics of the Pest Hevrah Kaddishah (Jewish Burial Society), ritual objects of Shabbat and the High Holidays and a Holocaust room.

During my visit to Budapest in September 2019, I visited the Great Synagogue and the adjoining Jewish Museum. Three of the objects in the collection, that I found the most informative or poignant for varying reasons, are set out below, together with some information from the information plaques set out in the museum.

The above Hanukkah Menorah which is made of brass and intended for use in the Synagogue, was made in the 18^th century in Poland. It is similar to the Golden Menorah of the Temple of Jerusalem except that the number of branches of the Menorah is different to the original. This is a requirement of Talmudic Law which forbids exact copies of sacred objects from the Temple in Jerusalem. The branches are decorated with blossoms and flowers, as described in the Second Book of Moses. The base stands on three small lions and on the top,  there is an eagle with outstretched wings. The eagle resembles the eagle on the Polish royal coat of arms and also denotes God.

Carry on reading hear: https://scvincent.com/2020/02/26/guest-author-robbie-cheadle-hungarian-jewish-museum-and-archives/

What Amazon says

A “hypnotic” (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas—including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption—from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters.

This gripping collection begins with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption.

Next is “Apt Pupil,” the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town.

In “The Body,” four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me.

Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in “The Breathing Method.”

“The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,” hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.

My review

This is a collection of four novella’s by Stephen King. Two of these stories I had already seen as movies prior to reading this collection, and two were entirely new to me.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is the story of a prominent banker, Andy Dufrense, who is convicted of killing his wife and sentenced to life in a notorious prison. The story depicts in fairly graphic detail, the boredom and hardship of life in prison with hardened and malicious criminals, some who are also rapists and prey on any they deem to be weak. Andy befriends another “lifer” called Red and, during the course of his journey to finally becoming a prisoner whom the prison manager and wardens rely on for financial services, becomes firm friends with Red. Andy learns how to survive and makes some interesting decisions about his life. This story provides a lot of insight into the different types and characters of men and how they react and plan in different and adverse situations. A great story.

The Body is a story about four young boys, living in a deadbeat town where not much happens and who seem to have limited future prospects, who overhear some older teenagers saying that the body of one of their peers had been found some distance away near the railway line. The boys set off on a journey to find the body. The face some adversity and must overcome their fears, but they also learn the value of food, drink and shelter as well as friendship and standing together. Another story with interesting psychological angles.

The Breathing Method was my personal favourite of this collection and tells the story of an ordinary and unassuming man in a good job where he will never be selected for promotion due to his nature. His boss, while recognising his limitations, also sees his strengths, one of which is that he is a great reader, and invites him to attend a men’s evening out at his exclusive club. One of the past times of this club is to tell a story of their own experience or origination on Christmas Eve. Each year the story teller is chosen in advance. The breathing method is one of the stories told and it really creeped me out. Stephen King’s build up and descriptions are superb and really have you looking over your shoulder. An excellent story.

The Apt Pupil is the story I liked the least. It is about a twelve year old boy who identifies a Nazi war criminal who is living in a small American town under an assumed name. The boy, Todd, is fascinated by the detail of the concentration camps and confronts the aging man and compels him to tell him all the horrible details of his life in charge of a concentration camp. These stories have a big impact on both Todd, who loses weight, starts having nightmares and failing at school and the elderly gent also resurrects all these terrible memories and starts reverting back to his previous hardened and unfeeling persona. This story did not suspend disbelief for me. I could not believe that a boy from a good family, with a curiosity about the concentration camps which is not itself unbelievable, would degenerate into a serial killer. I also found it hard to believe that an elderly Nazi war criminal in hiding would start murdering people. I didn’t finish this story and it is the reason I gave this book a 4-star rating.

Purchase Different Seasons by Stephen King

Welcome to the Blog Hop.  This week the topic is:

What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?

I have read some of the other posts discussing this topic and I am grateful that I was never a victim of unscrupulous publishing practices. It seems there are a lot of vanity publishers out there who con writers who want to publish a first book out of a lot of money and deliver very little in return.

I have come to realise that I was lucky with my writing and publishing journey. Firstly, I had the good fortune to meet my current publisher, TSL Publications, prior to publishing my first Sir Chocolate book and we have worked well together ever since, and secondly, I met Sue Vincent and Sally Cronin, both very supportive bloggers and really nice people, within my first few weeks of blogging and they both helped me meet other bloggers within their community.

I never looked for a publisher as, although Michael and I had written our books together and I wrote a lot of poetry and flash fiction, I have never really considered taking our stories to another level. A good friend of mine suggested that I submit my stories to a publisher and she recommended TSL Publications. A few weeks after I submitted the stories via email, I received a reply that Anne loved them and would help me publish them. Having help with formatting my books, editing them, type setting both the print and the ebooks and uploading them to Lulu.com and Amazon has been most helpful. I am not sure if I would have done it without the assistance and support I received.

All my books are published with TSL Publications except for my poetry book, which I wrote with a friend and fellow poet, Kim Blades. Because it was a collaboration, I decided to self publish but I also did that with a lot of wonderful help from Moyhill Publishing. David Cronin helped me with the typesetting and design of this book and walked me, step-by-step, through the self publishing process on Amazon.

Thank you to both Anne and David for all your support and also to the amazing blogging community which I am a part of and from which I learn so much every time I come on-line.

Let’s see what other blog-hoppers think of the publishing industry.  Click on the blue button below to find out.

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.