My Dark Origins article today features the Grimm’s Fairy Tale, Hansel and Gretel. This tale is already dark and scary but its underlying origins are really quite horrifying.
Most people are familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel, a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in their Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1812.
In summary, the story goes as follows:
Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister whose starving parents decide to abandon them in the forest. Hansel overhears his parents plotting and drops pebbles on the path so that he and Gretel can find their way home later. The family’s plight does not improve and a short while later the mother [or stepmother depending on the version] persuades the father to take the children into the forest again and leave them there. This time, Hansel drops a trail of breadcrumbs but the birds eat them and the two children become lost in the forest.
The starving children come across a gingerbread house and they begin to break off bits and eat it…
Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.
At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.
If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.
We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!
NOTE: If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!
How blogging keeps me sane by Jan Sikes
As with each new year that rolls around, I view it as an opportunity to start with a fresh perspective and clean slate.
When I looked back on my goals for 2020, I found with some sense of satisfaction, I had accomplished almost all of them, despite the pandemic.
Some goals remain the same from year to year, such as clean eating, exercising, practicing meditation, being kind, and gentle with myself and others. I classify those as my permanent or ongoing goals. They never change.
Setting expanded goals for 2021 was quite different. COVID19 has affected us all. Not only in the way we socialize, but also in every other aspect of life, from how we shop to the way we promote our books.
The necessity for self-preservation has catapulted us into a virtual world. We order groceries online and have curbside pickup. We now visit with family via Zoom calls, and so much for getting out and attending book festivals to promote our books. That simply isn’t going to happen.
So, when I took an elemental look at how to market my books in 2021, I realized I needed to harness social media’s power.
The most powerful tool I have for marketing my work is, hands-down, my blog. I am fortunate to have built a substantial following over the years, which works to my advantage now.
I want to share with you some of the nuts and bolts of this fabulous tool, as well as some of the things I’ve learned about the art of blogging. Hopefully, you will benefit from them as well.
One of the greatest joys in my life is promoting and uplifting others. Because of this, I am always happy to offer my blog platform to support others, whether they be authors or indie music artists. And each time I spotlight a new author or artist, I gain a handful of organic followers. It’s a beautiful equation that works every time. It is the classic win-win for everyone.
The first and perhaps most important aspect of a blog is the title you create. There are many reasons for this, but mainly it is because the title needs to be eye-catching. If it isn’t, many potential readers may scroll on by and never take a peek. I know this from experience. I subscribe to a lot of blogs, so my email inbox is flooded each day. The blog titles are how I decide which ones I will pass on or read.
Some of the best practices in naming your blog post are asking a question, offering a solution, a list of solutions, or just making it fun and quirky. One recent post I wrote for a blog tour was entitled “The 3 P’s of Writing.”
That title makes you wonder what the P’s could be. I had a lot of success with that post. Fun and quirky will get me every time. You can also offer a promise of something in your title, such as a “How To” or a giveaway.
Another super important thing to add to a title is your guest’s Twitter handle (when you feature a guest). Why? Because each time that blog is shared on Twitter, it will tag them. It serves as a timesaver, and keeps the guest in your loop. I have found adding that one simple piece to a blog title gets it shared at least fifty percent more than a title without a tag.
Hashtags are another great way to get more shares. For instance, when I post a blog advertising a new book release, I will add #NewRelease to the title, which increases exposure in the feed.
Whatever your subject is, try adding a few hashtags to increase visibility.
Another super important detail, as a member of The Rave Reviews Book Club and The Rave Writers – Int’l Society of Authors, includes adding those handles and hashtags to the blog title when the content is relevant to the organizations. Again, it is proven to increase visibility and sharing.
Blog content can be about anything. I have found my niche, and although it is broad, it works for me. I blog about every aspect of the craft of writing, books I’ve read, feature guests, new music from indie artists, and all things spiritual, from meditations and Tarot cards to Runes. Those define me and my interests.
It’s good to brand yourself. Make a statement as to what you are about through your blog posts.
Once you publish a blog post, I cannot stress enough the importance of engaging. When someone takes the time to comment on your blog, please respond. Just as it is rude to ignore someone who is speaking to you in a physical setting, it is rude to ignore blog comments.
When I host a guest, I emphasize the importance of engaging and responding to comments. If my followers and I are taking the time and effort to promote you and your work, the least you can do is engage and respond. Most authors are outstanding in this area. Music artists, not so much. No matter how many times I say the words, “You need to engage,” they don’t seem to get it. I think the biggest reason is the fact that many music artists hate computers and don’t have a lot of tech savvy outside the recording studio. Nevertheless, they miss out on potential new music followers when they don’t bother to stop by.
These are a few of the basics; things I’ve learned through my experience of blogging.
Facing an ever-growing reliance on a virtual world in the days, weeks, and possibly years ahead, by fully utilizing my blog site, I will continue to grow and flourish despite COVID19.
My blog is the compass, my North Star, which helps me navigate the turbulent waters of the world in which we live.
I am a little behind on sharing my book reviews lately so I thought I would share two today.
The first review is Viral Blues by talented fantasy writer, C.S. Boyack, and the second is Finding David by another terrific writer, Stevie Turner.
Virtual Blues (The Hat #2) by C.S. Boyack
What Amazon says
Someone knows about the hat. The creature from another dimension that helps Lizzie fight against the creatures of darkness.
They are summoned to a cryptic meeting with a secret society, where they meet other people with enhanced skills. It turns out someone, or something, has been tampering with the world’s vaccine supply. The goal doesn’t appear to be political or financial, but biblical pestilence.
Can this group of loners come together in time to make a difference when even the proper authorities are obstacles?
Check out Viral Blues, for your dose of paranormal adventure, with a strong sample of dark humor. And in recent superhero style, don’t miss the secret last chapter after the back material.
My review
Viral Blues is a thrilling and fun second book in The Hat series. Someone or something evil has contaminated all the vaccinations being administered in the USA, with the result that horrible epidemics are breaking out in towns throughout the continent. Gupta and Gina Greybill are determined to find out who is behind the outbreaks and why. The gather a group of unusual heroes together to help them figure it all out, including, Lizzie and her paranormal hat, Clovid and his dog, Justine, a voodoo practitioner, Jason Fogg who can shape-change into fog, and Lisa, a robot girl.
This unlikely crew quickly realise that something malevolent and sinister is afoot and it involves zombies, the mafia, and unscrupulous scientists. The group must set aside their differences and utilise their different strengths to overcome the evil force behind the scheme.
C.S. Boyack is an author of unusual originality and his fantastic heroes are highly entertaining. Each character has useful talents but also has a weakness which needs to be overcome in order for the group to keep making progress in solving the case. The author also threads some excellent humour throughout his novel which makes for an even more entertaining and enthralling read.
When Karen and Mick Curtis attend a demonstration of clairvoyance for the first time, Karen is singled out by the medium, Rae Cordelle. Rae has a message from Karen’s son David, who passed over to the spirit world many years before. The message shocks Karen and sends her on a journey of discovery, rocking her previously happy relationship with second husband Mick, David’s stepfather.
My review
This story is completely unique and unusual and left me thinking long and hard about my own ideas concerning spirits and the afterworld. After all, spirits are either good or bad, depending on their lives and the circumstances surrounding their deaths, aren’t they? They are not a little of each just like humans?
Karen, accompanied by her reluctant second husband, Mick, attends a spiritual meeting hosted by a famous clairvoyant, Rae Cordelle. Karen’s son, David, who died 15 years previously, when he was just 9 years old, appears and speaks to the clairvoyant. He has a message for his mother – a terrible message about who killed him all those years ago.
Mick is disbelieving of the entire matter but Karen has an urgent need to meet up with Rae and find out what David had to say about his murderer. The information Rae imparts turns Karen’s whole world upside down, and threatens to destroy here marriage.
I enjoyed the character of Rae Cordelle who was cool and collected throughout the book and also confident in her abilities as a medium. She competently guided firstly, Karen, and then Mick through her discussions with David. Rae was also able to deal with David’s internal emotional conflict when it became apparent, despite his status as a spirit.
I thought Mick was quite understanding of the entire situation and Karen’s confusion and emotional turmoil as a result of David’s accusation. I felt he dealt with the entire traumatic situation in a responsible way.
Karen was well portrayed as being a woman who has never recovered from the death of her only child 15 years previously. Her reactions and behavior were appropriate and resonated with me in the circumstances.
A good book and one I would recommend to people who enjoy a clever story with a paranormal element.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
Some random doors out and about. The green and yellow doors were very low – my boys would have to duck to walk through themThree Tuns Pub in BungayYou can’t see the door – Ah well!
Here is a short extract from While the Bombs Fell about:
“The Germans bombed Bungay in 1940.
Reggie said: “The Jerry bomber plane came from the direction of Earsham. It dropped seven bombs, all in a line. The bangs were so loud, it hurt your ears, and all the windows in Earsham Street blew out.”
Earsham Street was about a mile away from Father’s farm, so the boys didn’t experience painful ears, but Elsie didn’t know that. Being only two years old at the time, Elsie remembered nothing about the bombing of Bungay. Reggie and Joey told her that the White Lion Inn on Earsham Street and H Wightman & Son Ltd furnishers on Trinity Street had both been damaged by the bombs. Elsie knew both places.
“Flying shrapnel damaged the Grandstand,” Joey said.
This reference was to the Grandstand on the football pitch at the public recreation area, called the Rec, on Earsham Street. Her brothers’ comments and recently overheard bits of conversations between the adults and her siblings about the devastating impact of the Jerry bombing raids on the nearby city of Norwich, stimulated Elsie’s imagination.
One Tuesday morning in late April, the children woke to the news that the Germans had bombed Norwich during the night. Fires burned in the city. The girls sensed the anxiety and shock of the adults during the days after the bombing raids, and it left them quiet and subdued.
That Wednesday night the Jerry bomber planes returned, wreaking even more damage on the city. Smoke still rose from the rubble when the next attack began. The last bombing raid happened on Friday, 1 May of that week.
When Elsie’s grandmother, Granny King, came to visit Mother during that week, she brought news about the bombing of Norwich from old Polly Vesey who lived down the lane.
Granny King lived in one of the tiny cottages collectively referred to as the Alms House in the town. A local charity ran the Alms House which provided accommodation to older adults who could not afford to pay rent.
Polly Vesey, a rather eccentric character, always perched a little straw hat on her head. She wore a long black dress that came down to just above her ankles.
She made a living laying out the dead and, due to her job, often looked detached from people and circumstances. Granny King told Mother Polly Vesey’s news: “Norwich is badly damaged. The bombs hit houses, shops, churches and other buildings, even the mortuary.
“There is no gas, electricity or running water in the city. How are people supposed to manage? The toilets are not working.
“Polly said women have been coming out of the city at night with their children, and whatever they can carry, to spend the night in the countryside away from the bombing.”
The news reported similar attacks on the English cities of Exeter, Bath, York, and Canterbury during this period of the war that the British came to know as the Baedeker Blitz.”
A lifetime of poetry and photography gives a unique view of life, nature, the world, and the universe.
My review
Feral Tenderness is an extraordinary collection of poems that strike right to the heart of human conditioning, frailty, and behaviours. Through reading these poems you will be removing the rosy coloured spectacles through which you have watched life until now, and will be exposed to the raw reality of human existence, both with its fatal flaws and also in its bountifulness and excesses.
The poet uses words to spear his reader and force contemplation of certain realities. There are unforgettable and powerful lines that will lurk in your subconscious to be drawn out and examined when you are confronted with certain emotions and situations. Some of my favourite of these lines are as follows:
“The glue that holds shut the eyelids of your sightless soul can be dissolved” From Seeing is Believing
“You’re wasting time! You’re wasting your life considering each step through the field. Accept it. Any step could be your last. Any choice could be wrong. How long will you inspect the ground in front of you, before you move? … From The Minefield as a Metaphor for Life
My two favourite poems in this collection are both about love. What is, my love is followed by What isn’t love?
These are two short extracts from these two poems in order of appearance.
“My love is a hurt, and a rage and a yearning, it moves through my body, sets my hands to learning the shape beneath the shape, the tone beneath the tone, the language of the bone, of subtlety and range, a way of seeing the strange.”
“Staring into space at work, while over and over you rehearse something you must say to wound your lover. Or having to replay again and again throughout the day some way that your lover wounded you.”
I read both of these poems several times and these particular lines set me to thinking about life and love for a long time.
There are also some beautiful photographs in between the poems, for the reader to enjoy and admire.
Arthur Rosch is a mid-westerner, who became a Californian as a young man. A lover of jazz, poetry, painting and photography, and writing, as well as a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. After receiving Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders, he was immersed in circles that could have taken him to the top, but it was short lived. Arthur found himself reeling, struggling with depression and addiction on the streets for almost a decade, and repairing and rediscovering himself was a defining event in his life, nurturing his literary soul. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.
At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.
If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.
We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!
NOTE: If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!
Happy Ending by Wendy Jayne Scott
In March 2020, with only a few days warning, alongside the rest of New Zealand, I was plunged into total lockdown. Saying this was a surreal experience is an understatement. As none of us knew how long this altered state would last, what this meant for our jobs, or the financial or health repercussions. We’d become entangled into the twilight zone of Covid-19. UNPRECEDENTED, screamed from the headlines alongside worldwide body counts and estimated infection rates. No compass existed to guide us out of the pandemic fog shrouding our futures. We were confined to our specified people bubbles.
Teddy Bears sprouted up window ledges and letter boxes, a sign of hope and solidarity, signalling to passers-by that even though 2 meter distances and masks now ruled our physical world, we were together in our hearts. I remember gathering, with my son, at the end of our driveway, in the predawn, to pay homage to our fallen ANZAC soldiers. Dawn parades were cancelled for the first time in 104 years. The haunting bugle tone of ‘The Last Post’ filtered from an unseen neighbour’s gateway and shivers resonated along my spine.
During lockdown, I had a choice of how I would respond to my altered reality. Black voids of despair, conspiracy theories, and fake news plied for my sanity. Yet, sunlight glistened on the tall summer grasses in my yard, my son’s laughter trickled on the breeze, and my dogs’ tails wagged like helicopter rotors, ecstatic to have their human pals home 24/7. So, I chose to focus on becoming a healthier and happier version of me, and a positive role-model for my son.
Fast forward to February 2021, New Zealand is no longer in lockdown, but our borders are heavily restricted, and the new media buzz words are QUARANTINE and VACCINE. Uncertainty looms like a bloated storm cloud. Fears of further job losses and financial ruin taint our summer days. Staying positive is harder to maintain under this sustained assault of negative news.
Changes are happening. Although, I fight against the dismantling of my comfortable world, my will alone doesn’t curb the tidal jetsam from Covid-19, so I must adapt to this foreign landscape.
Since lockdown, I’ve embraced personal development, focusing inward, aware that I may not be in a position to influence external circumstances, but I can take responsibility for myself. Being positive is easy when life is rosy, yet it is how I react when life is battering away at my defences that define me as a person.
Here are my top tips for positivity:
Express your gratitude every day for what you do have
Show and tell your loved ones how much you care for them and hug them (if you can)
Use your creativity!!!! Keep feeding your creative addictions
Resonate with nature by strolling on the beach, sniff garden flowers, or listen to birdsong
Smile more, at everyone, this is the right kind of contagious! If a mask hides your mouth, then smile through your eyes!
Be kind, laugh, and dance – play music that lifts your spirit
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
Today I am sharing photographs from our visit to my Mom’s home town of Bungay, Suffolk. Bungay is the setting from my books, While the Bombs Fell, co-written with my Mom, and Through the Nethergate.
Picture of the doors of a barn with a door into the loftThe farmhouse where my mother grew upThe shed that Old Fiddledee Dee used for his goat’s when my mother was a girlSign for Nethergate Street
This is a short extract from While the Bombs Fell which describes my Mom’s home and the goat shed:
“Many other cottages along “back lane,” or Nethergate Street, were small and shabby, the same as Elsie’s home. They all looked similar and featured an outside toilet.
In the yard of the cottage next door stood two dilapidated wooden sheds. A fat, elderly man lived alone in that cottage. The local people called him Old Fiddledee Dee. He wore a worn calico shirt, an old waistcoat buttoned over his large belly and a pair of tatty, brown pants.
Old Fiddledee Dee kept goats in his sheds which he milked every morning. People said he lived on goat’s milk and bread. The thought of drinking milk from smelly goats disgusted Elsie.”
Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.
At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.
If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.
We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!
NOTE: If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!
A light in the tunnel! by Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko
I don’t know about the rest of you, but my new year started on November 3, 2020, when Biden was pronounced the winner of the presidential election. I went to bed that night early because I needed to be alone in prayer for God to rid America of the worst four years of this country’s political life. I did not want to see the results trickling in, especially as the first results did not favor Biden.
This has always been my practice. Even when the team I’m rooting for is playing, I never watch the game. I would rather wait for the end of the game to know the results. The live game always gives me something near to a heart attack. This was why I didn’t wait up to watch the results of the election as they came in. I wanted to wake up in the morning to the news that Biden had won!
It was with great trepidation that I woke up the next morning, November 4, 2020., to find out who won. First, I turned my Television to CNN, and saw Van Jones in tears. I didn’t know why he was in tears, but I joined him. In my head, I had concluded that anything that would cause Mr. Jones to cry could not be good. Slowly, it started to dawn on me that his tears, my tears, were tears of victory. Biden had won! Glory to God for He had answered my prayers! I forgot my aches and pains and did a jive! What a glorious day it was!
For me, Biden’s win opened up for people of goodwill, many positive possibilities. The first thing I felt was that the gloom which hovered over everything sane, the sense of despair that dogged the last administration’s tenure, the fear about where all the damaging rhetoric was taking us, and the danger of the divide, had all dissipated. I felt the sun shining again. My hopes for the future of this great country returned. I knew that all would be well again.
When Trump threatened the results of the election by refusing to acknowledge defeat or concede, at first, I thought it was a passing whim. Somehow, deep inside me, I was strong in my belief that God had spoken. The deal was done. Nothing and no one could overturn the results of the election!
The funny thing about all this, is that while we were rejoicing here in America about Biden’s win, in Nigeria, some misguided individuals were carrying about banners of a Trump’s win. I couldn’t understand how the business of the American elections had become the business of Nigeria. Relatives from Nigeria started texting me to sympathize with me. A cousin from London texted to warn me about an impending war in America. I texted him back asking him where he would want me to run to. The cousin humorously replied, from frying pan to fire! That’s a Nigerian idiom meaning from bad to worse.
I remember that day very clearly. In fact, we were having a fun time on the RRBC chat forum when I turned on my Television and saw, in horror, Trump and his cohorts moving to the USA Capitol. Well, he promised to march with them, then he snuck away. I alerted the RRBC chat members who were still talking about everything mundane on WhatsApp. It was horrible! How could one man hold this country to ransom? Why was Trump trying to ruin my new year’s resolutions?
There is a saying that goes, our happiness is in our own hands. Then and there I decided that Trump or no Trump, this election was done. Biden won! God had spoken, and thanks be to God! The whole world, and I mean, the whole world was in jubilation!
Before Biden’s win, I prayed to God for him to win. After his win, I upgraded my prayer. This time, I prayed that the two outstanding seats in the Senate should go to the Democrats so that Biden would be able to do a good job for the country without being blocked by the Republicans. I still remember what they did to the Obama administration, so I prayed night and day for those two seats to go to the Democrats, and now that they have those seats, my prayers have changed again. I have started channeling my prayer for Biden’s safety and good health. I am sure he needs both. I’m sure you will all agree with me that he looks so frail every time we see him, and his voice sounds so tired when he speaks. May God sustain him!
This year is looking good already. I am able to write again. Last year was one of my worst writing years. I couldn’t write at all, and this had nothing to do with writer’s block. I could see my stories. Sometimes, I would jot somethings down, and then, that feeling of hopelessness … like the end was near, would overwhelm me. I would ask myself, why bother? Rather than write, I would sit and stare into space, and dream. Although I was not putting anything down on paper, I would rehash everything in my head.
With the country calmer now, my worries have started to melt away. I can now focus more and stay on course. I can’t believe that in just two days, I have written two blog posts. In short, I am back!
I am happy that Biden is on course, too. He is not allowing anything, to distract him. When the country is on course, we are all on course. I pray that God will help him to heal America and pull America back from the hole which the last administration had plunged it. America deserves better. We deserve better.
“Do you get story ideas that you know you’ll never write?’
Realisation of my idea for a gingerbread and chocolate house diorama
I have lots and lots of story ideas. Everywhere I go, every time I do research, and every time I read a snippet of history, I get stories ideas. There are so many fascinating places, people, and innovations out there, but there is only limited time to write stories. I work full time and have a family so time is my most precious commodity and I have to decide which story ideas to pursue and which to leave for the time being.
I have a number of half written manuscripts on my computers including another middle school book called Silly Willy goes to London, a cli-fi book about genetic engineering and the fourth industrial revolution (I wrote the first 40 000 words and plotted out all three books in a planned series), a memoir about my experiences with raising children with chronic illnesses and dealing with OCD and PTSD in family situations (direct and indirect), and three or four Sir Chocolate Books stories.
I also have three stories currently on the go: one short paranormal story for an anthology, The Soldier and the Radium Girl about the First World War and the radium girls who painted the glow-in-the-dark watches for use by the American troops in the trenches, and the sequel to my mother’s story about her life growing up in an English town during WWII. I have a great new idea for a book about the Anglo-Zulu war in South Africa and am planning a trip with my family to Ghost Mountain in Kwa-Zulu Natal to visit more historical sites [I’m very excited].
I know I will never finish Silly Willy goes to London or Silly Willy goes to Knysna (also started but only 17 000 words in). I doubt I will return to the cli-fi book having lost interest in researching genetic engineering and the expected impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution when Covid-19 hit. I decided it was better to write historical novels and not forward looking novels until the new normal is clear to me. It is difficult to try and predict the future while we are in the middle of a pandemic and don’t know when it will end or how it will impact the world economically. Financial crisis have a habit of leading to conflict and war, just saying.
I have decided not to publish any more Sir Chocolate Books because Michael is 15 years old now and has lost interest in a chocolate man who lives in a world where you can eat everything and my memoir is to painful to write so that has also been abandoned for the time being.
My plan for this year is to write three or four short paranormal stories for anthologies, produce a poetry anthology with Kaye Lynne Booth of Writing to be Read blog, finish After the Bombs Fell with my mother, finish The Soldier and the Radium Girl which is intended to be a novella and plot the outline for my new South African war novel, the title of which has not yet revealed itself to me. The title always comes to me when I have the end of the book in sight [which is relatively early in my plotting process, as I’ve mentioned before].
It sounds like a plan for 2021!
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