My Wiki page

A book company has created a page at Wikipedia based on me as an author

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Nelder

Thanks Donna for contributing the photo.

Free Escape Velocity magazine!

Robert Blevins and me, co-editors, at Escape Velocity science fiction magazine, are experimenting with giving away free downloads of our magazine as ebooks.

Try it here
http://www.escapevelocitymagazine.com/purchaseev.htm

Don’t forget we are still looking for quality submissions. Please read our submissions page first on the same website.

There are additional pleasures to cycling that motorists don’t appreciate unless they cycle too. I’m not referring to the all-round cabriolet experience of cycling, the fresh air, easy use of gravity on the downhills and the exuberant adrenalin rush when the peak of hills are achieved. I mean the wicked thrill of witnessing fakwit drivers making a mess of their impatient drive to get somewhere a minute quicker.

On my return home from a cycle to the swimming pool, I had to screech to a halt outside the shops at Westminster Park in Chester.  Alongside the shops is Castle Croft Road, wide enough for two large vehicles to pass – carefully. Unfortunately someone had parked their family car, and a large rubbish (trash for US readers) bin lorry had parked too. So when another lorry came along, instead of waiting for the bin lorry to move on, it decided to have a go at the gap. All three vehicles became as one. The impatient lorry had its front offside tyre at least a centimetre into the passenger door of the car. The driver-less car was complaining by emitting a wailing shriek making me glad to be hard of hearing. The other side of the lorry liked the bin lorry’s wing mirror so much it had decided to try and take it away, by entangling with its own wing mirror. Like one of those metal puzzles their angles and triangles entwined, immovable. I sat on my saddle and watched for at least ten minutes as the two lorry drivers walked around scratching their mobiles and talking to their heads – or the other way round – I was fifty metres away. I couldn’t, and nor could they, envisage a way to extricate their situation without making matters worse. I had to leave them, because it was getting dark. I wanted to savour the look on the face of the car driver when she/he returned laden with shopping. Maybe all three drivers, their vehicles, the police, fire-brigade and onlookers, are still there.

Issue #3 of our science fiction & fact magazine is now out check it out here!

Yesterday morning’s earthquake in Illinois worried me. My literary agent lives west of Chicago and I needed to ensure my Left Luggage scifi manuscript survived safely. I needn’t have worried. Although skyscrapers swayed and roads split, my agent had a martini in his hand and so the quake served a useful purpose.

The list of friends I have on Facebook is growing. Many of them are fellow writers, family members and former pupils from Queens Park High in Chester. Some though, are folk I’ve never met in real 3D life nor virtually. These are friends of friends who feel we may have something in common, and that’s cool to meet new people. I have to watch though, as we all do, for those who curry favour in order to sell something. I thought that might have been the case yesterday when MEAT appeared in my intray. As a vegan I thought someone was attempting to wind me up, especially when I saw it was a book with the very old catchphrase: You are what you eat. I noticed that the MEAT author, Joseph D’Larcy, and I have a scifi author friend in common so I dug deeper. Yes, Meat is a horror book, another of my genre, though not for a year or so. It seems Joseph has written a fascinating tale with gory cover and premise, but it is far from glorifying meat, so I agreed to being a friend. His book is at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Meat-Joseph-DLacey/dp/1905636156 and doing well since its February 2008 launch. Good luck, Joseph!

My daughter’s wedding celebration party on Saturday buzzed Chester into a frenzy of delight. The ancient Guild Hall vibrated not only to the too-loud music, but with excitement as families met, old aquaintances re-gathered and work colleagues saw each other in a new light. Our daughter is a chartered tax advisor working for a prestigious accounting firm in Manchester. Who would have thought a gathering of accountants and tax advisers could be so jolly! I tried to buy drinks for the guests – and I did pay for all the sparkling wine – but I was impressed at how many folk insisted on buying mine instead. (Actually I was on non-alcoholics partly cos I was driving and I wanted to keep a clear head). Most of the booking and arrangements were done by daughter and her two friends the delightful Andrea and the incredibly creative Kati.

One amusing and flattering incident for me is that one of the staff was chatting to me about what I did for a living. I mentioned I co-edited a science fiction magazine, so as I gave him my card with Escape Velocity he said: “Geoff Nelder! I’ve heard of you!”  Fame, at last! He’d read reviews and pieces in the paper about my writing – wow, I thought I was the only one who did.

I’m busy proofreading my earlier thriller, Hot Air, for the Dutch Arts Academy who are publishing it in September. I thought it would be easy since it was copy-edited years ago by JBWB but noooo. Many of the alterations are from where I’ve changed my writing style from year to year – novel to novel. However, I found that a whole scene was missing, and that it was missing yet not commented on when it went for that copy edit in 2003 nor for the competition it won last year. Strange because it was a crucial scene where the feisty female protagonist has to bed a rich American yacht buyer to clinch the dodgy deal. It doesn’t quite go to plan but all that is missing and the narrative jumps to after its over such that phrases like: “Don’t forget to make a copy of that photograph’” makes no sense afterwards! In many ways authors shouldn’t revisit their former completed stories, and I know some famous authors won’t do that. It’s rather like a fussy artist who cannot resist touchng up his oil masterpiece until eventually it is all a brown mishmash. I think it was James Joyce who said that we don’t complete a manuscript but come to a point where we have to abandon it! That is after THE END is written and the plot wound up but there’s always that phrase we think could be tweaked…

I was going to put pictures here from the wedding party but my camera seems to be frightened of the dark and so the images are a bit shaky. Just imagine a room full of smiles, a groom developing a morning hangover, and a deleriously ecstatic daughter and you’ll get the picture. Well done to all and here’s hoping the happy couple have endless love and delight.

I had a weird moment in Cyprus. In Kyrenia Castle I found the tomb of Sinan Pasha. The others hadn’t heard of him but he features in my Xaghra’s Revenge novel! He was the sadistic Admiral (though a Jew) of the Barbary Corsairs that pillaged Gozo in 1551 & abducted the population. I’d forgotten that later he was the governor of Kyrenia. I patted his tomb and said – Got you! During the day I tapped my laptop to add to Xaghra’s Revenge, but I couldn’t resist walking the scenery most of the time. Evenings I added more words and spent time with the other writers – inspirational.  I’ve added photos of the Northern Cyprus Bellapais location here for the UK Authors writers week. Thanks again to David Gardiner for organising it. Hey John Goodwin, you still have my best Cyprus map!

Sorry about that; I just sneaked away for a couple of weeks to Cyprus. My daughter, Eleanor married Gareth Monk while there, and then instead of returning with my wife, I hid in my rucksack and instructed it to go north to the Turkish Northern lands where I met up with writers on a residential. Cyprus is a marvelous spot for a wedding, for archeological nosing around, for Scuba diving (son and daughter), mountain walking and writing. Brilliant.

I logged  on at the odd internet cafe in Cyprus but with connection speeds slower than a snail crawling up a wet window, I waited until I reached home. I promise not to complain about BT Broadband ever again… In amongst the spam was a welcome contract from Double Dragon Publishing to include my short story Abandoned in an anthology. I found I’d had a conversation and it was taken down by Cheryl at Book Connections and used here

http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2008/03/inside-scoop-on-geoff-nelder.html

Thanks for the plugs, Cheryl – come in handy for sinks.

I also found that I had to do some agency work for my agent. He’s in Chile or some exotic place south of his usual Chicago-ish abode and had neglected to take all my Left Luggage files with him. So when a publisher finally asks for more juicy chunks of my scifi it was passed to me to provide them. That’s Okay, it will be reflected in my remuneration and accounts, mate!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to LES FlOYD for 8th April. He’s up to his elbows in fine eating ware in Exeter.