frosts and words

Last week I’d originally planned to have a writers away week in a log cabin in Wales. Having discovered that my wordage increases with distance from my house chores, I’d organised the 90 miles trip via my Dawes Super Galaxy touring bike staying at the Ffynion Wen Youth Hostel before dark on the first leg. However, the weather forecast promised deep frost, and snow during the journey and since I’d top 850 metres my cogs would be likely to fall off…

So I travelled with my wife instead. Photos are
http://www.geoffnelder.com/plastalgarth/pt.html
While shivering in the cold Plas Talgarth apartment, I did read a couple of books to review - A comic science fiction novella, Bark! by Darrell Bain – very amusing too – how could it be other with the star being an ADHD minature dachshund that saves Earth from an inadvertent alien invasion. Find Bark! here

I also read an intriguing take on the Pied Piper of Hamelin legend. Piper is written by established author, Helen McCabe. Helen doesn’t hold back from the dark side in her well-researched interpretation and her skillful writing makes the chilling pied piper character real enough to induce nightmares. I’ll post a link to my review in a later post.

Brian Withecombe At the Eleventh Hour a tale of the end of the First World War, has been published by Chipmunka Publishing and is a fascinating fictional insight into what it must have been like to be a soldier on the front line in the last moments of the first world war. I hadn’t known that fighting continued even after the Armistice was signed, in order to squeeze any land advantage.

Finally I returned home to find a package from Gladys Hobson. I held the honour of doing a minor touch of editing to her anthology of mainly Ulverston stories published as ‘Still Waters Run Deep – Stories of hidden  depths. link here  The blurb, written by me says:

“Don’t be fooled by the writings of Gladys Hobson. She appears like a harmless mature woman and so you settle one afternoon to relax into her stories. Then in goes the hot poker and you find the goings on in Ulverston, ignited passion, and Cumbrian emotions. The wicked are saved by pseudonyms, the innocent by their ignorance. This collection is a jigsaw of zeal and a genuine feel for landscape.” Good job, Gladys.

Incidentally, both Gladys Hobson and Brian Withecombe are with me as former clients of the sham literary agent, Christopher Hill. See how in spite of adversity we triumph!

Listmania

I’ve created an Amazon Listmania of books published by authors I know personally. This gets around trying to have a genre-related list and is a great way to link my writerly friends. Here it is.

One of my Beyond Hill (a group of us who used to be clients of the Hill & Hill Literary Agency) friends, Brain Withecombe, has had his latest novel published by Chipmunkia. It is on my Listmania list in the link above. At the Eleventh Hour is the story of a platoon of infantrymen in the last eleven hours of the First World War, when, even though an Armistice had been agreed to end the bloodshed, soldiers were required to continue fighting until the very last moment, solely to gain as much ‘ground’ as possible before hostilities ended. Each chapter covers one hour until, at last, they could lay down their arms. Brian’s treatment covers the angst yet with ironic humour of the way soldiers’ lives are used as political pawns.

Consider too, Brian’s historical sea-faring novel, The Seagull and Le Corsair, also from Chipmunkia and on my Listmania.

Hooray, the rain slowed today sufficient for me to leap on my bicycle for a between the showers ride to fetch a morning paper. Because of a dislocated finger last month and the rain, gales and busybusy life, I’ve not had a chance to do any long hilly rides, so I rode slowly. I’d forgotten how exhilirating it is to cycle through the countryside, challenge and beat the hills and freewheel down them. I think it was President Clinton who once remarked that cycling was one of the few simple pleasures everyone should experience regularly.

I’ve also been busy writing and editing. Also I’ve had the pleasure of critiquing several short stories at Cafe Doom a great crit site mainly for horror writers. Many of us there write in other genre too but generally in a noir fashion. One aspect of the stories I critiqued intrigued me as it is true of many of the submissions I’d read for the Escape Velocity magazine. Many writers are great at describing what they see, and often have good characterization and dialogue but forget to engage all the readers’ senses. I recently read two 10,000 word stories neither of which had any smells or tactile experiences to offer. Along with taste, odours and feel are part of the way we use SHOW instead of TELL. Allan Guthrie of Hardluck Stories, once showed me that where I’d written about a man sat next to a rancid tramp on a train, I could convert it to real show by adding – as if a pint of sour milk had been poured over him. Excellent. Doesn’t your nose wrinkle now? Hah.

I’ve been having fun revisiting an old favourite article of mine lately. I’ve been asked by Marilyn Peake to contribute a couple of articles for a print version of a newsletter she is publishing in 2008 on writing issues. In 2004 I was commissioned to research and write an article on why dogs bark at and chase bicycles. I used Yahoo and other forum groups to ask basic and then more specific questions to groups of dog owners, cyclists and sound engineers. I’d received over 2000 responses along with long correspondance with ethologists. I’ve always intended to write an article on how I did that research including some amusing aspects and so the draft is done.  I’ll read it again in the next few days and send it off. Peter N. Davidson took some great photographs for me and I’m hoping one or two will be used again. Here is his gallery.

Good news from our forum members of survivors from Christopher Hill’s crashed Literary Agency. As time heals our wounds, more of us are writing again and gaining recognition. Gladys Hobson wrote a romance novel, Awakening Love, which has won a highly commended award at the London Book Festival this week. Well done that lady! A link to her books is here.  Others in the group have made progress too, including Lanaia Lee where her ‘Of Atlantis’ has released a YouTube video here. Another member, Brian Withecombe has his The Seagull & Le Corsair book published here
http://tinyurl.com/276fup
Other members are singing like Elvis! Well done, Bob Taylor >>> http://www.myspace.com/tuesdaynightatthebootandshoe

It really is worth listening to. Congratulations Bob.

My contract for my sf novel Exit, Pursued by a Bee is with Double Dragon Publishing in Canada now, so I look forward to working with J. Richard Jacobs my editor.