Where did Lana come from?

Lana Pawcel - the untold story.

The Lana Pawcel story goes back to my earliest short story.

This (unknown outside of a few friends) story was written as a jokey introduction for three friends. The concept of the story is about a writer who wished to be known, but not recognized. Hence, the anagram for a name. 

The funny part of the story is that the friends all enjoyed her writing. It wasn't until the end when they realized that their friend - Alan Place - was writing under a penname.

The character Lana emerged in the second book of the Chronicles of Mark Johnson when it was revealed that she and P.A. Canella had been ghostwriters for each other for years. Nobody knew as their stories were emailed to the publishers.

Lana disappeared as a character after book 3 of the Chronicles series and did not appear again until she gets a mention in The Lodge and A Homecoming Special Edition. When the question is raised, will she write another erotic romance?

Lana had a brief spell as a writer. She began her writing with erotic romance Sexual Explosions, to be followed by The Love of the Sea, and ending with Ghosts don't dance.

An amusing afterword goes with her name. I was on the German site Bookrix for several months, and one man I had been talking to never got the joke of Lana's name. Until I explained, it is an anagram of mine.

In the beginning, I wrote under her name so my stories would not be directly related to the charity books I was writing for the Peacock Writers.

These days, I write under my name as I have no reputation to damage.

The Getaway #4

Where is Sarah Lund?

This section follows the story of Sarah Lund from The Getaway, The Getaway #2, and The Getaway #3.

The officers in pursuit of renegade police officer Sarah Lund lost contact with her in the throng of passengers at Copenhagen airport. 

"Mobile 1 to control, we've lost sight of the suspect, over."

"Control to mobile 1, she can't have turned up hoping for a spare seat. She must either have had a ticket for today or an open ticket, and she called the airport to find out about flights. We think she is heading for Italy as she mentioned Bari, the point is which flight did she take to make the turnover; Turin or Milan, over?"
"Mobile 2 to control, over."
"Contol to 2, go ahead, over."
"That would mean Lund had been planning this escape for at least two weeks, have you any idea what, or who she's running from, over?"
There was a silence for a few seconds before control responded, "We cannot be sure, but she has been making strange requests for information about past cases from the archives, over."
"Going back how far, over."
"At least since she got passed over for promotion two years ago, over."
"Do you think she suspects something is going on behind the scenes, over?"
"Knowing her as we thought we did, I wouldn't put it passed her to have figured there is something going on, and she'll be determined to get to the bottom of the matter, over. The problem is we can't do a thing until we find her, and she's going to be one step ahead of us all the way, over."
"Mobile 1 to control, over."
"Go ahead 1, over."
"Do you think she'll return, over?"
"I don't think, I know she will be returning as she has made her plan to get the truth exposed and to do that she needs to come back to Copenhagen, over."

You are killing me

Too many freebies.

Yet again, my only "sale" this week is a FREE copy of my short story Escalaphobia. The story is an account of my fear of escalators.

With the Freebies "selling," it makes me wonder why do I hope for a "real sale," as no freebie has brought a genuine sale.

Too expensive

Quality from Iceland but too much to pay.

These shows from Iceland show there is a lot of talented actors/actresses on the island. I would have bought them off eBay to help the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund via the Give as you Live site, but at £25 per 4 part serial the price is way too high - I did make an offer to buy them if the seller lowered their price, but they did not want to know.

Quality drama from Iceland

Icelandic drama.

Many of you will have watched the drama series from either Denmark (Borgen), Sweden (The Bridge), even possibly Norway (Occupied). Iceland has produced some quality drama series too, apart from Trapped.

The series Case is about what appears to be an open and shut suicide of a teen who was pushed too far by her parents. Why are the police so quick to close the case as a suicide when not all the facts have been checked?

Golden Soak

An Australian drama.

After decades of hunting, I finally found videos of the Hammond Innes story Golden Soak on YouTube.

The story is similar to the film Campbell's Kingdom only set in Australia, not Canada.

I read the book and saw the TV series in the late 70s. This was a time when Australian films were making a name for themselves in the world. With movies such as Walkabout with Jenny Agutter, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Hunting of Jimmy Blacksmith and Don's Party. So, long before the Mad Max trilogy, the continent had produced movies of high quality.

Frequent flier miles

The Virtual Tourist.

I was considering how many Frequent flier miles I could have amassed in my travels when I can travel across the USA in one evening watching DVDs or go from Iceland to Israel via France.

I know what it's like

Comments on being a bestselling/ award-winning writer.

Though my science fiction series Forgestriker has sold over 850 e-books in five years - some of my colleagues in the writing community say that makes me a bestseller - at the height of its popularity, three years ago, I barely made $1 a week.

Being an award-winning author means nothing to me as the book The Chronicles of Mark Johnson has not sold since the award in 2012 because a jealous writer I used to know trashed my work online.

Project Ghostwriter

I did earn an excellent rep for stories on Upwork.

Several years ago on the Upwork website, I earned an excellent rep for writing various stories as a ghostwriter. I was so in demand I had to abandon my stories on my pages at Amazon and Draft2Digital.

I am better known as the author of the bestselling science fiction series Forgestriker, but my writing covers most genres as I see myself as a writer.

The Independent

There are some good points to being an Indie Author.

Being an Indie Author means I am not tied to what or when I write, which is good these days as I am finding it hard to get the fire back in my soul and write. 

The downside boils down to having to spend as much time promoting as I used to spend writing, and for no reason, as all, I earned was about $0.40 cents a week at the height of my popularity, which was based on my Science Fiction series (Forgestriker).

The image on this post relates to a ghost romance I wrote several years ago, but it could relate to how I feel about the last decade too.