Here I am at the edge

 A question often asked, but few people give serious thought to is "If the doctor knew you were dying, would you want to know the approximate date?" My reply has always been and will always be -- Yes -- I don't want family and friends to be shocked to find me dead, it's far better they are prepared in my opinion. And to this end I know the approximate year of my death -- 2020, how ironic the date is usually accepted as perfect vision and I have a perfect vision of my demise -- to answer your question, how can I be so sure? Researching my conditions and the various treatments available, I found out that the heart operation I need has a 75% success rate and the longevity of the patient is seven years from the operation, from there it was Maths 101. It is 2013 and add 7 to this year and you get 2020.  There is a slight chance I can push the odds a little, but 7 years is the best chance.  While I have been no saint, I want people to remember me as being kin...

Last year a person I knew would put their books on Amazon in the smallest groups available just to get a high rating. To prove the point to them I wrote a book about a little known phobia and entered it in the Neurology section and lo and behold I got a top 100 slot in a section I knew little about, thus proving that if your book is in a tiny section it will rise quickly.  If you wonder what Escalaphobia is its the fear of escalators, something I suffer from.

At first there would appear to be few ways to connect a 2008 jazz tune to the well known writer, but as the post goes on the weird links will form in your mind as they did in mine. The story started when I was listening to the tune Nerja played by Dave Roach on Landscape TV. The video with the music was of a light plane flying over Manchester; I thought what a great idea for a story if the plane vanished in front of all those witnesses but nobody knew what happened. I started the story and before long -- as with many stories -- the plot skipped and the story came out as something very different to my intention, the venue had changed to the Canadian ice fields and taken on a new Native American spiritual theme. The book is my second best selling book on Amazon. After putting the book on Amazon, I found that Nerja is a section of Spain which was fought over in the Peninsular War   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_War  Further research revealed the man under the ...

Last night's sale of Nerja enabled my to reach my highest Amazon rank of the year. Like Cliff Thorburn, Nerja keeps plugging away, never showy but usually showing up in comparison the the Steve Davis of Holding Richmond which has its top selling position based on two spells of good sales. If you enjoyed Nerja  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ODWS4C   Why not give the following story "Glacier of Death"  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EZSCIYE   a read.

Over the last year or two, I have been honored to have some of my stories compared to the great writers. Chronicles of Mark Johnson was compared by one man to the work of H.P. Lovecraft -- I have to admit, at the time, I had never heard of him -- and frequently, my ghost stories get compared to the works of LeFanu , Poe, and M R James ; for a struggling writer, this is a great honour as I admire the writers a lot. H P Lovecraft                                                                                                                                J. Sheridan Lefanu  I also had stories likened to Wilkie Collin s and after trying to read "Th...

For some unfathomable reason "Nerja"   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ODWS4C  my short story of two men from very different cultural backgrounds trapped in an aeroplane flying over the Canadian ice fields keeps selling in the UK.   It was already my highest ranked book before today's sale :)   Holding Richmond is still my best seller, but the book sells in spurts whereas Nerja sells almost every month.

 Fishermen like those shown here are from an age which no longer exists, gone are the small boats which were run by families with traditions going back generations; men like my late grandfather and my uncles who fished the North Sea for Cod.   The men of the Britten operas were men who knew what to fish and where to fish, now it's all done with sonar and there are so many restrictions fishing is a dying trade, as seen in an episode of Wycliffe, if you catch more than your quota or the wrong fish it's "Black Fish" which you are not allowed to sell -- so you end up throwing good food to the gulls and putting men's lives at risk for nothing.  Coming from a family of fishermen, I have nothing but the highest regard for the men who go out in the boats; facing all weathers and risks. One of the saddest things I saw was during my tour of Scotland -- in the Royal Air Force -- I was on my way to the docks to take some photos and in a tiny alcove on a wall was...

In the story "The Lost Ship" I tell a fictional version of the story of the very real Yorkshire pirate John Andrew who was the scourge of the coast from Scarborough to Saltburn-on-the-Sea; where he ran the Ship Inn (shown below). The story is the the story which should have come third in a writing contest, but got hacked twice by a jealous person I used to know  http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Lessons+in+futility#.UrrpjtJdXDM  however in the end her goal was achieved and it has taken over a year to get my work recognised again, mainly with the help of Julia, my editor in Seattle.  What I wrote is fiction based on fact, but read about the true haunting in   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0088QPW92  . With poetic licence, the Ship Inn became the "Lobster Pot" mentioned in "Love of the Sea," which is to extended and brought out as "A Sailor's Love."  Also in this book is the story of "The Rocking Lantern" a ...

Here's a good 'un' LOL  I'll set the scene for you. Walking down the road at RAF Cosford on a late night, hardly able to see 10 feet for the dark.  A car passed me and screeched to a halt; the next thing I heard was "Airman, don't you salute your station commander!" How the hell was I supposed to see the star plate? I could barely see the damn car in the dark LOL

 Wishing you and your families a happy and safe Chrimbo from the UK

You may have noticed that fewer of my blogs are aimed at pushing my books these days, and there is a very good reason.  For eighteen months I plugged my Chronicles books, rarely a week went by without me trying to sell a copy. Until a few months ago, and then I quit as I realised I was wasting my time, eighteen months and not a sale, that shows how much people thin of my writing.

Over the past year or two, I have been able to break a few fallacies.   A)- Free reads encourage readers to buy your books -- total BS -- one of my FREE reads had over 3,000 reads and how many sales did that encourage? Zero/nil/Nada/zip B) KDP free weekends are good for sales -- says who?-- Neither of the ones I did produced a sale and that included a weekend of my award winning book, the KDP weekend killed its ratings. C) Anthologies help you get noticed --WRONG -- other than Peacock Writers I have work in two US anthologies which are on the ratings rise and yet neither has affected my sales. D) Good writing sells -- wrong -- I know I am better than some writers, but because they either write fanfiction or got a celebrity boost their sales soared, while trying to make sales on my own, my books died with honour.  There are few certainties in writing, but here they are:- If you want to get on and be noticed stroke a celeb's ego, pay for publicity, write fanfictio...

With the change in policy at Amazon, now paying every two months rather than at a set amount, I got paid yesterday and with my earnings I had a splash out and bought a coffee-no milk or sugar. Not bad for 6 months . I made almost as much with one sale at Kobo

After considerable in-fighting my muse and I came to a stalemate and she agreed not to send any new ideas until my latest book is finished, and in two months it will be a year old and still has an undetermined future.

The first questions concern the best seller "Holding Richmond."   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007CJKK84 A) Will it stop selling? Sales have slowed radically in the last quarter. B) Will it get overtaken as best seller? Highly unlikely as its nearest rival "Nerja"   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ODWS4C   has sold only eleven copies. C) Will there be any major sales for stories I write in the New Year? I hope so, even as the last sale came in tonight for "Ghosts of your past,"   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080LR4M8   this book is almost sixteen months old. D) This time next year will I still be doing this? That is up to the readers, I will be writing as I have stories to tell, but even with the vast improvements from Julia's tuition and the course, the ultimate choices are yours and whether you want to read my work.

In my opinion, there should be one film shown every Christmas-not not Mary Poppins or White Christmas. The sad tale of "The Matchstick girl," maybe then the children will stop pestering us about the latest iPod or whatever new hit film or dvd is out and think-My Lord, how lucky we are. The film never(!) fails to make me cry.

 Tonight I treated myself to a viewing of one of my favourite shows of 1974- Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The show featuring Darren MacGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak and the late Simon Oakland as his boss Tony Vincenso only ran for twenty episodes.  Kolchak spends his time chasing demons and all types of odd things for a story, but in the end, even he doesn't believe what he has seen, the show fell between "The Twilight Zone" and "X-Files" but never gained as much credit as it deserved.   While Kolchak's investigative techniques are similar to Mark Johnson's, I prefer to think of the hard boiled and scruffy appearance for Mark's friend Phil Moore, when I write the stories for the award winning book   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BEDMSO  If you enjoy this series there is a little known Stephen King film called "The Night Flier" which is similar in style and well worth a watch  The star of the film is Miguel Ferrer AKA Dr. M...

                                       It isn't worth a dime My earnings from writing this year passed $10. I only managed the figure because of a rush of eBook sales on Apple . To give you an estimate of the breakdown, that works out to less than nine cents a day, or to use an old US proverb "I ain't worth a plugged nickel." The adage goes back to the old west when sharpshooters could hit a nickel thrown in the air; once it fell to earth the coin was worthless as it had been damaged. I would say it is with a sad heart that I stopped writing, but that would be a falsehood, the blog never took off, and sales of my eBooks never amounted to a hill of beans, never mind a cup of coffee to wash "em" down.

 Tonight I have been asked-again-if I would continue the story of my six year spell in the RAF and turn it into an e-book. I did start about a month ago, but thought nobody would be interested. If you are interested I will start the book again.

Four years and what seems to me to be a life time ago, I said farewell to one of the loveliest people I ever knew. When I left Alberta, little did I know that my Faye would soon depart to join the angels; that Christmas was one of the hardest for me and try as I might, and believe me-I wanted to so badly-I couldn't drown my pain of loss in whiskey.  I bought two bottles and yet something or perhaps somebody stopped me and I ended up pouring them down the sink.  From that day to this, the most alcohol I have drank is one or two glasses of spirit, for no other reason than that is all I am able to drink. Today I would really love to have a few glasses of my favourite Alberta whiskey.  Feeling depressed sucks and it's worse at this time of year, when you're supposed to be full of Christmas spirit.

FIREFLY I have had some wild ideas in the past three years as a writer, from attempting the various genres and mixing and matching to get a sale to trying to make a few dollars by selling my services as either a blogger and book promoter or as a writer of blurbs  http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ode-to-blurb.html#.UrGkjtJdXDM  . I sold my soul to the dollar and against better beliefs wrote erotica   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BK1WDK  and later I tried my hand at the other soul destroying genre-the ever selling zombies  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GCRPH6C  with as much luck as before-none. But, by a long chalk the strangest idea was to think of writing to Joss Whedon, with the hope of writing a book featuring the cast of his show "Firefly."  I loved the series and would have been delighted to write a book, but the thought of approaching a known and admired writer for such a plan was not a remote possibility for an un...

I thought it was time for a change, so I put a new cover on my former story. This will be a bigger and better story than "The Love of the Sea" I think, there is more of a ghostly romance idea running wild-hence the stark cover with a bold title.  This wasn't my first choice for the cover, but I couldn't find the picture I took many years ago in Yorkshire of a fishing boat and two men.

  Hello folks, my name is Bonnie, but friends called me Binkie, I had a wonderful life for 17 years before I crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. You can read about my first encounters with snow in the story written by Alan, in   http://www.amazon.com/dp/1492749443 Hey Binkie don't forget me, Midnight is the name and tormenting is my game, the poem about my first encounter with snow is also in the book by the wonderful people in The Peacock Writers and don't forget to tell the folks,it's a charity book, none; see you in the book.

I realise this might be pre-emptive, but the year is almost over and I don't foresee much change ahead. The best month was September with seven sales-mostly Holding Richmond. The best quarter was June to September with the majority of sales being for Holding Richmond again. The personal highs for me were working with Julia, my editor, getting paid by Yahoo.com for articles and receiving a cheque from Amazon. Two stories from this year stood out-Forgestriker, the second in the Sons of Baal sci-fi series and Glacier of Death, the following story to my second best seller, Nerja, both sold two copies. I realise this isn't a lot to many writers, but to me it is huge. Hopes for the early months of next year:- In February the contest in Toronto is judged and it would be nice to get a top six place and entry in the Merrill Collection for my story "Silence of the mind." I hope to finish the extended version of "The Love of the Sea," I shall probably add a...

THE DOCKLAND MURDERS             I stood there, the gun still warm in my hand, barrel smoking from the gun battle.             “Why did he do that, Sarge?  I tried my best to talk him out of it.”             “Living with the guilt finally got to him, Patti.”             “Couldn’t he have talked it over?”             “No, the only thing worse than being a dirty cop, is being the son of a loose cannon, and none came looser than Bill Chart, Patti.”             I looked around.  There lay the body of Bill's son, my ex-partner, Adrian Chart.             “I had no choice, he pulled first, S...

 It is with a sad heart I have to consider putting Patti Canella out to dry as an on line FREE story. She has her second birthday in February-yes, two years old-my de'but book never (!) took off and is now dead in the water after a constant fall in the ratings over the last fourteen months.  This series had the recommendation of an Australian ex-police sergeant I used to be friends with. I think I am the only person who bought a copy and that was to prove to myself that she did exist. It is a shame, the third book in the series was so good it gave me bad dreams writing the story-but, you'll have to take my word on that.

I was considering writing another on line serial, if anyone would be interested-please leave a comment, so I can make a decision is it worth it?   Thank you

They started out in a tactical withdrawal from Gameroom in "Sons of Baal"   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3SUE1U   the men of the 7th Baalite Guard Regiment were doomed to wander in dead space as their ship Forgestriker ran out of supplies. Everything looked bleak until the received a message from the station D2, the only trouble is D2 is not in communication range of any planet and is supposed to be desolate and deserted-how is calling them and why?  The men have no option but to dock and come across a scene so terrible, even hardened soldiers get edgy-all is not well at D2-as the men find they are being watched and stalked, but by who or what? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EMMVW2C  What will happen next-read "Return of the Lost."