Here I am at the edge

Tastes in food Appetites Can it be true?   Can you wish for something so much that when it comes, you dislike it violently. I'm not on about the success of my books this month, this time it's food.   I know my appetite has changed radically with age, at one time eating dark chocolate was as likely to induce a migraine, as drinking red wine. Now I find milk chocolate too sickly at times to eat. The same goes for Coca -Cola, when Coke Zero came out I dreaded the thought of the taste changing, but now it's all I can drink. I find even Diet Coke too sweet for my taste.  Fishing   For four generations my kin have fished the North Sea for cod. I wrote my last novella - A Sailor's Love - as a homage to the hard-working, honest fishing communities around the world.   For the last two weeks I have desired some fish and chips. Today I had some mackerel, and found I couldn't eat it. It isn't the taste that put my off - as it does with some ...

Out cold Proof positive Being disabled  Yesterday was insulting to me; I've been classed as medically disabled for over 15 years, and yet every two years I have to prove I am disabled, even though I keep telling the various inquests and committees that my condition is only getting worse by the day. Yesterday's trip - two hours each way - took its toll on me. When I got back home I needed to rest, and I could hardly stand. Any long trip takes it out on my system, if I go out for more than an hour I'm ill when I return, yet yesterday I needed to be out from 1130 to 1800.  I went to bed early as I was so tired, and went into a dead sleep for ten hours. This only happens if I need to take an extra sleeping tablet to kill my pains. Even though I restrict myself to one trip a week, I still have two trips to make this week, making the total three journeys in eight days - far too much for my ankle to safely manage. This isn't including a possible trip to ge...

Genetics Genetic manipulation   To the vast majority of us, our genetic codes are something we hardly - if ever - think about. I must admit until recently I was among the many. Then things changed... Ehlers Danloss Syndrome EDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehlers%E2%80%93Danlos_syndrome  is an inherited illness which is incurable, irreversible, and ultimately will put me in a wheelchair - I estimate by next year - I'm not annoyed. When I heard I had it to this severity, I gave myself to 50 before needing the chair. The extra 9 years have allowed me to do a lot of things, including two trips to Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada , and a a final trip back to my home lands of the northern shires to see my beloved Scarborough . I found I had this illness when I went for a blood test for arthritis, it is amazing how a simple blood test can change your whole outlook on life, and make you wonder about how you lived, and did you know something subconsciously. Because...

Erotica Draft2Digital   Recently, my distributor of e-books (Draft2Digital   https://www.draft2digital.com/book/   ) joined services with Oyster . Most - about 90% - of my sales are through Barnes & Noble , but any new area needs to be tested. So, I signed my books in to the Oyster catalogue, to my amusement two books were excluded for being classed as Erotica , I class them as Erotic Romances . True, they are steamy, but the passion is in the story, not the story. Sexual Explosions , and The Love of the Sea were excluded, but Sex at the Mill , and A Sailor's Love were admitted. ASL is more erotically charged than its predecessor TLOS. 

A dream  In the old days   When I started out, in the days when I thought I might have been better than it turned out I am, one of my personal goals was to sell ten of one  e-book in a day- folly I realise now. Over time that changed to ten a week, and now ten a month.  Forgestriker   This month, I hope a two and a half year sales record will be broken. If Forgestriker sells one more copy it will be the first of my books to sell ten copies in one month. The sale will also fill another role, it will mean for the first time in  a year, I sold 20 e-books in a month-the last time was last June :) The series   With over 500 e-books sold across the seven book series   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/forgestriker-collection.html#.VYq-clWUzGc   I think I can safely say the series has been a great success for me. I still find it hard to accept that I can write so well, and sell so consistently. Holding Richmo...

The Last Voyage   The Death of the 7th  Forgestriker   Today I started to write The Last Voyage. This is the story of the men of the 7th Baalite Guard Regiment, and their struggle to get home from a final battle on the planet Gameroom. Readers of my series   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/forgestriker-collection.html#.VYmEOFWUzGc  will be delighted to know this volume contains not only extended versions of the original series, but several new stories tracing the demise of the 7th, and the rise of the Calderan 1st Brigade, after a hair rising finale to the Forgestriker series involving a jail break. In this edition I intend to expand on the plight, and terrors of the 7th trapped in "Dead Space."    New characters will emerge, and hopefully become old friends including a young female telepath brought to tame the terrors of the Empire's Wraith   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-100-e-book.html#.VY...

Christmas 2012 THAT story lives Christmas 2012   The period between Christmas 2012, and New Year 2013 saw my last big sales period on Amazon, with seven sales of my horror story Holding Richmond being sold for the second time. This feat has not been repeated on any sales front, not even by my best seller Forgestriker. June 2015   This month's sales so far on Amazon are three, which is the most in a month since the good days of 2012. While still falling well behind the sales on Barnes & Noble they are a great improvement.  The Old Church ghosts   To my close friends this story is simply known as THAT story. From its inception I have never liked the story, could that be the secret to its popularity? After The ghost of St. Mary's and The Rocking Lantern the story seemed short in comparison, and I felt I was doing my friends wrong. There was always something odd to me about the story, it never felt right, and yet it is my most read ghost story...

                A short story from the final days of the RAJ I take this to be a true story as it was told to me by my mother, and she had little imagination for story telling. This short story began towards the end of World War 2 , in England. A young girl who was working for the Land Army pleaded with her parents not to send her back to the farm; the girls she worked with were not her type as they smoked and swore.  Her parents had no option, she had to return to work, She was seen walking down the road to the rail station, but the next day her boss phoned to ask if she'd left. As her parents had seen her go they walked her route to the station, and found her hanging on a lampost. When the news was sent to her boyfriend he broke down and had to take some leave. A few years after the war ended, he got a job teaching Indians about making steel; on a trip to India  to spread his reaching he was thown into a furnace. A little known piece o...

More than stupid Happy unanniversary Five years ago, on a rainy July afternoon, I did the injury to my tendon which left me disabled. This picture was taken by one of my daughters at the now disused Frenchay Hospital, Bristol . Since the accident, I regularly need to remind the Social Services  that Ehlers Danloss syndrome is inherited, irreparable, and incurable. It's not like measles, there is no cure for the muscle wasting illness.  Ironic At the beginning of July, I'll have to go before an inquest to tell them what I have told them every year since the accident. The irony this time is that two days later, I am having an operation at Southmead Hospital, Bristol , to relieve the pressure on the right ankle. The op is only a plaster to save a broken leg, within a year I expect to be in a wheelchair. I'm not displeased, when I learned about my ailment, I gave myself until 55 before I thought I would need one. This year I'm 59. If the Social Services wish to...