Here I am at the edge

#JuniorDoctorsStrike #Health I am in favour of this strike. For too many years successive governments have relied on the medical staff not to strike to enforce pay cuts and longer hours.  People will lay the blame for the strike on the  #Tories   but the health care has been hit in both North Wales and Staffordshire and they are Labour run services. Under this government,  #Bristol   has an up to date hospital that is easy to get to, rather than the old hospital at Frenchay that was a terrible place to get to. It used to take me four hours, and two bus trips, for a ten-minute appointment - even though the hospital is only a few mile away - there is no direct bus link.  With Southmead hospital http://www.nhs.uk/Services/Hospitals/Overview/DefaultView.aspx?id=2082  being  @Bristol   & SouthWest's main hospital we needed a heliport station for emergency airlifts, and Southmead was the obvious choice as it has open spaces for the ...

Amazon Vs Barnes & Noble  My outlook  I can only speak for myself, and their values in my world of writing.  This month's sales on Barnes & Noble (11 e-books) are about three times what I expect to sell on Amazon this year.  Amazon.com has been of no use to my in my quest for sales. They continually mess up covers, never think of changing a cover -it is a nightmare. You can never get the site to understand the basics of writing - too many Asians - who can't understand English. That is why I will only be using Draft2Digital in the future.   D2D is always expanding their range. I may not see the benefit, but what works for some doesn't work for all. 

Another Hero Another rock legend, Tina Turner, joined the celestial choir tonight (May 25, 2023); after a series of illnesses, Tina Turner died at the age of 83.

New Scifi coming this year Walking with the ghosts This extract is from a new story I have started.  Walking with the ghosts      Dave Cooper, ex-guardsman, walked through the empty hulk of the hunter/destroyer "Empires' Wraith," and thought. Is it true, can a ship impose its personality on the crew? A few months ago, if you'd asked me, I would have said no. But, after only a few days on here, things happened which made me think. Did she want us dead?      Dave grew up in the days after the fall of the Baalite Empire. For the people on Baal life had become intolerable; they had become refugees on their planet. It wasn't only the victorious Commonwealth of Frieland troops who imprisoned the people; the earth itself appeared to have risen against them. There were numerous reports of volcanic activity – unheard of in recent times – and the Ferrnix at the core of the planet had become destabilised and started to fill the air with poisonous ga...

Psycho horror Project Ghostwrite 3  The third installment of the series for my friend in  Norway  is about a group of teenagers who get trapped in a disused sanatorium. This story combines two stories I wrote over three years ago.  Part of the story is based on a real tragedy in Bristol .

The hit series Forgestriker  I turned my Chromebook, hoping for perhaps a sale or two, and what did I find?  The complete series   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/forgestriker-collection.html#.VpJtcVWLTnA   sold last night, this is the third time that the series has sold in one sale. With last night's sales, the total so far this month is 10 sales, that is how many I hoped to sell all month.  THANK YOU I'll never know who you are, all I can say is a huge thank you from this poor scribe.

What a joke the site is Oyster    The book site  #Oyster   takes the cake. This book is one of two books they banned from my stock. TLOS is a gentle romance, unlike A Sailor's Love, which is an erotic romance, and yet passed scrutiny.  The other book is the short story about my fear of escalators - Escalaphobia - that made the top 100 in the Neuroscience section on Amazon two years ago.  I have no idea of their criteria for banning books. Therefore, I have no idea why these got banned.

Loving to write again Being paid to write I won't deny being paid to write  #Horror   stories is a dream for me, but the most incredible joy of writing is more than that to me. Since I started   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/p/project-ghostwrite.html#.VpEdz1WLTnA , I've felt the urge to write again. I hadn't felt this good since the days of   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ODE4GIG when I lived and loved the lives of the character I had created.

Riastrad @Mythology One of my next stories will be the story of a band of men possessed of unearthly powers.  Riastrad is a Gaelic myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%BA_Chulainn   of a young man who became so engrossed by supernatural powers he was a killing machine, the downside, was he no longer recognizes friends, or foes. It is this premise on which I am basing my #fantasy story.

And I thought ghost stories were a thing of the past #Ghosts I made my initial reputation as a writer of ghost stories, but over the years, I questioned their value in the modern age of  #HarryPotter   https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/ ,  #50Shades  http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/ and the endless stream of stories of the undead  http://www.nightofthecomet.info/ .  I was pleasantly surprised to see that my latest ghost story Amelia http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A93CQ1S   has only been on sale one day and has a sale in the UK. Another pleasant surprise is the news that my friend in Norway wants more  #horror   stories from me in my venture   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/p/project-ghostwrite.html#.Vo-1X1WLTnA .  The final chapter   Three years ago, I set myself a challenge - could I write a story of the undead? My original attempt...

Elegance  #Rock I realise it is down to personal taste, and this is my taste. There is a lot of conjecture that mature ladies aren't as sexy as young ladies - what a crock of BS! @Heart You only need to look at the two sisters in Heart http://www.heart-music.com/ , both Ann and Nancy are mature, sexy ladies.  @DoroPesch #Doro , the German rock goddess, and former lead singer for the group  #Warlock   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlock_(band)   is another example of a beautiful, mature lady I can think of many mature actresses who I consider to be very attractive, but there again it is down to taste.

You know you HAVE arrived! A sign you are appreciated is when you get repeat buyers, as I do for my DVD selection on eBay . Most of the money I make I use to buy from other buyers, at the moment I am short of cash. I did try to download some film from YouTube, but these had subtitle issues . So, I have to attempt to buy them, some are quite expensive, but worth the price to me.

#ProjectGhostwrite   #Illness Despite losing three days with a stomach upset, I still brought the work for http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/p/project-ghostwrite.html#.Vovsq1WLTnA , only a day behind my deadline - the deadline was mine - not my client's.

#MentalHealth   #Online Over the years, I've had some strange links to my blogs - including one to a series of books about interracial romance.  Yesterday's post about my ability to block my urge to write drew the attention of a US mental health clinic in   http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Tourism-g50226-Columbus_Ohio-Vacations.html .

From the past life of an erotica writer What could have happened?  When I was at school, I got cornered in an alleyway between some classrooms by four girls I knew.  As an 11-year old boy, my only thought was the quickest route to safety.  Not a month goes by when I don't think of that day. I never knew what they had in mind.   I was going to use the incident as the basis for a story, but nobody bought my other erotica story, so I dropped the idea.

Not for sale Pat Canella This week, I took both the Pat Canella - The Dockland Murders series and Chronicles of Mark Johnson series off the shelves.  Though the books haven't sold in over three years, along with my Amazon  #BestSeller   Holding Richmond  they hold a record that beat the massive sales of Forgestriker .  These books sold more in one day than Forgestriker did. So, though Patti & Mark go off the shelves, they can hold their heads high in one respect.

I'll sell the rights to my work WHY? At the end of the month, I am considering selling the rights to my award-winning e-book.  If there are any interested parties, you can contact me via this blog, or my email alanwplace@hotmail.co.uk .  The reason for taking this action is to try and get some cash from the story that took over a year to write. Also, for sale are the rights to the sequel Wharfemere Finale, and I am writing the third installment to the series as you read this. Google    In retrospect, one of the big mistakes of last year was putting work on GooglePlay, that site is riddled with pirates. I put work on there because a man I was talking to said he'd buy my books if they were on there - more lies. 

I can't recall the last time I stopped thinking of a story  Non-stop  Despite the popular theory that I am a best seller, I rarely stop writing or thinking of a story line.  My best friend will tell you, three years ago this drive almost caused me to have a mental breakdown.  I was pushing myself too long and too hard, and for what? This was the time I was in the darkness and wrote the sequel to my award winner  Chronicles of Mark Johnson .  Wharfemere Finale is described as a realistic account of a man going through a mental breakdown, the reason is because I was going through the stages. At the time of writing the sequel, my friend thought I was going to kill her hero - Mark Johnson - in retrospect perhaps I should have done that as neither book has sold.  When I started the book, I was going to take out my anger at an incident in my life through my story. What happened was that despite my burning desire to write a vengeful...

The changing facets of my writing My early days The friends who've read the largest selection of my work will recall that I made an early reputation as a ghost story writer.  Those days are now behind me, tonight I draw the final breath out of the dead carcass of my reputation as a writer of ghost stories.  @Draft2Digital   buyers are more into  @scifi , so there is no reason to write my ghost stories.  The glory days  The days of Mark Johnson Four years ago, this story won an award for me. In the time since it hasn't sold a copy. #BestSeller To me, if nobody else, I don't deserve this title. Sure, Forgestriker (the book) is soon to net her 400th sale , and the series passed its 700th sale,  but the massive sales of one book in over 45 don't class me as a best seller - in my eyes. So, as you see, my reputation meant nothing in the long run. I had to adapt to try to get some sales, and I failed badly.

Supernatural stories for my client #amwriting Sickened as I am about the lack of response to my work - especially the larger works - I now duty bound to complete a supernatural story for a client in   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/p/project-ghostwrite.html#.VokvX1WLTnA .  Even though I am not fully "in the zone," yet it did feel good this week to enjoy writing again after over a year of not caring what happened.

The Reading area This is an excerpt from a story I started, and probably won't finish. You can enjoy other  #free   samples in the Reading area   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/p/reading-area.html#.Vokpg1WLTnA . The Long Walk        Our fateful journey started on the eve of the Feast of the Long Night. The village was quiet, the fires roared as the pigs and boars roasted in their juices, and the glorious smells filled the air. I was leaving our tent when I thought I heard a grinding of metal on metal. I paid no attention to the sound until a few minutes later when the riders rampaged through the village, turning what had been a joyous occasion into carnage and mayhem.     The women fled to the tents, pushing the children ahead of them but it was to no avail. We’d been taken by surprise, or so I thought, and being unarmed we were no match for the marauders. Our enemies bore no mark of warband, nor d...

#Coffee A driving force For many years, I wondered where my vivid dreams that gave my writing power and strength driven by an imagination fuelled by caffeine , or were the dreams the imaginings of a crazy mind. The experiment To test a theory, my friend Julia asked me to cut back on my drinking - at the time I was drinking several cups a day - cutting back has had many effects.  I don't dream such vivid dreams anymore and over the latter part of last year, my temperament has radically calmed. Whether the calmness is caused by a lack of agitation caused by the caffeine reduction, or is due to a new sense of not caring is hard to define.  Months ago, I cared about what I wrote and got upset if my work never sold. I realise now this is something beyond my purview if you wish to buy my work that is your prerogative and has now become a matter of little consequence to me.  Reality check   Let's face a few facts, it can take me months ...

The cat who disappeared I am the little black cat that sat on the black mat.  Because I sat on the mat, you couldn't see where I was sat.  I ran to sit on dark shelf hiding in the shadows, all you can see now are my eyes that in the dark glow.

#WWW #Salamander Talk about being multicultured, I need to tune into the Australian channel SBS to watch my Belgian police series   http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/1342/Salamander

                                          Hindi tv series I won't deny the image of Indian actress Raveena Tandom (above) attracted me to this series from India ; but this alone would not have been enough. The series is about a series of murders that happened years ago, which remained unsolved. The legend of a cross between a leopard and a man that threads through the series is intriguing. The story of Aranyak is a highlight of writing crime fiction , and well worth warching on Nerflix . Over the last month, I have become a fan of Bollywood tv series, and some movies; though a lot of the movies are over long. some are over 3 hours, in in my mind because there is a lot of music and little action, but others are well worth the watch such as the recently released Thar featuring Anil Kapoor .