Here I am at the edge

A sad end to an otherwise good month   September draws to an end, and what a month it's been for yours truly, with highs and a low point.   The big sale  -   hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/forgestriker-collection.html#.V-7m6DMrLnB . The surprise is all the books in the series sold in one night.   The good surprise is my  award-winning  e-book   www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008BEDMSO   sold after a 4-year gap.  The sad news is that we had to say farewell to our furry friend, Bear, this month :'(  She had a stroke and was taken from us, at least she didn't suffer.

That is a good question to ask To be honest, as I usually am, I have no answer to the proverbial question as the answer lies in the hands of my readers. If my eBook stock starts to sell, I may write more short stories for my short story collection. This also applies to this blog ; at the moment, I keep the blog running because of the daily number of posts that are read, not because of the number of times a post gets read. Most posts don't even get ten readers.

For your pleasure If you are into ghost stories , the Supernatural or fast action sci-fi , then my pages on  Barnes & Noble   are your destination.

All things have their time In the last year, my life has taken radical changes. At one time I couldn't stay in bed later than 09:00, even when I was ill - now I sometimes sleep the clock round.  It's hard to imagine, but three years ago I was a writing demon, known for producing masses of quality  sci-fi  stories. I was able to write up to 10,000 words a week - now I hardly I write - the lack of work should bother me, but it doesn't.                       What caused the change?   I woke up one day and realised, for the time and effort I put into a story, what I get back isn't worth worrying about, so I slowed down to the point I stopped caring about whether I wrote or not. If I had more, sales and a greater variety of  e-books selling. I may be able to convince myself that I am the best- seller  my friends think I am. But, isn't that always the case. Over the years, I have read many times, pe...

Can things improve? This picture shows how I see my life as a writer; one long struggle against the tides of fortune. The ship in the picture in my writing, despite a highly successful science fiction series, and numerous sales platforms on Draft2Digital  I cannot sell 10 e-books a month.  If it weren't for the fact that one day this month, the Forgestriker series sold a whole series, this would be my worst month on Draft2Digital with seven sales. I would like to think things could improve, but even with the addition of three new titles nothing appears to be selling.  I have many ideas for stories, but with a lack of sales, my belief in the work has gone.

I am treading new ground by writing a sex story The first of the two romances I hope to rewrite is a gentle romance . The second romance will be more sexually active in parts. The amusing thing with writing stories featuring "older ladies" is the age group I was aiming for, is now young enough to be my daughters :) The snow-covered hills drew Annie like a magnet drawing iron filings. Since her days as a teen, she spent the Fall, and Christmas in her family’s lodge. To her, there was no finer place to be as the snow gently floated down and covered the land. Anne Oliver had become a best-selling historical fiction writer in the last five years. Her success led the world to think she had all money could buy, but she had a hole in her soul - she had no man in her life. Annie had driven herself so hard that it became hard for her to grow attached to anyone, and so she kept to herself. She had been invited to all the best parties and all the top conferences, but she always...

For nature   It's a little-known fact that years ago, I bought a small section of land in  Scotland .  The  RSPB   ww2.rspb.org.uk/joinandhe lp/join/?gclid=Cj0KEQjw9vi-BRCx1_GZgN7N4voBEiQAaACKVpRc2iUjifZ0LgPOqTCrjza_JZYxJowqMY3Oe7z5E9saArEG8P8HAQ     asked for donations from members to purchase a stretch of water, so birds migrating from the  USA  to  Russia  could have a place to rest.  As an ornithologist, I was pleased to be able to send my donation to help the birds have a safe resting place on their long journey. 

An archaic waste of money Like the majority of British voters, I think it is time the House of Lords was stopped from functioning; it is no more than a group of people who get paid for doing nothing but sit on committes, in other words a Quango. All they do is sit on three or four meeting a year, and the get paid between £150 - £350 a day for doing nothing of value. There is a lot of good that money could do, if we disband this archaic system of fleecing the pockets of the wealthy.

Make no mistakes I am the competition for sales in the world of SciFi   with my series  Forgestriker   selling 700 e-books in 2 1/2 years.  I don't expect to equal those figures; I never expected to see sales like that at all. I'll be happy if my other books sell a dozen copies each. If you read about my dismay as a writer, it's not for the number of sales as much as for what sells.

Did I miss the other heatwaves? According to the UK weather forecast, we're in a  THIRD heat wave   this summer. I do wish the weathermen would have consulted Thor   before making  ludicrous statements . I must have fallen asleep like  Snow White   because I missed the other heat waves.

Twin disasters in European soccer  Munich  There is no denying the tragedy of the  Munich air disaster . So many young lives were lost that night in 1958, many saw the greatest English soccer team - if not the greatest team in Europe - died that night.  For many years, the pilot got blamed for not cancelling the take-off - he has since been cleared of blame. What commentators forget is they are viewing matters from now, not back in the late 1950's. In those days, teams couldn't afford to stay the next night in case the weather improved. Even for a team of this magnitude, an extra night in a hotel in the 50's could have caused bankruptcy. Transfers for players in those days didn't exceed £25,000 until Luis Suarez   was transferred from  Barcelona   to  Inter Milan   for the equivalent of £125,000. Who is to say that the day following the crash would bring better weather? And if the weather didn't improve, at some point a dec...

Up close and personal  I find it easier to write third-person stories than second-person .  A second person story is usually written with a lack of personality , charachters are refered to as he/ she, them / they, and are often written from a distance. An example would be to write a war story were only the actions of the regiments are told, nobody's actions are told, only the war in general. Third-person stories are usually written as if you are an observer of the action close-up, and you are describing the actions of the individuals rather than the group. First-person , to me, would be the hardest; in this style you write as the main character. The main problem I'd have with this is f someyhing happened to your character - an accident for example - you could only describe what you saw as your character is not in action. 

A strange night I will always remember 9/11 , not only for the terrible things that the day held but for how I saw the disaster unfold.  I'd fallen asleep on my bed and woke with the lights on. When I saw the early images, my original thought was the BBC were showing the film  The Medusa Touch . At the end of the movie, Richard Burton's character crashes a plane into a nuclear power plant to prove his total lack of belief in humankind. Then, the reality struck, this wasn't a film at all - it was happening. I couldn't believe what I saw; I cried for hours after seeing the carnage and having seen victims of air crashes during my RAF days, I could imagine the horrors in the Twin Towers. I can tell you, once you've seen burned bodies; try as you want, you can't unsee them.

Coming soon In a post-Apocalyptic world run by Game Lords, one group of people aim to fight for the right to read. Will "The Word" win their battle, read the opening book available only on  Draft2Digital .

The entire series in one day I am in shock, for only the second time in two years, the whole   Forgestriker  series sold in a day. These sales give me my month's target of 10 e-books but in only a week, anything more is a bonus for me.

I try to believe in my value It is very hard for me to believe that I wrote a #BestSelling #scifi series that has sold over 670 #ebooks in two and a half years but the success of  Forgestriker   is hard to escape. You would imagine being an  award-winning  writer would spur me on, but I have great trouble believing in my value as a writer with few books outside my series selling.

Becoming a regular occurrence Part of the excitement of a ride is the risk, but there comes a time when the risk outweighs the thrill. For the third time in the last 12 months, an  Alton Towers  ride had to be stopped for safety reasons. I realise the financial impact on the site will be huge, but this ride needs to have a complete safety check before it's closed as unsafe.