Here I am at the edge

Anton Chekhov The Culture Vulture Joe paced nervously around the apartment he shared with his friend, Emile, wondering how to approach the question on his mind, or just let sleeping dogs lie. In the end, he knew there was the only way to resolve the situation, "Please tell me you're not a Communist, Emile." He said with more courage than he imagined he had. Emile laughed, and the asked, "What would make you think I am, Joe?" Nervously Joe began to explain, "You're reading Chekhov while listening to Shostakovich on your cd player, and I noticed you have a selection of other Russian literature on the shelf as well as Russian operas on DVD." Emile put his book on the table and getting up from his chair, he said, "I like Italian music, I listen to Italian opera and would love to live in Italy, does that make me a Fascist? Not forgetting one vital thing, years ago, I went to Russia and the trip scarred me for life.  It was a school t...

Medal of Dishonor Many years ago, I was awarded the General Service Medal for a tour of duty in Ireland , during The Troubles . Since that day, I have vehemently opposed the decision because I feel I did nothing to earn the medal. Our base was over 15 miles from the action. The government of the UK has taken upon itself to charge soldiers who killed terrorists with murder, while IRA supporters such as Jeremy Corbyn  sit in judgment of the soldiers. It is because of this policy that I am looking for ways to return the medal. I cannot support a government that puts immigrants needs ahead of the needs of its people.  While we have homeless ex-soldiers begging for crumbs, these foreigners have done nothing for the country, and are probably never going to, should be sent back - Foreign Aid should be halted until we can look after our own people.

The continuing slide Some writers will tell you that giving FREE samples, will encourage sales. From my stance, it hasn't worked. Despite 1/3 of the e-books registered as sold on my shelf at Barnes & Noble   http://alsdomain.weebly.com/barnes--noble.html   being classed as free, my sales slide continued.

Episode 2  A few minutes ago, I finished episode 2 of  Baal and Drux   disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-writingworld/baals_travels/ . My  fantasy  story is an ongoing project that was designed to come out as a book   www.draft2digital.com/reports/

Tales of the Unexpected Last night, I solved a puzzle that had haunted me for years. I'd been searching for a short story I saw on TV because the episode was only half-an-hour long, I assumed it was in the Twilight Zone series. Again, I was wrong, the episode I had in mind is in the Tales of the Unexpected series.  This isn't the first time this has happened to me, the last time was when I was searching for a short story that turned out to be by H.G.Wells .

What if nobody read my blogs? Note to self from inner mindset:-   STOP checking your blog reader locations!  I know most are read in  France  and the  USA , it gets bad when I have more readers in  Sri Lanka  than the  UK  :(

Expanding works. To anybody who reads this blog, over the next few months, I will be almost invisible on my blog . There are several reasons; the main reasons are I am busy re-writing two books, don't ask why, and I have few readers to please. My life has never been exciting, so it's hard to find things to write about after more than a decade of blogging .

A good start to 2017 While I still only made a $1 a week from  writing  last month, the sales were up in the last two months of last year, thanks to readers on  Writing World   disqus.com/home/channel/writingworld/ .   I am writing short stories on this site, to gain new readers for my work rather than to gain the sales - I'm not saying the sales aren't welcome - sales are not my   priority.