Here I am at the edge

The Bible and the gun . Are you reading  Why me, Lord? This story is the sequel to Holding Richmond , which is my Amazon bestselling e-book .

My expanding Christian fiction story . My Christian fiction story -  God walks these dark hills   - has now expanded to over 50 pages, nothing new for me to do; when I get into a short story , the story can soon be anything but short.

The feeling of dread remains. It's a day since my panic attacks from  agoraphobia , and I am still shaking; the worst is not here yet as later this month I need to face an inquest to fight for some that got taken from my benefits payments

My struggle with a phobia . My day out should have been pleasant today, but it was far from pleasant as I had to fight my agoraphobia from the start of the day.

I am entitled to wear the RAF tartan . During my tenure in the Royal Air Force, I was stationed for 2 1/2 years at  RAF Lossiemouth,   Morayshire , Scotland. Having served in  Scotland , I am entitled to wear the RAF tartan, while I was in Scotland, I did consider the idea as there is a shop in nearby  Elgin  that makes the kilts. One of the most exciting experiences I had is marching in front of a pipe band. I can understand why the Scots fight so hard, hearing the pipes behind you makes you feel strong enough to challenge any foe. This photo is from  RAF Cosford  where I did my trade training, and help set up both the indoor track and the  RAF Cosford museum , which is haunted by the ghost of a Lancaster crew. Another concept I had was finding a book on clan history, as military history is an interest of mine.

I suffer from Agoraphobia . I may not be online tomorrow as I need to go to for my annual heart check-up; this means I need to fight my phobia . As this could be the last time for months that I leave the house, I will probably do some shopping, even if it tires me out.

Who people see in my work . C.S. Lewis is one of the writers   who people say they can see in my views and my writing.  If I had to like my work to any writer ; I would say either Ray Bradbury or Edgar Allan Poe .

A little-known side of my life in writing. Most people who have read my blogs and writing, do not realize there is a  little-known  side to my life in writing. I don't boast about this side as it came to nothing, even though I had my first story published in a magazine at the age of 16.

Premier Christianity magazine. In the latest, excellent, issue of Premier Christianity magazine, there is an article on biohacking, fundamentally redefining who you are by altering your genetic codes and adding chemicals to enhance your performance. I may not be ideal, but other than a change of hair color I wouldn't change anything; tampering with what the Lord designed is not right in my opinion, there again, I am not driven by the drive to be successful as many of the younger generations need to be. Even if I'd been more intelligent, I doubt it would have helped me in life as my parents would not have put me through University, even though they had the money;  and I couldn't have paid the fees. In short, I am old-fashioned enough to consider coming second knowing you did your best is preferable to winning by using devices/ chemical enhancements. A final note, would I alter my genetic code knowing what I am like now, if anyone needs to change their code it is ...

The end of my road. The beggar writer. That is how I feel at the moment; I used to sell my e-books, now you read my blog FREE .  I spend days and weeks writing a story, and all I ask is less than the price of a cup of coffee, and yet nobody is willing to pay for my time - I jest not - I could make more money as a beggar than a writer.  This photo is a good image for my state of health after my accident in June; I can no longer walk even a few steps without support.

The Lodge. Are you following my serialized romance story - The Lodge ? I can't say why I started to write the romance story; if I were to analyze the reason I'd say it is to attempt to get new readers for my stories as the science fiction series Forgestriker has run its course, and the sales have vanished. I am after new readers, not necessarily books sales, but a few sales would give me faith that my work has value.

Female ministers My blog post   will probably cause some heated arguments but to me, the question of female church ministers is not one of sexuality of the preacher, but do you believe them? I believe if people can pass the same exams, then they should be paid the same wage regardless of their gender.

About me. There is a lot being said about fake news in the media, so I thought I'd add my share. Item 1 -  I am a bestselling science fiction writer - that is not so, it is true that my series (Forgestriker) has sold over 1,000 e-books since I launched the series, but I had to keep the price to the minimum to get the sales. Item 2 - Being an award-winning writer gets you noticed - does it? Not according to several writers I chatted to over the years, the only award that matters is the Booker Prize - I won an award over a decade ago but it did nothing to help me sell the book (Chronicles of Mark Johnson). Item 3 - Writing for an anthology brings sales - wrong. I have several stories in anthologies and the only thing that has happened is the non-sale of the books has destroyed what little rep I earned as a writer. Item 4 - Being a bestseller means I am rich and noted - wrong again. I may have sold over 2,000 e-books over the years, but I had to ch...

Read the latest news on my hopes to get a book in print. On my   biography page , you can read the latest news on my hopes to get a book in print.

The short story with big ideas . When I started to write my short story -   God walks these dark hills   - I had no idea how it would get a hold on me, the story is now over 30 pages long and still going strong.

No vacation time for me. To me, there is no rest for Thanksgiving , Christmas or any other holiday whether it is religious or not. As a struggling writer, all days are the same to me, a struggle to find a reason to write. Dementia The scan can say what they will, but I know what I feel. I have lost all the drive I had until two years ago; an analogy for dementia is seeing a keyboard but only seeing blank keys. I am not sure if it was the death of our dogs, the realization that my dream of being recognized as a writer vanishing or another reason, but I feel dead inside, and I have reached the stage of not caring what happens.

Nottinghamshire mums in 'cheeky' calendar for church struck by thieves - Premier : A group of mothers in Nottinghamshire have produced a 'naked' calendar to help fund repairs to a local church targeted by thieves. I wouldn't mind getting a calendar, especially as it is helping a church be repaired.

In the spotlight for a while. I realize what happened to me in Cheltenham was nothing special; I thought I thought that it occurred to me. I was walking around St. George's square when the lights on the corners met in the sky. Like the Saturn effect , it was going to happen at some time.

Don Quixote On a German writing site that I was on for several months, I earned the reputation of some of the people of being like Don Quixote  because they saw me tackling the site's favorites. Even if I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I never saw myself that way; I felt the need to fight inequality, and if that meant I stood alone, then that had to be done. I did win some small battles and gained friends even if the mighty won the war. Other people have said that in my writing, they can read a likeness to the typical  Byronic hero .

A Homecoming. That is it folks, the final letter of rejection for my romance .  The surprise to me is that I had forgotten I sent to this publisher as it was so long ago. Now is the optimum time to get your copy before the book joins the others in the trash pile that was my decade as a writer .

The Word . I was enjoying writing my Science Fiction serial The Word before I had my change of style so we could see the  return of the Word .

My Google sales According to my Google Play account, in the last month, I sold 15 ebooks - WOW - I am totally mind-blown. To show how awesome this figure is to me, I haven't sold that many ebooks on Amazon , in over a decade, and I am not a lot better on Draft2Digital .  When you consider it, most people hit Amazon for buying, and D2D has several platforms linked, Google is my best sales platform. Last night, I did a quick calculation, I have 30 of my  ebook selections on D2D, and they have seven platforms, and I don't get a sale a month from the site.

No more sales for my book. The worst-case scenario for putting my e-book online is that the sales stop; that is no problem as it hasn't sold in over five years. The best case scenario is that readers wait a few weeks and buy the revised version from Amazon or Draft2Digital .

The Chronicles of Mark Johnson. Treat yourself to reading my award-winning e-book online today.  This version is an updated edition with a better-edited format than my book of six years ago.

The Word. I am putting my Science Fiction serial  The Word   online. I have no idea how long this is going to be as I have been writing the serial for years - on and off - and still see more action to come.

One less thing for me to worry about. The verdict from the brain scan I had is that I am not going senile, yet. My moments of forgetfulness are from stress and old age. Though I am not losing my mind , it took me some time to come to terms with somethings I needed to do this year, things are some things  I will never forgive myself   for doing; I can only come to the point of knowing I did the right by my furry friends.

A stream of consciousness. I could use some of her magic, last month I took the time to clear some old files, and found I had deleted a story I had plans for. I know the basics of my romance , it is set in Spain , and concerned three cousins who have never met. but own a house in Mallorca . In short, their family was separated years ago as they were considered evil having three girls. A stream of consciousness is a writing term used to describe a writer who starts a story with no more than an idea and lets his/ her thoughts dictate what happens - as I usually do if I can find the drive to write . Unfortunately, those days are far behind me; each day I find it harder to get the motivation to write as even this blog only gets a few readers. It isn't that I am out of ideas for stories, I always have plenty of ideas, but I keep coming back to why should I write when nobody will read what I have written?

I don't blow my own trumpet enough. One thing I have been told many times is that I don't say to people how good I am as a writer . The reason I don't is that I feel self-praise is no praise at all. I'd instead paste the comments of other people telling how good they think I am. Unlike many writers, I don't turn my blogs into book blogs, even if there are two platforms to get my e-books  from  Amazon   and    Draft2Digital . The fact that one writer considered me such a threat she spent months trashing my award-winning e-book Chronicles of Mark Johnson online makes me laugh, after all, she is over 70.

A novel idea. This is a question I have been asked several times in the last decade, so the answer has evolved/devolved with my circumstances. Five years ago. The first time I was asked if I could write a novel , my answer was no. The idea of writing a story of 40,000 words or more seemed beyond my capability at the time. Then I transformed a short blog piece for a friend into a story that was ended, not ended, at 35,000 words. Three years ago. At the height of my sales, and with my drive to write in full flow there was a good chance that the word count was in my capacity; I did write a story of over 30,000 words before I stopped the story. Now. The answer is NO! I would have great difficulty in finding the drive to write to that scale again, mainly because of the time it took for me to write each story (14 months) and what I got in return (nothing). The case now is not could I write the novel, but do I think spending a year on a story that would not be rea...

Deleted short story files. Before this month, I had only thrown out one story from the 400+ I have written. That is about to change as I will be deleting many files because of a lack of drive brought on by a lack of readers for my stories.  Several of the stories that are going to be thrown out are over 20 pages long; if there is no interest, there is no point in hoping to finish them.

Free e-books galore. I am not surprised that after last month's weeks of free e-books I haven't sold any this month. The only "sales" this month are more FREE e-books . If this trend continues as I suppose it will, there is little point in me continuing to write.

I keep surprising myself. Years ago, when I was continually writing to the point of almost having a nervous breakdown; I used to get so carried away with a story I never knew how many pages I'd written until the story ended. Recently, I started the story  God walks the dark hills ,  it wasn't until I tried to copy and paste the story that I realized it is over 30 pages long and has a long way to go; it's a long time since I wrote a story this long.

Days in the RAF. I don't need a day to remember those who went before me to gain our freedom from German tyranny; I have a permanent reminder of the six years I spent in the Royal Air Force .

I dread to think what is hiding in my genetic history. I know I have several phobias, but I never considered having    Agoraphobia . I always thought Agoraphobia was the fear of open spaces, which is something I am not worried about as I love walking. I know I get a racing heart rate and sweat profusely when I am in shopping malls;  I put the condition down to my heart condition and the humidity. I never considered I was afraid of crowds of people.

What recession? Is there a recession? This question is an excellent question to ask on this night of firework displays; I have just been forced to listen to over four hours of loud bangs. I dread to think how much those flashes cost the families; I will say more than a meal on the table. Another thing to note is that I do not see an increase in old cars on the roads, and don't forget people walking around with hundreds of dollars of iPhones in their pockets. There could be a recession for the people at the bottom but not for those people with money, as the words to the vaudeville song say  "It's the rich that get the pleasure, and the poor get the blame; it's the same the world over, ain't it a bleeding shame!"

Back to using my store of photographs. After last year's debacle with buying a book cover, I decided to go back to using free images from online stores or my own selection took over my years as a photographer. The downside of this is that the pictures are of more inferior quality than bought covers, and fitting a story to an image could be a problem. The upside of the situation is I won't have a massive outlay to recoup at the end of the day. The challenge of fitting the story to an image of mine is something I am capable of doing, as I've been doing all the decade that I have been a writer.

Fighting my agoraphobia . With help from  RAF Benevolent Fund and   SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity I hope to fight my agoraphobia .

Free fantasy online to read. Here are the opening pages of my fantasy short story for you to read   for free . The battle had raged for many days, and the fight had been hard, but at the end of the day, the warriors of the Geven tribe stood proudly as their new chief Shandra Connaught viewed them. Shandra surveyed the men who stood before her with pride, "Warriors of the Geven, today we struck a blow for freedom. No longer will be the victims of the Ghoron. Last night, we stood firm and showed them we are not going to wait for them to attack again. They felt our wrath to avenge the brothers and sisters who fell in  battles, over the years, it is a rage filled with the desire to bathe in the blood of defeated." The Geven and Ghoron tribes remained enemies for so long that nobody knew or cared what started the feuds. The lands of the Kaladrian Forest have been fought over for centuries. There are tales of men who can blend into the trees and remain unseen for mo...

Even an old warhorse can be proved wrong. I need to apologize for being wrong; I did not expect any reaction from last month's free e-book session, as this post shows - I sit in humbleness now. I cannot thank you, my readers, too highly for faith in me as a writer.

Draft2Digital is the best platform for my work. I won't be putting any more books on the  Apple  store because, in four years of selling there, I have made less than five dollars.  I am not using  Amazon  either as the story is much the same as Apple; this year was a bonus as I earned six dollars, only because I sold three copies of "A Homecoming," other than those sales I haven't sold at Amazon for years. As I expected the book on sale at  Smashwords  sold but I never saw the income, I always had my doubts about the site as other writers have told me the same thing happened to them. So, the only site to get my books from is     Draft2Digita l/  Barnes & Noble .

Writing in a new genre. I am trying to write a romance called  The Lodge   on my Weebly blog, this is a new venture for me, as I earned my rep for Science Fiction .

The spawn of Satan. It is hard to believe in this age of enlightened times, but some people still think being left-handed is a sign of Satan. I had several friends in Bristol Museum service who are left-handed, and one of my children is left-handed. When I bat either in cricket or baseball I can bat from either side of the plate. At times, I have wondered if I was left-handed as there are times when doing things right-handed seems awkward for me. If my present condition doesn't improve I may be forced to either type left-handed or use my voice recognition software as I injured my right shoulder last night and I can't move my arm without a lot of pain.