Here I am at the edge

 Beyond a joke I have to laugh; if I didn't laugh, I'd cry at my lack of sales. I keep getting reminders to fill in a tax form for my ebook sales from the USA. I ignore the demands because this year, as so many in the past decade, I earned less than $10 from my sales. This lack of interest in what I write is why I write infrequently on the blog, as far as I can tell it's only read by my friend, Julia, in Seattle.

  A double homicide This is not a "cheap gimmick" to get readers to my blog; while I stayed in Lac La Biche , Alberta , Canada , I did know a double murderer by the name of John (I can't recall his surname). John was an innuit, a native of Labrador who served 15 years for a double murder. The cause of his crimes was he came home one night to find his wife making love to his father; what man can stand that? After serving time, he traveled to Alberta, where he met and lived with a friend of my late friend, Faye. Though he'd paid for his crimes, John's life was over, and he turned to alcohol to hide his misery. It was with the aid of our friend, Jackie, he stayed a step away from becoming a total alcoholic; though it was hard for Jackie to control his addiction, she never stopped trying until she passed away in 2012. Within months of her demise, John died too.

 The Whiteout Theory For many years, I have applied the  Whiteout Theory to my writing . The term whiteout is used when all you can see is snow in front of you, and you move forward hoping to get clear with no reason other than to stop could be fatal. This is why I kept writing when ebook sales never happened; I used to hope that some would come, but alas, none did. An interesting byline is one of my late friend's daughters in Alberta , Canada , who used to joke about her mother not driving in the winter. Faye was elderly and had poor vision; it wasn't until her daughter, Patti, got trapped in a whiteout that she realized the horror of the situation. When Patti got home, it took her family two hours to free her hands from the steering wheel.

  The Case of Low Expectations It is hard for me to feel disappointed with my writing , for I have such low expectations for ebook sales  that to get less than I expect is impossible. The other way to look at the situation is I am easily amazed by the sales I do get as I never expect any sales.

  Que sera Christmas is over; as I expected, I had no e-book sales . I am neither upset nor saddened by the news, as it is no more than I expected.

 Excellent Gifts Whether you are buying a Kindle for somebody, or you get a kindle for Christmas  you can get some excellent, but inexpensive gifts from either -  https://author.amazon.com/book s , or    https://www.draft2digital.com/book /

  Short-term memory loss For some time, I have noticed my s hort-term memory has failed me. I can hardly recall what I looked up on the internet last night, yet, I can rewrite my early short story selection from many years ago. I hope this is only a sign of age, as one of my aunts suffered dementia around my age;  however, she did become a widow at the time.  It is worrying as most of my mother's family, except for an uncle who died from cancer, lived until their mid-80, giving me another 15-20 years.

The last pounds Some of us have been in the odd position of having some spare money after Christmas  when a friend/ relative gave you some money, but it is not enough to get what you want.  Why not buy an inexpensive ebook from my store on either Amazon or Draft2Digital .

Our house is haunted Since we moved into our house after the fire in 2017, we have suspected the house has a ghost ,  I am now more sure than ever that this is the case, as my wife gets gifts sent from an anonymous person, who knows what she wants, The other possibility is she has a lover. The above short story is for sale from Draft2Digital .

  The Death of the Ghost Story With advances in science and technology , the Age of Wonder has passed, and without it comes the death of the ghost story .  Whereas once the middle of Africa was an unknown area, now we know more about the continent, so tales of the Lost World are not written.  Science Fiction and Fantasy will always be popular for creating worlds will not stop. Time Travel is impossible, so the universe will not close for writers of the genre. If you can write , you can make your world up, and as it is your world, people cannot tell you what can and cannot happen. The problem with the ghost story is it has to be scary, and with modern views and technology, this happens more often than not; I know as my early rep was for writing ghost stories. Though technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, there are still areas as wild as Jules Verne 's The Lost World .

 What I am waiting for One of the BBC series I am anxiously waiting for is the third series of  The Mallorca Files .  As the title says, the series is set in Mallorca, an island under the control of Spain .  The series is about a British cop sent to bring back a mob boss from the island. However, he gets shot. She, the British cop, is told to stay on the island as her boss in the UK isn't happy that their case has folded. So, she gets teamed up with an arrogant German cop from Munich  staying on the island. The duo gets into various cultural and comic clashes; the Spanish police inspector in charge of the island doesn't wish to have them under her feet, so they get all the jobs nobody else will take. To the annoyance of the chief (above), the minor cases they get assigned turn into significant crimes, and they keep being praised for their work.

  When Nature calls If there is an up-side to suffering from insomnia , it has to be that I get to hear animals and birds chatting that I usually would not hear. Recently, I have been hearing the hooting of owls , some are close, and others are in the distance; there could even be different types.

  The Adventure of Black Peter In the world of mystery, there is one case that would baffle Sherlock Holmes . This case is  The Adventure of Black Peter . This episode has only been televised once, and the BBC lost the copy when they had a clearout in the mid-1970s. Along with this invaluable Holmes, the entire second Doctor Who - Patrick Troughton - series was lost.  In the days before digitalization, shows were kept on film, and films took up space. It is believed that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle considered this not worthy of Holmes as a case. The story is not so much a mystery s a crime story that centers on the settling of a debt. I have known for years of the missing edition as I recall the story with Sir Peter Cushing playing Holmes. There is no question which story is at the other end of the scale; the most shown story is, by far, T he Hound of the Baskervilles . I wonder which story comes next in line? Many stories are a variation on a theme,

 Hyderabad I discovered that my knowledge of the geography of India is worse than I imagined. I was chatting online with my friend, Julia, a few nights ago about our joint storyline, and I put my character in Goa . At the time, I was sure the city was in the North West of the state; to my shock, I found out Goa is near Kerala , in the South West. A few weeks earlier I made another discovery, this time about the city of Hyderabad ; I also thought the city was in the NW of India, but it is in the central area of the country.  In my defense, I was thinking of the map I grew up with, which was drawn before the partition in 1947. The city is still called Hyderabad; only the one I thought about is now in Pakistan .  How about this for irony, India's Prime Minister  I ndira Gandhi was born in the country of her great enemy - Pakistan - she is the daughter of the man considered to be one of the founding fathers of Pakistan, Pandit Nehru .

Beyond my ability  I often amaze myself with the things I can do with my writing , but I know certain things are beyond my ability . A reason I have not sent many stories to agents, apart from the vast odds against success, is that IF I got accepted by an agent, the next step is convincing a publisher my book is worthy of their investment. This would involve writing an in-depth summary . I tried this once, many years ago, and failed miserably. I am an excellent blurb writer , an ability in which the writer has to give a few poignant pointers to the story's meaning. A summary requires a talent for detail, something I never go into in my short story selection. I often say I write like Mickey Spillane, not Jane Austen. This means my short stories do not get bogged down with pages of detail. If something is in my story it is there to add to the story. When I write, I never consider the details of the characters beyond what is happening now.

At an early age  Psychologists say our money habits develop from as early as the age of 5. This theory explains why I have trouble spending my money, as my only memory of my grandmother is of an elderly sitting on a bed showing me her coins. In our family, I am known for talking myself out of buying something I want. I have never had a lot of money, so saving comes easily to me; the downside to saving is the habit creates its issues, as the more you save, the more options to buy are open to you.

  On your own It has been my experience that if you are an  Indie , you are on your own. It's my experience, over a decade as a  writer , that people are happy to accept your help with   promotion  - I did mine free - but are only willing to say thank you if it only meant a quick  email . There was a site called Indies United ; the title couldn't be more of a misnomer if it tried. In my time as a writer, there has only been one person who has given me help; she is my friend and editor, Julia.  My philosophy when I started, naively, was, "If we help each other, one's success shows well on all." Several years ago, that changed to "Every person for themselves."

  Mark Johnson and Pat Canella There are a few likenesses, in a way, between my short story series about Pat Canella and Mark Johnson . Both series were award winners, in their own way, as I won the cover of The Dockland Murders  in a contest the year before The Chronicles of Mark Johnson was awarded its prize  in 2012. You may have read my comments on the popularity of this blog  being accredited to its variety of posts and not based on my writing endless pieces connected to my ebook .  This is another commonality for the ebooks as nobody has asked me about my characters or what I plan for them; several years ago, I planned a joint venture for my character, which I realized was a pointless project as neither book was selling. If you are interested in their sales , Patti has the lead, mainly because the stories about Mark never sold. Two odd things about Patti are the first sale for Dockland Murders went to a lady in Munich , and the only sale for book 2 in the ...

  SS Waratah I n Sept 2009, a 100-year mystery was ended when a diving team from Spain located the wreck of the SS Waratah . She vanished without a trace in July 1909 after rounding the Cape of Good Hope (how ironically named) the Waratah disappeared for over a century. The captain had reported the ship had a bad list, as did her sister ship, and a crew member reported she appeared top-heavy. The night before she disappeared, a passenger had a nightmare featuring a hand rising from the sea, raising a plank with the letters S A R H visible. He canceled his berth, telling his friends he'd return on the next ship. The last sighting of the Warath was as she passed Cape Town ; there was a sighting of a blue flash by a horserider on the plains. No wreckage has been found.  There are several theories about her disappearance, some are ludicrous, and others carry some validity. The main issue is the lack of wreckage. No wreckage means the ship capsized as she was top-heavy, or the blu...

 The Virtual Time Traveler To some people, my choices of films on Netflix and DVD s I buy may appear off-key. The reason for this is that though the movie industry is moving forward, my wife and I prefer the older movies with less involvement of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). A good example is the James Bond films; when I watched them a long time ago, gadgets were used to escape the villains; now it would appear that it is a case of how we can make a story around the devices we can fill the screen with. In the 70s, movies were accused of using colored actors/actresses in low-rated parts; it was called Blaxploitation ; now the wheel has turned full circle, and thanks to Black Lives Matter it is virtually impossible to make a film in the UK, without a colored person.

 A changing perspective Do I believe in ghosts ? I get asked this question many times. Some of my  ghost stories  are the best-read blog posts on my blog. Until recently, my answer would have been YES, without a second thought. However, recently I have been watching videos on YouTube , which have given rise to doubts mainly because most of the people who "claim" to have seen a spirit are running a hostillery and attempting to boost trade, it would appear. I am not saying the houses are not experiencing ghosts, but the claims should be taken with a hefty dose of salt in these cases. There are claims from people I believe; in these cases, the people have no financial gain, which I can find and appear to be honest. Back to the original question, do I believe in ghosts; my answer is still yes. I have not seen/experienced any myself, but that does not mean they do not exist.  One scientific adage is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This theory brings to m...

 Better than Average According to my good friend and editor , Julia, who knows a lot about publishing . A self-published writer can only hope to sell about 250 copies of their books, so my 1,000 e-book sales for the Forgestriker series were way over the odds for sales. On another tack, but remaining on topic; I must be good as two writers I had contact with attacked me online to keep people from reading what I wrote. The first instance came in 2012 when the book shown above became an award winner . A person I used to chat online to, decided that my work was so exciting she had to sabotage it by trashing the book on every book site she had contact with, a little puerile for a lady in her mid-60s don't you agree. But, people do odd things when they feel threatened. The second incident occurred about eight years ago, here in Bristol , against my better judgment I decided to tackle my phobia of public speaking head-on. I hadn't spoken in public since my college days, and then o...

 Will I be recognized as a writer? Many people would say that selling over 1,000 ebooks classes me as a writer . Others would add that winning an award adds to the claim I am a writer. But, the bottom line here reads that the 1,000 sales have been spread over more than a decade of writing ; in real terms, this amounts to two sales a month. It would appear that if I am to get some minor claims as a writer they will have to wait until my demise; like so many other writers .