Here I am at the edge

  The fishing bill is passed The fishing fleets of France are in a bind. They want a fight with the fleets of the UK, bring it on, we beat Iceland in the 80's during want was known as the Cod War .  If they turn the other way they come into conflict with the fleets of Spain , on the subject of fishing, it is a disturbing thought that if whales didn't eat so many sardines , and we didn't have the fleets to catch them; they would overrun the seas within two decades. My romance novella A Sailor's Love has a fisherman as one of the main characters. The black and white images are ones I took when I lived in Yorkshire , four generations of my mother's family fished the North Sea.

My constant war . For a long time, I doubted I could write a story of novel-length (40,000 words min). My friends never had this doubt in my ability. Either to write to this length or to keep the readers interested in the full story. One thing that many of them enjoyed is that my stories were not formulaic and could keep the tension until the final pages. When I stopped  A Sailor's Love , the story, in my mind, had a long way to go, I stopped at 35,000 words because I kept asking myself if anyone was interested enough to buy a copy, and nobody is.  This is the problem, I could easily spend time writing a novel , but what for? I have been asked why I don't enter  NaNoWriMo ?   I had thought about entering several times during the years when I was working, but these days, the thought of writing, on average, four pages a day (1,000 words) for a month is beyond me. In the last three years, with the decline in sales for my e-books, I doubt I have writte...

Another old craft has gone. My book  www.draft2digital.com/book/34522  is written as a tribute to a dying trade. The trade of fishing, in a time when the boats went to sea and the men knew what to catch and where to fish.  In my grandfather's day, the east coast of the  UK  was a thriving fishing industry, but these days, the smokehouses for smoking kippers lie dead.  It is not the fault of the  EU , they didn't help the situation, but the root of the death lies in technology when you have sonar and scoop nets to drag in everything, why need the men who know the seas?

Is it possible? In short, the answer is yes. At one time, the thought of writing 40,000 words was daunting, but these days if I can get into a story I see no reason why I could not pass 50,000 words. I stopped  A Sailor’s Love   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07226FRDK  at 35,000 words, not because the story ended but because after writing and living the story for 14 months, I decided I would not see enough reward for my time. I was right, after over two years on sale, not a copy has been sold, despite friends of a friend saying they would buy copies to help her promote her cd’s.

Fare thee well Not even the beautiful singer, Janey Kirk 's photo, can bring sales to my romance  story, so after three years and no sales. It's time to drop the book and say I wasted over a year of my life writing something nobody wanted - nothing new for me.

One sale from being thrown out  I am going through my stock of  e-books,  any that aren't selling after more than two years will be deleted from the shelves. With that thought in mind, A Sailor's Love   www.draft2digital.com/book/34522   /  www.amazon.com/dp/B07226FRDK   would have been the book to have gone next month had it not had a sale on  Amazon .  This is only a temporary respite as one sale in three years is not good.

Something wicked this way comes At the beginning of the year, I had given up hope of seeing a month with ten sales in, at the time I'd dropped my expectation to any sale was a big plus. The thought that I'd see back-to-back months with ten sales was something I had put out of my thoughts as a dream from the past, but the last quarter has corrected that situation with back-to-back months with ten sales.

Your sexy vampire romance part 1 Another of my e-books has been banned by Scrib'd. This time we got things right, my vampire romance  The Cursed   is racy but not as sexually charged as   A Sailor's Love   which passed.

After the goldrush Now the rush of sales for my series      http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/forgestriker-collection.html#.VkSWR1XhDnA   has all but dried up, I am in dire need of a miracle to stop this month being my worst :( Inspiration   As always, I have lots of ideas but after the mass rejection of the mass of my work, I find it hard to drive myself to write. Other than this blog I haven't written anything for so long I forget the last time I got involved in a work.  I still put a lot of my present doubt at the door of A Sailor's Love , the book took over a year to write and didn't sell a copy. Only the title book of my series has done any real sales.  Miracle cure   Another cause to my dilemma is the constant upsets to my routine caused by numerous council officials. It's hard to get involved when you keep wondering when the next visit/ disturbance will occur. I need a miracle, but I don't think I have t...

The new face of Jannine This lady is my good friend, the singer Janey Kirk   http://www.janeykirk.com/ , I can't thank Janey too much for the honour of using her photo on the cover of my upcoming story - a rewrite of my e-novella  - A Sailor's Love   https://www.draft2digital.com/book/34522 . I'm not expecting the book to be ready for a long time, the original took over a year to write and edit.  You can listen to my Janey sing on   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1dpL7uGYmY1DCfie7_ih_A

Celebrate with a good read The house on the right-hand end of the row is the site of a haunting dating back to the days of smuggling , in Yorkshire . The Ship Inn , in Saltburn-by-the-Sea , is to this day haunted by the ghost of the pirate, John Andrew , who owned the inn for over 40 years. The inn is haunted by his daughters' ghost. The four-year-old haunts the house where she lived and died from pleurisy. Sea Ghosts   My story, Sea Ghosts  https://www.draft2digital.com/book/32491 , although fiction is based on their story. This story won third prize in a Facebook writing contest in 2012.

Time to accept a reality   Many people - not only my friends - have told me that I am a good writer.  The time has come for me to accept this fact, more than anything the factor that had me unconvinced - and to an extent it still does - is the fact that despite the mass sales for my e-book Forgestriker ; the series   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/forgestriker-collection.html#.Vi9utlXtmko  as a whole didn't sell well. Despite the restricted sales for the series, Sons of Baal and Forgestriker must be good reading as they have not stopped selling in almost two years. Chronicles of Mark Johnson It is true, I did win an award - three years ago - for the opening book in the Mark Johnson series. My pain is that neither this book or its sequel sold.  Ghost stories    One of the things that changed my mind is this month my ghost stories have started to sell. One thing that always stopped me believing I was a good wri...

I am still good Erotic romances    Years ago, I used to write erotic stories for lady friends - with their consent - I would presume to write an erotic romance for a lady unless I had her permission.  Even in those days I was a good writer, the stories were so good that they were able to give the lady's full sexual pleasures.  None of the stories mentioned exists as I sent them in private messages to my former friends. Oyster  Last year, the book showing here was banned by the publisher Oyster for being too erotic. I find the banning of Sexual Explosions amusing as A Sailor's Love  is far more arousing than Sexual Explosions , and yet that wasn't banned. Could it be the mention of the "S" word got the book banned?

The time has arrived No surprises for me #Burnout It comes as no surprise to me to find myself burned out. What surprises me is that it took so long to reach this stage, for some months the urge has been getting less and has now gone dead.  Respite breaks   Sometimes have a rest can work for me, I don't think it will clear this malaise. My problem is that despite the massive success of  my e-book Forgestriker nothing else has sold, which leads me to doubt my ability as a writer.  Sales    With this month beating last month's sales and heading to setting a new monthly high for sale, I should be raring to write, but I can't get started.   A lot of the malaise started and continues on from the non-selling e-novella A Sailor's Love. The book took fourteen months to write and never sold; add to that the non-selling award-winning Chronicles of Mark Johnson and you see where I'm coming from. The long road   ...

The inevitable Onward and upwards #amwriting As a writer I realised one day this moment would arrive. I am amazed it took so long to come. The bubble has burst on my sales. We're almost half way through the month, and I'm heading for my worst month for sales. My previous worst was 8 sales, at the present rate of sales I'll be lucky to surpass my first month on Barnes & Noble , when I sold 3 e-books in as many days. #amwritingscifi With the great success of my Science Fiction series Forgestriker   http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/will-my-series-reach-600-sales.html#.VcstGagViko   to keep my faint belief in my ability glowing, I am going  to attempt a novella based on my on line serial The Word . This ran as a series for 14 weeks, three years ago.  #amwritingfantasy Another ongoing project is my fantasy book Mordhiemicus . This is a Medieval story about a group of people fleeing a burning city, and fighting an evil warlor...

Teens and a mystery Three years ago I wrote this teen romance , I never expected the book to sell, after all a grown man writing teen romances - the idea amazes the brain. Debbys' Beau https://www.draft2digital.com/book/34032   has gone on to sell more copies than my last novella - A Sailors' Love   https://www.draft2digital.com/book/34522 . The two stories couldn't be further apart if they tried.  I wrote DB in an afternoon, never expecting it to sell. I lived, loved and breathed ASL for over 14 months, expecting sales , and a possible sequel. As it turned out, DB will be the one with the sequel. 

This is a real rare occasion, me talking on line. I may do a longer video later, with more about my new works.

Tastes in food Appetites Can it be true?   Can you wish for something so much that when it comes, you dislike it violently. I'm not on about the success of my books this month, this time it's food.   I know my appetite has changed radically with age, at one time eating dark chocolate was as likely to induce a migraine, as drinking red wine. Now I find milk chocolate too sickly at times to eat. The same goes for Coca -Cola, when Coke Zero came out I dreaded the thought of the taste changing, but now it's all I can drink. I find even Diet Coke too sweet for my taste.  Fishing   For four generations my kin have fished the North Sea for cod. I wrote my last novella - A Sailor's Love - as a homage to the hard-working, honest fishing communities around the world.   For the last two weeks I have desired some fish and chips. Today I had some mackerel, and found I couldn't eat it. It isn't the taste that put my off - as it does with some ...

Erotica Draft2Digital   Recently, my distributor of e-books (Draft2Digital   https://www.draft2digital.com/book/   ) joined services with Oyster . Most - about 90% - of my sales are through Barnes & Noble , but any new area needs to be tested. So, I signed my books in to the Oyster catalogue, to my amusement two books were excluded for being classed as Erotica , I class them as Erotic Romances . True, they are steamy, but the passion is in the story, not the story. Sexual Explosions , and The Love of the Sea were excluded, but Sex at the Mill , and A Sailor's Love were admitted. ASL is more erotically charged than its predecessor TLOS. 

Eva Peron Madonna Don't cry for me, Argentina   We all know the background story of the rise to fame of the late Eva Duarte Peron . The girl who went to Buenos Aries to try to be a film starlet, and ended up marrying the most powerful man in Argentina. Cover versions  Usually, I am not in favour of cover versions of songs; so many people try to do the song right, and fail, sadly in my mind this classic song falls into that category. Julie Covington   Ms. Covington did the original version, and although good it was open to improvement. Elaine Page Ms. Page's version is the most recognisable version, and as a stage production it cannot be faulted. However, it does has a big flaw as a song in a biopic it is too showy for me. There is none of the Girl lost in a world she doesn't belong in.  That is the ethos of Evita for me. Like many of the other cover versions I heard last night; too much emphasis was laid on diction, and breathing. That ...