Here I am at the edge

  I believe in the world of the Spirits . I have been asked many times why I think my  ghost stories  are so popular online to the readers? My answer is that to write well about a subject, you need to understand and believe in it. I do believe in the world of the spirits that is why I will NEVER use an Ouija board, I can tell you, there is not enough money in the world to get me to use the board as I have heard some horrible things from people who have; my late father had a bad experience in  India  just after the end of  World War 2 . My  Award winning  e-book (shown here) deals with the world of spirits and demons; what makes this an entertaining read is that the hero is fighting his inner demons all the time he is fighting demons he, and only he, can see.

Five years after the award Five years ago, my #e-book , Chronicles of Mark Johnson , was awarded a certificate of good writing. In honor of this award,  I am re-issuing my   #award-winning  e-book on   Amazon and     Draft2Digital .

Will book 3 be finished? This week I opened the files to edit book 3 in my award-winning series. My first thought was "Am I wasting my time again?"  Neither of the previous books has sold in four years, and I have over 40 pages of edits to do - not counting continuing the story - if I go ahead, for what?

The story so far I must stop checking to see how much I have written LOL After scaring myself over the length of the original story of  Chronicles of Mark Johnson   you would think I'd learn my lesson, but I didn't. Last night, I uploaded the third book in the series, for edits and additions.  At the last count, this edition runs to 46 pages, and I haven't got truly into the story; this is all about what happens after the end of book 2, not about the conflict with the witch in her dimension.

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

      Chronicles of Mark Johnson  The story of a man who wanted to be left alone, but got involved in combating demonic entities, despite having the need to beat his demons-has gone live on Google Play this afternoon.

The title means judge in matters of taste.  Again, the readers prove me wrong. Three years ago, I made a rep for ghost stories. Two years ago I wrote an award winning e-book   https://www.draft2digital.com/book/32117   I hope to re-peat the award this year with   https://www.draft2digital.com/book/34522   and yet the sales eluded me.   This year, I joined Draft2Digital and have found a new readership in Sci-Fi, a genre I thought would be one of weakest, but with the sales of   http://alsdomain.weebly.com/forgestriker---the-hit-series.html   thriving, I am proven wrong.

July 2011 and I am laid in bed with a torn tendon, unable to move I start to write Chronicles of Mark Johnson for some friends. My intention was to give them some pleasure in reading a fantasy story written by somebody they knew, and I did. At this time, I was writing three of four 3,500 to 5,000 word stories a week, to the extent my friends asked me to stop before I burned out. Travel forward to today, I have been given the chance to win a second award with a new story and have another in a big contest in Canada and yet, I have trouble getting the urge to finish a short 3,000 word short story for an anthology I was thinking of sending work too -- and being paid -- not much but anything is better than nothing.  As is my usual, I am on the point of talking myself out of sending the work, not because I think its below me to have work in anthologies but I have done it before and seen no reward.

    Older readers will recognise the face which thrilled us in the 70s. The face is Darren McGavin and the series was Kochak: The Night Stalker.  It was the portrayal of the lonely and misunderstood news hound who tracked demons in Chicago's alleys which inspired me to the series as did the creation of my alter ego Mark.  Like Carl Kolchak, Phil Moore works in a dark and dust atmosphere which comes into play later in book 3, when strange things begin to happen.  Although not as visual as any of the others, Phil's role as Mark's best friend and contact with the outside world is vital to the series. Mark and he go back to their college days -- even if they did separate for a while -- when Mark went on a sojourn to Australia and Phil was contacted by P A Canella about some strange items.  In books 2 & 3 we come across all types of wonderful weapons and it is Phil's task to keep Mark in one piece. While his mind goes deeper into the darker regions...

That is a question I have asked myself many times over the last eighteen months. Holding Richmond hit the ground running -- Okay, seven sales in one weekend is a good start -- but the book entered the sales forum at the height of the "Twilight" craze. At the end of 2012 HR hit another good spell and sold a further seven copies in three months. I got pilloried on one site for showing vampires as being unsexy and vile creatures of the night. As I said at the time, my vampires are based on the German Nosferatu played by Max Schreck Anything less like "Twilight" I cannot imagine, there is nothing sparkly or sexy about the vampires in Holding Richmond. These creatures of the darkest fears of mankind are loathsome. Is that a reason for the books success I wonder? People got tired of sexy, young and sparkly things and went back to the 1920s imagery.  I make no bones about it -- I like B&W films of this era -- and many of my stories are written in this style, whet...

Before I get too deeply involved in the characters and back story to the series it would be wise of me to tell you how the series came to be. In June 2011, I was in a friend's house watching TV -- I don't usually watch daytime TV -- when Lorraine Kelly came on. She was doing a walk across the desert and all she was doing was complaining about the heat and sand and sweating too much. At this point  I thought, "You ungrateful bitch, you have not said a word about the camera crew who have to lug heavy cameras around so your fans can see you." Being a former photographer, my thoughts naturally turned to the unseen heroes who never get credit for their work, and from here I created Mark Johnson, former celebrity photographer turned recluse. If there is a motive behind my stories it is praise for the likes of Tim Page, Mike Herr, Philip Caputo, Sean Flynn, Dana Stone, Martha Gellhorn, Kate Adie and Marie Colvin. These photojournalists often put themselves in danger to bring...