RLLauthor@outlook.com and @RLL_author GO TO AMAZON KINDLE STORE AND TYPE RLL. YOU WILL FIND MY BOOKS.

Saturday 27 December 2014

LET IT SNOW: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

After deciding to make snow on the blog a permanent feature, I braved the elements.
   This is an unsubtle code used in newspapers and on television. It means I went out in the rain.
   A rogue Christmas card came in. Rogues appear before the start, causing the start. They also appear near the finish and slightly after. The true rogue card arrives in late November.
   It was on sale in a shop from September, though. :0
   By mid-December, the single spies turn to flocks. I greatly misquote Bacon in mangling Shakespeare. Kevin Bacon will forgive me, I'm sure.
   At the other end of the month, just before Christmas, as the postal service freezes over, there are late-arriving festive messages. These are  handed in by weary travellers who walked the length of an entire street.
   Those people are in our thoughts.
   Blank cards stay handy for near-instant replies. Some neighbours are organised, and deliver cards by fake daylight. This endless twilight is battleship in its greyness and greatness.
   Other neighbours struggle against the rising tide, fail, and are swept along in darkness. Muttering is done.


*

The night before the night before Christmas, one last local card came through the letterbox. That source was investigated. A handy card lay blank and ready for a return shot.
   I braved the elements.
   And I thought about the snow on my blog. Walking through the streets to deliver a card, I marvelled at the light displays beaming through the rainy night.
   Snowflakes on windows. Reindeer. A large red-clad jolly chap. Icicle lights dangling from on high. Wintry themes, all. Frosty. Snowy.
   But life is rainy far more often than not. This time, I am hard-pressed to remember more than two frosty mornings. And I'm including November in the tally.
   Occasionally, a proper wintry day comes along, bringing a chill wind. And I think of that day as a January one.
   There are places far-flung and nearby, with snow all around. Whether it's raining or not where you are, here's the cold code for snow on your blog...

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE.

<script src="http://yourjavascript.com/25223141921/snowstorm-min.js"></script><a href="http://www.globeinourhands.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">SNS Blog Snow Effect</a>

   I'll leave you with a year-round song about winter, written by Dave Goulder and performed by Mike Harding.
   THE JANUARY MAN.

*

Update. Blog revamping took the snow away. If I ever find a way to return it, I'll drop clouds of the stuff on this blog.

Saturday 20 December 2014

WRITING AS SOMEONE ELSE: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

I've been experimenting with the idea of writing as someone else.
   In the murky past, I wrote about the bad side of that world. HERE'S A BLOG POST ABOUT THAT. I'll wait for you.


*

Time to look at the positive side. Sometimes, the grumpy online persona you've cultivated...
   Going out on a limb, here.
   Sometimes that grumpy persona won't cut it if you are trying to write for the Brony market.
   Yes, I had to Google Brony when I first encountered the term. No, I am not writing for the Brony market.
   So. Anyway. No sock puppetry here. Just an attempt to write in another way. Leaving myself to one side and being someone else is difficult.
   A lie was told there surely.
   Will this other project work out for me? Well, I fucking hope so. But hey, you learn from everything. It's difficult to be in two places at the same time...
   So the upshot is that many projects over here...they stack up. They wait to land. I don't expect to see all that much added to the finished pile over here. My own stuff, I am talking about.
   Over there, I will work my way through some items. But, for reasons of the plot, you can't drive over there from here.


*

I want to keep the other items separate from the projects that are over here. The point of this blog post is to say...
   Things may be even quieter over here, than of late. I'm still beavering away, building a damn dam. Over there.
   

Saturday 13 December 2014

COFFEE AND WRITING: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Writing is aided by coffee. I am writing about coffee aiding writing while drinking coffee, thus aiding my writing.
   There is a serious point to this blog post: writing fills an empty space.
   And there is a frivolous point to writing. Typing with one hand while swigging from a mug of coffee is important, damn it. I'll caution you...
   Water, even clothed in coffee, does not mix well with electricity. Now I'll double-caution you.
   Writing requires breaks from writing. Coffee-breaks, damn it.

*

Finished my coffee.
   Breaks are vital. When writing, take a break every hour. I'm not saying drink coffee every hour. If you try to write every day, try to drink coffee during the breaks.
   The drudgery of writing...
   Oh, yes, there's drudgery in writing.
   The drudgery of writing is dangerous. Bad posture. Inactivity. The flurry at the keyboard, as imagined worlds unfurl beneath the frantic fingertips of the serial scribbler, does little for the writer's rattling frame.
   Stand. Stretch. Walk away. Coffee up. Recharge. Save your veins from the deepest thrombosis. Unpin your arse. Stay alive. Let java flow like lava through your system.
   Make haste to taste. Coffee your way through the day, and night. Write.

*

As writing advice goes, DRINK COFFEE may not be up there with FINISH WHAT YOU START or NEVER WRITE IN THE FIRST PERSON INDIFFERENT.
   But my biased coffee-centric view tells me to tell you that this advice is not far-off.

Wednesday 10 December 2014

DISCOUNT KINDLE SALE UNTIL 16TH DECEMBER: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.



VAT is one of the more annoying forms of taxation.
   When I set up my sales for the 9th-16th of December, I saw calculations telling me about the level of discounting.
   And I blogged in advance.
   When the sales started yesterday, I checked the Amazon pages and saw that the numbers were a little skewed. (VAT is only charged in a few places.) So I returned to the blog and put in corrections.
   Instead of 91% off one title, the end result was an 85% discount. Though Amazon had been the source for both figures, once the sale went live, the 85% level ruled.
   Nothing wrong in going back in to a piece you've published and making essential updates. My figures were right at time of going to press, and they were right when I updated them based on the latest news. No crime.
   Anyway, there's a massive saving on one book. And there's a 75% saving on another novel. The short fiction hovers around the 50% mark, depending on where you are making your purchase from.
   Three of my works are not part of Kindle Direct Publishing  Select, and those don't qualify for discount sales.
   Does READ TUESDAY do anything for us, as writers? It gets me talking about writing, about writers. Yes, I talk about all that writerly stuff anyway.
   I don't want a sale day to be just about sales. Writers of fiction must have a capacity for the creation of delusion. So I delude myself. No crime. Delusion is an essential component.
   Go out there and find money off books while you can - the event was on a Tuesday. But discount sales are arranged in blocks...
   I had the option of doing a one-day sale and using the allocated block in any case...or of using the whole five-day wedge. My stuff's on sale until the 16th for that reason - the choice I made. Use up five days on a one-day sale, or on a five-day sale? Hmm...
   That made for a very long Tuesday sale. :0

*

Head to Amazon Kindle store. There are links from here to there. Or just walk in there and type RLL. You will find my books. But go looking for other authors hosting December sales.
   And go looking for authors who aren't hosting sales at all. ;)








Tuesday 9 December 2014

READ TUESDAY 2014. KHALID MUHAMMAD, AGENCY RULES: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.



For this year's READ TUESDAY, I offered to link to audio items by authors, scribblers, and other practitioners of tale-tellery. I didn't think anyone would get back to me.

*

Late into last night, a mysterious figure moved through the dusty streets of Saidu Sharif - buried deep in the north of Pakistan's Swat Valley. That's the place Saidu Sharif, and not the mysterious figure.
   He's still going.
   The man dodged a dozen jezail bullets just to reach an internet café. I couldn't pull up a Google Street View for Saidu Sharif, but I located all the internet cafés with ease.
   Anyway, Khalid Muhammad isn't there now. He ditched the tail, made a brush-pass at the fall-back rendezvous, and spent another six hours wondering if the dead in dead drop might just be literal.
   Judge for yourselves.
   Here's Khalid Muhammad talking about his espionage book, Agency Rules, Never an Easy Day at the Office, on an audio interview: MYTHBEHAVING WITH KHALID.

Monday 8 December 2014

READ TUESDAY 2014, TALKING ABOUT WRITING: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.



Last year, I spent half a lifetime on WANTED POSTERS for authors participating in READ TUESDAY. Those posters still haunt the blog. ;)
   This year, I moved from the look to the sound. Yes, READ TUESDAY is a sale day for books. But founder Chris McMullen wants people to talk about books.
   Hmm.
   No, I didn't really say that. But I thought it over. Why don't we listen to the writing? You can do that right here on my blog. There, in the dedicated pages, you'll see that link to the free audio.
   I'll wait for you.

*
Hmm.
   Why don't we talk about writing. I decided to use that as my starting-point. On a short journey. This had to be a short journey, based on the time available.
   I waited for the READ TUESDAY author roster to appear.
   Writers hosting a sale on the day, Tuesday the 9th of December 2014, wouldn't appear on that list months in advance. Just a few days in advance of the sale, scribblers finally appeared.
   I contacted as many tale-tellers as I could, asking if they'd host an audio clip of a story on SoundCloud. (Though any service would do.) Then I'd provide links here on my blog.
   How tough was this? On the measure of height, how tall was this order? Exceedingly tall.
   I asked authors to record a piece...
   Slap it on a hosting service...
   Link to it on a blog or other site of theirs...
   And other fantabulous things.
   All in the space of a heartbeat.
   With grains of sand left, in which to act.

*

Some of those writers didn't have blogs. I suspect more than a few didn't own decent microphones. Every single scribbler is the same - busy, leading up to the sale day.
   Plenty of them would hide under rocks if asked to read their work aloud.
   I expected to host exactly zero contestants in this improvised challenge.
   But I must pause to eat food...

*

Anyway, I received two replies. We're international here. My Top Secret Base™, at the heart of this Scottish volcano, plays host to scribblers from many worlds.
   One Greek author said he'd have a go, and he hoped to have something up and running in time. I haven't seen anything from him on the audio front...
   But here's a YouTube chat with the guy. You receive two for the price of one, as the American author interviewing him is also in the READ TUESDAY roster this year.
   He is...Nicholas C. Rossis.
   She is...Sally Ember.
   And they are on the YouTube here: Nicholas and Sally chat.

*

The second writer who contacted me was South African Graham Downs. And he declared that he was already putting out audio clips on the YouTube. You can find his audio here: Graham on YouTube.

*

There you go.
   On reflection, I'm glad I wasn't swamped by replies. I'd have gurgled quite a bit. Here, I had two people come in and I linked to three. This blog post is only a few hundred words long, but it's taken the better part of an hour to retrieve and test links.
   Okay. Another READ TUESDAY. Go out there, look at books. Books in the sale, and books not in the sale. Read something on the day, and after the day. Talk about writing, too. ;)


Sunday 7 December 2014

READ TUESDAY SALE 2014: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.



I'll start with a mention for READ TUESDAY authors. Head to that link, have a look at the list of participating scribblers, and scroll down the pile of books on sale.



*

This isn't just about sales. But, damn it, I should plug the stuff at some point. We've reached that point.

   It's Sunday the 7th as I type. Most of my products go on sale from the 9th through to the 16th.
   Once you start a Countdown Deal, you are using up an allotment of sale slots. So, the hell with it. If people miss the sale day, there's the next day, and the next, and so on.
   How big is this sale? Depends what you are buying and where you are buying it...
   I'd like to say I am doing a half-price sale. But VAT is applied to e-book purchases in certain territories, and that skews the final percentage tally.
   So, instead, I say that I'm doing a half-price sale for a few products in select territories. Numbing, I know. I'm not playing fast and loose when I say...


UP TO 85% OFF IN
MY FANTABULOUS
READ TUESDAY SALE!!!
Terms and conditions apply,
don't throw bricks, puppies, or small children
if you live in glass houses.
Also, buy curtains for that greenhouse.

   This is mostly a half-price sale. Almost. I'm annoyed at the levy of VAT on e-books. That's an old song.

   Here's a new one. Amazon is about to alter the way it does business, to accommodate changes on recording VAT. I may have words to spit on that note, come January.
   ANYWAY...
   Some of you can pick up some of my books at near-half-price. Unless you pay VAT on them, then you face a 51% saving - oh, the hardship. Because you pay more, you qualify for a larger saving.
   Certain people can pick up one title for as much as 85% off. That sounds inspiring. We are global now, and must take this waffle into account.
   There's a book sale. I thought, instead of foisting relentless plugging on you, I'd drop background detail on the blog. Now I've done that, here's some relentless plugging...
   Wait a bit. This is not relentless. I have other books available - they are just not in the sale. If I'd plugged those, too, well, hell, yes, THEN I'd be relentless. :0



Saturday 6 December 2014

PREPARING FOR READ TUESDAY: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.




This applies to any event.
   Yes, even to that episode. You know. Toads raining from the heavens. That one.
   READ TUESDAY began in 2013. Founder Chris McMullen wanted to run a sale day for books in December. But he wanted more than that. He wanted people to talk about reading and writing.
   My response?
   Count me in.
   It isn't enough to host a sale on the day. I blogged, and invited people along. Some were in the sale. Others couldn't make it on the day. At least one writer wasn't published at all.
   I put up posters, so the public could hunt down these scribblers. And I learned a great deal about contacting writers. It's the same thing I learned this year, when I contacted writers all over again.


*

So. Scribblers. If you are going to involve yourselves in a writerly event, there are a few things to bear in mind. You may call on others. Others might call on you.
   Run a blog. Published or unpublished, run a blog.
   Or some kind of site.
   Published, run an author page on Amazon.
   In the biography on that Amazon page, list your blog's address - the URL, and mention the blog by name.
   If you publish e-books, put a link to your blog inside the start of your e-books. I mean inside the first 10% of your book, so Amazon's LOOK INSIDE! feature displays your link.
   On your blog, run a dedicated contact page with an e-mail address right there.
   Inside the fabric of your blog, put the same e-mail address under your blog's title. Or near your blog's title, depending on how your service is set up.
   You can throw on an e-mail sign-up widget, a membership form, a comment form, newsletter subscription, a contact gadget...any of those. All of those...
   When I run down a list of authors participating in READ TUESDAY, I want to get people talking about reading and writing. I want to do more than just run a sale, so I have to talk to other writers.
   Writers in the sale must be contactable.
   I'll delve down several layers of the rabbit-hole to reach you. If your Amazon page only lists your Twitter, and it takes that to find your blog, then your contact page, so be it. I'll make the time.
   Dud links don't work for me.
   And, once this year, once last year, suspicious links didn't work for me - my software blocked those.
   Make it easy. This year I had to join some contact service I'd never heard of, just to e-mail several writers. And yes, I'll make the time to join.
   But I want it done and dusted. I don't want to take so long finding you guys that it is done, dusted, and dusty again.
   Last year's slog of allocating five minutes to each author, contacting around 60 writers, was a slog for a reason. This year, once more unto the internet, I allocated another five minutes per scribbler. That's maximum.
   And there were more than 80 to contact this time around.


*

Make yourselves readily contactable as authors. We are in the business of communicating information. That means spending as little time as possible in the throes of e-mail hassle, so there's more time for that writing stuff.

Thursday 4 December 2014

THE YEAR OF FLUID PLANS: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

This year was set out as the year of fluid plans. I had one thing in mind.
   No matter what I do, it won't be a bad year if I don't publish anything.


*

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! But wait a bit, I'm a writer, and...



*

Shut it. That's the plan.



*

I still wrote stuff.

   And I edited material that was not my own.
   I learned things.
   Briefly, I was ill.
   (Nothing serious.)
   Last week I cut my finger.
   Not a bad cut. One of those extremely shallow cuts you don't feel at the time. I have no clue how I cut myself. The item in question must have been super-sharp.
   And it barely scratched me.
   Yet scratch me it did. Later in the day, wear (and its pal, tear) attacked the skin and loosened this fissure. I felt nastiness then. So I looked.
   Ow.
   What the hell?
   Glass did that. Or very sharp metal.
   For a day, this was bad. The cut's location made things awkward. Next day was better. The day after, better still. I went on the hunt for the offending scythe.
   Never found it.
   Probably ended up in the recycling bin.
   Hell, I recycled a record amount of paper and metal in the past week. My daily quota of exercise was satisfied simply by carting the bin to the street.
   I did this in the manner of Herakles, succeeding at an incredible task. Maybe I was more like Mr Phelps, from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.
   This bin will self-destruct when the covert force turns up to empty it.
   Is there a theme to this post? Yes, and it is provided by Lalo Schifrin.


*

Basically, advancedly, simply, complicatedly...
   I decided to go and do stuff. Things happened anyway, and I'd have needed to head off and do stuff even if I hadn't planned on making this year the year of fluid plans.
   Work was done. Words crawled across the page. I made changes. Along the way, I picked up another stray writer. Some of these scribblers stalk me and joke about stalking me.
   I did a blog post about that. No, I'll summarise instead of providing a link. Every click on the internet feels like stalking. Arctic research? I'm stalking ice. Prehistoric sharks? I'm stalking fossilised jaws.
   And these writers joke about stalking purely because stalking is no joke. We laugh it off as we aren't camped outside each other's homes.
   I say living in a mobile house is cheating. Or wise.
   Was I in the mood to be more organised? Yes. I could host an e-mail subscriber list on my blog.
   Except, the handy MailChimp, who keeps your information private according to privacy policy, hands out the name of the street where you live with every e-mail campaign you run.
   This lies in accord with US Federal legislation, and European Union rules, as well as regulations on distant planets.
   There are opt-outs and ways around, and you can take the chance on filling out the form with nothing but - for house number and - for street, but then you risk fines, imprisonment, and your own talk-show.
   Never wanted a talk-show.
   Anyway, some plans are lumpy-porridge-fluid and others are water. The e-mail sign-up created many complicated layers. I swept those layers away.
   What of the future? Who knows. Right now, I am preoccupied with READ TUESDAY 2014. After that, 2015 is going to be packed with that mysterious quality known as the great unknown. At least, I think that's what they call it. It might be named Montague.