Spirit’s Pain Poster
Ok I know I’ve been slacking with my posts here. This will be sorted soon and I’ll be rambling about ‘stuff’ again soon!
Until then here’s the first poster for part two of Tapestry of Fates – Spirit’s Pain.
Part 1 – Spirit’s Destiny is still available through Amazon 🙂
Tapestry of Fates Spirit’s Pain
How To Be A Novelist
Ok, I know that there are plenty of these sort of guides on the net by more experienced and acclaimed writers. But even so, I still thought I’d share my thoughts and advice on what I’ve learnt so far in this game.
1. START NOW
To me, this is the biggest thing that prevents people from becoming writers – actually getting it started. A lot of guides will tell you to divide stories into major plotlines, work out everything beforehand, write exhaustive character profiles etc etc blah blah blah. But the prospect of writing down pages and pages of why your main protagonist has seventeen pairs of socks – three with holes in, can put off even the most determined of scribblers.
My advice? Sack all that shit off, grab a pad of lined paper, or a new Word document, and begin with ‘Chapter 1’. Boom! The story has begun. Everything else, and I mean everything else, can be adjusted, tweaked and rewritten afterwards. After all, as far as I’m aware J.R.R. Tolkein began the opening sentence of The Hobbit ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’ before he even had an idea of what a hobbit was or what it was going to do. He certainly didn’t imagine it would lead to the massive epic The Lord of the Rings.
So if you’ve ever had an inkling to write a novel, stop reading this and start writing now.
2. A REASON TO WRITE
Years ago I read that every story must have a reason to be told. ‘Why does this story need telling?’ Even today I haven’t the faintest of ideas of why my stories need telling! This is an overused bullshit statement used by so-called professionals who are the kind of people you see at modern art galleries trying to interpret the emotional and subtle meaning behind a giant stone cock. There should be only one reason for writing a novel – to entertain readers with an awesome story.
3. DAYDREAM
At school we used to get told off for daydreaming, effectively stifling our imagination. But allowing our minds to wander, to music especially, can help conjur up all kinds of ideas. Even whilst working on your story you will find by allowing your mind to drift into the tale will bring up twists, and pieces of the story that will fit together like a jigsaw.
4. LEARN BASIC GRAMMAR
Nothing will turn off a reader more than poor basic grammar or spelling. Learn proper use of apostrophes, nouns etc, and show the world you mean business. As from point 1. you don’t need to have everything perfect straight away. Don’t cut short the flow of writing just to correct a mistake than can be fixed later on. Avoid using too many adverbs too.
5. BEING AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRO
So you might have got a ‘D-‘ in GCSE English. Does this mean you can’t write a novel? Of course not. There’s no truer saying than ‘We all have a good book inside of us all.‘ Anyone can write a book. All it takes is the will to do it, and the persistance to carry it through. Obviously a background in English will help, but it’s not essential.
6. GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND
So you want to write the next big war epic. But haven’t the foggiest about war? Google it. These days there’s no excuse for not researching the ingredients to your genre. Just don’t go into too much detail. Most people will be bored to tears about five paragraphs of the inner workings of an AK-47.
7. KEEPING UP WITH CURRENT TRENDS
Twighlight left in it’s wake, a hundred similar new age teen vampire novels. Now they may sell a few copies to fans desperate for more of the same. but will they be remembered? Probably not. Don’t be afraid to break the mold and go for something original. J K Rowling was told her book probably wouldn’t sell too many copies seeing as it was a children’s fantasy novel. How wrong that person was!
8. WRITE FOR YOURSELF
Don’t write a book that you think will please others. Write it for yourself, as though it’s a book you would like to read. You’ll be more emotionally attached to the story, and if you like it, then surely other readers will too.
9. DON’T WRITE FOR MONEY
We’d all love to be bestselling authors. Anyone who disagrees is a liar. But writing solely for money is a bad idea. Being a novelist is one of the hardest ways to earn a living. If you just want to earn money, invest or learn to become an entrepreneur. You’ll have an easier time 😀
10. WRITE AT YOUR OWN PACE
There’s no rules to writing, so feeling you need to bust out a four hundred epic every month to be considered a serious author is just foolish. Got at what speed you feel comfortable with. Stories grow in your mind over time, allowing you to garnish your characters with personality and believability.
11. TAKE CARE WITH YOUR MAIN CHARACTER
Most of the time the story will unfold through this character’s eyes and will be the one we sympathise with the most. We see and learn whatever they do. Whatever you do, never make them impervious to everything the tale throws at them. Every knight needs a chink in their armour, whether physical or emotional. Even Superman was hurt by kryptonite.
12. NEVER GIVE UP
Ever. Ever. I guess this goes without saying. No matter how much the tale frustrates you, no matter how much you think it sucks, keep on going. Usually when things get tough, it means you’re almost ready to break through and reach your goal. Keep on going, even if it’s just word by word.
Well that’s my current pearls of wisdom thrown out there for anyone who cares. 😀 It’s taken me over a decade to get to this point and be able to share some of my knowledge, and I’m no expert in the field. Even so, I’ll write soon about my experiences of publishing once a book is finished.
Bye for now! 😀
A Hungarian Wedding
Sat in the back of a packed car at 2am I glare out of the window at the deserted village streets as they solemnly fly by. Our vehicle frantically tails another car heading towards ‘the club’, or so I’m told. What started as a lively evening wedding party has somehow turned into a frantic chase to retrieve a stolen bride.
This might sound like something straight out of a Liam Neeson movie, but it is in fact a Hungarian tradition in where the said bride is rushed away from the ceremony, prompting the men to get her back. For what reason, or how this tradition came about I’ve no idea. All I know is that the car I’m turns a corner and arrives at something I can only describe as Creamfields. A few thousand people surround a few festival tents from which various booming sounds echo from. We quickly enter the tent, with the groom leading the way and find the bride amid a resounding show of applause. Even a man with a broadcast size camcorder films the reunion. I’m clapping at the merryment, despite being slightly confused as to why this has actually happened.
Last year me and Wendy were lucky enough to be invited by our friends Sarah and Krisztian to stay with Krisztian’s family in Hungary. As I’ve said in my previous post, until then I’d had little desire or need to visit any of the Eastern Bloc countries (except for a holiday in Bulgaria) and since then I feel now I’ve been quite ignorant and naive of such places. Hungary is a beautiful, lush country, stepped in old ways, and I can thoroughly reccomend visiting, especially its capital Budapest and gigantic lake (biggest in Europe) Balaton.
Whilst we were there last November, we were invited to attend the wedding of Krisztian’s sister Zsuzsi and her fiance Gabor last month. Their family are one of the most friendliest and most welcoming that I’ve ever known and I’m grateful for not only their generosity and hospitality, but for the opportunity to see a proper traditional European wedding.
From the stunning outdoor church, to the lengthy and intriguing ceremony. From partying until 5am, to waking up about four hours to carry on another full day with the festivities. From taking part in the money dance with the bride, to continuing to dance the night away to a traditional Hungarian band (beats the usual medley of Whigfield’s Saturday Night and the Time Warp).
So to all the Somogyi family, and the awesome bride and groom Zsuzsi and Gabor, thanks for a fabulous time, and can’t wait to see you all again. 🙂
You do your country proud.
Shiny Books and Anti-Piracy Insurance
Well last week, the time finally arrived! The long awaited delivery of the paperback versions of Spirit’s Destiny finally arrived, only a meagre six months late! It would be fair to say I had my doubts if they would ever turn up! Anyone who has had dealings with large corporations in foreign speaking countries will no doubt understand the difficulties in getting clear cut answers to important questions such as, ‘When?’ and ‘How much?’
Replies to both questions in the past few months have been vague, grossely incorrect or downright misleading. Having played this game a few years earlier with our children’s book ‘Island of Ice’, we thought we’d got this sussed out, but in our anticipation of the same problems cropping up, we failed to see the huge wet kipper of new problems we got slapped in the face with. And each company involved in the production and transportation of these books tried everything they could in vain to squeeze every last quid from us. From replies from the printers such as – ‘What you mean you expected the huge ‘transportation bill’ (£250+) to be for the entire journey to England? That’s just what we charge to take the cargo to the docks.’ To the Haulage company scoffing ‘Yea, that European number you gave us – we didn’t get chance to put it through on Friday. As it’s Monday we’re charging you three days storage charge. That’s £100 on top of the £500 fee please.’
We received a breakdown from the haulage company for why they were pulling our pants down so violently only to get an email with around a dozen abbreviated items. A bit of digging indicted some of these were for anti-piracy insurance, and one ridiculous £80 charge for ‘The passing of documents’.
Anyway after flipping every last copper we had their way, the books finally arrived and I’m happy to say they’re all perfect. Now they are about to be put on Amazon, and sent to a few reviewers worldwide.
Also bookmarks are to be made up now.
So happy things have finally been sorted.
Back of the bookmark 🙂
New Spirit’s Destiny Review
As I’ve previously mentioned before, Authonomy.com is a site where you can upload your book to receive critique,, meet fellow aspiring authors and read the work of others – all for free. All seems to add up to a great deal on signing up, but the second you announce you’re a part of the community, floods of requests from people asking you read their book instantly flood your mailbox. It can be quite overwhelming as you realise the selfishness of humanity has no limits.
I made a vague promise to read some of these books and actually did look at a couple. But then a message came in from one lady giving critique on my own work, without any initial request to read her own. After the barrage of ‘Read my book! Read my book! You’ll love it! You’ll love it!‘ I was quite touched and humbled that someone had taken the time to read my own stuff first.
Thus I was more inclined to read her work straight away. And it was a good decision! Her work has literally blown me away and I continue to plough through the mammoth (in both size and quality) novel she had penned.
Since then small exchanges of work has taken place, including me asking her opinion on Spirit’s Destiny. Not only did she give me her opinion, but she wrote a full review for her blog, even asking me a few questions for it!
So bless you Sam! Joining Authonomy was one of my better decisions this year! 🙂
Make sure you follow this girl too, for from the quality of her own work I can see her name in bright lights very soon!
🙂
Book 2 Cover Background
The start of all the new work.
New kids book stuff coming soon too 🙂
The Spirit Child
Social Evolution
Long ago, when I was a nipper living in Leeds, the only way I knew how to contact my best friend Stephen was to run across the road and knock on his door and ask if he was coming out to play. It seemed so simple looking back now.
I wonder how different my life would have been if I had grown up with the blanket of social networking that dominates today’s youth. In many ways I’m grateful that my childhood was unaware of such inventions. The practice of door knocking was as common as climbing trees and going out on ‘Goonies’ style adventures.
These days though social networks appear to put huge amounts of pressure on today’s youth. Whilst the inevitable onslaught of cyber bullying is plain to see, I don’t think people like Mr Zuckerberg quite forsaw the impact social networking would have on our lives – positve and negative. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of sites like Facebook; they’ve allowed me to contact friends I’ve not heard from in over twenty years, and allow me to get closer to family members who I can’t see often enough. One example of this is how I got to know my amazing late Uncle Mark. Although he passed away sadly last year, I was grateful that I got to speak to him more through Facebook in one year than I had during my entire life.
But there is also the bad side to social networking. People can see where you are, where you’ve been, and what you’ve been doing. If you’re a slave to the social network, then your entire life is up for scrutiny. And there in lies the rub. Just one badly worded status, one picture with a certain person, one ‘check-in’ at the wrong place, can spell trouble in your circles. And this follows on to the fabled act of ‘unfriending’ which can cause wars amongst groups. Let’s face it, deleting a person from your friend’s list speaks volumes, whatever the reasons. It silently tells somebody that you no longer care about them enough to have them in your life. Of course this may not be the case at all, but human nature is one that usually imagines the worst. And depending on the individual’s disposition, they can either become hurt, resentful, unmoved, or just plain pissed off.
Personally I don’t see why anyone would feel they have to delete anyone without a proper reason. ‘Cleaning up’ your friends list is not a valid reason. You can easily hide people without causing anamosity so why cause drama?
If you don’t speak to these people anymore, so what? I have plenty of friends I don’t speak to much, that’s the way life is. Friends come and go, they drift in and out, but we never forget them. If a person speaks to me after years and years I’ll still be their friend, no matter what. I don’t see why we need to devote huge amounts of time to message everyone we know just to prove that we’re still mates. It’s like juggling with a few hundreds balls, it’s just not possible.
Having a considerate approach to social media begins to make friendships almost business like. Watching somebody constantly put negative statuses about their life puts a label on them. They may be just using social media to vocalise some stress but if that’s all you see of that person, you can’t help but get a solid opinion of that person.
I can’t help but wonder how social media will evolve in the future, shaping our friendships and lives. We complain that the government wants too much information about us, but we will freely give it away more and more through social networking. Our peers will also know everything about us, down what cereal we ate for breakfast (if you don’t announce that already). Reviews of individuals could become the norm – it already happens in Twitter – ‘Add this person, they’re really funny!’
For now though, I’m grateful that Facebook came about when I was in my twenties – probably the best age for it.
I’m also grateful that I can check up on my old pal Stephen, living happily in Australia. Even though we rarely speak, I still consider him one of my longest serving best friends, and one day I’ll go knock on his door and see if he’s coming out to play (at the pub).
‘Savour your final seconds of life!’
Once again it’s that time of the month. No, not that! 😛
The seventh part of my free monthly novel Fallen Tears is available and can be downloaded here.
Thanks 🙂
The First Shmup Novel
Ok I’ll admit, my beloved Tapestry of Fates does have elements in it which pay a slight resemblance to a movie about a time-travelling robot sent to kill the mother of a certain John Conner. Whilst I see the similarities, I can honestly say The Terminator was not the main influence, nor was any movie for that matter.
As a youngster I was besotted with my beloved Sega Megadrive; and it probably paved the road to my future imagination. Games like Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, Landstalker, Splatterhouse 2 and many others have helped build the internal foundations of my mind.
One game particularly has stood out more than others. Already a huge fan of ‘shoot em ups’ or ‘shmups’, I remember being blown away by the game ‘Thunderforce IV’ (or ‘Lightening Force as it’s sometimes known). It’s cool slick graphics, blazing speed, mass of weapons, stupendously big bosses and fantastic music and sound effects so bassy that you could feel them at the back of your head all added to a game which still stands as legendary (I’m not a huge fan of more recent ‘bullet-hell’ shmups, although I adore Ikaruga).
One part of it though captured my imagination more than others. After an epic battle with the final boss, and the hero jets away in his battered craft, we are shown an epilogue that included an image of the pilot hugging his beloved. That single image managed to drive home a piece of humanity and emotion into the game, making you believe that after ten levels of sheer hell, the pilot was so grateful to be back. I wish the game makers – Technosoft had included some sort of storyline surrounding this couple, as it would have charged the game even more.
It’s this reason why Tapestry of Fates exists.
It is why a lone student girl becomes the only human being able to pilot a legendary fighter ship against an enemy who’s spent the past five thousand building up enough forces to decimate her.
It is why this ship sits on almost every piece of artwork I’ve made on the books.
I’ve tried to do what I wanted Technosoft to do – make a fully fledged story based around a single person sent against hordes and legions of enemies, and be expected to win.
Maybe I’m wrong but I think I can honestly say that Ella Bland is the first Shmup Novel Protagonist.
A homage to the above picture I did for uni can be viewed here.
Forgiveness
Today I somehow got into a conversation about forgiveness, and at where we can humbly say, ‘you cannot forgive what they did’.
I remembered this clip from a documentary I saw a while back. The man on trial is Gary Ridgway, also known as The Green River killer. After being convicted of raping and killing 49 woman and confessing to double that, he was forced to sit in court whilst family members of the victims got to voice their opinion to him. Naturally most scorned and mocked him, and Ridgeway sat emotionless. Until this happens….
Hate, and anger towards people who have wronged us end up doing more harm to us than them. We can become wrapped up in venomous thoughts, causing us to forget the good things in life. Before you know it our very existance is tarnished by the bitter views and thoughts towards our so called enemies.
If this brave, courageous and inspirational man can forgive the killer who brutally slayed his daughter, then maybe we should redefine our terms of what is forgivable.
Life is too short.
Let things go, and be happy.
‘Today, I will tear the name of Dancescu from this world!’
The sixth part (Chapter 3) of my monthly gothic vampire tale is now uploaded and can be downloaded here.
Thanks for reading 🙂
Fallen Tears Update
“Half 2” I solemnly announce when quizzed about what time I got to sleep by my friend each morning as I make my way to work.
Depsite my friend’s unnapproving sighs and the fact I get sleepy on my lunch break, I’ve a big reason to be needing to work so much at the moment. Not only is my fabulous girlfriend Wendy training her bawatty off for her competitions (well done on winning the last one a few days ago hun!) but I’m doing my best to market Sprit’s Destiny, help other people with their work, and keep on top of all other commitments.
I recently joined a website called ‘Authonomy’ owned by Harper Collins. Basically it’s a bit like Facebook for novelists where people can comment on each other’s work, offer advice and criticism, and rate their novels in the hope that their book will be pushed up high in order to get noticed by Harper Collins themselves.
Now since I’m unable to put Spirit’s Destiny on there (why would I put a book I’m selling on there for all to read to free?) I have stuck my monthly blog novel Fallen Tears on there. Despite simply being an experiment and an excersise, and acknologing some of the legendary work on Authonomy, I was quite surprised to find a number of folk giving it a thumbs up. So now I’m pushing a bit more energy behind this little tale. Who thought vampire novels were still in demand eh? Next chapter this weekend!
Also if you do decide to take a look on Authonomy I recommend reading a book called Chaeli: Scion of Blood by Kara Thrace. It’s a great epic fantasy that will surely take the talented writer on her way to stardom. 🙂
Feckday and Sour Apples
Stories, illustrations, presentations, animations, marketing, meetings, blogs, and reviews – my days and evenings are a non-stop, relentless feast of work. Fitting in statuses, tweets, brews and the odd JD and coke, is becoming increasingly harder and harder. I don’t mind the work of course; I love knowing that I’m doing all I can to get closer to my goals. But sometimes it all feels a tiny bit muddled and unorganised. So I’ve set up a timetable of what I need to do on what evening and lunchtime, freeing up more time (especially alongside a Pomodora timer!)
I’ve also invented a new day to catch up on certain projects. It shall be called Feckday, as in ‘Feck it!’ I would call it F***day but that brings up all sorts on connotations and wouldn’t go down well in schools. It will come straight after Sunday. I’ve already dispatched several calenders with Feckday on to the government. I except a ‘thumbs up’ from the PM any day now.
Also, with all this work, I’ve come to accept my ten year old Apple Mac is now obsolete. It refuses to run any newer program such as After Effects and has now become just a big blocky ipod. So I’ve ordered a newer super fast customised pc. Sorry Apple, but you have annoyed me one too many times. If it’s not the fact my mini Apple speakers have a different jack to all others, meaning they will only work on a mac, or that they rename existing technology and imply to the world they created it (as in video calling becoming FaceTime), but now I’ve only just dicovered that all my hundreds and hundreds of tracks purchased on iTunes will not play on anything but an Apple product, meaning I will have to buy another ipod or face burning all my tracks to disc and reimporting them. Sorry but after spending a fortune on music I refuse to buy a ton of disks too.
Sorry Apple, you’ve lost a customer.
‘Their souls drip with the blood of gods!’ Voracity cried. ‘I must have it!’
Finally got the second chapter (5th installment) of my free novel Fallen Tears uploaded.
At last the main protagonists meet the antagonists for the first time, including the ravenous child Voracity.
The chapter can be downloaded here.
Thanks for reading 🙂
Recent Developments
They always say you should take the rough with the smooth, look on the bright side of every situation, and search for the silver lining upon each stormy cloud.
I guess 2012 hasn’t started the way I had hoped, and I find myself once again travelling to the leafy, tree laden crematorium of Lawnswood in Leeds this week to say goodbye to yet another family member.
Whilst these are sad times for my family, and my thoughts are with them all, my own endeavours seem to going in the opposite way.
Firstly I’ll repeat my other posts that the first book of Tapestry of Fates – Spirit’s Destiny has gone on sale. Only the kindle version mind; the physical copies will on sale soon.
Here’s the link.
Also the first unbiased review of the book was put online by sfbook.com Thankfully I can now see I’m not wasting my time or fooling myself with this writing game. Thanks for Antony for the review.
Lastly the Tapestry of Fates website is up and running. A few more tweaks are needed and the site needs updating for when the physical book is released. Here’s the website.
So whilst things are a bit glum this week, and I’ll be putting all my energy towards helping my family, at least I can feel some kind of relief that a few things are sorted on the writing front and can be left for a short while.
On saying this I’ll still have the second chapter of Fallen Tears uploaded this week.
First Book Review
Big thanks to Antony at http://www.sfbook.com for agreeing to review Spirit’s Destiny. 🙂
It’s nice to see an unbiased opinion on my work, and has been a great relief to myself that I’m not kidding myself about becoming an author.
The review can be read here.
My Novel Finally On Sale
Finally after seven years of hard slogging, my book has finally gone on sale. 
Although it is only in Kindle format atm.
The paperback copies will be on sale hopefully withina month. Their shipping has been delayed for Chinese New Year.
The End Of Resolution
The emergence of the New Year springs forth a flurry of resolutions on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Lose weight, earn more money, get a new job – whatever you can think of there’s a vow upon quite a number of statuses. Now up until this year most of my resolutions revolved around getting my books finished, or driving. Neither of which materialised.
Now over the past twelve months I’ve learnt from numerous sources that New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Most people drop them pretty much in the first month of declaring them (I say most, so I don’t get an ear-bashing off anyone keeping up theirs!) This is because we’ve just spent the latter part of December building up bad, comfortable habits that usually entail drinking lots of booze and munching on far too much food. Then suddenly we tell ourselves we have to break these habits and live a more stricter life. No wonder we all get the Winter blues.
Now I simply stick to the goals in my little book (see Book of Goals post) which I religiously read back to myself everyday. Not one New Year’s resolution was added into it. And voila, no Winter doldrums! I could attribute this argument to last January’s downer, although my first traumatic viewing of Wall-E could also be a factor here.
So my plan from now on is to religiously adhere to goals I set myself over the course of the year, at times that suit me, not when society dictates.
I’ll keep this blog posted on how this works out ha!
Ok I have told one lie, my book has finally been published and Tapestry of Fates: Spirit’s Destiny will be put on Amazon in the next few days.
Here are some more website pictures for it.
Eclipse -3
Fallen Tears – Chapter 1
Now the introduction is complete with the three prologues, it’s time to up the pace with the first chapter and introduce to fully grown Dancescu twins.
The first chapter can be downloaded from the page at the top, or here.
Thanks to all have read the tale so far.
P.S. Please bear in mind this is a very hastily written story (a chapter a month after all) and as of which the grammar may not be completely perfect. Thanks 🙂
The Art of Digitised Suicide
It’s amazing what suicide can do for somebody’s career. You release a few mediocre albums containing a couple of half decent tracks (in my opinion anyway) and then gorily end it all at your peak, forever cementing your name in the legendary rock halls of fame. Without the shotgun, or the shock of a world, and you may just fade off into obscurity, never to be heard from again.
This week I’ve spent my working hours in Manchester on a training course for Adobe After Effects. Previously we have done all our adverts (the company I work for sell advertising space on a host of LCD screens across the world) in Flash, and previous to that they were done in Macromedia Director. Looking back at some of those old adverts it’s quite remarkable how they’ve evolved into how they appear nowadays.
During the week’s course we had to undertake an exercise in making a man look like he was actually blowing his own brains out. Now the footage provided was of a young bloke (I’ll call him Kurt) pretending to shoot some sort of automatic rifle at his head then falling over. We learned to digitally remove his head at the correct point, add gun flashes, blood splashes with accompanying sound effects of gun blasts and squelching sounds.
Strangely, the exercise proved to be quite worthwhile, and even though it won’t propel me into the aforementioned hall of fame, it’s helped me to get an idea of how this package works, and further my own skills.
The true test of this will be when we have to create actual adverts using it, as well as the yearly sales presentation which will be due in January.
Speaking of which, I need to come up with some ideas. I’ll try sandwich this in somewhere between my own work.
Now back kick starting the run up to Christmas 😀
Island of Ice and the Snowmites
Ok time for a shameful self plug!
This is the book that kick-started my progression into Merlin Corp. Having done a few pieces of artwork for the writer I was offered to illustrate a range of books for young children starting with this one Island of Ice and the Snowmites.
Having already been illustrated in the 80’s and 90’s I had quite a large body of artwork to go off. The problem being that the work was very old fashioned. I did my best to inject a bit more colour and life into the book starting with the picture below of the character Zandeer floating through the air.
The book was a great learning curve into how publishing worked. The paperback version, sold by a company in America is more expensive and inferior to the glossy, heavy and beautiful hardback version we created ourselves. It also served a lesson as to how shipping, distribution and marketing were to be handled.
For more information and reviews, the book can be seen at Amazon here.
Fallen Tears – Prologue 3
The third part of my monthly novel is now free to download.
Either from the link at the top at the top of the page or here.
Thank you for reading. 🙂
One Bank, One Shop, One Pub
Standing in an eerie crypt, surrounded by vast, ornate catacombs I peer at what appears to be a larger than life-size bronze angel draping a huge Hungarian flag over the beautifully carved tomb of what I assume to be a bishop or priest. I guess he must have been a man of some importance; there’s his death mask in a glass case, and a photo of the previous pope in the adjoining room.
There’s a bit of information next to the tomb but it’s all in Hungarian.
I call over my mate Krisztian. ‘Hey can you translate this for me pal?’
He wanders over and peers at the text before replying in his usual thick accent. ‘Ah it just history and shit.’
Before I met Wendy I had no desire of ever going to Hungary, but then again my knowledge of the country was also extremely vague. I can now say that it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and the Hungarian people are rightfully proud of their homeland. Not to mention being proud of their heritage, their food, and their drink.
The people we met were friendly and welcoming, especially in Krisztian’s home town of Csatka – a village of around 250-300 people miles from anywhere. Thankfully they sorted out their priorities and made sure they had a drinking establishment, where we spent several nights.
I won’t mumble and bumble on about all the stunning places we went, as I know it can make for tedious reading, suffice to say Hungary, (and its capital Budapest) is a memorable place and I look forward to visiting again next year.
Next time I’ll make sure I go equipped knowing more Hungarian words than just ‘thank-you’, ‘beer’, ‘and ‘no palinka’.
Hoopsfix
Well done to my good friends Danny Boswell and Will Eades for creating the animated intro for the videos for British Basketball website Hoopsfix. Both ultra talented designers who certainly have amazing careers ahead of them.
You can check out the Hoopsfix Youtube Channel here.
DB Design can also be seen here.
kennydreadful 