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I Don't Beleive It

Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing. It's vital for getting you through books and movies ... until you stop to think about it.   I've just watched all three Terminator movies one after the other, and in all three we see scenes of robot planes and tanks, their searchlights blazing, looking for humans to eradicate. Why? I don't mean why look for humans to eradicate, although it is a valid question. If the machines really were so smart, they would just bide their time, and let humans eradicate themselves. I mean why do they have the searchlights on? Arnie and his terminating chums don't need light because they're fitted with infra-red vision and can see in the dark. Presumably the robot planes and tanks are built on similar principles, so why do they need searchlights at all?   In the original Star Wars a sinister Peter Cushing waits for the moon where the rebel base is located to appear from behind the planet so he can destroy it. Simpleton. Why didn't he just destroy the planet like he did the one earlier in the movie? It would either blow the moon away, or at the very least expose it so Cushing and his evil cohorts could pot it with a second shot.   Bond is another series (both books and movies) where suspension of disbelief is stretched to the limit. In almost every book and film, (not just Bond but the whole kit can caboodle of detective and secret agent fiction, including mine) the villain takes time out to explain his machinations to our hero. But would he?   "Aren't you going to tell me what this is all about?"   Villain checks his watch. "Love to, old man, but Corrie's on in five minutes. ‘Bye." BANG! Exit Bond.   And as secret agents go, he's not the best in the world is he? His scoring rate is better than Wayne Rooney's and wherever he goes, everyone knows him, right down to the hotel barmen who can always mix the perfect vodka and dry martini.   Sometimes we accept the thinnest rationale in order to enjoy our books and movies. Take Superman, for example.   I'm not arguing with his super-strength, his X-ray vision or his ability to fly. I can work with those. It's his civvy disguise that gets me. No one knows that Superman and Clark Kent are one and same, do they? Why don't they? All he does is cover up his ridiculous jump suit with an off-the-peg job from Burtons and puts on a pair of glasses. Having done that there's no way anyone will recognise him as Superman, is there? At least, not until he takes his glasses off to polish them, they won't.   And another thing. We all know that Superman is impervious to blades, bullets and bombs, and even a nuclear explosion in the second movie did nothing but shake him up a bit. He still came back with not a hair out of place. So how come a Gillette Mach 3 can shift his beard? Is the blade polished with a dash of kryptonite?   Getting back to the Terminator crowd, Skynet, the self-aware computer at the heart of the problem, is a complete muppet. Instead of trying to kill Sarah Connor in the first movie, what it should have done was have wait until Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn were getting it on then have Arnie knock on the motel door and shout, "cleaners, luv, can I do you now?"   Why not? It always happens to me.

I Give Up

I tried, but somehow, I just can't get it. I never could.   I dabbled with non-fiction and I thank those of you who commented on the disability living piece, but writing this stuff is just not me.   I always say that by the time I get a few hundred words in, I can feel a novel coming on. Well, it's happened again and chapter one of Siren is up on Arena Book Chapters.   You'll notice a lot from it which you're probably already aware of. A man recuperating in Tenerife after a heart attack. Write from life, that's what I always say. There's something else in there, too. A girl turning up in a dream and telling him she'd like to see him again. Check out my blog and the post entitled <a href="../blogs.php?action=show_member_post&ownerID=11&post_id=7467">In Dreams.</a>   It's at this point that the novel and real life part company. I didn't have a heart attack before I flew off to the Canaries and the former colleague mentioned in my blog is still very much alive.   The first 1,000 words are up on Arena, and they are raw, with only minor edits, hot off the word processor. They took less than 4 hours to get down. I welcome all feedback.

Readers Required

Hello playmates.   I haven't just been sitting here nursing my tricky ticker for the last week or five. I've been sitting here nursing my tricky ticker and moaning about it. Multi-tasking, as usual.   I've also been pottering on the word processor, putting my recent experiences to good fictitious use, and I now have the first 10,000+ words of Siren complete, so I need readers.   The first chapter of this piece appeared on Arena a couple of weeks back. This develops the story a little further. It is hot off the word processor. Precious little editing has been done, and there is no "bulking out" of the tale, no heavy descriptive.   It's the usual crack. If you would like to read and comment, please email me at <a href="mailto:d.w.rob@hotmail.co.uk">d.w.rob@hotmail.co.uk</a>, or send me a message via this site (but don't forget to include your email address) and I will send the piece to you as an rtf attachment.   It is a bog-standard Robinson work, a psycho thriller which involves a haunted individual (overview below) but please be advised that this work follows adult themes and uses appropriate terminology where ... er ... appropriate. As usual, it is politically incorrect, because I am.   If you wish to read, I ask only one thing of you; please be frank in your critique.  No gags about being George or Harry, please. You lot don't get out of bed early enough to pull those jokes. I am happy to take constructive criticism from a reader's point of view, and as ever, this is a favour for a favour. If you need anything read and reviewed by return, I will be happy to oblige.   Facebook friends, if you're following this, you don't have to a Writelink member to read. I'll be happy to send a copy to you, too.   Overview   After a mild heart attack, freelance photographer, Gil Fieldhouse is recuperating with his wife on the island of Tenerife, when he becomes haunted by the apparition of a young model with whom he had an affair.

Changes

Morning all, and I hope that wherever you are, mother nature shows her support by varying the weather to suit your mood. It's raining like hell here. A big change from yesterday's sweltering heat, but I'm fine with it because it matches the big changes in my approach to life, writing, etc.   I'll detail the changes in a moment but let me update you on my health problems.   Yesterday, I was at the hospital to see the general surgery bods and surprise, surprise there is no trace of arthritis in my hips (only my knees, which we knew about) and there is no trace of a hernia. So what's causing the pain? No one knows but they've thrown me back to cardiac team on the basis that it only began after the angiogram, ergo that must have triggered it so they can put it right.   In the meantime I'm up a certain creek without any means of forward propulsion. I cannot walk far, I cannot climb at all, and the pain is distracting, all of which means I cannot work until other work is found that may suit my increasing level of disability. Unkind souls always said I was a trucking nutter (I think that's what they said, but with my iffy hearing, you never know) when I was comparatively fit. Sat behind the wheel of a 30-40 tonne truck while less than 50% fit would see me as some kind of doomsday machine.   The hardest part of all this has been coming to terms with it. I can deal with the pain, but it's much harder dealing with the boredom and financial problems that not working brings. So what is need is a change of approach and attitude.   The first step in this change is dropping the Timehopper serial. It was never what you call particularly popular, and it was hard work for very little return. The episodes are all still on my hard drive, and I may tackle it again one day in the future, but it will probably be as a novel.   Next is concentration on Spookies, my fictional team of ghost hunters, which I mentioned last week. Writing novels, of course, is a long and arduous process, so in between times, I'm working on a raft of e-books, all non-fiction, dealing with many and varied subjects (details to follow after the World Cup, provided I have actually written some of them by then.)   Finally I'm looking at affiliate work (bloglancing as it's known in these parts) in one or two "better" areas, to which end I'll be setting up a couple of websites and blogs (details to follow as and when I'm over the shock of Rio Ferdinand's knee and the comparison between what he'll get for his to what I got for mine.)   All this does not mean that I have lost my thermonuclear sense of humour or my apocalyptic cynicism, so the worst of my blog posts will still appear here on occasion.   Stay tuned, the worst is yet to come.

Reading a Different Kind of Soap Powder

I have a low threshold of boredom. I've tried sitting there, staring at the wall, doing nothing, but it's not really my thing, and without football there's no point even switching the telly on.   My biggest weapon in the battle against boredom is reading, but even here, choices are limited. I don't read celebrity cookbooks because I don't need to learn how to churn out egg and chips. I won't read celebrity biographies because I'm twice or three times their age and they haven't done half what I have. I'm fed up of religious or archaeological thrillers, sick to the back teeth of forensic procedurals, and I've seen enough vampires and werewolves to last me another two lifetimes. Even Harry Potter was beginning to get on my wick by the time I trawled through the Deathly Hallows.   The publishers argue that this is the kind of thing the reader wants.   They didn't ask this reader. If I never see another journey through the Vatican library or fall madly in love with a goody-goody bloodsucker, it'll be too soon.   To me, walking through a bookshop these days is like walking down the soap powder aisle in a supermarket. A hundred different brands, plenty of gaily coloured fronts, all claiming that the contents will do this or that or the other, but essentially it's all the same stuff inside.   I've kicked around a number of writing communities on the web and in amongst the trite trash, there are some original gems. So why do I never see them on the shelves in Waterstones or WHSmiths? Because they can't find a way into the system. Publishers, by and large, don't want to take risks. They need a cert, not a rank outsider.   Now and then the door creaks open an inch or two, an author jams his foot in it and shoulders his way in. He's made it, he's published, and if his ideas are original, i.e. the book becomes a bestseller, the world and my wife will jump on the bandwagon, knocking out clone after clone after clone.   I sense change coming. The web offers quick and easy routes to publication for any author. All right, so we'll be inundated with a lot of badly written crap, but what the hell, I can find that on the shelves of any bookstore. What I can't find are the diamonds, those boredom battlers that I can enjoy on the train, on the plane or in the doctor's waiting room.   I see the web as an opportunity to find those sparklers. They may take some ferreting out, but they'll be there: a different kind of soap powder; one that leaves a lasting shine.   If you can't be troubled to read this, you can always listen to it, <a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/156644-reading-different-soap-powder">here</a>

50 Stories for Pakistan

I put this up on the forums and I make no apolgoy for repeating the call here. Once upon a time there was an earthquake in Haiti. On the other side of the world, in Denmark, a writer named Greg McQueen saw the devastation and decided he would do something about it. He put a call out for writers from all corners of the globe asking for 100 short stories to put into an anthology. The result was 100 Stories for Haiti, a book that came from conception to publication in a matter of two months and all proceeds go to the Red Cross to help the people of Haiti. Last night Greg saw more pictures of devastation, this time from Pakistan and now he’s put out another call. He wants 50 stories and he wants it published in a month. You may think he’s crazy, but I’ve seen him do this before. So come on all you writers. Now’s your chance to do something for nothing … but it’s not for nothing. Flex your typing fingers and get writing and let’s see 50 stories for Pakistan working to ease the suffering of people less fortunate than ourselves. Here’s the form. 50 Stories For Pakistan Max 500 words Any subject, any genre but no death, violence or destruction. Paste your story into the body of an email. He also needs your name, address and contact number. You can add a short bio if you wish, but the contact details are vital. Send your email to: storiesforpakistan@gmail.com Want to hear Greg spelling it out.  Then go here: <a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/176966-stories-for-pakistan-let-s-go">http://audioboo.fm/boos/176966-stories-for-pakistan-let-s-go</a>

Writelinkers Xmas Ezine is OUT!!!!

Good morning Writelink and the world. It's 6:15 here in snowy Oldham and the temperature hovers somewhere round ankle level. It so cold that my plans for setting fire to the garden shed have been abandoned. The flame from the blowlamp froze as I lit it.   I'm waffling again. This post has nothing to do with garden sheds, blowlamps or the weather.   It's all about Writelinkers the Christmas magazine that was written by you, the members (well most of it anyway) and cobbled together by us, Maureen Vincent-Northam, Trevor Belshaw and yours truly, with a blessing and seasonal message from Sue.   It's where we've been hiding for the last 3-4 weeks.   Writelinkers comes at a special price. Free (including VAT). The news will be disseminated (they can't touch you for it) in the December 1st newsletter, which reaches a far wider membership than we do on site, so this is advance notification.   Writelinkers is packed with the same nonsense as any other magazine at this time of year: poetry, short stories, non-fiction, interviews with the big stars like Flatcap, Tracy and Marit, and a few plugs for books (come on we did this for nothing, you know.) Two special pages are dedicated to charity anthologies, Greg McQueen's 50 Stories for Pakistan and Marit Meredith's Shamblelurkling in aid of autistic children.   There are (alleged) jokes, humorous verse, pictures kicking about here and there, and even a cartoon.   We opted for a change this year, and used Issuu to put the magazine out. You can read it online, or download the pdf version. But spread the word. Writelink survives only because of the membership and we constantly need to increase that membership.   On behalf of the editors, I'd like to say a big thank you to all those who submitted work for the magazine. We couldn't use everything, so if your submission didn't appear, please don't be disappointed.   You can read or download your copy at <a href="http://issuu.com/davidwrobinson/docs/writelinkers">http://issuu.com/davidwrobinson/docs/writelinkers</a>   Go there. Get it. Enjoy.

Flashing on a Friday

From a wintry Oldham I bid you all an icy good morning.   You all know that I'm a serial blogger. I love blogging. Whether I have my writer's hat on or Flatcap's flat cap, I love venting my irritation on the www at large. You also know I'm a book writer. I don't fiddle with short pieces. By the time I get 500 words in, I can usually see a novel or a full-length NF work.   That still holds. I'm currently challenged to turn out 10 novellas and about the same number of short books by the spring. It's hard work. Two weeks into the plan, I'm 20,000 words into the first novella, not a singe word written of the NF books, and I'll be hard pressed to make it. Fortunately, it's not a formal deadline, so if I miss it, the dog gets a kick up the arse and that's it.   But I need a break from the slog now and then, and last week, thanks to our old mate Trevor Belshaw, I stumbled on fridayflash. Basically, you write a short story, no longer than 1,000 words, post it on your blog, then tweet it on twitter with #fridayflash in front of the url. That same url needs shortening, too. I'll tell you where to do that in a minute.   I haven't written short stories for about 10 years, so it was a refreshing change to have a dabble at them today and last Friday. Obviously the stories were written and polished in advance of the day and simply posted to my blog.   Now here's the interesting bit. I took a total of 14 comments on the tale last Friday (2 of them were mine) and that's on a blog that normally gets one or two comments. I wait to see what happens this week, but the tale went up at 7 a.m. and it's already had two comments, one of which, from my dear friend, Mo, was very encouraging. The blog has also picked up two subscribers since I posted these.   You can judge for yourself by going to: <a href="http://dwrob96.wordpress.com/">http://dwrob96.wordpress.com/</a> The posts are preceded with the heading Friday Flash. Today's is entitled Where's Kate and last weeks is Tis The Season to be Jolly.   As far as I can judge, you can use your Writelink blog for them. I post them on Wordpress because it's acting as a marketing site for my books.   For twitter, the url needs to be shortened and you can do that at: <a href="http://bit.ly/">http://bit.ly/</a>

Queensland needs our help

Yes folks, we're chasing up the charity angle again, this time to aid the victims of floods in Queensland Australia.   All right, so Oz is a developed country and better able to cope with disasters than Haiti or Pakistan, but that offers little comfort to the human sufferers caught in the rising tides around the Brisbane area.   A group of us, Maureen Vincent-Northam, Trevor Belshaw, and Australian writers/editor/publisher named Jodi Cleghorn are putting together a volume to aid the victim. Greg McQueen, the maestro behind 100 Stories for Haiti and 50 Stories for Pakistan will be chucking his two pennorth in, too.   I have no further details right now, but I've a conference call arranged with Mo, Trevor and Jodi later this afternoon/evening after which I should be able to give you more specs, including requirements and submission details.    What we need right now is for you to sharpen your pencils or fingertips and dream up something we may be able to use. Light hearted, not doom laden is the key and we believe the target length will be 1,000 words.   All authors will be credited (of course) and I'll thank you in advance because I know you Writelinkers; you always come up with the goods.

Another Queensland Update

Floodwaters have begun to subside in Queensland and the clean up operation is under way in Brisbane and the surrounding areas, where 18 people are known to have died, many more are missing, and 30,000 properties in Brisbane alone have been swamped.   My Aussie geography is not good, so I had to do a little research. I knew that the town of Towoomba had been swamped by this flood and figured it was a mile or two inland. In face its SEVENTY miles from Brisbane: 125 kilometres. And according to the Beeb the whole of that 70 suffered in the floods. To put that into a perspective us Brits can probably understand, if the floods hit Whitehall in London , they would reach as far as Daventry and beyond, in Northamptonshire. It's greater than the distance from Leeds to Nottingham, or roughly the same as the distance between Bristol and Exeter.   So why am I telling you all this? I don't want your money, I don't want your sympathy, ad I'm sure the good people of Queensland don't want your sympathy, either.   But they could use your help.   We're still in need of stories for Queensland. We need 100 of them. We've already had over 100 submissions, but not every tale gets through the first test of the readers, so we need those submissions coming in.   The project is headed by a resident of Brisbane, Jodi Cleghorn, a publisher who can see the devastation first hand. Jodi is backed by the three Writelinkers who brought you your Christmas magazine; Maureen Vincent-Northam, Trevor Belshaw and myself, and we're backed by a team of experienced writers/readers/editors, which includes our own Marit Meredith.   There are submission guidelines on the both the website and the submissions sites, but briefly, we need uplifting tales that are between 500-1,000 words. No poetry please, and we prefer unpublished work, but if you have a piece that has appeared on your blog, or in Writelink's Arena, I'm sure we'll consider it.   You can submit at <a href="http://100storiesforqueensland.submishmash.com/Submit">http://100storiesforqueensland.submishmash.com/Submit</a> where the guidelines are spelled out in more detail, and you can view the press release on the website at <a href="http://100storiesforqueensland.org/">http://100storiesforqueensland.org/</a>   There's also a Facebook page where you may find some familiar faces at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#%21/pages/100-Stories-for-Queensland/159460610768434">http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/100-Stories-for-Queensland/159460610768434</a>   You know you can do it.

Flood Damage

Yes, I know I'm harping on about this, but here's an intriguing set of photographs that demonstrates the devastation wreaked by floods in Brisbane.   If you hover your mouse over the right hand side of the picture, then drag from right to left, you get an interesting before and after view showing the extent of the damage.   <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm</a>   We are still in need of your stories, and Jeanette, I've asked for clarification on the Brazil angle. Should have an answer later today.   We have had some complaints/suggestions that Australia is so much richer than Brazil, so why are we helping the Aussies? According to the IMF, however, that is not the situation. In 2010, Brazil ranked as the 8th richest nation in the world, (based on GDP) and Australia were ranked 14th.

100 Stories for Queensland (yet again)

Congratulations Jean and Laurie on making the final anthology, and to anyone else whose story made it through.   Because I know you and others who submitted, I kept my distance from your work, so you made it on merit. To those of you who submitted and didn't make the final cut, don't be too disappointed. There was nothing wrong with your work but the competition was fierce and all tales went through a rigorous, two-stage selection procedure.   As I write, we're in the process of editing the 100 stories and formatting them so they can be sent off to the typesetters for final publication preparation.   It's been hard work and behalf of the management team, I'd like to say a big thank you to those who submitted work. We're sorry we can't get into indvidual feedback, but I can say that all the tales from this site were up to our usual, excellent standards. We just didn't have room for them all.   I'll post again when we're in pre-launch.   Again, many thanks to you all.

Read an e-book week: Assessment

Last week I joined many other authors to take part in Smashwords' Read an E-book week. I had three titles on the site; <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43337">Coldmoor</a>, the first of the <a href="http://www.dwrob.com/wasc.html">Stasis Center</a> books, priced at $1.14, <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32024">Voices</a>, a full length psychohorror/sci-fi novel on offer at $3.99 and <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/27623">The Man In Black</a>, second of my Spookies novels, selling at $2.99. Prior to the promotion I had sold exactly one copy of one title.   The promotion finished in the early hours of this morning (UK time) and in that 7-day stretch, I had "sold" 112 copies across all three titles. The word sold is enclosed in speech marks because I reduced the price of all three titles to zero.   What does this tell me? Very little, other than, like me, the great reading public worldwide loves something for nothing.   That observation is not the whole story, however. Thanks to the stats supplied by Smashwords, I learned some other, important lessons. Page views on all three titles shot up this week. Before the promotion began I'd be looking at maybe one or two page views per day. Views on all three titles went up as high as 20 views per day.  I swear that this was down solely to my marketing.   The curious thing is, I didn't do much. I put up the blog post last week, and mirrored it on my main blog <a href="http://dawr.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/smashwords-read-an-e-book-week/">here</a> I then tweeted and retweeted about 20 times and ensured that it made my Facebook page every time. A little more publicity on Goodreads, a few retweets and Facebook shares from friends and family and that was it.   Why didn't I do more? Truth is, this promo came a little early for me. I had the first Stasis Center novel up there and I was preparing the second, <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/46619">The Dead Web</a>, for publication. If the promo had run a month from now I may have been more aggressive, if only because I would have more time for marketing.   There were other lessons to be learned, too. Surprise lessons. Voices did as well as the Stasis Center title Coldmoor.   At 43,000 words, Coldmoor is a more of a novella, designed to introduce and lay the foundation for the series. In discussions with my good friend (and editor) Maureen Vincent-Northam, we both felt that the short, sharp read would be ideal as an e-book. By comparison, Voices runs to 109,000 words (and even that had been trimmed from its original 120,000) It is not a short, sharp read. It's a long, complex (not complicated) novel; the kind you don't read at one sitting. And yet, it's as popular with the readers as Coldmoor. Perhaps more so. Sample downloads of Voices during the last weeks before the promo were higher than those of Coldmoor.   It's impossible to arrive at any serious conclusions from such a short sample. There could be any number of factors that influenced readers/buyers, not least of which was the price: FREE.   For now, an interesting week has come to an end and I'll have to see if I can maintain the momentum now that the books are back on the shelf at their original prices.

Calling all affiliate marketers

There are any number of posts on the site from members seeking to make a bob or two from affiliate marketing. I'm not one of them, but don't go away because I'm not criticising. Instead I'll make you an easy offer.   You're probably aware that I publish and sell my own e-books. You should know. I plug them often enough. What you may now know is that you can earn from my books by selling them.   Amazon run an affiliate system (called associates). Sign up as an associate and you can choose to market my books through them. You don't have to do anything other than carry a link to the book, which they'll give you.   Smashwords also have an affiliate system. You'll need a reader account and then you visit my book's page and at the very bottom there's a link allowing you to sell it as an affiliate.   Amazon pays "up to 10%" Smashwords pays 11%.   And you're not restricted to one title. You can choose to market all of them if you wish. I currently have 4 titles on both Amazon and Smashwords, and I'll be posting more in the near future.   I'm not going to promise you a fortune out of this, but you are dealing with two respected giants in the e-book world as your surfers will know.   If you're interested, email me on <a href="mailto:dwrob@gmail.com">dwrob96@gmail.com</a> and I'll return the urls for all my books on both sites.

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