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Weekly Ramble #69

Lee Hall Leave a comment

From every shit-uation there are positives and good eventual outcomes. People have a lot more time now. The hustle and bustle of life’s busyness has slowed down and even I can feel people are taking their time to do things they didn’t before.

slales

These are the best sales I’ve ever had outside of Book promo

Book reviews are up. Book sales are up. And social media engagement is up. I’m even writing new stuff. I’ve always tried to justify my place in the arena with both books and a presence and it’s times of struggle like this that people look for reads and people who are carrying on in the face of adversity.

Writers and artists are needed even more so and while the social media socialite types who produce nothing are being starved out of attention, people are looking to genuine content creators and it gets no more genuine than a book or a blog.

We’ll look back on this time as one of invisible pressure and hardship. But take those away and you’ll find it was a period where we all had time to read that book, watch that show or paint that wall. 

All of a sudden this will be over and we’ll be back in the arms of friends, family and even co workers. We’ll forget what it truly means to be isolated and away from groups. We’re a herd species, until recently anyway.  The rat race will resume and it will all be forgotten. Humans have a fickle way of carrying on. Whether it comes from a vaccine or even medication, we’ll beat it, we’re too resilient not to I salute all of those carrying on in the face of this adversity – by carrying on I mean, writing a few words a day, speaking to friends over skype, cooking that meal, staying busy; we’ll get through, we always do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Facebook Book Giveaway and New Book News!!!

Lee Hall Leave a comment

This post is old. I’m impressed that you found it….

Both Darke Blood and Open Evening  were available for free but they are still competitively priced, maybe check them out…

This special  promotion was for the 400 like milestone on my facebook page.

That page and the many loyal likers over the years have been there for me through everything! Thank you to everyone for the support, this has been a wonderful journey with all of those who have joined me since 2012. Old and new, you all rock!

And so as I cruise hopefully soon towards the big Four hundred I have set out to pay that loyalty back.

The details… This Giveaway is closed as of the 12th of July 2017…

The other huge news is….

c house

Yes If you follow me on instagram and of course Facebook you will know that yesterday I crossed another enduring milestone. My next book is officially drafted! Right now all I will say is that yes it is the sequel to Open Evening and it is called CEMETERY HOUSE. 

Those who have read Open Evening all the way through will know a little something about where the story will go next. This time around instead of introducing a universe I have taken that ball and gone all out into a sprint with it! Hopefully after some extensive work before even taking it to a professional edit, we will have an awesome sequel which carries on the story.

And yes this book is also linked to Darke Blood and will follow into the Darke Blood sequel which is available now and called Darke Awakening! 

That wraps up this weeks news and now I need to lie down. Peace out, don’t text and drive and thank you new/old followers/likers/readers/fans/cats….

My new Book is complete

Lee Hall Leave a comment

Now before I and at least one person who reads this gets carried away, let’s just say those two words are always written ironically the first time around. I know more than most that a writer’s work never really ends.

Yesterday I overcame odds which seemed to pile up around me back in April. Back then my story seemed to have no way out, it felt boring and lacklustre. Amongst the few cool concepts there was just no way I could continue this and get a book out of it. It even made me a tad angry.

Now that’s all in the process of creativity, I have learned. Especially this time around. Ever since I dropped my previous robot crime futuristic project I have tried to write in a way where I am not attached emotionally to the narrative.

Yes, anything I write means a lot to me, but the stuff I am now writing leaves me willing to chuck it all towards the publishing fire and spend it on building a readership. This doesn’t mean the product will lack in quality, there is just less emotion on the line if it fails.

My arrival as an independent author is important and imminent. Tomorrow will see the final performance of my first written and directed play by Iver Heath Drama club. A beta arrival if you say where my work and voice can hopefully be seen, all portrayed by some wonderful performers.

first drafts...

Back track to last year and Open Evening was born, a soon to be published debut novel by me which I am ever so proud to bring out. After finishing that and organisation of the publication I had a great energy to see if I could do another. Not a sequel but another stand-alone book in the genre of mystery and thriller (there will be more about it very soon). By the turn of this year my efforts were well under way for this next story and everything became apparent.

With the balance of shift working and trying to write amongst a social life that tended to decline slightly, my back was firmly against the wall. Consideration must be taken into account as I had very few plot or themes to work with. This book was the child of spontaneity. I planned badly and tried to rely on the Open Evening formula, that being a story which I have seen a thousand times which poured onto the page. This next project not so much, in fact this has been my longest draft to date, just shy of 7 months.

Only my experience and dedication alone got me out of this project in one piece and still my record for starting a project and completing it remains, just about. Next I shall be taking a week or so off writing. Then my attention turns to the final edit of Open Evening, just in time for it to go towards Satin Publishing and then to my readers.

As I said a writer’s work is never done.

Oh and one other thing, my next book is called Darke Blood!

My #YearOfWriting Continues…..

 

 

Decision Time, To self Publish or not, that is the Question?

Lee Hall Leave a comment

I’m back, fresh from a week in the hot sun and ready, well sort of. To take on the world of self publishing!!!

Decision Time!

I did say at the close of my last series of blogs that I would come to a decision when I return. But what exactly does that decision involve? (yes I am drawing this out, literally)

Do I self publish my first novel, Clark Thorn and the Warrior Project?

During my holiday I took some time to think, I walked along the sandy beach taking in doses of ultra violet rays.

My position right now is represented below (excuse my wonderful Paintbrush skills)

self

Copyright Amateur Hour

As you can see once the self pub path has been taken there is no return. But I have a plan!

On my ever continuing journey towards self-publishing why don’t I continue to try and acquire an agent whilst doing so? (This is represented by the engineering drawing  below*)

self2

So that’s where I am now. In the next month I will be implementing another edit of my book and then a new search for representation will happen! This will involve putting together a top notch Synopsis and covering letter which I will share with you good people.

No matter what the goal is it will always be the same and that is to get my novel published and read by the world!

I think either way there is a leap of faith that I need to take, it’s time to stop hiding behind a decision I am somewhat afraid to make and go for it!!! (pause for applause)

I hope you enjoyed this short but to the point blog, that is the aim for me this series. Write something worth reading that doesn’t drag on! A few minutes in the Hall of information is all you need.

Until next time, I’ll be seeing you, please share, comment and like, have a nice day/evening/morning/afternoon

Episode 5 (you can’t take the sky from me)

Lee Hall Leave a comment

Warning: Old Post Alert. Kept on this blog for memories and legacy stuff. 

Hot dang it’s Thursday again (or whatever day you are reading this on) so time for another blog entry.

Buckets of Ice

So finally the world has gone public with the fact that they actually wash. Ok that’s not particularly true but at the weekend I was nominated by my good friend George Black to take up the Ice bucket challenge. These challenges are spreading like wildfire. Every day since my nomination I am seeing people I know take up the challenge, but exactly is it for?

Well the ALS association is an American non-profit organization that raises money for research and patient services related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or in the UK motor neurone disorder. Now they had this idea of setting up this challenge and what a fine piece of marketing. There isn’t a citizen of the internet that doesn’t know what an ice bucket challenge is and it’s constantly spreading.

It’s good to see so many people giving to charity and not just to the ALS association but other organisations too. You can see my ice bucket challenge right here

Introductions Part 5 (yes this is still going, but there is an end in sight, I hope)

So the first 3 chapters of ‘warrior project’ remained on a USB memory stick gathering dust. In that time I had moved house and changed jobs, in fact my whole world had changed after 2011 and writing to me became an afterthought.

Although the characters I had created never stopped talking in my head (maybe I need to be diagnosed with something) my life had moved away from writing, that was until winter of 2012.

If you remember the original concept of Jack Thorn, a guy seemingly talented at fighting robots. At the time (I was 12) my favourite TV program was Buffy the Vampire slayer, in which Jack is loosely based on. What inspired me the most was the story that unfolded in this program, the characterisation and above all what they stood for. Joss Whedon was the creator/writer/director of Buffy and master of character driven stories so in the winter of 2012 I was inspired by his work again.

You can’t take the sky from me. 

Yes I am talking about a rather short-lived title named Firefly (available on Netflix). This 14 episode space western adventure had inspired me to take hold of this USB stick and plug it in to a computer.

But why you ask? Because the one thing that inspires me to write above all is good story telling. It entices and feeds the imagination and fills my brain full of impossible ideas.

Having looked at the material on that USB stick, I had that ‘moment’.  A moment all writers have with a story and I said to myself,

“This story is good enough to be published, and by golly that’s what I’ll do” (or something like that, who even says by golly these days)

The story actually held up, so why didn’t I carry it on? So that was when I made the decision to bring ‘warrior project’ out of the shadows and into the light. I purchased a laptop and began work, quickly the title changed to Clark Thorn and the Warrior Project and I began to look for a platform to release my material online. The journey had just began……

I need more followers!!!

I have made the point before of saying, I’m not gonna do well at this alone. The Hall of information needs your help, yes you! Don’t turn around, I’m talking to you! Come back, please. Sign up to the mailing list, the link is to the right >

Lee need’s you to Tweet, Facebook, email, network and share to the world wide interweb about this page and our cause. So when launch day comes we have a chance of making a real stab of glorious success at some level. I want you all to be a part of this and if we shout loud enough more people will join. To good people who have blogs and pages of your own, let me know and I’ll happily check them out, there are many ways of contacting me.

caleb

On an unrelated note, last year I made an attempt of writing some fan fiction and crossing it over with the world I had creared. Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Clark Thorn Crossover Project was born, have a read by clicking on the picture above.

Episode 4

Lee Hall Leave a comment

It’s the fourth episode and I still have stuff to write about!

Introductions Part 10

Whoa I hear you say. What happened to the introductions between? Well I’m doing that clever thing like in TV or film when they flash forward into the future for a brief time. (I’m not actually sure if there will be 10 instalments of introductions but it sounds like a round figure to jump ahead to)

So in March of this year, I had reached frustration city in terms of sending my manuscript out to various agents and publishers seemingly to no avail. At this point I just wanted to know if or where I was going wrong, and if my book has what it takes to stand shoulder to shoulder with others.

After some googling I came across the oxford editors. They were offering a service that appraises a manuscript and involves a report at the end. Finally I have received most of that report (I wont go into the amount of chasing I had to do for it and quite honestly I wouldn’t do it again).

My whole angle was to actually have someone honestly look at my manuscript without it just being cast off into the many slush piles. It involved a fee and hopefully that would entice someone to be obligated to actually have a read.

The initial part of the report came through and here are the highlights in the form of quotations:

“I think the idea of this book is ingenious and it has a great deal of potential. However, the first few pages of any book are so important and here I think that you put all the points, but it is rather flat the way you have presented it, so it is like reading an article and not the sort of start that pulls readers into a book”

As much as this starts off complimentary I agree with the points.

“Probably the most important moment of the entire book, in terms of hooking readers, agents and publishers is that first sentence.”

Again I agree and my opening sentence could in fact be better.

To interpret the rest of the report it is apparent that the opening chapter does need some work in order to really grasp the reader. Not work as in rip it up and start again but a series of minor changes and additions to get the opening looking great. That goes for the whole book, there are some instances where I am telling the reader something when I should be showing them.

This is what I have been waiting for since March and now I have been given some decent constructive advice. From here the plan can be instigated. Phase 1 of the Warrior Project Publishing plan has been activated.

  1. Receive manuscript assessment      (I am more proud of the fact that I discovered there is a button to allow crossing words out, technology these days. I’ve been waiting to use that since I started this blog)

Back to the main plotline

Introductions Part 4 (where were we)

After much thinking I decided to start from the very beginning of my story. On my brothers laptop I began writing a title called ‘Untitled Warrior Project’. At this point it that was it in terms of a title and over many autumn evenings I pecked away, putting together the foundations for what would be my ‘first’ book. I had previously attempted to write a Clark Thorn story (a few years back on the xp piece of sh**) so from that initial idea I built the basics.

I struggled throughout this time, adapting to the horrible process that I still don’t like and that is the initial draft. (I do it in hour sessions now (controlling my addiction) To me drafting just feels like whatever thoughts one has is literally sucked out onto page, and that is what one element of what writing is to me. Translation of thought from brain to page.

My run in drafting this ‘warrior project’ ended just as quickly as it started leaving me with writers block at chapter 3.

To be continued….

 

A video

This week a good friend of mine Matt Streuli released a video in tribute to his late mother Janet Ann Streuli. As much as his journey and story is a sad one it also pays homage to the legacy left behind and how it helps him to this day. I share the same hobby with him, that being amateur drama, something I have grown to love and almost need in life. For a few hours a week we get to be what we want to be, whether that is the dashing hero or dastardly villain and perhaps anything in between. It’s a release and stress reliever at times. For whatever is going on in our lives there is always a place where we can be us or someone else. Check out his video here

 

A final note about a prestigious valuable item of memorabilia or sale on ebay, check it out, you wont be disappointed. Click here