AVATAR

Meet Dr. E. MacMorna, my Avatar.

Biography of Dr. E. MacMorna.

Born in the wilds of Northern Ontario he was raised by a school of Great Northen Pike.

Upon emerging from the cold, icy waters he said: "As I emerged into this new world, I saw...opportunity."

E. went to school and learn the arts of manipulation and hypnotization. Upon graduating he created the Great Fish Cult and the worship of the Great Pike.

Purple is his favourite colour and he fashions his style sence after Steve Jobs. At the moment, Dr. E. MacMorna is studying the culture surrounding League of Legends. In his own words, he points out that 'where there are millions of people feeding, there must be food.' Fizz is his favourite champion.

Interview

Interview with the Author of "The Veiled Lady," M.E. Eadie

Q. Why write the “Veiled Lady?”

A. I love Shakespeare’s and Marlowe’s works. I wanted to visit the time that produced these great playwrights.

Q. Why is one of your major characters from China?

A. The Middle Kingdom. China, as we know it, didn’t exist at that time. Miao Juzheng is an oddity, however, not entirely odd because the Portuguese did trade, in a very limited volume, slaves from the Middle Kingdom. She also has albinism.

Q. Why albinism?

A. Why not? White was the fashion rage at the time. The women used Ceruse or a white lead based makeup to make their skin fairer...so, what is whiter than albinism.

Q. You have a point there. But don't people with albinism have difficulties with their eye sight.

A. Absolutely. I also have problems with how they are generally portrayed in stories.

Q. What do you mean by that?

A. Well, most people with albinism are villains. I'll give you some examples: the torturer in "Prince Bride," the evil monk in "The di vinci code."

Q. Isn't he the sniper?

A. Yeah, that's funny. Imaging asking someone who is low vision being a sniper.

Q. Never thought of that.

A. Most people don't.

Q. But I find it hard to believe. There is a scene where George is teaching Miao to fight with a rapier.

A. Why not?

Q Women didn't fight with swords back then.

A. Who says? Listen, I agree it was a man's world and women didn't have much power, but Elizabeth was changing that. 

Q. How?

A. By not marrying. As soon as she married, she would lose power. Besides it was probably difficult having your mom's head cut off.

Q. Aren't you bothered that there really isn't a lot of material on characters like Christopher Marlowe, even Shakespeare.

A. Not in the least. This gives the writer great freedom to fill things in, to make up stuff.

Q. Well, thanks for talking to me. I really appreciate it.

A. For you, anytime. Anytime you want to talk to yourself, just let me know.

Queen Elizabeth: Wo-man?

It is not as outlandish as it seems to view Queen Elizabeth I as both male and female. In a time when the female sexual organs were viewed as the inverse of the male, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that a woman could become a man through vigorous exercise. In fact there is the tale of the shepherdess who in mid leap (she was leaping over a fence) became a man. Although this was more possible with girls than with women. It was a concern for men, if their wives were engaged in 'man's' work, that they would come home only to be greeted at the door by a man. This not only threatened the hierarchy of things, but also the fundamental power structure. Perhaps, through vigorous exercise, Queen Elizabeth was able to keep Lord Burghley from constantly insisting that she marry. Obviously it takes more than vigorous exercise to make a woman into a man, but that's not the point. The point is that to the Elizabethan mind, this was indeed possible.

"Veiled Lady," research power point

The Veiled Lady

Pre orders and Characters

Until December 28th I'm encouraging pre orders for my new book: "The Veiled Lady: A Miao Juzheng, George Silver Elizabethan Adventure."

These pre orders will be available through: Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Apples Ibooks.

What I'll be doing until that release date is blogging about a lot of the research that went into the creation of the book.

The first thing that I did was pick the Characters that I could form the nucleus of a story around. The Heroine had to be different, had to be exceptional...not unlike Queen Elizabeth. And I found that character in the creation of Miao Juzheng, a young woman from the Middle Kingdom. That alone is unique because Chinese slaves were a rarity in Europe at the time, but a young woman with albinism who has special powers of foresight...

The above picture is of my daughter, who is also from the Middle Kingdom and also has albinism. I took the picture in Black and White, because while the iris looks clear, sometimes 'pinkish' in colour, it is actually is a very clear blue.

The Wall

Driving away from Tel Aviv airport towards Jerusalem I learned two things. I learned, through observation, that Israel is an armed camp and that the favourite saying of our Palestinian driver was ‘no problem, no problem.’ The wall around the West Bank is an amazing architectural structure, most walls are. Their purpose is often more sinister. Hadrian ’s Wall was designed to keep my ancestors (the ravening Celts) out of Roman controlled Britain: the great wall of China, to keep the Mongols at bay. So, what was the wall around the West Bank keeping out? When we went to Bethlehem it didn’t seem to be keeping much out. Traffic was flowing easily between the two states, yet there was the feeling that that could change at a moment’s notice.

Maybe to help understand the difficulties behind this was a conversation I overheard while eating at the Austrian Hospice in Old Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa. The woman, in an animated discussion, was describing the population dynamics of Jerusalem. Out of the one million inhabitants of Jerusalem, two hundred and fifty thousand are Palestinian. Out of that number one hundred thousand have chosen to reject Israeli citizenship; they refuse to recognize Israel as a state. This has created a problem confining these people to Jerusalem. 

So, back to the wall: what is it keeping out? Well, the occurrence of suicide bombings have gone down since the wall went up, but tensions still simmer just below the surface. Everyone seems to tolerate each other by pretending they aren’t there. The Palestinians pretend the Jews aren’t there, the Jews pretend the Palestinians aren’t there and the Christians are just tourists. Then something happens and people start paying attention. For example during a traffic altercation the police responded, supported by several IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers. Watching everything was a large circle of young Palestinian men.  It was like circles within circle with everyone watching each other…and waiting.

I hope that the Jews, being the children of Abraham, and the Palestinians, also being the children of Abraham, can settle this centuries old dispute over inheritance without killing each other. Unfortunately Jerusalem is the mother of much tragedy and much dispossession.    

Citrus in Jerusalem

Upon visiting some place new, senses are heightened and the mind is working overtime trying to store as much information as possible. The one thing I noticed on arriving at The National Hotel in Jerusalem was the smell: Citrus, everything smelled of citrus. The next day, on entering the Old City through Herod’s Gate into the Arab Quarter we noticed the preponderance of oranges, bananas and pomegranates. The citrus smell that I had put down to some cleaning product was everywhere. After a few days I realized that it was coming from my own pours. I began to smell like citrus. Of course I had been imbibing in frequent juice breaks of freshly squeezed orange and pomegranates. As far as nutrition goes the vitamins in citrus fruit deteriorates from the point of picking, but this was so fresh it tasted like nothing I had ever tasted. My favourite drink was pomegranate. I found it expensive in the grocery store back home, but here, in Jerusalem it was relatively inexpensive and beyond worth. After walking a number of hours in the crowded streets it was delightful to sit and drink fresh juice and become one with the smell of citrus, which everyone else smelt of.

Elizabethan Fashion

I’d like to discuss something of driving importance…the Elizabethan Ruff. I know that beheading was a popular norm in the time, Henry the VIII chopped off at least 3 of his 6 wives’ heads. He was at a 50% rate when he died, and may have upped that percentage had he lived longer. Was this need to cut peoples’ heads off caused by the Elizabethan Ruff? The Ruff had the effect of making a person’s head look as though it had all ready been detached from the body and presented on a platter. I don’t think there is any place in the world that still uses the Ruff in fashion, except the circus and adorning dogs who have and obsessive compulsion with scratching themselves bloody…well, that’s not really a Ruff is it, more a funnel.  

Another interesting Elizabethan devise was the Farthingale, or hooped skirt. The Spanish version know as the fertugado was brought to England by Catherine of Aragon (she lost her head). They were a rather modest, ‘A’ type structure that any engineer would envy. Then the French got hold of it and the next thing the Farthingale had more hoops than a Native American dancer. Even so the Farthingale for Queen Elizabeth wasn’t enough; she added the prefix “great” onto it. Dipping to the front, ridding up behind, the gown looked like a ship diving down into a trough in some tempestuous storm. It’s no wonder why palaces needed to be so big. Imagine a dance floor populated by an armada of Great Farthingales swirling about like out of control bumper cars. Now, I understand that Queen Elizabeth’s favourite dance was La Volta, where there was some lifting and jumping about involved. I know a bit about dance and find it hard to imagine how someone could possibly lift a woman dressed in a Great Farthingale and keep all their teeth.

The other interesting thing I’ve noticed about the Elizabethan dress was that it came in parts. There was a Roll, a Stomacher, a Petticoat, a Kirtle, a Forepart, a Partlet, a Gown, Separate Sleeves and the notorious Ruff. It’s no wonder you needed a cast of thousands to assemble a lady for society. Elizabeth had four ladies of the bed chamber to dress her and then a bevy of Elizabeth clones to keep her from running people over because a Great Farthingale did limit one’s visibility. King James, Elizabeth’s replacement, solved this problem by entirely dispensing with changing his clothes altogether. As the old ones dissolved he just clothed himself in new clothes. Shakespeare knew King Jame’s taste, that’s why he wrote ‘The Scottish Play.’

Clothing must have inhibited Elizabethan love making…or maybe that’s why the clothing came apart in pieces. Let me think about that. 

The Crazy Elizabethans

The thing I find interesting about doing research is how much we no longer know, and what we have to do to relearn what might have been. For example, how did Elizabethan's view the world? We can guess, but we will never really know, because the Elizabethans, unless you're channeling Dr. Dee, are long gone.

For example what is the mindset that enables a person to fight another person with a rapier, oh, let's see because you thought their ruff was a bit too big. I mean, you know, in a few seconds you most likely will have a yard of steel sticking out of your chest, or worse (if it can get worse) your eye.

Does this mean our mindset today is that of cowards, while the Elizabethan mindset was that of heroes?

Hmmm, let me think, and therein is the rub. We think. Yet, some of the best thinkers lived in Elizabethan times. Gascoigne, Raleigh, Walsingham, Bacon, Burghley, Tyndale (I'm not going to say Shakespeare, because the only Shakespeare I know of was a grain merchant in Stratford. I mean John Donne get's a stand-up memorial, while Willy gets a worked over effigy of him writing on a book. Listen, there is no way Shakespeare, the grain merchant, could have written a play on a bag of produce.) I digress.

That's the thing, isn't it. The Elizabethan's while great thinkers were also a bit loony. Didn't Ben Johnson kill someone in a duel. "Just wait a second, let me finish this line...and then I'm going to slice you open. (Some time later, the blood soaked Johnson returns to his writing.)

Shakes, or the man called Shakes (sounds like James, James Bond, doesn't it.) had a writ taken out against him because he threatened to kill someone. It wasn't a: 'you spilled my mead, I'm going to kill you.' (Remember this is a time when public killings were a time to gather with friend and family and enjoy a day out at the gore.) If someone was afraid of Shakespeare, or the man called Intrepid, there was probably good reason.

Terry Brooks

I've been captured again. I remember being 16 and looking for another 'Lord of The Rings,' replacement, and I picked up Terry Brooks' 'The Sword of Shannara.' I remember thinking, all right, this might be good and then it might not. My impressions while reading it, was, 'not bad, not bad at all, but the name Allanon, not the character, made me snicker a bit. But wait, did you know that Tolkien, when he was shopping around for names, nearly picked Bingo for Bilbo.  In the final analysis, I really liked 'The Sword of Shannara.' Now, here I am, thirty four years later reading Terry Brooks' books 'Armagaddon's Children,' 'The Elves of Cintra,' and 'The Gypsy Morph,' and I am wonderfully astounded how Terry Brooks has grown as a writer.  If you are looking for a 'how to' example of excellence, read the first few chapters of 'The Gypsy Morph.'  Very few writers have such excellent and impeccable timing as Terry Brooks.  If I have a wish, as a writer, I would wish that I could meet Terry Brooks and just simply talk about writing and humanity.

Villains

Remember on a previous post when I wrote about wanting to write a Murder Mystery set in Elizabethan times? Well, I came up with a solid device, how women looking like the Queen were being killed all over London. The problem is I find Elizabeth's world too big for me. So, I'm taking that idea and plugging it into the fourth book in the Colin series. I thought book three would be the last, but it seems the tale has some juice left in it, as long as there's a good villain to be had.

Writing of villains, the best of which live in the stories Charles Dickens.  He knew how to play out a good tale by beating down the hero and then raising him up on the wings of moral justice. There is nothing better than a nasty villain, armed with all the tools of their trade, to beat down our hero. I have to work on making my villains more substantial.

I think it's a trend today to see blood and guts and all sorts of nasty things, but a good villain will beat all the sensationalism hands down: remember Kevin Costner's "Robin Hood?" Who was the villain that stole the show? Remember "The Princess Bride?"  It is nice to have a solid "Harry Potter" in your story, but what is Harry Potter without Lord Voldemort?  He would just be another abused orphan, and that's too real. How about Steven King's 'IT'.  A clown as a villain? Brilliant! I've never been able to look Ronald McDonald in the face again without feeling some malignant purpose lurking behind the paint.  In Shelly's "Frankenstein," there is a word that is used to its full effect, and that word is "Monstrous." There is even a trend of making villains the heroes of the tale. I can't do that. I like sweet and sour together but separate, battling each other, with of course David Copperfield and Agnus living happily ever after.

Marketing I

One of the most interesting, and one of the most frustrating things in the world is marketing.  With ebooks becoming more and more popular, the publishing industry has opened up to a more democratic process. Gone are the Media Kings (although they are still around), the self-appointed gate keepers of all things litterary.

"The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all." Mark Twain.

Expose yourself (your work) to the people and let them decide as to its entertainment worth.

So, with places like Smashwords and Amazon, the power is in the hands of the writer, but because of accessibility there is a flood of material, and unless you have a way of catching someones attention, your work, even though it's brilliant, could join the sediments at the bottom of the sea of unread words.

What is marketing? (I don't really have the answer: that's why I'm asking the question)
If I was to make a speculative guess, I would say that marketing is a wagon that passes through town, upon which everyone jumps, whether the wagon is a dilapidated piece of work or a shining example of prose.

Have you ever read a book that was a 'bestseller,' and been left feeling somewhat less for the experience? 

Right now, I'm in the process of selling my material on Amazon. I've discovered the 'gift,' function.  You would pay for advertisement and hope to increase sales. Why not just gift your work. It will only cost you a fraction of the true cost, because you'll still get your royalties.  This accomplishes two things: you sell your book and you (hopefully) get others to read it.  Presently, I'm toying with the idea of throwing a Kindle party at my local library. If you've got a Kindle come on in, give me your email and I'll gift you one of my books. If you like it maybe you'll purchase one of my other titles.

Kindle Party, anyone?

Amazon Select

I thought I would let everyone know that I've placed my books on KDP select in Amazon for a 90 day period. As a result I had to remove my titles from Smashwords. I was very happy with Smashwords, but the KDP Select on Amazon has an exclusivity clause. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused anyone searching for my work through Barnes and Noble. I will, however, be launching my third book in the Colin series through Smashwords.



Thank you again to all my readers.

Author Marketing Club

I love to write, but I also love to when people read my work.  Writing is a peculiar art. It's done in isolation but has the potential to be shared world wide. True there is that inner need to be happy with what you are working on, but the joy comes when someone reads your work and they express excitement or gratitude. That's what makes it all worth while. The great advantage with ebooks is that there are a lot of them, and unless you have a way of differentiating yours from others, then your ebook is likely to settle at the bottom of some primordial, digital sea, never to be seen until someone digs it up. This is why I transferred my books over to Amazon Kindle and registered with Author Marketing Club. I need to learn how to market whether I want to or not.

I know the artistic refrain, 'maybe I'll be famous when I'm dead.' I never understood that. If I'm dead then it doesn't matter. It might matter to my children, but I'll have moved on. So, what I hope to do is document this journey with Author Marketing Club through this blog.

As a result of registering my digital books with KDP Select I can not longer offer them with via Smashwords.com.

Wish me luck.

Here's a link to the Author Marketing Club site:

Book Marketing Selling Tips for Authors

Queen's Gift

I've just finished watching the movie production of Shakespeare's "Much ado about Nothing."  There is a scene where Benedict and Beatrice are having it out. Beatrice wants Benedict to challenge Claudio, and when Benedict refuses and says "not for the world," she transforms. What I mean by that is Beatrice transforms into a queen when she exclaims what she would do "if" she were a man. Here, she is manipulating Claudio. Oh, my! This sounds like Queen Elizabeth herself.  She kept the Count of Anjou, Catherine de medici's son on the hook for eleven years. Phillip II of Spain, Elizabeth's sister's husband was held off until 1588. She played with Robert Dudley, his step son, The Earl of Essex and Walter Raleigh, and flew into rages when they all married women who looked like her.

I'm sure there are many learned men and women out there who have asked the question: "Why is it that Shakespeare has some of the strongest female characters of the age, especially in an age where women did not act on stage? If there had been no Queen Elizabeth, I doubt there would be no strong female characters on stage at all.

I'll even go so far to say, no Elizabeth, no Shakespeare (or whoever wrote those marvelous plays).

There are great women who come along and not only make life interesting, they define it. Queen Elizabeth was one of these women. It was said she love a soldier, and wit, and intelligence, and women (who reminded her of herself). It is strange to note that many of her maids were like her in appearance, rays emanating from the sun. Marvelous, just marvelous.

Oh, just another thought. Before The Earl of Essex got carried away and tried to revolt they paid to watch a private stage production of Richard III, a production that promoted replacing the monarch. Her furious response to that was: "Know you not that I am Richard III!"

I don't doubt that Elizabeth was excellent at "shaking spears."

Coupon

In anticipation of the release of the third book in my "Colin," series: "Colin and The Revenant," I'm going to offer a coupon worth 25% off on the second book in the series. "Colin and The Little Black Box." The First book, "Colin and The Rise of The House of Horwood," is free.

When you go to Smashwords.com and purchase the book there will be a coupon box, just punch in KZK84J (it's not case sensitive.)

Colin and The Little Black Box




Colin and The Rise of The House of Horwood

Blake

Why do I love Blake's work? Probably why I love Yeate's work. They both believed in inspiration of the writer tapping into the devine and being the conduit. Writing is hard work, but when it flows, it's marvelous. The one thing that I have noticed about my own writing, is that my characters are becoming more substantial. It's as though they are become as real as I am.

Now that's an idea, isn't it. A writer puts so much substance into their characters that their own substance is deminishes causing the paper creation to become real and the author to become the paper creation.

I thought I would include some pics that a marvelous artist, Natasha Lavigne drew up for "Memories of My Youth", by Bill Halkett.  Wonderful.

Rhetoric and climax

I don't know about you, but climax is really important, and people love it. I'm not trying to make a Freudian slip here, I'm just trying to extol the virtues of climax.  People like reason, they like order. Just think about it, there's always order in music, no matter what type it is. All music has rules, all writing has rules. Now, let's apply some of those rules. Shakespeare, or whoever he/she was, tapped into it in Macbeth. Remember the scene at the beginning of 'the Scottish play,' when the witches are brewing away. Here we have the Weird Sisters singing their sinister song: "When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?" Here we have pattern and we love it. We get all squirmy inside.  Try the same line with four: "In thunder, lightning, mist or in rain?" It just doesn't feel right does it?

Well, let's fit climax into the concept of threes: big, bigger, biggest, and watch the crowds go crazy. They love it.  Try this on for size. "After losing the love of his life sadness turned to grief which turned to inconsolable lamentation."

So, if you use Climax, do it in threes, because four is just a wee bit much.

There is also something for experimentation. Try working the climax backwards. "His terrible exhaustion took him from gasping for breath, to breathing harshly, to finally the realm of slow control breath where only defeat lived."

Climax rules!

Memories of My Youth

I just finished working with Bill on his Novel.  It's a great compelation of short biographical stories.  I remember him telling me about his project, and I said, "that's Mordecai Richler," and he said, "Yeah, we both grew up in the same area of Montreal. I even met him."

So, if you liked Mordecai's stories, you most likely will like Bill's.

Memories of My Youth: on Smashwords

Smashwords/the new publishing matrix

The publishing industry is undergoing a vast and expansive change, and I believe it's for the better. It used to be that big publishers used to dictate who they would select with their divine finger for publication. A lot of good writers were left out of the equation. And those selected would end up supporting the publishing industry. The profit a writer received under the old model was tiny. In consideration that it was their genius that created the story in the first place, it didn't seem right.

Now, with Smashwords, everybody can publish. They can set their own price and receive up to half the profit in sales. The initial costs of printing and shipping are eliminated. So, why do big publishers insist on charging upwards of $20.00 for an ebook? I have no complaint if $10.00 is returning to the author, but I doubt it. It is my belief that no ebook should cost more than $5.00. That's why all the books published under Adam Books at Smashwords are $4.95.

I don't think we need to be greedy to earn a living. Because why do writers write? They write because somebody around the primordial fire responded to a tale told. Without a readership, we as writers, are nothing. Respect the reader and they will support you by reading your work: a simple truth.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/adambooks