Responding to blog posts

A blog post, ideally, leads to a lively and interesting discussion, so every now and then I get frustrated when one of my posts leads to a lively and interesting discussion -- on Facebook!  What should I do?  Copy the discussion into another post? Ask the lovely people to comment on the blog instead?  I asked this question, and got a lively and interesting answer from author Margaret Muir of "Under Admiralty Orders" fame.

Why do people reply on FB but not on the blog itself?

Here is my answer:

Regarding the commenting directly on blogs: I get frustrated with some blogs that you have to log into and identify words or numbers to prove you are not a robot. Sometimes I can't even read the numbers. Then there are posts that do not appear until they are moderated by the blogger. Then you might hope for a response to your comment but never get one. Then there is the fact that probably no one other than the blogger reads your comment. In consequence, I prefer to post on FB - its quick and easy, it gets aired to other readers and often gets an instant response - albeit just a 'LIKE' from the blogger or others. It's far more satisfying and saves time.

Excellent points!  And I have to admit that I agree -- particularly when the blog is run by wordpress. Thank you, Margaret.

Wellington street life

Months and months ago, I was standing outside Farmer's Department Store on Lambton Quay waiting for a bus, when I noticed this gentleman taking photographs, apparently at random.  I was intrigued to see what caught his interest, so when someone famous came along (as happens often in Wellington, New Zealand) I said to him, "You should be taking a photo of him. He's famous." And the gentleman  replied, "But I'm not interested in famous people or iconic things.  I like to look for the quirky."  Which led to a lively and -- may I say it? -- quirky conversation, during which he gave me his card, which announced that his name was Julian Ward.  "I publish books too," he said.

And lo, I see in the DomPost that his latest book is out.  The paper calls it "Glimpses of our great city."

"A local street photographer has captured moments in the heart of Wellington in his new book, Wellington Streets," it begins.

Julian Ward, with 40 years of photography behind him, says his latest book is a collection of quirky and humorous glimpses of the inner city and its inhabitants.

"This book is uniquely Wellington. It's a celebration of Wellington and it's also a celebration of photography," Ward says.

The images were chosen from hundreds of street photos taken over a five-year period between 2009 and 2014.

Ward says he is not trying to look for photos or tell stories with his work.

"The book is really a collection of images that balance against each other. They are about the moment.

"I wait for the photos to come to me . . . it's about recognising them when they come.

"All I'm doing is photographing life in front of the camera, predicting what might happen, sometimes its funny, sometimes slightly disturbing."

Describing a photo of two dogs in Waitangi Park looking up at the same time, he says, "It was like a gift from the gods, the owners of the dogs were just standing there and there were these two dogs dressed up. I knelt down and waited and waited and then they both looked.

"When you're a photographer you're always on the look-out for these little magic moments."

I wish him luck, and will be looking out for his book.  It's a nice project, and meeting him is a nice memory.

And my review

BLACKWELL'S HOMECOMING by V.E. Ulett

Followers of the rousing Blackwell adventures will find their bluff hero travelworn and timeworn, a man who has consistently missed out on promotion, and who is laboring under the derisive nickname “Black Savage.”  This makes for a compelling start, as the reader’s sympathies are instantly aroused, but then the heartstrings are wrung still further when it is learned that the winsome and infinitely attractive Mercedes, Blackwell’s wife, is gravely ill with breast cancer.  There are also the complications brought about by Blackwell’s three children, who are all remarkable, and in the case of young Emma, too beautiful for her own good. The author is not one to pull punches, and so the book whirls into action while the reader is still taking these circumstances on board, starting with an abduction and moving through a dangerous fire-ship action to a strange commission to carry the Hawaiian royals – the ones who have survived their visit to London, that is -- back to Oahu. Naturally, the Hawaiian retinue goes too, including an ill-intentioned minor chief who has his evil eye firmly focused on Emma.

Fans will certainly not be disappointed, and new readers will definitely be intrigued. Ulett’s style contains elements of Georgette Heyer and Virginia Andrews, with a whiff of Patrick O’Brian, but she has her own very original voice. It is her fancy to include real life characters – Lord Cochrane, Anders Sparrman – and era-related references, such as bloomers (from Amelia Bloomer, the women’s rightist), and have fun with them. Because of this, there might be some temptation to pause and google, but I recommend that the reader should keep on turning the pages, as Ulett’s historical universe is not quite real, but a slightly parallel one, instead.  She says that she is giving her next book an even more fantastical edge, and I look forward to seeing the end result.

Interview with V.E. Ulett

The author of the rousing historical Blackwell series kindly consented to allow me to schedule an interview, to coincide with the launch of the print edition of her latest, Blackwell's Homecoming.

J.D. What is the source of your intense interest in early nineteenth century history? Books, films, stories told in your childhood?

V.E.U. Books, books are kind of my thing. As an impressionable adolescent I read all the great nineteenth century novelists; Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope. That milieu, the social order, gender and class relationships, are deeply interesting to me. I hope I’m not a snob in my reading tastes though. I read across all genres and in all formats: ebooks, print books, audio books.

J.D. Your readers are also curious about your focus on the early history of Hawaii.  While the story of the islands is particularly intriguing and colorful, do you have a special personal link to that area of the great Pacific?

V.E.U. I can’t claim any personal link to the Hawaiian Islands other than living beside the Pacific. I’m a long time resident of California, and I’ve had the privilege of vacationing in Hawaii a number of times. 

The Hawaiian Islands in the Blackwell’s Adventures series are an amalgamation from various nineteenth century Pacific island cultures and societies. Truth is often stranger than what we can get away with in fiction, and I wish I could have worked in more of the interesting bits I read about in various very fine non-fiction books on the Pacific islands and cultures. One of those books was your Tupaia.

J.D. Mercedes, Blackwell's exotic wife, is a strikingly unusual and most memorable woman.  What, for you, was a particular inspiration in the creation and development of this very strong character?

V.E.U. Women are underrepresented in nautical fiction, perhaps even stereotypically represented, so I wanted to write a character that answered that. An unusual woman, doing the unexpected. Thank you for calling Mercedes a strong character. I wanted to give her officer-like qualities, and make her brave, intelligent, dashing, kind.

J.D. Could you tell my readers something about your daily writing routine?  How much research, for instance, is involved in each segment of each novel?

V.E.U. Research for me doesn’t end, it’s ongoing. I read four or five books at a time, half of which will be non-fiction in some area of interest relative to my latest fiction project. 

As far as a daily writing routine, I work every day on some aspect: first draft, revision, editing, production. Every day. I subscribe to Walter Benjamin’s philosophy, ‘Literary honour requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a meeting) or at the end of the work.’

J.D. You say that Blackwell's Homecoming is the last in the series.  Undoubtedly, you say farewell to him as reluctantly as your readers will.  So, what looms next on your horizon?

V.E.U. Blackwell’s Homecoming is the last in the Blackwell’s Adventures series, but I reserve the right to revisit the Blackwells and the Pacific in future.

I’m working on a novel that is historical / nautical fiction with a fantastic edge. Gender roles, class, and culture are the things that interest me, and that I want to write about. The story, and the heroine of my next novel, will look at these serious matters with humor. A sort of James Bond meets the new Ms. Marvel. 

Thank you for having me on World of the Written Word, Joan, when I first read your books years ago while researching women at sea, I couldn’t have dreamed this would be in my future.  

Thank you! And good luck with both Blackwell's Homecoming and the new book, which sounds very exciting.

Blackwell's Homecoming is available both in print and digitally from all online bookstores, and is just a click away on Amazon.com 

Coming soon

An interview with author V.E. Ulett.

A long time resident of California, V.E. Ulett is an avid reader as well as writer of historical fiction. 

V.E. is a member of the National Books Critics Circle and an active member and reviewer for the Historical Novel Society.

Eighteenth and nineteenth century journals and letters inspired the writing of the Blackwell Adventure series, and the third in this very popular series is in publication.

Watch this blog for an interview with this very promising author.

Blackwell’s Homecoming

“A very satisfying conclusion to the Blackwell’s Adventures series, with lusty escapades tempered with amusing side passages, lively characters and a lovely ending.” – Broos Campbell, author of the Matty Graves series

In a multi-generational saga of love, war and betrayal, Captain Blackwell and Mercedes continue their voyage in Volume III of Blackwell’s Adventures. The Blackwell family’s eventful journey from England to Hawaii, by way of the new and tempestuous nations of Brazil and Chile, provides an intimate portrait of family conflicts and loyalties in the late Georgian Age. Blackwell’s Homecoming is an evocation of the dangers and rewards of desire.

"basically, I can kill people" - interview with Alaric Bond

INTERVIEW WITH ALARIC BOND

The Guinea Boat, now out in print!

Thank you, Alaric Bond, for agreeing to be interviewed by World of the Written Word

Congratulations on the launch of your eighth Age of Nelson novel, The Guinea Boat, an edge-of-the-seat thriller in which the hero is challenged not just by pirates, but by smugglers, too.  

JD:  Like your very well-reviewed Turn a Blind Eye, which was also about the free-traders who sabotaged the English economy during the Napoleonic Wars, it is a departure from your usual style. You were already the author of the very successful Fighting Sail series, so what inspired you to make this change of course?

AB: The Fighting Sail series is very important to me: I enjoy using the same characters, and being able to continue a story that reflects my interest in the French Wars from the Royal Naval angle. But the long periods of conflict affected other forces and organisations as well. Some, such as the Revenue Service, John Company and even Trinity House, are well known, while others, like the Sea Fencibles – effectively a “Dad's Navy” of the period – have been rather neglected. I feel there are plenty of tales to tell from a different perspective and the change of viewpoint opens up a whole new aspect to the times.

JD: Another thought is that through the six books of the Fighting Sail series, you must have become attached to the core characters.  How difficult was it to create a new hero, and his antagonists and allies?  Did it turn out to be a rewarding experience?

AB: Oh, it was very rewarding – and very freeing. There is nothing I like better than meeting new characters: the only problem comes when you have to abandon them at the end of a story.  With regard to my Fighting Sail series, this has no central hero, but relies instead on a diverse collection of individuals of differing ranks and disciplines that appear from book to book. That was a conscious decision for me, and allows the true danger of any situation to be shown: basically, I can kill people... When you read book five of a thirteen volume series about a central hero you know there is a fair chance they will get to the end in one piece. With my Fighting Sail books, everyone is vulnerable.

JD: Did the change of direction involve a change in tempo?  Or do you plot the book the same way, with events evolving towards an exciting climax?  Is it unusual for you to introduce a romantic element, for instance?

AB: I tend to plot all my books in much the same way, although the tempo of Guinea Boat is more reflective than that found in a Fighting Sail story. The change has allowed a good deal more insight into each character. And yes, there is a romantic element, although that is not unusual in my work. With regard to climax, I am especially pleased with the ending to Guinea Boat. It is not a dramatic fleet action, yet I think there will be enough to keep most readers interested.

JD: Did it mean that you had to do a lot of new research?  Or do you always start off a new line of background study, with every book you write?  At the same time, could you tell my readers something about how you tackle the job of creating an authentic, yet evocative setting?  For instance, do you take pains to learn the spoken idiom of the locality in that era?  Costume? Social manners? After all, you are writing in the era of Jane Austen as well as Admiral Nelson!

AB: Research is king; it begins long before any story has been mapped out, and never really ends. Not all is included in the actual text however – nothing slows the pace of an adventure story better than a succession of gratuitous facts, (and sometimes it is the more obscure points that truly cement the atmosphere and setting for a tale). I live relatively close to Hastings, where much of the action in Guinea Boat is set, and spent a good deal of time there walking along the ancient Rock-a-Nore, speaking to fishermen on the Stade, where their predecessors have worked for over a thousand years, and eating far too many fish and chip lunches. I learned much of the local slang and jargon, which remains in use and has been incorporated into the book. A selected glossary listing this, as well as more common nautical words and phrases, is included for those not familiar with the area.

JD:  My readers always appreciate learning something about an experienced writer's routine.  Do you write every day?  All day, or just part of the day?  And what is your favourite place for creating an Alaric Bond novel?

AB: I start at nine and end at five, pretty much six days a week although obviously the actual business of refining plots and polishing characters tends to be twenty-four, seven. We live in a house that was built in 1392, which is not unusual in my part of England. It has crooked floors and walls; the beams are low, much of the old glass gives some strange and wonderfully distorted images, and there is an atmosphere that is almost tangible (I blame the cat). To my mind it is the ideal place to create historical fiction.

Again, thank you very much for sharing so much with us.  Much appreciated, I assure you!

Writing sequels

Contains commentary from The Daily Beast

Normally, writing a sequel is just a matter of skill -- characters and setting have to be reintroduced informatively enough to let the new reader enter the series readily and easily, without the same alienating feeling of arriving in a room in the midst of an animated conversation that means everything to everyone there, but is foreign country for the new arrival.  And, at the same time, the reader who knows the previous book or books should not be bored with what might seem like unnecessary repetition.

If the book that came before is a mega-seller, and maybe even a classic, the challenge might seem insurmountable. The publisher and agent nag, and hugely tempting advances are offered, but what if the next book is a flop?  Think about that book that followed The De Vinci Code, for instance.  Can anyone even remember its name?

So it's no wonder that when a sequel to the immortal To Kill a Mockingbird is announced, doubts are expressed.

"Harper Lee promises a new novel - or does she?" asks Malcolm Jones on the Daily Beast.

For decades after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, the question that occupied most readers’ minds was, when will she write another novel? As the years passed, the question became, will she write another novel? And then, as Lee moved into her 80s, the question changed again: why didn’t she ever write another novel?

Now, out of nowhere comes the news that indeed there will be at least one more book from Lee. Go Set a Watchman is a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, taking up the story of Scout and Atticus some 20 years after the time of the first book. Scout returns to Maycomb, Alabama from her home in New York City to settle unfinished business with her family and her town.

According to her publisher, the Watchman manuscript was written beforeMockingbird. Lee’s editor at the time was especially taken with the flashbacks in the earlier version and asked her to fashion a novel out of Scout’s memories of childhood. “I was a first-time writer,” she said in a recent statement, “so I did as I was told.” Her revisions became To Kill a Mockingbird.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, Go Set a Watchman, never published, is the first draft of the book that’s sold more than 40 million copies.

Sadly, this latest Harper Lee news raises more questions than it answers. 

READ ON

But plenty of people believe it.  The day that the sequel was announced, it shot to the top of the Amazon bestseller list -- and it is not coming out until July!

The ignorance of bigotry

Iraqi Libraries Robbed by ISIS

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By Dianna Dilworth on Feb. 3, 2015 - 3:55 PMComment

Islamic State militants reportedly invaded the Central Library of Mosul last month, allegedly destroying books that “disobey” Allah.

The Boston Globe has the scoop:

Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded about 2,000 books — including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy, and tomes on sports, health, culture and science — into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.

Apparently the group, broke into the library and stole these texts and later destroyed them.

February events at the Women's Bookshop in Auckland

Can't read this email? Click here to view it in your browser. OPEN LATE until 8.00 Thursday and Friday! ONLINE SHOPPING -www.womensbookshop.co.nz Hi Joan THREE  FABULOUS  FEBRUARY  AUTHOR  EVENTS  Barbara Ewing & men in petticoats!  London-based New Zealand actress & author Barbara Ewing will be in the bookshop during the PRIDE FESTIVAL to celebrate her fabulous new novel The Petticoat Men, based on a true, outrageous Victorian story.  ‘Ewing’s strange and fascinating novel zooms in on one of the greatest scandals of the Victorian age and manages to shed new light on it . . . rich, vivid, terrific.’ –The Times MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY 6pm in the bookshop           Gold coin donation at the door  Family Portraits NZ Book Launch  Join author/illustrator Sam Orchard to launch this ‘first-of-its-kind in NZ’ series of comic books that celebrate our lives, diversity, sexual orientation & gender identities.  These NZ stories rejoice in our differences & look at how our ages, histories, genders, beliefs & ethnicities shape our experiences & how we live in the world. WEDNESDAY 18 FEBRUARY 6pm in the bookshop Gold coin donation at the door     The Chimes – Anna Smaill – Book Launch  A stunning literary debut, published in London, by 34 -year-old New Zealand poet & violinist Anna Smaill, The Chimes is a startlingly original work that combines unique prose with incredible imagination.  "The Chimes is a remarkable debut. It's inventive, beautifully written, and completely absorbing. I highly recommend it." - Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds. Join Anna & Hachette Publishers to celebrate this extraordinary publication. WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY 6pm in the bookshop   Visit our bookstall at the BIG GAY OUT - Sunday 8 February, Coyle Park, Pt. Chev. Visit our bookshop in Ponsonby Road on Saturday 21 February & stay for the PRIDE PARADE at 7.30pm Support young women’s theatre! Live Orgy – written & performed by Freya Desmarais  Monday 9 Feb – Wednesday 11 Feb 7pm  Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave Auckland CBD  BOOK 0508 iTICKET(484253) www.iticket.co.nz Feminist & full-on – this may be the sex education you never received! (Adult themes, R18)   MAD MARCH SALE! MAD MARCH SALE!   Penguin Random House are moving their warehouse to Australia – Result? LOTS of fabulous books for our SALE! We have been rummaging & scouring – it will be our best sale ever!! Begins 10am Saturday 28 February &  runs through March as long as stock lasts DON’T MISS OUT ON SOME AMAZING BARGAINS! Welcome to Paula Legel who is joining our team permanently on Saturdays & Sundays.  She’s hooked on books like the rest of us, will be able to recommend books to you & answer your curly questions! Happy reading Carole, Tanya, Mary-Liz, Patricia & Paula CONTACT US: The Women's Bookshop 105 Ponsonby Road, Auckland www.womensbookshop.co.nz books@womensbookshop.co.nz (09) 376 4399 Follow us on Facebook Know someone who loves books as much as you do? Click here to forward this email to them! We will miss you if you go, but if you would rather not receive emails from us, Please unsubscribe by clicking here. Copyright 2015. Email Marketing by Communicate.net.nz Ltd.

UNITY BOOKSTORE REOPENS!

As I reported earlier, a water pipe breakage and a collapsed ceiling led to a state of emergency at Wellington's favorite indie bookstore, Unity Books.

Staff worked on into the wee hours. volunteers turned up, and food and coffee were sent in, while books and display cabinets were salvaged.

Now, as the Dominion Post reports today (see above), Unity has reopened after the four-day pipe disaster.

Owner Tilly Lloyd said insurance would cover building damage and all of the books that were destroyed, but obviously there are costs. "January was really tracking well," she said, "but we will be OK. You can't do anything about the loss of revenue when a disaster strikes except get back on your feet fast, which we've managed to do."

Staff had done "an incredible job" of salvaging as many books as possible.  Worst hit were children's science fiction and crime fiction, but book buyers were re-ordering, and suppliers are responding fast.

"I'm feeling quite upbeat and positive, considering.  It's terrible that something like this happened, but the support from everyone has been great."