Xenofreak Nation - Melissa Conway - ebook

As a publisher, I know that the hardest thing about being a writer is getting people to know that you've actually written something they might like to read. The second hardest thing is getting them to part with their money! But Ms Conway has managed to quite successfully do both for me, and she also managed the third difficult thing: getting me to read her book and enjoy it.


I like a little humour, and it was Mark Coker's post on a Smashwords update that alerted me to Ms Conway's existence and rather entertaining marketing strategy. While I might have written Social Media Blues, I haven't recorded it, nor made a video for it. It was just me letting off a little confused steam. But Ms Conway took the ball and ran with it by making a video for the remarkably entertaining The Indie-Author Lament, and of course posted it on YouTube. And while that by itself didn't alert me to her book, the next video (the promo for her book), coupled with Mark Coker's original comments, did, and for $0.99 I thought 'What the hell?' And I'm a glad I did. Glad, I tell you, glad, glad, glad! (Okay, so you have to be of a certain age or a great fan of the old black and whites and/or Bette Davis to get that, but again, what the hell!)


I finished Xenofreak Nation in bed this morning (on my NOOKColor, of course!) and while the literati would probably turn their noses up at it, I found it to be well-written, well thought out, well edited and formatted, and easy to read without being trite or simple. It's got plot twists coming out of everywhere and touches on quite a few issues in current society, without labouring any points, but certainly giving me another perspective and a little food for thought.


I'm not one for the science fiction of weapons, gadgets, etc, but I do love science fiction based on societal changes (think John Wyndham's The Chrysalids and Stephen King's The Stand) and Xenofreak Nation, set in the New York of 2022, delivers us a society which has advanced quite believably from where we are now. While today's trend is tattooing, tomorrow's trend is xenographs - the art of medical surgery where the human animal decorates himself with skin, fur, feathers, etc grafted from non-human animal donors. Ms Conway has taken this idea and built a quite convincing action thriller around it. And while there is the hint of romance here and there, she manages to keep the book away from the cheap route of having the hero and heroine actually get it on together. You know that one day they will, so she doesn't waste your time with it now.


I have to admit to having a wee bit of trouble following the plot from time to time, but then I can never follow a James Bond movie, so one has to take that comment bearing in mind my need to be constantly reminded of why people are doing things. But that aside, it was fast-paced, believable (from a science fiction PoV) and well worth a read.


Verdict: highly recommended, as is the video for The Indie-Author Lament!

Dan Poynter's second annual Global Ebook Awards

Well, I'm thrilled to announce that I've just been appointed as one of the judges for Dan Poynter's second annual Global Ebook Awards! While I publish the Australian quarterly writing competition 'Narrator Magazine', I don't get to judge those entries - they're all done via secret guest judges - so it will be great fun to actually be a judge myself for a change. 


As a strong supporter of the epublishing industry, I look forward to giving something back. People like Dan, and Mark Coker from Smashwords, have done so much to help independent writers and publishers embrace the new technologies in an affordable and sustainable manner. 


Now don't get me wrong - I still love the feel of a 'real' book in my hands, but I really do believe that only those books truly worthy of a dead tree should be printed on paper (which is, of course, our MoshPit Publishing slogan). And what better way to work out whether or not your book is truly worthy of a dead tree than to release it first as an ebook? If it garners an audience, great, go to print. But if not, then at least you haven't dropped a bucket-load of cash, hope and humility, not to mention dead trees, on your book. 


So, if you're a budding writer, an existing writer or an established one, give some thought to entering your ebook in the 2012 Global Ebook Awards. If you need formatting help to get it into Smashwords, we can do that for you, or you can contact Smashwords for their list of formatters.


17 March 2012 update


If you're looking for my posts and reviews of:

• The Mill River Recluse by Darcy Chan
• Alpha Chick by Mal Duane
• Wishful Weddings by Hy Brett
• Writing at Work: A Quick and Easy Guide to Grammar and Effective Business Writing - Ellis Morgan

then I'm afraid you'll have to come back after 18 August. Originally, as judges of the Global eBook Awards, the though was that reviews should be posted as we go along, but it didn't take long for everyone to realise that this could sway other judges. So, we're still reading, and still reviewing, and still judging, but we have to hold our thoughts back from the public arena until after the Global eBook Awards have been held in Santa Barbara on 18 August 2012. Sorry folks!

Social Media Blues - a poem by Jenny Mosher :)

After a couple of hours last night reading different posts about Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter, I awoke this morning in total confusion. What should we be doing with social media? What's best? Where should we concentrate our energies, yada, yada, yada ...


And then it started in my head ... and I thought 'I shall call it Social Media Blues':

CHORUS:

Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Social media’s doing my head in!

What to post? When and where?

Does anybody read it? Does anybody care?

VERSE 1:

Mary’s got a new dog. John’s has had pups.

Fred’s having a downer, but Dawn’s on the up.

Marco has a new car, Shazza’s crashed her bike

Raelene’s set up a business page and wants me to hit ‘Like’.

Karl’s engaged, Kate is married, Kim is all alone

Geraldo’s playing Words with Friends, along with his mate, Tone.

Loretta tweets early, while PJ tweets all day

I don’t tweet at all - got no idea what to say! :(

CHORUS

VERSE 2:
Shirl has a new fiancé, she’s dumped the one of old

Babs is cooking dinner, but Barry’s out in the cold.

Storm warning on the tablelands, showers on the coast

The Johnstones are having visitors - they’re doing them a roast :)

Business tips from Brad, and more from Keith and Merril

A video from Greg, and holiday snaps from Teryl.

‘Wow! I’ve been there!’ I realise when I look at Teryl’s pics

Click ‘Like’ and type out what I think and see if I get some hits.

CHORUS

VERSE 3:
Got a Facebook business page, and a Google+ one too

I’m connecting well on LinkedIn, but should I join Twitter too?

I’ve too much junk in the shed, so I need to sell my bike.

I’ll have to join eBay, then PayPal and the like ...

And what about RedBubble, Flickr, Tumblr and YouTube?

Not strictly social media, but you need them, too, you know.

Ooh! A Farmville update, what’s Solomon up to now?

Sorry to get distracted, but I owe someone a cow.

CHORUS

VERSE 4:
The kids are screaming ‘Feed me!’ Hubby’s screaming too,

‘That PC gets more love than me, I’m going to buy one too!’

Now there’s an idea, we could each have one, and Facebook and Farmville together

A family in touch, via the net, regardless of the weather! :D

That’s the answer, it’s not what you do, it’s clearly the way that you do it!

Share it with love, share it with all, tweet it, Facebook it, +1it!

Now I’m on top, I’m getting control, just one more post for the day

‘Off to bed now folks, loves youse all! See you tomorrow,’ I say. ;)

CHORUS - sing it with me, now!

(Repeat then fade ...)

Now all I have to do is record it, get it on YouTube, get some Adwords going around it, and then repost it on Facebook, get someone to Tweet it for me, license it to Nike or Coca Cola ... and I'm rich!!! Yay - I knew it wouldn't be this hard!!!!

Please note, the above poem IS original, written by me on 8 January 2012, and the copyright is owned by me, Jennifer Mosher. If you wish to use these lyrics at all, please ensure that my name is attached as the writer and link back to this blog or wherever you found it. Thank you :)

The Iron Lady - a life in review

Image courtesy of
www.facebook.com/IronLadyMovie

Today was a movie date with my husband, and we chose the new Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady. 


Let me be honest from the outset: my mother, an intelligent, articulate, hard-working Englishwoman, is now 90 years of age, and while she is not suffering from the dementia that Baroness Thatcher has been cursed with, as her daughter I often cry inside for the woman I once knew, rather than the woman I now know, as my mother. And so it was that I cried for Margaret Thatcher while watching this movie. I cried at the beginning, at the end, and many times during the telling of this unimaginable story.


That the film's makers managed to bring Thatcher to the screen as a woman with true, honest feelings was a credit it to them. It would have been easy to follow a path where the former British Prime Minister was displayed as the cold, determined woman that the British press and her detractors would have us believe she was, and the film would have suffered greatly for it - it was her passion and love for her country and ideals that made her so strong and determined.


However, I'm still not 100% sure that I enjoyed this movie. 


It's good - no doubt about it - and Meryl Streep is, as always, fully deserving of every penny she was paid. That's the thing about Streep - she's not lazy, she doesn't take her roles for granted, she works as hard as anyone could to bring her characters to life. Having said that, her support cast were pretty damned fine, too, particularly Alexandra Roach who plays Thatcher in her 20s, the gorgeous Harry Lloyd who plays the young Denis Thatcher, and the wonderfully warm and dependable Jim Broadbent who gave the mature Denis Thatcher possibly a bit more spark and intelligence than the British press of the time would have us believe he possessed.


The sets were fine, the script and acting fine, the costume and make up unfaultable, but I struggled with the flashback concept. I can understand why it was employed, rather than a straight linear re-telling of Thatcher's decision to enter politics and subsequent events and decisions which led to her appointment as Prime Minister, but I found the movie as a whole disjointed, due to the way vignettes were employed to link the present with the past.


I suppose in a life as long and momentous as Thatcher's, that the re-telling has to be restricted to vignettes to bring to the audience the many different things they need to know to understand this incredible woman, but I think it would have worked better had less focus been made of the now, and more of the then.


My other problem with this movie was the use of the odd 'arty' shot. At one point, Thatcher is seen, waist-up, gliding through the Houses of Parliament, followed by groups of men walking behind her. The same scene is repeated several times, with changes of outfits and changes of entourage/followers, but it seemed at odds with the general earthiness and reality of the rest of the movie. Another scene where a maidservant is hand sewing a button onto the gown Thatcher is wearing prior to attending a formal dinner sees members of her cabinet rotating in turns in front of her to say their piece, as if they were on a stage and the scene had been choreographed. Ironically, the dementia scenes where Denis comes and goes seemed quite 'real' to me!


Love her or hate her, you have to admire Thatcher's will, her clear desire to try to bring Britain back to being a power to be reckoned with, rather than the cold, damp broken country it was rapidly becoming. And this movie truly does explore the idea that Thatcher was, first and foremost, a person, a real, living, human being, a parent, a citizen of a country, a worker, a learner, and, at the end of it all, someone who put their money where their mouth was and rather than sit and whinge, truly tried to 'do something about it'.


Go, see it, learn - about Britain in the late 1970s-1990s, about people, about the sacrifices one must make to be a true servant of the public. And then admire the many thousands of people out there who are, in their own small way, not just in politics, but also in government, in charity and in volunteering, trying to 'do something about it', whatever their 'it' may be.