Banana Waffles.

Pretty poor work. Lacks rhythm, lacks insight. Boring. - Delphine Ross

That's the bad news - the ONE review. The ONE person who felt moved enough to comment LOL

But the good news is Widget Views: 94 Fullscreen Views: 28

I've been called many things - but boring was never one of them before! Oh well.

I suppose I'll just have to try harder or just give up entirely?

I'll take that as a thumbs down then eh Delphine?

But it was nice of her to take the time to comment.

Who was it who said the only worse thing than people talking about you is people not talking about you?

It's an e-book version of the Lite edition I have uploaded to BookBuzzR. A short sample to give a taste of the full 82 page 'real' book due out soon.

Here's the link to the page on their site all about my book http://www.freado.com/book/4041/Alternative-Poetry-Books-Yellow-edition---Lite

Go see and let me know what you think.

There is a typo on one page - but that will be corrected soon - promise

I have signed up with a bunch called BookBuzzR and you can find my profile on them as an author here

If you have the urge to do so - you can register as a 'fan' of mine LOL
It is a pity they can't call them Readers or something a bit more dignified.
"Fan" conjures up images of screaming teenagers desperate for an autograph and I hardly think the kind people who are prepared to pay attention to my offerings fit under that sort of category.
I strongly counsel against screaming for any reason other than a severe emergency as it does dreadful damage to the vocal chords.

I will be putting my book on this system soon so that prospective purchasers can riffle through and get an idea of what their hard earned £3 ish of money will be likely to buy them. I think the reccommended retail price will be £4.99 but that will be subject to mates rates discounts and bulk order discounts (yeah like that's going to happen )

I have also been 'interviewed' for a blog by a very nice 'literary' type who is not at all the 'up himself' sort I had previously assumed would fill that kind of role. The interview (which I have to say is a bit wacky even by my standards) is going up on Monday as far as I know - so I will link to it when the time comes so you can witness whether or not I have made a complete and utter balls up of it, or whether I may have managed to squeak a passing grade as interviewee

The 100 ISBN numbers have been ordered and paid for (£200) - which is good value if I manage to produce 200 books, but at the moment counts as front end loading on the cost of publishing the one book if I look at things pessimistically.

The system said it would take up to ten working days for the ISBN numbers to be issued.

Then we can register the book with the British Library Catalogue and get the proof copy done. There's no point getting the proof copy before that because if we want to add the ISBN number later it will cost more to change the printing file. We are keeping fingers crossed that we can get it perfect first time to keep costs down.

Still it's all very exciting in an administrative sort of way

News on Twitter just now.

A fire fighting plane has crashed on Kefalonia and so far it looks like at least one pilot is dead.

Last night there was a strong smell of burning.

It is too warm to sleep with the windows shut and so I was woken by the acrid smoky smell.

You can tell when it is near or not and the smell was 'burnt' rather than burning, but it is still nasty.

One of the reasons I feel so safe and secure living here is because of the wonderful fire service Kefalonia has. During the summer fire engines are on standby and we often have the fire engine outside the house in the early hours filling up from the water supply outside.

The lights wake me up and the noise can be intrusive, but I never mind because it means that we are being kept safe by these brave hard working people.

The water planes are an every day sight - when they aren't actually fighting fires they are practising picking up and dropping their heavy water loads over the sea. Another reassuring sight.

So I have a lump in my throat as I write this. Because at least one very brave person has given their life while trying to keep mine safe.

As yet I don't know this pilot's name, but even if I never hear it or read it, that pilot will always be remembered by me.

I owe him at the very least that much.

I seem to be turning into blog.co.uk's very own nagging busybody today

I've told one person not to drink so much and another one to take my special cold remedy and another to eat properly!!!

Oh dear! Maybe I should have had more than one child?

But too late now - the 'removal men' have been busy ensuring that my baby making department will very soon be vacant and no longer fit for purpose

I have this vision of my womb boarded up and an old tramp huddled in its doorway sheltering from the cold

I may be going slightly mad.

This is something that niggles away at me often.
I know the christian religion has "love thine enemy" as one of its tenets, but it also has "love thy neighbour".

Just imagine the difference in Britain today if every christian actually took that "love thy neighbour" to heart and put it into real practise.
I don't mean in the biblical sense - there is too much of that going on already with marriages and relationships casually disregarded for a swift bonk session when there isn't anything much on afternoon telly. I mean in the caring and making sure your neighbour is OK and vice versa.

But there is so much emphasis on loving thine enemy. So many exhortations to 'forgive' people who behave abominably.

One Tweet today proclaimed that we should love our enemies because otherwise our hearts would be consumed by hate!

Excuse me?

I don't have to love someone in order not to hate them.

If that was true then all the people in the UK who don't actively love their neighbours must therefore hate them. Which is clearly nuts. Isn't it? Or has the human race become programmable with only two status conditions - love or hate?

What happened to indifference, mild liking, mild dislike and all the other stages in between?

The way I feel when I love someone is a very powerful special emotion. I don't feel that way about strangers and I certainly wouldn't feel that way about an enemy. If I did I would then be conflicted intolerably.

To love someone means that you are prepared to sacrifice your own well being if it is necessary for their well being. This is why parents go without in order to feed their children - it is a biological imperative to ensure that the human race continues - and frankly I also think it is morally correct. To suggest that I should be prepared to have the same level of sacrifice for someone who might be prepared to see me rot - is a little cloud cuckoo land surely?

I have no arguments with not wanting an enemy to suffer or have bad things happen to them - but that isn't the same as loving them.

As long as love is devalued down into just meaning be pleasant and don't harm - then people can kid themselves that they 'love' almost anyone and use that as an excuse for almost anything. It is not right to love strangers, bad people and enemies. It is right to love family, friends and those who depend on us to do so.

It is right to be humane and decent to everyone - but to equate that with love makes a mockery of what love really can be.

I don't even think when a 'hero' risks their life for a stranger - that it is love - it is simply a rush of adrenaline and other hormones leading to certain protective behaviours and will only occur in certain people with certain tendencies.

I have to say that if people concentrated on being kind to their close family and friends, then maybe more people would feel nurtured and there would be less 'enemies' out there in the first place, because they wouldn't be so damaged from lacking something from their nearest and what should be dearest.

I have been playing Animal Crossing on my Nintendo DS for more than two years and I only worked out today that I can earn more bells by catching insects than by catching fish!!
I deserve the hideous pink hairdo that they gave me in Shampoodle!! LOL

One of the downsides of living in a lovely warm part of the world that also has luxurious vegetation is the fire risk.
Sadly there are two large fires in Greece at the moment - one in Athens and one closer to home on Zakynthos.

Yesterday while driving down to the beach we saw something that delayed us and frankly got my blood boiling with rage

A car in front of us packed with obvious tourists and being followed by a motorbike ridden by a young man wearing nothing but shorts and a pair of light sun shoes. They were clearly 'mates' as the biker showed off to the girls in the car by waving his arms in the air instead of holding on.

Their antics were causing us some difficulty as they kept slowing down unexpectedly.

The point at which it went beyond general irresponsibility was when the guy on the bike - lets call him 'pillock' from now on for the sake of accuracy - pulled alongside the car, leaned in and accepted a cigarette, which he then lit by holding it in his mouth and touching it to the lit cigarette of the brain dead occupant of the front passenger seat.

Much hilarity ensued from the impressed car occupants.

Pillock then resumed his position behind the car and casually threw the whole new LIT cigarette onto the road!!!!

We had got quite a way along before we realised what had happened. I couldn't believe anyone could be so criminally careless.

The roads are very narrow and it was a long way down before we could turn the car around and go back to check to see if the cigarette had set fire to anything yet.

Luckily, it hadn't. Possibly another vehicle had providentially driven over it and crushed it out.

But given the constant sight of water planes over the island and fire crews on stand by in various places when they aren't rushing to avert serious disaster day in day out on the island - HOW COULD ANYONE DO SUCH A THING?

The roadsides are tinder at the moment.

How to get genuine paintings for the Gallery in the Museum:

a. Buy the painting from Redd (which is more than likely a fake)
b. Sell it to Nook immediately.
c. Buy it back from Nook via the catalogue.

This process turns a 'fake' into a genuine painting which can then be donated to the museum.

1 quick way I make money on DS Animal Crossing.

Before going to another town and collect as many of your local fruit as possible.
Fill your pockets and make sure your letter storage is full of letters and attach a fruit to each letter as well.
Then go to the new town and sell them at the other Nooks.
While you are there ask him about turnips (while you haven't got any)
If he makes a good offer on turnips you know to collect your turnips and come back to sell them.

Before returning to get your turnips.
Collect as many of the different fruit in the new town and fill up as before.
When you get back save a few of these fruit to plant and sell the rest.
Collect your turnips and return to sell them at the other Nooks.

How to get a golden spade/shovel.

Buy two shovels.
Using one dig a hole.
Bury the other and leave overnight.
Dig it up next day - it will be golden.
If you repeat the process with the other shovel - you can give it as a gift or sell it.

I thought I had managed to kick my addiction to Animal Crossing on the Nintendo DS - but it's back and I'm worse than I used to be.

Two years ago we bought me a white DS and an Animal Crossing game. 6 other games later & nothing comes close to the fun and satisfaction I get from disappearing into my virtual world which contains no real people but me. I catch fish, collect fossils, grow plants etc etc and find it all engrossing and lovely.

Then we bought a black DS so the menfolk could also play the game and we could 'meet up' in each other's worlds.

But it didn't work that way.

Instead I have two worlds going and I cross populate them and 'cheat' by buying things cheap on one world and selling them expensive on another - those who know the game know I mean of course white turnips

I'm writing this trying to persuade myself not to go on and start fishing and catching bugs.... Oh who am I kidding? Not me.

We even bought the Animal Crossing for Wii but I was very put out to realise that it wasn't easy to visit from my DS - I can 'port' my character but it can't take stuff with it or bring it back - so what's the point?

See you later - I have two worlds that need me

I was Googling one of my poems - because I often find them easier that way rather than going through the Blog search system which sometimes 'loses' poems and tells me there is no result for them when I know they are there. It was the Cauliflower Soup poem - which I am including in my new book.

It is an example of a macaronic poem - one which mish mashes languages together in a humorous manner - in this case French and English which is nice and appropriate as it is a food poem - but it would have been even better if macaroni was in the recipe. I suppose one could add it - it would probably be nice, but still not in the poem.

Anyway I was amazed to find my poem in a forum for SAP developers!!! (SAP is a software developers package.)

It was flattering to know that someone liked my soup poem enough to reproduce it - but he hadn't said where it was from - even when one of the other posters asked him - which made me a bit sad.

I trawled around the forum to find out how to remedy the problem but ended up contacting the technical support people to ask them to add an acknowledgement please or remove it.

It isn't fair to share my work without saying it is mine. I have this horrible fear that someone might end up accusing me of stealing my own work

That happened to a graphic designer who publicised his predicament on Twitter.

Someone stole his designs, altered them slightly and then submitted them to a site where they were being sold!

When he contacted them to complain, they accused him of stealing them and began phoning his clients and damaging his business. Even though he could prove beyond doubt he was the owner of the work they continued to do this. I'm not sure what happened but it was a nasty situation and one which gives most creative people who place their work online a certain amount of anxiety - to say the least.

I don't like being heavy handed and hope that no-one is going to get into any sort of trouble over my *hot* soup poem - I don't want them 'in the soup' but I do want my work to be known as mine as is fair and right.

So fingers crossed this will be dealt with quickly and painlessly.

I've done the title pages and the legal blurb pages which look very 'real' and make me want to do a little silly jig as I'm sure all serious authors do when they see the legal blurb page

I've done my dedication page which I use to dedicate the book to the memory of my father - which makes me get a bit teary every time I look at it.

All that is left now is the contents pages and the how this book works page and a page for the end of the book with the info about my web blogs and other web presences.

Then I need to tidy up and balance my poetry pages so they look neat next to each other and then I can insert the individual poem dedications and then I'm done.

I've used some quotes in my front 'hello world' page - and I am debating how to contact the quotees so as to include their names with the quotes which are as yet unattributed.

Though I say it myself it looks just like a 'real' book HA HA HA!!!

I think I did mention unforeseen circumstances so not a total humiliation

I'm nearly done. I'm up to page 67 now and would have finished except for a particularly bad 'lady problem' which has knocked me back a bit in the last few days. Yesterday I started to make some really bad mistakes and had to leave my work for fear of making so many mistakes I would be going backwards instead of forwards with the task in hand.

Hopefully my fuzzy brain problem will clear up towards the end of the day and I will be able to finish my poetry choices and the first 'final' layout.

I am quite happy with the way things are shaping up.

Hope everyone has a nice Saturday.

Love from me

XX

Page 30 so far now!

I'm starting to see a connecting thread working through the poems as I choose them. Some of them are completely subconscious and others less so. For example I wasn't paying attention to the page numbers until I realised I'd placed The Hero Party - which was inspired by my son's eighteenth birthday on page 18.

I then unconsciously placed With every breath we take potential for disaster next to A Question of Pants

So I'm still having fun and I'm on course to be finished with the choices and layouts by the end of this working week barring unforeseen circumstances.

Book, book, book, book, book , book.

Might be going slightly insane though

I am up to page fourteen.

PAGE FOURTEEN!!!

My back is killing me and I haven't set foot outside the house apart from going on to the balcony to water plants and put washing on the line for days!

But I have fourteen pages that look fantastic!

I am really hoping I will learn techniques to make this move a bit faster, otherwise by the time I get to the end of book 7 I will be a wreck

I am finally learning what the phrase "Suffering for one's art" really means.

Lucky I'm the dogged determined type or I would have already given up by now.

Will keep you all up to date.

I have started a new blog (because I didn't have enough already LOL) which will be specifically for the poetry books and news about them.

As soon as I have a cover design image/s or all 7 of them I will add them to the new blog and start populating it with information about the expected date of publication etc.

Not quite so much fun at the moment - but still a bit

It's a daft one I know. But I'll tell it to you anyway because you are the sort of person who will understand aren't you? Bright, good taste and full of fun - that's you in a nut shell. Here goes...

I'm going to publish my books one at a time until all seven are out there. I am NOT going to *market* them. Because I don't want to *sell* them. I'm an idiot of course.

Everyone on various media sites goes on and on and on and on about marketing, marketing, marketing, push, push, push. Nobody will buy books if you don't *market* them. Poetry doesn't sell. Blah, blah, blah.

But I don't write poetry to *sell* it. I write it for people to read it. Here on my blogs people are amazingly doing just that.

Not gazillions of them, but a big massive pile more than I ever imagined would want to

I'm not publishing my books because I want to make a packet out of flogging them either. If a gazillion people feel an overwhelming urge to purchase them in bulk - I'm not going to shout "NO! put them back on the shelves - money is evil and I want nothing to do with it." I'm not that much of an idiot

But I want more than anything to create a set of books that will be something to be proud of in more than one way. I want to have the contents presented in exactly the right way so that they are easy to read and a pleasure to look at on the page even before the words are read and absorbed. I want the book to be an attractive statement about my approach to poetry and also cheer people up when they look at it.

When the set is arranged on the bookshelf in order of the colours of the rainbow - sense will appear out of apparant chaos.

Although I will have to charge something to cover costs I want this set to be a *gift* by making it so special that it will surpass any expectations and will matter to the people who do end up owning it.

Because I might not have written each poem specifically with you in mind, but I am creating these books with you in mind and I want you to be as excited about them as I am. I want you to feel like jumping up and down a little bit as long as no-one is looking when they arrive on your shelf, because you have something that not many other people have. Not the set of books - but the something that made you the sort of person who wanted those books and understood what I meant when I took the time and risk in making them happen.

Just spent hours and hours getting the layout for my book sorted out

It's exhausting! Writing is much easier than this. It involved a snappy extendable tape measure, scissors and quite a lot of swearing

But I now have the first two proper pages layed out to my satisfaction.

I have chosen deja vu sans for the headings and deja vu serif condensed for the funny poetry pages and deja vu serif for the serious poetry pages.

With margins properly arranged for the left and right pages it is looking good and I'm getting quite excited

I think I should have the first book layed out by the end of next week

Husband is busy finding the exact colours I want for the covers and as soon as he mocks up the series I will put some images up for you all to have a look at and let me know what you think.

Self publishing is fun fun fun. Much more so than the old printer set I had as a kid with little pink rubber letters and an ink pad, which just made a huge mess and took hours to even print just my name

The title of this post is from a joke about a chicken working at the library. A frog came in and the chicken offered him various titles to borrow saying "Book, book, book, book?" But sadly it didn't go well The frog of course kept replying "Reddit! Reddit! Reddit! Reddit!"

Which is more likely to be useful, pleasant, attractive and make good presents for christmas or birthdays?

Should I self publish

7 different 'slim' poetry books - with the same theme and cover style but numbered 1 - 7 coloured each colour of the rainbow so they look nice stacked next to each other on a shelf?

or

1 big fat poetry book - but provide it in 7 different colours so that people can buy whichever one they like best?

Whichever I choose they will be paperbacks.

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this via the comments section. Please help, I know which choice I would prefer but that doesn't mean it is what my potential readers would prefer so a bit of 'market research' seems to be the wise course of action at this point in the self- publishing process.

1970 something.

A twelve year old girl sits in the nurses room of a 'feeder' comprehensive school. The school only teaches children aged between 11 and 13 and prepares them for the 'big' school where they go after 2 years in this one.

The nurses room is small with an 'examination' type bed, weighing scales and height measuring thingy, eye chart on the wall, a shelf with an eye bath and a bottle of TCP next to it and a straight backed chair.

The bottle of TCP isn't leaky but the smell of TCP is all pervading in the atmosphere of the dim room which only has a small window glazed with sort of bathroom panes to ensure privacy.

She has a bowl in front of her and is feeling sick. She has already vomited a few times and a glass of water sits on the flat part of the basin in the event she wants to rinse her mouth or is thirsty.

She is drunk and extremely ashamed of herself.

It is her birthday and her much older boyfriend turned up at the school gates with a present for her. A huge box of liqueur chocolates - which she ate almost entirely on her own - only sharing one or two with some friends.

Unaccustomed to alcohol of any kind the gift has had unwelcome effects and here she sits in disgrace. The rest of the school know what has happened and although she is not guilty of anything other than having an inappropriately older boyfriend and being a greedy hog - everyone feels a strong sense of disapproval and horror at the sight of a girl the worse for wear due to 'drink'.

That event has stayed with me for years. Nobody was unkind to the girl but she always remained in many of our minds as the 'drunk girl' and never shook off the stigma during the school years.

None of us had ever seen anyone drunk in public. Obviously some of the kids must have had parents with a 'drinking problem' but in those days that is how drink was viewed. You were either a normal person who drank responsibly, or you were a 'drinker' which was an euphemism for an alcoholic or a person with problems who sought refuge in a glass. Men would get tipsy on a weekend of course. I lived between two pubs and would hear the patrons making their way home at night, singing sometimes, laughing and talking loudly and obviously 'happy'. But there were no fights in the street except for extremely rare occasions which were then the subject of 'talk' in the village for years to come.

Now I live in Greece I find the same attitude prevails here amongst the locals. Being drunk is felt to be a loss of dignity and a sign of lack of strength of character and self control. Becoming aggressive due to drink is never tolerated, offering violence in public is dealt with swiftly and severely.

I think it is horribly sad that being drunk has become acceptable in the UK. I think it is a pity that people cannot have a happy celebratory or just friendly evening out with mates or at home without drinking themselves into a state of loss of control. It isn't just the 'moral' side of things - I couldn't care less about that, it is the damage they do to their bodies, brains and their emotional well being. It is also the sadness that they must be hurting inside to need this self medication of false enjoyment to drug them through another section of time.

All these people are worth so much more than that.

When I go out late at night here and see families and young people and groups of men mingling together with no thought of trouble (unless there is a large contingent of Brits getting sloshed and out of hand) it is blindingly obvious how much happier people are here. Work is hard/impossible to come by, people get by here on a tiny proportion of the average income of the UK person, but the community self regulates and while there are people with drug problems and drink problems - it isn't the acceptable norm here.

I wish that everyone could have that kind of life.

It used to be like that in the UK.

What changed?