Send In The Clowns
Anyone who has read my fiction will know that I like to write about very dark things sometimes. I think that the workings of real dark minds and deeds make some of the best fiction because most people can relate to some of it. Whether it’s something that’s been seen or heard, or maybe even experienced personally, it’s good to know that we are not alone in our fears. Even if the only thing to know is that some author out there has felt it too, and hopefully got the characters in the stories to overcome whatever the scary thing is by the end of the book. Humans, for some odd reason, often enjoy being frightened, whether what scares us is supposedly rational or not. We also like to know that scary things can be overcome.
I’m a lot more frightened of what some people get up to in real life than “things” or ideas of things—apart from heights—those just scare the daylights out of me. Which still doesn’t stop me from watching World’s Most Dangerous Roads all the time. Anyway, I got to thinking that a good writer could really turn some readers into quivering piles of jelly with any sort of thing. Stephen King has used cars, dogs, and small twin girls most effectively.
I was talking to a friend the other day and the subject got on to clowns. When I’m not doing commission work, which is mainly illustrating cute and happy books for children these days, I’m currently obsessed with painting carousel horses and clowns. Fair enough—I’m always obsessed with painting horses, but right now I’m exploring some dark impressionistic mixed media circus pieces. I’m also finishing up a simple black and white clown illustration for my upcoming book (Making Illustrated Books – planned release date 15 December by the way).
Unfinished clown pictured here.
My friend said that she was really not at all fond of clowns—she found them rather scary, and I understood that, having both read Stephen King’s IT a few times and also seen the movie. So I thought that I’d do a bit of research and see if clown hating was a real thing. And it is indeed. IT put me off clowns for a while too, but not forever. I adored clowns as a child, and specifically I adored a clown named JoJo. I’m absolutely and without any exception against any sort of circus act involving any animal these days, but I still think that clown and trapeze acts are fabulous. I actually met JoJo the clown in an elevator somewhere in Johannesburg when I was about nine. He was wonderful and kind and smiley and he gave me a toffee that he fished out of one of his enormous pockets and a hug. I still remember how very big he was with all the puffiness of his satin outfit and the slightly musty smell of it also. Fond memories for me, but possibly being stuck in a lift with JoJo would have been a nightmare for someone with Coulrophobia.
Coulrophobia is “a deep and irrational fear of clowns” and is an actual documented phobia. It has a list of symptoms for mental healthcare workers to look out for and also suggested treatments including psychotherapy and exposure therapy. I have always thought that any kind of exposure therapy would be fodder for excellent fiction. The fact that Coulrophobia is a recent addition to officially listed phobias makes me think that it should be called CoulrophobiaalaKing. Old IT was a player in a whole lot of nightmares and possibly grounds for a whole new phobia in itself.
I doubt that anyone could outdo Stephen King with a new scary book with a horrible clown in it, but that’s alright because I’ve just discovered a whole world of new things to write about having had a look at some of the things that frighten us. Maybe not Omphalophobia, which is a fear of belly buttons. Although that could actually make quite an interesting story—trying to run away from your belly button all the time. Or maybe I could just write a terrifying scene hunting down the person who called the persistent and irrational fear of long words Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, and then making them say it a thousand times. Talk about exposure therapy. How on Earth would anyone that had such a phobia tell anyone that they had it?
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
I wasn’t sure if I’d come back here—to this blog. So much has changed. Changed a lot. I’ve been pretty much offline for a few years due to a health issue which ended up in me losing most of the vision in one of my eyeballs, and still makes my kidneys try and run away now and then. It’s been a journey that has encompassed terror, rage, inertia, bad judgment, good judgment, and a whole new insight into poverty. I’m used to the eyeball now. I can see more than well enough with the other one, and my work is getting back on track. Part of getting back on track is diving back into social media. Fortunately I do have a couple of clients from before the sky fell on my head who have stuck with me, one of whom, who apart from being a rock star science-fiction writing magician, has become a most fabulous friend who has had my back through the whole thing. Thank you. Without you I would probably still be on the floor, and not even have the option to contemplate social media.
So here I am. Back again. Different, but the same, damaged but a whole lot stronger, and apparently still just as easily appalled by idiots as I always have been.
I mostly follow groups with art and writing related content on Facebook, but obviously also groups for other interests. Anyone who has followed me for any length of time will know how much I love animals, and birds in particular. So I follow a few bird groups. I’m very busy at the moment, but I’m giving myself fifteen minutes of Facebook time a day just to catch up with what I’ve missed out on these last few missing years.
After a bit of happy scrolling, smiling at clever writing memes and fabulous artworks, there it was. The thing that Facebook does better than any other platform. That shocking, horrible picture that you would never in a million years purposely look for. Right there. In your face.
It was a photo of a hawk on a branch with its terrified prey held down with a talon. In this case a Mynah bird. Fair enough. I’m not an absolute idiot. I am aware that everyone has to eat, including hawks, and they generally do a much better job of arranging their dinners with a whole lot less suffering time for whoever is on the menu than humans do. I’m also aware that Mynah birds are considered an invasive species in this country.
Still, the comments under this picture really got to me. I almost left a comment myself, but luckily, for once, I managed to control myself and instead left Facebook and went back to book formatting and fiddling with a book cover. I know that getting into the nostril of a Facebook troll only results in getting covered in troll bogies. They seldom use their single brain cells for anything other than thinking up nastiness. Unfortunately, that photo was the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning. And those comments. Joyfully joking about and celebrating the death of a bird. Yay. Another one bites the dust. Hopefully they will all die in the most horrible ways possible. Horrible creatures. Nasty to other birds. And so on…
There were a sparse few comments from reasonable people trying to explain that animals are not people. They don’t act with malice aforethought—like humans. What if that hawk had a kitten under his talon, considering whether to filet or mince for breakfast? Much loved as they are by all, cats do just as much damage to indigenous birds as any other “invasive” species. Probably there wouldn’t have been so many comments sharing the joy of knowing that a “horrible” creature had met its end in a horrible way.
Every creature is just living its life. Getting on with things. They are what they are. They don’t plan to be cruel. They are all fabulous in their own right. People who have raised a Mynah bird love them. They are clever, and loyal, and loving—they are hunters, and they kill. Just like your adored kitty cat, they don’t have a list of species that it is okay to kill. Mouse? Yes—get that cuddy! Baby rare bird? No—torture the hunter! Seriously, trolls. Clean up your own human failings, and leave the animals alone, or at least stop carting them off to foreign parts and then blaming them for trying to survive.
Ah well. I guess I am back after all.
A Writer’s Voice – The Shepherd’s Crown
Many apologies for my extended absence this time. I still don’t want to talk about it though. Life happens all the time, to everyone, and whining doesn’t do much for me most of the time. Onward and forward is my preferred go-to. My other go-to is reading. I’ve read some fabulous books these past months, which I will post reviews for later-ish, as well as doing a big comment catch up, but for now I’m thinking about how unique us scribblers are.
Real readers are a discerning bunch. They’re just as much of a tribe as writers are, and it’s not easy to pull the wool over their eyes. They know what their favourite authors sound like. They know what the worlds in their favourite books look and feel like. They recognise the voices coming off the pages, and a lot of the time, if those voices don’t seem quite right, they will go to a lot of trouble to investigate and find out why. A lot of readers can research a lot of writers under the table. Sometimes they will be outraged when they find out the reason for their suspicion and dispense with a one star whopper of a scathing review. But sometimes they’ll just have a good cry, and keep a ten star review forever in their heart when they learn the reason for a book that doesn’t sound or feel as it should in some places.
Reading The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett was a very strange experience for me, and to begin with had me thinking that the publishers should have distributed the original unfinished manuscript to some of his die-hard fans to have a go at before sending it to professional editors. Any professional editor that read the finished book would probably have had a couple of issues anyway, even if they’d never read any other Discworld book before, but still, I thought that a couple of us Pratchett groupies would have done a better job at putting words in some of the character’s mouths. But then I completely changed my mind. The Shepherd’s Crown is perfect exactly as it is.
The thing is, it is full of Pratchett, and reading it from cover to cover, knowing that it is his final book—his swan song—was one of the most moving experiences for me precisely BECAUSE of the places where his voice was missing. It broke my heart, but in a comforting way. It was the only Discworld book that made me cry more than it made me laugh. I don’t want to put any spoilers here, but there was one huge thing that happened in the beginning of the book that was so right (even if it would have been fleshed out a-la-Pratchett a whole lot more if he had had the time to finish this book) for this final tale. You can just see “her” settling down next to him wherever he is now, nodding, accepting a cup of tea, and then heading off into whatever adventures are happening in that new to them world.
I haven’t posted a review for this one on Amazon or Goodreads yet, but I have read a lot of the ones already there, and they are so poignant and loving. How could any Terry Pratchett lover post a bad review for The Shepherd’s Crown? Of course I give it ten out of five stars, and of course I’ll read it again, just as I do all of his other books. A most fabulous and fitting end to the writing of a true legend.
It does just go to show though, how very powerful a brilliant writer’s voice can be. In my “day job” editing the books of Indie authors, I try to be as gentle as possible when it comes to their very unique voices, even if my fingers burn to advise a change to something that I would never dream of writing myself. Yonks ago, when eBooks were still only science-fiction, I remember being about twenty pages into The Running Man by Richard Bachman, when I thought, “This is Stephen King!”, and I was right. You can’t pull the wool over real readers’ eyes, and you really shouldn’t try to.
I Don’t Wanna Talk About It
Yes – I’ve been away for a while. Things happen – we grow – or we don’t grow. I’m not going to apologise for life happening to me. Death and life – and then more death and a bit of hatred… You never know where it’s going to come from or how it will make you feel. And dodgy internet – oh yes. It happens to us all. So…..
I am going to be posting again – as regularly as I can. The one thing that has kept me sane over the past year of death, madness, and destruction, has been illustrating children’s books. I’ve also started fan girling my own Shadow People book. I’m going to fan this on Youtube and also here.
So, I hope you forgive my long absence, and accept my odd re-emergence…
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
This was not an easy read. I did a lot of research into apartheid when I wrote African Me & Satellite TV, and just reading about some of the history of some of the things that were done to black people hurts badly. But even though you cringe in shame for the insanely barbaric doings of other whites, you can never feel the shame of millions of people for being classified as sub-human because of the colour of their skin. This book does a good job of getting you a little closer to that feeling than the any of the history books I’ve read.
I grew up smack bang in the middle of apartheid. Where even little white children expected “respect” from adult black people. I always found it weird how many people suddenly had stories about their black “friends” during the struggle after having seen very few real white…
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The Joy of Kindles
It is impossible to look anywhere now without Covid-19 and its effects being right there in your face, except of course when you manage to lose yourself in a good movie or book. At this point most of us have realised that we can’t choose not to partake in this horrible pandemic. It turned lives around the world upside down almost overnight, and it is still plowing on like a slow train. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to socialise online, and be able to stockpile provisions for at least a few weeks. Luckily for some the biggest problems are boredom. There are millions of others who don’t have running water, or food, or adequate shelter, and knowing that makes boredom seem like a blessing.
We know that sooner or later this will pass. It is obvious though that our world will be changed. We will lose people that we wouldn’t have lost so soon. There will be a whole lot of mourning and grief. Then our new normal will begin to show itself. Maybe as soon as it’s safe to do so there will be lots of parties and hugging, but maybe there won’t be. Could be that some people will be more cautious about getting too close to others. Smaller airlines will probably go out of business, and cruise ships might not seem like fun things to be on any more. We don’t know what the future holds. Business owners don’t know whether they can weather this particular storm. And this applies to authors also. We are all wondering what to do next. Some suggest promoting their books. Others suggest giving away their books for free.
If you follow the bestseller lists on Amazon you will see a big upsurge of children’s books in the top 100, so yes, if you are selling children’s books, you might very well see an increase in sales at this point. I’ve asked quite a few people what books they are buying for themselves right now, and most of them said that they’re not. People are reading the collections they already have, and they’re taking advantage of the many freebies on offer right now. So I’m thinking that if you have a book ready to publish it might be a good idea to hold off for a little while, and either work on perfecting it a little more or get started on another. Now is a great time to be offering any of your books for free, not from a marketing point of view, but rather as an act of kindness for a world locked in terror.
This doesn’t mean that you should throw up your hands and stop writing. People are not going to stop reading—in fact, on the other end of this there will probably more people reading. Take advantage of this time to write and perfect new books, so that when the world can breathe again, you will be ready. Work on your covers and future promo banners. Go over already published books and see if they need any tweaks. Keep on creating fantastic places for people to dive into and forget about the chaos for a while. It’s a good time to share whatever beauty you can make—writers, artists, poets—your magic will always be needed.
It’s also a great time for readers to gravitate to e-readers. There will most definitely be more people buying eBooks, so it is probably time to think about making our own eBooks as pretty as they can be, rather than being the poor relation of the paperback. It’s a lot cheaper to buy a full colour eBook than it is a paperback, so all of us writers should be taking a good look at our Kindles. It is also a good idea to note that with all the online working now and in the future, there will be a lot more people with computers and wifi connections. Books can be read with the Kindle for PC app on laptops and computers also.
On a lighter note, I regularly fall asleep while reading, only to be woken up immediately when I drop my Kindle and it hits me in the eye, but so far I haven’t managed to lose it. I saw this question on Quora, “How do I find my dead Kindle?”. Expecting to see hilarious answers I of course opened the thread. Apart from one answer beginning with “Dead or alive you’re going to have to search for your Kindle manually”, which did give me an unexpectedly lengthy fit of the giggles, the rest was quite serious. It appears that losing Kindles in the home is a real and horrible thing. Considering that some people have their entire libraries only accessible via these fabulous little critters, maybe Amazon should incorporate some sort of bell thing with a long life extra battery that can be activated with a little remote. You can pay me later Jeff Bezos. Yes—the world needs a beeping Kindle. Or maybe some enterprising individual can create glow in the dark cases for them.
Stay safe.
Writing On
I managed to get back online properly on Monday. After months of internet drama, being on and then off again, I now have a reliable connection. Interestingly, the guy who installed the system told me that mine would be the last installation in this town for the moment, so I’m beyond grateful to be reliably back in the online world.
Last night our President announced that we would go into lockdown at midnight on Thursday. Hopefully this will save a whole lot of lives that would have been lost without a quarantine in place here. South Africans are a tactile bunch. As with the rest of the world, fear is abounding, and with the already devastating poverty here, many, many people are only now getting over the freezing in terror moments and thinking of ways to help each other. It is truly wonderful to see petty differences dissolve in this crisis and compassion taking over.
I hope to start loading new Youtube how to videos up again very soon for authors wanting tips on the nuts and bolts of publishing their books, but I’m still open for business for anyone wanting editing, formatting, covers, maps, or children’s illustrations to be done for them. I’m also planning on slipping in a few general chat videos on writing and reading.
I have had a couple of emails from clients wondering what I think will happen in the world of Indie publishing now, and I must say that I have absolutely no clue. It is too early to tell where this pandemic will end. One thing is for sure, during these quarantines, and even beyond as the world counts its losses and people figure out the way forward for themselves as individuals, as nations, and for the planet itself, the world needs both fiction and non-fiction. For escape, for inspiration, for hope, and for instruction. Now is also the time for journaling. A time to record this disaster for future generations. I have a feeling that even if there is a slight lull in sales of books (apart from the prepping guides) once people truly understand the true fallout from this pandemic, after that I believe that there will be a huge demand for quality eBooks, so all I can say is, don’t stop writing. And stay safe.
By the way, most of my books are selling for 99 cents on Kindle Countdown deals at the moment, and the shorts are free, so if you haven’t already read them and need something to do head over to Amazon.
Fantasy Maps for Books Pricing
Happy New Decade! Hopefully this one will be rather more fabulous than the previous one. It’s been a busy start to 2020 for me, but I like busy so that’s not a bad thing. Mostly I’ve been busy with work for my author clients, but whenever I’ve had a little bit of down time I’ve been diving into my pile of works in progress that have been left gathering dust over the past few years, when it often seemed that the sky had only one desire, which was to fall on my head and beat the daylights out of me. Having figured out that the sky will always be pretty much all around my head all the time without malicious intent, I finally learned to enjoy its dark blue days as well as the pastel shiny rainbow ones, and so life has become a lot more fun.
Just because you wrote a book completely doesn’t mean that you can zoom out and publish it as is after it’s been languishing for a couple of years. Writers grow and change, and besides, you’re highly unlikely to remember what you wrote, so you have to re-read and re-write. Which is what I’ve been doing with my Shadow People series. As most of you will know, my day job consists of editing, proofreading, designing covers, and illustrating for writers and publishers like most of you. I had a terribly ugly scribbled map of the planet where most of the action takes place in my Shadow People books, Lapillus, to keep track of archaeological points, territories, secrets, species, and citadels. Finally, when an author asked me to create a map for his wall of the world in his books, purely so that he could “gloat over his creation of an entire planet” (his words), I decided to finish my own map too. What a brilliant trip it was to lay it down, and now to see my own creation as an actual map. It will be going in the planned updated version of the first book in the series, and also in the rest as they are published.
So I’ve now added fantasy mapmaking to my list for all of you authors who want one to put in your books, or simply to hang on your walls to gloat over. They are fabulous for swag too. You can have them printed on mugs, T-shirts, bookmarks, and so on when you are promoting or offering prizes. They are made to order according to your specifications.
A plain black and white map for your book will cost you US $75. This includes one basic critter sketch – dragon, sea monster – googly-eyed alien, or whatever you want. You can have shields or flags, or any other thing your heart desires.
A colour map will be US $145. This includes all of the above as well as much more detail, shading, and so on.
Payments are by PayPal and a 50% deposit is generally required for first time clients only. As my regular clients already know, if I know you, you can split payments into reasonable chunks that are affordable to you.
Happy world making you wonderful creators of universes – and interesting critters.
Ani’s Advent 2019! Peace, Sleep and A Disgruntled Story Reading Ape
Hey Santa,
Well, I’ll be going home today and, to tell the truth, much as I’ve had fun with all the other animals, I’ll be glad of a rest. I may still be a pup at heart…but my bones don’t always seem to agree.
Peace on earth… that sounds pretty good about now. And anyway, I miss my sofa… and her… you get used to your own two-legs. Get them properly trained. And the fish will be missing me. And goodness only knows what the hedgehogs and the pigeons have been up to while I’ve been gone!
I suppose you don’t have that problem, working away just the one night every year. But, then, you have such a long way to go that you must turn time inside out to do it… so maybe your night is half a year for us!
Mind you, I’m not the only one wishing…
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Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore – Christmas Book Fair – New Book on the Shelves #Non-Fiction The Secret Life of Humans: Reflections on the Good, the Bad and the Painful by Jo Robinson
A huge thank you to Sally Cronin for sharing my new non-fiction book on her fabulous Christmas Bookstore. I hope it will resonate with many, and even though I’m sure it will make some just a little bit cross I truly believe that it may help some of the very many walking wounded in this world today. Thank you Sally!
Jo Robinson 