…we gotta get out of this place… if it’s the last thing we ever do… #TBSU…

…any old lag’ll tell ye… time distorts when ye’re serving time in the pokey… I’ve only been in Facebook Jail again for 24 hours… but it feels like a whole day… they don’t let ye mix much with the other inmates… too much like ‘friending’, which is the biggest NO-NO in the ‘thou-definitely-shalt-nots’ on Master Zuckerberg’s storm-troopers’ offences list… fear not, however, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… this ol’ Jurassic’s WURKIN on a plan of escape…  I could tell yeez what it is…  but, then I’d have to kill yeez… (I learned that from my mate, Bobby Di Nero)… suffice to say, it may involve a combination of elements that have proven WURKABLE in the past… think Trojan Horse… imagine Stevie McQueen on his souped-up motorbike… summon up images of Colditz… cast yer minds back to that bloke, ‘ARRY WHO-DEENI... and wee bits of Davy Copperfield (no, Mabel, not the one from Chuck Dickens... the one that made the whole of China disappear into a melon on TV once)… now yeez start to have an idea of the sheer scale of my proposed audacity… when (not ‘if’) it WURKS, there will no doubt be the usual clamour for international publishing rights of my post-event written account of my ingenious escapade… movie scripts may barter as they please, but only my pal, Marty Scorcese gets a look-in to do the Hollywood blockbuster for it… beating the Facebook Jail system is not easy… and some SKEPTIKKS may SKOFF their SKULLS off… however, great moments in history are made by abnormal actions… and for some it is thrust upon us… okay, sweet Destiny, thrust away… this Scots nutter is ready to step into posterity as ‘THE LITTLE QUILL-SCRAPER THAT COULD’… these will be moments to tell yer grandchildren about… now where did I leave that phone number for Doctor Who?… see yeez later…

TRUST

… another post to make you think.. like this …

Seyi Sandra David

(Photo credit: Flickr: Bruce M Walker)

”A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge.
The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter:
“Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river.” The little girl said:
“No, Dad. You hold my hand.”
“What’s the difference?” Asked the puzzled father.

“There’s a big difference,” replied the little girl.
“If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go.”

In any relationship, the essence of trust is not in its bind, but in its bond. So hold the hand of the person whom you love than expecting them to hold yours…”

***********

I saw this today and though I had planned another post entirely, I believe…

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…it gets kinda lonely here in the Facebook Slammer… #TBSU…

…the recurrent nightmare is inescapable… many of yeez will be aware of Charlie Brown’s repeated humiliation at the  hands of Lucy and the dreaded football (see pic below to jog yer mem’ries)… much as I pride myself on being able to see trouble coming most of the time, my SOSYAL NETWURKIN Achilles heel is the old  ‘bait and switch’ trick perpetrated ad nauseum by the torturers running Facebook… I’m not averse to adding pals/friends/links/whoever-wants-to-be-buddies on the virtual channels… ‘Johnnie-Pals-With-Everybody’, me… I get blind-sided so often with this ruse, I’m thinking of seeking professional counselling help… maybe go to Facebook Friends Fall-Guys Anonymous and share it with others… I bet the Facebook Lucy-ies are giggling their FaceBookFaces off every time they con me… here’s how it WURKS... they ply ye with stuff like, ‘so and so found friends on this stream, do you wanna link up?’, or phrasing that makes ye think that it’s okay, and these names will be ready to join yer NETWURKIN … wrong!… coz then, in comes the con… they have a wee notice that says to the erstwhile new acquaintance, ‘do ye know this person outside of Facebook?‘… well of course they don’t! … these days NOBODY has a life OUTSIDE of the Web anymore… we’re all tied up in here with Twitter, Goodreads, LinkedIn, and, for our sins, on Facebook….so some innocent person clicks the ‘no’ button… and ye’re off to the Facebook Slammer…AGAIN!... but, it gets WURSE!… here’s a variation on the ploy…ye get into a friendly timeline stream with stacks of other good folks on some innocuous subject… usually with me, it’s to do with the quill-scrapers brigade… so I assume the respondees  are all in the same virtual candle-lit garrets as the rest of us… repartee online is fun, and ye click their names to be buddies, then a slip of the keyboard finger from any of them on the wrong answer to, ‘do ye know etc…’.. and WHOOOSH!… off ye go again, banged up for anything from a week to a month… sometimes I really, really feel sorry for Charlie Brown… see yeez later… visiting hours as per usual… 

I remember

…nice thoughts on this one from Jane Dougherty …:)

Jane Dougherty Writes

I remember as a child
gazing in wonder from the circling plane
at the green, field-tilting earth rising to meet it.
Clouds hung grey and rain-swollen,
light dim and moist
but the fields were the colour of dreams.
A fragment, a seed, a memory
fell from the heart’s molten core
into the heavenly green
and tied me with subtle strings
to that first sight of home.
And when the strings pull tight and draw me back
it is not to mountains or lakes or the bellowing cliffs,
but to a field and a wall of grey stone,
that first sight of the green hills of home.

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Meet John Dolan

great spread on my good mate, Author John Dolan.. Thanks, Billy Ray Chitwood for carrying this one 🙂

The Final Curtain

 This trademark picture of John Dolan might lead one’s imagination to suspect that this is a man of daring, perhaps out on safari facing the giants of the animal kingdom, a man of mystery and intrigue. One could look at this image and consider the man under the hat either very timid, or, suspiciously avoiding recognition… I had some other scary thoughts about this man when he interviewed me some months back at his ‘Dubai Dungeon’ with an odd. hulking gray-skinned Cyclop assistant named Digby — hmm! wonder whatever became of Digby (haven’t heard of him in months). Anyway, the Dubai Dungeon was a bit like the hat – deceiving. Actually, John’s blog is called ‘Galericulate’ (defined as ‘covered, as with a hat.’) You can always visit him at Galericulate at http://johndolanwriter.blogspot.com. The interview of me was indeed original, witty, and also very informative, showing the different shades of John…

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‘…it was the best of blogs… it was the worst of blogs…’ #TBSU…

…some of these quill-scrapers from ‘way back knew how to toss a phrase… Chuck Dickens and Billy Shakespeare still get quoted all over the place… they had WURDS that nob’dy else had even heard of before they both started scribbling…  how good that must feel, eh, Mabel?… inventing yer own vocabulary… and ye’ve gotta LUV that back to front way of speaking they had people use in their WURKS… only young Master Tolkien in modern times comes close with that stuff… oh, and some of the characters in Star Wars do it too, but everybody knows that’s because the actors keep getting their lines mixed up… ‘…Go to the toilet now, I must, etc…’... lexicons nowadays contain about seven trillion WURDS (I’ve counted only about a half of them so far) but most have no life in them… only dull sounds with letters, the bulk of them… where’s that old ON-O–MATTA-PAY-YA thing-y my English dominie rattled on about?… or the delectably delicious dictionarial delving dreamward, dancing delightfully during daring alliterative forays?… writing can be difficult at times, I grant yeez, so why not sprinkle a bit of authorial licence into yer masterpieces?… throw in a wee WURD or two from the back of yer own mindbox?… confound the Critiqueurs… mangle a metaphor or sideswipe a simile?… then, oh then, the sheer effrontery of SPLITTING AN INFINITIVE … to brazenly do it… the literary Empire Strikes back… gerund-grubbing can be fun if yeez know how to use yer  ‘-ings’ to maximum effect, usually at the start of a sentence is the way to hook the attention of the grammar police… and get really cheeky and culminate a sentence with a preposition with… oops, I think they’ve twigged what this ol’ Jurassic’s doing… I think they’ve belled Matron… she’s stomping through here with that bluudy syringe… see yeez later …

…Fried Mars Bars just don’t hack it, Mabel… #TBSU…

…call me a bit of a foodie snob if yeez like, but I’ve never been a devourer of that Scottish delicacy, Fried Mars Bars… not to say that the odd dozen mouthfuls of chocolate don’t have their attraction, ye understand… but sticking the confection of the Gods into a deep-frying chip pan just doesn’t seem right… when the Govan Docklands in Glasgow where I grew up were still lit by street- and tenement-closemouth gaslights, epicureans were an unknown breed… delicacies of the day back then included the fried scrapings from the large fryers in the chip shops, the wee crunchy bits that fell off the fried fish and gathered at the bottom… we’d get these free as kids… add a pickled onion, and ye had the supper of Nirvana… sometimes the backends of the plain bread, the one piece kind of loaf that came with ‘doorstoppers’ at the ends would end up in the pan, fried in lard… none of yer fancy organic vegetable oil nonsense… the wee corner stores, the forerunners of the modern 7/11 outlets would give ye massive discounts on broken biscuits… a collection of crumbs to some… a whole dinner to us… in Scotland the WURD ‘lunch’ was some strange meal eaten in South Britain … our midday meal was ‘dinner’, and the evening meal was yer ‘tea’ … ‘high tea’ only appeared in posh houses, usually made up of daft wee sandwiches that wouldn’t feed a canary, and tea that wasn’t made from teabags…as a kid brought up in the city, I thought strawberries grew in tins, and came already drenched with sweet juice… pour in a a wee dod of milk, and that would keep ye drooling for days… salads were unheard of… vegetables were meant to populate soups and a never-ending stewing pot that yer Ma topped up every day with whatever digestible fare came to hand… and it was great… ye know, Mabel, there might be a fortune waiting for whoever opens a restaurant selling stuff the way we used to eat it… now where did I leave the indigestion tablets?… see yeez later…

…it’s Mac Logan… Guest Blogger Extraordinaire… enjoy … #TBSU…

…a good pal of mine, and if not yet of yours, he bluudy well should be… Mac Logan, terrific author, Scottish Cycling’s answer to why-yeez-should-just-say’-NO’-to-fried-Mars-bars… has done this splendid Guest Blog for me… my whelm is well and truly overed…

Here he is:

Okay, it was a silly idea. ‘You choose the subject,’ I said. And Seumas did.

‘Write aboot HYOUMURR in BLOGGIN’.’

From the lips of JURASSIC to the LUG o’ wee Mac, or more correctly my fingers. The request percolated through my synapses overnight and, this morning, I decided to practise what I preach…Whadda ya mean writers block? …and knock this blog off in one hour. It’s a spontaneity thing. So here goes:

Two rich seams of humour spring to mind, the comical aspect of Situations, and, the  jocularity of Style. There are bound to be many others but these’ll do for this post.

SITUATION

When people write about events or experiences in a fun way, there can be a real tickle and laugh in the structure and delivery of a story. A particular author I know, who writes gentle, homely tales is Regina Puckett. A guest post example springs to mind: A Damp and Crazy Day.

The characteristics, like all good writing, draw you in, create interest and there’s a logical, funny, even moral-outcome to the story; bottom line… a smile, a sense of connection, even an interest to read more. You’ll have to judge if the events surrounding me and an erotic publisher match up to that criterion.

STYLE

Some people write in a quirky, funny, witty style and engage and build a following. Over time, readers become ever more comfortable with the nuances, subtleties and conventions of a chosen writer and the fan base builds. Before long, caught by familiar (I wasn’t thinking short hairs, Mabel) and now well-appreciated structures and conventions; readers welcome each new blog with an anticipation of smiles and laughter.

A fine exponent of a humorous style is old JURASSIC himself. You are probably reading this because you know and like is style… harrumph! men in kilts!

Other examples might be: Annoying Husbands and many other sources like the lists of “funny blogs” you can search for on the Internet.

oooOOOooo

Now, as I wind down, I’m reflecting how the nature of JURASSIC’s question limited my chance to let my wit shine through. A saboteur’s plot by that man… wouldn’t surprise me. He’ll say it was to let my learned erudition sh*t through… ageing caber tosser. I canna comprehend why WE GET OAN SAE WEEL.

Task completed in just over an hour. That  includes a 3 paragraph erase, one key stroke at a time, by the ghost in the machine. Did I sit idly by? Not on your life. I switched the bluetooth off, popped out of the program, popped back in, but the remorseless deletion carried on from where it left off. At least it happened at the outset.

You’re welcome to join me at my blog, JYNGS! I hope you will. It’s diverse and human. There may be a few laughs, perhaps some tears and, I swear to the deity, not too much in the way of learned erudition.

© Mac Logan

Mac Logan lives near Edinburgh, Scotland, and is the author of The Angels’ Share thriller series. You can see Mac talking about his writing.

The Angels’ Share and DarkArt, are available as are two back-stories Fumble and The First Battle. All are published by Fantastic Books Publishing.

Mac will soon be releasing series non-fiction books on the human aspects of work. He is working with a top flight research psychologist. The first book in the series is due in September 2013.

You can contact Mac here. Follow Mac on Twitter: @MacLogan_writes

…Once Upon A Blog… the JONGRR doesn’t really matter… just TELL yer story! … #TBSU…

…I lay no claim to Guru-ism on behalf of the book-publishing universe… however, over a career of five decades, I’ve spent almost 30 years in various industries as a trouble-shooter (…no, Mabel, trouble-shooter, NOT trouble-maker…) ….and change management is prob’ly the most key element involved in all of that… so as more-than-an-interested observer my tuppenceWURTH says that the pace at which the eBook industry is impacting the traditional publishing WURLD is phenomenal … a wee WURD of caution, however… experience has shown this ol’ Jurassic that change for the sake of change often ends in tears… I’ve been noticing of late, certain factions sticking their proverbial oars in where p’raps they don’t belong… the new-found ‘wisdom-holders’… the instant ‘founts-of-knowledge-of all-things-ebook-versus-traditional’ debaters… one of the cheeky bits concerns ‘genre’ (pronounced ‘JONGRR’)… we’re now being asked to believe that the reading public requires the labelling to be bi-furcated, tri-furcated, mega-furcated to the point of minute detail-ism… for furcs sake, behave yourselves… in the olden days, when me and young Methuselah were mates, books were places where ye found ‘stories’… none of yer taxonomical nonsense with subject, sub-subject, sub-sub-subject type of reading material… it’s like one of those mind-numbing visits to a coffee shop that launches the questionnaire… white or black? skimmed, normal or full-fat milk? iced or non-iced? Java or non-Java? sugar, saccharine, or nowt?… by the time ye’ve ticked all the boxes, ye’ve gone off the idea of a coffee  altogether… Once Upon a Time, books with stories were great… a sneaky suspicion occurs to me that some of the indexing rubbish is merely to enable Amazon Kindle and such to sucker in more people who are hypnotised by lists of bestsellers… fr’example, I betcha I could get close to number one on an Amazon list of books in this JONGRR — Handicrafts/Merino Wool-Knitting/Double-Stitch/Crossover Purl/Pastel Shades… right, Matron, yes, I’m shouting again… do yer worst with that bluudy syringe… see yeez later…

Do You Need a Website?

..more great food for thought, writers ..

All I Have to Say

As a newbie writer, I resisted the pull of social media for as long as I possibly could. I avoided Facebook, had no clue what Twitter was used for, and shunned the internet altogether. For me, the internet was a necessary evil, a large-scale phone book I referred to when I needed to look up directions or a phone number. I was utterly un-Google-able. You couldn’t find me anywhere in cyberspace.

Eventually, I branched out, signing up for different online writers’ groups. At the urging of one of my local writers’ groups, I even set up a blog. Facebook and Twitter came later–much later. Maybe too late.

When I began querying my first novel, I had no author platform, no beta readers, and no clue what I was supposed to be doing. I’ve since discovered an author platform is essential. Some experts advise new writers to set up their blog…

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