… a Literary Straight Flush… it doesn’t come any better than this … #TBSU…

…surprises of the positive kind are always welcome… especially when they fall into the category of, ‘…when was the last time yeez had something happen for the first time?’… like many of yeez Lads and Lassies of Blog Land with masterpieces listed on Amazon Kindle, I check my sales downloads reports daily… the elusive book purchasers for Mexico, India, Japan and Brazil  haven’t as yet appeared, but a couple of days ago, Amazon Italy gave me the maiden sale in that territory… p’raps the Mafiosie are looking for a new crime blueprint in the form of my thrillers… but exceeding the elation of even that first, this morning saw the Literary equivalent of hitting the quill-scraper’s Amazon jackpot… on Amazon.com, (i.e. the Good-ol’-USA) where traditionally my titles don’t fare too well, ALL FIVE of this ol’ Jurassic’s currently available offerings have attracted paid downloads in February… a nap hand… a five-for… the penta-perfecto… quintuplets of scrivening success… even now, hours after eyeballing the report, I’m still tickled with it… I’m sure my fellow-travellers on this scribbling trudge will identify with the feeling… for me, it has an added tingle, ‘coz basically I’ve evolved into a JONGGR JUGGLER… there’s three Jack Calder crime thrillers in there as well as two (allegedly) humorous blog post collections… yeez all know the highs and lows of blooding yer masterpiece offspring over months, sometimes years of labour… to get them all turning up at the same Kindle party is a phenomenal experience… hey, it’s not millions of sales, but they are ALL in the mix… if ever there exists an impetus to keep yer authorial a*se-in-gear I’ve been shown it today… here’s what the family photos look like… have a wonderful scribbling day/week/month/year/lifetime, all of yeez … LUV YEEZ!...

…here was a Scottish football referee yeez DIDN’T dare meddle with… Tom ‘Tiny’ Wharton… #TBSU…

…even those of yeez with a brain as sharp as a billiard ball will note the relative physical stature of the man in black versus the football players in the photograph above… at 6 feet 4 inches without his studded boots, Tom Wharton was a refereeing giant… in the customary droll Scots’ affinity for affectionate hyberbole, he was more commonly known as ‘Tiny’ Wharton… for those of us of a certain age who had the pleasure of watching real football in the 50’s and 60’s, referees such as ‘Tiny’ were regarded somewhat differently to the the modern whistler lot… back then, by and large, there was a high degree of respect for the ‘man in the middle’… oh, sure, never a match passed without one set or other of fans variously bringing into question (a) the eyesight (b) the I.Q. (c) the marital status of his mother… but that was an integral part of the crowd banter and humour… how things have changed… having played the game professionally as a young man about a hundred years ago, I speak from some experience on this… very little, if any, of the current behaviour on the field by the modern ballet-dancing prima donna players would have been tolerated… yeez know what I mean… feigning injury when an opposing player smudges yer lipstick… diving quality that would grace the Olympics high-board competition… simulation of a wrestling convention in the penalty area at every corner kick… not retreating ten yards immediately to allow free kicks to proceed… stealing up to twenty yards on throw-ins… and the constant, bordering-on-obscene, bickering at the referee at every decision… the beautiful game has developed some unsightly luggage… whence it comes is irrelevant… the fact is, it’s here… and in my not so ‘umble view, a lot of it is plain cheating… compare the attitude in rugby football, where physical contact is almost mandatory… where men as tough as teak hammer the hell out of each other for 80 minutes, then go share a drink… any quibble with a referee in that sport can result in instant dismissal… respect is what it amounts to… respect for the rules… respect for fair play… respect for the referees… sure, they’re human and can make mistakes… an accepted part of the game for decades, until recent times… even the managers are at it now… after every game, one enormously-overpaid manager or other will lambast the decision-making of the officials… seldom criticising their own decision-making in picking the team in the first place… ah, ‘Tiny’, we real fans, and the game, need a squad of guys like yerself back in charge…

…on the Web, yer ‘best friends’ count is infinite… #TBSU…

…back in the day, it used to be said yeez were lucky if yeez could count yer close friends on one, maybe even two hands… yeez can split hairs if yeez like about comparing ‘friends’ with ‘acquaintances’… y’see, it’s not so much who yeez know, but who knows yeez back… fr’example, I know Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey, but they don’t know me, so that doesn’t count… about a hundred years ago, I used to have ‘pen friends’, when it was accepted practice to write longhand letters with paper and ink (emb’dy remember them?) and send them across the oceans… replies could take up to a month or more… and it was exhilarating to get mail from these correspondents… in today’s WURLD, it’s a matter of nano-seconds to exchange ‘communication’… of  course, that has many great advantages, but I suggest it may tend to lessen the depth of some of the correspondent relationships we develop online… that aside, let me state categorically, this ol’ Jurassic is enriched with more solid friendships than ever imaginable ten years ago… some may scoff at the terms, ‘friends’, ‘followers’, ‘links’, and whatever WURDS yer channels of choice on the SOSYAL NETWURKS use… I can’t claim to know all of the direct contacts I’ve made in building the platform on here, but hundreds if not thousands of yeez are familiar names to me now, and I feel blessed for the tie-ins… I’ve seen genuine support for others when they needed a lift, I’ve felt the anguish of sincere people reaching out for a friendly encouragement… the trolls do exist, but only serve to underscore the strength of the good Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… yesterday, the voting closed for sum’thing called the Shorty Awards... a few weeks ago, my pal, Author Lillith Kain nominated yours truly for the Shorty Blogger Award… many of yeez jumped in to lend yer vote… I believe I’ve gotten into #12 place in that particular ranking… but, I am a complete #1 winner inasmuch as the LUV shown from so many of yeez in pitching in to write the embarrassingly nice reasons for yer votes is overwhelming… if emb’dy ever doubted it, let me repeat… on the Web yer ‘best friends’ count is infinite… LUV YEEZ…

…when an Author’s ‘just editing’ is more than ‘just editing’ … #TBSU…

…okay, okay, okay…I know, it looks like a bit of a daft blog post title, but all shall be revealed if yeez’ll bear with me… there are legions of splendid scribblers out there who earnestly believe that they should ‘just write’… I have no argument with that, and if that’s what suits them, fine by me… may I ‘umbly suggest, however, that p’raps in the modern self-publishing era an Author may have to wear several quill-scraper hats… the ‘self’ bit encompasses getting cover art lined up, arranging printing of the masterpieces, marketing through the SOSYAL NETWURKS, doing hand-to-hand combat with the Amazon Kindle martinets, and so on ad nause-forever… all of that stuff palls into the shadows compared with the terror that lurks for many of yeez in the dreaded editing… of course, a strong school of thought recommends getting a professional editor to eyeball yer wee babies, and again I’ve no argument if that’s the way yeez choose to go… being more of a ‘hands-on’ nutter myself, I’ve been compelled to go the DIY route recently… my schizo-scribbler personae has half of me doing the Jack Calder crime thriller novels… the distaff side indulges the pleasure of doing a daily humorous blog post… the third collection of these posts slipped intrepidly onto Amazon Kindle a couple weeks ago… now here’s the thing… compiling the posts into a Kindle-friendly format required a ton of proof reading and editing… the allocated ‘day or two’ stretched into a week, and then nudged beyond that… about midway through the exercise it dawned on this ol’ Jurassic, that I was actually enjoying the whole process… confirming for me once more the sense of ‘ownership’ of my writing… the time and labour invested in this stuff belongs to no-one but yerselves… I heartily recommend that yeez put aside the reluctance to get into every aspect of yer production if ye’re serious about self-publishing… go for it… and enjoy…

…here’s the links and a wee photo of my baby…

UK : http://amzn.to/1jAOdUv

US : amzn.to/1cyhnvu 

… ‘what’s-the-story-line-about?’ test… #TBSU…

…if yeez are anything like me, yeez’ll have heard about tons of books, novels, movies, and such and think yeez know the story lines… today’s multiple choice test will find out the truth:-

1. What is ‘Jurassic Park’ about?

a. The biography of the oldest living Korean

b. The ancient story of a Playground for Old-Age Pensioners

c. It’s about 350 pages

d. A one-dimensional tale for a three-dimensional movie

2. What is the ‘Guinness Book of Records’ about?

a. A register of CDs to play while drinking

b. A daily diary of Paddy O’Full’s intake of Irish stout ale

c. A faithful account of the least-interesting activities ever undertaken by the daftest people on earth

d. It’s about US$ 2.75

3. Who is the principal character in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’?

a. Any collection of politicians yeez care to name

b. Lord Justin Beiber’s publicist’s employer

c. The Butler (it’s always the bluudy Butler…)

d. Most leading ladies taking about the sexual prowess of their respective leading men

4. Who is the most famous Queen in historical writing?

a. ‘Steve Mc’  in ‘The Great Escape’ 

b. Helen Mirren in ‘that’ movie 

c. Freddy Mercury

d. Helen Mirren in ‘that other’ movie

5. What was the theme of ‘The 39 Steps’?

a. A guide to the number of sequences yeez have to go through with modern large companies when yeez get their recorded voice messages

b. The Illustrated Dancing Tutorial for centipedes

c. Nobody ever got past 34 to find out

d. The number of new things yeez have to learn when yeez upgrade yer Blackberry just to switch it on

Answers please on ancient papyrus scrolls to the usual address at the Pyramids…

… ‘Yer-SOSYAL-NETWURKIN-SavvyNess’ test… #TBSU…

…in an inanely innocuous incursion of innate insensibility, the latest ‘WhateverNess’ multiple choice test today measures yer understanding of the SOSYAL NETWURKIN WURLD..:-

1. Who invented the Internet?

a. Spiderman

b. Al Gore, just after he invented Global Warming, so’s he could tell people about the climate thingy

c. Japanese fishermen, who combined the trawling dragnets of 23,782 whaling boats to get the biggest maritime haul since the Titanic was dragged up

d. My grandnephew, when he was 2 1/2 years old (and still a bluudy little show-off!)

2. What’s the collective noun for people who use Twitter?

a. A Tweedledumpload

b. A scunner

c. John

d. The Unemployed

3. Who uses Google Earth?

a. Martians and other sundry interplanetary aliens

b. The authorities who hunt down Television Licence dodgers

c. Lord Justin Beiber, in his capacity as a complete outsider to the planet

d. Hobbits

4. What has been the Internet’s greatest benefit to mankind?

a.

b.

c.

d.

5. What is Google+ ?

a. (Google- ) + (Google- )

b. A marketing ploy by the Google boffins to squeeze added revenue… Google Extra, Google Light, and Diet Google are still at the planning stage

c. Another splendid SOSYAL NETWURK for me not to understand

d. I plead the Fifth Amendment on this one, as my answer may incriminate me

Answers please via Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, ZZzZzzzzzzzzzz…………….

…my recent blog post off’ring for the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature in Dubai early next month… see yeez there! …#TBSU…

Mark your diary
4 – 8 March 2014

النسخة العربية

  

4 – 8 March at InterContinental Hotel, Dubai Festival City

Emirates Airline Festival of Literature is held under the patronage of
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
The Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

• an Author’s secret revealed …the real reasons why Authors should blog…

16-02-2014

Seumas Gallacher will be sharing posts with the LitFest every fortnight.

…Man is a quirky animal at best… and this ol’ Jurassic’s as prone to quirkology as any… but, happily, I’ve discovered over the years and decades, gazillions of yeez indulge foibles as much as I do… the nub of it is this… yeez usually do something, anything, on a regular basis, because yeez derive pleasure from doing whatever it is… oh, I don’t mean fundamental stuff like breathing, earning a living… that all comes in to the ‘staying alive’ category… this lot refers to optional behaviour… not the kinda thing where yeez ask an employee why he/she performs a repetitive series of functions at wurk, and the response is, ‘…Jimmy said I should do it this way’… yeez ask, ‘…where’s Jimmy?’,‘…oh, he died twenty years ago’…so, not that… consider the attraction that bubble-wrap paper holds for most people… yeez get yer hands on some of it, and then spend hours popping the wee bubbles… benefit to Humanity?… zilch, zero, not one iota of productive output… but yeez enjoy it!… there’s the thing… when I began to Blog a few years back, my motive was simple… I wanted to develop my building the platform through extending my purview into the SOSYAL NETWURK whirl… ulterior objective?… to flog my crime thriller masterpieces… seemed a good idea at the time… it started with a wee fling a coupla times a week, then I discovered I truly enjoyed doing it… gone went the ‘task’ element of the commonly-distilled wisdom for self-publishing authors to ‘blog to survive’… I found the difference in content and style of the blog provided a great offset to the heavier-duty quill-scraping involved in the novel-writing… a light-humoured touch evolved, along with some of the ‘quirkiness’ in language usage, which for me has become a little touchstone of my own persona… it has provided a rhythm to my daily scribbling routine… I need amuse, entertain, educate, fawn to, no-one but myself… and here’s a deal-clincher, for a Scotsman… it costs me NUTHIN… by automatically linking it to all of my SOSYAL NETWURK channels, it also gives me an outreach to common-spirited Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… a much richer and fraught-free literary-pals medium than any matchmaking websites… so, as an indie, listen if yeez must to the splendid advice to broaden yer authorial reach by blogging… but if yeez do it, do it because yeez want to do it… and better still if yeez enjoy doing it… I’ll see yeez in the virtual coffee shop, same time, same place…

… ‘Yer-Capacity-To-Cope-With-Life’s-Little-Things-Thrown-At-Yeez-As-A-Writer’ test… #TBSU…

…in my selfless crusade to assist the global scriveners’ family at large, I offer today’s wee test, which gauges yer aptitude in dealing with the mini-crises thrown the way of most of yeez quill-scrapers at sum’time in yer scribbling career… :-

1. What do yeez do with yer ninety-ninth consecutive rejection slip from A.N.Other Literary Agent?

a. Get active again, as with the other ninety-eight voodoo dolls to date

b. Prepare a champagne party in expectation of the imminent hundredth to complete yer century

c. What’s a Literary Agent?

d. Practice patience, coz yeez only sent out two thousand Query Letters

2. What do yeez do with yer first royalty check?

a. Check it’s made of paper, and not rubber

b. Order a slap-up celebratory fine-dining experience at KFC

c. Use it to pay down 0.0005386% of yer outstanding debts

d. Make a selfie showing the amount in large print and send it to both of yer friends

3. What do yeez do when yeez get yer first  ‘O-stars’ negative review on Amazon?

a. Show yer balanced, sober, mature, adult approach to it all by sobbing uncontrollably for hours

b. Employ a private detective agency and a hitman to track down the reviewer

c. Respond to the review on the Amazon page in a calm, controlled manner, wishing the reviewer a prolonged armpit infestation of the fleas from a thousand camels’ ars*s

d. Make the reviewer a cretin of a character in yer next masterpiece and visit all sorts of horrible come-uppance on them

4. How do yeez deal with Writers Block?

a. Go onto Facebook and play there for an hour-and-a-half/ a-day-and-a-half/ a-week-and-a-half, pretending ye’re being constructive, looking for inspiration

b. Put it with the other Writers Blocks and build sum’thing with them

c. Take a coupla years off writing and travel round the world and many other places

d. Refuse to live in any building that has ‘Writers’ in the name

5. When yeez proof-read yer masterpiece, how often do yeez find stuff that has to be corrected?

a. They’re’s never eny errers in the grate stuff what I write

b. Proof-read?

c. If my Ma likes it, that’s good enuff for the rest of the planet

d. Only about 11,238,502 times on a first read through, after that, it increases

Enjoy… answers please, on a gold-plated rejection letter…

…Computer-JurassicNess test… for emb’dy over the age of, say, 40… #TBSU…

…the next in the  series of ‘WhateverNess’ tests… intended to weed out the computer numpties from the rest of we experts at it (a-hem)…it’s multiple choice, so yeez can enjoy being wrong many times over… have a go…

1. What happens when yeez switch on yer laptop?

a. If it lights up, yeez do a lap of honour

b. All the street lights in yer district go out

c. NUTHIN, but yer electric blinds start going up and down and yer television goes blank

d. Yeez have to call yer 6-year old grandson to have him explain what to hit next to get the page yeez want to start on

2. What’s a BetaMax?

a. A superior burger offering from Mcdonalds

b. Yer current equipment for watching movies at home (what? they’ve got colour films now?)

c. An obscure algebraic term for getting the most out of yer computer thingy

d. A top-of-the-line raincoat

3. Who was Steve Jobs?

a. First President of the Republic of Silicon Valley

b. That helpful guy down at the Labour Exchange Centre

c. An orchard mogul

d. Who? Steve Who?

4. Who do yeez call when yer laptop won’t work?

a. God (sometimes known as ‘please! God!’)

b. Yer Life Science psychiatrist

c. The local garage and yeez tell them yeez think it’s got a puncture

d. The laptop dealer and get them to send a ‘fresh’ one

5. What’s YouTube?

a. Yer personal metro subway system route

b. The wee cardboard roll that’s left when the toilet paper’s done

c. Something that makes loud noises from yer kid’s room

d. A means of getting to play all the music from yer youth 90 years ago

Answers please on a used printout (whatever that is)…

… ‘yeez might be a Writer if’ test… #TBSU…

…following the surprisingly large response to my attempt yesterday to create a ‘Scottishness Test’, …I think it needs a series of ‘whatever’ tests for the next few days… today’s multiple choice pitches yeez the question of yer ‘Writerness’ :-

1. What’s yer favoured means of communication with other people?

a. Mobile telephone

b. Screaming abuse at talking heads on television news channels

c. What’s ‘other people’?

d. Direct conversation, but only when it doesn’t interfere with internet stuff.

2. Which of these describes yer writing area?

a. A passing resemblance to a ‘Post -It’ billboard advertisement

b. As tidy as the aftermath of a hurricane strike

c. Furnished with its no-further-than-arms’-reach refrigerator, snack stack, chocolate store, biscuits and cookies tin

d. An elephant’s graveyard of torn Nobel Literature Prize candidacy manuscripts

3. When did yeez write yer first successful manuscript?

a. As a 3-year old child prodigy Man (Child) Booker Prize Winner

b. On the walls of the toilets in Walmart forty years ago

c.  As a begging letter to the latest EuroLottery winner

d. It’s due any time soon

4. Who is/was the biggest influence on yer writing career?

a. The person who taught yeez joined-up letters

b. Google and Yahoo search engines

c. The teacher who guided yeez in producing the wonderful stuff ‘like what I write’

d. Writing’s a career?

5. What’s yer favourite reading material?

a. Noddy, and any kindergarden books, so long as there’s lots of pictures and no big words

b. Current affairs as seen in the sports pages of the Daily Mail newspaper

c. Any book that can stabilise the writing desk when yeez put it under one of the wobbly legs

d. Laptop for Dummies.

enjoy!