From Facebook & Twitter to the world

I have to start as I mean to go on and to do this, I have to build my audience for my work (and the works of my colleagues in writing, both in and out of the Gingernut Books Ltd - Publisher stable). To do this, it would seem that I'd have to market my work, blog, guest-blog, write articles, hubs and loads more things besides - ALL of which I am prepared to do but I also realise that this will eat into my writing time. This is where my friends and Fans (wow, I can't believe it, I actually have these) can help.
I need more than 5000 likes on my Facebook Author page. I need 100,000 for my Twitter account and whilst this seems excessive and impossible, it really isn't. I have 3 full novels out and 4 short stories on Kindle and I believe that's a good amount to set my platform on but I need help. I need the help of people that like my stories and I know I've asked this before but I have to ask it again, PLEASE share my links, PLEASE cajole, threaten and beg your friends to like my pages, and share my links and ask them to ask their friends to do the same.
I can't do this alone, I need help and I know that my friends on FB, the ones that I've not yet met and those that I have met (even if I'm too ditzy to link people to their FB account, sorry Sandra) will help me. I have the best and most supportive friends online and offline and I do know that together we can and WILL get my books (OUR books) onto that big screen somewhere and when that day comes, I'll invite you ALL to the premier - even if I have to travel closer to your home town to do it!

The start of new things to come

Legends, myths, folk tales - every nation has them, even the relatively new ones, nations that are less than a millennia old, less than half a millennia old.

Vampires have become the most common, varying stories that came across the vast oceans with the new settlers. Witches, werewolves, hob-goblins and trolls are there too, nestling in amongst the tales of hardship, loneliness, hunger and strife. It wasn’t enough that the settlers in a new land had new, natural hazards to overcome, they had to battle old ones from the old country too. The vampires, witches and werewolves travelled along with them in their minds, their hearts and their fears.

Stories of hardworking people trying to make a new life for themselves in the new, exciting, dangerous but ultimately rewarding land were peppered with tales of temptation, the devil handing out prosperity too easily for the price of a soul gave adequate warning against laziness, drove a spike of terror into the hearts of communities that wished their lives were just that little bit easier or that all their dreams could come true right now.

What? You thought that the idea of instant gratification was a new concept? Not even close.

Those tales were understandable. Fables of temptation and the ultimate turn around of a fallen sinner redeemed at last by the love and devotion of a family and a community who put their trust in hard work and men of God.

A community once divided by greed, brought back together by the clever defeat of the Prince of temptation, Old Hob, the Devil. The eternal struggle of good over evil.

What of other tales? What of the myths dragged with pilgrims and settlers from the old countries? What purpose do they serve? Why do men perpetuate those tales?

Blood sucking vampires, men turned to beasts of the field by the light of the full moon, goblins, witches, faeries, trolls, giants, dwarves? Why do these stories persist? If it isn’t for a useful and instructional moralistic tale, is it then because there may be a basis in fact?

Did those creatures once exist? Were they eradicated by vigilant humans or did the creatures just learn to hide their existence better? Learned to use man’s growing disbelief that he was lower down the food chain than he would like? Did they - do they - use his unwavering faith in the advances of science against him? The scientific fact that explained why a victim of tuberculosis when dug up, disinterred, exhumed, looked plump and healthier in death than they had at their last in life. The natural processes of decomposition forces blood from orifices such as the mouth where the blood vessels are closer to the skin’s surface to make it seem as though the corpse had somehow been reanimated to claim other victims and feed on their blood?

Then man’s inventive and macabre imagination, coupled with his desire to be scared, gave stories of werewolves, forever enslaved by the moon, forced by the monthly phenomena into murderous, frivolous killing sprees. Did those creatures really only exist in man’s warped imagination? His eternal fear that one day he could revert to the savagery of days long since gone, times when it really was kill or be killed, when man had only tooth and claw to rely on rather than his inventive nature and advanced weaponry. Before he even had the idea of propulsion, slings and rocks, bows and arrows, cannon.

Man has advanced up that food chain, killed everything he feared, done away with the animals that could kill him, drove them deep into the forest, the ever decreasing forest and jungle, to make absolutely certain that he can sleep easy in his bed. Man has no predator now, only other men.

Or did those ancient predators evolve? The predators of old, those that are human based or could pass for human with a little genetic manipulation, interbreeding with humans over the centuries to bring their features more in line with what was acceptable. Did the mythical, legendary and creatures of folk tales ever exist? No? Are you sure?

Just because vampires, werewolves, witches and goblins are told of in fairy stories, told to us as children doesn’t make them less real. If they existed once, they may still exist, they may just have become wise to man’s destructive nature, become better at camouflage and disguise.

Would a predator really show himself to his victim if the victim had the means to kill it? What sense does that make?

If a zebra had the means to slaughter the lion, would the lion ever allow the zebra to know of its existence? The answer to that of course, is no.

It suits the predators of man to allow the belief in his own ultimate supremacy. Vampires, vulnerable by day, would be winked out of existence. Werewolves susceptible to precious metal, gone in the blink of an eye. Disbelief is the weapon of choice for the mythical creatures and if vampires and werewolves exist, how many other creatures do too? 

www.awesomeonlinemagazine.com

Yeah, that's the title of this week's blog, the magazine that I'm connected with.

A few months ago, I was asked if I'd like to be sub-editor for a new magazine. Of course, I jumped at the chance, I enjoy writing and I love connecting people that can work together to create something AWESOME.
I was in the Caribbean when I saw the first magazine. I lay on the beach reading the articles and thinking just how lucky I am.

I have my dream job. I write.

The magazine was intended to be bi-monthly but the success of the first month meant that we could go monthly with it. Everyone was delighted of course, but there are drawbacks. We have to get enough articles to fill the pages. There's a bigger drawback though... this magazine, AWESOME magazine, can't have any old tat on the pages, the articles, columns and pieces have to be AWESOME.

Now for the question then...

Are YOU up to the task? Can YOU write something for our magazine? Can you?
Give it a go... but make sure it's AWESOME!

Can characters come to life for you?

I've just created a Twitter account for Red, Sentinel Exemplar, the main character in my three (soon to be four) novels. I think I'm going to have a little fun with her but will she really 'come to life' though her Tweets? I hope so...


Then, do I go even further and create other Twitter accounts for the other characters so that she can interact with them? I'm thinking that I shouldn't... too time consuming, too over the top and too freakish. I can cope with getting into the heads of my characters when I'm writing about them but I don't think I want to get in there with regards to how they'd interact with Humes on Twitter... Can you imagine Darius on Twitter? Or Anton? Oh my goodness, Erzsébet Tweeting?
Yes, I think I'll leave my bloodthirsty characters safely trapped in the pages of my books and in the minds of my readers... perhaps that's best... for now... until I get bored :)


If you'd like to follow me: @ShellGent


If you're brave and would like to follow Red: @WolfSentinel


Don't say I didn't warn you...