Blinkers And Nose-Bags

Utopia or Dystopia - you couldn't make it up. Video gamers living  life to the full.

Free from my futile attempts to bust blocks with my soaring poetic prose, (all available on Amazon and a refuse disposal facility near you), I've been able to notice a few other traces of human life around me. 

The writer's life is a bit like that of a video gamer or blinkered horse that has lost its dentures in its nosebag. I know horses don't have dentures but none of my characters are real either. 

Here is a video I picked up from the stimulating blog of Claude Nougat.If you want to read erudite features that allow you to see further by poking you in the eye, this is the one place to go! 

And here is another little clip that maybe provides a model by which we might proceed to approach our issues.

It's wonderful to know that there are intelligent young folk out there who  are not entirely focused on that gold nugget at the bottom their own nose-bag universe.    

Emma Thinx: Blinkers and nose-bags; the virtual bread and circus.                                                                            

       

       

Sex Discrimination Scandal. Free Books For Sisters

Get yourself tooled up for love

Shannon's Law has been out there a week. It's doing OK but something very weird is happening. At least half the readers are men. Are they picking it up because it is sub-categorized in crime? Have the guys always been would-be  romance readers and the e reader allows them to indulge?

I started some research yesterday. Firstly I made contact with Woman's Hour, a BBC Radio 4 programme for persons of the XX rated chromosome tendency. I've asked them if they know about this phenomenon. Their machine replied saying  they probably wouldn't answer. 

Secondly I went to Walmart and loitered about near the hot romance display to see if I could spot any hairy hunks snapping up copies of "The Billionaire's Virgin Underpants". Not a sausage. By the way - what ever happened to Millionaires? I'm not looking but if I were free anything above five hundred million does add at least six inches  to a man. Even a couple of million enhances the eyes and the general charisma.

Thirdly I am looking for any insights from my readers. Does your man rummage in your Kindle while you are at work? Do the guys sit around with their beers before the boxing on TV chatting about Harlequin's latest hero?

If you're an XY Chromosapien, do you have a Sheikh's Marriage Ultimatum hidden in your toolbox?

The problem of course is that in the old days publishers loved to keep us all classified by genre. Any old cow looking over the fence into another field was soon segregated by the gate keeper. It was always something of a myth. Brothers are doing it for themselves. I do love them for it you know. 

In the pursuit of my research here is an unbeatable offer. If you are a woman romance reader and would like to balance up my reviews here is a link to get you a free copy of Shannon's Law during the next two weeks. Yes Really! If you do a review I'll love you for ever and send you a free copy of Cop's Kitchen as well. Come on sisters, don't let them grab our stuff. They can play with their own tools. If things like cars are a bit of a mystery, all the pictures of things in the book are on my pinterest board. 

Ladies register here for your free review copy 


Emma Thinx: Stick to what you don't know. 

Should A Girl Spice It Up?

Shannon's Law is out there. The critics are chewing it over. They seem happy. Some love the sex. Others think there is too much of it. In a way so do I....but I'm not Shannon - a hot blooded girl who has not indulged for a long time. Talking about such a person openly calls for a certain amount of, well, openness. There is no doubt that a lot of interaction between people expresses itself in their sexuality. Why would a writer hold back from a reader what that character did sexually while detailing every other aspect of the story? The answer possibly is to avoid making it seem like a "sex" book that would not succeed without the clinches. I mean, Jane Austen didn't need that stuff. There weren't over two and a half million competitors on Kindle in her day (74,000 new titles last month). OK - maybe sex no longer sells? Maybe a true literopathic practitioner wouldn't take this route. (Yes, Literopathy exists).

About a year ago I learned a sad life lesson by way of this blog. I had been editing an audio book in my day job with Gallo-Romano Media. The story was a period romp filled with bawdy double entendres. As an illustrative joke I put out a post entitled "Are my tits out of proportion to my hole?" In fact it was a feature about my frustration at failing to attract birds to my nesting box. I went on to make some remarks about this old fashioned form of blunt humour.

The first thing that happened was that "friends" disowned me. In some literary circles I was reviled as a filth stained trollop. I felt like the ugly duckling and hid away. Some folk were so disgusted they have not spoken to me since. I thought that was the big lesson to learn. As usual, I was wrong.

Blogs have lost a lot of their penetration in my view. All the same in the clamour for attention and an ever bigger paddle on the Amazon, total views are significant. In my years of blogging I have battered folk with every form of discourse, some of it with photos. I have blurbed and spammed my readers into fixed smile comas. The fact is that the fascinating feature on the great-tits in my bird box has received four times the views of any other topic. All sorts of networks have picked it up. Every day ornithologists from all around the world flock to my site. A few of these viewers may be interested in low matters of the female flesh. Surely not!

There's a lesson here somewhere. In Shannon's Law there is hard crime, cars, motorcycles, cricket, romance, social comedy and SEX. If only I'd nailed up a bird-box somewhere.


Stop Press: While the novel does its caterpillar imitation up the sales slope, the companion cookbook, 'Cop's Kitchen' has streaked to number one in it's category on Amazon. The idea was that if you bought the novel and reviewed it you got a cookbook. OK guys - My next novel will come free with my aphrodisiac cookbook. It will include a bird watcher's recipe for frontal area of poultry.

Emma Thinx. You gotta tuck it in before you can let it hang out. 

The Queen Of Hearts, She Made Some Tarts

Queen Tea. She's a Yorkshire Lass who loves a proper brew. Bloxington Manor in the background.

Well - we launched it. The queen smashed the champagne on the bow and she slid away. So far Shannon's Law floats on a sea of good reviews. (More please). Soon, I just know, someone will buy a copy. It has to happen.

Mug shot

Thanks so much to all the lovely folk who dropped by. I had tremendous fun making and photographing the scones, buns and sandwiches. I had even more fun chatting about the male hunks who could have displayed on the cover of Shannon's Law. One day all these guys are gonna rise up and tell us they're not merely sex objects. My man tells me he's happy to be seen as a sex subject provided I'm prepared to cooperate on the other side of a transitive verb. I think that means he still desires me. I've got a fab editor (Anneli Purchase) who does the hardcore grammar stuff.

Sex Subject.

I asked for your cakes and boy - take a look at these. This is a library! Thanks to Sharon Goodwin of Fiction Addiction Book Tours for sending me her treat. My lovely friend Petra Rovere let me into her poppy seed sensation secrets. What troubles me is that Petra is in Slovenia and knows more English than me. 

Try making an e book to taste better.

Thanks also to Claude Nougat (novelist, linguist, poet, artist, economist, philosopher) for popping in with her 'vite et bon' sponge. How does she get time to cook?

With Poppies from Petra.

Claude's Vite et Bon gateau. 

The whole theme of course was good old fashioned English tea. In the novel, Shannon takes tea with the Earl Spencer as she begins to enter his private world of aristocracy and tradition. He is a troubled and reserved man. Once upon a time he sang Elvis songs and played saxophone. A new sun has come to thaw his blue blood. And yes - it's a warm red after all.

Whatever the fate of my book I've had a lovely time with the launch. I've made contact with folk - critics, writers, editors and readers who have helped me all the way. I've also had contact with the guys who produce Yorkshire Gold tea. This is not a commercial placement. I adore their tea. It is my day time fuel. OK - after five o' clock maybe I can slip in the odd vin rouge, or two...... Just like Shannon in my book. 

I went to Bloxington Manor to do some publicity shots. Above is a little link to my tea by the lake.

And that's a wrap. Shannon's Law has been a year of my life. I write by hand and it's a four times edit before it goes to my editor. OK - I know, it needs another edit! Too late, there's another passion patrol keel on the slipway.

Emma Thinx: Life is a perfect rising cake -  that sticks.