My very first reader review ...

... for The Gods in the Jungle is in, fifteen months after the book was first published!

I'm currently running a Summer Madness promotion for the book - people can download it for free from the Smashwords website (link above) by using the coupon code NR38B at the checkout thingy - offer expires: July 15, 2011.

Webbiegrrl's Writings

Some people are not content to just sit back and expect the world to discover their work. Some people go out and actively promote themselves.

I am not one of those people ... which is entirely my fault.

Some people go even further. Not only do they promote their own work, they also promote the work of other people. They offer up advice on marketing and promotion. They share tips and tricks with other writers. They go the extra mile to help other independently published authors. They do this without asking for payment, or favours.

Such people shame me, make me realise just how self-centred I can be.

One such person is Sarah, the Webbiegrrl Writer. She is tireless in her efforts for others. Even for wastrels like me. Here's her blog, if either of you don't believe me. Add it to your bookmarks: you won't be sorry!

Poem Revision: Crime of Passion

Crime of Passion

He is a cold witness, as chill
as a slip of rime on the lip
of a crisp new beer. For weeks

I chased his rumour, sharp alleys
un-vexed by daylight, garbage
mansions bearding freeway struts.

This shade sits easy in my office,
his lids half-cupped as eyes check
evidence stacks for entertainments.

'The whisper is you want some words.'

My list of questions is as long
as the walk to the liquor store,
but the one I choose is short: why?

'Who asks?' As he tilts his head
to scratch his beard I spot hemp-weave
patterns scorched deep in his neck.

My stare flicks to the desk where lies
a Gideons, liberated from its hotel
drawer by the woman who hired me.

'I choked, and yet I breathe again.'

His smile is quick and sad, a crack
of tooth between louse-lush fuzz ruddied
by the slant guttering of the sun.

I tell him of visions. I tell him
that night follows day and histories
walk the city's baked streets.

'He told me to do it.' he says.
'Anyone can get their hands and heels
nailed to some planks of wood!'

His face whips close: I catch rust webs
of bust veins etched on eye-whites -
his lung-dust stills my tongue.

'I loved him! I kissed him and when
our lips touched my name was seared
to the heart of every man alive

'and every child whelped after. I sense
my style beats within your chest
... you cannot afford my dogma!'

For anyone about to embark on their summer holidays

Here you go ...

Rik's Smashwords summer madness giveaway coupon
for The Gods in the Jungle (£free):
Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: NR38B
Expires: July 15, 2011

Don't tell anyone else!

It's all about the cover, innit

So I've been wondering if the abysmal sales of my Tome might possibly be down to the cover I designed for it. I have no money to pay a proper artist to design a book cover for me, so I have to make it up as I go along. People say an unattractive cover can kill book sales, and I recently read that the least attractive colour for selling a book is olive green.

No prizes for guessing which colours Rik went for when cobbling together the Tome's cover last year. Would you buy this book?

Version 1



So anyway, I thought it would do no harm to try again. This time I've decided to go for something a little more colourful ...

Version 2


The question is: would either of you be more willing to buy the book if it came tucked inside that second cover?

EDIT #1 - following comments received in other venues.

The new cover is too "wishy-washy". So I've tried again using a darker, more jungly background. Does this work any better?

Version 3


EDIT #2 - after further feedback ... a revised new alternate version:

Version 4


... and just because I'm getting bored with the business of it all, a simpler revised new alternate version:

Version 5


Edit #3 - a new day, a new version:

Version 6

NaPo 11: 20-22 April - Good Friday poems

... I'm running a little behind, so 3 poems today to bring me back up to speed.

Good Friday Poem #1

Two hot spring weeks and already
the Earth cracks. Haze
hovers above the uncut grass,
sway-less eye dance -

a trick of the heat: bees bob
between pincushion
dandelions; fresh nectar
for the first eggs.

Good Friday Poem #2

They fish in silence - the man,
the heron. When one casts its beak
through the mirror course the other
whip-ducks his fly. Slow the ripples
travel, armadas cruising the canal;
where the waves cross a stickleback
giants and dwarfs, nestweed in mouth.

Good Friday Poem #3

For my first burlesque of the season
I seek an audience of crows; there is much
for me to expose and, when done, they caw
an appreciation. I lumber onto my back
and let Aten's fingers massage me:
"you've fattened well," the lost god
whispers; "I accept your singe of a gift."

NaPo 11: 19 April - Dollpuss

(the obligatory NaPo cat pome, innit)

Dollpuss

A patch of sunshine moves: stripes stretch;
ripples of muscle in hot fur. Each toe tip
is planned, back-to-front, reach and bend;
hoist tail ... You play me like a vole, tiger -
when you mewl, I hunt your treats. Good boy!

NaPo 11: 18 April - Regent's Canal

... So I'm running a day late. Be happy I'm not yet reduced to fukyu sequences ...

Regent's Canal

Dogs walking their owners
bow legs and bristles
tattooed and snouted
calf-exposed, sweat-nosed
barking at mates
by cell-phone.

Office work strewn over lawns
barefoot meetings, diary
confirmations applied
like cream over strawberry
burns - the first tanline
of the season filed.

Inside the sitework cages
move cranes - they spell runes
across a hot blue sky;
men in yellow hats clad
skeleton structures
in bricks and planks.

Midstream a swan ducks
and scrapes bubbled fronds
from the mud, green scraps
staining orange keratin
and I keep on walking
though my toes bleed.

NaPo 11: 17 April - Snowdrop 6.8: Black Hound

Snowdrop 6.8: Black Hound

Having herded a huddle of ghosts
to the hidden shore, the Shuck unwinds.
She pads in circles, smoothing rushes
and matting grasses to make a nest

... and settles down, a slumber of shadows
above the knaps of abandoned flints
- elfshot arrowheads, adze and scraper.
She gnaws at her claws; nibble and preen.

A spur of frost stabs at her memory:
a chill-full fox with a filligree pelt,
his tail a bloom of tinkling icicles
to stake a wraith to the solid earth.

Frets of spittle spiral from incisors
as she hikes her snout to the star-clad heavens
to snuffle at swirls in the silent night
- her purpose is primeval: protect the dead.

A yelp, a sneeze; a scream. Yammers
hammer across the curve of the hill.
She spots a limb slapping at mist:
the motion sparks her to spring and charge.

She levers her legs, each lunge bringing her
closer to the threat, clattering rocks
and gouts of chalk as she gathers speed,
powering to pounce at the perilous couple.

Ahead is the fox, ephemeral spawn,
its ices cloaking a creature in pain:
a woman snared in a witter of spirits
hurtfully summoned by the seething mists.

And now she sprints, a spine of black
retributions bounding towards
the tattering fogs: she tenses and leaps ...

"Principium cuius hinc nobis exordia sumet,
nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus umquam."

... and her being unbinds - a bludgeon of words
streams through her ears to echo her skull ...

"Quippe ita formido mortalis continet omnis,
quod multa in terris fieri caeloque tuentur,
quorum operum causas nulla ratione videre
possunt ac fieri divino numine rentur."

... she howls! She keens like a hoard of suns
spun to the ledge of the starless abyss
and ripped of their fires. She renders the cliff
beneath her feet to fragments as she scrabbles
to escape the chains of the chanted lines ...

"Quas ob res ubi viderimus nil posse creari
de nihilo, tum quod sequimur iam rectius inde
perspiciemus, et unde queat res quaeque creari
et quo quaeque modo fiant opera sine divom."

... she cannot fight! Her final bay
echoes against the girth of the moon
as she buckles, breaks and dissolves.

NaPo 11: 16 April - Snowdrop 6.6: Cold Jack

Snowdrop 6.6: Cold Jack

A flash in the fog; the flare of an eye
so light in hue it leaches ice,
a pair of points piercing the night ...

Jack is on the hunt for hints of food.
His snout ferrets through frosting grass
for beetles, worms, the wine of a berry
lost in the roots. The rigorous search
succeeds when Jack snags a nut husk:

he claws the seed cleanly from the sod
and chases it across the chalk, stops it
with his berg snout, snatches his teeth
on the chipped prize, chews and swallows.

And then Jack sits, his tail askirt
to cover his paws in its plume of fur.
He cocks his head to catch any sound,
noses at the air for echoes of tuck.

An apron of frost infuses the ground;
surrounds the form of the fox in white.

A hic of a moan hinges Jack's ears -
a novel sound: he scans around
hillocks and tufts to detect the source,
pins it within a patch of deep murk.

He stands and shakes, the snow in his pelt
spraying the tussocks. He takes a careful
pawstep closer to the curling smoke
alert for dangers, for dogs and men.

A human, collapsed - the huffs of its creels
are muffled in limbs. He moves closer,
eager to sniff it for snatches of grub ...

it jerks its head up just as he inches
too near to escape! Their stares married,
he yelps a crystal cloud in its face.