December 16: what’s happened to manners?

When I was young, and someone didn’t want you smoking near them (I smoke a pipe) they’d ask politely: “Would you mind not smoking near me?” no problem, you’d put it out.

These days, however, people are downright bloody rude! no manners, no polite request, just damned rude remarks.

What has happened to manners? Has the world forgotten what they are? Same with kids sitting on a bus when an elderly or pregnant person was standing: you’d get up and give them your seat. I worked as a bus-driver for two years, and found in that time that the only way to get a kid to give up their seat was to say in front of the whole bus: “Get up!” It never occurred to them that there was somebody in need of a seat standing near them. Hell! what are the parents teaching them? It sure ain’t manners!

Adrian Scott

December 14: New Publication

Just released today on Smashwords: ‘Strange Tales, Dark Thoughts’ vol III.

already working on vol IV…

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/113809

Adrian Scott

November 27: 60th novel finished

With sixty novels completed since I began writing novels in 2008, perhaps it’s time to take a break. But, knowing the writing bug as well as I do these days, by tomorrow morning my ever-active mind will have concocted a new plot, and a new character, to go on with the fierce imaginings.

I enjoy writing, even if I never make a dime out of it. It’s like the old saying: “Find something you do well, and really enjoy, and stick to it.” And fortunately, that’s how it is with me. At the age of 67,I have a job that i really enjoy doing, and I think that certainly improves the work standard, and the work output. When I think about how unlucky I could have been, being stuck in a task I did not enjoy but had to do in order to earn a living, I can’t help but feel grateful to the Powers Above.

Adrian Scott

November 25: new Renaissance publication

Mason Thurlow volume III has just been released by Renaissance. http://shop.pageturnereditions.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=236 will get you there. in this one, old Mason runs into trouble with a pair of werewolves, the police, and other unsavoury types. Boy! what I put that character through!

Adrian Scott

November 12: Moving Forward

Renaissance ebooks (US) are racing ahead with publishing the Mason Thurlow series…all twelve volumes.
Vols I and II were released about four weeks or so ago, volume III is ready to go, and vols IV and V are in the preparation process now. Somewhere along the line we hope to have the series critically examined, and I’ll be waiting, my breath held, for the verdicts of the pundits in the game, If they like the concept, it could lead anywhere. I created the character of Mason Thurlow back in the early 1980’s, in a novel that was rejected, and revived him in Child of the Living Dead, going right back to the year 1796 or so in Haiti, during the slave rebellion, to detail the story of his birth and eventual rise into what I designed as a man of utter evil and demonic worship. For the new series, released on Pageturner, i toned down the sex scenes as requested, and now we wait to see what effect this will have on sales. Explicit sex does have a place in modern literature, I believe, but the suggestion was enough for Mason Thurlow. You could say I wanted to spend as much time as possible on first creating, then bit by bit destroying, the most evil man on earth, and really didn’t have the time or need for the sex…his, that is.
We shall now wait to see where it leads…
Adrian Scott

November 10: New Publication on Smashwords

After estimating my gross wealth, i have come up with the astounding figures of $180.12 Aus earned in royalties since my books first went into publication.
Therefore, I have decided that if I can’t be one of the world’s wealthiest writers, I will become one of the most published.
With that thought in mind, this morning I released, on Smashwords, the second volume of Strange Tales, Dark Thoughts, a collection of tales that are designed to give you pause, as the old-time writers would have put it. You’ll find it at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/103583 and a happy early Chrissie to you all.
Adrian Scott.

November 10: Bothered by Writers’ Block?

We all suffer from this annoying creature at one time or another. I’ve given it much thought, and my website http://www.adrianscott.info page 5 features the latest, and admittedly rather long, post from me on this subject and my favourite ways of beating it.
I hope it can be of some use to you.
Adrian Scott

November 9: The Workings of the Mind of a Writer

It’s of eternal interest to me how the human mind works: note that here, I am talking about the subconscious, and not that part of us that goes on thinking with our own connivances at play.
i found myself stuck, yesterday, at the 20,000 word mark of a story, and faced with the possibility that it would be a novella and not a full-length novel. i wanted to make it full-length as I’m sitting on my fifty-ninth so far, and wanted to go for the even 60.
i put it away overnight, and when i awoke this morning and began typing away, there it was, all laid out and ready to go for the full length of some 40-50,000 words. All i had to do was type what I was seeing in my mind’s eye, describe the scenes accurately, and create the dialogue, and there was the key to extending the story for the full length.
i have to confess here that I never consciously plan a novel – i see the first few scenes, perhaps, and the rest is there, waiting for me, when i awaken early the next morning, which i think is a good way to work as it means each scene is as fresh to the writer, never having consciously been aware of it before, as it will be to the reader. And i do think readers can sense a fresh scene from a ‘stale’ one, that has lain around in the skull for some time before being dragged out into the light of day and given life.Anyway, that’s how I work. and as long as it keeps working for me, along with whatever research I need to do, I shall keep working that way.
Adrian Scott

November 4: Waiting…That’s the Name of the Game…

Here we sit, not much more than 8 weeks from Christmas, and ‘Panther,’ my first paperback, is still nowhere in sight. I seem to dimly recall that it was going to be released in the second quarter of this year…which soon became the third quarter. I sometimes think that publishers forget that if we writers suddenly disappeared, they would be on the unemployment line, as are so many of us these days…and this opinion is borne out by talking, over the past few weeks, to many of my colleagues in the writing game.
Perhaps a writers’ strike is what is called for. Imagine what it could do to the publishing industry…much the same as the actors’ strike of years ago did to Hollywood. i must give this some thought…
Adrian Scott .

November 3: No Melbourne Cup Winner

We only picked up a third in this year’s Melbourne Cup, but with the help of two winners and a second out of the last 3 races on the card, still came out in front…the Scott family, that is.
Now I’m looking for a good program to download that will let me access a couple of really old movies and download them without upsetting The Man in the Government Office responsible for this sort of thing. If anybody knows of one, let me know…I’d be eternally grateful. I tried Amazon, which has them, but cannot ship them to Australia…damn!
Renaissance has done a good job writing the blurbs for the first two Mason Thurlow novels out…so good, I pasted them into my website. Now I’m just waiting on the arrival of their Pageturner Editions logo to start a new page.
Happy reading everyone
Adrian Scott