The work continues reviewing and editing the Grange series, A longer prcess than I anticipated but life throws the inevitable spanner and the work gets clogged. 

Time to extract the spanner and get working.

Keep and eye on the smahwords Grange series page and the pages of Martyn's blog (click the link on the site navigation and it will taake you there.)

Martyn

Read an Ebook week 2020 starts on the 1st March, an extra day to wait but take the leap into a rich selection of Ebooks at Smashwords

NaNoWriMo done, another year, 30 days 50,000 words and all excuses beaten down and kicked out into the cold. The finishing line reached last night. Now plunging into December and poking around for a time machine to jump back to November 1st or skip the next four weeks and go straight to the hangover on Boxing Day (really just kidding, honestly!). Here's hoping the next month isn't too stressful and you find time to escape to the world you created in November.

Did you win? You did, good, and if you didn't, don't give up, you can do it and you will get there. stick at it and good luck, again. 

May your ideas flourish and the wors flow freely.

Martyn

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The header has changed,  obviously, and behind the scenes a few other things have shifted.

A change of perspective as much as anything  Nothing drastic on the front of house, but the seagull has flown. The bird has served its purpose

The writing will come, and not be confined to the activities of the characters hanging around the grange and the stories from that source.

It took a while, but here's to whatever comes next.

The immediate challenge, start and finish NaNoWriMo 2019. I'm nipping over there to sign on the dotted line.

Martyn

Looking back a couple of weeks checking the daily sales sheet at Smashwords, something popped up, literally that I hadn't seen coming. A spike, well, more a small hill than a spike. A sudden shift in the downloads from Apple regarding Iceline. 496 in about a month, disregarding the permafree status of the novel it was still a welcome sight.

Iceline is the first of the Grange novels, introducing the mjaor characters in the series and the location around which the stories unfold.

Add to that a surge in the daily page views for Martyn's Blog (570+ in the last month) over on Blogger and I think a shift is needed. A timely reminder to keep my eye on the ball. the nice touch is that blogs on the site are regularly indexed at Blogorama

Maybe I need a (better) plan?

Cheekyseagull has had a bit of a tweak this afternoon (GMT). A bit of shuffling around so the pages have a standard look and the information I want to appear at the top of the page does that, and the incidental stuff slides in at the bottom. Still a bit more to do, playing with the new layout to make the mobile experience easier to work with. A few links to put in place and then I think the site will be pretty much as I want it, until I decided to tinker with something else because another behind the scenes gizmo comes along. In the meantime I'll give the site a ping on ping-omatic (sounds like an invention from a Wallace and Gromit film - that's what I like about it).

If this post works, it will be the first time I've pulled it off using my mobile phone, and that's another tick in the right box for the website provider.

Cheers for now

Martyn

The website has taken advantage of the mobile friendly formatting offered by Freeola and Instant Pro. 

cheekyseagull.co.uk will now display easily on most devices. I have spent some time playing with the site via a smart-phone and the links are still working fine, so all the connections between the site and the retailers and distributors of The Grange thrillers can be used. 

Have a great day!

The downside of Independence, I can't blame anyone else when something doesn't appear to be working. I made the call, I take the hit.

Iceline keeps racking up the downloads, nothing spectacular at the moment, and if I'm honest all the books in the series, The Grange, could do with a good hard look and perhaps rewriting in places. The rest of the series is basically flat-lining, going nowhere fast. 

Minimal advertising and not getting my backside in gear are most likely the problem, and I am the solution. 

This calls for relatively long term planning, it may stem the flow of new material but looking at the history of the novels and the characters involved may also breathe fresh life into the books.

At the moment, NaNoWriMo is off the calendar for this year. I've taken the challenge for the last four years and cracked the total within the time limit on every occasion. Now is the time to consolidate what I have. Step back, look long and hard at the material and work with it. 

The last two NaNoWriMo books have yet to be finished, and bolstered by the confidence of the challenge I know I can do it, this may be the time to get stuck and get them done. 

There will be regular postings through Martyn's blog follow the link from cheekyseagull.co.uk and I'll stop off here for a quick chat now and then, just to keep the faithful up to date, but as for actual dates and times? They'll come in due course.

In the meantime, enjoy, grab the books and the action.

I know, it can be irritating, one moment it's there on your screen and then: it's gone. The screen refreshed and what you were looking at isn't there any more.

The page for Gone to earth has just disappeared. If you were in the middle of looking at it, I apologise, but there is a reason. I took the book offline at smashwords a month or so ago, and somehow due to a technical error (basically I forgot!) it remained on the website.

Gone to Earth has, gone to earth for the time being while I pull the rest of the story together and finish the job. As usual, a completed draft will be posted on smashwords, and subsequently through the distribution channels when it is completed. In the meantime, if you aren't already part of the action try the rest of the Grange stories on your device, and be a part of it. 

The post that went up this afternoon on Martyn's blog shifted its emphasis slightly, well more than slightly from the usual. The subject touched on writing and the relationship between characters but also the current political climate in the UK. Referencing the EU referendum coming up later this month.

I don't intend to go on about it, but the questions raised by Tony Benn reveal an insight into political thinking and history.

Tony Benn was a fascinating character and a part of the political scene in the UK for most of my life. I don't agree with many of the things he said but his five questions give a useful starting point. How many even supposedly democratic governments would come out well?

The divorce between politics and the populace is not a healthy one, people who believe the vote makes no difference and the politicians who accept this as the status quo and operate as though they have a right to govern compound the felony.

A lot of people, myself included, have waited a long time for this particular vote and depending on the result may have to wait a long time for another chance, unless the powers that be decide we gave the wrong answer and they hold another referendum and another and another, until we give them the "Right" answer.

Ireland endured that fate with the referendum for the Treaty of Lisbon, the first vote went against the treaty, so the referendum was repeated and the Treaty was accepted. The significance of the Treaty referendum was that it required a unanimous vote of acceptance in all the member states, whereas the Brexit (who thinks up these ugly terms?) is purely about British integration.

How the British Government reacts to a result it doesn't like could be revealing when Benn's five points are laid against it.

June is going to be an interesting month!