Kindle Countdown Deal

#Micropoetry

In old age

life proceeds

from one slice of breakfast

toast to the next.

*

A Moonlit Moonless sky,

tailed Comet.

Traveler returns:

no one here to admire the beauty.

*

Encounters with people's discarded spit,

occurs:

when you grasp the edge of a Café table

and stick a finger in gum.

*

My inherited self,

born of Father's strong seed

and Mother's sour milk,

is torn in their daily fight

for my malleable soul.

*

I remember the birth canal,

as gasping in panic,

I struggle when a tight fitting

long necked jumper glues itself to my face:

preventing my head from emerging.

Just an example of the magnificent small and restricted poetry that a Twitter format puts on poets.

These are from my book of poetry, stories and other  efforts that are on offer this week on Amazon Kindle at a 76% discount.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Knowledge-Seekers-Land-Cudhabeen-ebook/dp/B00JYKH6DG

As a self published writer I still retain all my publishing rights!

Hachette v's Amazon

Hi all, this is tickling my fancy in a peculiar way.

In Ireland self publishers seldom get a chance to publicise their books on or in the media. It appears traditional publishers have an unseen veto, on who can get on air or into papers, to ramp up interest in their books.

There are some exceptions to this when a retired "Personality" of radio or TV writes a book - on "How I Tied My Shoelaces Each Morning." They will be indulged by an editor or producer they worked with.

Of course when that happens - I immediately Tweet the program and ask if I can come in and talk about my book as well.

I'm still waiting to be invited.

So Publishing Houses ganging up on us -that's us, as in we authors, and Amazon our outlet for sales - in not new to me - just amusing.

More so in fact when I hear Stephen King has signed up to the campaign on the Publisher side.

Mr. King tried very hard from 1982 – 2000 to sell his book, The Plant, directly on the Net. He was griping about his publisher and the money they were taking from him. He wanted all the royalties for himself.

His idea was to offer the first few chapters as free download, then he tried to sell the remaining chapters at $1 each. The project was a failure. And after six instalments it folded and the book is yet to be completed.

The last instalment was published on December 18, 2000. The book is yet to be completed. The original instalments are now available for free on Stephen King's official website.

So King has tried Self Publishing and is now against authors trying to directly produce and sell work.

When Paperbacks were first produced Hardback Publishers were also up in arms. But when they got into the market by producing their own Paperbacks they "Cried Off" the protest, instead of crying about the process.

Watch this space when traditional publishers get "Bought Off" by Amazon this "Storm In A Teacup” will blow away. I wonder though when it does - will the traditionally published writers get an increase in their 8, 10 or 12% royalties? Maybe also an increase in their signing on advance. An advance that is paid back from the royalties.

But it's not the money I get by self publishing my work that attracts me: it's the publication rights, the film rights, the hardback rights, the magazine rights etc., that I retain for myself.

That's the clincher and maybe this traditional publisher against Amazon may not be just about money: it's also about publication rights.

The traditionally published writers who are jumping on the band wagon didn't retain their publication rights: they have taken the 30 pieces of silver and perhaps now regret that they did.

I'm free today – other days I'm reasonable.

I'm sure the above will get lost in translation – but here goes an explanation.

When I came “Up To Dublin” from “The Bogs” I was a raw inexperienced young lad – but I had ambitions.

One of these centred around the more experienced girl, who was secretary to the Big Boss.

During training and set up of my employee record, and getting a listing of my duties, and being introduced, she was my handler.

Apparently my performance at the oral interview was even at that early stage of my short career in The Civil Service gaining me some notoriety.

Down home I was appearing in an amateur production of Walter Macken's Home Is The Hero, playing the part of Manchester Monaghan, and came to the interview in character – explaining “I don't normally look as scruffy as this but I'm playing a Teddy-boy in a play.”

That rainy day in Dublin, three men sat in a hot stuffy room asking questions of young nervous candidates, until late in the afternoon, when I arrived on the scene.

We laughed, and joked about my appearance and the play and the part, and I gave a short performance and somewhere along the way these men decided – we like this youngster – and we will employ him.

So weeks later there I am dreaming of a date with Mary, full of the joys of spring, hoping I had a reputation as a ladies man: so I asked her out.

“Mary, what night are you free? The reply put me firmly back in my box. “I'm not free any night! But most nights I'm reasonable.”

So for Monday and Tuesday – the kindle edition of my book is Free and Reasonable.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Knowledge-Seekers-Land-Cudhabeen-ebook/dp/B00JYKH6DG

Do I really need to be #(number sign) Lazarian?

In the dim – getting dimmer every day – and distant past when I joined the Airline I was introduced to a “Computer” .

IBM told us “This Computer sent the men to the Moon!” Its introduced to Ireland as an IBM platform for European marketing, was to run the International Programmed Airline Reservation System – IPARS. In other words it would enable computerised bookings for passenger details for flights.

By the way - when used as a chat up line - the answer to “What do you do?” being “I work on the computer that sent the men to the moon” was a killer.

We worked on small 12 inch screens with a green glow – we wondered if it was radioactive – and an attached keyboard.

This is where the symbols come in. To enter a name you prefixed it with The Name Item -: a dash.

Explaining it this way is going to get tedious and uninteresting – when all I want to talk about is the @ and # keys -so I will just simulate a booking!

-Lazarian/Wordsmith/Mr <Return Key> which we called the enter key.

Then a slashed zero was used to enter the flight details, a 9 preceded the phone number and a 6 the identity of who made the booking – 6PAX.

But when you wanted to change any of these details as the booking proceeded and you made a “Small Mistake” or as we began calling it a “Deliberate Error” like messing up the phone number we used the CHNG to rectify the error 91234567@2345678. Not an AT key then a CHNG key.

And the # key in communications to denote a number only.

Happy days – when a phone sat on a desk and you left it behind you at COB – Close Of Business – and a Mobile hung over babies' cot.

Oh! Look...#IBM #EarlyComputers #GettingTooOldforThis and my Spell Checker suggested #GoodForNothing.....

Bloomsday 2014

In honour of Blooms Day, I'm going to have my cereal and tea and go for a long walk.

 I'll sing a few songs along the way, then after I will meet my Pals and have a few pints, and sing a few more songs. 

Perhaps as an extra party piece I will play the comb. 

Then I will slowly meander back home and collapse into bed.

Well - that's about all Joyce did - on 16 June 1904!

And we have to continually read and hear about it since.

When I was fourteen I started to read Ulysses, perhaps I will have it finished in a few weeks time!

My Book is available for a week of the Amazon Countdown Deal - 5 Stars and a 3 star review, so far.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Knowledge-Seekers-Land-Cudhabeen-ebook/dp/B00JYKH6DG

The Knowledge Seekers and The Land Of Cudhabeen is available for a week on the Amazon Countdown Deal.

So far two 5 Star and one 3 Star reviews.

5.0 out of 5 star A fascinating book about Irish legend 9 June 2014

By Frances Cave

Lazarian Wordsmith weaves Irish legend and history into a book written from his own poetic viewpoint. He includes some of his evocative poetry which sheds a special light on this country where magic and legend still hold so much sway. For visitors to Ireland, this book should be read alongside a standard travel guide. For those who know the county well, it will be an added ingredient to the great melting-pot of Celtic mystery.

3.0 out of 5 stars Good read 3 June 2014

By Emma Tackney

I would endorse this book to anyone who is interested in Irish culture from the first settlers to the computer literate generation of today. The Twitter and Micro-poetry poems use a minimum of words to convey emotion and social comment.

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Wordsmith, June 2, 2014

By Michael Sweeney

The author has a unique style and is expert at telling a story in an entertaining and interesting way.
Some of his stories have echoes of Flann O'Brien's "At Swim Two Birds"
He obviously cares about language and his work is true art.

Poetic prose or prose poetry?

#ShortStoriesAndPoems I don't know where one stops and the other begins. I have always waxed lyrical when writing and  produce something like

He kept his back to the area of the graveyard where Deirdre lay. When he attended other burials he left by the small gate in the wall nearest the bridge, he never visited her. Now he turned to follow his shadow, a guide thrown by the climbing sun, to her. 
 She wasn’t alone any more: her parents were buried beside her. That in itself caused a pang of sadness, a slight tightening in the chest, a queasy feeling down low in the stomach: a memory of a time when he thought that in the end, they would lie side by side. 
It wasn’t anything they talked about, or even planned, but down there in that country town spouses usually ended up that way: twin plots one headstone; beloved wife devoted husband.

I look back at it and consider editing out some of the words, but I can't, because it all seems to fit: the words, the paragraphs and the emotion. I decide to leave it, because I regard it as good poetic prose.

And then I come towards the end of the short story to what I would call the reconciliation scene and I write prose and I examine it, carefully, then decide to change the P.O.V. - to first-party narrator,  stick in a few "Returns" separate out a few paragraphs and it becomes poetry.

And then my father rang.

Deirdre’s back home - She’s dying,

some terrible wasting disease.

Are you coming down to visit her?

He went on breathless, eager to explain.

I knew he had practised this,

said it aloud to himself, listening to words

he already knew: to refine the inflection.

Her sister brings her for a drive, 
that’s where I found her
sitting in the car near the wood.
She’s going blind now too.
What kind of sickness takes your faculties like that? 
She asked for you. I think she wants to make peace:

You better come down
while there’s still time.

I stayed away, even though on still nights -
when the city traffic had dimmed 
and the windfall leaves rustled 
quietly beneath the branches,
when the scent in the air was hedgerow honeysuckle,
I heard her calling. 

Softly, so faint, away in the distance,
on the cheek brushing, wind,

Then that night -in the moonlight under the stars,
I went down into the wood: to its pine heart; 
and garnered from the forest floor
into my hamper box,
small twigs, pine and fir and larch cones,
covering them with palm. 

I  ranged outward, seeking the brown
yellow and green, turning to amber, fallen-sinner-leaves
covering them with creeping ivy.
I scooped up hawthorn haws, yew berries
and green spiky chestnuts, 
womb-open, showing their fruits inside.


So when you read this you can decide- am I writing poetic prose, or am I writing prose poetry, or  neither? Maybe it's all just a figment of my imagination.