Poppy Wreaths Are Laid

I left to serve with happy heart,

no thoughts of death or fear,

I even smiled and thought to tease, my Mother’s silent tear.

“Don’t worry Mother, dry your eyes and wish me all your best.

For Kaiser Bill will scamper quick, when Pals he tries to test.

We’ll sweep him up and throw him out of Flanders bonny fields.

For God is with the righteous; his glory as our shields.

I’ll be right back afore you know, your tears will hardly fall,

So see me off, with one more hug, for I answer duty’s call.”

A warm farewell from cheering crowds and bands of fife and drum.

So soon to France and trenches, and cold that made me numb.

With whizzbang shells and sniper fire,

my happiness soon ebbed.

For nothing saps your spirits,

like rats gnawing on the dead.

The winter turned to mud and snow,

some died from it alone.

No silent night this Christmas,

the war had changed its tone.

No honour left ‘tween Fritz and us,

no truce to play a game.

Our only goal, to kill them all,

for they’re the ones to blame.

 

Then the push to end it, how true that was for me.

I got twelve yards with stumbled steps and didn’t even see,

the bullets cutting like a swathe,

my guts all ripped to hell.

No pain, no sound, no screaming cries,

no tolling of a bell.

 

My face in mud, my breath all gone,

a darkness then a light.

I know I’m dead, yet am back home,

my Mother in my sight.

Her tears are falling hard and fast,

a bugle call is played.

A silence falls around the town.

Then poppy wreaths are laid.

My perch on high, unbounded force,

affords a spirit’s view.

I think some years have flown past,

I’m sure it is a few.

No more my pals who made it home,

seem to gather here.

 

No more can I see Mother,

no more her silent tear.

Yet now some others march instead.

Old men who were not born,

when I went forward into death,

my young life ripped and torn.

And though no wreath that’s laid this day, restores my life to me,

Each allows my soul to rest, held safe in memory.

 

By Ian Andrew,
taken from The Little Book of Silly Rhymes & Odd Verses
Flanders Image © IMW
All other imagery © Ian Andrew

New Blog Site, New Website

Hi to all and any that currently follow my blog, Views From The Ridge…

I have now moved to a WordPress.Org blog and that means that you wont get to see any of the posts in the wordpress reader. If you still fancy following me and my posts, then please click on the link below and add your email address to the subscribe widget. Just click here Ian Andrew Author

 

 

New and Old Friends – Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival Day 3

Always a delight to meet passionate readers, writers, bloggers and reviewers. Even better when they are all rolled into one 🙂

Reading, Writing and Riesling

This years festival has been outstanding! I have been privileged to hear some great authors share stories about their latest releases and writing in general. Some are “old friends” (authors I have read previously to the festival), some are “newly discovered friends”.   Thank  you Sulari Gentill, Sara Foster (and hello to Sara’s charming parents), Dr Liz Byrski, Rosemary Sayer,  Bernice Barry,Ann Turner, Madelaine Dickie, Josh Langley, Ian Andrew (always a delight to meet a fellow blogger who just happens to be a best selling crime fiction writer)  What generous people you all are!  Sadly I could not attend every session or the External/parallel events… so much talent so little time 🙂

I will wind up my spotlight on the festival with a few images from day 3.

Short Story Panel

Michael Cathcart interviews Ann Turner

And

View original post

Best Selling Crime Writer – 2015*

I am – well, I was – well with a small caveat. Best selling crime writer of 2015 – in the best bookshop in Busselton, WA. I know, it is a narrow criteria, but, it’s true – I outsold all other crime writers. I may have a tee-shirt made up. The caveat might be in small writing – on the back. But, nonetheless, the truth of the statement is there for all to see. All I need now is to have a thousand more bookshops across the globe love and promote my books the way Barefoot Books of Busselton does…

I owe them a great deal of thanks and so, I was very happy to have the official Australian launch of Flight Path in their marvellous shop, nestled within Fig Tree Lane.

Peta and Bob and their fantastic staff – “The Minions“, laid on a great day on Sunday 1st May and a good sized crowd turned up for an hour or so of me doing a few readings, telling a few stories, answering some questions and signing a few books. Thanks to all who came out on what was a relatively overcast day for Western Australia. Pictures, courtesy of Minion Steph, are below.

 

 

End

35 days. 1555 miles driven. Multiple more train-ed, ferry-ed and flown. Seven author talks. Three days in a book fair. One old politician seen. Eight counties stopped in. Many more travelled through. Too many friends and family met up with to count. So many thanks owed for so much hospitality shown. Occasions and experiences that were great, some poignant, some sad. All in all, quite a trip but glad to be bringing it to a close now.  Uploading this on a mobile on board an Airbus so who knows what order or format the images will load in. Oh yeah, I had a go in an Airbus simulator while in London, so feel ready to step in if needed. Till later. Ian.

Olde Worldee..

The LCC launch

 

A Somersetian Signal Sinkhole

Quick update. First launch went well. Crewkerne is delightful but seems to be in a mobile data abyss. So the next proper update, with photos, will have to wait for wireless in Cheltenham. Currently on way but with a lunch stop in one of my favourite places on the planet, Cheddar Gorge 😎 

 

Launch Day – Flight Path

After months of writing, months and months of editing, selecting cover art and generally getting all the rest that goes with launching a new book into place, and a last few days of checking and double checking… Flight Path will be released tomorrow as an e-book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01CAPMHYE

If, on the other hand, you like a paperback to hold and hug, then that format is released (again on Amazon, or any other on-line retailer) on the same day. Or… go into your local book shop this weekend and and ask them to order it for you. 🙂

If you are interested in attending an official Launch (and book signing) then you can have a look at the list of UK and Aussie venues here: https://www.facebook.com/viewsfromtheridge/events

If you want to know what it’s all about… Here’s the cover, the back blurb and the first few pages…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stowmarket, Suffolk.

As dawn broke on his thirty-third birthday, paratrooper Darren Caistor stormed up Wireless Ridge on East Falkland. It was the last of the three battles he fought on those far-away islands and when the soft glow of the South Atlantic sun revealed the carnage, he had barely managed to stifle his tears. He always said it was his toughest birthday. He was wrong.

His wife’s head leant on his shoulder, her chest heaving in quiet misery. The soft sobs of his daughter and son-in-law echoed off the sterile walls, muffling the gentle sounds of the nurses as they moved around the bed.

Through blurry eyes Darren watched shadowed shapes gliding across his vision. He knew, in a detached way, that the room was almost silent, yet his head was filled with a screaming rage. A roar of blood, thoughts, frustrations and a desperate desire for revenge thundered inside him. As a nurse moved past the window, the curtains swayed and the briefest of glints from the rising sun shone through. It caught the swirling dust motes, twisting them in a soft-yellow lance of light that flashed across the length of the room, like a heavenly sceptre. Its point came to rest on her soft face.

The sudden light cast a warming glow, gentle and reviving, but her eyes remained closed, her heart still. The curtain swayed back into place and the light was gone. Its sudden removal breached the last of the old soldier’s defences. Tears streamed down the former Company Sergeant Major’s stubbled cheeks, dripping unheeded as the room fell back into darkness.

On the dawn of his sixty-sixth birthday, Darren Caistor wept for the soul of his seven-year old granddaughter.

Camden, London. Wednesday, 18^th November.

Kara Wright looked through half-closed venetian blinds at the busying street-scene below. The weak, wintery November sun hadn’t yet managed to rise above the tops of the buildings, but a limp infusion of grey crept down the Kentish Town Road. It gave just enough light to pick out the heavily-cocooned early-risers, struggling against the wind that threatened to freeze them before they reached the warmth of their work.

She frowned at the weather awaiting her, but for now, wrapped in her dressing gown, towel atop her head, cup of tea in one hand and a slice of toast in the other, she was quite content. Her day didn’t promise much.

A half hour from now she would venture out for a run with her business partner, Tien. The rest of the morning would be spent working on some background-checks for a City-based HR firm, followed by an afternoon meeting with a financial advisor called Shonel, who was trying to inform her about the best way to plan for the future. Kara was yet to be convinced about share portfolios, unit trusts or Government bonds.

She took a bite of toast just as her mobile phone vibrated its dull drone on the coffee table. Chewing quickly and taking a swig of tea to wash it down, she made her way across the room and noticed the incoming call had its number withheld. Placing her cup on the table, she retrieved the phone.

“Hello.”

“Hello Kara. It’s me… Today?”

PRE-Order the e-book NOW 

---

Ian Andrew

Ian Andrew is the author of the alternative history novel A Time To Every Purpose, the detective thrillers Face Value and Flight Path and the Little Book of Silly Rhymes & Odd Verses. All are available in e-book and paperback. Follow him on social media:

 

Dear America…

I did think about putting quite a lot of well thought out, carefully considered, politically measured, balanced and rational argument into this post. I crafted, edited and reworked it, so as to make it accesible to all levels of the socio-economic spectrum. But then I realised, if your Presidential campaign is indicative of the sane, decision making, level of civic minded citizens, then my work was to be wasted. All I really needed to write was this; Dear America, you’re fucked… Imagine Donald with his finger on the button… Go on… Push it…

Ian Andrew

Ian Andrew is the author of the alternative history novel A Time To Every Purpose and the detective thriller Face Value. Both are available on Amazon. Follow him on social media:

The Face – A little question for the Indy authors out there…

Distribution, it turns out, is the key to success as an author. Now, that’s not to say the ability to write should be underestimated, or a good cover for the book, or decent levels of editing, or a good price-point. All of these are important, but none more so than distribution. Distribution makes a hobby into a career. Distribution gets the books into the market place. Or more specifically, books into bookshops. The problem is… The Face.

That face. That one up there. But more of that later. Back to distribution. The big publishing houses have it. Small press publishers have it and, in a way the Independent Author / Publisher has it, but not really. You see, the modern Indy author / self-publisher / freelance (call them what you will) who uses Publish-on-Demand technologies should have global distribution sewn up. I mean, what is more global than having your book available on Amazon? But that’s just Amazon and that is only selling to individual Amazon customers. Not your average high street bookshop. To get your books into them, you need to supply printed books, in boxes.

It is perfectly true that Amazon’s Createspace will make titles available for extended distribution to any other book buyers on the planet. Sadly, quite a number of those buyers don’t fancy buying books printed and distributed by their biggest competitor. Fair enough.

That’s where Ingram Spark and their parent company Lighting Source come in. They are the biggest book distributors on the planet. They have a Publish-on-Demand platform that is equal to anything out there. They also allow the publisher, regardless of size, to set up industry standard discounts for book buyers. So that’s that. Sorted. Sit back and wait for the orders to roll in…

Except, of course, it isn’t that simple. Most bookshops want their books to be sale or return. Now that is okay if you are a huge publisher with many, many titles. You send out fifty of one title. They don’t all sell, you get forty back and you send them around and around, reducing the price until they end up in the bargain bin of a supermarket. Any money you lose, you make up on the other titles you have in other shops. BUT, if you are an indy publisher, you don’t have that luxury. You can’t afford shops to order fifty and return forty, because the original cost for printing has to be borne by you, and you alone. So, you set your book distribution model to be sale only. Firm sale, no returns. And most, for that read all, bookshops don’t want to do that, unless they know the book is good. That means visiting them and introducing yourself with the phrase, “Hi, I’ve written a book…” and it doesn’t matter what else follows that statement because you will already have received…

THE FACE…

That sceptical look of “Oh, here we go again…” from the poor bookshop owner who thinks, ‘another waste of my time’. You hand a copy over and hope they might, maybe, just possibly actually open it and read it.

I know. I’ve had the look. But I have also been blessed with the good fortune to have three bookshop owners open my novels, read them and love them. Then they have stocked them over and over again. That sounds great and it was, it is. Of course, there were a lot of shops visited before I found those three. A lot… Saying that, I’ve even had the good fortune to have one of those shops provide a glowing testimonial to other bookshop owners. Alas, I suspect when they receive the email with the testimonial attached, many other owners give the email… The Face.

So, what’s the answer to the distribution puzzle? Other than developing a thick skin and continuing to visit bookshop owners to hopefully convince them of the quality of your product, I can’t see one at present. I know there must be “a better way” and I did wonder if an initial order limit would work. Some mechanism within a distribution model that if I do make my books “returnable” I can’t be laid open to hundreds of copies being ordered and potentially returned in the short term. But, to be honest, I don’t have an answer. So, if you are an indy author, I would love to hear what you have done to master distribution.

Ian Andrew

Ian Andrew is the author of the alternative history novel A Time To Every Purpose and the detective thriller Face Value. Both are available on Amazon. Follow him on social media:

 

Two Flashes of Fiction

There’s a group on the Internet called the Mash Club. They promote flash fiction competitions based on the inclusion of three keywords. I wrote a few submissions, that I always meant to post on here… so better late than never.

The keywords were Carpenter, Taxes and Vinegar. I posted one up about the Titanic a while ago… Read it Here… but these were the other two I put in. Got shortlisted, which I thought was fair enough 🙂

The Rising

It all got out of hand. Now, with blood seeping into my eyes and my Mother’s suppressed sobs filling my ears, I have to think it was all my fault.

I could have stayed home. Worked with my father. There’s no shame in being a carpenter.