New Cover Revealed

This is the cover I have chosen for my book, Thank you all for the input.

The Blue Light Diaries Cover Competition

COMPETITION TIME!!!

I have opened a competition for someone to design a front cover for my upcoming book. The book is a science fiction horror, and my attempts while... Ok... Could be a lot better!

Please enter by sending in your entries to my email address.

Full details can be found on my website.

PLEASE ENTER HERE

The Blue Light Diaries - April Update

My new novel "The Blue Light Diaries" is almost complete, well, the writing section of it is! I am on the penultimate chapter, and writing a scene that I am struggling on at the moment.

It looks as though I now have two groups of characters from the book that I can concentrate on for further books. The first is the original character and his friends that I wrote about, and the ones who take up most of the book, Doctor Peter Honeycutt, Doctor Bradley Banner and Alice Banner.

The second group of characters are led by Officer Simon Murray and his fellow resistance members Jake Berry and Karen "Kaz" Bucks. These are the resistance members who were responsible for what every human wanted!

For those interested, I have recently given away the first few chapters for free, and here is another section from the book for you to enjoy.

"December 28th 2016 09.45 Hours (EST) - The White House

The President sat at the table, along with numerous aides and military personnel deep below The White House in a secret underground lair. They had a direct video link to WDRC Headquarters and the fifteen minute countdown was  slowly ticking down.

Professor Billington at WDRC Headquarters started the conversation “Mr President, myself and Dr Honeycutt are happy with the biological weapon vaccine. We believe there's a good chance we could eradicate the infected, either by death or by cure.”

“And what about the people who are not infected? Will they be able to survive the weapon being deployed?”

“We've calculated a 10% chance of eradicating those people by accident. Without the chance to do a huge amount of testing, it's a gamble we have to take.”

“10%? That's 9% more than we accounted for!”

“I’m sorry Mr President. That's our best calculations, and they could be very conservative at that!”

Peter stood up and interrupted “Mr President, I've watched Professor Billington work on this and double checked his calculations. If there is any error in the calculations, this could mean the end of the human race which would be exactly what the Aliens want!”

The President looked surprised at the use of the word Aliens “Dr Honeycutt, you have been briefed on the decoded messages we have been intercepting and I believe it's us or them, and this is the only option we have right now.”

The President turned to his aides as the video link went silent, and then turned back and addressed the WDRC “We're ready for the ten minute countdown. We'll keep the video link open, but we'll silence the audio. Keep your fingers crossed. May God be with us.”

The President and those around him started the countdown. Military rocket weapon silos around the world began to open up, the Warheads filled with the gas vaccine which had been hastily manufactured over the previous hours. Scientists around the world using the findings of Professor Billington and Dr Honeycutt to simulate the vaccine.

Due to the lack of time to prepare, everyone around the World involved in the making of the vaccine knew there was a huge chance that some countries would have misinterpreted the data and may have actually created a biological weapon.

As the clock ticked down, Peter held Alice as they waited for the impending doom that may come from this assault on the virus.

Around the World in Military bunkers the countdown began “10… 9… 8...7…”

The World held its breath…

“6… 5… 4… 3… 2…”

Alice grabbed onto Peter and nuzzled herself into his body, they then both closed their eyes.

“1…”"

The Blue Light Diaries - Update

NEWS UPDATE: The upcoming novel "The Blue Light Diaries" is still being written and is pencilled in for a Summer 2016 release. The book may be potentially be a part of a series of books. The new cover design is above, but it's a work in progress. If you think you can do a better job, I'd love you to contact me and I will happily mention you if I use your cover design.

Based on the life of Doctor Peter Honeycutt, the book see's the World under attack from an unknown event which causes blue lights to show themselves every twenty years. Along with these lights comes death and disease on planet Earth.

2016 things start to go wrong as the blue lights have shown themselves three years too early. This book is a little bit science fiction, a little bit horror, with a few zombies and even more aliens. The Blue Light Diaries is a character driven adventure, full of twists and turns with every page.

As an early preview you may download the first chapter of the book for a limited time. I would like feedback from as many people as I can, please leave comments below! There is a lot of action to follow, but get to know Doctor Peter Honeycutt in this first chapter.

Download The First Chapter Here From Google Drive

The first book in the series should feature around ten chapters and 120 A4 pages in length. The book will be thoroughly proof-read before release.

The Blue Light Diaries (and on the seventh day) - SAMPLE

After the success of my first short true story book "The Last Of Days", the upcoming "The Blue Light Diaries (and on the seventh day)" due for release in June is now coming along very nicely. As such, without giving the plot away, here is a sample of the opening paragraphs of the book.

"The Blue Light Diaries (and on the seventh day)" is a science fiction/horror story based in the present. It is based on a story I have been developing in my mind for many years, and should be unlike any other science fiction story currently available as it is based on numerous events around one main character and a number of lesser characters.

As the title suggests, the story takes place over just seven days. The fully complete book will consist of ten distinct chapters and between 100-150 A4 pages in length. I will be looking for volunteers to read the novel before its release to check for mistakes in spelling or grammar, so if you are interested please contact me.

Please read and enjoy, and remember this is an early draft, so things might change slightly as I progress...

"The Blue Light Diaries - And on the seventh day

Chapter One

“The End of The World - Introduction”

Christmas Eve (Evening) – December 24th 2016 Hawaii

It was just a typical Christmas Eve in Hawaii, the night sky as clear as fresh spring water, no breeze in the air and the sense of something special in the air. The home of Dr Peter Honeycutt overlooked a small town, and each house was lit with Christmas lights and other festive decorations.

Studying his eye-piece of his telescope, Peter scanned the moon as he did every night when he had the opportunity. He felt comfort and calming when studying the moon’s surface, and looked at the features of the moon as he did every night. Unlike his life, he knew the moon would be a constant companion, never changing and with each glance he felt comfortable and not so alone.

Dr Peter Honeycutt had moved from his life in New York City, he’d had a successful doctor’s surgery there and had built up a practise that any General Practitioner would be proud of. However his personal life was quite the opposite, thanks to his dedication to his job he had let life slip him by, and although he wasn’t old, at 45 Peter thought he had to make a change and one day without letting anyone know he sold the practise, sold his belongings and moved to start a new life in Hawaii.

Peter moved from the telescope, and reached for his glass of water, and for a split second he lost concentration and tripped over the leg of the telescope. It didn’t matter, as Peter always found it easier enough to find the moon through the viewfinder. When looking for other planets he’d pull out his mobile phone and load up his Google Night Sky application (Peter was always one for new and convenient technology) , scan the sky to see if there was anything he wanted to look at and then he’d move the telescope in the rough direction. It was always fun twisting and turning the telescope, and moving the focus in and out until he caught glimpse of some extraterrestrial body.

He held his glass up to the light and looked through it. It was the purest water he’d ever had the pleasure of drinking, and it was one of the benefits of leaving the rat-race and setting up a new life. He put the glass down on the small table next to the telescope and once again glimpsed through the telescopes lens. Peter had forgot that he had just moved the telescope when he had kicked it, so for a moment or so adjusted the focus back and forth.

There was something there, strangely it give off a slight blue colour, nothing like he had seen before in the night sky. He pulled away from the telescope and looked at the bright and clear night sky. There was Jupiter low on the horizon to the left of the moon, with Saturn even lower and almost directly below the moon. Even if it had been one of these, they would not look blue under the telescope.

Thanks to his recent obsessive nature of cataloguing the stars and planets at night on his tablet in his spreadsheet, Peter instantly realised that this body was nothing he had seen before. Indeed, it even travelled at a different pace to other such objects that move in the night sky. Usually it would take an object up to a minute to move from the left of the lens image to the right of the image, however this object didn’t seem to move! Peter stared at it for what felt like twenty minutes, and although the both the moon, Jupiter and Saturn had moved, this blue object in the sky had barely moved a millimetre.

This was Christmas Eve, so there was no chance that there would be staff at the Mauna Kea Observatories. The best thing to do at this point was to note the position, and get on with the things that everyone does this time of year. The presents were packed ready for his visit on Christmas Day, so he walked into his kitchen and lit a candle, all the while pondering the strange sight he had been studying that evening. It was 11.30PM, Peter had been so engrossed in the strange night sky that he had not gone to his door upon hearing Carol Singers, indeed, he’d not left the telescope for what seemed like every passing second since the sun had gone down."

Writing Tools

Introduction
As someone who is always writing, whether it be a short story, poem, novel or something else, there are certain programs I use which help ensure that I get things done quickly, accurately and efficiently.

There are a number of concerns with writing, first off the spelling needs to be correct, then the formatting needs to be perfect and then if publishing you need to use a combination of these.

Of course, the first thing you need is something to write! My motto has always been, write as much as you can, whenever you can, and although some of it may not be very good, a few gems will shine through. Another good reason for writing a ton of material means you can then go back to what you've written and mix a few bad writings to make one very good writing. Most of the time, first attempts are a stepping stone to greater things.

So, to the tools I use. I'll keep this simple, as it's the way it should be. I use two free word processing packages for very different tasks.

Some people may ask why I don't use Microsoft Word, as that is available on PC, mobile and tablets. The simple answer is cost. Why pay for a service when the free versions of the programs mentioned below perform better. I tried Word Online, but found it clunky and a lot more hassle than Google Docs.

Google Docs
Writing can take part at any time. I can be on my phone on a journey, or relaxing with my tablet, or sitting next to my laptop. What Google Docs allows is a platform where you can access your writing from the Cloud, meaning whatever you write is kept in a safe place on Google's servers, where it can be accessed on any of your machines at any time as long as you have internet connection (and who doesn't have internet connection these days?)

Being able to write on the go, and carry on writing from the spot where you left off on any machine is a Godsend to us writers. Google Docs allows formatting and other basic features which will let you compose a decent document.

Even the mobile versions are capable with Google Docs (this article was written on a tablet using Google Docs). However, should you want your documents to be even better formatted, then the online version is an improvement.

Google Docs is the number one word processor I use for just banding out text. It's fast, reliable, and doesn't complicate things. No need to think of anything but what you are writing. No writing if you lose power or your PC crashes. It's all backed up in real time, and always there for you to retrieve it.

LibreOffice 5
Usually if I'm writing for my blog, Google Documents is adequate, however sometimes when more formatting is required, or when I need more variety of fonts etc, LibreOffice 5 is my go to word processor.

LibreOffice is an office suite much like Microsoft Office, however it's free and easier to use. Some people complain that it doesn't look as nice as Microsoft's Office, but it can be easily modified and its looks add to the reason I actually use it!

LibreOffice 5 is used when needing to publish to Amazon, it's files have been proven to be cleaner than Word when saved, as to make published books look more like the work you spent hours formatting.

The whole office suite is fast and powerful, and of course more than competent with handling any files you throw at it.

More recently a version of LibreOffice called OpenOffice (which was actually the original code for Libre) has been released for Android called AOO (Android Open Office) which means there is no need for a PC to be used.

Compatability
There always comes a time when you need to send of your work to someone else. Thankfully, both Google Docs and LibreOffice 5 are great for doing this.

Your files in Google Docs can be shared to other people by simply using their email address. More and more business use Google's office suite, so most of the time it's no issue. For those who are stuck in the dark ages and only use Word, your Google files can be saved as Microsoft format files (ie .docx etc)

LibreOffice can save as .docx files as standard, and they are highly compatible with Word, so there are rarely any issues on standard written documents. More and more companies, including the UK Government are using .odt files, which LibreOffice does as standard, so again no issues there.

Conclusion
Writing is fun, and the tools you use to write make a big difference. Being able to write an article on any platform and carry on writing same article on different platform is the biggest winner, and the reason I stand by Google Docs as the best writing tool for writers.

The Last Of Days - Released

Today see's my first book "The Last Of Days" being released on Amazon. It's a short story, and Amazon are quoting 22 pages in length, but I'm not sure what that is based on! Either way, it's short and to the point. The true story of how Cancer took my father in the last few days of his life. For anyone who has lost someone to cancer, or someone who is going through it now, this book can give you an insight into how people feel.

This book is biographical, and was written with much emotion just after the event. Recently I added to it and tidied it up, making it presentable to the public.

Please download the sample that is available on Amazon at the least, if not please support me and buy the book, it's only .99p/.99c depending where you are in the World.

If you don't download it, please share any links to it as to spread the word of the book.

Here are a few paragraphs from the book:

"It was like something you hear about but never believe. The doctor at Singleton hospital actually ringing 999 and calling out an emergency ambulance! While waiting for the ambulance they took my father into a waiting room where they took his vital statistics such as blood pressure etc. Thankfully the ambulance did not take too long to turn up, and he was whisked off to Morriston Hospital in Swansea within the hour.

Once at Morriston Hospital, as he was so ill he was taken straight into A&E where he was hooked up to various monitors and questioned and studied by no end of doctors and nurses. He stayed in that section for at least five hours while they worked out the best plan for his condition. While standing with him I heard one of the doctors mention the cancer to his colleagues on a couple of occasions. It was as if they thought they could not do anything because of his cancer. Eventually though he was moved into Ward R, which is a cardiac ward. At the time, they were worried because his blood pressure was so low, and his heart was beating very slowly and felt this was the correct location for him." 

Visit Amazon now to SAMPLE or DOWNLOAD this book.