eCard by Alan Annand, writer and astrologer
Clive Barker (b. October 5): “Horror is the wild-dog genre” & other quotes on writing
5 Oct
Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English author, film director, video game designer and visual artist known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. He is best-known for his short stories which were adapted for film as the Hellraiser and Candyman series. He has also written 18 novels.
Eight quotes about writing:
- I firmly believe that a story is only as good as the villain.
- Books should make somebody look at how they feel, be honest with themselves.
- Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
- Gather experience… Look at what you should not look at. A feeling of anxiety is the sure and certain evidence that you should do this.
- Horror fiction shows us that the control we believe we have is purely illusory, and that every moment we teeter on chaos and oblivion.
- By and large, horror fiction is the most difficult to domesticate because part of the point is that it’s one step ahead – or behind – everybody else’s taste. And I’m not really convinced I’d like it to change. There’s something very healthy about horror fiction being always a little bit on the outside. It’s the wild-dog genre.
- One of the things I’m trying to do over and over again in my books is create new mythologies, create new ways to understand the complexity of the world. I think what mythology does is impress upon chaotic experience the patterns, hierarchies and shapes which allow us to interpret the chaos and make fresh sense of it.
- Movies are much more fascist than books. They tell you what to feel, when to feel it. Popular movies manipulate you. Music tells you when it’s a sad part and when it’s a happy part. You’re obliged to watch them at the speed the filmmaker has created for you. That, I think, is one of the reasons why they’re so popular – because you don’t have to think very hard. The filmmaker has done all the thinking for you.
The world’s most interesting astrologer: Mercury retrograde
5 Oct
Alan Annand is an astrologer and writer of crime fiction, including his New Age Noir series featuring astrologer and palmist Axel Crowe, a criminal profiler with a horoscope.
Read reviews for Scorpio Rising (#1), buy it or Felonious Monk (#2) at:
Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Flipkart, Kobo & Smashwords
Jackie Collins (b. October 4): “Inspiration is all around me” & other quotes about writing
4 Oct
Jackie Collins (born 4 October 1937) is an English novelist who has written 29 novels and sold over 500 million copies. Eight of her novels have been adapted for the screen.
Here’s what she has to say about writing:
- If you want to be a writer, stop talking about it and sit down and write!
- I’ve come a long way! My message to women is, girls can do anything.
- I write about real people in disguise. If anything, my characters are toned down – the truth is much more bizarre.
- I should be writing until I drop. I’ll be a little old lady of 106. I never see myself stopping what I do because it’s my passion.
- I think I’m a born storyteller. Inspiration is all around me. I can read a newspaper article and come up with an idea for a book.
- I really fall in love with my characters, even the bad ones. I love getting together with them. They tell me what to do; they take me on a wild and wonderful trip.
- I’ve written 20 books, and each one is like having a baby. Writing is not easy; some people want to write books but just can’t put a story together. I can put together a story that interests both me and my readers.
It’s Mercury Retrograde! Put on your Body Mitten
4 Oct
Mercury Retrograde Body Mitten!
Feeling wobbly, forgetful, and introverted during this Mercury retrograde cycle? This can be a great time for renewal and self-reflection. The Mercury Retrograde Body Mitten (TM) is designed specifically to contain and counteract the powerful negative mental and energetic effects of Mercury retrograde.
Each body mitten is hand-knitted by celibate Virgos using hypo-allergenic squirrel wool inter-woven with strands of unicorn hair that were marinated in lavender oil infused with emerald powder. This energetic matrix provides a comfortable and fashionable garment to create an aware and stable personal environment before, during, and after Mercury retrograde.
Production of our body mittens follows a strict process of spiritual guidance, prayer, and attunement to the planet. After knitting, garments are dyed a limited range of peaceful colors (aquamarine, blue, green, mauve, teal) in a solution of Clematis, Narcissus, and White Chestnut flower essences to help ground thoughts and calm an over-stimulated mind.
The communication port located equidistant between the crown and throat chakras helps to release ideas and thoughts through communication, while the grounding port located below the base chakra allows optional access to reality, and discreet bodily functions, as required.
Mercury Retrograde Body Mittens come in several sizes. If you have a moderate-sized neurosis, just slip into our Mer-X size model, and you’ll immediately feel comforted by the warm sense of enclosure and protection the body mitten provides.
For New Age devotees crippled by more complex anxieties, say, involving both Mercurophobia and claustrophobia, you might want to consider our Mer-XL model which gives you greater freedom to thrash around inside your own little insular world.
And for co-dependent reality-denial couples, nothing says “I honor the neurotic me I see reflected in you” better than our Mer-2XL model, which features an inner partition liner (not shown) for couples who want to enjoy togetherness without actual physical contact.
Note: the Mercury Retrograde Body Mitten is not suitable for children, animals or the elderly with mobility problems. It is, however, eminently suitable for breastfeeding mothers in arch-conservative environments.
The Mercury Retrograde Body Mitten: when the world gets too scary for three weeks at a time, you’re safe in your own little world.
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PS… For a post-script on the Mercury Retrograde Body Mitten phenomenon that has tickled the fancy of so many readers around the world, please see my subsequent post, Smitten by the Mitten.
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PPS… This was tongue-in-cheek, but such garments do exist, although I have absolutely no commercial interest in their retail. I imagine you can acquire one for yourself or a Mercury-phobic loved one by following my own chain of discovery, via Pinterest, AnOther magazine and Angela Crews E-shop Agency.
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© Sextile: It might not be true, but you heard it here first.
Alan Annand is an astrologer and writer of crime fiction, including his New Age Noir series featuring astrologer and palmist Axel Crowe, a criminal profiler with a horoscope.
Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo, Smashwords
Gore Vidal (b. October 3): “Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note” & other quotes about writing
3 Oct
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565464902988/
Gore Vidal (born 3 October 1925, died 31 July 2012) wrote novels, screenplays and Broadway plays. His most widely regarded novels are Myra Breckinridge, Julian, Burr, and Lincoln, The City and the Pillar. His screen-writing credits included Ben-Hur which won the 1959 Academy Award for Best Picture.
He was also known for his feuds with Norman Mailer and Truman Capote. Remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a ‘gentleman bitch’ and has been described as the 20th century’s answer to Oscar Wilde. He was the last of a generation of American writers who served in World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Joseph Heller.
Gore Vidal’s Top 10 Quotes on Writing:
- Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.
- Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
- Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.
- Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
- Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.
- How marvellous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.
- I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place.
- Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.
- Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!
- You can’t really succeed with a novel anyway; they’re too big. It’s like city planning. You can’t plan a perfect city because there’s too much going on that you can’t take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.
Graham Greene (b. October 2): “Pain is easy to write about” & other quotes about writing
2 Oct
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565464898042/
Graham Greene (born 2 October 1904, died 3 April 1991) was an English author, playwright and literary critic who suffered from bipolar disorder. After several suicide attempts as a schoolboy, he was sent to a psychoanalyst who introduced him to his circle of literary friends and encouraged him to write. Greene was one of the few authors who managed to combine literary acclaim with widespread popularity, enjoying financial success and associating with T.S. Eliot, Ian Fleming and Noel Coward. His novels include The End of the Affair, The Third Man, The Quiet American and Our Man in Havana.
Following are eight of his quotes on writing:
- All good novelists have bad memories.
- Pain is easy to write about. In pain we’re all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?
- One has no talent. I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.
- A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
- The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn’t thought about. At that moment he’s alive and you leave it to him.
- My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.
- Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
- The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You’re there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see – every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.
Tim O’Brien (b. October 1): “Fiction is for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient.”
1 Oct
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565464893370/
Tim O’Brien (born 1 October 1946) is an American writer whose best known book is The Things They Carried, a collection of stories inspired by his wartime experiences in Vietnam. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1979 for Going After Cacciato.
Here are some of his observations on the shaping of stories:
- Fiction is for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient.
- Writing doesn’t get easier with experience. The more you know, the harder it is to write.
- Good stories deal with our moral struggles, our uncertainties, our dreams, our blunders, our contradictions, our endless quest for understanding.
- The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness.
- Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.
Al-Quebeca: fiction that could be tomorrow’s headlines
27 Sep
My police procedural AL-QUEBECA, in which a female Montreal homicide detective investigates a hit-and-run and discovers a terrorist cell, has received 30 Amazon reviews averaging 4.5 stars. The top 10:
“A police procedural with such atmospheric detail I was reminded of Inspector Renko of Martin Cruz Smith fame.”
“Fascinating novel with just the right amounts of procedural, mystery and suspense! Detective Sophie Gillette is a mix of tough and tender, trying to keep it together and do her job in spite of her own pain.”
“Annand’s hypothetical telling of an unfolding terrorist strike in Canada chills with its realism. Riveting story-telling on multiple levels.”
“Hard to believe the author’s a man, since his insight into the feelings of his female lead are so sensitive.”
“It starts as a police procedural, shifts to suspense/thriller and winds up as an action joyride to a surprise ending. Right up there with Clancy and DeMille!”
“What do you get when you weave renegade bikers and a terrorist cell with weapons of mass destruction into a police procedural? So many threads masterfully twisted, then unravelled to a satisfying ending.”
“Very entertaining and just enough truth to be scary. Fiction that could be tomorrow’s headlines.”
“Annand has a knack for quick, realistic, witty dialog. His lead police officer Gillette gives us everything we want in a female character. She’s smart, tough, vulnerable and real.”
“Intense and captivating, very hard to put down. Highly recommended for anyone who likes thrillers and complex police procedurals.”
“A timely subject and a plausible plot. Montreal’s atmosphere is rendered with a touch evocative of Graham Greene!”
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AL-QUEBECA is available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Flipkart, Kobo and Smashwords.
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