Monthly Archives: May 2015

May 31, 2015 · 6:57 pm

…the Lionel Messi route to footballing fame?… yeez don’t know the half of it…

…spot the footballing whiz, Master Gallacher…

…any Scottish sports fan will understand the meaning of the WURD, ‘Junior’ as it relates to the Leagues’ set up in Bonnie Scotland… it certainly does not refer to the relative ages of the players who participate, but merely that the Junior League is a level down from the Premier League and its partners, the Championship, and the other Senior Professional Leagues north of the border… as a ‘feeder’ league for the ‘big lads’ in the paid ranks, it has a terrific mixture of professional and amateur players in its roster… back around half a century ago, when this ol‘ Jurassic was a budding Maradona with a funny accent, and before I signed-on ‘upstairs’ with the redoubtable Third Lanark F.C., I played with a local Docklands Govan team in Glasgow, called Benburb F.C. (the ‘Bens’)… the mixture of men who had played in the senior leagues and we young studs coming through full of wind and dribbling skills (with the ball, that is, Mabel) made for excellent paying fans’ entertainment… the changing rooms in that league were of the finest (not!)… some clothes hooks pinned against the wooden shack walls, and if yeez were wise, yeez took yer belongings with yeez out to the field and handed them to a non-playing mate to hold until the end of the game… latrines (generally in the singular) had buckets of water at the side to use post-lavatory activity … and the finest sheets from the local newspaper hung on an adjacent nail as toilet paper… the Lionel Messi route to footballing fame?… yeez don’t know the half of it…

…my first ever goal scored for the Bens was a thing, not of beauty, but more of wondrous accident… during my debut League appearance, our captain blootered (Eng: kicked very hard) a shot goalward which the opposing keeper had well covered… I happened to stumble in the way of its flight and the ball bounced off the inside of my boot to loop majestically out of the goalie’s reach and into the top corner… of course, in long-standing Scottish footballer’s Flashman fashion, I claimed the strike to great acclaim from my team mates… the Bens captain even said (unsarcastically), ‘nice intervention, that man, great placement skill’… the local newspaper, the Govan Press, had a sports journalist at the match, and the headline, ‘Gallacher’s superb strike, first of many?’ greeted me the next day… how to become a legend in yer own lunchtime… magic stuff… on another occasion I’ll share with yeez the unreported incident of my being hit full in the face by a half-eaten mutton mince pie whilst racing down the wing in a Cup tie in Ayrshire… ah, the mem’ries, Mabel… betcha a young Cristiano Ronaldo never had any of these glorious moments… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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May 30, 2015 · 9:07 pm

…Authors… a reader’s review is a ‘gift’, not an ‘entitlement’…

…an honest review is as gold dust to any writer… and I care not if the scribbler is a newbie, self-publishing indie… or a decades-established leading name for a major publishing firm… each and every time any reader takes the patience and trouble to offer his/her opinion on yer literary labours, it’s another one of an Author’s ‘golden moments’… an acknowledgement yer WURK is recognised… and let me affirm to yeez, it truly matters not whether the rating is 1-star, all the way to 5-stars, if it’s honest, it’s a learning mark for yeez… accept them all… usually with more than just a pinch of salt if they swing too much to the dark side or praise yeez to the high heavens… and as a wee aside, it’s worth bearing in mind not everybody on the planet is gonna LUV yer wee masterpiece with quite the same intensity as yerself or yer Grannie does…

…from the reader’s perspective, only a tiny percentage will truly appreciate the amount of yerself that goes into creating yer tome… a writer writes a book not as a ‘blurt’, and twenty minutes later, there’s the finished article… rather, the scribbler pores over it a paragraph at a time… a sentence at a time.. a phrase at a time.. and yes, Mabel, sum’times even a WURD at a time… sculpting, crafting, melding, choosing, nursing, teasing the narrative onto the laptop or writing pad… having been down that long and winding, lonely road myself, I am constantly in awe of emb’dy who completes their literary baby… especially the ‘first-timers’… to engage in the stamina, the discipline, the will, to get to these two wunnerful WURDS, ‘the end’, is much to be applauded… but here’s the rub, once yeez have reached that grail, the plaudits from yer readership are things of beauty… appreciating that for we Authors a reader’s review is a ‘gift’, not an ‘entitlement’… I wish yeez many of them, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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May 30, 2015 · 1:06 am

Author Interview: Seumas Gallacher

…mega-thanks to the LUVLY Emma Rose Millar for putting up with me recently in an interview with her… here’s how it went :):

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May 29, 2015 · 3:11 pm

…Written Acts of Kindness Award… my friend, Roy L. Murry…

…there are many unsung but terrific people on the Web who quietly and gracefully go about their WURK in a manner that greatly supports their fellow Lads and Lassies in Blog Land… one such is my scribbler pal, Roy L. Murry… a greatly deserving recipient of the Written Acts of Kindness Award… many of yeez will have been the recipients of his reviews of yer wee masterpieces, and furthermore, of his Tweets and ReTweets directing and encouraging others toward yer books… yeez would do well to have a peek at his own books, The Audubon Caper : The Untold Story of the Theft of an American Treasure; and The Three Wives of Don Quixote Smith… go check them out… tell ‘im Seumas sent yeez…

…Roy, the rules for passing this Award on are very simple:

You are welcome to give it out as many times as you like, but it is only to be given to a maximum of one person per blog post. If you wish to give multiple rewards, please space the blog posts so the sincerity is maintained.
Introduce the person; say how they encourage, help or inspire you; then link to their work and/or social media profiles. There may be a specific post you wish to link to which helped you. It’s up to you.
Please publicise your award post to Twitter or Google Plus using the hashtag #writtenkindness so that others can find and follow the award winners.

This award is open to anyone to use. You don’t have to receive it, in order to be able to give it. Once you have received it, it isn’t obligatory that you must pass it on.

…see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!

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May 28, 2015 · 8:37 pm

….Authors, above all, there WILL be cake!… and p’raps Tunnocks Caramel Wafers if yeez are lucky…

…in gazillions of virtual candle-lit garrets across the planet, fellow quill-scrapers toil constantly to produce their wee masterpieces… that toil is generally attended by varying dollops of blood, sweat and tears… surrender of a writer’s time to the taskmaster that is their respective WURK-in-Progress means subjugation of play time, family time, friendships,and relationships with the outside WURLD (whatever that may be)… in the olden days, scribblers like Billy Shakespeare and Chuck Dickens sustained themselves in their self-imposed incarceration in individualistic fashion… some turned to Novelist-Navel-Gazing… others to contemplation of the Scribblers-Meaning-Of-Life… further diversion included conversing with invisible ’friends’ (tell me of any author who hasn’t indulged that particular pastime)… burning incense to the Literary Gods… all meritorious in their own way, so long as the tome got finished… these days, this ol’ Jurassic tends to the more practical resolution of such solo exile… the secret is an open one… Authors, above all, there WILL be cake!… and p’raps Tunnocks Caramel Wafers if yeez are lucky…

…I note the predilections of others amongst yeez who immerse yerselves in cheerful chunks of charming chocolate… or cheap chalices of cheeky champagne… often, wine weaves wondrous wit and wisdom… for some, coffee carves creative consciousness and crafted composition… whatever, it may be, Mabel… chacun a son gateau ou son boisson de choix… my own weakness swerves toward the aforementioned Tunnocks Caramel Wafers… as spinach was to Popeye the Sailor Man… as ambrosia was to the Greek Gods… so the treasured chocolate-draped biscuit from Bonnie Scotland is to my need for nourishment under literary fire… I’m sure each of yeez Lads and Lassies of Blog Land have yer own favourite ‘go-to’ comfort foods… share them with me… p’raps we can organise a Group Thingy around them… The Association of Nibbling Narrators… sounds appetising to me… yeez’ll excuse me now… I’m off to have a wee bite of… of… of… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!

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May 26, 2015 · 6:42 pm

…a wee perspective on ‘POV’… (Authors’ lingo for ‘Point Of View’)

…I could get absurdly silly with this post, so keep me centred here, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… the language that we quill-scrapers sum’times employ to baffle ourselves even further than when we first started this scribbling gig, can be confusing… no more so than with the notorious ‘POV’… ‘Point Of View’… the perspective of whence a particular part of (or even all of) the narrative emanates… it guides the reader into and out of the minds of characters… it can assume the omnipotent ‘overview’… best put, I think is, it lets us know when a ‘switch of direction’ occurs in relation to whose part of the story is currently the focus of attention… it can be managed by devoting entire chapters or episodes to one particular player’s view of the WURLD as it devolves within the novel… or break lines, with a space between passages, or even a neat cluster of tiny ‘stars’ to illustrate where one piece of ‘POV’ ends, and another begins… a bit like the fade-out-and-fade-back-in-again bits of a movie… here’s a true tale from this ol’ Jurassic’s yesteryear to p’raps throw a bit more light on it… when I WURKED in London as a budding-international-financial-universe-mover, there was a clutch of we young Scots installed across the London branches …obviously the English required our natural Caledonian affinity for looking after money to keep them right… one of my colleagues, whose nickname ‘Hammy’ equated to ‘TRUBBLE’, disappeared one day for his lunch…. NUTHIN wrong with that in itself, except he returned post-lunch about an hour late… the Branch Manager asked him why he was delayed… “Och, there was a fight on the bus,” said the bold Hammy… “but that should be no reason for you being late, should it?” replied the Manager… “Ach,well, y’see, it was ME that was fighting’,” came the response…

…’POV’ nailed, right there for yeez… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!

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May 25, 2015 · 7:55 pm

…Authors, sum’times yeez just have to stand still and hurt…

…I personally know of no-one who’s had a life completely lacking of any trauma, pain, anxiety and the grab-bag of other ails that inflict an average person’s existence… add in some of the decisions that yeez make during a career, school life, marriage, or relationships, that still linger in yer head as conscience-crushers…the cringe-worthy stuff yeez would rather not have had happen… yeez know what I’m talking about, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… I think we’ve all had them, one way or another… and p’raps consider being a bit kinder to yerselves about these more shadowy mem’ries… it’s what makes each of us human… the frailties… the f*cked-up decisions… the ‘Gawd-I-wish-I hadn’t-done/said/thought/acted-like that’ moments… if yeez are lucky, p’raps a cautionary lesson gets learned… better handled next time, sort of deal… sum’bdy far wiser than I am once told me, ‘sum’times yeez just have to stand still and hurt’… and daft as it may seem, in that hurt often comes the necessary salve… another wee quote points out that frequently art imitates life, and equally life imitates art… carry that thought over into the quill-scrapers’ craft… for those of us who scribble and invent stories for our readership… how often when yeez re-read yer own masterpieces, yeez get surprised by how much yeez wrote, thinking it was all fiction, in fact reflects much of yer own active and subliminal experience… then the realisation sinks in… it’s okay for yer heroes and leading ladies to suffer the proverbial ‘slings and arrows’… feelings… yes, Mabel, feelings… even for tough guys like my main man, Jack Calder… allowing him to have ‘wobbly’ turns… positive and negative emotional hits… doubts and, yes, fears… especially fears… the whole credibility of yer characters develops in front of yer laptop… one of the best moments for me in the first ‘bang, wallop, smack’ movie, The Expendables, is when one of the hard men played by Micky O’Rourke, weeps when he remembers not having acted to save a woman’s life in the film… strong stuff… if Micky’s character can stand still and hurt… so can mine… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…