Book Loving Kiwis discussion

The two books randomly selected are -
Forgiven by Geoff Lawson

Dark One's Mistress by Aldrea Alien


If you intend reading either, or both, of the two books selected this time, please indicate your interest and add your thoughts/discussion here.

If authors of these books would like to provide some background or information of interest to the reader, or contribute in anyway, please feel free to do so.

Hey I've got a copy of Forgiven. Aren't I doing well! Now all I have to do is not through the reader at the wall when it takes 33 taps to turn the page.

How, or should that be where do I start the discussion session off?
Can''t see how to do it with the book at the top of the page.

FORGIVEN is an outgrowth of a previous work - a history of the Anglo-Boer war. Since I had seven years of research on the subject, I thought I could use some of the knowledge learned and produce a love/adventure novel that starts in NZ and moves to Sth Africa. It is essentially a story of love found, lost, then regained with a good deal of misadventure thrown in between; the historical background is based on real events and I've tried to immerse the reader with as much historical day to day authenticity as I can.

P.D.R. wrote: "How, or should that be where do I start the discussion session off?
Can''t see how to do it with the book at the top of the page."
Hi P.D.R - I'm pretty new too and am unsure how it works. Just message in the box at bottom. Regards, Geoff Lawson

P.D.R. wrote: "How, or should that be where do I start the discussion session off?
Can''t see how to do it with the book at the top of the page."

Sorry I didn't make that quite so clear, but yes, Geoff is right, just use this thread to discuss either of the two books.

Geoff wrote: "P.D.R. wrote: "How, or should that be where do I start the discussion session off?
Can''t see how to do it with the book at the top of the page."
Hi P.D.R - I'm pretty new too and am unsure how it ..."

Hi Geoff, you are right just add comments and whatever in this thread. And thank you for coming on board to talk about your book. Most appreciated.

FORGIVEN was a lot of fun to write. My first attempt at novel writing, I found it markedly different to history writing and I assumed that writing a novel only required making it up as you go along; Forgiven has changed all that and made me realise how much of a 'craft' good novel writing is. I wouldn't call myself a professional writer, more an amateur with faith in myself and still learning where the colons, semi-colons and hyphens go. I can see how being an academic would be a huge advantage to those that indulge in writing novels.

Geoff, as one Indie author to another, did you use an editor for proof reading?

I do get thrown reading when I find errors. Being trained to read for errors I do find they hit me in the face because I spend so much time proof reading for my colleagues before our books go out to a pro editor for proof reading.

Hi PDR. No, it has not been professionally edited, although it has been read by others and commented on. I don't have learned colleagues or mentors to bounce off (things would be a lot easier if I did). I also envy those that can afford to throw money into a book in order to pursue their passion - you know the sort of thing, " Hi everyone, I'm off to Paris for a month to research my next novel," even though they know the book will probably not even cover costs. I salute their persistence and enthusiasm. That's not me, though, everything I do must be on a budget. I priced a professional edit/proof which on average would cost me around $1500 and realised that any loss I would incur would increase by that amount, so I've attempted to "do it myself." The cover was all mine and didn't turn out too bad either, (if the positive comments I've received are anything to go by). I'd like to think that I have managed to achieve a balance; that FORGIVEN (like this blog) may not be perfect in a literary sense, but overall, it is still pretty good. Only my peers can definitively answer that and I bow to their opinion.

You can barter for editing, ask people here to read, find your local library's reading group people, ask around for people who have to read critically, but you can't let us Indies down by not doing it. Proof reading is important. You can never do your own book because you know in your head what you wrote thus that is what you see. Therefore you miss the errors.

Particularly in NZ people, especially in the writing world, are only too happy to condemn all Indies and call them the great Amazon slush pile. We have to be careful not to add to that.

E-book errors are easy to fix. Please let me have your email address and ask everyone here who is reading your novel to watch out for errors and let you know.

Hi PDR. Thank you for that. I understand what you are saying - I have a new, considerably improved edition coming online in about a week (I was surprised by how soon my book was selected, I wasn't expecting anything like that for a long time yet). The new edition is a work up for a print version at some time and I have two people editing it, but progress is slow and likely to remain so (I tried local readers groups but failed; they were elderly and seemed to be overwhelmed by it). My email is geofferylawson@gmail.com

Just on a deadline for an editor. Will be emailing you Friday I hope.

Hi everyone,
I've been wracking my brain trying to think what to say about Dark One's Mistress. So, let's start with it's a clean romance (none to sparse sexual description).

Hi Aldrea, are you hinting that you have avoided using explicit sex in your novel?

There is no sex at all in Dark One's Mistress.

The ol' grope thing doesn't do much for me, either.

It has its places, just not in Dark One's Mistress. Originally, it was slated to have such a scene, but the characters changed and what I'd planned didn't feel right for the story, so I altered it to what I affectionately call my "no-sex sex scene".

On the other hand, Golden Dawn and The Rogue King, both have their own little romps, but neither of them are all that explicit.