...write?

Twitter followers: 38,752

Facebook page likes: 757

People often ask me how I write and the best answer I can give is that I write in conversations.

But what does that really mean?

Well on Monday morning on the way in to work, as I often do, I wrote some more of the sequel to George and the Dragon. This is what I managed to write:

“Hauptmann Steinhuaser are you out of your mind?”

“Good afternoon General von Vogler I wasn't expecting you to be here.”

“Clearly not and I doubt you expected to have to explain your actions either but here I am and I am still waiting.”

“You were gone, the mission to render London into ashes had had limited success and our forces had been defeated by the British.  It seemed prudent that I should act to replenish our dragon numbers while we awaited your return.”

“Indeed, and the attack on our forces?”

“They attacked us and quite frankly if they weren't prepared to win that fight they never should have started it. And besides now I have a much better idea of Eissturm’s combat capabilities. This, as I am sure you will agree, will us a more effective combat unit for future engagements.”

“We shall see about that. I have a mission for you and given your recent actions I shall be making you the mission commander.”

“I get to engage the enemy dragons so soon?”

“No. There is another enemy asset I wish for you and your new companion to destroy.”

“But what is the point of having command of a regal dragon if not to attack the British and their dragon Spitfire?”

“Do not rush to seek out your enemy Hauptmann they will seek you out soon enough and then you will have your chance.”

This is a conversation between the main antagonist in George and the Dragon, General von Voglar and a new antagonist character Hauptmann Steinhauser. Hauptmann if you are curious is the Luftwaffe equivalent rank to Flight Officer, the same rank that Alexandr Sokol holds. It is the rank immediately junior to Squadron Leader.

You'll notice there's no descriptives in that at all.  Not a single said, bridled, glared, commanded, advised or any other word and nothing written about what the two characters are doing.

All that I will fill in at a later point when I work my way back over their words and work out more fully in my mind how the two antagonists react to each other.

This is how it turned out after the second pass:

“Hauptmann Steinhuaser are you out of your mind?” General von Vogler demanded as he appeared in the keep doorway.

“Good afternoon General von Vogler I wasn't expecting you to be here,” Liesl responded as she made her way across the court yard.  Even from a distance the General could hear that her voice was laden with sarcasm.

“Clearly not and I doubt you expected to have to explain your actions either. But here I am and I am still waiting for a explanation and I am unaccustomed to waiting for anything,” the General responded. He was more lenient with the young officer than he would have been with any man under his command.  It wasn't because of her sex, he had been hard enough on her while she proved herself to him.  No he had plans for her and while she proved herself to be useful it didn't hurt to extend her a little leeway now and then.

“You were gone,” she shrugged as she spoke, “the mission to render London into ashes had met with limited success and our forces had been routed by the British.  It seemed prudent that I should act to replenish our dragon numbers while we awaited your return.”

“Is that so? Well I find I cannot fault your logic and might even be tempted to command your use of your own initiative. So tell me what of the attack on our forces?”

“In truth the pilots attacked us and quite frankly if they weren't prepared to win that fight they should have kept their feet on the ground. Besides now I have a much better idea of Eissturm’s combat capabilities it will make us a more effective unit for future engagements.”

“I look forward to a time when the evidence corroborates that statement. Where is the Zauberbuch?” as he asked the General held out his hand waiting expectantly.

Liesl fished the leather bound book from within her flight jacket. It was smaller than she had expected it to be when she had learnt of its existence and the General easily held it in one hand.
“Thank you. I trust that it will never leave this castle without my permission again,” he said and without waiting for a response added, “I have a mission for you and given your recent actions I have decided that you will be the mission commander.”

“I get to engage the enemy dragons so soon?” Liesl asked finding it to suppress he excitement welling inside her.

“No. There is another enemy asset I wish for you and your new companion to destroy,” the General said as they entered his office and he scooped a file up from off of his desk.

“But what is the point of having command of a regal dragon if not to attack the British and their dragon Spitfire?” Liesl asked a whine almost perceptible in her voice.

“Do not rush to seek out your enemy Hauptmann they will seek you out soon enough and then you will have your chance,” the General said hoping that she may accept his wisdom but suspecting she would seek out the first chance to engage the boy, George and his Dragon, Spitfire. “Close the door on your way out,” he said dismissing her at the same time as he handed her the file containing her orders.

It's not perfect yet but that will come in time when the first draft is complete and I start revising the manuscript etc.

Hopefully that's also whet your appetite for the next instalment in the Knights of the Sky series.

Phil

...I don't just write!

Twitter followers: 38,752

Facebook page likes: 757

I know it may come as a surprise but there are other things I like to do as well.

I play Magic the Gathering, which is a collectible card game (if you're bored already skip this bit) and have recently started blogging about playing a particular variant of the game called Commander.

You can find my new blog here: http://commandingthoughts.blogspot.co.uk/

I've also, more recently, started to learn program in Python using Pygame.

I'm not the most accomplished programmer but I have been pleased with my efforts so far.

So far I've written an algorithm to randomly generate a complete island including adding caves and villages.


You can explore this island, discover the caves and enter them


The caves themselves are also randomly created when the island is generated.

As you explore the caves your vision is limited by your light source so, while you know where you've been, you can't see too far ahead and you never know what might be behind you.

So far all you can do is move around and uncover the locations on the island and explore the caves.

There's a huge list of jobs that still need to be completed to get it close to playable as a simple game.

Caves need to be populated with traps, treasure and monsters.

Once monsters have been added combat needs to be added.

An inventory for the hero needs to be added.

Villages need to be created and populated with people, shops etc.

A magic system needs to be created.

Experience and levelling needs to be worked on.

These are just a few of the things I can think of as I sit here and update my blog there's probably a lot more that I'll discover as time progresses.

Oh and what is more Chloe, my daughter, is desperate for me to add dragons to the game. And who am I to refuse!

So what do you get up to in your spare time.

Let me know.

Phil

...sports personalities or authors?

This is something I found myself discussing with my colleagues earlier this week and the answer to be honest surprised me.

Before I continue I have to be clear that the figures I sourced on-line can be taken with only a modicum of accuracy.  For example:

Terry Pratchett, the creator of the Disc world, Death and Binky among other amazing characters, on one site is reported as having a personal wealth of $40 million on another the figure is $65 million.  That's over a 50% increase from one site to the next, quite a staggering difference.

So back to the question.  It started, as a lot of things do with talk in my office about football, no not the American version proper football, and how much certain premier league players earn.

What developed from there was a comparison with stars in other sports and before long one of us had turned to the internet to see who earns what in the sports world.

Before looking have a guess yourself, who is the top earning sportsman?

The answer is Ion Tiria.  Who? Yep I've never heard of him either. Apparently he was quite a good tennis and ice hokey player way back before I was born and is currently worth a cool $2 billion.

Second up is a certain Michael Jordan who is reportedly worth $1 billion.



Third is Formula 1 mega star Michael Schumacher and my thoughts go out to him and his family.

Fourth on the list is Vince McMahon - who is, let's face it, a successful pantomime producer and has nothing to do with sports what-so-ever.  So I'm scratching him from list as I do not recognise his validity to be on the list in the first place.

Fifth on the list? Arnold Palmer, venerable golfer and with a staggering $675 million.

Sixth on the list, and I'm including sixth because I booted Vince to the curb, is former NFL quarterback Roger Staubach with a worth of $600 million.

So there you have it the top earning sportsman and one thing I would say is that several of them have earned a large part of their amassed wealth as entrepreneurs.

So how about the authors?

Well there are no prizes for guessing who is sitting top of the list.

Author of the Harry Potter books herself, J.K. Rowling with an estimated net worth of a cool $1 billion.

Sun Myung Moon was a Korean religious leader, businessman, and media mogul who had a net worth of $900 million before his death and is listed 2nd on the list.

3rd is creator of Garfield and Odie, Jim Davies, with a cool $800 million.


4th on the list is Candy Spelling widow of Aaron Spelling the famous TV producer.  I'd question her inclusion just because she wrote her autobiography.

J. R. R. Tolkien, a personal hero of mine, comes in 5th with an estate worth $500 million.

If I'm discounting Candy Spelling much like I did Vince McMahon then sixth on the list is Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian novelist, musician, and lyricist who has a net worth of $500 million.

So right at the top there's not much difference in the figures which surprised me a little. What does happen though is that the authors list gets 'poorer' more rapidly. I say poorer I should probably just say less wealthy.

Ronaldo, he with the precocious talent at football, is at #50 on the sports star rich list with a personal wealth of $150 million.

That position on the authors list is occupied by Ken Follet with a worth of $45 million.

I hope you found this interesting, I certainly did and would love to earn even a fraction of what some of the authors have managed.

Phil

...to the world

Twitter followers: 33,174

Facebook page likes: 625

I've tried lots of different methods to try and sell George and the Dragon to people, but none of them have been more successful than just connecting with people.

Which is all well and good but the number of people I see and speak to on a daily basis can probably be counted on both hands and feet.

So in order to find people intrigued by the idea of Nazi Dragons fighting RAF dragons during the Battle of Britain wrapped up in a fantasy adventure I need to be able to cast my net further afield.

To date nothing has done that better for me than Twitter. The greatest thing about Social Media in general is that it is truly global. However, it is far harder to find people outside of your immediate circle of friends on Facebook, for example, than it is on Twitter.

You only have to look at my Facebook Page likes (625) vs my Twitter Followers (33,174) to see how extreme the difference is.

But this post is more about the global breadth of connections I've made than the differences between Facebook and Twitter.

This is a map of where my followers are located around the world courtesy of Tweepsmap.


Close inspection will show you the majority, almost 50% of my followers are in the USA.  I've never been to the USA and know only a couple of people how actually live there.  Yet 15,000+ people who follow me on Twitter come from the USA.

Now a large number of them aren't going to be interested in my book but the more people I can reach out to the more chance I have of selling my novel and any further works I also choose to self publish.

This is why I've set myself the goal of gaining 200,000 Twitter followers by the end of this year.

I then set a target of 2,000,000 for the following year but as you can only follow 365,000 people in one year that may be a bit of a stretch but still I intend to try.

Wish me luck :)

Phil