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Moon Juice
Thursday 12th June
I have had the worst morning ever. Somehow, I can’t even imagine how, my hairdresser managed to use Ravishing Plum on my hair instead of Autumn Hue, I was simply devastated. I told Becky it was unacceptable, and of course she was apologetic, and I don’t want to be mean, but I look like a circus clown, and I’ve got my art class this afternoon. Luckily a new box of Moon Juice sachets arrived just this morning. It really is a miracle worker, soothes all that stress away, and I can really sense the different adaptogenic plants bio-acting with my very being. Dream is my favourite, it gives me an inner strength I’ve never known the like before. So I tried to keep my spirits up on the walk back to the car, and then I saw poor Hannah begging outside the carpark. Well, I always like to stop and say a few words, I think that’s important for them. Plus it gave me some perspective, I really am lucky. No matter what life throws at me, I always have a roof over my head.
I was just sticking on the kettle, for a mug of Moon Juice (I was going for Beauty this time) and I had the best idea. The Moon Juice! I should give Hannah some Moon Juice! You see, it seems wrong that it’s people like me who have access to these drinks, when I think, really a woman like Hannah probably has more problems and stresses living on the street than I do arguing with my hairdresser.
So why don’t I buy Hannah a box? Or maybe not the whole box. I’ll pick out a few of the enhancements most appropriate: Brain, Dream and Spirit, I think. I’ll hang onto Sex, Power and Beauty, I can’t see them helping her. Oh she’ll be so excited. Within weeks her life could turn around, she’ll find the inspiration and inner strength to sort all her problems out. If this goes well I’ll start teaching her Feng Shui. We pretend that homelessness is some huge unsolvable problem, but all it takes is for each of us to make a little bit of an effort.
Weekly Horrorscope
The most accurate horoscope I have encountered, from The Story Hive…
ARIES
You woke up today, congrats. One down, thousand fifty-two to go. You will fall asleep, and wake up in Paris – for a month. Don’t trust a word what the cats say. There is no truth in a cat’s answer.
TAURUS
Yep. That’s a grizzly. Nope, it’s not the Yeti. By the way, those berries you ate half an hour ago, those weren’t huckleberries. Yep. Pretty much.
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#BookBlogger #BookBloggers PEDDLING DOOMSDAY #BookTour Signup 20th -29th August #BookBlogHosts #CrimeFiction #LoveBooksGroupTours — Love Books Group
Originally posted on Love Books Group Tours: ? I am organising a book blog tour for PEDDLING DOOMSDAY by Petra Jacob Psychological Thriller Women’s Fiction Mystery and Suspense 344 Pages Synopsis You don’t know how significant you are. We need you. No matter where she is, Deirdre feels out of place. So when a cult…
Peddling Doomsday
A quote taken from my book Peddling Doomsday, found here
It’s 99 pence or cents (or equivalent wherever you are) or you can read for free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you do read it, a review would make me very happy, no matter how short!
Brilliant Video: I’ve lived as a man & a woman
I don’t normally like TED talks, they often seem corporate and bland. But this one affected me for many reasons. It’s one woman’s experience of presenting as a man for many years and then transitioning. However there is a greater message about how little we know of the way other people experience the world. Let me know what you think, this is a huge topic.
Writing Blurb for your Novel
- This guy knows how to write blurb, just look at him, he BREATHES blurb
Blurb sometimes gets muddled up with teasers, so I’m using the definition that makes sense to me. Blurb is a short, enticing description about your book, up to four hundred words long. It’s not a synopsis. Guides on how to write blurb often have a long list of information to include, such as description of main character, setting, events, all finishing with a question. I disagree with most of that. Although it’s fine as a formula, the description is so ubiquitous that everybody is writing blurbs that look the same. If you have a captive audience (ie people who know your writing and have at least some interest in it) then that’s ok, because those people are paying enough attention to actually read the few paragraphs you’ve written. However, if your blurb is on Amazon, alongside thousands of other blurbs, then it won’t stand out.
My theory (which may prove to be totally wrong) is that blurb only needs to contain one idea that captures something about your book and is interesting enough to draw attention to itself. It shouldn’t misrepresent your book (that will only annoy your readers) but it doesn’t need to capture the whole book either.
I was inspired by this blurb on the back of Before I go to Sleep by SJ Watson
Memories define us.
So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight.
And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
I think that’s brilliant. In five short lines it’s got me thinking, I want to know what happens in this story, and it only took a few seconds to take it in.
Then I wrote my blurb for the back of my book and my Amazon page
‘Listen to me. Humanity is in trouble. You know that, right? The wars, the greed, the waste. We’re heading for disaster.
They tell us that’s just the way the world is.
But they’re lying.
I have the truth, and I can teach you the answers to the two most important questions.
Who is really running the world? And why are they doing it so badly?’
Myra, Prophet 2018
I was worried that was too nonspecific, so at the bottom I added the line
Peddling Doomsday is a tense psychological drama about a cult run by a charismatic female leader.
My hope is that the first part will get people’s attention and then the final line will provide enough information for people to decide if they want to read or not.
At the moment I don’t know if this will work or not. We’ll have to see.
What are your thoughts on blurb? Have you written any? Any feedback for mine? What does it take to persuade you to read a book?
Peddling Doomsday – a psychodrama
(I promise I will keep spamming to a minimum, but here is a section from the beginning of my book, so you can see if you like it).
Amazon Link $0.99 or £0.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited
An excerpt from the start of Peddling Doomsday
The printer was flashing a blue light, which made a change from the red light it usually flashed when refusing to work. However, it was still refusing to work. Deirdre looked around for assistance. But in the open-plan office, sixteen people were suddenly talking on the phone or staring at their computers to avoid having to face the fiendish machinations of the printer. Deirdre sighed to herself, and went through the usual routine to get a printout. She pressed each button in turn, turned it off and slapped the top twice. Then she unplugged it, slapped it again, plugged it back in and turned it on. What she refused to do was think happy thoughts while she did this, despite the written instructions on the wall telling her to do so. Deirdre found that small, unobserved rebellions caused less trouble.
The printer had arrived three months ago. Deirdre’s boss’s boss, Dove, marched into the office in his leather trousers, a printer-laden minion struggling behind him. Dove had stated this was the absolute latest in artificially intelligent technology. This printer would eliminate the need for excuses. This printer would not simply print when they pressed a button, but would anticipate, adapt and evolve to create the perfect printing experience.
‘In time,’ Dove had said, swaying on his hips, face shiny with the excitement of his own importance. ‘In time you’ll see this as the most vital member of our little team.’ The reality was that the printer simply would not print when they pressed a button; it took a good twenty minutes of cajoling, resetting and violence. Whenever Sarah, Deirdre’s boss, tried to persuade Dove the printer needed fixing, his argument was,
‘It’s a highly sophisticated machine, Sarah, it requires highly sophisticated usership. You need to take a step into the technology of tomorrow. I’ll book you onto a seminar.’ Seminars were how Dove battered dissent out of his employees, their will broken by tedium; trodden into submission by PowerPoint presentations and flipcharts.
‘But it doesn’t work,’ Sarah had persisted.
‘It knows you’re complaining about it. Try asking it nicely while thinking happy thoughts. Negativity is the enemy of success!’
Deirdre’s office was at Stronk and Lowry, the backwater branch of a corporate advertising agency, and happy thoughts weren’t easy to come by. However, Deirdre’s colleagues all tried, and then blamed themselves when the ink refused to flow.
‘I think I’m thinking happy thoughts, but what do happy thoughts, you know, feel like?’ said John, a creative, his quirky hat perched to hide his balding head. Deirdre didn’t have an answer and shrugged.
When Deirdre had discussed the printer with Henry, her erstwhile boyfriend, he was convinced artificial intelligence hadn’t been invented yet.
‘And definitely not artificial sulking, why would they bother?’
‘What about psychic artificial intelligence that senses negative thoughts?’ Deirdre had asked, and Henry gave her a look. Together they Googled the make of printer and discovered it was a perfectly normal, cheap printer that happened to not work very well. Erstwhile Henry found this incredibly funny and had fallen off the sofa with laughter. Office insanity had been bearable when she could use it to make Henry laugh. Now there was no one to laugh with, and Deirdre kept her head low and pretended that foolish things were a natural part of working life. She let her inner mockery wither.
Wherever possible, workers in the office did their work-printing at home and brought it in the next day, meaning printing costs at Stronk and Lowry had dramatically decreased. This was seen as a win by management and the one-printer-system spread throughout the branches.
Deirdre gave the machine a kick, it whirred indignantly and then deposited the letter she was printing at a diagonal. She shrugged, that would have to do. Mission accomplished, she got herself a chocolate Hobnob. They had been her dad’s favorites, and she sucked on it as he would have done. As she passed, she picked a few cigarette butts out of the peace plant growing on the window sill of the kitchen, and returned to Sarah’s office to chop the letter straight.
Amazon Link $0.99 or £0.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited
My Novel is Out Now!
So I finally got it all together, it’s been complicated! I’ll carry on sharing my mistakes and discoveries about the self-publishing process over the week, but first, here’s the book!
Here on Amazon!
It’s a psychological drama about a woman who escapes her life to join a cult.
The Plot
You don’t know how significant you are. We need you.
No matter where she is, Deirdre feels out of place. So when a cult known as the Center contacts her, wanting her join up, she’s intrigued. They say a terrible war is coming, humanity is in danger and without explaining why, say she’s needed for the fight. Suddenly the chance to be spectacular is within her grasp. With the charismatic Myra as the cult leader, and talk of prophecies and psychic abilities, Deirdre is soon seduced and ditches her humdrum life to join up.
Once inside, her understanding of the world shifts. She learns the truth about the elite, a secret organisation that has meddled with humanity since the beginning of time. The elite use entertainment and the media as a constant distraction to stop people from reaching their true potential. To free themselves of this conditioning, the followers must give up ‘excessive’ food and sleep. They also carry out increasingly bizarre rituals under the critical eye of the Captain, a minor leader of the new followers. He seems to take pleasure from turning them against one another.
Tensions increase. The followers gain odd new abilities, but bullying and hysteria also grow. Meanwhile Myra’s prophecies become increasingly extreme. As paranoia intensifies, Deirdre questions where the belief ends and delusion begins.
It’s now free on Kindle Unlimited. To buy it’s 99p, 99c or equivalent.
Peddling Doomsday by Petra Jacob
inkbiotic 