Amused Now

Postings every Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Amazon India
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
Mark King on Goodreads.
FRENZY Facebook Page
Email markkingtheauthor@gmail.com
@author_king





I normally post what has happened during my week, but today I have posted an article that was published on Amused Now at http://bit.ly/1m8WWsG this week. The reason I have done something different is that this interview was different from most because you have to pass on some advice for your relevant field, be it writing, music etc. If you don't have some useful advice then they won't publish, and I think this is a very good thing. In the modern media everyone wants to get noticed, but to give freely your experiences in life so others may gain from it it something that can get lost in today's modern world.

So please read, enjoy and hopefully somewhere in there is something that you might find useful?

Regards
Mark.

MARK KING ~ FRENZY

POSTED ON JUN 24, 2014 | 0 COMMENTS

Mark King

My name is Mark King the author of FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story, which is now available for sale around the world. I’m also the writer behind the successful worldwide blog www.always-hanging-around.blogspot.com.  My varied working life has taken me from a fish auctioneer through to a Court bailiff, and then an area operations manager, plus other positions in-between. It has given me a rich tapestry of experiences that has helped feed my imagination, and which is now used in my creative work as a successfully published author.

One of the big spurs for my writing career was the death of my father-in-law. I’ve started stories over the years, but never got passed the second chapter, as the daily tribulations of life requiring my attention took priority; so my manuscripts would end up in a draw waiting for the day when I had time to finish them.

It was after this heart breaking event that I knew you can never guarantee tomorrow will arrive. I made the decision to resign from my secure job during the biggest world recession in living memory to concentrate purely on writing. Two years later, my first book, FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story, was published.

I’m now working on the sequel to FRENZY, which I have initially titled Daniel Jones DOOM. My intention is to carry on with the fast paced exciting formula that fans have enjoyed with FRENZY.

The best advice I can give is be prepared for disappointment. It starts from the beginning when you ask friends to review your first manuscript. Don’t be surprised when they do, and they tell you that what you thought was the greatest story ever told is just not their cup of tea. It carries on with getting rejections from agents and publishers. Even when you finally are published, be prepared for strangers and reviewers to slate off not only your book, but you yourself, even though you have never met them.

The other piece of advice is to never give up, keep going. If you have made the commitment, have the belief in your manuscript and are prepared to listen to advice, you will make it. You have to take a positive look at every failure. See each one as a learning experience and think how you would work things differently next time, and take criticism as advice.

Always remember to listen, learn and adapt.

Mark King
markkingtheauthor@gmail.com
@author_king
Goodreads

Click on the cover below to buy your very own copy of FRENZY on US Amazon.com:

FRENZY is available on Amazon.com around the globe.

It's like having another child

Postings every Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Amazon India
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
Mark King on Goodreads.
Email markkingtheauthor@gmail.com
@author_king










It's been such a busy week. When  I first sat down to write this weeks blog I had to ponder what I would mention. On Thursday I had the pleasure of being able to watch the latest filming taking place at Norwich Cathedral. Forget about Hollywood or even Bollywood the hottest place for filming is now Nollywood. This is the second major project filmed at the Cathedral in three years with the last being the movie Jack the Giant Killer, and generally there seems to be filming taken place somewhere in or around Norwich, or Norfolk, all the time.

The weekend is even busier with the school summer fate, birthday invites for the children, a fun raising evening for the local Brownie's troop, and a wedding at the parish church on Saturday, but the one thing that is keeping my hands full is Pippin the Dog. The mother-in-law is off to Royal Ascot so we have volunteered to look after the puppy for a couple of nights.

It's like having another child and I must say a rather cheeky chappy at that. He arrived early on Thursday afternoon and we have the pleasure of his company until Saturday afternoon. I've had to make the house Pippin proof which basically means having to close every door to every room, and removing everything out of his reach. All he wants to do is play which can be fun (sometimes) but when you are trying to get dressed to go to the gym at 6.30 am and you have to chase Pippin around the room because he has got your sports socks firmly between his jaws can tire you out quicker than a spinning class.

At this very moment he is laid out on the sofa next me as I write. He looks so sweet you could easily think that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, but I know one thing, if you left a piece of butter within reach he would gobble it down quicker than I could chase him out of the kitchen.

Last night when we put him to bed he didn't want to go. He sat there with his big brown eyes looking up at me. A little whimper came stabbing into my heart, and the more I tried to look away the louder the whimper became. The wife and I sat in the lounge trying to ignore him and memories came flooding back to when our own children where just babies. We would lay them down for the night and they if they didn't like it they would let us know. We hated it but never gave in to them. It came seem tough love at the time, but within a short while they soon learnt they couldn't get their own way and ever since they have gone to bed at 7.30 pm without a problem.

But like I say there is always a but, Pippin like my own children soon learn how to twist you to their own advantage. They smother you with some love and you can't help but return it with twice as much intensity. It's at this point they hit you with a demand and before you know it they have won.

Regards

Mark

  

Better late than never

Postings every Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Amazon India
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
Mark King on Goodreads.
Email markkingtheauthor@gmail.com
@author_king









I must say sorry for my late posting. On Friday the sun was shining with a cooling wind, and the cider was flowing freely. I spent the afternoon in the garden and when life is this good in the U.K you have to enjoy every moment, because all my followers around the world will know that when we get such great weather in this country it can be a rare as England winning the World Cup.

So there I was thinking how great life is? When I suddenly thought about all those poor people who have to live in misery because of one conflict or another. The news as normal is full of death and destruction especially in Iraq at this very moment. Some Islamic movement had just appeared out of no where and war has started.

There are calls in the west to bomb them, but like I always say there is always a but, we in the west have been bombing the Muslim world for the last ten ten years, and it has got us no where.

Maybe we should try something different!

Maybe we should bombard them we love instead?

Maybe we should stop telling other people how to live their lives, but instead help them when they fall down!

Instead of bombs let's send aid, food, water, medicine, shelter and most important of all friendship!

Because all of us are products of our history.

I live in East Anglia a part of the U.K that shaped the first two hundred years of American history. From the Pilgrim Fathers to the American Constitution and beyond, these early settlers had something very in common with what is going on the Medial East. They wanted to live life to their own belief, but more importantly they wanted to be able to live their life without being punished for it.

It's hard, very hard, to understand somebodies else point of view when you are in power, but it makes you a better person if you let them be free to make their own mistakes.

Regards

Mark.

The 75th Birthday

Postings every Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Amazon India
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
Mark King on Goodreads.
Email markkingtheauthor@gmail.com
@author_king











On Saturday we hosted a 75th birthday party for my father. The invites had been sent out. Two days of preparation work which involved shopping for food and party pieces, and finished with the erecting of tables, chairs, umbrellas, balloons and bunting in our garden. The barbecue was set up and there was plenty of lovely food made ready.The only things we had no control over was the British weather, and what guests would arrive.

The British are well known for talking non-stop about the weather, and it's because it is the worlds most unpredictable. I found out via a television documentary it's because the U.K is slap bang in the middle of various competing global weather fronts. Nature doesn't know which one is going to win. One day you can have an easterly pattern bringing in the cold and rain, the nest it might be an Atlantic front with stormy weather, and the next it could come from the south bringing a stunningly hot  heatwave from the Sahara desert. Then when it shoots down from the north it will bring snow from the North Pole.

In one way it makes life more interesting, but in another in can be a pain in the back-side because it can make it extremely hard to plan things more than a few day ahead. That's why when you only get a few inches of snow in this country the whole place comes to a stand still. People moan saying, 'why can't we be prepared like the Scandinavians or Russians?' And the answer to that is that they can predict to the week when snow is going to fall, but in England we may get it, we may not. Eighteen months ago the dear wife bought a snow shovel in case of snow, and it has sat in the garage ever since, never being used!

So in the week running up to my fathers 75th birthday I checked the weather forecast after the local news and every day the weather changed. We went from bright hot sunshine to terrible rain storms, and the prediction for Saturday kept on changing. All I could do was to prey for the best and make emergency plans in case the garden party was a wash out.

In the end the rain held off and it was mostly a cloudy day which was a blessing because with so many oldies invited they will have wilted like thirsty flowers if they had to sit in thirty degrees of sunshine all day. Also cooking over a raging hot barbecue can be extremely uncomfortable when the sun is burning into your back.

There were plenty of cold drinks and I had a steady stream of cold iced Cider close by my side as I beat back the flames that were so insistent on burning the sausages, burgers and chicken into cinders. It started at midday and by the evening our guest began to depart, and we started the task of clearing up. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon when we finally had everything cleared away and put back in their rightful place. The children had great fun bursting all the balloons they had spent two days earlier blowing up, and we were still eating

the left overs on Tuesday.

It can be exhausting (and stressful) holding a large family party, but I'm just grateful I had the chance to do it. For anyone who has followed my blog from the very start, or has read one of the many interviews you will know that a great spur for writing my book Frenzy a Daniel Jones Story was the death of my father-in-law. A couple of my family couldn't make it to party, and for the flimsy of reasons. My brother was going to a dog show with his girlfriend! They both have at least the next fifty years to go this dog show. It's not a major one like Crafts, and they weren't even competing in it, but he won't have another chance to celebrate his father's 75th birthday. As my father has surpassed the age barrier for most males in the U.K my brother may never get the chance to say happy birthday again to his dad.

It is so easy to take other people for granted, expecting them to always to be there. This is something I hear quite often when as the verger of the local church I sit through funerals. Time and time again family members will stand up at the front to say a few words, and time again they will lament the fact that they wished they could have spent more time with the recently departed.

Maybe if we spent less time in front of the television, or our computer screens, or on our mobile phones scanning the Internet we would all have more time for each other, and that goes for me as well.

Regards

Mark

Pebble In The Still Waters: Author Interview: Mark King: FRENZY: a Daniel Jone...

You can now check out the latest interview for my new book FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story at the below link. Check it out and see what has got the world into a frenzy.

Pebble In The Still Waters: Author Interview: Mark King: FRENZY: a Daniel Jone...: His name is Mark King the author of FRENZY a Daniel Jones story which is now available for sale around the world from America, Canada, U...