Always hanging around

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As I write the third book on the Daniel Jones series I have been pondering on the title. I had good intentions of calling it Daniel Jones REVENGE, but like I often say there is always a but. As the story unfolds I begin to think that maybe I should change the title of the book to, Daniel Jones and the REVENGE of the Over-seers! Some days I find my thoughts drifting off to the title, to the detriment of my writing.

FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story was initial titled, Daniel Jones and the Quest for the Golden Shield. Then I changed it to FRENZY! Unfortunately there was already a book published under that heading so my first book then became, FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story. With hind-sight I wish now I had given it the title Daniel Jones FRENZY. I like the word Frenzy because it sums up perfectly the fast paced nature the story takes as it unfolds. Daniel's life becomes a frenzy of survival when he finds out the terrible truth of the Over-seers.

With the second book, Daniel Jones DOOM, I had no problems with the title. It summed up perfectly the ending of the book, and the doom he was to face. So here I am now writing the third manuscript, and so far it's turning out to be a packed, non stop, adventure thriller, with the usual mix of science fiction and horror. Because of this I think Revenge could be used for another time, and a new title may be needed to best sum up what a corking third book this is going to be.

Daniel Jones RUN has popped into my mind on various occasions, and then I thought about shortening it to just Daniel's RUN. I even came up with the option of, Run Daniel Run! It's funny how you can find yourself thinking about simple little things like this. I've already got an image of the front cover in my head. Just like Frenzy and Doom it would have a simple fading, single colour, background, in black, with the main title in gold lettering, and with blood spilling down from the second letter. Although all three books have very simple designs, it's features like these that can became design classics over time.

It may seem silly as a writer to be thinking so far forward about things like titles, and cover designs, but for any aspiring author out there, you are always having to think three steps ahead. It's o.k if you are one of the worlds best selling authors because your publisher will have a big team of experts who can do the thinking for you when it comes to things like I just mentioned, and other things too like marketing of the book, plus promoting your image.

Then again even the worlds best, like my name sake Stephen King still has a lot of input into all the processes that makes a successful book, but they will have a team around them to make it a bit easier. So here I am pondering about the title as I write the third manuscript, and either which way I go with the final title, I know one thing for sure.

The third book is going to be just as good as the first and second, and then maybe even better. The characters are growing, not only with each book but with each chapter too, into a unique team of individuals; while the baddies just keep on getting badder. I don't think you can ask for much more than that!

I'm always open to suggestions, so if you think you could suggest, or wish to have a chance to name the third book in the Daniel Jones series then please fell free to email me at, markkingtheauthor@gmail.com.

Regards

Mark

Sunday, 22 November 2015

Following your dreams.

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We all dream, not just when we are asleep, but during the working day. We all have them moments when our mind isn't being actively used to do some task or another, and it just drifts off. Where too? Only you will know!

Some people get to full fill there's, and others just drift through life dreaming about it. Sometimes you're not quite sure what it is you want in life. You can be swamped by so many ambitions that you become overwhelmed, and achieve non of them. Over ambition is as deadening as no ambition at all.

Some people achieve theirs at an early age, like most sport stars. When I was just a young boy I dreamt about being the team captain of Norwich City Football Club and scoring the wining goal in the F.A Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, but I never quite made it pass playing football with my friends down the local park.

As I grew older I thought more and more about writing stories. I've always had a very vivid imagination, and then one day out of the blue I decided to quit my job, in the middle of the worst world recession in living memory to write my first manuscript. The award winning, Frenzy a Daniel Jones Story was the first book after two years of very hard work; followed another two years later by the sequel, Daniel Jones Doom. Now I'm working on the third book in the Daniel Jones series titled, Revenge.

Anyone can follow their dreams if given enough confidence. The wife has always loved taking pictures. It could be annoying on occasions, like on holidays, as she snapped away with her camera taking family photo's, one after the other. We could all be around the table in a lovely restaurant, by the waters edge in a Mediterranean country, waiting to start the first course, and she would be there with her camera taking pictures.

So after a little bit of nudging she has now started a photography course.

It started off with the basics like the picture above. Every week she goes to her course on a Tuesday and comes home talking about this technical thing or that setting. She has home-work to do every week on different subjects. Like flowers and buildings, and has to take pictures in all different ways, and with different camera settings.

And every week the quality of her photos becomes more and more professional. Last Sunday as I cooked the roast lunch she came into the kitchen, and then disappeared with my glass of wine to the dining room, which she had turned into a make shift studio.

I eventually got it back half an hour later! But then she took away my cooking spices. In fact every time she returned an item, she would then take something else.

She even started to wonder off with the vegetables. Her artistic enquiry seemed to have no bounds that Sunday lunch time, and I nearly had nothing to cook with, or drink.

She eventually finished and so did I with the cooking. As the family sat around the kitchen table, my young son was next to me and said. "Dad one day I'm going to play for Norwich City and win the F.A Cup." I leaned over, kissed him on the head and replied, "that's it my son, always follow your dreams."

Regards

Mark

Saturday, 7 November 2015

Painful end to the week

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As soon as Halloween is finished we then have Guy Fawkes night, or as most people call it now, fireworks night. For my readers around the world who may not know the story of this annual celebration; it's basically to commemorate the day on the 5th of November 1605 when a group of catholic plotters, who tried to blow up the British Parliament, were stopped. If it's true that the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt this week was caused by a bomb, then nothing has really changed in four hundred and ten years, people trying to blow up other people in the name of religion.

In the local park just a short walk from where I live there is an annual fire works display, and fair, organised by the council. Some years we go to this, and other years I will put on my own little display in our back garden. We have the parents around for some food first. The traditional baked potato, beans, sausages, fried onions and grated cheese; with mugs of tea to keep away the chill of the autumn night . Once everyone has had their fill we then have sparklers, and then it's finished off with my grand display. This year we decided to go to the local park.

That was the plan, but for me it never happened. Thursday morning didn't start too well. I got a slight pain in my lower back first thing in the morning, that just got worse as the day went on, and as I write this blog I am now in ruddy agony. So I never made it to the park. The rest of the family went. I was stuck indoors on my own with a hot water bottle, and plenty of pain killers. Back pain is my one punishment for living well, and thus carrying too much weight around my belly. My lower back will just give way for no other reason, and I end up hobbling about like a man in his nineties.

This is something I have written about in the past on several occasions. When I first started writing FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story I had ruptured my spine, and it was a living hell. Every time I suffer a bout of lower back pain I prey its not that again, and also say to myself that this time I'm really going to loose some weight. then once the pain killers start to work, and my back loosens up, and the pain subsides, then life goes gets back to normal.

So it's been a painful end to the week, but there is one positive about it. When I'm incapacitated there's not much I can do other than sit and write. For both Frenzy and Daniel Jones Doom I found my most creative periods were when this happened, and at the moment I am finding the same with Revenge, the third book in the series.

So maybe the saying, 'there is a silver lining in every cloud,' could be true.

Regards

Mark

Saturday, 31 October 2015

Birthdays come but once a year.

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The last week of October holds a special day for. My birthday. It's also half term week for the local schools, and then of course we have that ultimate international fusion of history, Halloween. Some people in the U.K see Halloween as an American import, but in fact it was a tradition imported into the U.S.A from the first immigrants into the country. Then the melting pot that is America commercialised it, just like Christmas, and then exported it back to the world.

This year my birthday fell on a Monday. Two years a go it obviously fell on a Saturday when my local football team Norwich City F.C where playing at Carrow Road. On that day Kim the landlord of the Steam Packet put on some bar food for free to celebrate my big day, and after the game plenty of friends joined me for one hell of a party night. And what a ruddy good night it was.

This year I decided to have a quite family affair. The wife made a three tier cake to go alongside the home made pizza, and garlic bread. My parents came around and I waited until the evening when everyone was present to open all my cards and gifts.

The cake was just lovely and soon got eaten.

As the week progressed I decided to let the wife have a sleep in one day, and to treat the children. We like our food in the King family. We're not fussy eaters and I don't worry too much about the latest food fad, or scare. Eat well, sleep well then you will live well. It's as simple as that.

So on Wednesday morning while the wife was tucked up in bed I took the children to The Denmark Cafe in Norwich. It's my favourite, and the children love it too. Quite often I will phone my dad, and ask if he would like to come, and I treat him as well. So there we are, three generations of the King family getting stuck into a traditional Full English breakfast.

Some food snobs might look down on the British cuisine, but I ask you this one question. What is the one dish wherever you travel around the world that will be on the breakfast menu of every hotel no matter what its star rating?

The answer is!

The Full English Breakfast.

There will also be a Continental option as well, but everyone tucks into a Full English. So tuck in we did with mugs of English tea as well. You just can't beat it.

So the week started with the clocks going back an hour in the U.K, officially declaring winter is here. Then we have the children at home for the school holidays followed by my birthday. Add in the the breakfast treat as the week progressed, and then ending with Halloween, I can truthfully say it has been a busy week, and one I have fully enjoyed.

Regards

Mark

Saturday, 17 October 2015

Rosie Amber

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The unsung hero's for all authors are the people who take their own time to read your book, and review it for the general public. They spend their free time reading your book then writing down their thoughts, and even more importantly they then spend time publishing this through various forms of on-line multi-media.

There are a few full time professional reviewers who are in the pockets of the big publishing houses that are paid very large sums of money to print favourable reviews through the main media outlets they are employed by. Now this is a good living for the few. Paid twice for the same job. Paid a big fat fee to give a favourable review of a publishers new book, and then paid a second fee by the newspaper or magazine to provide an article for publication.

But it's the true independents that most authors have to rely on, and one of these is Rosie Amber. She has a fantastic site that covers her reviews, and is well worth following. She has reviewed both my books in the Daniel Jones series, Frenzy a Daniel Jones story and Daniel Jones Doom. And below is her review for Daniel Jones Doom. I paid her no money. All I did was send her a free copy of Doom, She read it. liked it and told the on-line world her thoughts.

I would recommended following her through all the usual on-line forms like Goggle + etc because what you get from her reviews in honesty. So do please read the below and do follow Rosie Amber, and the other independent reviews out there.

Regards

Mark

ROSIE AMBER

Daniel Jones Doom by Mark King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Daniel Jones Doom is the second book in the Daniels Jones series which fits the YA/ dystopia genre. Daniel lived with his family in a very primitive society, ruled by a set of procedures and the Over-Seers who are saviours of humanity. Village elders look forward to their Day of Achievement on the turn of their 40th birthdays as a reward for all their hard work in life.

All this changed for Daniel when he found out what really happens to people once they enter the Achievement Centres and forced him to flee. Doom continues the story from book 1. Daniel now travels with Mary and Gwendolyn, two other outcasts who know the truth about the Over-seers, but they are constantly afraid of capture by the ruthless Hunters.

They find Jack, a boy left alone after his parents were taken. He has access to technology never seen by Daniel and together they form a plan to return to Daniel’s village and tell his father the truth before he reaches his Achievement Day and it is too late.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Closing down for winter

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It's that time of year where autumn comes a calling. The summer was a typical British affair, full of promise which soon washed away with the rain. But the last week or two has seen the sun out just as we prepare to close down the garden for the winter.

My mother is a mad keen gardener and since my Step-father past away just under a year ago it has been a lifeline for her. It's not so easy to just pop around to visit my mum as it's at least a 90 minute round trip. So we have her over to stay for the odd weekend. I supply plenty of food and wine, and the family provide company, and love. In return my mother provides her knowledge, and muscle as the whole family gets stuck into the clearing the garden from its wilting summer foliage.

There's plenty to do. I cut back all the bushes before they get too out of hand while my son helps to pick up all the branches, and places them in the green recycle bin. The wife concentrates on one half of the weeding while mother does the other. As for my daughter, well she got stuck in as cutting back the Ivy.

After the grass has been cut the whole place looks tidy, and then hopefully that's it for the winter. By 5 pm all was finished. I kept the wine flowing all afternoon, and when we all sat down in the kitchen the family were ready for something to eat. So I got on the phone to our favourite local Canton Chinese take-away.

Forty minutes later a very smiley Chinese man appeared at my door holding a white plastic bag full of lovely smelling goodies in one hand; then in the other he held up a piece of paper with the cost scribbled across it. With the tip for the driver it came to £40. I placed all the separate silver trays that contained the food in the centre of the table, each with a serving spoon. Everyone had a plate, and then we all took turns to dish up whatever food took our fancy.

By seven thirty we were all in our jim-jams (including my mother) curled up on the sofas' watching the usual Saturday night fair on television. The type of T.V shows that generally us boys finding boring, but which the women find highly addictive. By nine thirty everyone was tucked up in bed exhausted from the days work in the garden, and with a belly full of South East Asian food.

On Sunday morning we gently arose at our own pace, and once everyone was up I cooked a traditional English breakfast with lashings of hot steaming tea. Mother stated she hadn't slept so well since Tadger my step-father passed away. In both my books, Frenzy a Daniel Jones Story and in Daniel Jones Doom there is a character named Badger who I based on Tadger, and he also appears in the third book in the series titled Revenge. His real name was William Cassidy and was given the nick-name Tadger many years ago. There is a story of how he got this name, but that's best left for another time and place.

By lunch time we were walking around Highways Garden Centre. It's more of a department store with a large garden section added on these days, but it's my mum's favourite one, and we like it too. By six in the evening we had all returned home after dropping off mother in Lowestoft, and we sat down tea and cake for supper.

It was a lovely family weekend and one I think most people would also enjoy, but probably don't get around to doing. It's so easy to always think you will spend more time with your parents. You always expect them to be there, and that they will never die. But they do!

I'm just glad I took the chance while I still could.

Regards

Mark.

Monday, 21 September 2015

The end of the pier show

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