My take on the Social Media Circus

I've been using a couple of different social media platforms for a while now; long enough to have a reasonably good grasp on what's hot and what's not. If you're interested in my view, read on and feel free to leave a comment below.

Now first of all, allow me to clarify which minimal number of sites I use and have an opinion on. It may be obvious from the side bar to your right that I use the basics, Facebook and Twitter. (If you're not viewing this on the actual blog, then you can't see what I'm talking about. I took the liberty of placing a link to here below, as well as links to me on Facebook and Twitter. Bookmark them for endless streams of my brain-dribble.)

{ http://www.damienlmalcolm.blogspot.com }
{ http://www.facebook.com/damienlmalcolm }
{ http://www.facebook.com/WinchesterSeries }
{ http://www.twitter.com/damienlmalcolm or the handle @DamienLMalcolm }

Anywho, I mainly only use these two because, well quite frankly, nothing else measures up. And when I say "measures up", I mean exactly that. For me, Facebook ranks about a 9 on the usefulness scale, with Twitter toddling behind at around a 6. I'm also supposedly on Google+, which sits at more than zero, but less than one on my scale. I'd place you a link for my page on there, if I could find one. Like the rest of Google+, it's pointless trying.

In fact, while we're on the topic of Google+, may I state the obvious and say that I find it incredibly crap. Google, God bless 'em, really did try to drag themselves into the social arena. They just didn't cut it, I'm afraid. I signed up for a "+" page because all the experts said it was the thing to do when you're an author looking to make headway in the big wide world. Now I find myself wondering why I did it. I "circled" a couple of people, shared a couple of posts and "+1'd" a few things (Seriously? +1? Who the hell came up with that???) but it just never grew on me. Every now and again, I drop back and check the page, only to find a disjointed, odd-coloured stream of random things from various people I don't know; presumably things that are "trending" in the magical world of +es. I don't know. Just seems pointless.

Twitter on the other hand, does fill a small gap in a person's social media requirement quota. Though I'm not sure if I use Twitter in the same way as everyone else. To me, Twitter is a great method of speaking, in short sentences, directly with a person, whether it be someone you know, or a person somewhere up in the ethereal wonderland. It's almost like having a phonebook with the mobile phone numbers of anyone remotely famous. You can send little text messages to celebrities just like you would your best mates.  I've tweeted to ABC radio presenters (they reply), movie stars and musicians (they don't reply) and even other authors (sometimes they reply). It gives me a little tickle when someone even mildly famous tweets back to me directly, favourites or retweets something I said. It shows their human, and respecting their audience, which is nice. Only a few years ago celebrities where sooo distant from us down here, and the only way you could contact them was to write to a fan club. On paper! Now the world of twitter brings many of them down out of that unreachable cloud, and allows an everyday bloke like myself to send small compliments and opinions to them, and have the sometimes respond. It's nice, and does a lot toward bringing us all together that bit more.

I made the mistake when I first signed up for Twitter of following quite a few people and re-following anyone who followed me, then treating the newsfeed the same way I treat Facebook. It was a big mistake because if I didn't check that newsfeed in a day, I'd have a stream of literally hundreds of tweets to scroll over. And they'd be everything from "I have a small spot on my left buttock cheek" retweeted from some cracker in the US, to a traffic report of a local car accident four hours ago, to a Youtube preview of the latest Dr Who episode, to the twenty-fifth repeat of a tweet about an author's kindle page, or a beautiful picture of the Aurora Borealis. The record on my feed for one 24hr period is 262 tweets, with a ratio of around 70/30 crap. You see, one vast difference between Facebook and Twitter is where the Facebook newsfeed sort of picks out the best things to show you from your various friends and liked pages, which means you may miss the odd thing, Twitter gives you EVERYTHING.

In other words, there was enough important or interesting stuff to keep me scrolling and actually reading, as well as enough rubbish to just make me want to close the account. I've since learned that apparently the way to truly use Twitter as a news facility is to have an app like Tweetdeck or something sitting open all day on your office computer so you can see the feed in real-time, as opposed to exhaustingly scrolling it on your phone while brushing your teeth at 11pm. In such a way, I can understand how Twitter is a massively useful service for news producers and media. Only problem with that is, being a mobile Handyman, I don't work at a desk all day. So using Twitter in real-time for me is unobtainable, even if I wanted to. Just means I get a tweet from an ABC Radio host saying, "an interview with [insert famous person or politician] is live on air right now", five hours after the interview occurred. But as I say, it is still very useful for chatting to people directly, which can be fun... if maybe a little annoying for the recipient. (Sorry Belinda. I tweet because I care. :) )

By the way, I once did a "Know Your Promotional Skill Level" quiz on the Interwebs, that basically asked me questions to suss out how good I was at selling myself and my books. I got most of the questions right, but one of the ones I got wrong was one relating to Twitter. It said something like, "How frequently should you tweet? A: Every hour? B: Once a day? C: 2 - 3 times a week?" I answered 2 to 3 times a week, because at the time I was completely over being bombarded with other people's tweets about nothing, and as a rule that's the rate I'm comfortable tweeting at. I was wrong. Apparently, the correct answer was A: Every hour.

Every bloody hour?? No wonder I was getting bombarded, if that's what the experts are telling people to do. There are people following me that have 25,000 other people that they follow. If every one of those nutters did that quiz and decided to ramp up their profile, that would amount to a total of 500,000 tweets a day! A bloke would do nothing else but sit at a computer all day reading tweets about how cold some lady's toes are because of the snow falling in Istanbul. That's not a life. And the bit that got me the most was, the thing gave me advice at the end saying that I should consider purchasing a third party app that can automate my tweets for me to "boost my market penetration". So I could send out a tweet saying "Buy my book here https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/259889?ref=damienlmalcolm " over and over again, every single hour, 24 hours a day. Wow, I'm sure my followers are going to be right into that! I've had that sort of thing in my newsfeed before, and it sucks. In fact, now if I get that, I report it as spam. And I've since un-followed most of my Twitter-friends, the ones I actually don't find any interest in, and thankfully reduced my feed down to manageable levels.

Facebook, on the other hand, ticks every box. I keep my friends down to only people I actually know, I run a page for my first book, another for my local Handyman business which gets great response from customers, and I leave most of my private page open to the public as a bit of an author thing for followers. Facebook's newsfeed scrolls at a comfortable pace, allowing a busy bloke to just pop in once or twice a day for five to ten minutes at a time while hoeing down some lunch between jobs. I can whack up a photo easily (not of my lunch!) and it keeps me abreast of the goings-on. It's great for funnies. Of course the peaceful harmony I speak of can also be abused by some, which leads to addiction. The average young person seems to have around 800 friends on Facebook, and I once saw a profile of a fella that had 2,500 friends and liked 27,000 pages! What's the point in that? If I post something on my page, a bloke like that is never going to see it. My post would be buried under a mountain of who knows what, and unless he checks his feed literally every single waking minute of his day, he'd simply never keep up. Bloody nuts!

From a promotional point of view, Facebook is good in the way that I can rig up a small ad and target it directly to my audience, who then receive a small box at the side of their page with a pic of my book in it. The ads are, for the most part, unobtrusive but focused, meaning my meagre advertising budget is being spent efficiently and it's not going out to people who would only be annoyed by it. Like Twitter, Facebook also lets you talk directly with some people, though if it's a famous person you're wanting to chat to, chances are they're actually paying someone else to manage their page for them and you're not really taking to the stars themselves.

I've never tried out the other social networking sites that seem to be springing up like weeds in a farmer's paddock. There used to be Bebo, there are old narrow-band ones like Myspace and Linkedin, and there are all these new weird little chat things I keep hearing about. But really, there's no point  me checking out any of them. Between having a family, running a business, writing books, keeping up with current social sites and occasionally scribbling out something on this blog, this bloke's just a little too busy to need any extra commitments right now. Speaking of which, it's time I nodded off.

Please feel free to let me know what social networks you use most, and what you think of them. Agree with my views? Disagree? Tell me how you feel in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Till next time,
-Damien.

Nudey Rudey & A Little Dr Who

G'day,

I'm going to share something with the world that may come across as a little scary... or exciting, depending on what side of the fence you sit on. Are you ready?

I sleep starkers.

Yep. In the raw, naked, nude, bare, au natural. And while some of you may now be looking at my profile picture in the right column there and thinking such things as,

• "So what? I didn't need to know that. Eew. It's completely put my off buying his books now.", or 
• "Ohh, how exciting." (Snigger) "Now I'm going to buy every book this hot fella puts out!" (cough, splutter choke), or 
• "Who gives a horse-riding S*&#?", or even 
• "Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm never going to sleep again!"

 I feel I need to break it to you that it's not that unusual. According to Mr Google and his mates at the Interwebs, 31% of men sleep sans clothing, and almost 14% of women. Apparently, sleeping in your birthday suit is even supposed to be good for you. Haven't read up on that theory, but Amen I subscribe! So now that I've let the rabid possum out of the bag and he's scratched your hand and bit a finger or two, allow me to help your visualisations by saying I naturally have little to no body hair and distinctly sexy white-to-brown transition marks where my sleeves and socks end. (Insert wolf-whistle here)

 And after you've just come back from watching 15 mins of Nightmare On Elm Street 2 just to clear your mind's eye of those images, you're probably wondering why in the universe am I writing this down for the world to see. Well, this is kind of like all my other writing: I don't know yet because I haven't written it. Don't knock it; it's a good method, as it keeps the author on his/her toes at all times. Nothing forms suspense like never knowing what's around the corner. But I digress. What I can tell you is what got me thinking about this topic. It was hearing for only the hundredth time somebody say, "If you sleep naked, what would you do if there was a fire?"

What would I do if there was a fire? Get the bloody hell out of the house, of course! Who gives a flying bazzoo whether your wearing porky-pig PJs or not when you're about to get your butt-hairs singed? You're about to die in a raging inferno; you get out. Simple. So what if old Mrs Mable from across the road sees you in your nuddy. It's nothing she hasn't seen before... especially if she owns a good pair of binoculars and you never close your blinds. I think getting out alive is more important than your ego/pride/embarrassment, don't you?

Every other creature on this lovely world of ours goes around in the buff, and it's only our own "civilised" human attitudes standing in the way of a good open moon. I was actually typing away happily a few weeks ago with the TV on in the background for some mood noise, when I looked up for a breather (it was a heavy action scene I was scratching down at the time) and found three people, 2 blokes and a young lady, slogging away in their kitchen, totally nekkid. Apparently they run a vegan cooking blog where they posts recipes and photos of their culinary escapades wearing nothing but aprons, oven mitts and cheekily broad smiles. They do all of this to promote nudity as a conduit for young people to be proud of their bodies. Apart from the obvious reason, I think it's great. It speaks to a much wider issue too.

Somehow, my generation has come into this world with a warped sense of themselves. I'm not really sure if all the shinks in the world could explain it, either. Whether it be photo-shopped images in magazines, pornos and the internet (Notice I group those two together. What? You don't?) or maybe just the obesity crisis gripping the western nations, the human race has a giant collective self-esteem problem. For those not in the know, that's psycho-babble for we don't love ourselves. What's not to love. As the great Doctor says, "Humans are amazing!" And you know what? We are.

(For those of you that have no idea of who I'm referring to when I say "Doctor", I'm sorry. I truly am. You are missing out on only the greatest TV show to grace the airwaves. And if you do watch the show and still didn't pick up on it, shame on you! You call yourself a fan?)

So, moral of the story? Be true to yourself. And not just in the air-fairy way that they tell you to in those hippy camps. I mean really. Because if you can't love that roly-poly pasty-white skinny-dipping vessel of beauty, then how the heck can you expect anyone else to? I've never seen you naked, but I reckon you're a bit of alright, and so should you. I'm proud of my nud-sleeping every night, even when the temp outside drops as low as minus 10.... (just a bit harder to find little mate when I got to pee, is all.)

This world needs more starky-sharkers. And I'm doing my bit for the team. Tonight, why don't you don the rudey and make a stand. Nude is beautiful.

Till next time,
-Damien.

Religion? Science? Why not both?

G'day,
I was waddling down the street the other day back toward my work ute, when I ran into a nice lady, who was full of compliments about my Handyman business and writing career. She may have been interested because my ute looks like this:

Ahhh, pretty... Ehm, anyway, after complimenting me, which was nice, she then proceeded to invite me to the church that she was going to, located in an office building several metres down the road. I was on my way home at the time, so politely declined. However, I think she must have got the wrong idea, because she started trying to promote the Church and word of God right there on the street. She pointed out that my book was science fiction, and proceeded to tell me that science had it all wrong, the evolution from monkeys theory was poppycock and that my relationship with Jesus was all that mattered. Like, whoa ma'am, slow down.

Before continuing here, please allow me to outlay my own personal beliefs in a brief, hopefully non-offending way. Out the outset, I consider myself a science-minded person, but with an open awareness of things not yet explained by that science. I consider myself a spiritual person, NOT religious. And yes, there is a distinction. Being "spiritual", as I understand it means that you have a personal awareness and belief in a higher consciousness above oneself. Being in a religion means that there is a man-made and controlled institution relaying the rules of that belief, and giving guidance and community connection that aids a person in that faith. Nothing wrong with religion, per-say, it's just not for me. I have no interest in being "guided" by anyone, which is simply a quirk of my own personality. I don't drink, smoke or take drugs, the only woman I sleep with is my wife and I treat my fellow man/woman with respect, honour and equality. I don't need guidance to do any of that; it comes natural. :-) I place absolutely NO judgement on any religion, nor the people that follow them. In fact, when one ignores the continuous list of religious wars over the last 3000 years and considers that one primary role of religion throughout human history has been to keep developing societies on the straight and narrow as we grew, learned and expanded, it really has the capacity to do some good.

Now that's cleared up, back to the point. So when this nice lady was giving me the religious sales pitch, I politely held back all that I had to say, and simply left without giving away anything but an awkward smile. But afterward, it got me thinking. People like her are often so eager to berate the image of science because of its supposedly anti-God stance. Very true; science often does seem to disprove the majority of bible. However this is mostly just by accident, through the results that they acquire from their experiments and observations. While there are specific scientists we could mention that go out of their way to carp on religion (cough... splutter.... Dawkins... achoo!), I really don't think that science as a whole is out to prove there is no God. The role of science is simply to discover the world around us through practical application of proposed theories. No sinister plots there. I'm sorry if I sound mean when I say it, but the ignorance of this particular lady when it comes to such things like science showed up badly. And that's fine. I mean, I'm ignorant when it comes to flying a plane, so put me in a cockpit and I'm a-gonna crash! But the thing is, because I know I'm ignorant when it comes to flying that plane, you would not catch me in that cockpit. I stick to, and make judgements on, only the things I know about. Telling me outright, with no conversational back up that "science is pure nonsense, never amounted to anything substantial. God is the only REAL thing in this world, and your relationship with Him is the only thing that matters", is not accurate, informed or even slightly convincing. God, or your particular religion's version of Him, has never been proved, or disproved, by anyone. Not by me, her, you, that lady's pastor, the pope or ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING on this planet. No one can really argue with that. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes not one person here an expert on the matter. In fact, the only fella that is an expert on whether God exists, is God Himself. Anyone got His phone number? I've got free minutes; I'll give Him call and ask.

The only reason that anyone is in a religion is that they believe God exists. That word - believe - means that you have faith that something is, even in the absence of proof. By that very definition, that particular lady had no authority to say those things, no more than I have any authority to tell her that God doesn't exist, (which if you've been paying attention you'll know I don't feel that way. I'm easy either way) The about section of my personal facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/damienlmalcolm/about ) in the "Basic Information" section, pretty much sums up what I feel this whole thing. I've quoted the first part of it below:

"We are all interconnected and a part of this universe."

Does that not say it all? Isn't that the basic sum of the everything we have - and continue to - learn from science, as well as the teachings of every single religion? I know that is the main thing Jesus taught in his time on this world, as well as Budda and every other religious icon I could name. It's kind of simple, when you think about it, while at the same time being rather incredibly incomprehensible. Science tells us that the very atoms that make up our bodies, and everything around us, came from the heart of a star that died billions of years ago. We're all made of stardust. Romantic, no? Every religion has it's own story regarding our creation, but in a way they all boil down to a similar starting point. Heck, we'll never really know; nobody can ever go there to see for themselves. (Dr Who, where are you? We need to borrow the TARDIS for a mo, please.)

Though, if you will allow me just a little judgement, I think people that still believe the bible calculations - that this world and its people having only been around for 6000 years or so - are sadly still choosing blind faith over asking questions and learning new things. Faith is good; Blind faith is not. Does anyone honestly believe that massive natural structures like the Grand Canyon could really have been just conjured up in a few thousand years? Or fossils, have we got carbon and radio dating all wrong? Did dinosaurs walk the Earth only a few hundred years ago and we just missed it? Or maybe, it's all a hoax. I've actually had this exact discussion with a devout religious person before, and when he was unable to marry the facts, he simply fell back on old faithful: God works in mysterious ways. Sound familiar? That's because it's the Human way of ending an argument when no logical explanation is achievable. It's like when you tell your child off, they answer back and say "why", and you've got no real reason so you just come back with "because I said so". It's simply a cop out because we don't know. Compared to any higher power, be it God, a name-less ethereal presence or ancient planet-seeding aliens, we are too simple-minded to comprehend it. But one thing has been proven without a doubt: this world and the things on it are real, as is it's apparent age. That's true whether you or I believe it. The Earth has a history that stretches far back before the human race ever existed, or if you will, plonked here by God, and will continue on long after we are gone and have taken all our religious beliefs with it. Sorry everyone, but we are simply not that special.

So, getting back a bit, if we're really all made from the same stuff, and linked somehow because of it, why do we need to dwell on our differences? Why does science and religion have to be mutually exclusive? Crickey, why do religions have to be mutually exclusive from each other?! That lady that started my rant here was inviting me to a small pup-church. One that's been started up by a pastor and a few volunteers that doesn't have its own place of worship, so they hire out an office building on Sundays. Nothing really wrong with that, except that it's only one of at least four or five of those exact same things that have popped up in my small town over recent years. Why on Earth would Christianity need so many off-shoots from within itself on one tiny area? Are they not all praising the same Lord, pretty much the same way? If religion is supposed to be such a communal thing, why would they have such a desire to be separate? Maybe that is just the nature of the Human race nowadays, as we all continue to drift apart. Who knows? But, I do ask the question. Because if no one asks the question, we'll never get the answers. You're born asking questions; why should it ever stop?

I finish this long monologue by saying openly that I am sorry if I offended in any way with what I've said. If I have, that was never my intention. I simply try to look at and analyse life through a wide angle lens, which I feel would be a good thing for everyone to do. It generates respect for others and their beliefs, allowing you more patience and tolerance; two things this world as a whole is lacking, big time. They say in an interview, it's the first thirty seconds that sets the interviewer's opinion of you. Well, I don't know about you, but who I am as a person covers a whole lot more than you're going to see in thirty seconds. Look at me though a wide-angle lens and you see a whole different picture. It's the same for that person that you have five seconds of eye-contact with at the traffic lights tomorrow on your way to work, for that family member lying in bed asleep beside you, and your boss who's been more cranky than usual this week. Everyone has more to themselves than you see in your first thirty seconds. We all have our ups and downs, and our moments, but through all of that I will always strive to use that wide-lens and ask more questions. It's the least I can do. Can you?

Hey and by the way, it doesn't have to be a monologue; we can have a dialogue. I welcome comments, and feel free to ask questions or put forward you own opinion. Just please don't be offensive.

Thanks for reading,
Till next time,
-Damien

Recent Book Results

Lately, I've just been blown away by the massive developments in my first book, Winchester: Saviour.

It all started last week, when I made the decision to put the first half of it up for free for 5 days on Amazon Kindle. When I first looked at the stats the first day into the promo, I was ecstatic to see 4 people had downloaded it. Then day two the number was 57, then 69, then 84!
 Around about then, it dawned on this small-brained nutter that the report I was looking at was only for Amazon.com, as in the US, Australia and other countries without their own site. So I scrolled the drop menu and found that 20 people from Germany, same from the UK and even one person from Canada had also downloaded the free Part 1 ebook.

When it was finally over, on my 31st Birthday five days later, a huge 199 people had grabbed a copy of my book from all over the world! I couldn't contain my happiness. And from that 199, I hope that at least the majority like it and take a moment to place a review on Amazon, and Goodreads if signed up. Every little bit helps.

Then, only days after that exciting week, I happened to do a websearch for Winchester: Saviour, just to keep abreast of any happenings out there in the big wide inter-world, and what do I find? Ticking the "Expanded Distribution" box on my paperback publication set up with CreateSpace has paid off big time. Winchester: Saviour, in soft cover/paperback, is officially available in just about every single online book retailer known to man, word wide.

You can actually log on to your favourite book e-store from wherever you are on this planet and purchase a copy of my first published book to hold in your very own hands.

Please allow me to pause a moment and slap myself to make sure I'm not dreaming! And look, honestly, while I may never sell a single copy from any of these stores (though it would be great if I did!) just the fact that my writing has gone from an aging file on my computer, surviving with me through car crashes, relocations, job upheavals and family alterations for sixteen years, to being a published, 5 star rated (on Smashwords, by Cecil. Check it out.) paperback novel is just so, so amazing. In fact, despite being a writer, I find it difficult to really put words to the feeling.

Perhaps there's only one thing to say. Thank you. For the support, encouragement, faith in me... and Cecil, for your review, mate. Thanks a lot for that, whoever you may be.

Till next time,
-Damien.

Sample of my new mystery novel, Essence Of Betrayal

Prior to the anticipated release of my new mystery novel this year (no true; it is anticipated by at least four people that I know of!), I'm releasing this final version sample to give you a taste.

If reading here hurts your eyes, the sample is also available in PDF, thanks to Google Drive, which you can view in your browser completely free and without logging in.

 
Go to the PDF here (Opens in another window/tab)

Feel free to read and leave comments. In fact, I welcome your thoughts, so either scroll to the bottom and leave a message, or email me via the contact form to the right. Look forward to hearing from you.
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The Essence of Betrayal

by Damien L. Malcolm

Two Chapter Sample

Cover Image - Essence of Betrayal - Damien L. Malcolm 2014

One

Thursday May 16, 01:31

A distant sound blared repeatedly from somewhere, bringing my mind almost to full awareness. On my way out of the dream I realised it was a phone ringing. It jolted me awake, and one eye pried open to stare at the glowing red numbers floating above the bedside table in the dark.

One thirty? Who the frig could that be?

I rolled out of bed and stumbled over to the desk. Despite my trusty oil heater ticking away in the corner, the phone was incredibly cold in my hand.

"Hello?"

"Oh thank God. Jack, I'm so sorry, but I need you. Can you come over?" She's worked up, crying and all. I thought I recognised her deep but feminine voice though.

"Rachel?" Rachel Gardener was a customer I'd had for a couple of years, under both the handyman business, and my second, secret business as a private investigator. She could seem a little unbalanced at times-apparently suffered from a mild anxiety disorder-but most of the time she was easy enough for a fella to get along with. Plus we had a fair history, both personally and professionally.

"Yes, it's me. Please Jack, I need help."

"Ok, ok. Are you safe?"

"Yes. I just need you here. I've got something to tell you."

"Righto. Just give me a few minutes. I'll get something on and head over."

I hung up the phone and shuffled into the bathroom. I've always slept in the nude, and I'm a hairy bugger, so the cold had all my body hairs standing on end. I looked like a furry echidna in the mirror when I flicked the light on.

Draughty damn house.

I put on the work shirt and trousers that were lying on the floor, next to the shower. I'd worn them the day before, but they didn't stink, and right now there wasn't enough reason or inclination to find anything else.

The pants were black; the shirt tradie's fluorescent yellow, however there shouldn't be anything at Rachel's that required night camouflage. Then again, on second thoughts who knew what the heck I was heading into. Perhaps being so obvious was not a good idea.

She had sounded pretty worked-up over the phone. How was I to know she didn't have some crazy-man with a knife to her throat, or something? I'd been a P.I. for long enough to know that things weren't always as they seemed. And panicked ladies calling in the middle of the night was enough to make anyone nervous.

Putting yesterday's black work-jacket on over the top, just in case, I glanced at the mirror again. I looked like someone just dragged from a grave. Silver-streaked, dark-brown hair all over the place, hadn't shaved for almost twenty-four hours and my light-blue eyes looked glassy and tired.

Grey lines, shadowed cheeks. At that point it was clear that while I may have felt twenty-five at times, tonight I looked old enough to make my real age of forty-three seem young. A voice told me I should tidy myself, but I changed my mind. Stuff it; she wanted me out of bed at this time of night, she could take me as I was.

Five minutes later I was firing up the falcon and pulling out of the garage. I thought it was a better choice than the work ute; quieter, and more private with the tinted windows all round and matte black panels. At night, it was almost invisible. Plus it had all my P.I. gear in the boot, again just in case.

The moon was full, with no clouds. Loved those nights. You could almost drive without headlights... which by that stage I had done a few times in the past. It was a good eight or so minutes back to town from my place, country roads all the way. When I turned into Rachel's drive, first thing I noticed was a missing car.

Her hubby's 4WD wasn't there, which I had kind of pre-guessed with her ringing in the middle of the night and all, but it still had me wondering. The wind was blowing a freezing gale when I trudged across the frost-bitten grass to the door. I could hear her dogs, a four-foot rottweiler and a mangy little string-haired chihuahua, barking their respective heads off from round back.

She answered the door on the second knock, and shuffled me inside like the road was littered with paparazzi. Rachel's dazzling green eyes flared nervously against the mass of curly red hair flowing across her shoulders. Panic, fear and something I couldn't put my finger on.

She was wearing a kind of nightie thing, with a real silky thin fabric that flowed ever so nicely over her short, slender body, and an open dressing gown cast over her shoulders. At first I thought she was mad wearing such a thing on this sort of night, minus-three degree winds and all.

Her nipples certainly agreed with me.

However, when she closed the door behind us I realised the temperature of the room was hovering somewhere between the centre of burning coal and the surface of the sun. So in essence, she could have gone naked with an ice-pack across her shoulders and been quite alright.

She led me down the hall, passing the archway to the kitchen where the kettle was already whistling, and I turned to see two mugs sitting on the bench with tags hanging out. Obviously we were in for the long haul.

This'd better be good, I thought warily.

"Tea?" She asked in a croaky voice as she left me in the dining room and breezed back into her tiny kitchen.

Did I have a choice? "Yeah sure," I replied aloud.

There was a distinct air of tension in the house, like someone had died or something. It made me uneasy. I looked around while I waited for her to come back. From where I sat at the end of her oval table, I could see out into the lounge and halfway up the hall to the bedrooms.

She'd changed things around since I'd last been there. Some sort of African cross New Guinean theme with red droopy things everywhere, beads from the doorways, and waist-high brown-timbered statues of black fellas with big penises. Bit odd.

Looked like a lot of money had recently gone into decorating the place. Interesting, considering she hadn't worked since marrying. Thought it kind of funny too how, while it was her and her bloke living there-and mostly his money, it seemed-the decor was all her. Not even a big screen to watch the footy on.

A couple of minutes later she came in and placed the two tea mugs on the table along with a plate of choc-chips and some sort of cake-slice thing. Her normally attractive face was ragged and drawn, bringing out every one of her thirty-six years, with black streaks running down her cheeks where the hours of tears had liquefied her mascara. Her red hair was now strung up in a haphazard ponytail.

"What is this all about, Rach?" I queried as she took her seat across from me.

I took a couple of bikkies straight up. It had been a while since dinner and I always got the nibbles around 2am. If I wasn't snoring at the time, that is.

"It's Jonathan I... I think something’s going on." She left a long pause, seemingly straining to put her problem into words.

Jonathan Gardener was her husband, obviously missing along with his 4WD. Big bloke, about six-two and half that wide; hair everywhere but on his head. He ran the main mechanic workshop in town, the one on Railway St. I'd spoken to him a few times over my years in town, but since they'd married the year previous, he had become kind of cagey around me; not sure of my intentions or history with his missus, I guess.

"Something like what, Rachel? Would you just let it out already? I gotta get some sleep before starting on Harrison's deck tomorrow..." I glanced at my watch as if I didn't already know how bloody late it was. "I mean, later on today."

"I know. I'm sorry, Jack. I'm just so scared I don't know what to do."

"Whaddya mean? Has Jonathan done something to you?"

"No, not to me. But I think he may have done something... to someone..." She let that hang just long enough to have my mind reeling at a thousand faces a minute. "You know that girl that's been missing since last weekend?"

"Yeah. Blake's got me asking around on my travels; see if anybody saw anything the afternoon she went missing. Why? You don't think Jonathan has anything to do with that, do you?"

Obviously my last question was a little too direct for her. She immediately shattered into a sobbing wreck. I'd seen this all before, couple of years ago on the first and only night we had slept together. Only this time there was no possibility it would end the same way. It took her a while to calm back down.

"I don't know... I..."

My masculinity panged for a sec, and all I wanted to do was go and wrap my arms round her and say it was all ok; protect her. But that had been what got me in trouble last time, so I held back. Eventually she pulled herself back together and wiped herself on a tissue she had pulled from her dressing gown pocket.

"He's been at that Holden tech thing in Brisbane for the last two nights." She stood up and walked back out into the kitchen, still talking as she moved. "I was sick and tired of tripping over his crap every time I had to go in the shed to get the dog food, so I thought while he's away I'd just do a bit of tidying."

"Shite, love. You never tidy a man's shed."

The joke was terrible, I know, but it was late, the tea was too weak and I needed something to break the tense fogginess in my own head, more than anything else. Besides, she didn't take any notice of what I'd said.

"I was shuffling some tools onto the back shelves," she continued, "when I accidentally pushed a box off the top. And it had this in it."

I looked up from my fourth biscuit and took a good look at what she was holding. It was a footy jersey from the local club; red with blue and white horizontal bands. She flipped it round so I could see the name stencilled across the back.

Becker. As in Allison Becker, the girl who had gone missing. It looked clean, with no blood, but it still took me a long while to swallow the choc-chip caught in my throat.

Two

I looked her straight in the face.

"Well, to make you feel better, I'd say that it doesn't mean much. But hell Rach, I'd be lying. How the frig did that end up in your shed?"

"I don't know." Rachel sat back down with a flop, tossing the jersey on the table. Only one word crossed my mind as I watched the thing hit the timber.

Evidence.

"Why haven't you gone to the cops?" I asked firmly, hardly giving a crap whether she broke down again or not. "That's some serious evidence, Rachel. If they know you've got that and didn't go to them straight away, you could come down as an accomplice when the crap hits the fan."

"I... I didn't want to start something I wasn't sure of."

"Have you talked to Jonathan?"

"No, I haven't called Jonathan. I only found it this afternoon, and I've been stewing on it all night. I haven't slept, or even eaten. It took me an hour just to pull together the courage to call you. I was afraid that the police would swoop straight in and arrest me or him, or something. And I knew you'd know what to do."

It was childish and probably mean, but the way she said that gave me a mental image of her huddled in a corner, rocking back and forth saying "Jumper, scary. Jumper, bad," for the last eight hours. In my defence, that is often the way crazy people are on TV. But I knew she had a clinical illness of the mind... I really had no excuse.

Lucky I never smiled, or told her what I was thinking.

By then though, my frustration had kicked in. "Bloody hell, Rachel. That's one heck of a place to put me in."

Now I did admit that at that point I had raised my voice just a little, and the agitation that I was feeling from being dragged into such a predicament that late at night could have pushed a slight accusing tone into my voice. But I was in no way prepared for the reaction it caused.

"You?" she exploded, springing to her feet and driving herself across the table at me. She was screaming like a banshee. "What about the place I'm in, you selfish mongrel? I've just found something that could very well make my husband a fucking murderer, and all you can do is sit there and worry about you and your pretty little world! At least you can go home and sleep it off, go on tomorrow like nothing's bloody happened. I gotta sit here and wait till the man I thought I knew and loved waltzes in that door and says 'hi honey', like he hasn't just killed some hapless teenage bitch!"

Right about now, I wasn't really knowing what to think. I didn't know whether to put on a calm voice and bring down the heat, speed dial the cops or hit the freak with my pocket taser.

I'm sitting there in the middle of the night with a piss-weak cup of tea in one hand and half a chewed bikkie in the other, with a suddenly psycho woman screaming obscenities and thrusting her evil bloody eyes at me, with a fire burning in them that looked set to cream me.

I mean she had gone from a sad, pathetic, blubbering mess to full-on crazy-town in two seconds flat. I was suddenly aware that I was sweating like a duck underwater too, but I'm thinking that was the result of the furnace burning at the far side of the lounge-room, not my sudden fear and shock.

I guess my surprise showed, because in a quick moment, Rachel calmed it right off. Her face morphed back into a human's and she re-took her seat. A second later when she spoke, her voice had returned to its normal placid tones.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm just real stressed, hey. All of this has freaked me out. My meds don't seem to be taking the edge off any more. I'm real sorry. Jonathan has been working such long days lately that I've hardly seen him for weeks. Then this... I'm just..." And again with the tears.

I was still completely lost for words. Stressed, yeah fair enough. But heck, I'd known Rachel a good few years by that stage; seen a few meltdowns and slight tantrums. But I'd never seen her like this. This wasn't stress—it was a chemical imbalance. She had mentioned her medication too, which was unusual for her to do, and it made me a little concerned. I just sat there and watched her cry for a minute, trying to figure all this crap out.

So her hubby had, supposedly, a missing girl's sports jersey in a box at the back of his shed. Funnily enough, the very same jersey that she had been wearing the day she disappeared. It was a massive circumstantial coincidence, that was undeniable.

But did it really prove anything? Yeah, sorta. How the hell else would he have got a hold of that piece of clothing if not by pulling it off the dead girl’s body? But was she even dead? Did he simply pick it up off the side of a road?

In the last couple of days, the cops had done some major searching of the whole town using canine detection crews, bush land and all, and turned up nothing. Not a single trace of her. Though they hadn't said anything to the family yet, as far as their investigations were concerned the trail was already cold.

From witness reports that Senior Sergeant Walter Blake had showed me, it seems that Miss Becker had left the under-seventeens footy training at Patterson Oval on Saturday May 11th. She always walked home after training. Apparently she liked to cool down from the session, and her home was only eighteen hundred metres or so from the field.

Heck, if her parents had been looking out the eastern window at the time she disappeared, they'd have probably seen her go, or the car that took her at least. But they didn't, till about a half hour after the time she'd normally walk in the door, and of course by then she was long gone. Not long after that, they called the cops.

All the girls from the team, as well as their fifty-year-old grey-haired coach, had said that they saw her walking down the road that afternoon. Some even said they waved from their SUVs when their parents drove past. But despite so many eyes on her at random intervals, somewhere between 4:48pm and 5:15pm, she had simply vanished, and not one person saw anything suspicious.

It was certainly a mystery, one that that small town police force was hard-pressed to deal with. I think that's why Blake had ended up pulling me in. gotten to know each other a few years back, not long after I rocked into town. He was one of only five people in the whole district who knew about my new secret night job, and he sometimes used my unique position, personal access and past military training to his advantage.

We'd collaborate on jobs, with him feeding me a bit of intel in order to help get more information from possible suspects or witnesses. I loved the arrangement, and despite making no money out of most of the bones he threw me, it usually worked out even with all the free ID histories, rego reports and background checks I was able to get out of the force.

Not that we told anybody about that bit.

I was brought out of my reverie when suddenly Rachel was standing over me with my almost-empty cup in her hand.

"So what are we going to do, Jack?"

"We? Sorry, love, but there's not a whole lot I can do to help, besides put in a good word for you with the sarge. But you are going to take that jersey down the cop shop first thing in the morning and tell them exactly how you found it."

"But they'll just want to arrest Jonathan." She was a lot calmer than before, but I could clearly see a spark of unbridled panic in her eyes again. She was making me bloody nervous.

"Not necessarily. Most likely they'll just have him in for questioning when he gets back into town. Find out what he knows as to her whereabouts. The missing girl case is technically still not a homicide just yet. But they’ll ask you some questions too, where you just need to lay out the truth, and they'll most likely want to come and search the premises for anything else."

She plonked herself back into her seat. "Oh no..." The crying was about to start again. I looked at my watch. 2:30 really was my limit; I had to get out of there.

"Look, Rach, sorry to be harsh, but tears aren't helping you here. You've got to just stay together, think rationally and don't go jumping to any conclusions."

She was nodding, soaking up some more saline with that sodden tissue of hers.

"Just to be safe, I wouldn't be calling Jonathan just now, either. He may be perfectly innocent, but it'd be best if the cops talk to him first, ok? And it might be a good idea, after you drop the jersey down the shop, to just go stay somewhere else for a couple of days. You know, till the cops have talked to Jonathan. Is your mother still in that two bedroom place up by Harry's Hill?"

"Yep. And Jonathan's only been there twice. He's never been able to remember where she lives."

"That's good. Best if you do that, I think. Just for a few days, maybe a week."

I started to stand up, making it clear it was time for me to go home. She copied, and began hesitantly leading me to the door. I had the distinct impression that she was about to beg me to stay on the couch or something.

I could understand her trepidation; fears her husband might come home early or something. Either way, it would not have been a good idea. Plus I really just could not stand her presence right then. Something about her was giving me the creeps.

She just went to open her mouth when I cut her off.

"You should be ok tonight, Rachel. Take half a sleeping pill and make sure you get a good bit of shut eye. In the morning, take that bloody jersey into the cops."

I was at the door now, just bracing myself to pass between the enveloping heat and the icy cold. I was really wishing I'd brought my darn snow jacket.

"Good night, Rachel. Let me know how you go tomorrow, ok?"

"Ok, Jack. And thank you so much. I didn't know who else to call. It means so much that you believe me."

Shit the air outside was cold. My toes almost curled up inside my boots when that door opened. "Righto. Hear from you later."

She stayed standing in the doorway while I walked down the drive to where I'd parked the falcon. A key turn later, I was getting blasted by warm air in my little comfort booth.

I really felt at home in that car. I'd spent so many hours whiling away inside it, into the darkest parts of many a night, that I was about as settled in that seat as I had ever been anywhere else.

I looked up from the glowing lights of the dash as I put it in reverse, and noticed that Rachel was still watching me from the front porch. Ordinarily, such a thing wouldn't bother me, but for some reason I got a sudden chill down my spine.

Quickly I backed the car out onto the dark road, put it in drive and pumped the accelerator. Vivid flashbacks hit me of her face when she'd lost it in that dining room. I just had to get the hell out of there.

It wasn't till I was turning onto my road that I started to come down off my nerves. It was then that it came to me how strange her last words had been.

"It means so much that you believe me," she had said. It played over and over again in my head as I headed home, tossing up dust on the gravel roads.

"Believe me."

What an odd thing to say. It had never even occurred to me that she may have been lying. But considering that odd remark, was it possible that she had something to hide?

Already things weren't adding up. And damn it, now I wasn't going to get any sleep at all.

<<<***>>> I hope you enjoyed this sample. The full book is available worldwide as <<<***>>> 

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How A Talent Grows

Just had to share with you the major revelation I've had over the last few days, and in no way do I wish to make it sound like I'm full of myself, because I'm not. It's purely an observation.

In a nutshell, I really seem to be becoming a good writer.

It sort of started improving when I began going back through and editing "Saviour" long before publication. I had already read it through three or four times, especially when starting work on Book 3 around 2007. (hereafter for ease of writing this post,  I'll refer to the pending book 3 by an abbreviation of it's working title of "The Creature Within": TCW.) But following some major life changes early in the 2000's, including a near-fatal car accident, job upheavals and night-shift, marriage and on-coming children, I hadn't actually written as such for almost five years leading up to it. However when I started going over "Saviour" line by line a year or so ago, I suddenly became aware of having a tight, detailed writers eye. I could see which sentences were good, which were not so good. I started adding entire sections and sentences to it, and removing or re-arranging others. And the sections I added were better than the sections already in place. Eventually it sort of seamed together and became the book it is now, (probably still not finished to an independent critic's eye!).

And then of course as mentioned, in 2007 I started on TCW, and found that the ideas flowed out near complete, straight from brain to hand to screen, with little to no post-editing required. It was a bit of a shock at first, but then I just put it down to life experience and the exciting storyline I had concocted. TCW is almost finished now, but I placed it on the back-burner while I concentrate on Book 2, "Convolutions". "Convolutions" was a storyline I had the idea for around twelve years ago, but I could just never get it off the ground, hence the premature investment in TCW. There weren't enough facets or angles to work with and I just could not seem to cohere the patches I had. I think I had about three hundred words on it, then simply gave up.

That was my eighteen/nineteen year old writing self.

And nowadays? Well, after publishing "Saviour" on a whim, prayer and a moments notice, it occurred to this clever duck that one could not publish Book 1 followed a few months later by Book 3, with no Book 2 to fill the gap. I may only be a writer, but I can count! And don't worry, I checked; there was no way I could effectively wiggle TCW to become Book 2. I just hadn't set it up that way. So, with a couple of new ideas floating around in the cloud, and my original idea to play with, I sat down and started writing. Now, only five months later, I have a mammoth 44, 403 words as of tonight, and that's from a bloke running a full-time business and a 4-kid family who only writes for two-three hours before bed! Not bad, I reckon. And I've so far got a smashing story to boot. Terrorist cells and religious extremists, new aliens, high paced ground ops, starship dog-fights and some heavy-handed lady-authority from Franklin's wife, who joins the universe officially for the first time. If I can pull together enough to keep it running for the next 40,000, it's going to be a cracker!

So, a person really can just improve in a talent without necessarily putting in massive amounts of time or practice, even with a five year gap between stints. I guess that is the difference between a talent and a skill. A skill is something you need to learn, focus on and practice in order to get it perfected, whereas a talent is something you're born with, that naturally grows with age and experience, becoming evermore honed simply by enjoying and sharing it. You build your skills, while you grow your talents.

So, the moral? Find your talent, whatever it may be, and allow it it to grow. Who knows? Someday you may turn out to be a singing handyman-business running author with four kids and a happening dream, just like me! Heck, that could very well be that elusive "meaning of life."

Best of luck and thanks for reading,
Till next time,
-Damien.

My First-Book Rearrangements

Well, I made a pretty major decision today regarding my first ebook. Major for me, anyway. I combined parts 1 & 2 into a single book. For most it will mean nothing, though others may be a little interested. Well you must be, as you are on the third line and still reading!

When I first published it, I think I must have been a little impatient. I wanted to break into a flooded market which I thought would be aided a bit by throwing in a smaller, cheaper book first, then expanding on a possible fan base over time. I also had read in a couple of places that with this whole ebook craze, people were after shorter style books; 40 to 50 thousand words. My original manuscript being a whole 79,000 odd sounded somewhat epic (I know; I chuckled at that too.) when compared to that. So I found a spot in the middle somewhere that left it on a cliff-hanger and chopped the book in two.

Sounded like a good idea at the time, but as the year went on, I have found the take up of Part 1 as pretty good, while Part 2 was somewhat flailing. Perhaps people simply haven't caught up on it yet, still happily reading Part 1 with the view of grabbing Part 2 in a few weeks or months when they need. Or perhaps people don't really realise that the two parts were effectively the same book, just split, hence thinking that it ended too abruptly and they were jolted out of buy the next instalment. Not to mention that I personally have found it bloody confusing swapping between a 2 part ebook and a 1 part hardcopy. Plus many people, I guess, would not like the idea of going back and forth to re-purchase the different parts. You buy a book, you buy the whole darn thing, right? I get it now. Either way, I made the call that it was a bad idea, and went about rectifying it.

Wasn't a big deal to do really, which makes me only love this digital self-publishing dizzo even better. Simply changed the name, cover photo and uploaded the new full file. I had to unpublish the old Part 2, which means that while I can still access it, it will vanish from ebook stores soon, with that section now fully absorbed into the full Winchester: Saviour ebook (available now at Smashwords.com - shameless plug there!). I hope it hasn't inconvenienced too many people, but really in the long run I feel it has made for a better book. Especially since I published the paperback (available at Amazon.com - Another one! Stay low; they're coming thick and fast.) I think it just makes it less confusing having only one title, exchanged between formats, rather than the mish mash of parts that and books this that I had going before.

And in the end, one has learned a valuable lesson: Impatience leads to crap. Feel free to quote that in your social circles!

Till next time,
-Damien.