Rebekah's SMILE

When I was teaching creative writing I would tell my students that a writer writes for himself, for his or her own enjoyment. It does not matter if anyone reads what they have written or not. If somebody does read it then that is a bonus. If the reader enjoys the story then that is a double bonus. If an author makes money by way of writing then that is amazing but  it is NOT the reason for writing. Not never NO WAY.

Speaking as unofficially the most prolific writer of Amazon Kindle e-books I stand by what I said but within my writing challenge which as of the of yesterday stood at 67 books wrapped in a total of 2,292,994 words there is more to writing than scribbling words on a piece of paper.

My writing challenge covers three years from 1^st January 2020 to 31^st December 2022 after

which there will be a bonus year ending on 31^st December 2023. Time now for me to build into my scribble aka writing more than simply putting words on pieces of paper, or with Amazon words from my laptop to its bookshelf.

My family was one of the first to stay in the very first Ronald McDonald House in Britain. Today there are three hundred and sixty-five Ronald McDonald Houses around the world, I say that THE SUN NEVER SETS ON RONALD McDONALD but with each and every house being a house of love the truth is THE SUN NEVER SETS ON LOVE.

When Rebekah died she left it in her will that we should support Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Honouring Rebekah's wish I am now picking up on a project which the pandemic wrecked. It had been the plan for people to sign SMILE cards which we would post to ten different Ronal

d McDonald Houses round the world sending love to families with a child sick in hospital. With international post suspended this all came to an end.

BUT now with the post working I am picking this up and as I sit down each morning to start work I am signing SMILE cards.

Each month I will be swending cards to a different Ronald McDonald House in a different country of the world.

For the month of October 2021 I a busy signing SMILE cards for the seventy-nine families who are staying at Ronald McDonald House in Alberta Canada.

It is the same for every house of love around the world.

When a child is seriously ill and needs specialist treatment that is usually in a hospital away

from home. In Rebekah's case it was at Guys Hiospital in London. The strain on the family is very hard, I know I have been through it. It is then that Ronald McDonald House puts an arm of love around the family and says: Come and stay here close to the hospital. We will put an arm of love around your family and keep you together.

Since Rebekah died her freinds and family have done many things to support Ronald McDonald but support does not always mean money. Yes, money is important. Families are NOT

charged to stay at Ronald McDonald House and fund raising has to happen but there is more to support than money. No matter what form that support takes LOVE is at the centre.

These pictures I am now sharing have all been taken in Ronald McDonald House in Alberta, Canada. These are REAL people I am wrapping into my writing by way of our SMILE card.

By Sunday 31st October I will have signed seventy-nine cards then on Monday 1st November they will be posted to Canada and the lovely people staying with Ronald.

I make a few quid from book Royalties within Amazon and will use this to pay for the printing of cards, lamininating and then posting.

The cards will be sent quietly and anonymously. They will be quietly and anonymously sent from myself as the author of the books and those who read them.

Each month a different Ronald McDonald House and its families staying within its love.

Rebekah was always known as Little Miss Sunshine. She spent most of her childhood in and out of hospital. She had a very happy life no matter what her illness brought to her. I challenge anyone to find a photograph of her where she is not SMILING.

In my book Our Rebekah A Love Story From Our NHS I tell the story of how doctors and nurses did not treat Rebekah but cared for her so making that SMILE possible.

My recent e-book The Heart And Face Of A Coward - My Heart And My Face I speak about blood and organ donation. Rebekah's transplant was a special SMILE given to my little girl by a 

donor family who had just lost their little boy.

In the 2021 re-publication of my original 1991 book In Search Of The Leons i speak of the love and support my students at Leon School gave to me during thos hard times.

Yes, there is more to writing than scribbling words on a piece of paper. As I seek to establish myself as the world's most prolific writer of Amazon e-books this is one of the ways I will be building different SMILES and LOVE into those words.

Poetry in motion

 

What is your favourite poem ?

Three of my own personal favouites are depicted here on what will become an anthology I will publish on Amazon - AN A B C OF POETRY.

So can you identify the three I have chosen to depict on the cover ?

THE SOLDIER by Pupert Brooke

UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE by William Wordsworh

TYGER by by William Blake

I am about to start work on the Letter K. This is going to be a major area with the anthology as I feature the work of this man.

He died at the age of just twenty-five and yet his poetical genius left so much beauty for us to enjoy.

John Keats who died aged twenty-five. He had contracted Tuberculosis - TB which was a feared and common killer in years gone by. My own grandfather died from TB which he originally contracted in the trenches of World War One. As a small boy I knew of people older than me who were being treated in special hospitals, called sanitoriums, for the illness.

In my youth there was hope for recovery but when my grandfather contracted this breathing disporder it was a death certificate. That certificate for Keats was called in when he was just twenty-five. Today Tuberculosis belongs to history.

Can you recognise this bird ?  What species is it ?

NO, it is not a sparrow. Now an endangered species this is a nightingale. Keats wrote a beautiful poem AN ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. I love it.

I will be opening my letter K in the anthology with this poem.

Why did William Blake spell Tiger as Tyger in his poem ?

Stuffy academics will tell you that Blake used the Old English spelling. That, my friends, is RUBBISH !  Blake, in my arrogant opinion at least, spelt it tYger as he wanted to influence the way the word sounds.

Poems are not meant to be read in silence. Poems are meant to be read aloud. Preferably read aloud with the reader standing up.

A celebrated poet from World War One said that those who had died should not be remembered by monuments with names carved in stone. They should be remembered in peoples' hearts.

That was easy to say in the 1920's when there was an entire generation alive who had known them. No so now more than one hundred years later, we need those memorials BUT we should take the names off theem and do all we can to turn the dead back into living friends in our hearts. POETRY is a way we can do  this.

In my anthology I quote samples of a poet's work then tell the reader a little bit about their genius. This is not meant to be a boring academic study but a book of fun sending the reader off to find out more about any given poem or its writer that that inspires the reader.

When will the book be finished ?  When will Amazon publish it ?

As of my writing this blog the book contains 81,896 words. I think it will end up somewhere around 125,000. This will be my fifty-third Amazon publication since 1st January 2021 and my sixty-eighth since my writing challenge began on 1st April 2020. A while to go yet, the challenge ends on 31st December 2022. I am probably already the most prolific writer of e-books but, working with Amazon, I do not intend to claim the title until the end of the challenge in fourteen months time.

That challenge demands I write a minimum of 150 e-books wrapped in 3,500,000 words.

As of right now 8.30am Wednesday 13th October 2021 Amazon has published 67 books wrapped in 2,284,955 words.

SO WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE POEM ?

A

A

FAILURE - Google or Me ?

 

Is it Google that is the failure or is it me ?

Two things about yesterday 's blog:

Google does not use a spell checker ! The old system used to but the update does not !

However, yesterday I had the grand total of FIVE people read the blog complete with all the Google inspited typo's !

LIFE IS A TYPO - If you do not make any then you are not living it fast enough.

That, my friends, DOES NOT apply to the geeks at Google !

I write stories across many genre but liove stories are not quite my thing. However, I did dabble with something I called What Are We Going To Tell The President. It sat about for ever

then I used it partly within my book THE KEY IS THE ANSWER published on 6th July. I am thinking now that I may take it and hange things a little to write The Tennessee Waltz.

My writing challenge to date stands at:

2,268,860 words written with 66 books written

By 31st December 2022 I need to hit:

 A minimum of 150 e-books

Wrapped into a minimum of 3,500,000 words 

I think I am on target OK.

What do you think ?

Yesterday I sold 76 e-book downloads.

As a bit of research for IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SAMMY LEON I went to look at the site of

the former Bletchley Park Pavilion. 

I am still struggling with what I found.

ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR BIG TIME !

No !

CRIMINALITY BIG TIME.

I am going to have to alert the authorities today. When I have finished writing this blog I am going to write to all Milton Keynes Councillors representing the area. Will they take any notice ?  I do not know.

Ley me shatre some pictures i took yesterday:

Way short of its glory days !

Is this going to be a waste of time ?

 

Is this going to be a waste of time ?

PROBABLY.

Google Blogger was once a great platform but the geeks destroyed it and turned it into the biggest social media failure. In the good old days when I first used it, that was in 2016, I never got less than one huindred readers a day, sometomes I topped the one thousand. But then after Google updated it and built failure into the system, right across the system, I was lucky if I ever hit ten in a day.

I have tried to use it a few times and have given up. Here I a, trying again.

It is not that I am wanting to use Blogger to promote my writing challenge but to raise awareness of the good causes I am not using the writing to support.

Another couple of months and YEAR TWO of my challenge to become the most prolific writer of Amazon e-books will end. YEAR THREE will then start.

The challenge is from Wednesday 1^stJanuary 2020 to 31^st Saturday December 2022 I will write: A minimum of 150 e-books Wrapped into a minimum of 3,500,000 words.

I probably am already the most prolific writer but will not snatch the title until Sunday 1st January 2023. On that day I am going to add an additional year - yeart four - where I try to promote and sell the books I have written from which I will use the royalties to support good causes close to my heart.

I am already doing this but am not actually in the process of any major promotion if you know

what I mean.

Each day I am signing SMILE cards which I am sending to families with a child sick in hospital. I am sending these via Ronald McDonald Houses ion different countries of the world. I am calling this THE SUN NEVER SETS ON RONALD McDONALD.

When Rebekah died she left it in her will that we should support Ronald McDonald Houses. My family was one of the first to stay in the very first Ronald McDonald House in England.

Starting on 3rd November 2021 which is my seventy-first birthday I am launching PLANT A TREE 'TIL SEVENTY THREE where I will fund one tree every week for the rest of my life to be planted by The National Trust. In support of this I have published both in e-book and traditional paperback format a book under that title. PLANT A TREE 'TIL SEVENTY THREE

And here we have the perfect confirmation of the idiot geek failings at Google Blogger. The system will not alloow me to format the picture in line with the text. IDIOTS.

PLEASE would you have a look at my Amazon Profile - CLICK HERE and encourage me in my writing challenge ?

You can boy a book or two if you want but that is NOT what I am asking. I am seeking your support and words of encouragement as I am coing towards the end of the second year of the challenge.

I know I can not count on Goggle's support !

But will you encourage me ?