Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

Rampant corruption, low employment and high poverty are the unfortunate circumstances surrounding South Africa, the primary home of Earth’s last rhinos. Add to that a high Asian demand for their horns, and it equates to the perfect storm for their demise.

South Africa has lost approximately 1600 black and white rhinos in 2015 (unconfirmed by the government at this point). With poaching spreading like a plague, the death toll has risen dramatically each year, with this year topping all previous ones.

In a world where an animal’s horn is worth more than cocaine or gold, the solution to their survival is not an easy one. The answer is a multi-faceted effort of anti-poaching strategies to combat the “here and now”, legal change to make the consequence more dire than the greed, and education and awareness to secure the future.

For our group here in the United States, we support those…

It only took five years, but I recently worked out that my personal Facebook page didn’t have a cover photo. What could I put up there, I wondered, that might represent me fairly? Then I remembered this pic, taken at the end of a longish book tour:

It’s not how my office looks all the time, but it is how it looked that day – no styling involved – and I have to admit that tidy’s not my thing. Tidy, in this room, happens about once every two years when the junk load gets too much for even me to bear, and I devote a solid day to (sort of) fixing it, digging down through strata of junk until I hit, say, the fully loaded 1993 Bart Simpson Pez dispenser (Pez all crystalline and fused together …) or the two $2 notes I’m holding for two friends in connection with…

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, soon enough that one should begin planning now to make a success of it.  Since the high Middle Ages when Chaucer began to associate Valentine’s day with courtly love…

The Film:Whiplash

What’s It About? Andrew is a 19-year-old music conservatory student who is determined to become a great jazz drummer. His talent and fierce passion draw the attention of the school’s most intimidating teacher, Terence Fletcher, who believes that students excel not through praise and encouragement, but through relentless humiliation and fear.

Number of Oscar Nominations? 5

Will It Win?  J.K. Simmons is a dead cert to take home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his ferocious performance as tyrannical music teacher Terence Fletcher. Unless he throws a chair at Ed Norton or slaps Robert Duvall in the face, he can be assured that future trailers for films he is in will bill him as “Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons”. Simmons’s win might be the only Oscar that Whiplash wins. In the Best Picture category it faces fierce competition from another movie about creativity, Birdman, which…

A hundred times a day
I come to the conclusion
That I am not meant
For this world
And immediately after
Those a hundred times
I remember how it felt
To be loved by you
And it is solely that thought
Which keeps my feet
Firmly fixed
To this place I call home.

Let me quickly say: I don’t believe any writer should be following trends. That’s not what this post is about. However, I do believe that writers who want to get published traditionally need to have their eyes open to what the market is doing.

Why You Don’t Follow Trends

• Trends are something that no one can predict–especially when they end and you don’t want to be on the tail end of something when the booksellers are no longer stocking that “thing.”
• Trends are established years before anyone knows about them. With the year(s) of writing, contract negotiation, and production, by the time a book comes out it’s either starting a trend or with a trend that you have no idea about until it’s on the market. Therefore, trends are started 2 years prior.
• Following a trend is a quick way to date yourself and risk unoriginality.
• Agents aren’t looking for trend…