An early
career as a trainee banker led to a spell in London, where his pretence to be a
missionary converting the English fell on deaf ears.
Escape
to the Far East in 1980 opened up access to cultures and societies on a global
scale, eventually bringing the realisation that the world is simply one large,
extended village.
The
lifelong desire to write resulted in THE
VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY, the first in a planned series. Seumas’ sequel novel, VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK was launched in
early July 2012. The third, SAVAGE
PAYBACK, was released in late 2013 with at least two other books to follow
in the same vein. Ebook downloads on his novels exceed 70,000 to date.
Seumas
lives in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
Seumas is a committed blogger and in his guest post he explains why.
"…Mister Author, why are you Blogging
so much when you ‘should’ be Writing?...
…there’s a teasing wee topic headline for
yeez, eh?... I don’t expect to split the literary WURLD opinion down the
middle with it… nor create too much disharmony in the Quill-Scrapers Society…
however, let me ‘fess up… I have a kinda LUV/LUV relationship with the
whole nine yards of the writing ‘business’… like most of us, its
genesis is in the thought process prior to even scribbling or laptop-tapping a
single WURD of the masterpiece all the way through the tracking of Amazon
Kindle sales figures after the baby’s launched… in between, yeez have the
actual writing, the editing, the more editing, the proof reading, the
creating-the-cover-art bit, the boxing into Kindle format or whatever your
publishing channel poison of choice may be, and over-arching all of that
is the marketing and publicity effort, which is constant… yeez are
almost mandated these days as a self-publisher to immerse yerselves in the SOSYAL
NETWURKIN whirl… yeez Tweet and ReTweet until yer fingers are
falling off… yeez share like billy-o on Facebook, trying all the while
to avoid Master Zuckerburg’s Jail sentences for being too friendly with
yer kindred Webbies… yeez build up trillions of Goodreads Brownie Points
for indulgence in myriad ‘readers interest groups’… and with
whatever’s left of yer brain time, yeez sprinkle around in other assorted
linkages… presence, Mabel… it’s about presence…
this is where the Blogging becomes the master-key… the elusive missing
bit of the jigsaw… this ol’ Jurassic happens to use Wordpress to host
the blogging website… and it must be said, at first it was because Wordpress
is free… and being a true-tartan-bloodied Scot, the
not-having-to-pay-element was a prime attraction… then, as time wore on, lo and
behold, I was able automatically to connect every blog post to all my major SOSYAL
NETWURKS… from direct contacts of a mere 200 souls two and a
half years ago, the direct base has grown to 14,500+… not a bad
reason to Blog… and the more yeez Blog, the more ye’re reaching out to yer
global markets… but, wait… there’s more to it than that… reaching out is one
thing, but aren’t yeez supposed to be writing?... well, yes… in
the interim I’ve produced three crime thrillers and two Blog Post
anthologies/collections… and so far Amazon downloads exceed 70,000 to date… not
much wrong with these numbers… the attractions in producing the Blog continue…
the crime thriller scribbling can be quite intense… the little grey cells get
hammered incessantly… the attempted humour in the Blog is a healthy distaff to
that… and what’s developed?... the novels contain my ‘Author’s Voice’…
but the Blog carries my ‘Author’s Brand’… and finally, don’t let emb’dy
ever tell yeez that Blogging isn’t writing… condensing yer
thoughts into a limited amount of WURDS is great practice… go try it… yeez’ll LUV IT!…"
I am in the process of preparing a post on the subject of blogging and mutual self help for next week so, many thanks to Seumas. Great post and a great start to the New Year. Here's some links to Seumas and his books.
Click Here for Amazon U.K.
Click Here for Amazon U.S.
Blog :
seumasgallacher.com
Twitter :
@seumasgallacher
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/seumasgallacher
Email :
seumasgallacher@yahoo.com
If anyone would like to feature on this blog as a guest writer please email me at philiprowlands@ymail.com
Well it appears that the groupies who are retired school teachers, never lose that looking down the nose, attitude, at a new writer. Everyone is supposed to write, but seldom read. I started writing poetry, at age 11, and then quit, until after two marriages, and 2 children, and the drudgery of cleaning, driving, cooking, and screaming. I joined a group of women, with one English professor. I don't think I have the talent for intricate subjects, but dwell on what is in the heart. They are called " Ponderosa Writers Club." No it isn't in Nevada, but rather Ventura, Calif. I shall just read what you have to say.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. Hope I'm not included in the comment about retired school teachers! I also joined a local writers group and have found the experience very humbling. there are just so many gifted writers about. Keep writing from the heart!
ReplyDelete