Writing

HUNGER CITY – New Series

8 March 2016 by villia Leave a Comment

As many may know, I was about to finish my second novel at the beginning of this year. I sent the manuscript to six readers and gave them a deadline on 9 January to turn in their findings. I would then go about ironing out typos and inconsistencies, creating the final draft. Blood and Rain would be published somewhere in spring 2016. Nothing could change that.

Or so I thought. David Bowie has been a huge part of my life for more than 30 years. I studied his music as a teenager, immersed myself in his world. I was fascinated by his sounds, words and looks. He was different, somehow above the rest.

David Bowie died on 10 January this year. One day after the deadline and two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his latest (and last, we now know) album, Blackstar. I was devastated. It affected me more than I thought it could. A huge part of my life was gone. It was, literally, like losing a close relative.

January passed and I had no desire to revisit Blood and Rain. February passed and things were still not getting any better. I would look at the written pages and try to get into the world of Barcelona in 1937, but it felt distant. One day I will finish it, but first this…

We went to Venice on a mini holiday at the end of February. The masks were fascinating, the city beautiful. Something happened in my head. I remembered a line from a Bowie song.

The Diamond Dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees
Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal

And this.

But there’s a shop on the corner that’s selling papier mache
Making bullet-proof faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay

The Diamond Dogs wore white masks and went hunting for mutants. A story begun to form in my head. The story of a girl that is forced to leave her home on Poachers Hill and go back into Hunger City to find Halloween Jack. The story is writing itself. I sit here and I type, but almost feel like it’s being channeled through me. I don’t want to sit here alone and work on this in solidarity. I want to share it with the world now. One chapter at a time. Get your feedback as we get through the story. Discover the mysteries of Hunger City together.

This is not the story as written by Bowie himself. It is not a copy of his storyboard. This is a story about a girl that lives in the world of Hunger City. And yes, Halloween Jack will make an appearance later in the series.

Enjoy. Here is the link to CHAPTER ONE. A new chapter will be published every week until the story has been told.

State of Things

6 January 2016 by villia Leave a Comment

The blog is quiet on the surface, but don’t be fooled. Here is what’s up.

My second novel, Blood and Rain, is as good as complete. A few minor tweaks, then a bit of photography, cover design, trailer and a Twitter storm.

The site went offline in September 2015, as my hosting account was shut down. This was detailed in an earlier post. A quick summary, FatCow proved to have a horrible support department. They led me on for weeks before deleting my database. They kept saying it would be solved, or at least didn’t say it wouldn’t. Whatever, if you’re looking for a hosting solution, don’t look at FatCow.

Old posts I salvaged via WayBackMachine are being recreated and put up again. All comments are gone. I couldn’t get those. But most of the posts will be up in the coming days. All but the very last one from late summer 2015. They are gone forever. It’s a tedious affair, but I want my blog back.

So, see you very soon. I am looking forward to leaving the past behind and looking towards the future. A reader of my new novel described it as “beautiful”, so I’m itching to get it out there.

Under the Black Sand on Amazon

17 June 2013 by villia Leave a Comment

We are lift-off.

The wait is over.

Under the Black sand has been published in the Amazon Kindle store.

My debut novel has finally been made available to the world. But there is a slight issue. I had hoped to post one worldwide link, but that’s not how it works. I am currently in the Netherlands. To order it on the US site, I’d pay a premium. I can’t order it at all from the UK store. My best option is the German store. Any potential reader is forced to visit a store close by. Kind of defeats the purpose of electronic distribution, but who am I to argue with a massively huge international corporation?

So here are links to the three stores listed above. Please use the one closest to you or shop around for the lowest price.

Under the Black Sand on Amazon US
Under the Black Sand on Amazon UK
Under the Black Sand on Amazon DE

Thanks to any and all that follow the links, do the purchase and read the novel. Your interest is much appreciated.

Added 6 January 2016, a global link to the novel on

Micro Blogging

7 June 2013 by villia Leave a Comment

Not every blog post is created equal. Some are long, some short. But they are all meant to be read. And sometimes it can be good to throw a simple idea out in the open.

So here is my new experiment. Micro blogging on a mobile device and automatically sharing it on social media. Oh, how modern can one be?

Butterflies

7 June 2013 by villia Leave a Comment

I have been thinking about a new novel, now that Under the Black Sand is complete and online. All kinds of ideas fly in and around my head. But the moment I sit down at the computer, they vanish. Like the screen was radiating some erazor beams from space.

So I need to find a way to capture the butterclies before they get shot down.

Published – happy headaches

31 May 2013 by villia Leave a Comment

Finally! After seven years in the making. Under the Black Sand has been published. It is now available on Amazon for their Kindle devices. Publishing was easy and complicated at the same time.

Amazon encourages the author to price eBooks at $2.99 or higher, so I initially set that price. To my astonishment, it was listed for $6.04, twice as much as I bargained for. Let the investigations begin!

No pricing information was available on the UK site. Turns out that I can’t buy eBooks from the UK because I’m not in the UK. The US site adds all kinds of costs for non-US customers. I can buy it from Amazon Germany and France for the price I set. Somewhere around two and a half euros. Panicking, I set the price at 99 cent. I see it on Amazon DE and FR for 89 eurocent, but $3.62 in the USA.

Seems that one must buy from a store close by, something I find strange as this is an electronically distributed eBook. But hey, if those are the rules, I’ll have to live with it and create some kind of a links page here on my own blog.

Another annoyance I encountered was when I tried to have a physical book made. I wanted to use CreateSpace because that would put the book on sale on Amazon. Turns out, I need a US tax number. I am not a US citizen and don’t intend to become one. Seems like I’ll have to look into this as well. Registering with the IRS is a huge step for someone that expects to sell no more than a handful of books.

So, the book is out. It is available and that is great. But the road to global availability is not as straightforward as I’d hoped.

Come back soon, as I will post my findings as I dive deeper into this self-publishing world.