TARGET 91 is a fast-paced satirical novel about US gun culture.
It is my GREAT ADVENTURE!
You’ll find TARGET 91 on AMAZON USA, UK and coming to AUS.
Also KOBO, SMASHWORDS and Barnes&Noble NOOK and Apple iBook.
You’ll find TARGET 91 on AMAZON USA, UK and now in AUS.
Also KOBO, SMASHWORDS and Barnes&Noble NOOK and Apple iBook.
There are many twists and turns in the plot of TARGET 91. But with guns, sex and an outrageous (but fictional) National Gun and Shooters Association (NGSA) CEO ranting SHOOT THE LOONY LEFTIES, what’s not to like especially when the ‘LOONY LEFTIES’ start shooting back?
You’ll find TARGET 91 on AMAZON USA, UK and now in AUS.
Also KOBO, SMASHWORDS and Barnes&Noble NOOK and Apple iBook.
TARGET 91 is a SATIRE on American Gun Culture.
I didn’t just stumble across this theme. American Gun Culture has been the air I breathed ever since I was Annie Oakley with a cap gun as a kid. I sat cross legged on the floor watching TV shows from The Rifleman, Texas Rangers, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid …. and more. Many more.
I grew up on a Police Station in rural Australia where my father’s .22 rifle rested against the side of the fridge. He carried the magazine in his pocket. Our own car, an FC Holden – maroon with a white roof – was the police car. One time, Dad, actually blew the passenger’s window out of the car with that rifle. He was firing a warning shot over the heads of escapees and failed to notice the window was still wound up.
The ‘What if?’ question of a fiction writer for me was ‘What if anti-gun activists picked up guns?’ The plot of TARGET 91 exploded from that point.
You’ll find TARGET 91 on AMAZON USA, UK and coming to AUS.
Also KOBO, SMASHWORDS and Barnes&Noble NOOK and Apple iBook.
Because HUMOUR HAS THE POWER TO TAKE ILLOGICAL THINKING TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION.
TARGET 91 includes illogical and often hilarious thinking on both sides of this debate.
More at Penmore Press here.
You’ll find TARGET 91 on AMAZON USA, UK and coming to AUS.
Also KOBO, SMASHWORDS and Barnes&Noble NOOK and Apple iBook.
And here are some pics of The Andy Griffith Show (1960 – 1968). It was a sitcom with heart about a widowed sheriff, his small son and a dumb deputy. I grew up in a household that was the The Andy Griffith Show times 5 (there were 5 kids) on crack cocaine. Not that we took drugs. But my family was crazy enough without chemical intervention. I did write 3 best selling books about growing up on a small police station in rural Australia.
Michael O’Donnell
20th Rein 14th Batt, 1916
It is 100 years since the end of WW1. That seems like a long time ago. When I explain that my grandfather’s elder brother Michael O’Donnell was killed in that war at Bullecourt, France in 1917, the story loses the dust of history and sounds closer to us.
This is the story about a young man who was Court Martialed 3 times, held with enemy prisoners and finally allowed to go to war following a Senate Inquiry.
It is also a story about duty, loyalty and honour and how much we Aussies have changed today.
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Michael O’Donnell
Postcard 1911
Remembering 1910 March Melbourne to Bendigo
The sound that distinguishes Anzac Day from others is the bugle call. The solitary call of the Last Post reverberates down the generations as a mournful cry for the loss of war.
In the First World War it was the loss of so many young lives and for what? A toehold on some peninsula, a futile charge into no man’s land? The loss swept into every Australian household. Mothers lost their sons.
Young women lost brothers, boyfriends, lovers, husbands. And for fathers, adding to the pain of loss, was the bitter aftertaste of guilt summarised so succinctly by Rudyard Kipling, who lost his own son in that war:
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“If any question why we died/Tell them, because our fathers lied.”
Yet the generation of Australians who served in the First World War had qualities we no longer possess and this is our loss.
Read Full Article here: Echo of the Bugle
Read Edited article published in the herald Sun Anzac Day, 25th April, 2007: Echo of the Bugle
With 2 new books coming out within the next year I’ve been told by publishers to get onto social media. I found that online SMILING isn’t what it used to be.
4. Humour
Some thoughts on writing humour. It’s a tricky business. Current events can instantly kill humourous writing. If you write a funny piece about fear of flying, say, then a plane crashes, the article crashes too.
Readers can take personal affront to a joke. I once wrote a funny piece alleging that the group KISS were a band of aging rockers. They did wear those platform heels. Could be a bit dodgy as you age. I received quite a few outraged emails. The KISS army is out there somewhere still loyal and still marching on. Age shall not weary them, apparently. I’ve had highly critical letters stating that my writing lacked the restraint necessary for a civilised society. I didn’t realise I could cause the collapse of Western Civilisation by including the words ‘pissing yourself’ in an article.
But more than anything I loathe with a passion the HUMOUR section in a bookshop.
5. Rights
Some thoughts on Copyright. It is a tricky business. For instance, fair use laws apply in Australia for extracts and quotes, but what does this mean to a professional writer? (See Australian Copyright Council link below for detailed information) As a freelance author and journalist for over 30 years I am both the owner and user of copyright material.
Books and Newspapers: Can publishers rip off ideas you have pitched to them? Yes! Ideas aren’t protected except for the exact wording. In the early days I’d pitch an idea to an editor, who’d reply ‘We’ve already got someone on that story.’ As if they already had someone on a story about using car parts as garden features, an Aussie peculiarity.
Newspapers: Can articles be published without your permission? Not legally. Although I was a freelance journalist and other imprints in the newspaper group assumed I worked in house. If I found out they had published an article in print I asked to be paid. About 2/3 of original fee. Less for smaller magazines.
Online: I’ve had my own articles emailed back to me in a chain letter without my name on it. That’s what annoyed me the most, a friend sending me a chain funny saying ‘You’ll like this.’ ‘Yeah! I bloody wrote it.’
RULE OF THUMB: If your work is used in a commercial product of any form you should be paid unless you have waived the fee.
https://www.copyright.org.au/…/An_Introduction_to_Copyright…
COPYRIGHT USE: I’ve had a substantial quote used in a VCE year 12 exam. They didn’t ask for permission. But, maybe, for the sake of all students I should have asked for money to inflict some reverse pain on the examiners. Ha!
Recently, I was asked permission for a quote of mine to be used on a brass plaque in a bar in Malta. I didn’t think they needed permission, but I appreciated the request and, if I get to Malta, I reckon there’s a free drink waiting for me.
kerrycue 