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I have failed a lot in my life.
Shit
Thinking about it now, my eyes grow moist at all the failures that I have gone through and not learnt from. I am a hard headed stubborn bastard, who sometimes needs to go through a experience more than once so it sinks into his head. And I know that is a major fault of mine.
I know it’s stupid. Its something that I am trying to change.
Learning from your mistakes is important, but not making any or seeing them ahead of you so you can sidestep them is even better.
This year I have tried my upmost to stop making mistakes.
And you know what.
I failed miserably..
We are only five months in this year and the growing list of mistakes I have made keeps on growing, and growing, and growing.
But last night, I battled with myself and stopped myself from making one.
I TOOK CONTROL AND STOPPED.
Now this isn’t going to be a speech about, motivation or achieving your goals or any of that bull. Its just one man’s thoughts on how we are all human. It’s just one man’s thoughts on the struggle it takes to change yourself.
This year my goal was and still is self-growth and change.
I accomplished a lot last year. But it was with 60% of my overall effort. Everyone else looking from the outside in, would have been amazed at what I had accomplished. But honestly. It was easy.
It was easy to write a book. It was easy to learn about this how self-publishing business. It was easy to get all my ducks in a row.
But what isn’t easy, is knowing within myself that I could have done better. I could have archived more. I could have grown more.
So as the new years starts proper, none of this January business. I have made a promise to myself that I will attack it like it owes me money.
An in a lot of ways it does.
Remember that what you do, is a lot more important than what you say.
I just have to remember that myself sometimes.
Until next time
Good Morning
Good Evening
Good Night16
Broken heart, broken mind, broken body…
Being left for dead, Perez must face his greatest challenge yet.
Survival. Simple for most, but not for him.
With Monroe in danger, all seems lost,
As an unknown angel finds himself closer to victory,
A victory that Perez knows will bring about
Many twists and turnns of events that could ruin them all.
Now, it’s up to Perez, broken and shattered, to find the courage and strength to save all that he holds dear, before the takeover.
It’s out!!!!
I am super excited and happy that my third novel in the Fallen Angels series is finally here. It took a little while to get out, but after I had edited the last word, I sat back with a smile on my face knowing that I couldn’t have written it any better. This book for me is my best work yet.
It’s double the size of the last two, and has more action, emotion, and heartache than the other two as well.
You can pick your copy from, Amazon.uk,Amazon.com,Kobo,Barnes&Noble.
Hope you enjoy it,
Until next time
Love and Peace
Y’all
Hello
The third book in the Fallen Angels series called Takeover will be out soon. (I know, I know. I had planned to get it out in feb, but life kicked me in the balls.) Anyway I love this cover, as you can tell by the picture the story is set in America. I had great fun writing it, and it was one of the fastest books I have ever written.
I think that the cover really delivers how action packed the story is, so I am happy with it.
P.S I am looking for a march release date, but keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming email giving you a firmer date.
Don’t be afraid to comment and let me know what you guys and gals think.
Hope you lot have a amazing day and speak to you soon.
Love and Peace
Y’all
Out on the 20th of this month, will be the second instalment of my Fallen Angels series. It is available on Kobo, Barnes&Noble, Ibooks, and Amazon for pre-order. If you like dark fantasy, action, and angels you will love this series. It also has a little bit of romance thrown in for good measure. If it sounds like your thing, give the first book in the series a try.
Below is the first scene, of the second book.
From the depths of a pocket, a sound began to emerge. It started off slow and faint, but just as a ticking time bomb had the power to silence a room, so did this sound.
In a wild panic, Hugo looked at Jabor. They exchanged looks, neither wanting to meet the other’s eye. They both knew what the sound meant, but admitting that to the other would show signs of fear. The faint ring seemed to turn into a deafening gong. Each stroke of the gong grew louder and louder; the sound found every space, hole, nook, and cranny. It spread its vibrations like tentacles in the darkness, eliminating the silence with sound.
“Let it go to voicemail, my friend,” Jabor said.
“And have to call him back?” asked Hugo in a panicked voice.
“By the gods, you do not want him calling back, a second time. I don’t think he ever has for anyone. Pick it up, like a Band-Aid. The pain only lasts for a second.”
“That all depends on who’s experiencing the pain,” Hugo remarked. “Hello?”
There was no answer on the line, only the faintest of crackles.
“Hello?” Hugo enquired one more time.
“Is it done?” was the only reply he got from the other end of the line.
There was a long pause, as Hugo tried to force his brain to work. He felt as if time had slowed down, as a million things rushed through his head.
What should he say?
What was he meant to say?
The truth or lie?
How best should he play this, so the repercussions fell as far away from him as possible? He needed to think; he needed to turn this into a victory.
His throat and mouth were dry, but his hands were sweaty and moist. Weird, he thought; it normally should be the other way around.
He shot a glance at Jabor, who stared back at him, emotionless.
“Those two imbeciles who were sent ahead completely botched the operation. I have never seen such incompetence in all my life. They found the location where they were keeping him, but failed to secure or dispose of him. We arrived a little too late to save them. But we saw the party in question taking him away. We were just about to track them, before you called.”
Again, silence. This time it was worse, because there would be an outcome. On one side of the coin held light, hope and a future; they might be chastised, but it wouldn’t amount to much and they would survive. The other side of the coin held utter darkness. The pit of trouble they would find themselves in would be a bottomless one. No way out, no light to give them hope.
“I see,” said the voice on the other end.
“Yes, everything should be resolved sooner rather than later. As I said, we are now tracking them, so it shouldn’t take long to have this matter resolved,” said Hugo in a rushed voice.
The phone almost slipped out of his hand. He caught it in time, hurriedly placing it to his ear.
“I see.”
“You can count on us, sir,” Hugo assured the voice.
“Can I?” came the reply.
“Yes.”
Flip, flip, flip. Ever turning, the coin spun and spun. Hugo could feel his heart pounding. His throat was so dry, it felt like a riverbed that had become cracked and caked in dust from the heat. He didn’t think he could utter another word. He didn’t think he could hold onto the phone any longer.
The coin landed.
“Good, then make it so,” said the voice from the darkness before hanging up.
Being an indie author or traditional author, or a mix of both called a hybrid author has never been better. We as writers have been gifted with so many gifts that, if it was back 10-20 years ago, many of us wouldn’t be writing. I know I wouldn’t. Just the amount of information that is at our hands, from making research easier, so we sound like we know what we are talking about, to just finding affordable and reliable editors and proof readers online, that can help to improve the work that we do.
The cover art I have for my first book Origins, is so beautiful that without the help of the internet and my team at streetlightgraphics, I would have never got it done. I can’t help but do a little dance every time, I see my book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I wrote that book a while ago, and it still hasn’t sunk in yet, that my fingers created a work of art that people from Brazil to Canada can enjoy.
I have read a lot of books and memoirs by guys that, wrote before the pre computer age, and it still amazes me at how skilled you had to be, just to put words to paper. You either wrote by hand or used a typewriter. The amount of mistakes you could make, must have been minimal or you would have had to write the whole thing out again, and again till you got it right.
I think that’s why you had so many masters of the craft back then. When you are putting in thousands upon thousands of hours, into your craft without the distraction of the internet or Facebook, you get a single determined focus that is hard to replicated today. (I still wouldn’t want to go through what they did, I love youtube to much.)
I feel blessed to live in this time, and be able to use all the tools that are available at my disposal to create what I want to create. Without any restrictions what so ever.
You as the author, have the power to choose your own cover, write what you want to write about, be it superhero books to erotica and release it in whatever stores that you want to release it in. We have absolute power in deciding our fates and the fates of the people we write about.
How can you not love that! If you are either a writer or a reader.
But there are some writers that are now complaining, about how hard it is to produce. I just don’t understand the logic behind it. If you mean that the kindle gold rush (shudder) is over, than this business was never for you in the first place.
Between 2010-2013, no writer could do no wrong because the lack of content that there was. You had new devices like the nook and kindle, but not a lot of data to fill them. So any homemade cover with a shitty blurb and no editing in sight, could be an ebook best seller. And with amazon in those early days, basically just giving away money to authors, like they were lap dancers made of gold, everyone was loving it.
But that could only last so long. Now after five years in, shit done changed. And only the cream rises to the top. There are a lot of blogs that tell you how to get their much better than mine, and like I said before, I want this blog to be for the readers. But the only word I will use to describe it all, is be professional.
You have to be professional, if you want to succeed in anything that you do.
And I am truly happy that it’s got to this point because, it makes the reading experience better for the customer. It only gives them the best stories to spend their hard earned cash and time on.
But regardless of all this, I still don’t think we have seen how big ebooks will become.
This only dawned on me when I released my new book and asked friends and family to download it. Many didn’t know that you could download the kindle app for free, on any smartphone or computer and use it. I still think we are only at the tip of the iceberg, and in the next five to ten years things are going to explode.
The younger generation will led the way in this, but man, I believe things have not yet even gotten started, on how big this whole thing will be.
Before starting this journey, there was never a doubt in my mind that I could write a book, or that I would make it as a full time author.
None.
Not one.
The reason is because, I have seen how so many other people have done it, and if they can do it, then I can do it to. I have read books, where I stopped 5% of the way in and thought really …. this is what you put out?
Success and luck isn’t something that only happens to the very few, you create it out of hard work and a lot of sacrifice. Writing is one art that you can get good at, by just practising over and over every day. I write every day because by doing that, it makes me better than the rest.
This isn’t like being good at a sport where if you don’t have a physical advantage, then you have no chance. Art is so subjective, that there will always be a fan base for whatever you do.
If you just practice that beloved art enough then you will make gains in it.
Stephen king has a saying that there are bad writers, competent writers, good writers and great writers. And that whatever category you fall into, you cannot become any better. But I believe that bad writers can become competent writers, it just takes time to practise and learn your craft till you are one.
Can you go from competent to good or great? I have my own thoughts on that, but I think thats another discussion for another day.
The one thing I know is this.
I don’t care if it takes me, 10, 30 or 100 books. I will have enough work out there that I can’t be ignored. And I can make a difference to the people’s lives that are in my life. All it means is that I have to grind it out, till I see the results.
One book at a time.
Origins is now free everywhere. Download it, love it, hate it, scream at it. If it invokes any emotion in you at all, I am winning in my eyes.
The worst piece of art, is the art that just makes you go MEH!
Anyway until next time folks.
Love and peace
Y’all
I fought readers would like to know why I chose to be a writer. It didn’t happen overnight, well thinking about it now, it kinda did I guess. Growing up I was a socially awkward kid without many friends. So the one way I got my entertainment was through books or video games.
Not being very good at video games, and sick of always dying and being stuck on certain levels ( I’m looking at you final fantasy) I fell in love with books.
I remember my first book, which started that journey for me. It was the Hobbit, it was a really old copy and for the life of me I can’t find it anymore, but that book sparked something in my brain that I couldn’t stop.
I kept on reading and reading everything that I could get my hands on. Till one day I said aloud, I wonder if I could do something like this. My first book was appalling and I remember putting it online in some writers forum and getting chewed out because of it. Thinking about it now, I can’t stop shaking my head and smiling at how terrible it all was. It was a rough and I mean rough first draft, but I didn’t know any better and I was just learning my craft.
Fast forward nearly ten years, and I am uploading a mobi file to Amazon into the great wide world. So far I have had no reviews, and I must admit awaiting for my first one is nail biting to say the least. I know the story is great, I just don’t know how it will be perceived. For me writing that book, uploading it and putting it out there wasn’t the harddest part. It’s waiting for that first review, good or bad I know I will just grow from it, but it’s still the waiting that is killing me.
So after I decided that I wanted to do this, the first thing I said was why. Well; no the first thing I said was am I good enough, but sooner or later the question popped up as to why do you want to do this. And the simple answer is, I want to craft something in the world that helps people. For me if it wasn’t for books, those wonderful stories that made my life a bit easier, I would have had it a lot rougher than I did. So for me, I want to write for you. I want to write for the person who is being bullied, or is going through a divorce, be it you or your parents, or someone who is dealing with an illness or a death. I want my words to take you away from all that, for the briefest of minutes or hours.
That when you finish at whatever chapter that you have read, you feel a slight sense of relief.
Fiction should never be a way for you to hide away from your problems. I learnt that the hard way. Whatever makes you miserable, I want you face that head on. Because once you do, you will be a stronger, better, person because of it. Don’t hide from it, embrace it. That’s one thing I wanted to address with my current series Fallen Angels. I didn’t realise the theme of the book before I started but as I continued writing, the theme slowly revealed itself to me. It was one of struggle, of pain, of defying the odds. Of fighting back no matter how strong and unbeatable the other side seem, and the more I wrote the more it become clear to me.
So if you don’t take away nothing more from my new series, than just some light hearted relief that’s ok. But I hope you find some words in there that can inspire you onto your own journey of greatness.
One thing I wanted to create above all else, is art. But when you say that to people they automatically think of a starving artist, hell even artist think that they need to live that life to succeed. They think that you can’t create something great without being in a lot of pain, or that living in some dirty flat where the cupboards are bare of food and you’re debating where to put your next pay check. In your stomach or in your art, and I don’t think that has to be the case.
I believe you need some life experiences to create good art, yes. But I don’t think you have to listen to every Hollywood depiction of it to get there.
I want to get paid for my hard effort, I put a lot of time, money and sweat into everything I create. And I wouldn’t feel right in asking someone to read it, if it wasn’t the best thing I wrote. In my eyes if I didn’t put out my best work, then I am wasting everyones time, and my time would be better spent doing something else. I take my craft very seriously, a lot of artist don’t and I think it’s about time that they did.
For me it all comes down to respect.
Respect for yourself.
Respect for your audience.
And respect for whatever craft, you decide to call your own.
Not everyone will be the next JK Rowling or Stephen King, but you should at least try to be the very best you can be. Stephen King had a great saying from on writing, there are bad writers, there are competent writers, there are good writers and then there are great writers.
If you can only be bad or just ok, be the best bad or ok writer that you can be, so when those reviews come in you can be happy in the knowledge that you did the best that you could do.
Fallen Angels is out for sale free everywhere: Amazon, Kobo, Barns & Noble, ibooks.
Get it you!!
You won’t be disappointed.
Hello, everyone!
Just to let you know that the first book in the Fallen Angels series, is now out everywhere for free. You can pick it up from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo.
Here’s a preview of the first chapter.
He was flying through the air like no other. Eyes closed, hands outstretched, feeling the wind glide over his body, the cool air hitting his face. He wasn’t frightened; why should he be? The wind was his friend, and he was flying with it, forever rising higher and higher, trying to kiss the clouds. He looked down and saw fields of green, the wind making them a rippling green ocean. He dived down, swooping as low as he could, lips just brushing the grass. This was how he was meant to be, free as the wind, soaring without a care, an everlasting smile playing across his lips.
“Can I have those documents by five, please, Perez?”
Perez shook his head from left to right; daydreaming again, and always the same old one. It seemed to creep up on him, waiting to catch him out when he least expected it or when he was merely bored.
Looking up, he saw Ruth’s expression was a mixture of annoyance and self-importance. Still waiting for an answer, his colleague tapped his desk in impatience.
“Yeah, they’ll be ready by then,” Perez muttered, trying to keep the boredom he was feeling from leaking out of his voice.
The sad thing was, Ruth was no higher up or lower down the company ladder than he was, but somewhere down the line he had stopped caring. People who shouldn’t be giving him orders had started to issue more and more demands as the years passed by. Everything was just so tiresome, life in general was blow-your-brains out, hang-yourself dull. So Perez found himself treading through life just remembering to breathe.
Looking up at the clock on the wall he give a shudder; another soul-destroying ten minutes before he made his walk home. Ten minutes felt like forty, but at least it was over; collecting his stuff he rushed towards the door. He looked to his left and could just make out Ruth striding towards him, eyes set on her prey.
He bolted out the door in a half-attempted jog and buried himself inside his coat, wrapping it around his body for warmth. As he looked up at the black December sky, a mixture of rain and snow hit his face, giving him the added benefit of being cold as well as wet. It was as if the weather couldn’t decide on what dress to wear for the evening.
Hurrying down the road, Perez passed the bus stop, where he would normally wait for his ride home. With the wind biting more and more chunks out of his face, he decided it was better to keep moving than to stand still. Home wasn’t that far anyway, and the walk would give him some much-needed warmth.
Tree branches, bare of all life, swayed back and forth, the wind passing through them sounding like they were mourning their lost, their branches flailing like hands trying to grab any passerby who dared to get to close. Walking on, Perez decided on a shortcut through the park; he might get a bit muddy but it would cut his journey by half. Head tucked into his coat, gloved hands in pockets, he marched forward, avoiding the eyes of dog walkers, the only ones who were out on a night like this.
It amazed him how people could bow down to their pets every whim and whimper, treating them with such loyalty and respect, but fail to do the same for their own kind. Still keeping a steady pace, he tried to remember another reason why he disliked dog owners, and all too soon his foot trod on the answer. With a sigh and a look to the skies, he walked over to the nearest park bench to see how bad the damage was. Grabbing his shoe with force he pulled it off, his foot now getting a soaking and slowly starting to go numb. Looking around him he located a patch of grass to his left, and hopped over, wiping his shoe clean as best as he could.
“Great night to be out.”
Trying to put his shoe back on a foot that was now a block of ice, Perez almost had a heart attack. The statement came from right next to him on the bench. He could have sworn that there was no one there a moment ago.
He turned to see who had spoken. Sitting next to him was a man with shockingly sliver hair. As the moon escaped the embrace of the clouds for just a moment, it looked as if it was reflecting it back. His nose appeared too big for his face, and try as he might Perez couldn’t work out his age. At one glance he seemed to be a man of middle age but at another he looked so much older.
But apart from the hair, the most interesting thing about him was his eyes. They were green pools that seemed to shine, knowing your darkest desires without you even speaking a word.
“I guess,” replied Perez, trying to end the conversion before it went any further.
Having successfully cleaned the shoe and wedged it back on the ice block that was his foot, Perez made to leave.
“Not the weather, for flying though.”
“Err…planes normally take off in a lot worse, but anyway I must be off.”
“That’s not what I meant, son. Dreams have a funny way of taking up your whole day, making you yearn for things that you wish to happen. Don’t you agree?” the stranger grumbled.
It felt like an icy hand had just passed through Perez’s stomach. Who was this man?
Just by saying those words the man seemed to know everything about Perez, without actually saying anything at all. Whoever he was, talking to strange men in a middle of a deserted park at night was just something you didn’t do.
He heard stories, and he didn’t want to become part of them. “Sir, you seem a nice enough guy, and I would like to chat, but I must really be going,” Perez said in a rushed voice.
The stranger rubbed his hair irritably. “Hear me out, son. If what I have to say is not to your liking, you may go.”
“Okay.” Perez didn’t know why, but looking into those eyes did something to him, made him want to know more. Plus he was wet now anyway and didn’t have anything to do when he got home, apart from watch television.
“I know three things about you. The first and most obvious is that you are unhappy with your life. I can tell that by the way you walk, shoulders slumped, head down, almost as if you have given up on the world and everything in it. Work drags on, like the slow dipping of a leaky tap that you can’t seem to ever turn off, and the monotony of every day seems to be slowly killing you, piece by piece.
“The second is that you dream about flying almost every day. No…no, don’t ask how I know this, all will be made clear to you pretty soon. But yes, like me and many others, you dream about the wind on your face, embracing you like an old, long-lost friend. But these dreams are as much a curse as they are a blessing. I won’t tell you why; sooner or later you will work that out for yourself.
“Lastly, you’re special. You may not believe it now, but trust me when I say this, you are special. What you are will have a lot of people come looking for you, to do you harm. But I am glad I got to you first.”
Perez stood still, just staring, shaking his head and letting little droplets of rain fly from his face. This man was clearly on some form of medication, he thought, and I just had to stay that bit longer, letting him engross me in a conversation. While all these thoughts flashed across his mind, he didn’t say anything. Catching himself, he wondered how long it had been since either man had said a word.
“Okay. Hmm, does anyone know that you’re out?”
“What?” replied the stranger.
“It’s going to be all right, I will just call the local services and they’ll have someone came and pick you up as soon as possible,” said Perez in a low and steady tone, as if he were speaking to a wounded animal.
“Listen, boy, I haven’t escaped a mental ward, nor am I crazy. But you need to shut up and come with me,” growled the stranger in reply.
With that he stood up. He wore combat trousers, with a long coat; a hood that he pulled up covered nearly all of his face. Both were a dull black mixed with grey, which blended into the night so well it was hard to make him out.
Taking a step back, Perez realised just where he was; this could turn ugly, and if it did, there was no one around to help. He felt like he could trust this guy, but the nonsense he was spouting, and the fact that they were in the middle of a deserted park, made all his senses scream at him to run.
“I need to go, people are expecting me back any minute now. But it was nice talking to you.” With that, Perez turned his back to leave.
“You are in danger, kid.” It was just above a whisper, but the wind carried those words on its back and along Perez’s spine.
“Sure, whatever you say, old man,” Perez replied before hurrying into the night.
I have always wanted to write, since I could remember.
Well that’s not true, I remember the first time the thought occurred to me. I was fourteen-fifteen, and had just finished the Hobbit. Before that I couldn’t read or write very well, that’s putting it bluntly I was basically illiterate. But this wonderful woman called Janice taught me the beauty of words and from there my reading adventure took off.
From The Discworld Series, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials Trilogy, The Farseer Trilogy, Boy, Going Solo and Down and Out in Paris and London. Just to name a few, I couldn’t put books down. I absorbed everything that I could get my hands on, some good, some not so good. But through all of that I had a tickling in the back of my mind, that maybe I could write a story like the ones I loved to read.
It wasn’t till almost a decade later, after many failed attempts that I actually managed to finish what I had started.
The reason I wanted to write was a simple one. I wanted people young and old to experience want I felt when I was reading a good book. Through all the hard times in my life, when nothing was seeming to go right and I didn’t seem to have anyone to turn to, a good book would always save me.
So I hope to accomplish that and so much more, when you decide to read one of my books. I want to take you away from your problems, worries, and troubles and just relax. Fall into a world where the minutes and hours fly past, and after you are done, you can lift your head above the water and feel good again.
This blog will not only be promoting my own stuff, but books I have read in the past which I think my readers will enjoy. Or books that I have just finished that I can’t stop raving about. Hopefully you will find them just as enjoyable as me, but be warned. I have a weird and varied taste when it comes to books (food as well), that will surprise many. I think it comes in fads. For a couple of months only, all I will read is superhero books, then the next it will be epic dragon fantasy, then Bigfoot fantasy. Joking on the Bigfoot fantasy by the way, is there even such a thing. Damn after Googling it, the Bigfoot fiction scene seems to be alive and kicking. I may have to try a book or two and see what it’s about.
Dammit! Now I want to write a Bigfoot book.
Now I forgot the point I was trying to make and have done down a rabbit hole….
A lot of writers, authors, novelist have websites that only seem to be catered to other writers. It seems to be a large thing in the Indie community, but my site isn’t going to be one of those. There a hundreds of other sites that will do a way better job, then I ever can on the in’s and out’s of the self publishing community. If you need a finger pointing you the right direction, just send me an email and I can forward you across a bunch of sites that can help.
No my blog/website is only for readers. People who love to be entertained and want to know what book they should put in the front of there queue. If you are one of MY READERS, then know I will do my upmost to make you happy, and always thank you for your time that you have invested in my work. Because without you, my art doesn’t live, it just sits there slowly dying.
I think thats one thing writers, film makers, just artist in general forget. Is that without you dear reader there wouldn’t be a need for any of us. Without you investing your hard earned cash, and more importantly your time, none of our dreams would come to fruition. So thats why I will try and respond to every email that I receive, every Facebook comment, or every comment on here.
I write in many different genres or am planning to, so I want you as a reader to know that from the start. There are so many different books that I am deciding to write, that I can’t just slot myself in one genre. In the months and years to come, I hope you come along with me for this ride because its going to be a fun one. Full of Angels and Demons, time travel, space ships and so much more.
So buckle up, because the ride is going to get bumpy.
Love & Peace
Y’all
Dominique Mondesir 