What? You actually want my opinion?

 

I’ve spent my whole life reading. I have memories of living in West Germany as a little girl, where my father was stationed with the Air Force and the library on the air base was better than a sweet shop for me. We had no TV and our entertainment was the British Forces Broadcasting Service radio programmes, Barbie dolls (dangerous with a little sister who had a penchant for snapping off arms, legs and occasionally heads) and books.

Books were expensive even back in the 1970’s and the likelihood of getting something written in English where the national language was German, was remote. But the library on the base had them all lined up neatly on shelves, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, my heroes, wearing dustcovers and little plastic jackets to protect them from our tiny, eager hands. We went there on a Sunday after church but we had to be quick as the lunch would already be in the oven - my organised parents put it there before we left. There was no time to do proper choosing, it was just smash and grab, child style. It was the highlight of the week for me and sadly not always guaranteed. If Dad was on nights or working Sundays, we didn’t get to go anywhere as Mum couldn’t drive.

 

I remember once, getting home, scoffing my lunch and devouring Enid Blyton’s ‘Castle of Adventure’ for pudding. I couldn’t get enough of it. My mother refused to believe that I had actually read it all in that short space of time, coming upon me as I closed the back cover in sadness about two hours after lunch. I recounted the whole thing and she was probably sorry that she had asked, when I finally finished following her around the house four hours later.

 

But what is my point here?   
 

Well it’s basically that back then, nobody really cared if I liked the book and went back for the next one at the earliest opportunity. The publisher didn’t, the library just had it there and the author would never have known that she just make a little girl’s boring Sunday afternoon a whole lot better.

 

 

I started publishing a year ago, but only got my Kindle six months later as a gift from my mother. Up until then, I was still feeding my library habit, only I could choose six instead of one and didn’t have to pay my younger sister in household chores just to let me have her choose as well. Again, the library didn’t care if I liked my picks when I returned them, they probably measured their stats on how many times that book was issued, but they never actually asked ME personally if I had enjoyed it.

I always read the bit about the author in the back and love it when there’s a photo because I can see if they look how I imagined them. Maybe there were email addresses and website addresses but I had a book in my hands, not a computer and so I don’t recall ever looking anything up.

 

The world is different now. When I finish a book on my Kindle, a box pops up asking me if I want to give it a star rating. Amazon emails me if I ignore that and asks me what I thought of my purchase. As a reader, I’m bombarded by questions and asked for my opinion about somebody else’s work. It’s no longer that detached experience, it’s an interaction with a real person, who is going to see what I think and have an opinion on it. As a reader, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I like what I like and surely that’s nobody’s business but mine. Isn’t it?

As an author, I am ranked and rated and statistically examined a million times over, based on the reviews I get for my work. Some authors give away copies of their precious works in return for reviews which they may never get, knowing that the greasy pole which our books have to climb is aided by the solid opinion of our readers. Others cajole, encourage and resort to begging readers who perhaps agree cagily and then don’t, for a whole variety of reasons.

What seems to have happened in the last few years, is that readers who willingly and genuinely place reviews for every book they read, become hot property. Amazon and Goodreads both have lists of their ‘top 100 reviewers’. I do routinely review almost every book that I read nowadays, because I know that it’s important and even I have a rank as a reviewer - not a very good one yet, but it’s getting there. Authors used to be powerful people, able to influence the fabric of society, the perception of governments and the mood of the people. Now it’s readers.

With the click of the keyboard, a reader can place a review that either devastates or delivers hope to somebody who has put their work out there in the ether. There are no surprises (other than perhaps content) as the author will be eagerly awaiting that opinion. Some authors must check hourly for reviews. I’ve put up a review as a reader, only to get a notification from Amazon within minutes that ‘somebody’ liked my review and found it ‘helpful’. I know it’s the author, who else could it be? I’m going to time the next one and see how long it takes. I might even keep a book on it, in a light hearted, completely non-financially advantageous way, you understand.

A few reviewers really do understand the power of reviews. I have heard awful stories of reviewers deliberately trashing work which they haven’t even read, just because they can. They spend an afternoon dolling out one star reviews to random authors because it’s raining and they were bored. But I wonder if they get and keep that power, because not enough of the other readers out there, know that their opinion is wanted and valued, very much. Perhaps if the load was spread among the other millions, the corrosive influence of the few would be dispersed.

I’m not really sure what the answer is - I’m just musing as always.

I guess what I’m saying is that, if you are reading this and currently enjoying something on your iPad, Kindle or other device, just know that there is an author on the other side of that creation who is desperate to know what you thought. Yes you! They care about how your received their main character, what you liked or didn’t about the setting. Are you bothered that they killed off the lead actress at the end or did you hate her anyway? Did you want to marry the leading man or take out a hit on him and more importantly, when this author puts out their next book, will you be there? Do a 5 minute review. Let them know.



 

Reviews - What Goes Around, Comes Around


I’ve seen some really spiteful reviews out there in the ether, needlessly unkind words that have absolutely no relation to the work which some reviewers claim to have read, and hated. Until I began publishing, I had no idea that I was even meant to write reviews for the books I read - I guess it never occurred to me that anyone else would be interested in my opinion and perhaps that’s part of the problem. Nobody was - and now they are. In fact, an author will go to great lengths to get that reviewer’s precious opinion, in the dreadful numbers game that pushes publications further up the food chain because of the number of verified reviews.

Gutenberg Bible courtesy of Creative Commons
Wikimedia uploaded by Gun Powder Ma

Until a couple of years ago, I was happily getting books out of my local library and reading them, before just as happily returning them. The lady behind the counter would take them and put them back into the system, not even remotely interested in whether they had met my expectation or if I had failed to get beyond the first chapter. I wasn’t awfully inclined to hand them over with, ‘Thanks, that was really great, I read it in the bath,’ or, ‘I didn’t like all the expletives in that one’ (opens page to make point) ‘I don’t suppose you know what that swear word actually means...?’ She wasn’t interested in the minutiae of my reading experience, what I thought of the cover or blurb and she definitely wasn’t passing on any of my inane observations to the author.

Now we live in an age where the author is not just someone remote; that photographed gentle looking soul on the back page who wrote the book in your hand, but with whom you can have no meaningful interaction. They are accessible, their email address and website is in the back of their work, you can get in touch, compliment or abuse them and walk away largely unscathed. You can follow and un-follow them, like and unlike them, scour their lives and find out personal things about them. It’s all out there and in their eagerness to engage you, the reader, they handed it all to you on a plate in short bios, comments on Facebook, posts on Google+ and throw away comments on Twitter. You can have an opinion on what they wear, where they go and who they go with, in addition to that all important critique of their latest piece of work. You can extol or rubbish it as you so desire, depending on what mood you’re in or how much you enjoyed the thing they pulled out of their head for your pleasure alone.

Old book bindings at the Merton College Library
Picture courtesy of CC Licence Tom Murphy VII

Just scrolling down random reviews on Amazon, I can tell you now that there are some horrible things written about novels which were published with the best of intentions by good people full of hope. Things like, “Hated it. What a load of rubbish...” “Just couldn’t finish it...” “He’s mad if he thinks that’s literature...” and yes, maybe good money was spent on something that wasn’t really print ready and the author needs a bit of a kick into reality, but surely there are nicer ways to do it? I have to balance the thing out to be fair, as I also saw some really helpful comments too, “An awesome storyline but the book needs a really good editor...” “Some parts of this novel weren’t very realistic and it lost its believability for me when...”

Good on you, those awesome people who put up a review at all and bravo to those readers who, instead of ranting about their wasted 99c, actually gave some helpful pointers to the author. We’re so full of our own sense of ‘me’ as a society, that it’s suddenly become ok to say, ‘I hated that book,’ but not why. If you take something back to a shop, you give a reason if you’re expecting your money back, ‘It didn’t fit me, it didn’t look right on, it made my butt look like HMS Interloper.’ You wouldn’t get away with saying to a shop assistant, ‘I hate it. It sucks.’ If you’re unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire of someone else’s family dispute, they’re really quick to tell you why they don’t like that particular family member. Believe me, they can go on for hours. Anyone who’s ever watched Jeremy Kyle or in the olden days, Jerry Springer, try and mediate between two raging forces who can’t even remember how it all started, knows all about the ‘why’s’ of arguments. If you get a horrid cup of coffee and paid NZ$4 for the pleasure and have the courage to take it back to the barrista, rather than sneaking out and leaving it on the table, you can’t just say, ‘I hated that coffee,’ because they’re bound to ask you what in particular was wrong with it. So how come it’s alright to tell someone that their book sucked, in public, on the internet for all future customers to see for time immemorial, but not tell them honestly why?

I had a bad review recently and it actually rocked my confidence initially. A book that had been getting only 5* reviews from perfect strangers suddenly had this 3* thrown at it and why? Well, I honestly couldn’t tell you. There was nothing coherent about the review that gave me a clue, other than that the person just didn’t like it. That’s ok but it would have been helpful to know what in particular they didn’t like. They raved on about nonsense really, not getting parts of the plot which, when I checked again were clearly explained and accounted for and they even used the wrong name for one of the characters and misunderstood the location of the whole book. So whilst they had admittedly damaged my poor book’s stats without just cause, I had to dismiss the review as the strange ramblings of someone I would probably rather didn’t ever buy any of my novels again.

Some reviews are so downright unhelpful, it makes me wonder about the kind of people who bother to place their fingers over the keyboard and type. One novel I bought recently was ruined for me because the reviewer decided to blatantly reveal the ending. (Note to self - never read reviews when you’re half way through.) I mean, why would you do that, destroy the ending for everyone else just because you thought it was rubbish? And some of them are so littered with grammatical and spelling errors, I wonder if they are even qualified to be commenting on the quality of somebody else’s work.  

I think the moral of the story is to do what our parents told us when we were kids:

Think before you speak...only in this case, it’s think before you type.

Some salient questions before pressing ‘submit’ for that mean review:

1. Am I being deliberately personal?

2. Did I give this novel a fair go?

3. Have I been reasonable in my criticism and offered examples to back it up?

4. Have I listed at least one thing that the author got right?

5. Would I stand in front of this author and be prepared to read my review out  
    loud to them, when I can see their reaction?

If you can’t think of even one nice thing to say, then perhaps you aren’t reviewing with the right heart, but are just needlessly assassinating another person’s work for the sheer fun of it. In which case, don’t expect to be taken seriously and if you are an author trashing another author’s work, don’t be surprised when what goes around, comes right back to bite you.

 

   

 

My tiki tour of the Waikato - beautiful Ngaruawahia

Ngaruawahia

Pronounced, Na-ra-wa-hia.

See, it’s really not that hard to say, but it is just one of the Maori names that gets absolutely mangled in the telling. I remember looking at the signpost the night we passed through Hamilton and ended up too far north and thought, ‘I ain’t gonna be saying that out loud’. But after ending up living here 5 years later, I really can’t see what the problem was.



Turangawaewae House in Ngaruawahia

Ngaruawahia was - and still is - a Maori stronghold within the Waikato. It is the home of the Maori king and the seat of the Kingitanga movement, which first sought to establish a Maori royalty from amongst the tribal leaders. Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, the first Maori king, was crowned in Ngāruawāhia in April, 1857. Tuheitia Paki held his coronation at Turangawaewae Marae,  following his mother's death in 2006 and is the current monarch, internationally renowned as the king who said ‘no thank you’ to being visited by William, Kate and baby George Windsor recently.

Despite the city of Hamilton’s sliding climb north as part of its great expansion, this tiny town predates it by more than two centuries. I always thought that the name meant ‘the twin rivers’ because the town is situated on the exact location where two significant rivers, the Waipa and the Waikato converge, becoming the fearsome and Mighty Waikato. That just shows what I know, as it apparently means, ‘The opened food pits’ - Wāhia ngā rua.

The Point, Ngaruawahia

In the 1600’s, tribal law was paramount and so, when a Ngati Tamainupo chief and a Ngati Maniapoto woman decided to elope and join the Waikato tribe in Ngaruawahia, it was a factor in the disunity between the Waikato and Ngati Maniapoto tribes. When the first child of Te Ngaere and Heke-i-te-rangi was born, Ngati Maniapoto were invited to come to the celebration, which must have been a very tense moment for all. Te Ngaere’s father honoured the visiting tribe by naming the tiny boy, Te Mana-o-te-rangi and they accepted the attempt at reconciliation. Legend has it then, that Te Ngaere shouted, ‘Break open the food pits, Wāhia ngā rua’ referring to the traditional hangi, which is an underground pit where food is cooked and the name stuck, albeit slightly reversed. The sharing of food is hugely important to a hospitable culture such as Maori, who pride themselves on their care of visitors and it would have been a feast to behold. If you ever get the opportunity to eat hangi food, then do so. It is incredibly nice and I just love the smoked taste that it has.

Seeing as Ngaruawahia's name involves a hangi, I should probably explain what one is, but please don’t be put off by my description. First a pit is dug in the ground, a fire is lit in the bottom, huge stones are heated over it and then baskets of food are placed on top, meat at the bottom and veggies on top. The hangis I have been to, involved quite a lot of tin foil, which clearly isn’t traditional material, but there was also a goodly covering of sack cloth before the earth went back over. It was left for several hours and then dug up and we tucked in. Whilst on exchange to Calgary University in Canada, my daughter and another New Zealander sought permission to do a hangi for a ‘celebration of cultural foods’ day, thinking that it would be awesome to demonstrate something significant from their homeland. Sadly the Uni wouldn’t give them permission to dig the hole on campus and so alas, they had to think of something else. But I can promise the students of Calgary - you seriously missed out!

With our usual audacity, following the English invasion of the Waikato in 1863, British Imperial Forces renamed the town ‘Newcastle’. Latterly this explains some of the street names, such as Durham Street, but the name never stuck and Ngaruawahia determinedly stuck its chin in the air and shucked off the insult. My Hana Mystery Series is partly set in Ngaruawahia. Hana Du Rose purchased her home in the Hakarimata Ranges and ventures into this small town on numerous occasions. Her next door neighbour, Maihi, is related to most of the people in the town and through the 'cuzzie's grapevine' keeps her finger very much on the pulse of everyone's business. My characters are fictional but hopefully, epitomise the kind of Maori welcome and sense of belonging which we have been fortunate enough to be drawn into.


My Rahui Pole

When we first announced that we were moving here, the people of Hamilton would shake their heads and wish us well, expecting us to be robbed, gunned down or just disappear without trace within the first few months. We toddled off up here into the back of beyond and have never been happier. Early every Saturday morning there is a street market, where you can get your veggies and your plant cuttings, numerous arts and crafts or just buy second hand clothes. Or if you so desire, you can eat from one end of the main street to the other and then go home calling it ‘breakfast’. We love it here. There are regular craft markets and the sense of community means that there is always something going on down at The Point.


Main Street, Ngaruawahia

I once mentioned to a local resident, how much we enjoyed living here and how I felt that I had to put some of the myths about Ngaruawahia to bed, amongst my Hamiltonian friends. She grabbed my arm in horror, whilst putting her finger to her lips, “Don’t do that!” she cried. “We don’t want them all living here!”

I’ve had the privilege of being welcomed onto Turangawaewae Marae and enjoying a powhiri and a hangi there. Photos are prohibited once on the marae but I can promise you that it is beautiful, the tour was awesome and the sense of love that the elders have for the town and for their history is deep and genuine. The land on which my house is built was once owned by Te Wherowhero, the Maori king, confiscated by the defeating English. The curse has long since been removed by the kaumatua, as our guide reassured me, but there are dark areas around which still hurt from the bloodshed and the injustice. A paddock nearby, where my youngest daughter and I used to ride our horses, definitely contained something bad. If one of the horses was going to go loco, it would be in that paddock. If someone was going to fall off, it would be there. We stopped riding in it eventually, despite the fact that it was perfect in every other way. As a Christian, I walk and pray over our boundaries with my Rahui pole regularly, a piece of driftwood found on the riverbank of the Waikato at the edge of our property and inscribed by me, with the words of Psalm 90:9-11. Without exception, every Maori I’ve met has been respectful of my Christian beliefs. But it’s a fool who mocks and does not take seriously the spirituality of Maori and show it a healthy respect in return.

Until I took the above photograph, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, of the main street in Ngaruawahia, I had overlooked the influence of the Hakarimata Ranges. They are just there, quietly in the background, channelling a damaging north-easterly wind during winter and ensuring rain when our water tanks get low. I have been soaked in the ranges when the rest of the Waikato has been drought-dry and nobody would believe the 5 hours of soaking which I had shared with 2 class teachers and 60 wet Year 5’s. From that day onwards, my daughter’s teacher was nicknamed, Mr Noah and could never get parent helpers for a day out. Hamilton had enjoyed a lovely, dry, sunny day.

Near the police station, Ngaruawahia

There is water in most directions in Ngaruawahia. Bisected by two rivers, the Waipa and the Waikato, it’s not that surprising. It is a beautiful, peaceful town, steeped in community and history. Oh...but don’t tell anyone, will you?

#tourism
#NewZealand
#paradise

Hamilton - A tiki-tour of the Waikato, New Zealand where K T Bowes sets her novels.



Marker located outside the Council Offices next to Hamilton's statue

Hamilton or Kirikiriroa, which is its Maori name, is 150 years old in 2015. Surprisingly, despite its massive size, it does not predate the smaller Maori stronghold of Ngaruawahia, but developed as a result of the Waikato Wars and the terrible English ravaging of this part of the country. The town began on the banks of the mighty Waikato, named after Captain Hamilton as a garrison settlement where the soldiers were allocated an area of 2 acres each on which to make a home at the end of the war, kept in New Zealand as a peace keeping force. The land was largely swamp and of poor quality and records show that the population dropped at one point, to as low as 300, as farmers left their unworkable land in desperation and disgust.

150 years later and Hamilton, or Tron as it is mockingly called by residents, is a sprawling metropolis containing over 150,000 people and is still growing. Most houses now are fortunate if they can claim more than 600m2 as a property size and the rash of high density housing has spread like an infection. It is the 4th largest city in the country.

Captain Hamilton's statue

When we first arrived at Auckland Airport, armed with a suitcase each and a one way ticket, we travelled around the North Island and noticed that Aucklanders in particular were scathing about Hamilton. We were told on many occasions not to bother going there, but to take State Highway 1B and avoid it at all cost. So we did. After an unhappy trip to Wellington, which was where we thought we were headed but on arrival decided that it wasn’t for us, we arrived in the Waikato, almost by accident. Needing petrol for the camper van we ventured into the city and were not disappointed. We actually loved it on sight and it was the strangest feeling. We were exiles, thousands of miles from where we had begun and yet it felt like coming home. We stayed and haven’t regretted it.



Hamilton Central Library, Garden Place

For most of the year, the Waikato is beautifully green, boasting every hue and shade that nature can provide. Droughts in recent summers have made it dash back to the colour wheel to borrow ochre and brown, but even then, it is still a stunning area of the country. Hamilton was originally a farming community, dominated by the dairy industry and it largely still is, although nowadays it also boasts a world class university and polytechnic. Where once, poor Tron was sneered at by the dominant Aucklanders, now the northern suburbs of the town have become the home of Auckland commuters seeking a greener lifestyle, cheaper housing and different choices in schooling than those offered by the metropolis. There is rumour of a decent commuter train within the next few...decades perhaps?When we first decided to settle in Hamilton, my husband and I paid a visit to the local transport office, seeking a bus or train that he could use to commute to Auckland each day, which would increase his options for employment. We were told by the ticketing staff, with completely straight faces, that there was a bus to Auckland from Hamilton every day at 5pm and the Overlander Scenic Train (steam driven on special occasions) passed through once, around lunchtime. We walked away stunned and shell shocked, after a life in which my husband had commuted regularly to London from the Midlands for work on an Intercity 125. We felt like aliens in a strange land.



Fountains in Garden Place

The suburb of Flagstaff was our home for 5 years and it is the setting for many of my novels. Our house on Achilles Rise lent itself easily for so many different scenarios, providing the location for Hana Johal’s home in About Hana and also that of Sophia Armitage in Free From The Tracks and Sophia’s Dilemma. It was a beautiful, sprawling house which was also used in the movie, Havoc. The film producers animated blowing the house to smithereens, which was quite disturbing to watch. They promised that they had faked turning on the gas and wedging a piece of cardboard into my toaster before setting it going, but I would like it on record that the toaster never worked again and had to be replaced! The filming process also began with ‘Please may we use your garden?’ which quickly escalated into, ‘Will you be going out soon as we would like to film indoors?’



Host of eateries outside Centre Place

The all-boys’ school that Hana works at is based in Fairview Downs, an eastern suburb of the city, but is modelled on Church College, the secondary school owned and run by the Church of the Latter Day Saints. The college closed down shortly after we came to Hamilton but I was always fascinated by the dynamic of it and loved the openness of the buildings and the beautiful location. When writing the novels in which Hana is an administrative assistant in the Student Services Centre of the school, Temple View was too rural a location for the kinds of things that the boys and staff got up to and so I exercised my artistic licence and moved it more into town.

Casabella Lane

Hamilton town centre is a bustling hive of activity, boasting wide, open streets and covered sidewalks. Much of the Waikato is surrounded by imposing mountain ranges which protect Hamilton from earthquakes, hidden as it is in a river basin. It is probably one of the most geologically sound places in New Zealand and many businesses have their contingency units and back-up offices housed in the city. We could potentially survive a good shake here, but would be undoubtedly cut off from the rest of the country.

For five years Hamilton hosted the V8 Supercar races, which ran through the city streets for a whole weekend. The central city roads were turned into a racetrack in the weeks leading up to the event, and there are very few people in the town who don’t smirk wistfully at the memory of lining up at the traffic lights on Mill Street, neatly parked behind a freshly painted, white starter line, revving for all they were worth. I did it once, in my old Toyota Estima, laden down with four bewildered children, revving loudly just like everyone else, including a policeman in the lane next to me. The lights turned to green and with a gallant salute, the cop sped off leaving me stalled in the inside lane, having ruined everyone’s turn at a speed start.

The city is dominated by the Waikato River which cuts right through the centre of it. It can make getting from one place to another particularly interesting, especially in rush hour as you have to make sure that you have factored in bridge crossing to your journey.



Bridge to Bridge race on the Waikato River

An hour and a half to the east will get you to the sea and 45 minutes to the west will have the same effect, only Raglan and the west coast has unusual black sand because of the high iron deposits in it. Our first visit to Raglan left us speechless initially, as a small child came up from the beach completely covered in wet black sand. It looked like he had been rescued from someone’s chimney and it is quite hard to get used to at first. The great thing about it, is that you can see the sand to vacuum up out of the car, instead of just having to feel for it but the downside is that it gets incredibly hot in the sunshine as my mother-in-law discovered, when she actually burnt her feet!

Anglican Cathedral on Grey Street

A little over an hour away north is Auckland and to the south is Rotorua, Taupo and the whole of the King Country to play in. It’s really central and has the reputation of being an ‘events’ town, hosting Field Days, Equidays, Parachute Music Festival and many other myriad concerts and spectacles. The Bridge to Bridge water-skiing competitions are great to watch and when there is nothing else booked, the Saturday market held in the underground car park on Bryce Street is guaranteed to be buzzing or alternatively, the various Farmers’ Markets around the city.

Hamilton is an incredible place to bend into novels, which is why I love it so much. There are always streets to describe and car chases to conjure up. Local readers have told me how much they love reading about places they know and have visited, which is partly why I keep the street names as they really are and describe actual buildings that I know well.

My novels, particularly my Hana series are completely and utterly pure New Zealand. They couldn’t be set anywhere else. They are a taste of the complicated culture that I live, breathe and work in and it’s my feeling that, if I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, why on earth wouldn’t I invite my readers in - and show them around?

 

An Insider's Tour of New Zealand - The Hakarimata Ranges

I love living in New Zealand. Having said that, I loved living in England. You know what they say - you can take the girl out of England, but not England out of the girl. Apparently I still sound English and I’m told occasionally that I look English (whatever English looks like) but I am very at home here. It’s incredible to look around you and see a natural feast for your eyes in every direction, whether it’s looking across at Mount Ruapehu, especially when it’s blowing its stack, or across the black sand at Raglan beach towards the green tinges of the Tasman Sea.

Tourists always look at me wistfully when, faced with their 24 hour plane ride home, I smugly inform them that I live here. There is something wonderful about having the front door key to paradise.

 

I thought seeing as I am fortunate enough to be here, I would run a blog series about my specific area of New Zealand, namely the Waikato. People are always asking, “What is it like there?” so I will do my very best to show you - if you’re interested.

When I look out of my back windows, I can see the mighty Waikato River running past. It is the largest river in the North Island and was used by the English during the Waikato Wars in the 1800’s, to sail their gunships along and blast the snot out of the poor Maori strongholds along its banks. It seems to be a forgotten fact nowadays that the Maori were only trying to hold onto land which had been theirs for generations.

From the front windows, I can see the Hakarimata Ranges, 1850 hectares of native bush covered mountain ridge, which many tourists drive past and notice, but sadly not many climb. I guess it’s not as popular as a volcano crater, or a waterfall, or a large plastic ball rolling down a steep hill with people inside it. It’s off the beaten track really, accessed from the wrong side of the river to State Highway 1 and to be honest, you have to really want to go there. Its highest point is the summit of Mount Pirongia and it also incorporates Taupiri Mountain, where the Maori royal family is buried.

 

My Hana Mystery Series is based here. Hana’s house was incorporated into the mountain range and she regularly visited the little town of Ngaruawahia, which nestles at the foot of the range, at the point where the twin rivers of the Waipa and the Waikato merge and swell to massive proportions. She visited the pharmacy there in the second book, 'Hana Du Rose' and was almost caught by her pursuers in the main street near the video shop.

The Northern Lookout of the range is accessed by a series of gruelling wooden steps, which account for most of the climb. It’s not a steady stroll uphill, but more of an intimidating step workout and not for the faint hearted. Don't be fooled. It’s likely that whilst climbing it, you can be forgiven for thinking every step is your last and that you would cheerfully brain the sprightly chap who just overtook you, running at a steady smack with his headphones on loud and a bright, happy wave at your overheating, sweaty face. But there comes a point at which you aren’t quite sure which is nearer, the bottom or the top and that is truly the worst part, because quitting is humiliating, especially when that guy laps you on the way down as well and knows that you didn’t make it. (For the record, that guy is usually my soccer referee husband who uses it like a time trial. I’ve told him that people hate it when he smiles at their pulsing, agonised faces, but he won’t listen. He just argues that to give him a slap, they’ll have to catch him first.)
The climb is well worth it. The Waikato River opens out in front of you like a ribbon, trailing north through Huntly to its union with the sea at Port Waikato. It’s simple beauty at its very best. Its the experience of nature enfolding you. I've been up there when it's been sheet rain elsewhere and gusting winds of horrific proportions, but inside you become cocooned within the canopy and would hardly know that it's blowing a gale outside. There is a Kauri Loop Walk, but it’s probably best to do that on the way down as you can look at the native specimens without hallucinating and read the descriptive boards without your pulse thudding in your head. There are some awesome trees tucked away in there, which are well worth a visit. Kauri’s are unique in that they grow straight up towards the light, shedding lower branches as they grow. A plank of kauri should not have a single knot in it, which is why Maori used them to make their canoes or waka. A good waka will be unadulterated by any other product, created completely from kauri wood and lacquer made from kauri gum.

The Hakarimatas can be walked from end to end, along a Department of Conservation track. It’s meant to take about 7 hours, but my Youth Search and Rescue daughter did it in 5 with a group of friends, just because they could. Having said that, I’ve been up there with her before and because she understands what’s hazardous and what isn’t, she eats from the bottom to the top, grubs, leaves, shoots. I just can’t bring myself to do more than just nibble a pepper tree leaf. I will stick to my museli bar, thanks very much!

It is well worth a visit, even just for the views. There is nothing flash about the gravel car park or the typical New Zealand long drop toilet, but if you want authenticity in this beautiful land, you will definitely get it here.  

An Ingenious Creation for sure

The Gullwing Odyssey by Antonio Simon Jr is very different to anything else that I have read in a very long time.

 

It is quirky, gripping, twists and turns back on itself cleverly and is hilariously funny in a very dry witted kind of way. I absolutely loved it. I read it in hospital, waiting for my daughter to have emergency surgery and it should definitely have been harder for the author to engross me in anything - yet he managed it.

I loved the character of Marco Gullwing. He is adorable in a very clutzy, accidental kind of way; the very unlikeliest of heroes and yet he entertained me from start to finish. A lot of what he thinks or says is so tongue-in-cheek, that it is hilarious and it caused me to keep laughing out loud in a room full of acutely sick people. I’ve read lots of novels where people are ‘marked’ in some way and given some kind of magical gift, but this was wholly original and the gift is plain bizarre. I think I cried with laughter throughout the scene where Marco and Alexis compare their ‘marks’. Ward 17 at the Waikato Hospital now hate me!

There is such a strange eclectic mix of personalities that the whole thing moves on elegantly, carrying the reader with it. The character of Barclay has a very strange and warped view of life, which is almost Christian but not quite and his peculiar rules and regulations reminded me of some people I’ve met on occasion, which is possibly what made it even funnier. I loved that there were dragons, but that they were portrayed completely differently to the usual and I admire the dynamic of the whole thing. I could never have guessed the ending, but really appreciate how it was wrapped up. When I picked this novel up, I mistakenly thought I was getting some kind of Sinbad the Sailor story retold, but it was much, much more than that. I certainly didn’t expect ingenious and I wouldn’t have banked on hilarious or deeply thought provoking, but that was exactly what I got. This novel is like a parody of all the annoying, deeply irritating, strange, ineffectual and incredibly likeable people you have ever met.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Gullwing-Odyssey-Antonio-Simon-Jr-ebook/dp/B00F8OVB8I/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395535728&sr=1-1&keywords=the+gullwing+odyssey

Meet Liquorice, he's really worth knowing and he doesn't talk back...

I got myself a bit hemmed in lately. I didn’t think it was ‘writer’s block’ - I’m actually not really sure what it was. I was very grateful to March McCarron for her blog about suddenly and inexplicably being unable to write; because that helped to clarify some things for me as I grappled with the slippery slope of a similar phase.

I know it’s psychological, I wouldn’t have needed anyone to point that out. One minute I was frantically reading for review, churning out encouragement (hopefully it came across as that) doing random book swaps on Amazon and tapping away on my keyboard as though it was as necessary as oxygen and the next minute, I had ground to a dreadful halt on all fronts.

I did the garden instead. I dealt with a lorry load of weeds in our 1.3 acre block and created a flower bed out of thin air in the front garden. I stocked it, edged it and mulched it with apparent mania, in between work and living - somehow - but I didn’t write a single word.

I left work with enthusiasm each day, knowing that I had a few hours in which to pour out some thoughts and then watched TV instead, baked weird and wonderful casseroles and walked around picking up bits of fluff off the carpet. I moved the standards and tape so that my daughter’s horse could have more grass, even though he rather liked licking the back of my husband’s shed and I stroked him for hours. But I didn’t write.

‘Demons on her shoulder’ was practically finished. I had done the hardest part, pounding out the plot, the characters and the speech, first editing it and adding description as though my life depended on it. All it needed was roughly finishing and then sending off to my trusted beta reader, who I knew would also loosely give it its first proof as well. I mean, with Word documents nowadays, I wouldn’t even have had to find the place I was previously up to, because a little box would appear in the right hand corner, stating where I had left off and asking me if I wanted to go back there. Usually it would be a time in hours, at the most, days, but I knew this time, it would remind me that it had been a few weeks.

I’m still not completely sure what happened. I know that some neighbourhood problems had sparked a spirit of fear in me, coupled with the slowness of the cops to deal with it. Some help with the cover of ‘Artifact’ and some good advice from author, Abby Vandiver, had shot it to the top of its category as a bestseller. Hot on the heels of the initial ‘wow’ feeling came some other emotions; do I deserve that? Is it good enough? What if I can’t write like that again? Should I stop doing this before the criticism starts?

Then came some awesome 5* reviews for ‘Artifact’ which brought pleasure and again, fear. Suddenly with the ‘bestseller’ tag, my social media following grew and even random tweets were instantly retweeted, favourited and highlighted. It was exciting and then frightening; I’m not that interesting. I don’t say anything clever. What do people want from me? What if I can’t deliver?

Writing ‘Demons’ was exhausting. It didn’t begin that way. It was just a simple, ‘who killed the mean vicar’ mystery but maybe God had other plans and it quickly took me to places I really didn’t want to go; will readers, reviewers judge me for this? Will they think it’s accurate or that I just talked to some folks and made notes? How do I possibly write a blurb for this kind of novel, when it’s not what I started out to write? What if everyone hates it? What if nobody else understands what it’s like to run away from who you are? Is my work me, or am I, it?

Some things had to change and I wasn’t sure what, but suffice to say that I realised Fear was my biggest enemy. I came home from work one afternoon this week, picked up my laptop, braved the date on the little box at the side of my work, which pointed out I hadn’t touched it since some day in February and began editing. I wrote, I tidied up the loose ends and squirted it across the ether to my beta-reader on the other side of the planet. Within a few hours she had replied.

“I just picked it up before I went to the gym and I’m already on chapter 3,” and then again, a few hours later, “chapter 8 and I can’t put it down...”

‘Demons’ had gone, safely in someone else’s hands for the time being. I messed around with my covers, encouraged by the only other person in the world up at the same time as me (thank you author, Demelza Carlton in Australia) and fiddled around with my categories and other bits of work. I ignored social media, finished two read-for-reviews and booked a third, treading water until ‘Demons’ came back to me, with edits, suggestions and changes.

Then I woke up this morning, having completely dreamed my next novel, which is a teen one. How random is that? Again it will deal with the kind of things that I am not keen to revisit, but maybe there is a higher purpose for my writing than I can see through my short-sighted, mortal eyes.

The only common denominator that I can see through all of my trigger moments is fear. It caused me to roll to a stop because the things in front of me were far more terrifying than the ability to deal with them at that moment. I wish I could say that I picked at them one by one, sorted them neatly in my compulsive way into size and date order and vanquished them with bravery and aplomb. But I didn’t. I dug a flowerbed, stroked a beautifully slobbery black horse by the name of Liquorice and waited for it to pass. I think if I had reached the panic stage, I would still be stuck there, in no-man’s land. I wish, like March, that I had laid crumbs or pebbles for the writers that followed me through the darkest of tunnels, but I didn’t. She did, but I would never have seen them, because I had no idea that I was in the same place that she had written about. If I had had my wits about me, spoken up sooner, or had the presence of mind to take tools, I would have made a sign post saying, ‘Exit this way, not far now’ but I didn’t even do that for you and I am truly sorry.

All I can tell you, is that if you are there right now, hold on because help is coming. I’ll come back for you if I have to, just say the word. But I’m telling you now, the first thing I will want to know is this; WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? Because I have learned a valuable lesson - that fear is the root of all inactivity, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of disappointing and worst of all, fear of fear.

Once you answer that, we’ll take it from there.