Privacy is a myth: an unpopular position.

This is data. It says something.
What, I wonder?

Dr. Jen Frahm sent me a link: https://www.socialcooling.com. Because we are friends, and because she knows just what fuels my creative fires.

It's worth taking a look if you have the stomach for such things.

It’s about social manipulation. It’s about behavioural shift.

It’s brilliant, and it is terrifying.

It suggests that there has been a tipping point reached – a position achieved through demand for convenience and a desire for individual celebrity.

The pitfalls of a character named Jesus.

"So, what did you do to Erasure?"
"Which character had their name changed?"

Two of the questions I've been fielding over the last couple of days -- mostly arriving as part of the congratulations messages (messages that I remain completely humbled by, for the record).

What did I do? A lot, but nothing that in any way alters the structure or message that the original Erasure was based on.
Mostly, the changes have been about clarifying some of the components that were a little murky. The most obvious of which can be found in the prelude, which has been totally redone. The rest is just some subtle but important editing to tidy things up and aid the flow of the book.

The name change? Fans might not be at all surprised... Jesus is no longer Jesus. 

Why?

Because, four years on, I recognize that "Jesus" is a divisive name, despite there being literally no attempt to try at creating subtext or hidden message.

NPR doesn't want ALL of the opinions, apparently.

Photo courtesy of www.scenesofreason.com

I follow Hedayah  on Facebook -- an organisation that is doing some great work with regard to pushing back against religious extremism and radicalization.

Along with their official posts, they also distribute the work of others in their social media feed, like this one by Average Mohamed via the NPR website.

What is as interesting as the article is the comment stream that follows it. It's the usual fare: "You are the problem/they are the problem/tolerance is the problem...."

Strangely, NPR don't seem particularly interested in a broader point of view than the standard binary of "total war/total peace", and have refused to post my commentary.

So, I'll do it here instead.

(Makes more sense if you head over to the source of such consternation first, check it out, then take a peak at the commentary. Apparently "bombing things to hell" and insulting any religion that is not one's own is okay, but the odd redacted colourful word is not.)

Behold: the comment that NPR don't seem to want to publish.

***

Israel Vs. Palestine - the battle for Facebook.

In relocating to the Middle East from the Melbourne suburb of St. Kilda, I managed to move from Australia's Jewish heartland to a country that is entirely Muslim.

As a result, I have people on my friends list that are entirely Jewish, or entirely Muslim. I won't name them. Because it isn't important, but it is interesting that, from time to time, both groups have commented or liked something that I have posted. Not surprisingly, they managed to do that and not start lobbing hand-grenades at each other.

Erasure, now on Kindle Prime - so go borrow it!

For the first time, Erasure is now available via the Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Do you like fiction?
Prepared to be a little creeped out by every-day aspects of privacy?
Are you a member of Kindle-Prime?

If so, you are in luck.

Fresh from the quarter-finals in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards, Erasure has been released into the wilds of the Kindle Library - so go grab your copy!

If you read one book this month, this should be it...

http://www.amazon.com/Erasure-Book-1-T-H-Webber-ebook/dp/B0087QG37S/

It remains a crapshoot - Part 1.

The path to the finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards continues.

The next phase of the competition started rolling out today with the release of the industry-based "Publisher's Weekly" reviews being added to pool of reviews that will be considered for judging purposes.

It remains a crapshoot - Part 2.

The next phase of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards is beginning to roll out. Although I am unaware of full implications of this review in the process, I suspect the PW review carries a lot of the weight in the final decision - below is a copy of the post I made to the competitors forum, and is for reference only.

I'll be posting a less rambling message here on the blog in a few minutes, and referring back to this post... so this is like a message from the future, but you, future people might be here because of the yet to be written part one.

Hang on, I'm confusing myself - I'll just leave this here and get on with the other post...

My book "Erasure" is in the ABNA quarter finals!

It seems that we might be on to something with “Erasure”.

I got the news today, and I am more than a little happy.

Erasure has moved up to the quarter-finals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for 2014.

I haven’t been broadcasting it, I’ve been too nervous, but the process started back in January when I submitted the manuscript as one amongst 10,000 other hopefuls.

In March, it was selected for the second round, a situation that culled 80% of the entrants.

Today it is one of five hundred entrants selected for the quarters, and one of one hundred in my category – mystery/thriller.

Philip Seymour Hoffman - another one gone.

Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose on Saturday...and it's awful.

What I find even less palatable is the manner in which denizens of the social media world float around the corpse of news like vultures around a bloated hippopotamus.

It seems that with every celebrity death and outpouring of shock, there are many who wish to diminish the individual's presence to "just a junky", and I am perplexed by it.

A man and his cat.

This is Moose. He's an ex street-cat who now
lives with us - safe from the dangers of the street.
He is fond of used coffee cups.
He is lucky, and so am I - you'll see what I mean.

The guy who washes our cars came today.

He's a really nice guy - He is one of the house staff from one of the larger houses where we live.

He is always happy, and enthusiastic - waves to everyone in the street (I think he does a roaring trade in washing cars to supplement an income that would be criminally low anywhere else in the world).

His English is ... interesting, but he speaks it with such enthusiasm and confidence and and vigor that even if the words are completely wrong you just over look it and try to work it out - he makes himself understood, and that's all that matters.

He's washed our cars for the best part of a couple of years. Early on in the relationship he noticed that we have cats, and asked if he could have some cat food.

Turns out he has been feeding a local street cat, and that cat had become his friend. So rather than giving him little bags of cat food from our stash, we bought bags of cat food just for him; a situation that pleased him greatly.

Before that he would just share his own food with his little friend.

Did you help save Locky's dad? Or did Autism posts get in the way?.

Nick Auden died on Friday - or Saturday depending on the timezone you live in.

Regardless of where the arbitrary line that states what time of day it is for you, for Nick, 72 hours ago, time became finite.

HIS time ended, and everything that his supporters could do was done.

Remembrance day, why bother?

I am no fan of war.

It is a space inhabited by people who are asked to do unimaginable things, in unimaginable circumstances, while the rest of us sweat over whether the train will be on time, and bemoan the lack of talent of the new barrista at the coffee shop.

A space that is inhabited by all parts of the spectrum of life: The living, the dying, and the dead, all of whom are intrinsic to the act of war.

I have stood in the fields and farmlands around Ypres in Belgium with a feeling of hopelessness and futility as I gazed across the killing ground. For years I had been told of the acts of heroism displayed by the forces from both sides as they fought and died to gain the high ground.

Only the high ground that I imagined, painted by various educators at public schools, simply didn't exist.

"Broken", the latest installment in the Erasure series - out later this week.

Broken, the prequel to 2012's Erasure is almost ready.
The editors have trawled and poked, and cut and provoked it into life, and we are all pretty proud of it.

Set in a time of pure hell for Bammer, 'Broken' answers a lot of questions for fans of Erasure.

Questions I won't elude to here.
Why?
Simple: To name those questions would affect the impact of Erasure.

But there are questions, and Broken finally produces answers.

The restraints attached to Belinda’s ankles and wrists, while a large padded belt wrapped around her mid-section.  

The smell of urine. Not warm and new, but older and almost masked by hospital bleach. 

Apart from Bammer’s soft breathing there was no noise in the room. It was a sealed universe, and Bammer at its center

“What do you want?” It was the only thing Jesus could think to ask.

More breathing, though louder than before, she must have been looking at him.

“What do I want?” she said, her voice low, “I want some fucking dignity back.” 

What gets you off? The DOMA/Prop 8 decision

Warning: This post is of a sexual nature, some people will find it confronting, even though it is in no way explicit.

The outcome of the DOMA/Prop 8 debate is a positive one.  The ongoing movement to equality, whatever the variables, can only be a good thing.

Yes there will be the usual backlash - my favourite is the many variations of "Now THEY have the right to get married, what is to stop someone marrying a poodle? It's sick, SICK".

And yet there is some level of irony surrounding those assertions that sexual preference is a deviance.

PRISM and the NSA? Snowden flagged it for us, but there are bigger issues...

Watching you?
Yes, because you
agreed to it.

There has been a lot of hoopla about Edward Snowden and his role in (and ultimately distaste for) the actions of the NSA and the Prism project.

What HAS come of it are a couple of really good articles that describe the mechanics of how data-profiling work.

One of the more spine-tingling observations is the "revelation" that a program called Accumulo is a system used by the NSA as part of the PRISM project.

Well, the surprise is not about the Accumulo system itself, just that such a system is actually in use.

Without getting all hyper-geek,  the guts of the system is this - stick with me, I'll keep it short.

The ever-changing casting call...

The response to Erasure has been great and the reviews have been positive. A situation that doesn't cease to amaze me.

One of the most common statements made has been something along the lines of:
"Erasure would make a great movie, it's reads like one.. you should TOTALLY make a movie.."

I tend to agree, I mean what writer wouldn't?

Americans, they are all just so...AMERICAN.

The Great American Adventure.

We are fresh back from a trip to the states, a trip that we had talked about for a very long time (10 years is a long time to be planning an event, by any measure) and now, all too soon, it is over.

We got remarried in Vegas, saw some nice stuff, spoke to people about my book, and was heartened as to how well it was received.

I won’t bang on with the whole itinerary, but just know that in the 3.5 weeks we were there we saw a sizable chunk of the country.

Not all of it.

Not most of it.

Just a sizable chunk.

Thought I’d clarify that in case any of my US fans felt the need to weigh in with assertions that one CAN’T see all of America in 3.5 weeks.

I agree, hence keeping my estimate at “A sizable chunk”.

Enough of the geographical semantics. I’ll get to the point.

Which is:

Java Cabana - Memphis open mic night.

During the epic journey that was the great American adventure, (more on that in another post) while in Memphis we found ourselves staying in the fabulous Cooper-Young district...

... and fell completely in love with the area. An eclectic mix of bars, bookshops, art spaces, a cat rescue center and the fabulous Java Cabana coffee house.

Private?

A welcome reminder of why I write...

If you've been visiting the blog, and perhaps the facebook page, you might notice since the release of "Erasure" in early June that many of the posts that I've added tend to speak more from the "What's wrong with publishing" than anything else.

I really haven't set out to do that, it just seems to be the natural way of things. 

Generally when I sit down to work I don't follow a plan, so to speak. I just write, and pick up the pieces after. But write I do, and the next book in the series is well under way.

When it comes to blogging I take a different approach. If I have nothing to say, I don't blog.

It goes against the grain, I know. 

"You HAVE to blog, if you don't your book will die." Is the slightly exaggerated version of what all the author forums seem to preach. I didn't sign up for that sermon, and yet I still hear it ALL the time.

Today I have something to blog about. 

A solid reminder of what it really means when I say that I'm a writer.

I woke up Saturday morning, thankfully hangover free, and logged on to check out what was happening on that bright sunny day.

I was greeted by this message via facebook - and it made me smile (Thanks Gemma C.):

I have just read an awesome book, I can't remember ever being so taken by a book. I had chills, tears, laughs... the works. needless to say I double locked all my doors tonight and kept the lights on. Check it out guys - the book is called ERASURE www.athwebber.com BIG TIME WOW! and all you computer junkies totally gonna dig this one!

I've just started smiling again as I pasted the message.

I didn't set out to be some kind of writer-rockstar (although I'm not against the idea should the mantle be trust upon me). I write because it is what I do. I find it entertaining. I find the process incredibly detailed and frustrating at times, but while it (the process) might backhand me every now and then, the sense of achievement is a nice thing to feel.

This message reminded me that people do actually read my work.
It reminded me that the work is worthwhile.
It reminded me that someone I didn't know while I was writing the thing would ultimately turn the final page and feel like they had read, really read, what they probably say is a great book.

This whole writing thing can be an unbelievably lonely existence, but little beacons like this message stretch out of the gloom and reach me on my little hill. It is a connection I didn't know I needed until now. If I stand on tip-toe I can almost see the little hill top from where the beacon came, and can see many other little hills around it, all with their own singular inhabitant. 

I hope others see the beacon too. So that one day this valley will be ablaze.