#AncientOlympicBoy

 

The book marketing 'campaign' I mentioned before, which I call Pic&Quote, has been on-going for some weeks now. It mirrors some of the extensive and enjoyable research I've done over the years. 

I can't say it's had much effect on sales! But I enjoy putting the posts together and so I decided to post them here too, in the order they come in the book. 

I'll make each of these blog posts with five pictures (often research photos) and the relevant quotes from The Boy in Two Minds. They appear here approximately as they have on Twitter/X, FaceBook and LinkedIn. The hashtag above, #AncientOlympicBoy, appears in them all except for a few on X. 

The presentation of each one had to vary with the platform, and I edited the text to fit. But here they are almost all exact quotes. The first one is from the first page of the story ...

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May 10th 2024

Pic&Quote 1

#AncientOlympicBoy #Paris2024 #TheConnectionTrilogy

 

From The Boy in Two Minds 432 BCE, Prologue

< Straton crossed the bridge at a gallop, his pony’s hooves drumming on the wooden planks. Themistokles had almost caught him.

Lightning crackled through the air. A sizzling BOOM echoed from mountain to city wall.

Themistokles’ pony trotted off the bridge, riderless. >

 

Photo 2012 ©Julia M Newsome

Panathenaic Stadium. In 432 BCE this stadium was a valley and the road was a river with a bridge where the white car is. 

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May 15th 2024

Pic&Quote 2

#AncientOlympicBoy #Paris2024 #TheConnectionTrilogy

From The Boy in Two Minds CE 2010, Prologue

   

< Suzanne stands watching the pigeons fly into the blue sky over the trees in the park. Her jaw is set in anger. ‘Maybe I’ll try kick-boxing,’ she whispers to herself. ‘He wouldn’t know what hit him.’ >

Photo 2012 ©Julia M Newsome

Looking from the top of the stadium towards Lykavitos Hill. This stadium in Athens, rectangular in the 4th century BCE, was reshaped by the Romans, deserted and lost for centuries, then rebuilt for the 1896 Olympics, first of the modern era. It is often called Beautiful Marble (Καλλιμάρμαρο - Kalimarmaro). It is where Themistokles' and Suzanne's joint story in The Boy in Two Minds begins.

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May 21st 2024

Pic&Quote 3

#AncientOlympicBoy #Paris2024 #TheConnectionTrilogy

From The Boy in Two Minds CE 2010, Prologue

< Suzanne steps off the curb and crosses the road thinking, ‘Is the river still under here now?’

She’s almost across when the red man comes back. A motorcycle hurtles towards her, between the revving cars ... >

Photo 2012 ©Julia M Newsome 

The pedestrian crossing at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, where the above scene is set and where there was a bridge in 432 BCE.

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May 24th 2024

Pic&Quote 4

#AncientOlympicBoy #Paris2024 #TheConnectionTrilogy

From The Boy in Two Minds CE 2010, Chapter 1, Suzanne's friend's blog

< "Yesterday Suzanne was leaping around and like ‘We’re gonna see where it all began.’ Meaning the Olympics of course… But today she was really quiet. Then she told me that Ian had dumped her. By text! We were up at the top of the Stadium, right in the place she’d been so excited to see. ‘Where it all began.’ And now, maybe where it all ends. OMG!” >

Photo 2009 ©Julia M Newsome 

Panathenaic Stadium (Καλημἀρμαρο/Kalimarmaro) when the Olympic rings were in place in 2009.

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May 28th 2024

Pic&Quote 5

#AncientOlympicBoy #Paris2024 #TheConnectionTrilogy

 

From The Boy in Two Minds 432 BCE, Chapter 10

 

< Above and behind them the cliff face of Lykavitos was reflecting the furnace glow of the setting sun.

Straton stepped up to Themis again. His sword was in his hand … >

Photo 2024 ©Julia M Newsome 

The cliffs of Lykavitos in the distance at sunset.

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The next five Pic&Quotes in the series will appear in my next blog post ... 

Thanks for reading this far, and please let me know, dear readers, whether you are enjoying the Pic&Quotes as much as I do ... 

 

All photographs ©Julia M Newsome unless otherwise credited.

Birkby Books

The Connection Trilogy by J M Newsome:

The Boy in Two Minds 9781838413606

The Girl in Two Worlds 9781838413620

An Ancient Connection 9781838413644

The Olympic Flame is on its way - and so am I ...

The Olympic Flame is on its way to Marseilles from Piraeus. It should arrive there tomorrow, May 8th.

Panathenaic Stadium

This short article, https://www.euronews.com/2024/04/27/olympic-flame-sets-sail-from-greece-to-france, translated from (possibly) French, is full of distracting ads and 'further reading', but it gives the main facts and has a fine photo of the Belem, the three-masted sailing ship that is carrying the flame to France after its odyssey through Greece. It's a two minute read and also has a photo of the handover of the torch by the Head of Greece's Olympic Committee to the President of Paris 2024 in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens. 

And that's where The Boy in Two Minds begins, in both the ancient and the modern stories.

For Suzanne, in the modern story, the stadium looks like in the photo above. But for Themistokles, in the ancient story in 432 BCE, this was just a small valley. A road ran up it from the lower end (farthest away in the photo) where there was a bridge over the River Illisos, which flowed from right to left. Nowadays there's a six-lane city street built over where the river once ran. In the Prologue of The Boy in Two Minds the action switches from then till now and back again ...

This duality gave rise to the marketing idea of pairing up modern photos of places that appear in the books, each captioned with a quote, usually from the ancient story. Sometimes quite a lot of imagination may be necessary to 'see' in the photo what's going on in the quote ...

Example 1

    photo taken 2012, Panathenaic Stadium

    432 BCE

   Looking along the bridge, Themis saw Straton and his two elder brothers walking towards him.

   Efsevios leaned towards Themis' ear. 'Drawing insulting pictures can get you into a lot of trouble,' he whispered.

   'Only if they lie,' said Themis with a grin, stepping back.

   'Don't go out alone,' threatened Straton as they turned away.

Example 2

  photo taken 2024, possible remains of the Painted Arcade in the Ancient Agora/Market place

    432 BCE

   Phidias took [Panainos'] arm and they walked down the steps to the roadway. 'It would be helpful to know when you think you can come to Elis and help me finish off the Zeus at Olympia,' [he said].

   'So Olympia is a place,' thought Themis, 'not a god. But it seems Zeus is there.'

My thanks to Brian for this idea and the 'bridge' photo above, and to Michelle and Ralph of The Book Dragon for their input. A new venture for me...

Please let me know, dear readers, what you think. The photos and quotes will appear on Twitter/X, my 'J M Newsome, author' FaceBook page, LinkedIn (Julia M Newsome), and anywhere else I can manage at regular intervals this summer. The hashtag for The Boy in Two Minds is #AncientOlympicBoy. 

See you on the Web ...

All photographs © Julia M Newsome unless otherwise credited.

May at last ... and signs of new life

It’s May at last! There are bluebells in the grass; the apple trees are blooming; there are new leaves and flowers everywhere. This year, the oak came out before the ash, so “there will be a summer splash” - hopefully signalling more sunshine and a good grain harvest. ("If the ash comes out before the oak, there will be a summer soak", according to the old rhyme.) So, in spite of so many horrors in the outer world, my corner of Cumbria feels optimistic at present.

Another sign of new life is my signing up to The Book Dragon in Stockton-on-Tees in April.

Official logo of the Book Dragon

I met The Book Dragon founder, Kirsty McKay, at the London Book Fair in March. After years of toiling on the outer fringes of the mainstream world of publishing in UK, I was thrilled and amazed to discover that there is someone - in fact, a group of passionate and knowledgable someones - supporting and selling exclusively indie and self-published books. If that’s something you are also excited by, have a look at what they offer (at extremely reasonable rates!) on their website, www.thebookdragon.co.uk.

As I have said elsewhere in this blog, my motivation for writing and publishing my Connection Trilogy is not to become rich or famous. I was a teacher and a text book publisher, and my students taught me something - that they learn best from exciting stories. So, now that I’ve retired, I've started writing stories about living this confusing life we've been gifted, discovering tolerance, facing danger, learning from mistakes, solving mysteries, falling in love, doing careful research. Writing is teaching me, too!

Meanwhile, to be supported at every stage of producing and marketing my books by others with similar motives feels like coming home.

As a result of this cooperation, I’ve started an on-line ‘campaign’ to tell the world again about the book now called The Boy in Two Minds, just because Themistokles son of Kallistos' story takes him to Ancient Olympia during the Games, and because it's Suzanne Short's ambition to take part in the modern Olympics. I believe that reading about them both will add extra dimensions to the thrills of the Olympic Games in Paris for fans of athletics. This book's hashtag on Twitter/X and beyond is #AncientOlympicBoy. I'll write more about this campaign in my next posting here.

Lastly, today is not only my personal celebration of the blooming of spring in UK, but it is also Easter weekend in Greece, a confirmation of new life beginning. I wish all my readers a very happy holiday and the best possible summer in the circumstances ...

All photographs © Julia M Newsome unless otherwise credited.

Back to the story-telling

  After my last housekeeping/marketing post, this one is mainly about the actual story! 

  But I just need to add to my post of November 25th, to say that Amazon have at last put up logical prices, although the three books are not offered as a series unless you search for "The Connection Trilogy" or the ISBNs (see below). However, Book 1 is still at £4.05. This, as I've mentioned before, is because it's a previous edition with a different cover that they need to sell out before they will offer the latest edition (it says there are 14 left!). I have now created my author page in Author Central at Amazon (I hope. It's waiting for verification!) and that should give me the chance to make changes to the listings of my books. We shall see … Enough of that!

 

  Now, as I'm sure you know, you can download samples of most books from Amazon, even if you aren't buying from their sites. In UK, for my Book 1 the sample is here, Book 2 here, and Book 3 here. (Amazon in other countries also provides samples.) 

  But just to save you the trouble (or perhaps to show you it's worth the trouble ...), here is an edited extract from Chapter 1 in Book 3, describing some of Themistokles’ (Themis) and his wife’s reactions to the first day of their married life … (Frog, as you possibly know, is Themis' personal slave, shrewd partner in many an escapade, and an often under-rated doggerel poet (;-).)

Themistokles opened his eyes …

Birds were calling to greet the dawn. Two green eyes, long-lashed and almond-shaped, gazed at him with unwavering adoration – and was that … triumph? 

His wife! 

His new, beautiful, young, headstrong, unsuitable (according to his mother), perfect (according to him), wife, was finally beside him. 

‘At last,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been awake for ages. I was watching you sleep. You dribble, you know.’

Themistokles felt he would explode with joy. ‘And you don’t?’ he countered. Their wedding night had all but undone the plaits and decorations of her unruly, chestnut-brown hair. He reached out and stroked her cheek, softer than the breast of a song-thrush.

… The day continues, each of them dealing with different urgent matters elsewhere,  until …

In the courtyard, he saw his bride at the top of the stairs to the women’s rooms, looking down at him. 

He ran up the first few steps to meet her, excited by the thought of her reaction to his next gift. 

But her expression stopped him dead. 

‘What’s this?’ he said, backing down a step. ‘Don’t look at me like that. Tell me what’s wrong. If you need something else, we’ll get it.’

She was clenching her fists to control her temper. ‘I have found something that needs explanation,’ she said deliberately. She turned briskly, her long, married-woman’s robe swishing round her ankles.

He followed her into his workroom. It had once been his mother’s weaving room and now was where he made his colours and stored his painting materials, pictures and sketches. No one except Frog came in here with him. His jaw tensed with anger. ‘What were you doing in here?’ he asked, keeping his voice even. ‘This isn’t one of the women’s rooms anymore.’

She stopped in front of the table where a painting on a thin board was propped up and covered. ‘I thought we’d shown each other everything we’d made,’ she said. ‘But you never showed me this.’ She pulled the flimsy cloth off and stood back.

In the picture, a nymph knelt by a pool among sparse rocks and shrubs, under an empty sky. A twisted tree leant over part of the pool. The nymph was wearing a strange kind of loincloth and a tight bodice that revealed the exact shape of her breasts and waist. The style was not like the vase paintings or murals that Themis did for money. It was more fluid, with subtler colours. The nymph had very short, light brown hair and a child-like profile. She was looking into the mirror-smooth pool at her reflection. But it wasn’t a reflection of her own face that she was gazing at. 

It was the face of Themis himself.

  Some scenes seem to write themselves and others need a long gestation. For the latter, I write and rewrite, leave it for weeks, rewrite again. During this process for the above, I found some relevant photos that helped. These are three of them ...

This pool among rocks and trees is a typical scene from near the source of many Greek rivers. With little rainfall much of the year, the pools have almost no current of water through them and so can be mirror smooth. 

These two photos are of the controversial caryatid at the British Museum and illustrate clothes and hairstyle for a young women on a formal occasion around the time of my story.

There was, then as now, a living to be made by being the best hair plaiter, using the most intricate designs, especially for weddings and other formal occasions.

There's an illustration of how to wear a similar chiton (dress) in my post of November 12th, 2012.

Thanks for reading!

The Connection Trilogy

Paperbacks: 

The Boy in Two Minds trade paperback ISBN 9781838413606

The Girl in Two Worlds trade paperback ISBN 9781838413620

An Ancient Connection trade paperback ISBN 9781838413644

E-books:

The Boy in Two Minds E-book ISBN 9781838413613

The Girl in Two Worlds E-book ISBN 9781838413637

An Ancient Connection E-book ISBN 9781838413651

All photographs © Julia M Newsome unless otherwise credited.