Friday 30 January 2009

Prologue

For those of you who didn't get to hear it on the radio or my version at the book launch of if you just fancy another listen here is the prologue of motorbikes, ducks and crispy sweet apples read by Simon Gibbons.


Thursday 29 January 2009

Back up plan?

I wasn't going to read my prologue on Monday night, I had something else prepared. Fortunately, though unfortunately for the storytelling, it had a happy ending so I shelved it. I thought maybe I could share it with you on here instead. It is a bit long, sorry!
An eternity ago, or so it seems now, I had an idea for a book. It had a beginning, a middle and (though some people may disagree here) an end. This I imagine, if you are that way inclined is a good basis on which to write a book. Me though, I had obviously read books and enjoyed reading but writing one? I didn’t know where to start; I hadn’t exactly excelled at school unless acting the fool and setting light to farts constitutes a success? So the book idea was shelved in the darker recesses of my mind until one day on a whim I decided to give it a go. I was living on my own at this time and had plenty of free time to devote to writing and the whole thing seemed to flow quite naturally. That is until I got to about 100 pages when I printed it off then sat down and read it. It was shit! I’d spent all that time writing 100 pages of shit! But even though there were 100 pages of shit it was my shit so I put it in a binder and tucked it in a drawer.
It didn’t see the light of day again until I met DJ and somehow, obviously the worse for wear with drink I took it out, dusted it off and showed it to her. Somewhere around that time too I let her read the book. She liked it, really liked it and wanted me to write some more. She also gave me a few writing tips e.g.: sentences should be less than 300 words, punctuation plays an important part in writing and using the spell-checker will help to make words legible and in turn of some sense to the plot. I took these words of wisdom on board and after sulking for a while, she was criticising my shit after all, I changed the sentences into paragraphs, inundated the story with exclamation marks and altered the spell-checker to add all my words to the dictionary. Then, then I ripped it up and started again.
I was happy with the story but the way I was telling it was all wrong so I re-wrote it differently and even changed the names of the characters. Like that was going to help! It didn’t. I’d got to page 100 again and it was still wrong so back it went in the binder and in the drawer. DJ kept trying to get me to persevere with it but I wasn’t having any of it and fobbed her off with excuses like; “I’m having so much trouble conjugating my verbs.” And “I’m struggling with my possessive apostrophe.” This only kept her sweet for a little while probably when she realised I had no idea what a noun or an apostrophe was never mind conjugating them possessively! She came up with a bright idea that I should start a blog and post a chapter a week, this would get me working on it again and keep me disciplined having to write a chapter a week. I was getting regular readers and positive vibes but my heart wasn’t in it and my chapters were getting smaller; “A chapter has to be longer than a sentence yano?” How things had changed! Anyway when I got to around page 100, you got it; in the binder in the drawer.
It was shortly after this I had an epiphany; I was going to add a gag here but there is epiphany humour in the book and you might buy it and you can get too much of a good thing. Sorry I digress, I had worked out how to proceed with the story and started writing again. This time I was sure it was going well and when I got to page 100 and sailed past I knew so I knuckled down and finished it. I gave it to DJ and she loved it but then what the hell did I do with it. Nothing was the answer to that and the reason why it was the answer was that only one person had read it and even if that person may be slightly biased and embarrassed when she made me cry it made my book a 100% success.
I didn’t exactly do nothing with it though; DJ’s mom had come to visit and to get on her good side I agreed she could read it. She made some encouraging grunts, which in hindsight might have been wind and I took to be another positive. 2 out of 2 still 100% success! Then I had a bit of a set-back. A couple of people who knew I’d written the book had asked to read it and fuelled by the euphoria of my recent successes I agreed. Then I heard nothing back from them. So I waited and waited and waited... Now because they hadn’t said anything negative I was still 100% right? Right! But why, if they were so keen to read it they must have read it, didn’t they say what they thought of it? Perhaps they didn’t like it? An important saying of mine “if you don’t want to know the answers don’t ask the question” came into play here so I kept quiet and festered.
It was about now that DJ had found out about an initiative from You Write On, Legend Press and The Arts Council to publish 5000 books by Christmas. The deal was; if you fulfilled their criteria and got the required information to them by October 31st then they would publish your book for free in time for Christmas. I keep saying in time for Christmas because this was how the whole thing was sold to us, us being everyone who entered the scheme, but not how it was tucked away in small print on the contract, I’ll come back to this later. They also had a second option where they would publish it the same as before but for a small fee would furnish the book with an ISBN number so it could be sold in the book market place.
DJ already had her memoir written and had decided to submit that to them and then started to try and convince me to do the same with mine. I wasn’t convinced, two people who had wanted to read it either hadn’t or didn’t like it so why the hell would anyone else want to read it? Then my true colours started to emerge; a free book by Christmas, DJ wanted the book so all I had to do was sign it wrap it and there you go Christmas sorted.
Now I have made the whole process sound easy but in fact it wasn’t and it was bloody stressful so much so that a few times the damn book nearly got launched out of the window inside the computer instead of being submitted. The text had to be formatted in a specific way with borders and troughs and some other bloody stuff I’d never heard of. Then they wanted the pages numbered on certain pages with the numbers starting on the first even page then they changed their minds and wanted it on the first odd page. If I had any hair I’d have pulled it out by now and I hadn’t even started on the cover. Now with the cover they had said if I wanted to produce my own cover this was fine or they would do one for me, eventually I decided to choose my own. Perhaps not the best option when I had no idea what a dpi was and they wanted 300 of the damn things! This is when our knight in shining armour turned up.
Anthony is publishing DJ’s fiction novel and was interested in how we were getting on with the YWO project having made it known from the outset that he was sceptical about the whole thing as in; 5000 books by Christmas, PAH! He came to our rescue by formatting the text and putting the words on the correctly sized covers. I didn’t exactly know how important the cover was to me until I got one I didn’t like and had to ask him to re-do it. The whole time he was doing this for us he was not in the best of health so we were very grateful to him for what he did. Another thing I am grateful to him for was when he formatted the pages he had to have the manuscript and while he had it he read it. He emailed me and said a few things but the upshot of it was he thought the story was good, liked it and thought I should buy an ISBN and promote it because other people would buy it and enjoy it.
So just to recap; I had written a book, five people had seen the book and out of those who expressed a preference 100% had given it the thumbs up and before the 30th October 2008 I had formatted as required and sent it in with a front and back cover. I knew it was all OK because I’d had an email confirming as much. Or was it!
Now, how soon before Christmas was ‘in time’ for Christmas? We weren’t exactly sure but by early December we were starting to get worried, DJ because I’d convinced her to have a double book launch or maybe it was the other way around and me because what the hell was I going to do for her Christmas present now? We weren’t the only people worried, YWO had a forum where people were asking awkward questions like; where is my book and will it be ready by Christmas as you promised. YWO kept saying not to worry and everything would be fine and as if to prove the fact a few books started to appear. Not enough though to satisfy the 4000 odd people still waiting and the forum started getting a bit nasty with YWO eventually pointing people to a clause in the contract which said that books wouldn’t be guaranteed by Christmas. When this inflamed the sub 5000 more they shut down the forum ‘until after Christmas’ it still isn’t up and running.
I didn’t have my book by Christmas, I didn’t have it by the New Year and on the 15th January, mainly due to DJ’s persistence I got an email saying they had bumped my book up the queue and they would try their best to get it to me in time for the launch. Now I don’t mind they didn’t do the book in time, it was a large project unlike anything they had undertaken before. What I did mind was they mislead us and when they knew they weren’t going to be able to fulfil their side of the bargain why didn’t they hold up their hand and say “my bad!” instead of quoting the contract and being heavy handed by shutting down the forum?
The books arrived on Wednesday 21st January and luckily I was home to take them in and here they are. I’m really not sure what we would have done without them?

Tuesday 27 January 2009

Book Launch

I'd like to thank all the people who came to the book launch last night. Everybody was so kind to us and made it an enjoyable night to remember.

THANK YOU!

Sunday 25 January 2009

Self Promotion-ish

For those of you who are observant you will have noticed that I have put a link on the side bar to Amazon where my book is for sale. Well it is for sale but at the moment unavailable. It appears to be available at The Book Depository though they do say it was first published in 1970 which did come as a bit of a shock! I notified them of their error and they seem happy to ignore me.

Anyway I'm in the process of getting ready for the launch tomorrow night. I've noted all the emergency exits for a speedy getaway and found a couple of great hiding places. So to those of you coming tomorrow I'm looking forward to seeing you there, that is if you can find me.

I've selected a few words at random from my speech just as a small taster; buy My book it's Good!

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Mixed bag sort of day.

The day started well as my book was delivered at 7:45 this morning. It nearly wasn't as I didn't hear the door knock but was lucky enough to see the card the courier had left on the mat and chase him up the street. Chase him barefoot, kicking rubbish everywhere (it's bin day!) and blocking his departure until he handed over the box. So now I have the book in time for the launch on Monday. You can't buy it anywhere yet, that is unless you buy it from me and I've got a front room full of them!

It went a bit sour after that as I had a trip to the doctors. I've been referred to dermatology again and it's looking more likely that they are going to cut more chunks off my face. People make sure you wear your hats and sunscreen!

Then as lunch was approaching I was off to do something I wasn't looking forward too. Something I'd regretted agreeing to do ever since, in a moment of madness I agreed to do. I was being interviewed on local radio. Conversation is not really my strong point and talking about myself would come a close second. The interviewer hadn't arrived at the agreed time so I gave him 30 seconds grace and then I was going home, damn if he didn't get there with 2 seconds to spare. So I did it, I sweated and grunted my way through 60 minutes of torture. I got bitten by a dog at work yesterday and I'm not sure what was more painful. I think it fair to say I will not be listening when they air it on Tuesday night.

That is far too much excitement for one day. I wonder if, when I pick #3 son up from school in a minute, I could convince him that we should lay down and have a nap? Probably not!

Sunday 18 January 2009

Update?

I got an email from my publisher; "...the 'proof' is out at the printers, which doesn't mean its through the woods yet, but at the last stage towards being available to the print by the printers. Will keep you posted, and hope a back up plan will not be needed..."


Seven days left and counting!!

Friday 16 January 2009

I just had to share this...

A woman takes a lover home during the day while her husband is at work.
Her 9 year old son comes home unexpectedly, sees them, and hides in the bedroom cupboard to watch.

Just after getting into bed the woman's husband also comes home. She puts her lover in the cupboard, not realising that the little boy is in there already. After a little while the little boy says, 'Dark in here.'
The man, who obviously got a real fright not expecting to hear anything let alone from a little boy says, 'Yes, it is.'
Boy - 'I have a football.'
Man - 'That's nice.'
Boy - 'Want to buy it?'
Man - 'No, thanks.'

Boy - 'My dad's outside.'
Man - 'OK, how much?'
Boy - '£250'

In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the lover are in the cupboard together.
Boy - 'Dark in here.'
Man - 'Yes, it is.'
Boy - 'I have football boots.'
The lover, remembering the last time, asks the boy, 'Ok how much this time ?'
Boy - '£350'

Man - 'Sold.'
A few days later, the boys' father says to the boy, 'Grab your boots and football, let's go outside and have a game of soccer.
The boy says, 'I can't, I sold my ball and boots.' The father asks, 'How much did you sell them for?'
Boy - 'To a friend of mine for a £600.'
The father says, 'That's a terrible thing overcharging your friend like that.
'That's four times what they cost when they were new, I'm going to take you to church and make you confess your terrible sin.'
They go to the church and the father makes the little boy sit in the confession booth and he closes the door.
The boy says, 'Dark in here'.
The priest says, 'Don't start that shit again you little prick, you're in my f...ing cupboard now'!!

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Reasons to be cheerful part 3

I got an email from my publisher today. Hark at me getting all Gwyneth Paltrow "I got an email from my publisher..." and my agent called this morning, well the Betterware lady put a catalogue through and that amounts to the same thing I think. Anyway back to my publisher; he says the book has gone to the printers and he's pulling out all the stops to get it to me in time for the book launch. He also suggested that I have a back up plan in case it doesn't. Back up plan? My book was my back up plan! Anyway I've had the day off and have been working on a back up plan so as not to disappoint anyone.

Has anyone seen my suitcase?

Wednesday 7 January 2009

Reasons to be cheerful part 2

Still no book and not a sniff on the horizon (not really been one for sniffing the horizon but have a cold and seem to be constantly sniffing at the moment). But, another review, this one from the nice people at Bluecrome Publishing on their Bluecrome Reveiw Blog. Click on the link if you want to read nice things about the book like; "It is of Christopher I King's debut novel 'motorbikes, ducks and crispy sweet apples', which is really rather proper good."

I'd like to thank Bluecrome for reading the book and writing the review, thanks!

I'm just sitting here for a while until my head stops swelling and I can leave the room.