Tag Archives: humour

11 Apr 2020 · 1:55 pm

On reflection …

This week lockdown continues. There’s no going back. All our lives have changed, although it seems that the basics of existence in my home town haven’t. I may have to stand two metres away from every one I meet but I still meet people I know on most occasions I leave the house. Accordingly, I still end up wittering on at the poor buggers for hours. So far, I have had one appropriately socially distanced walk with a friend who was going the same way with me and numerous chats.

It made me wonder … for the first time ever in my life, it feels as if I am living through a piece of serious History. Maybe I’m beginning to understand what it was like in the War … great for those who lived but probably a bit of a pisser for the 60 million who died. As a kid I remember asking my father,

‘What was it like in the war, Dad? We’re you scared? Did you know we were going to win?’

To which Dad’s answers were, basically; exciting, yes but not as much as one might expect looking back on it and yes.

Meanwhile, there’s the lovely story about Mum in the garden at her grandparents house seeing an aeroplane and rushing out to wave at it, little realising that it was an ME109, presumably hedge hopping home. Her grandfather tried to persuade her to come and hide under a tree. She told me, yesterday, that the plane came back for a second pass during which, as he skimmed the lawn, the pilot waved. I know the pilot skimming the lawn and waving bit was true but it’s the first time she told me he did a second pass. He was low enough, and close enough, for her to see that his breathing mask was hanging off his face, that he had blonde curly hair and that he was smiling. She thought he must have a little girl like her at home. Perhaps, but more likely, he was just … human.

Talking to a friend in Australia the other day she said that, over there, they appear to be winning and the numbers of cases are stabilising. However, if they eradicate it from Australia that means the entire country will have to close its borders until there is an effective vaccine or treatment; two years, minimum. That’s … a hell of a thing.

Are we going to revert to a time when hardly anyone travelled, but, isolated as we are, everyone has a lot more time to think?

Until the big nationalist backlash recently, the world seemed headed to become an increasingly international place. Most youngsters seemed more likely to see themselves as citizens of the world or, where I am, certainly of Europe. They’d watched StarTrek, they assumed that at some point the world would be governed centrally. And of course, we have the internet. The fact I’m discussing the vagaries of lockdown with a friend in Australia says a fair bit. These days, there are many folks I would consider to be my friends who are all over the world. I have never met them, may never do so. It seems weird that, on the one hand we have this internet based, global identity as human, and on the other … nationalism is booming. What’s that all about?

The thought of Australia closing its borders and, potentially, other countries, reminded me of something that happened to McOther and I when we moved into our first house. It was in a small village in the deepest, darkest fens in Cambridgeshire. Our first evening in the village we decided to go to the pub, but it was shut, so we went for a walk. As we stood admiring a lone and slightly incongruous mandarin duck on the village pond an old man joined us and we got chatting.

‘You work in Cambridge?’ he asked us, at one point.

‘Yes …’

‘Hmm, I went to Cambridge … twice.’

Turned out he went there once for a shopping trip, thoroughly disapproved and hadn’t been since. The first time was at the start of a trip to Africa to fight Rommel.

Is that where we’re headed? Less travel, more time to stay at home and think? While time to think is good, open minds are one of the benefits of travel, and heaven knows, it would be a pity if the average English-speaking internet user’s mind narrowed any further. But is that narrowing of minds a reaction to the internet? A clinging onto the stable in the face of a rather rapidly changing environment? Maybe. I dunno.

At the moment it strikes me we are at a tipping point in history, but I don’t know how or why or what for. The political rhetoric over the pandemic sounds increasingly empty and pointless to me. It’s really time we all said bollocks to parties, formed a coalition and worked together. As another friend was saying on t’interweb the other night, we have a chance to make a new start, a different world. The old ways need to change, but what we change them to … ? Neither of us knew.

Czechoslovakian-made black glass button – try saying that with your mouth full.

Despite being locked down life continues to be surprisingly busy. Trying to keep my statutory two metre distance on a rather narrow footpath the other day, I wandered over the verge into the field next to it. It’s currently fallow, nothing but maize stalks. I immediately found a black button. I thought it was plastic and I was going to throw it away until, turning it over in my hand, it had that rainbow iridescence which only glass gets when it’s been buried a good long time. Thinking there was an outside chance it was made of glass, I put it in my pocket just in case.

It looked quite gothic, or Victorian. Turns out that from about 1850 black glass buttons were all the vogue – Victorian then. I suspect this is what I have, although I can’t be 100% sure. I did discover that many of them were made in Czechoslovakia by highly skilled button makers. Mine is not exactly the apogee of craftsmanship but still a nice find. As I walked beside the footpath, eyes down, I found some shards of clay pipe, the obligatory one pence piece that is always found on any trip out that involves looking for stuff, and a piece of Bellamarine jug – a kind of wine vessel used in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds. I was really chuffed as I recognised this and it was confirmed when I posted it on line and it was seen by an expert.

Occasional Bury St Edmunds skywriting

Also I came home and stumbled on the answer to another riddle. For some time now, I have noticed the occasional sky writing over Bury St Edmunds. I remember a few years ago seeing someone draw a smiley face with the help of an aeroplane. Yesterday it was this one. Shortly after seeing it, there was a knock at the door and the lovely peeps who run McMini’s boy’s brigade group had delivered an Easter egg. They were just stepping back out of range as I opened the door so I thanked them and pointed out the sky writing, which was still there. Saying how great I thought it was and that I’d seen others. Oh yes, it was the C3 church’s turn this year, they told me. So know I know it’s my fellow Christians. And that also explains why I haven’t seen it the last couple of years – because it’s a Good Friday thing and we’ve been away for Easter. Anyway, I’ve always loved it. There’s a joyous generosity in doing something fun, or funny, when you may never see the reaction. It’s one of the things I love about eyebombing, the secret, quiet, just-for-myself, in-jokiness of it. I think it’s a lovely idea.

Meanwhile, McMini having spent much time playing computer games with his friends is now doing video calls during which they all bust light sabre moves. Yes he has set up a group and they have light sabre combat sessions. It’s chuffing marvellous. He gets plenty of exercise and needless to say he is horrifically geeky about it – ‘this is fourth position, drop stance,’ he tells me cheerfully as he kneels on the floor with a pair of light sabres extended towards me. He’s also learned the special word for fighting with two, which I forget. I am frequently called to the darkest part of the house to fight duels with him. Me using the Darth Vader red one versus his Luke and Anakin. It’s a bit like Power Rangers. There’s a lot of posturing and poncing about during which, usually, you can just stick yours in his stomach and tell him you’ve cut him in half. That said, he keeps cutting my hand off. Obviously as the parent my job is to lose as spectacularly as possible in a manner that causes me the least physical injury. We’re doing OK so far.

This should be my desk right now.

On the work front, I’ve been having some time off, well … when everyone else is, you have to, right? But it was our holiday so now is a time for pretending I am abroad and drinking a bit more than usual. But also, I had a bit of a crisis of confidence.

Short stuff is not my metier. I like it but it’s not going down too well, lacking world building, too many hints, clumsily dropped abut stuff going on which our hero doesn’t know but we do.

It’s probably safe to say that I do better at long and rambling. But I don’t have the mental capacity for that right now. The long and rambling I’ve chosen to write has a fiendishly complicated plot which needs to mesh seamlessly with the permutations of the even more nightmarishly complex plot of the original K’Barthan Series.

This is where my desk actually is …

What in Arnold’s name am I doing? NEVER write a full length prequel, people it’s the most gargantuan nightmare ever. But this one is looking as if it could easily hit three books. I want it to be good though, I want it to be Rogue One good. Not … bodged like the Phantom Menace. It’s so complicated that I had to put it aside for a while because my brain is too mushy to cope these days. Sigh.

On the up side, I think I’m close to nailing a decent marketing strategy for the audio books. Also, I’m beginning to have that twitchy feeling in my fingertips I get when I want to write something new, so after resting the complicated nightmare, I reckon I’ll have to get on and finish that. Also, I finally got the alts off to Gareth this week. Woot! Jeez I was dying inside doing those, really not sure that I was doing the right thing. Luckily I had to ring him about some other stuff so I was able to check, properly speaking check rather than filtered through WhatsApp messages and my phone’s auto gag, that I wasn’t being a gargantuan bell end. Amazingly, it seems I really was being helpful and not the most god-awful nightmare client. Phew.

So now I have a bit of marketing work to do … a lot, which is a bummer as it involves using my actual, real computer which is rubbish outside. So I’ll have to write it all first, I think and then go in and do an hour a day. Mailerlite is fab but it does take a terribly long time to open and close the interface when I want to edit the hello protocol or send an email. Which reminds me, I do need to send something to the lovely peps on my mailing list, flagging up the impending arrival, I hope of audio. Although it’s a case of seeing if the books go live first … the first two are live in many places but Audible will take another three months or so.

Also in production is the K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 3. Not my best work, the shorts, but people seem to be enjoying them a reasonable amount. Next one is due out in May or June, along with the first two K’Barthan Series audio books, probably (officially) June or July but as I said, it’s a bit of a mix and some are already live.

The week after next, for some ridiculous reason unknown even to me, I’ve signed up to do an online book festival. All well and good, except I’ve now realised it’s on Twitter yegads. I had completely given up on Twitter. I couldn’t work out how to follow a feed I was interested in and could find nothing of worth in the wall of noise. I am appearing on 22nd April at 2.00pm BST, which is NOT British Summer Time as you’d expect. Apparently for their own bizarre reasons, the Americans call Greenwich Mean Time, British Standard Time. I’ve no clue what they call British Summer Time … I should probably try and find out. But I’ve been caught by this one before, when everyone was on line waiting and I didn’t turn up until an hour later because … we were on British Summer Time at the … well … time, and I’d foolishly assumed that’s what BST was.

Anyway, long and the short is, I hope to be there at 1.00 on 22nd April, although I won’t really know when to start because I’m guessing that’ll be dependent on my actually finding my cue; a twitter post from the festival organisers introducing me … Gulp. It’s highly unlikely that I will find it but I’ll have a go anyway. Then I have to work out how to stream live on twitter – I might try that over the course of the coming week – and do an 8 – 10 minute reading from a book and answer questions … if anyone at all is able to find me. I’ve chosen Escape From B-Movie Hell and I’m pretty sure which bit I’ll read, but I’m wobbling about this and not quite sure whether to persevere with learning to make something meaningful of Twitter or bow out gracefully, before disaster occurs. There’s an author friend who is also doing this so I will seek twitter guidance from her and if it looks too complicated I’ll withdraw as soon as I can so as not to mess them about. I’ll let you know more, or less if I quiche, next week.

So yeh, life goes on. Weirdly but at the same time, surprisingly normally, considering the bizarre times in which we live.

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4 Apr 2020 · 12:18 pm

Woah …

How is everyone? I hope you are well. It’s been a bit of an up and down week for me. No change there, then.

First up, writing. With the McOthers at home, in theory it should be difficult. In practise, while it sort of is, it’s not so bad, it’s more of a question of shaking down into a different routine and identifying when the best times to write are. Unfortunately, the best hour in the morning is the one I spend on the phone to Mum. Lock down is difficult when you have Important People to look after. And I do.

On the up side, thank goodness Dad didn’t have to live through this. He would not have enjoyed it. On the downside, by the time I see Mum again, she may be a very different person. In one respect, I feel I’m being robbed of her last months of sanity, in another, I phone her every day so it probably evens out. I just wish I could see her and give her a hug. I try not to think about that too much though, because that way sadness lies …

Bury St Edmunds … not as apocryphal as this picture makes it look …

Despite comments on the apocalyptic nature of my home town it strikes me as surprisingly busy for somewhere with only a few shops open. One of them is Poundland, much to my amusement, but also relief because there’s nowhere else open where we can buy batteries.

Also despite being supposedly quiet, there’s still enough traffic about for there to be a car coming if you want to cross a road. Yes people. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. Today there was a MX5 in town driving round, and round, and round. Possibly in incredulity at the wealth of parking spaces – bloody hell! That’s amazing, I’ve never seen that before, I’ll have to go round again – I don’t know.

Maybe he was just enjoying an empty road. I have seen more policemen in town than ever before, too.

Managed to remember to cheer the NHS this week too. Yes, McMini and I stood outside cheering at the empty street, with a lighted light sabre each. Yeh. I was the fat one in the pyjamas. On the up side our presence brought the others out. Many houses on our street are rented and I think most of the renters are youngsters who have gone home to their parents. There are a lot of drawn curtains. Even so, people were out clapping and waving. Which was good, if only because it made me feel a bit less of a dick.

Fuck me but I’ve had some strange dreams this week. Unfortunately, they are continuing in my monotonous habit of dreaming about the lavatory. Not surprising I suppose, since it feels like the apocalypse. But I was hoping that I might, at some point, get away with a dream about something, anything other than having a dump. But no. I dreamt I was back at school. It was the first senior school I attended, for two years, when I was eleven/twelve and twelve/thirteen. I had ventured up onto the top floor where the third fourth and fifth form classrooms were situated, where the big, older scary girls were when I actually went there. I saw again the polished linoleum tiles, the pastel shades of the walls, the glass windows into the corridor from the classrooms. Yet despite feeling that familiar attack of butterflies as I entered the scary senior domain, I was also an adult. I was there about my son and I had to see his teacher. While we were chatting I suddenly realised I needed a wee. It was all going rather well so I asked and was directed to the staff loos.

But the staff loos were one loo, with a bath and basin too, like someone’s bathroom. The bath, loo and basin were a very unpleasant shade of 1970s pink. Yikes. But at least it wasn’t that horrible brown, or avocado. Also, there was washing hanging up to dry on the towel rails, hanging from clothes airers above my head, on the radiator, the side of the basin … literally everywhere. I remember thinking that the teachers must live in.

So there I was dreaming a dream and, Lo! Just for a change, I’ve ended up in the fucking bog. As I sat down on the pan part of me was fully engaged in the dream, but another part of me was aware that I was dreaming. Was I going to get away with an unembarrassing wee? Of course I bloody wasn’t. This was my warped dream. So naturally I did an absolutely enormous poo. When I stood up, I banged my head on one of the clothes airers hanging above me and knocked the contents into the pan. With my crap. So then I had to run some water in the bath, fizz it up with liquid soap, and scoop the once clean clothes out of the excrement infested bog and into the bath. I kept flushing the loo but there were more and more clothes falling in there from somewhere. God knows what I’d unleashed. Probably a hole in space time where other people’s washing was falling through a worm hole from alternative universes into a bog full of my crap. But it was chuffing weird.

What the fuck is going on?

I remember being conscious that I was dreaming, and wondering why the sod I can’t just dream about falling or flying or something a bit more fucking normal. I had, near enough, sorted it out, got the clothes into the bath to rewash and hang up again, although there were more and more in the loo, falling through the worm hole or wherever they were coming from. But I’d flushed it, so at least the poo was gone and for all it being bog water, it was clean bog water – yeh I know but this was dream thinking right, not real world how MTM thinks. I woke up before the dream ended. Which was, frankly, a bit of a chuffing relief.

So there we go. More dreams about shit. I suppose it’s not surprising, I mean, we are living it. Which reminds me. How’s your apocalypse going? Still no zombies here in Blighty. As I’ve said before, every cloud has a silver lining.

Seems a little crazy

In COVID:19 madness this week the prize goes to my dentist’s surgery. Normally a highly efficient outfit, I arrived at my appointment for a check up, the Monday before lockdown, to discover that they had cancelled everything. To give them their due, my phone had gone weird that morning so I didn’t receive a call. But after a brief chat, during which they explained that they couldn’t book a new appointment because … COVID. I returned home, teeth unchecked with all appointments cancelled until further notice. Goodness knows who sends out their mail for them, but they’re being ripped off. A few days later, I received letters warning me that I was now due for a check up and must ring them at once. Interestingly, as well as the check up there was one about the hygienist’s appointment, which they’d cancelled the preceding Friday. I hope the mailing service isn’t going to bill them for this!

On the writing front, I’ve things to work on and edit, which are going OK, except I’ve reached that bit where you know it isn’t ready yet. And seeing how much there is to do, you sort of lose the will to live and put it away for a couple of weeks. While I’m a bit meh over existing stuff, I thought I’d like to start a new K’Barthan short because I only have two in hand. It should be easy enough, it usually is but can I?

Can I bollocks?

Everything I try to write is about the bloody apocalypse. I’ve just watched an evening of BBC comedy delivered direct from people’s homes. Have I Got News For You by webcam for heaven’s sake. Impressive, and strangely intimate, coming from the panelists actual homes, but also at stratospherically lord-in-heaven-what-is-happening levels of weird. I really think living this apocalyptic shite is enough, without writing about it as well. Only one thing to do then, I’ve let my efforts to feed back on the fourth audio book bleed into the writing time. Although the huge door stop length novel which might be another series is also getting my attention, even though I’m sure it’s wrong and I don’t really know how to fix it.

On the subject of audiobooks … I had a bit of a crisis of confidence last week. I’ve two uploaded to a bunch of the main sites and they are gradually going live, plus the short … but the other two are still in editing. I could hear a lot more breathing, but not normal breathing, kind of chopped off half breaths. I was a bit worried that, maybe I was just suffering the effects of syringing your ears half way through proofing four audiobooks. I asked but Gareth says no. Turns out they might be different and it’s something to do with the way you dampen the breathing and plosives when you’re recording. Something called sound gate – sounds like a press scandal, only it isn’t. Too much in one direction and you lose the ends of words and it sounds a bit weird. Too much the other and you get oddly chopped off half breaths. This has happened much more in three and four than in one and two. So I’m going through flagging them up. I’ve done three, but it’s taking ages and it felt a bit pissy. Like repeatedly kicking someone who has actually been very kind to me. Worse, I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t just a side effect of having my ears syringed. But Gareth assures me that flagging them all isn’t pissy; that it will help him work out the right settings and that he’ll learn stuff. I heartily hope so.

There are lots to mark up so it’s taking some time. On the other hand, I am really enjoying listening. Some of the voices … there’s a character called Psycho Dave. Gareth’s voice for this guy is genius and it makes me guffaw like a supervillain each time I hear it. Indeed, every time Dave appears, I get the giggles and have to stop. So I’m hopeful that other folks will find it funny. To go with, I need to sort out some email sequences; one for people who sign up after seeing a facebook ad, who don’t know about my stuff at all, one for people who are already familiar with the entire gamut of K’Barthan nuttery who just want to know when the audio books are out and one for the folks, between those two, who know about the books and K’Barth but would be intrigued to know more about the whole audio process and about Gareth. It’s going to take me a while. I’m getting there.

In the meantime, I’m on chapter 32 of book four, so moving, but not quickly. Yeh, patience my young paduan. My aim is to do as many chapters as possible a day, mostly from 10.30 until midnight after McOther has gone to bed. My efforts in this are being hampered a little by McMini who came down to seem me a few nights ago because his bed warmers had got cold. I nuked them to warm them up, which takes four minutes, and while they cooked, so to speak, we had a chat. It was a good one, so good that he now comes down every night at about eleven pm, ostensively to have the wheaties heated up but really, just to have a chat. It isn’t helping with my productivity, but he’s such a sweetheart and such good company. How can I refuse? Ho hum, onwards and upwards.

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28 Mar 2020 · 4:11 pm

Sweeping the cat for tinfoil and other adventures …

Still no zombies … every cloud has a sliver lining eh? It’s quite surreal though, which means your world might be a bit more like mine right now … probably.

This week I have been mostly searching my cat’s guts for tin foil. Mostly, but not entirely. We’ll get to it. In the meantime.

Slightly blue this morning, I expect I’ve stuffed up my HRT dose, in fact, I reckon I’ve forgotten to do the evening one for a couple of days, although, needless to say I can’t be sure because I can’t remember. Mwahahaargh!

A big part of it is that, now we are in lockdown, I can’t visit Mum. Sure I ring her every day but that’s not the same. She definitely has some form of dementia and it’s definitely getting worse. At the moment, although she can’t remember which way is up or what day it is most of the time, she’s still able to follow a conversation and still retains her personality as Mum. But … I’ve walked this path before with Dad and I have to accept that it isn’t going to stay like that. I have to accept the fact that maybe, by the time lockdown is over, my Mum – my real Mum, I mean – will be gone. And that makes me feel incredibly sad. Indeed, I’d probably be blubbing a bit as I write this, but McOther is sitting the other end of the table.

It feels as if each week I will lose another few precious hours of time with Mum by missing our lunch. I phone her every day but it’s not the same, and I can see, or at least hear, her deteriorating day by day. I’m not alone. For example, hardly anyone with a loved one in a home is able to visit them right now. Some have family members in hospital who are stuck there, some have loved ones who were in a home for recovery after say, a new knee op, and they are now stuck there apart from the people they care for until this is all over. It’s mightily grim and we just have to live with it, but I guess I was just hoping, against hope, that I could squeak another visit in before lockdown this week. In the event, lockdown came on Monday night. The temptation to drive down there and see her on Wednesday was almost overwhelming and it’s only the first week.

Bugger.

Other news, I’ve finally finished going through the alts of One Man: No Plan on audio. This has taken me way longer than I expected because there are a lot of blips and half breaths in it which weren’t there in the first two – one of the reasons this has taken me so long is because I re-listened to the first two beforehand, really carefully, to check. Gareth has at least three other audiobooks to do, to my certain knowledge – there may well be more – so I have a little while before he’s likely to be able to look at the alts, and plenty of time to get the fourth finished.

I confess I was horrifically nervous sending the alts for the blips/plosives and audible breaths. I am not 100% sure if my noticing these things was gimlet-eyed helpfulness or pedantic twattery. To be honest, even after checking with some narrators I know on t’interweb who reassured me that any comments like that are always welcome, I’m still a little unsure. It’s a fun listen though, so I hope it all works out OK.

This week more excitement in Lockdown Towers. Run with me on this one, it does get to the point. I have a desk in our dining room. Underneath it is a bag of foil-covered chocolate sweets which I give out at book signings. There are three types, chocolate oranges, chocolate eyeballs and chocolate sprouts. They all come in plastic net bags of about forty. They are spherical, marble-sized and individually foil wrapped. I had two bags of orange ones, about half a bag of eyeballs and four bags of chocolate sprouts.

On Monday evening, just after discovering that we were all in official lock down, I decided that I would ameliorate the impact with chocolate. I went into our dining room, intent on liberating a packet of sprouts for consumption over the coming weeks. However, when I got in there, I and found four plastic net bags with holes in spread across the floor.

Uh-oh, I thought.

I checked the bag and discovered a hole had been eaten in it. Yes. There were teeth holes around the … other hole. Not my son then. Checking the other bags I discovered the holes in those looked more … chewed than cut.

Hmm …

Upon further exploration, I discovered that both the eyeballs and the sprouts were all but gone. The orange ones, however, had been left. They were still in their bags although one bag had clearly been chewed, small pieces of foil removed from the chocolates inside and a couple had teeth marks. These ones had been tested and found wanting then, worse tested enough for me to not be able to eat them with confidence. The others … 520 grammes of chocolate, minimum, had gone.

Turning to Dr Google, I typed in, ‘does chocolate kill cats?’

OK, look, I’m not going to blind you with the technicalities of science here but the basic gist of it is, yes it does. Milk chocolate is less poisonous but 520 grammes in one sitting is lethal. About 30 grammes in one sitting is.

Shit. Now what?

I was wearing my pyjamas. The vet was closed, I knew. That morning I’d had a dental appointment which had been cancelled pretty much as I arrived. I’d tried to buy some cat food from the vet’s on the way home and discovered that it was locked and the customers were all standing in the car park, 2 metres away from one another. McCat’s constitution is pretty bomb proof but I felt that a poison overdose of such gargantuan quantities might be a bridge too far, even for him.

OK, calm, breathe. He hadn’t started throwing up yet.

Then I remembered. I’d found one of the chocolate sprouts on the doormat the week before. Could McCat have been quietly eating them over the three month period, since the Christmas Fayre, that the chocolate had been stored there. Were the scattered string bags merely the culmination of several month’s pilfering, a last hurrah now that the lovely edible balls were gone … well except for the orange ones he doesn’t like.

McOther checked under other furniture but there was nothing to be found so it’s clear that all 520 grammes of chocolate sprouts and eyeballs – minus a handful – had been eaten. The one million dollar question was … when?

McCat. Butter wouldn’t melt would it? Not ill and no fucks given, clearly.

I had a think.

McCat clearly wasn’t ill at that precise moment. I began to wonder if a ready cache of chocolate might explain his greatly relaxed approach to food since the beginning of the year. Not to mention the recent resumption of his tendency to be less relaxed and obsessively request each meal a few minutes after eating the last one. But if he had just eaten all the ~~pies~~ chocolate, we needed to get him to a vet, fast. How to find out though, preferably before he started throwing up, at which point, it would have been too late, Dr Google had told us. That’s when I remembered my pinpointer and had An Idea.

The chocolate was covered in foil. He’d peeled some of that off, clearly but it was equally clear that not all of it had been removed. Some had gone down his greedy fat cat gullet with the chocolate. If he’d eaten them all in one sitting, nearly all the foil had been eaten too. This meant that he contained almost as much wrapper as chocolate and, that being the case, if I ran a metal detector over him the signal from all that foil would blow my ears off. The detector, itself was too sensitive, it would pick up nearby stuff as well and I’d never be able to narrow it down reliably. The pinpointer, however … that was a different case entirely.

Yes, ladies, gentlemen and everything beyond and in between, when you go detecting and you’ve heard a signal and dug a hole, should you have any trouble finding the thing giving off that signal, if it’s really small, say, you can narrow down its whereabouts with a pinpointer. This is good for me because I tend to dig in fields that are bristling with coke, which gives off a large and loud signal. As a result I end up ignoring big signals, because there are that many hot rocks in the fields on which I dig that I find very little else. The little signals, are a different matter, but the things you find are also little, and that means you need to pinpoint them, fast, or you’re sifting about in the clod of earth you’ve dug out all day.

That’s how I ended up with a pinpointer, and that’s how I ended up running my Garrett carrot over the pooh in McCat’s earth box – without touching clearly – along with the cat shit bin – not touching that either – and not forgetting his lardy stomach. Despite a hitch, to start with, when I realised it was picking up the nearby washing machine, I did finally manage to get him in a position where I could reliably detect any foil in his innards. There was none, luckily. We stood down. I didn’t need to get dressed, leap into the car and brave lock down to find a vet. What a relief for everyone.

How many detectorists end up searching their pets? Who knows but I’d guess there are more than we might think.

So that was my week, sweeping my cat for tin foil. I am agog to see how next week is going to out-weird this one.

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14 Mar 2020 · 12:08 pm

Living on the edge …

You know how I lead a fast and dangerous life? Mwahahahargh! Yeh. You will remember my banging on about brain fog every now and again. In truth, my post McMini baby brain seagued smoothly into menopausal brain fog without my even noticing. It is only since the HRT kicked in that I have discovered just how completely ~~bollocksed~~ coddled my brains have been since 2008. It’s like I have suddenly found myself. I still lack energy – chronic pain does that – but I definitely have more than before. Whether anyone will notice my refreshed and revitalised brain is moot though, as I still appear to be the vaguest and most disorganised person on earth. To whit …

This last Monday it was the SPF Show Live. SPF is an online community I joined in 2015 after buying a course on Facebook Advertising run by Mark Dawson. It was, as the title suggests a live workshop, down in London at the South Bank Centre. I booked many moons ago, before the virus named after a fizzy drink reared its ugly head. Registration started at 8.30 am.

Obviously 8.30 am is quite early to be in London from here. I hummed and haad about how I should get there. Train, clearly, but which station to go from? In the end I decided I’d get the 5.49 train from Bury St Edmunds as this did not involve a thirty minute drive home in the dark, in the inevitable pissing rain, with shit visibility and with one headlight going on and off (yes, the other one, not the one with the part I mortgaged my house to pay for). Departure time decided, I set my alarm for unspeakable o’clock and packed everything I thought I’d need the night before.

In the event, I headed off for the station in good time but I’d forgotten something. That thing is this … when I imagine walking somewhere, I imagine it taking about as long as it would take when I could … well … walk. Thing is, I can’t walk anymore. Not like that. I don’t have the same number of knee ligaments as other people and one knee hurts like a bastard at the front, and the other knee hurts like a bastard at the back. That kind of stuff slows a person down.

So, yeh, I left ten minutes and I suddenly realised, as I was still 100 yards from the station, that I only had three minutes to get to my train. It would take me three minutes to get up the ruddy stairs, although that’s still quicker than using the sodding lift.

Maybe it would be a few seconds late.

Yeh. As if.

Upping my walk to the kind of shuffling Igor-style lurch which is as close as I get to a run these days, I ‘ran’ for the train. As I reached the bottom of the stairs I realised the train was in, and its contents were coming down them. Dodging past two blokes carrying bikes sideways, and a whole bunch of semi-somnambulant others, I reached the platform just as the door alarm started to go. Not normally a problem, but as the train is only four carriages long, and the platform is for … more than four … it was parked about thirty feet away. Well … I gave it my best shot. More Igor-esque shuffling and I was nearly there, indeed I touched the train, but the beeping had started, the doors were closing and I was too far away to hurl myself on.

It might as well have been on fucking Mars for all I was going to catch it.

The doors closed. Mourning the demise of the old slam-door type where you could just open the bloody door again and get on as it started to move. I turned with an expression of hapless desperation to the mirror at the front of the station, hoping the driver would see me as s/he looked, before leaving the station.

Hands together in a please, please, take pity on me kind sir, stance, I begged the driver to open them again. No joy. The beeping stopped and after a couple of seconds, the motors engaged, and the train fucked off into the darkness, leaving me on the platform, alone.

‘Bollocks!’ I said.

Ho hum.

I turned and made my way down the stairs.

‘You missed it then,’ said the station master, not unsympathetically.

‘Yeh, touched the ruddy thing, but didn’t get close enough to get in, I keep forgetting I have a limp these days and that I don’t walk as fast as I used to.’

It was a beautiful clear dawn, marred, slightly, by the fact the train was filthy.

We discussed options and he agreed that my Plan B – if it’s me hoping to be somewhere by 5.49am there is sure as hell going to be a Plan B – of going to Whittlesford was probably the best idea. Let’s face it, it wasn’t so bad. It was a beautiful clear dawn, the moon was out and the sky lightening in the east. Yeh, it wasn’t as if I’d be driving home with zero visibility in the pissing rain today.

Back home, grabbed the car keys and headed off. Time was pressing and after ~~driving down the M 11 at an injudiciously high speed~~ … an invigoratingly brisk drive down the M11, I arrived at Whittlesford. Nobody was there yet, so I bagged the closest parking spot to the station, on the end, although some bastard still managed to scratch my car parking the other side of me. I entered my number plate into the ticket machine and paid, although it didn’t give me anything to put in the window, which somewhat unnerved me. As I walked onto the platform I discovered the train I’d hoped to catch was due in one minute.

Nice.

Around me was a surfeit of stern warnings that I must travel with a valid ticket. Hmm … was my ticket valid? I hadn’t a chuffing clue. Better buy another and get a refund on the one I didn’t use. I turned my attention to coercing one from the machine on the platform. I got to the end but it didn’t seem to want to let me pay.

The train arrived while I was still scratching my head.

Yes well, let’s not miss another one. The existing ticket would have to do.

The journey passed more or less without incident, except that I’d have dearly liked a wee and couldn’t find a loo. I made a pithy post about my fuckwittery on the forum for the event, and posted a picture of the rather lovely sunrise I over Cambridgeshire I could see from the window. I hopped off at Totteham hale, thought about walking from Green Park and then remembered what had happened walking to the station a couple of hours previously and changed to the Northern Line at Warren Street instead. A quick five minute walk from Waterloo and there I was.

The glass front of the Festival Hall. No snurd holes …

Needless to say, the first thing I did was take a picture of the glass windows The Pan of Hamgee drove the SE2 through at the beginning of K’Barthan 2. It would have been churlish not to, right?

Course was fab. I homed in on a lady wearing a fabulous crocheted dragon on her shoulder and it turned out she was one of the people who’d commented on my post about missing the train. She was with another lovely lady writing the same and they introduced me to a group of Paranormal Romance writers at lunch who were great company and several orders of magnitude more successful than I am! Also managed to meet lovely author friend J A Clement who was one of the helpers.

Back in for the afternoon’s talks, came out afterwards and … yes, it was pissing down. Never mind, I had a brolly. Quick trot over the railway bridge to Embankment and back on the 5.08 train.

Thirty five minute drive home in zero visibility and pissing rain with one headlight. Oh well, you can’t win em all.

Spool forward to Thursday. McMini plays in ‘Rock Band’ at school. He plays drums and I confess I did know he had a concert coming up. McMini’s school is at once rigorous and laid back. They are extremely careful about keeping tabs on where each of their tiny charges has got to, but they do tend to tell you about something once and leave it at that. So … I’d had the news sheet the week before last telling me that there was a concert. We had all hoisted in that McMini would be playing. But, I kind of expected something nearer the time saying … I dunno … your kid is in the concert, they will be having tea in school, it starts at X time, collect them from Y … that kind of thing.

However, the school is like, yeh, we’ve told them once. They know.

Thursday came, and there I was wandering around McMini’s school at pick up time. I had gathered up his golf bats and sports bag and put them in the car but was there any sign of him? Nah.

As I mooched about hopefully peering into windows and peeping round doors, a couple of members of staff said hello and then another popped out and asked me if I was looking for McMini (impressed he knew I was McMini’s Mum, then again, I’m the only one who turns up at collection time in a silly car so it’s probably that). We had a look in the dining hall but McMini wasn’t there, he was still rehearsing. He had emailed me to explain that he had the concert, in case I forgot, but only at ten past five, after I’d already left. McMini’s school is in the deadest dead spot known to man – probably by design – so naturally, I didn’t receive it until I arrived home.

I met one of his friends, though and told him to let McMini know that I knew he had a concert and that I would be coming and see him later. Then it was into the car, hot foot it home to see if McOther could come, but he had a board call, so then it was hot foot it back, because it started in about ten minutes. It was a very impressive concert. It hadn’t started when I arrived but I was late and there was no parking, except for a space marked as ‘visitors only’ which everyone else had avoided.

McMini’s new school is in an old stately home so parts of it are ritzy

Stuff that! I’m visiting, I thought, wedged the Noisy Cricket into it, between two huge Chelsea tractors and ran in. There were still programmes to be had but no seats so I crept in and sat on the windowsill at the back with all the little boys who were playing on their game consoles while big brothers or sisters performed. I remember thinking, as I sat watching the first item, that this wasn’t quite where I expected to be that evening. Yeh, so while there’s less brain fog, it’s clear that my abject fuckwittery still knows no bounds.

But I made it, and that’s what counts. AND I even remembered to videoMcMini doing his thing so McOther could watch it, too.

It’s probably quite an achievement to be able to organise your life, yourself, and still have absolutely zero clue what you’re meant to be doing when, or what’s going to happen next. Talking of which, the fizzy drink virus … as an ‘at risk’ (rather susceptible to chest infections and still wheezy after a hideous flu bout last year) I’m rather hoping not to catch it as I suspect it will be quite grim, and last year’s bout of flu was bad enough. It’s all getting a bit serious.

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7 Mar 2020 · 4:00 pm

It’s a mad/happy/mad/happy world!

Is your book a lemon? Hopefully not.

Lots of things this week. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster! Up and down, for deffo!

Started off feeling a little low about Mum but she was in such good form on Wednesday that I came home reassured. We talked about how hard it was to stay close to Dad, how it hurt not to step away. ‘Oh darling, I do hope I don’t put you through that again,’ she said. I told her she wouldn’t. To be honest, even if she does, I wouldn’t have it any other way. You do what you have to do. I have to live with myself afterwards. Bless her heart. It won’t be like Dad because she’s different, I’m not sure how it will be, there’s no point wondering. That was kind of good and kind of sad, bittersweet, I suppose.

On the other hand, by some miracle, I managed to remember that it was World Book Day earlier than three minutes prior to McMini’s departure for school on the Day in question. God bless HRT! I haven’t had a memory that good in about fifteen years! Woot!

McMini wanted to go as Dennis the Menace. OK so, by the time I remembered I was at Mum’s the day before and could do nothing about it, but at least I was able to text McOther and ask if he could nip up to town and get some black crepe paper. I had decided to pin it to McMini’s red PE shirt to make stripes. To my delight, McOther had discovered an old red jumper of mine which bit the dust when the washing machine’s thermostat broke during the ‘delicates’ wash. It boiled a drum full of expensive jumpers with vigorous enthusiasm, so vigorous that the jumper in question was a perfect fit on our 11 year old. McOther suggested using black electrical tape rather than crepe paper. I went with his suggestion, which transpired to be genius!

Home on Wednesday night, I was still alert enough to be able to add the stripes to the jumper (God bless HRT a second time). OK so I’d forgotten to suggest to McOther popped into the costume shop and bought a cheapo black curly wig but hey, you can’t win ’em all! And they realised who he was!

Then there’s the Audiobook project! Squee! Now we’re onto marketing, though. Hmm … I’ve been trying to do a series of ‘hello and welcome’ emails for people signing up to my audiobook list. There are going to be two types, those who are coming into the whole thing cold and those who already know and love K’Barth and just want it read to them. I’m thinking that’s going to take two different sets of hello protocol. However, I can see that that the one thing both sets will want to know is the process of making the books, and they might have questions for Gareth, I would if it was me. From my casual forays into the audiobook marketing of other authors it seems they approach it as a team thing, too, and also give the narrator plenty of air time.

As a result I’ve started with the stuff about the audio side, because both series of emails will need it, and to that end I’ve sent Gareth some dubiously inane questions. Mmm, I bet he’s delighted. Mwahahaahrgh! But unfortunately for him, he’s amusing and folks will enjoy reading his answers. He has agreed to do an interview, too, in an unguarded moment, so I am compiling a list of questions to ask him – hopefully not all inane.

And this is where you come in. The questions. There are some about the whole process of audio, how it’s done, planning and all that, there are the inane who’s your favourite character type questions (which I hope will be made a tiny bit easier by the fact he likes the books) and there are the personal ones, when did you know you wanted to be an actor? But I’d like to try and make sure I ask him things people would want to know. It may be that you trust me implicitly to ask interesting things or … throwing this open to the floor for a moment … you may not. You’ve heard the Unlucky Dip demo, you know he’s a bit good at this acting thing and that he’s an utter lunatic (well, of course he is, he likes my books) what would you like me to ask him, lovely readers?

Back down the rollercoaster to the bottom again, and a blurgh moment about the whole pushing the rock up hill that is trying to persuade people to read my word barf. Or, marketing, as it’s called.

This is, of course, my hormones messing with my arse again. Yes ladies, gentlemen and everyone outside, beyond and in between, it’s constipation and brain fog week. But there seems to be extra, super-duper, improved weird on top at the moment. I’ve been enjoying, if that’s the right word, a lot of dreams about poo recently. Yes, we might be entering the realm of Too Much Information but since when have I ever cared about that? Buckle up folks, we’re going in [cue rubbery slapping sound of arm length rubber gloves being pulled on]. I am dreaming about going to the bog, in the bathroom, on the loo, having an extremely satisfying dump and then discovering that I’ve made a mistake and that far from using the loo, I’ve gone on the sofa, or in someone else’s bed, or in the middle of the hearth rug in error … then I have to try and clear it up before anyone comes and finds it and is upset, or sometimes they just come in and tell me I’m disgusting. Mmm. Nice.

As you might imagine, my first thought on waking up most mornings at the moment is, ‘What the fuck was that about?’

Eeee are you saying I look like poo I’m fluff I’ll have you know?

According to Monsieur Google, this kind of poo dream – or at least the doing poo in the wrong place by mistake – is a sign of insecurity; fear that you’re about to stuff something up. Hmm … from me? Say it isn’t so! There’s a surprise. Mwahahahargh! Yes, my subconscious, tell me something I don’t know.

Back up to the crest of the hill, a local author group I go to met this week. One has just finished a new book and it was so lovely to see her enthusiasm, and how utterly in love with her story and characters she was! And it made me feel a lot more normal, because I feel the same when I’ve completed a new book. She writes hers in one binge because she can’t bear the suspense otherwise. Sounds like a really good way of doing it. Ahhh if only I could! I can’t bear the suspense either but it takes me years. We also had a brilliant discussion about how you write spin off novellas to a series without spoilers. A knotty conundrum which is, currently, doing my head in! So, so fucking difficult. Why have I done this to myself?

What is especially lovely about hanging out with other authors, or just other creative people to be honest, is that the more of them I meet, the more I realise that all my creative foibles are actually completely standard. We are all as nuts as each other. Not just authors, musicians, artists, eyebombers … yep. All nuts.

Which is reassuring.

Also this week, I wrote something. Always nice. Not much but I’ve been slightly slacking on that front – more than slightly cf earlier bit back there about the knotty conundrum of spoilers – it’s good to have got going again.

Simpery nonce mode on … I probably should have brushed my hair and just rocked the Louis XIV curly wig look without shame.

On the down side, I tried to do some author pictures – the one with the marrow is now pushing 20 years old, but no fucker seems to be able to take a decent photo of me, and it seems I can’t either.

Eyessssss

Hmm … a partial success. I think the one of my scarily glowy eyes from mum and dad in-law’s bathroom looks better … sigh. Maybe I should just use that one and pretend I’m out of Dune. I’ve been riding the worm with Sting! Snortle. That didn’t quite come out the way I meant but I’ve left it anyway. Oh and by the way, there are occasions where I am not wearing that maroon jumper … it just seems to be the thing I have on, by happenstance, in nearly every photo. I do take it off, in the bath and in bed and the like and … I mean, you can see I did for the other pic. But sorry, I digress …

The strangest thing about the poo-filled You-Are-Insecure-Oh-Yes-You-Are dreams is that, right now, I’m feeling about as confident in the quality of my stuff as I’ve ever been. There’s nothing like listening to someone else read your books aloud, and do it really well, to feel that it’s not a bad story really … well … once you’ve got past the horror of realising you can write a lot better now than you did then! Handing over the alts for Book Two was almost physically painful, but I feel much more level headed about Three and Four – mainly because they’re rather better written.

The whole artistic insecurity thing annoys me when it hits because it feels a bit faux. Because when all is said and done, the creative thing is just something you do (you general you). And your sensible, pragmatic head knows it’s good enough and that’s all you need. But your flaky art head will never be quite certain and wants other people to like it. And you tell it to shut up and get on with life. That’s just … being creative. So on one level, yes, I’m totally confident that the writing I do is … the best I can do at that time … on the other I’m kind of … will people like it? But with maximum melodrama. You know the kind of thing, sobbing tearful voice … They have to like it! Sob! They have to! I will kill myself with this plastic fork if they don’t!

Ho hum …

Moving on …

This week the first book in my series, Few Are Chosen, was free on Kobo, it still is, and yesterday, US Amazon price matched and quite a few people downloaded my book. It even got one of those orange best seller tags, in the free book charts to be sure but I’ll take that. It got a couple of number two rankings (no not number two … maybe that’s what the dreams were about) a number four and a number 197 over all (not to mention a 15 with prawn crackers and 3 with lychees … sorry). I usually ignore my rankings, except when they do that! Mwahahahrgh! Screen shots were taken. I’m such a sad sack. I think it’s gone back to paid now, but that was jolly while it lasted and who knows, some of them may even read it, and if they do, a fair few will go on to read the others.

Talking of which … who wants to hear a sample from Few Are Chosen? If you do, there are two for your delectation:

Sample 1

Chapter 1: well, that seems like a sensible place to start, you know just go give you a feel, click here or where it says ‘sample 1’.

Sample 2

Chapter 37: where our heroine is walking home late at night and discoveres she is being followed. This is one Gareth enjoyed doing and I think that comes over. It’s the point where, as a listener, I went from thinking, blimey, this is good to, shut the smecking door! This is fucking marvellous! AND, I can share it without spoiling anything else much, because it’s kind of a little story in itself. To listen to that one, click here or where it says ‘sample 2’.

Also I’ve set up a page about the audiobooks here, I’ll add stuff … you know … as and when they become available. Hopefully it will be useful.

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8 Feb 2020 · 12:26 pm

Nothing To See Here …

Except there is …

More on that story later. First, a quick update on the audiobooks.

It’s been a quiet week. My local writers collective met yesterday, which was lovely, and on Tuesday, I finally managed to send the blips I’d spotted in the audio version of The Wrong Stuff back to Gareth. It’s his birthday today. And looking at the quality of the recordings he’s done so far, I’m feeling a little giddy! As if it’s my birthday and all! I am a little in awe of his talent and I will owe him for this, pretty much in perpetuity.

Clearly I feel a bit nervous about the audio in some respects. This is partly because I can’t quite believe it’s happening but also because, as royalty share, I’d really like it to do well so Gareth actually earns something for his trouble. I suspect it’ll be work from other authors who hear it rather than royalties, but he is aware of that and seems totally undaunted, even if I’m actually beginning to feel a bit guilty.

The other, far more straightforward reason to harbour doubts is because it’s my stuff he’s narrating. And doubting your stuff is all part of being creative. And jeez there’s nothing like listening to someone read your magnum opus, and read it really well, to fully appreciate any deficiencies in the writing. Imposter syndrome anyone? Yeeees a bit. It’s definitely A Thing we creatives get; to shit bricks about what we’ve done I mean, even when we know it’s alright really. But there’s more than a slight feeling here of, ‘Oh god, this bloke is absolutely bloody brilliant and the material I’ve given him is … er hem … not actually quite as brilliant as he is.’ I was aware that my talent lies more in the telling of the story than any linguistic poncing toddling involved so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise, and yet … yeh … there we are.

Maybe one of the biggest, most important things anyone learns, while doing creative anything, is the difference between doubts that are, basically, just your mojo messing with your arse, and real doubts. Learning when to listen to those doubts and when to just grit your teeth, ignore the cringing inside and push on through is a big part of learning how to create. When I’m working on a novel, I usually start to get severe misgivings about a third of the way in. Then I get stuck. Either because I’ve gone off in the wrong direction, or because I just need a bit of time for my subconscious to work out what’s going to happen next. That’s why I had to stop writing the big stuff when Dad got bad, because there was never enough time to get back into the complicated projects, catch up and start working again, before the next crisis hit from the Real World.

Discussing the doubts side of it with Gareth, briefly, it turns out that he gets them too. Like I said, standard creative procedure I suspect, but it’s still comforting, and a little affirming, to have confirmation from someone else, too. Especially someone with less reason to doubt than many of us. Yeh, so while I do doubt the quality of my stuff, I guess I also know, sort of, that it’s probably a load of bollocks in this case.

Anyway, we are hoping to have the first draft done before he heads off on tour at the end of next week. It’s likely that I won’t have enough time to listen and get the alts back, but he will probably be able to do those during the spring holidays, in April, when he gets back.

Talking about doubts … I have a new book out today. Short is not my best metier and I have a few genuine misgivings about this one which, I suspect are well founded. Except the description of Mrs Dingleton’s, I like that. Never mind, here are the details anyway! In a new departure from my standard, somewhat laissez faire release strategy, I’m also running an exciting competition in which someone can win some smashing K’Barthan Blingery. Phnark. Feel free to enter if you like.

Nothing To See Here

Yes! It has landed. The next novella in the series of shorts about The Pan of Hamgee’s time as a delivery man for Big Merv is now out. Woot.

Here’s the blurb …

It’s midwinter and preparations for the biggest religious festival in the K’Barthan year are in full swing. Yes, even though, officially, religious activity has been banned, no-one’s going to ignore Arnold, The Prophet’s Birthday, especially not Big Merv. He orders The Pan of Hamgee to deliver the traditional Prophet’s Birthday gift to his accountants and lawyers. As usual, The Pan has managed to elicit the unwanted attention of the security forces. Can he make the delivery and get back to the Parrot and Screwdriver pub in time for an unofficial Prophet’s Birthday celebration with his friends?

If you’re interested you can find out more by clicking on the picture or clicking here:

The competition

Yes, bling your morning cuppa or amaze your colleagues with this fabulous K’Barthan Mug.

If you do end up reading and enjoying Nothing To See Here, you can use your incredible knowledge of the plot in a game of skill and chance to— er hem. You can enter a prize draw to win this smashing K’Barthan mug worth many Brtitish pounds!

Well … OK at least a tenner, £15, in fact. Oh dear, this is beginning to read like one of those spoof ads in Viz.

Hint, you’ll probably be in with a good chance because I doubt many folks will enter.

All you need to do to is answer a question about the story and you will be entered into the draw … unless it’s illegal to enter raffles in your country, in which case, please don’t.

The draw will be open until the end of February. Panic not if you’ve blown your book budget already this month, Noting To See Here should be available in many libraries across the UK, US and Oceana. You might have to ask your librarian for it though. Once you’ve read the book and can answer the question, you can enter the draw here!

The competition closes on 29th Feb.

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11 Jan 2020 · 7:24 pm

And now … this!

It’s a bit of an amazing thing that having spent the last four years or so writing posts on my blog that were, basically, excuses not to write, I’m now having to write posts apologising for not talking about the stuff I normally talk about because I’ve too much writing news to impart. Yeh, here I go again, because this week this happened.

Unlucky Dip Audio Book

Yes people, that is an audiobook cover and Unlucky Dip is now live and available for pre order on Kobo. Swoon!

It’s ready to publish on Findaway Voices too but I haven’t dared press the button yet, just in case. Naturally ACX, an Amazon company, is a whole different kettle of fish.

Gareth and I are both on a bit of a learning curve with this audio gig so when I uploaded the book to Findaway Voices, first, I discovered that there was a problem. An error message popped up informing me that the file was qqwe[ru09025jbm’ ytopqq09t574qyhgwa – or at least whatever it was it said, it made as much sense to me as that does. So I carefully cut and pasted it and sent it to Gareth, who knew exactly what it meant and fixed it.

Kobo, well, clearly everything went without a hitch there because we’d fixed the qqwe[ru09025jbm’ ytopqq09t574qyhgwa problem we discovered at Findaway. So with a little trepidation, I decided I’d submit to ACX which is an Amazon company. I’d forgotten why I deal with Amazon as little as possible. This reminded me. I uploaded all the files and when I tried to click the submit button which is labelled funkily, ‘I’m done’ I discovered it was greyed out and when I hovered over it this illuminating message popped up.

‘cannot submit production because there are issues with the uploaded audio.’

Marvellous.

I had a look at the submission guidelines to see if it was anything I’d done. It might be that the name is different. On all outlets the book is called Unlucky Dip but Amazon may want the series title given. This is where the problem will arise, because, if it does, it will not be looking for K’Barthan Series, instead it’ll be looking for K’Barthan Trilogy, because Amazon refuses to change the series name – unlike like every single other site on earth. Thanks for the blistering two star review that invoked, too, Amazon.

I tried to find help but ACX help was about as useful as a chocolate tea pot, thousands and thousands of help pages that tell you nothing and basically tell it to check it your fucking self! Mwahahahrgh! I clicked on their help pages and then on contact to ask their help desk. The link took me to Audible. I tried to contact the Audible help desk and explain. Chat didn’t work just tried to load again and again and asked for my log in details occasionally. Email did nothing either so I clicked on the button that would get them to phone me. A very kind fellow gave me the email address to write to but warned me that ACX help is only open from 12.00 to 9.00pm on Monday through to Thursday. It was Friday.

I emailed them, anyway, and got the standard canned Amazon response that they didn’t like my mail forwarding. So I emailed them again from the ‘right’ address. They replied. Had I published to ACX from Findaway? No. I replied but I had published to Apple, or at least I was going to but I hadn’t actually clicked publish on Findaway yet, in case something went wrong with ACX. Prescient of me eh? That’s as far as we got before 8.00pm.

Despite being officially closed, or maybe that’s the phone line, ACX support have emailed me today as well. Go them. I notice their version of the qqwe[ru09025jbm’ ytopqq09t574qyhgwa problem that we had at Findaway is slightly different. Possibly. So I’ve passed that on to Gareth, who must be doing his nut with all this. Especially as it’s the same as Findaway on the ACX guidelines you download. It’s only different on the help pages you see when you are trying to work out what to do if you have some unspecified error and the boilerplate bit of the support email that says, have you checked this? It’s like querying publishers or agents, they all want the same thing only each one is just that tiny, tiny bit different, and mistakes bar entry!

The little bit I’ve learned about Audiobook publishing so far

What I know about audio could be written on the back of a teaspoon. All I knew was that I wanted to go wide because I want to get my books into libraries if I can, hoping to start that process soon so I’ll let you know how I get on. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far.

You’ll need an ISBN and that means you have to add the record to Nielsen book data here in the UK. I found I needed to do the long form so that I can stipulate that the book is in audio format. (I was only allowed to choose an ebook imprint or a paper imprint so I have emailed them about that but in the meantime, I’ve logged the isbn as an ebook and then chose audio format later on in the form.) Yeh. I know. Counter intuitive or what? Or maybe it’s just me being really dim.

Kobo allows you to upload finished books, direct, but you may have to contact their support and ask them to add the audiobooks tab to your dashboard. I did and they added it swiftly without fuss. Kobo will pay you a 35% royalty for audio books under a certain price and a 45% royalty above it. They distribute to Walmart, Indigo in Canada and something called BOL in the Netherlands.

Findaway pay from 30-50% depending on the model you are using and distribute to over 40 outlets and libraries, including Apple, Audible and Amazon.

ACX accept publications from wide authors, with ready made books, and will pay 25% royalties. They publish to ‘a minimum of’ Audible, Amazon and Apple.

My cunning plan …

Publish to Kobo direct for 40% royalties. Go to ACX for Audible, Amazon and Apple for 25% royalties. Go through Findaway Voices for 40-45% of everything else, including Apple, again, but also libraries.

Knowing that ACX is run by Amazon, I decided that I would only claim the short story on ACX to start with and would see how it went before I committed to using them for everything. If ACX transpires to be as batshit crazy as Amazon, the reduced demands on my time and sanity, from not going direct, may be worth more than the reduced royalty rate in the long run.

ACX does not allow you to opt out of Apple at the ACX end, more on that later.
As I understand it, if you go to ACX through an aggregator you will not be eligible for their bonus system – so if you get someone go sign up to audible to buy your book, you won’t receive a ‘bounty’ unless you’re direct. Likewise, I think it precludes you from tokens to give away free books. This is why a lot of people go to both.
The authors who I ‘spoke’ to have mixed results with the bounty system, some have done really well, some haven’t had a blip.
At the moment, you can publish to Apple through Findaway and ACX at the same time, then you contact Findaway and they will contact Apple who will prioritise your Findaway, higher-royalty-paying listing. However, the support email I received said,‘Findaway distributes to Audible and Amazon through ACX, so if you already distributed you book with them you cannot submit the book through ACX yourself.Duplicate products are prohibited as per our legal contracts and agreements.’Which looks a bit worrying, although it doesn’t mention Apple specifically. I’ll have to double check the contract. I have demurred from pressing the go button at Findaway, anyway so I can deselect Apple if I have to.

So there we are … baby steps but yeh, audio is going to be a thing …

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14 Dec 2019 · 11:37 am

Shenannagins …

OK, so, I’m not even going to talk about the election result. The choice was a bumbling, everything-that-is-awful-about-posh, bloaty-faced, straw-haired sack of farts, or a man with a rather dodgy looking past who was slightly preferable but wants to do my brother and thousands like him out of a job. What do you want, Mary? Root canal without an anaesthetic or a ghost chilli enema. Choose. I chose, because women died to give me that right. The side I like least won but that’s not saying much. I consoled myself with some guerilla marketing, stealthily inserting cards about my free reader magnet into all the Terry Pratchett books in Waterstone’s. More on those stories, next time … now, it’s back to the matter in hand.

A mish mash of other stuff this week, then. Along with some of the most obscure comedy references available. I thank you. Today, as usual, I am writing to you from the past (Thursday). Well … apart from that first bit but let’s keep this as simple as we can shall we? It was McMini’s last day of term so I forewent parents’ swim, came straight back home after drop off and went into town to vote and do some Christmas shopping. After an hour and a half, I’d been moderately successful, and I couldn’t remember anything else I needed until I arrived home. Once here, realised that I’d forgotten to get the propelling pencil McMini wanted, although I can get that tomorrow.

While I was trailing round Waitrose, I had a quick chat to a friend, and found a small cured meats platter reduced from just shy of £7 to £2 and a rather garlicky curried bean salad which was also reduced. Smugly congratulating myself for sorting myself with a very pleasant lunch, I went home, where I immediately realised I had failed to get the one thing we really needed: milk.

The hat …

Never mind. I’d go up later I thought. And of course immediately I had that thought it began to rain and continued to piss down until the moment I had to leave to collect McMini from school.

Meanwhile, McOther is off on some work thing until late tonight in Oxford so collecting McMini involved going to the final school event of the term, McMini’s carol service. Alone.

The carol service takes place in the cathedral, which is a few hundred yards down the road from our house so I decided to walk. Seeing as it was still pissing with rain, and I had therefore failed to get the milk, I thought I’d take advantage of the time I had to walk into town to leave fifteen minutes early, swing by M&S on the way and pick up a plastic two pint bottle.

The communication from the school warned us that she service would start at two o’clock prompt and that there was stuff on in the cathedral so would parents not take their seats until after one fifteen. Shit were people sitting there for forty minutes? Fuck a duck! How full was it going to be? OK so I’d aim to get there by quarter to, that way I could stand at the back and sing really loudly without disturbing anyone. If I was really lucky, I’d be so far from other people that I’d be able to do the descents without anyone noticing.

There was a queue in M&S and so I strolled in at five to two. The cathedral was packed and, somewhat blinded by the miasma of pathetic rain all over my glasses I set off where I was ushed, if that’s a word, down the aisle.

Half way down, I was shown into a seat next to a pleasant couple who were on the aisle. It being rather bad form to take the outside and obscure their view, I squeezed past them and sat third person in. Shortly afterwards, a family arrived from the other side and took the remaining seats wedging me firmly in place. We were definitely packed in and when Once in Royal started up and we all stood, I turned sideways, which did make things easier. The people round me were pleasant enough but rather serious and staring straight ahead, clearly worried that I might engage them in conversation.

Waynetta Slob … and Wayne.

Then again, that was probably understandable, as they probably thought I was a weirdo. I was wearing a stripy knitted hat, so McMini would see me easily, a manky waterproof coat (think Ted’s out of Ralph and Ted in the Fast Show) a pair of wedgewood blue moleskin trousers that, in the wrong light, can be mistaken for the same kind of velour jogging pants favoured by Waynetta Slob and I was carrying a pint of milk. This, is probably not how the average Christian expects their fellows to turn up at church (well unless it’s mine and the person is doing coffee). I did demur from smiling at them and saying, ‘milky milky’ but I wonder if that might have broken the ice. Possibly, but I suspect it would merely have made people nervous, as a comedy reference goes, it’s too old and too obscure and would merely become the embodiment of the original parody.

The cathedral, itself, looked stunning and as a building expanded by the same firm of architects who designed the one where we had Dad’s memorial, there was a pleasant feeling of familiarity about it. The picture doesn’t really do it justice but they asked us not to take photos (after I’d taken that one) so I had to pixelate the teacher and crop off the parents in front of me.

Now, normally, when I go to carol services, I’m there with someone I know. So we are able to giggle when I sing the wrong verses to the carols incredibly loudly, or when I try to whisper the responses and end up barking, ‘AMEN!’ At the top of my voice when everyone else is saying, ‘and also with you’ because my voice has done something funny etc. The details of these things always amuse me and I come from a family of people who fuck it up in similar style. As a result, my memories of Christmas services, as a child, are of giggling at stuff ups, or because my brother was singing the carols falsetto, or I was singing them in a really high squeaky voice, an octave above everyone, that I can no longer do. Or Dad was complaining about how ‘fucking high’ the carols were this year (yes, there was plenty of effing, even pre Alzheimer’s) as his voice cracked, yet again, while, with a facial expression like someone sucking a lemon, he attempted the high bits in Hark the Herald.

There was also a propensity to do a kind of irreverent running commentary, among ourselves. In short, in my family, there was, still is, normally a lot of giggling. And if it isn’t family, I’m normally with other parents I know, so there is also giggling.

But when you are on your own you can’t giggle. Especially if you have a) turned up with a bottle of milk, b) eaten an injudiciously garlicky lunch which you are now sharing, through the medium of your incredibly scary breath as you do the singing and c) have already drawn a great deal of attention to yourself with your incredibly loud singing voice and the fact you are dressed like a rubby. On the up side, as a friend later remarked, at least it was only milk I turned up with and not a can of Stella.

Mwahahahahrgh! It’s never too early for a fusilier!

Of course, the absence of other like-minded nutters, or at least, in the event of my failing to out any that were near me, the commentary went on inside my head only.

There was a couple in front of me, sharing their service sheet in a very sit com style and a little old dear with them who I had down as grandma. Grandma (for want of a better name) suddenly upped sticks and with a nod, a smile and a wave at them disappeared off down the aisle to the back.

My brother’s suit! Nearly as loud as my voice, but not quite. 🤣

A few minutes later, after looking nervously round, the lady also disappeared up the aisle. She was gone for the whole of Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and then reappeared in the last verse but still sans old dear. Had she gone to the Cathedral Centre lavatories to enquire after the old dear’s health? Was there a family crisis being played out here? I’ll never know, even though, as a professional nosey bastard (I’m an author after all) I’d like to.

There I was jammed in next to all these very nice but incredibly serious people. Their horror was almost palpable as I yelled my way through what felt like a million carols at the kind of volume that comes close to competing with a set of bagpipes. Maybe that’s why the old dear left. But the alternative is not to sing, which I will not countenance at a carol service, or to sing a bit less loudly, which is still deafening, but risks being really rather out of tune with it.

At the end of the service, the headmaster read the last lesson. They’d gone for a different response to the usual and he reverted to the traditional one. Except instead of giving the feed line he gave the response. Everyone tried to say something but nobody knew what to do so we all just went kind of, ‘mana-manah.’ And quick as a flash, a little voice in my head went, ‘do dooo do do do!’ And I started thinking about the Muppets song.

It wasn’t funny exactly, but it was accumulative funny, the sort of thing which would get a laugh if you added it to other stuff in a comedy. And if you have the kind of mind that’s already seeing a rich comedy of the absurd in yourself and everything around you, and has been attempting to do a Terry Wogan at seventies Eurovision-style voice over throughout the service. Or if you’re from the kind of family who’d start giggling. It’s really hard not to nudge the people either side of you and laugh. I resisted the temptation to nudge, but a small chuckle escaped.

Nobody else made a sound. Oops

Then Hark the Herald began.

Fuckity fucking fuck! (Sorry.) But seriously, Dad wasn’t wrong, I swear it goes up a key every year. For me things get a bit dicey over top f, I can do top g but only on days when I can’t get down to bottom g. Otherwise I have to do the special high note gurn. It’s a facial contortion that throws Dad’s sucking a lemon high-note reaching expression into the shade. And you just can’t go about doing that kind of thing in decent lighting, in front of people you don’t know. Most cathedrals are chuffing dark so hardly anyone can see. Not this one. Today was low voiced Mary, I’d managed to produce a crystal clear, non crackly Little Town of Bethlehem. I knew that fucking high note was going to be a bit of a stretch. And we were definitely up there.

So there I was wearing my manky old waterproof coat and my ridiculous pussy hat, screeching the carols like some peri-menopausal banshee. With a bottle of milk. And garlic breath. Trying not to show any outward signs of amusement or … well … any outward signs. While in my head I could hear my father guffawing his head off and saying something like, ‘Well Mary, you really have excelled yourself this year.’

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2 Nov 2019 · 3:55 pm

Shiny things and other news!

Apologies for my sudden absence last week, I was on holiday – woot. I meant to write something but when the time came, I wasn’t so inspired. Portugal was lovely, as always, although on the down side, I failed to score any Don Rodrigo this year, which was a blow. I should point out that Don Rodrigo is not a bloke or drugs but is, in fact, this weird Algarvian pudding. Imagine Baklava, you know, the ones that look like shredded wheat, but the shredded wheat bit is made with egg. Egg they’ve extruded and done odd stuff to, good stuff, but odd nonetheless. That’s Don Rodrigo, it’s like … I dunno … deconstructed custard, but it’s Oh so much more than that! It is one of my favourite things. McMini and I have even made a rap type song about it because we’re both nuts.

We had some fantastic pork and clams, fish stew, piri-piri chicken, and other general om-nomess, the sun was out, and I did loads of work. Work on holiday? I hear you cry. Well, yes, but then, my job doesn’t feel like work, so it was more of a case of it being a holiday from Real Life to have some fun. Indeed, I managed to finish the next short in the series, which was weighing at a measly 10k and needed to be 15 or more. It’s now up to 19 with an added twist. I managed to sort out one that was done but … you know, not done. Although that went up from 20k to 26k. Then I tidied up the one between. McMini was hugely pleased when McOther gave him his old flippers. So pleased that for the first couple of days he wore them as slippers.

Also, I was delighted to find I was able to eyebomb the Zamboni at Faro airport. McOther refused to wait, initially. Then as we sat outside on a bench outside the terminal while McMini finished his lunch he relented.

‘Just five minutes, and if you get arrested, we’re not coming to bail you out.’

Anyway, I meant to post something a bit more meaningful today but things have overtaken me and I’ve got distracted by shiny things again. Mind you, since I’m here, I feel I may as well share some of the shininess with you.

First up; the audiobook, MTM starts fidgeting and jiggling about with poorly suppressed excitement and glee. Last night Gareth The Voice sent me the recording of Few Are Chosen to listen to. It’s the weekend, and I have things to do and Real Life to interact with but I managed to get to chapter 17 as I wandered round the market. The first appearance of Humbert made me laugh out loud and the good burghers of Bury St Edmunds around me stepped gingerly away from the mad woman guffawing to herself! My early first impression is a good one. I still can’t quite believe that a person with a voice that’s so totally right for the story has popped up out of nowhere, unbidden. Then again, Gareth is a bright bloke and he’s probably smart enough to pick something that his voice fits. I’m just delighted it was my stuff.

There could have been a lot of auditioning, even if I’d had anything approaching the money, and it had been on the radar. And while it could have been a lady or a man, I would have spent ages trying to find the right person. Instead, he finds me. I have been an unbelievably jammy bleeder in this respect.

It feels as if, finally, when the unicorn farted, I contrived to be vaguely downwind. Mmm. Go me. Phnark.

It’s a really intriguing process, and kind of nerve racking in a way, so, for example, Gareth’s Lord Vernon is kind of a cross between Donald Pleasance doing Blowfeldt, with a dash of Peter Cushing saying, ‘you may fire hwhen ready,’ in Star Wars. It’s quite strange because it’s not quite how I imagined it, but bloody hell it works. He sounds so fucking evil! Mwahahahahrgh! Several folks who have listened to Unlucky Dip since I posted it here thought Gareth had Big Merv and The Pan bang on, too.

Second, yesterday, I managed to sort out this year’s, or at least, next year’s EyebombThereforeIAm calendar. I’ve used the prize money I won in the photographic competition and had 100 copies printed. So far, I have offered to sell it and split the profit with three separate entities. Hopefully that should account for all 100. Having them printed up front does give me a chance of actually getting somewhere with them because it’s cheaper so I can sell them for £10.99 rather than having to sell them for £16.99 to make 99p profit. I think I may have misspelled instagram in the blurb on the back though. Such is life. It wouldn’t be me if I got this stuff 100% right it seems.

Third, the next instalment of the Hamgeean Misfit series of shorts should be ready for editing by the middle of next week. Indeed the only thing that’s stopping it at the moment is my usual chronic lack of cash. I’m hoping to have it ready for sale by January though, since it’s sort of, about Christmas really, but a midwinter-ish release date is fine.

Fourth, Future Adventures seems to be doing well, I am loving it anyway, but other readers seem to have enjoyed the book I put in and have bought the others. There’s been a significant uplift in income this month … or to put it another way, there’s been some, and I can’t think of anything else that would be responsible. Whoopeee!

On the home front, we are ramping up for Dad’s memorial service, not next week but the week after. It should be fun as it will just be a celebration more than anything. A group of people standing around telling silly stories about him. When I think about Dad now, I am just overjoyed to have known such a lovely chap, and unbelievably proud that he was my Dad. I do also feel that I have to step into his shoes, try harder at acts of random kindness and at being the voice of reason. I will post more about that soon, but I have to be in the right mood to write it up and at the moment I’m just too exuberant and excited about all the other stuff.

Yeh, another champagne week, I guess.

_____________________

If you’re interested and missed it before, you can find out more about Future Adventures and Small Beginnings by clicking on the links, below:

Future Adventures

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1

If you click the Small Beginnings link and scroll down, you can also sign up to be informed when the other books in the series come out.

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21 Sep 2019 · 12:49 pm

Fockers and other things …

This week, I’m afraid my piss-poor organisational skills have bitten me on the bottom as usual and I only have half an hour to write this post – possibly a little less – so it’s going to be ill conceived, badly written and will, no doubt, contain a plethora of dodgy spelling.

Things are a bit hectic at the moment, plans are afoot for Dad’s memorial service so there’s that and McMini has started a new school which he seems to be enjoying enormously. However, it’s a school where he is expected to be vaguely organised, which is interesting. He has a gum guard, because they play rugby there, and this has caused him a great deal of excitement. He spent most of the first weekend he got it wearing it about the house and occasionally whipping it out and shoving it towards my face saying,

‘Smell my gumshield, Mum.’

I wore braces as a kid. I know what things smell like after they’ve been in your mouth for a long time so my answer was always a resounding, ‘NO!’ This week I thought he’d lost it.

‘It’s in my school bag,’ he told me.

‘With the text books and that?’

‘Yes.’

I picked up the box it is supposed to live in. ‘And not in its box,’ I said, just to check.

‘Um … no.’

Gak!

Looking at it, I saw that it has been pretty much eaten. I can only assume that he’s been wearing it in lessons, trust me, that would not be beyond him.

One of the things he has to do at school is be ready for any eventuality in phys ed. So he has indoor non-marking soled trainers, outdoor trainers, rugby boots, football boots, a rugby kit, a tennis/pe kit, a hockey kit and a tracksuit. In two and a half weeks he has lost one pair of rugby shorts – but luckily he has a spare – and one of the other pairs of shorts … the hockey ones, I think, but I’m not sure.

This is OK so long as he isn’t asked to wear them as if he is asked to put them on, and can’t, it will result in slightly draconian measures and trouble. He told me, cheerfully, that if he has the wrong shorts, except the rugby ones, he’ll just wear his tracky bottoms. I do hope he gets away with it. But being organised is not his strong suit. He managed to lose a drum stick between the car and his class room last week, so that’s in a car park basically. No sign of it. It’s bizarre. He is also perfectly capable of ‘losing’ things that he actually has with him, by not looking very carefully in his bag.

Last night at pick-up he hit me with a real purler.

‘I’ve lost one of my astro turf boots,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, I never wear them. Everyone else wears trainers so I do.’

Strangely keen to conform, McMini.

Gads! I shook my head in disbelief. Completely stumped. I looked in the shoe section of bag and sure enough there was only one astroturf boot and, worse, only one football boot.

‘How have you done this?’ I asked him. Yes, I the woman who took him to nursery in one scarlet trainer and one beige trainer and didn’t notice until I got into the car to drive home, asked him that.

‘I don’t know, but I think the football boot is in with my kit.’

We looked and sure enough it was, which was a bit of a relief but no obvious sign of the astroturf boot.

‘We’re going to have to check lost property before we go home,’ I told him.

‘OK, but if we don’t find it, please don’t tell Dad about the shoe for a bit. Give me time to have another look as I’m sure it’ll turn up.’

I heave a sigh. McOther is organised and doesn’t really understand about clueless airheads, even though he’s married one and spawned another. Neither of us likes to feel his wrath over the weekend so I agreed.

‘OK,’ I said, and the search began.

We looked in the Prep School lost property and there was nothing there so we widened the search to the sports centre, but they’d just sent a box of lost property back up to the prep school.

No shoe and no shorts either.

Bollocks.

So we drove home. The speed limit on the school site is 15 mph so I tend to grip the steering wheel lean right forward with an intense expression and do it in first gear. The car is definitely better off doing it in first but I like it too because I pretend that I think I’m driving really fast and the G forces are getting a bit much for me. You know, like that bit in Minions 2 when the professor discovers yer man Gru has been kidnapped says, ‘we must help him’ and leaps onto his invalid trike and drives off incredibly slowly, with the determined expression of someone who thinks he’s going a lot faster.

We arrived home and I emptied said kit bag of stinky kit ready to wash and was disappointed not to find the shorts but, on the upside, I did discover the other astroturf boot. In with the kit. Where we both looked.

So Hoorah! but at the same time, kind of, oops. Nice to know I’m setting a great example to my son, pity it’s how not to be though! Mwahahahargh!

Finally I’ll leave you with a completely hilarious story I saw this week about Sir Douglas Bader. I’ve no idea if it’s true but I so hope it is because it’s bloody funny. In fact, I know it would have made my Dad guffaw with laughter. I do hope I didn’t post this last week. Apologies if I did. The brain fog is still strong …

Now to prepare for languages week. McMini has to go to school dressed as a European country. He has the entire outfit to go as Scotland but does he want to do that, and offer Gaelic? Of course not, he wants to go as Germany.

Give me strength.

A bientot!

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