Wasting time, writing time and party time.

Well, I wandered up another cul-de-sac by attempting to
use Scrivener. There’s nothing wrong with the programme, and I can see how it
could be a very useful tool for many writers, but for this writer it proved to
be a little too cumbersome. Trying to learn the simple use of just a couple of
its features meant that I would spend more time clicking through tabs, files
and links in order to get to elements of my manuscript that I would otherwise
have to hand and therefore easier to access. So it’s goodbye Scrivener and
welcome back pad and pencil. No, I don’t write by hand, but I build a
chronology as I write, and this is open all the time I’m writing so I can refer
to earlier points of the story if I need to. I jot down my chronological
progress by hand and complete the chronology at the end of my writing session.
It works for me, and I’m happy with that.

I’ve made reasonable progress with my MS, and have
reached 38000 words. There have been diversions along the way of course, and I
have finally caught up with a lot of material I had written earlier. Needless to
say I have changed a lot of detail and even now I know of an area that I have
to go back to in order to correct something. I have also been keeping my eye on
the progress being made by my non-fiction book, A WORD IN YOUR EAR. I have put
it on Smashwords and each day I check its progress. Remember: this book was not
written to make sales, but as a legacy (if that’s the right word) to our four
sons. I don’t think any of them believed their dad could actually become a born
again Christian, and on top of that end up preaching. Anyway, the amusing thing
about its progress is that I have sold one book (I bought that) and have had 56
sample downloads so far. These are people who are curious about the book and have
downloaded the first 15%. I have now upped that to 25%. The fact that none of
them were intrigued enough to buy the book (it’s only 99 cents) doesn’t worry
me because it was never meant to be an informative, religious work; simply an
anecdotal account of my conversion to the Christian faith. But what excites me
is that when I eventually get my fiction titles on Smashwords, I’ll be able to
monitor the sample downloads and maybe adjust my book promotions accordingly.

I read a linked piece on Facebook a couple of days ago
that poked fun at the traditional publishers and laughed at the expected
collapse of traditional publishing as on-line publishers like Amazon increase
their volume of indie authors. It saddened me to see intelligent people behaving
like a bunch of jeering schoolchildren over the (hoped for) demise of traditional
publishing. It hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t believe it will. I have a great
deal to be thankful for because John Hale of Robert Hale Ltd., a London
publisher, has published seven of my eight titles. I have a ninth due out in January.
This has given me a wonderful experience in the literary world; one that I may
never have had. I am now on Amazon as an indie publisher and enjoying an
extended life in book sales. But what the critics of traditional publishing
forget is that there is an enormous amount of dross being published on Amazon
and posing as creditable, literary work. It drags most of us down whether we
are any good or not, and makes it very difficult to establish a readership
without pouring a lot of money in promotion and marketing. If the traditional
publishers do eventually go to the wall, it will be because of market forces,
and nothing else. But I can’t see that happening; not for a long time yet.

On the domestic front it has been a good week too. Last
Friday our church house group met for our usual, weekly meeting, and this was
followed by a pool party. It was a lovely day; very hot, and there were about
twenty five of us there. I spent about two hours chatting with a couple of guys
who had led interesting lives. Neither of them were members of the church, but
husbands of two of our lady members. One of them had worked in construction all
over the world, and the other had run his own business as well as being a
successful band leader. On Saturday we had a big do at our church. It was
billed as an old time musical night, but was in fact a secret birthday party for
our church elder who was ninety that day. I sang a duet with a mate of mine. We
did the Flanders and Swan song: The Gas man Cometh. It was all amateur stuff of
course but we had a terrific night. And that morning my Pastor phoned me and
asked if I would like to preach sometime. I was delighted because I didn’t
expect to be standing in front of the church bringing God’s word again, bearing
in mind that me and Pat are planning to return to UK as soon as I get some kind
of clearance from the hospital. I had a blood test last Friday and will be
seeing my specialist on Tuesday. No scan yet, but maybe she can hurry something
up. Then we’ll now. Wish me luck!

Walks and work

It seems to have been a week of long walks for some.
Metaphorically the England football team began their long walk back home from
Brazil to the UK, while me and Pat have been stretching our legs walking around
Alicante and Torrevieja. The other kind of long walking I’ve been doing is with
my fingers over the keyboard as I battle with a trial on Scrivener, but more
about that later. Last Monday we went into Alicante and wandered around the
shops. It hadn’t been part of our plan, but we went to Elche hospital to jog
their memory about my forthcoming MRI scan, only to be told that my name wasn’t
in their computer. So a trip to Alicante ensued followed by a great deal of
walking. Putting the car into the garage for a planned repair and service meant
most of the day, unexpectedly, being stranded in Torrevieja, so we bit the
bullet and wandered around again. Market first, then the sea front and some
time in town. Made it back in time for the Italy Vs. Costa Rica game, which
Costa Rica won and ensured that England would begin their long walk home. As a
result of our peregrinations and other things, we have eaten out three times.
Not bad you might think, but we don’t really need all those calories, even if
we do burn some off with the walking.

On the book front; I’ve been getting some heartwarming
comments about my non-fiction book, A WORD IN YOUR EAR. I never intended to
publish this book to earn money and get good sales figures, but with
compliments flying around, who knows? Which brings me on nicely to Scrivener.
It’s about books of course. What, I hear you asking is Scrivener? Well, it’s a
programme designed to help writers, not just fiction writers, to build their
work in an easily manageable way without having to switch from one document to
another and searching through research data that usually goes missing when you
most need it. It comes highly recommended, and already I can see what a
practical and helpful tool it is. But will it suit me? Perhaps not at this late
stage of my writing career. I have the programme running on a 30 day trial. It
means 30 days of use, which could be 30 months if you only use it once a month.
I’ve been working with it now for about three days and hope I can get used to
it enough to make up my mind about buying it. It’s not expensive, but it may
not be necessary. I worked my way through the very informative tutorial. It
took me about three hours or more and, like a lot of these ‘simple’
instructions, I’m still confused. But I’m getting there. Hopefully I’ll crack
it before my thirty days are up. Wish me luck!

Losing discipline and the plot

Most writers, I would
imagine, have a set routine for their writing process. Any haphazard approach
would almost certainly result in a disjointed piece of prose and cause the
writer many problems during the re-write. I find myself in that position, and
have done for several months now. I could blame the house move, the chemo
therapy and even put it down to an enforced change of lifestyle now that we are
living in rented accommodation. But that would be a hatful of lame excuses for
not doing what I should be doing, and that is writing. But like anybody with a
creative gift, I have come up with another excuse: I have been trying to upload
my latest non-fiction work (A WORD IN YOUR EAR) on to Smashwords. I managed to
upload the book and even bought a copy, but the problem came when trying to satisfy
the criteria for inclusion into the Premium Catalogue. I’m getting closer with
each revision of the file, and am now waiting for the vetting process to finish
for my latest attempt. I had problems with the book jacket initially. This took
umpteen attempts before I finally got it right. Once I have completed the
process and my book is available for wider distribution, it will give me the
confidence I need when I begin to upload my eight fiction titles. That process
will begin during July, and hopefully I will have them all there by the end of
the year. So until I can find a clear run, my current work-in-progress novel
will be sitting on the back burner.

Last week, apart from the
foregoing, our life whizzed around the car being repaired at the dealer’s; a
practice session with my friend Dave for the contribution we will be making at
our Old Time Music Hall
event at church next week (we’ll be singing that well known Flanders and Swan ditty:
The Gasman Cometh. Should be fun); hospital appointment; church; a beach baptism; game of snooker and, oh yes — the World
Cup. I’m full of excuses! That’s creativity for you. I couldn’t do anything yesterday because I took Pat into Alicante for a
look round the shops. Today? Well, apart from writing up and posting my blog, I
have a game of snooker to get through.

Another string to a successful, self-published author is
promotion and marketing. This is something I dabble with, and have promised myself
that I will get to grips with this aspect of publishing in the near future. My
son, Terry, has been helping me create a new website (which means he has been
doing most of it), but now he has sold his house and will be moving south to
England, so that part of the plan has been put on hold. I can’t expect him to
continue with the development until he is settled in his new home. By that time
me and Pat may be in the fortunate position of being able to return to the UK,
which will stop me from doing any meaningful work on writing and promotion. See
how easy it is to be creative and come up with excuses? Some of you may ask: do
you really want this, Mick? Well perhaps I should be happy with nine novels in
print (after January 2015), but I wouldn’t mind a tenth! And if I wasn’t
writing, what else would I be doing? But like a racehorse with a good track record,
I’m worth a bet that I will finish the course. You watch! Wish me luck.

Spelling & PC

During the week I received the first edited draft of my
latest novel from my publisher (Robert Hale Ltd.). It was a case of reading
through the comments and observations and replying without actually making any
changes to the draft. Two things struck me about it: spelling and PC. I have a
decent vocabulary of words I can spell and have rarely struggled with that part
of the English language. But I was constantly corrected for spelling words like
‘realise’ and ‘organise’ with the ‘s’ instead of the ‘z’. Realize and Organize.
This is an American way of spelling those words and others similar to them. It
doesn’t bother me if my editor wants me to spell the American way, but I have a
feeling that in the literary world, these kind of spellings are the rule rather
than the exception. No matter though; my book is now on its way to the printers
for typesetting.

PC? Not a personal computer, but political correctness.
I was reminded that my use of the word ‘black’ when referring to the features
of a Jamaican character in the novel was probably not acceptable in today’s PC
climate. You have to ask the question: who brought PC into this world? If a
black man tells me I am white, is he a racist? No, of course not. But if I tell
a black man he’s black, am I in the wrong? According to those who drive this
absurd notion into all corners of our lives, I am. But what about porn? And I
don’t mean the top shelf magazines either, but the racy, raunchy muck that lurks
between the covers of a novel. And the gangster novels where no two sentences
are complete without a string of awful swear words. If you were to parse those
books and take out everything that would normally offend someone if they heard
it in the high street, the book would be as thin as a newspaper and wouldn’t
sell. But use of the word ‘black’? My, my!

I’ve been trying to launch my non-fiction book, A WORD
IN YOUR EAR, on to Smashwords. I intend putting all my novels there eventually.
It’s easy. So easy that I have struggled manfully to get an acceptable book
cover uploaded. I have managed to get my book on to the Smashwords website,
complete with jacket, and have actually purchased a copy (e-book). But in order
to get the book on to the Premium Catalogue, which is the route to all the
other sellers and bookshops, I have to do something else to my book jacket.
Trouble is: I don’t what it is I have to do. All I am told is that there is a
problem with the cover. It might be missing, corrupt or not big enough; take
your pick. I still haven’t figured it out. I’ve e-mailed Smashwords through
their help page. Hopefully they’ll come up with an answer, but I’m not holding
my breath. I’ll keep on trying anyway. Wish me luck!

Where am I going now?

Suddenly it’s June and we’re approaching the half-way
point of 2014. I know what I’ve done with my half so far: spent most of it
battling cancer and letting Pat do all the packing for our planned house move.
Now we’re settled in our rented accommodation, we are itching to go back to UK
permanently, but have to wait until later this year. It gives me an opportunity
though to push on with my novel, the prologue of which you have all seen now. I
hope I can have it finished before our move back to England takes place. Most
writers will know and understand the problems that come with crafting a novel,
and I wouldn’t be the first to admit that the characters often lead you into
situations that leave you wondering how you managed to run up that cul-de-sac.
But it happens and often means that you haven’t got a clue about where you’re
going and how the whole thing is going to end, which about sums up my
predicament at the moment. I see so many different ways in which I can take the
story, but there is always the problem of bringing the plot back to the dénouement. Trouble is: I don’t know how
that going to finish either.

So why do writers (not all of them), punish themselves
with the self-inflicted problem of writing? It’s a bit like character I suppose:
you can’t help the way you are and you can try to change if you think it will
improve you. I can’t help writing. I’ve given up many times but there’s always
a plot line running around in my head, so it’s a as natural as drawing breath
almost. If I was a painter, or artist as some would prefer to call it, I would
have a studio full of paintings; probably none of them framed (maybe one or
two) and still be working on my next masterpiece. Would I change it if I could?
I don’t think so. Writing has opened up a world for me that I would have been a
stranger to otherwise. It has been of enormous benefit to me when I have prepared
sermons as an occasional preacher at my local, Christian fellowship here in
Spain. I tend to approach sermons from a different angle to your usual Sunday
preacher; much like a writer crafting a novel with a twist to it. You can read
evidence of that in my non-fiction publication, A WORD IN YOUR EAR. It’s an anecdotal
account of my conversion to Christianity since retiring to Spain to enjoy the ‘good’
life. I sometimes wonder if our four sons think that me and their mum have
screwed up with that particular change in our lives, but the alternative could
have been a very boozy lifestyle of which I’m sure they would not have
approved. The book, buy the way, is available on Amazon in kindle and paperback.
Might be worth a look. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I1FCA0Y/?tag

So what’s ahead in the Parker household? More writing.
More hospital appointments. More hope. More wondering. But we’re happy, and
that’s a good medicine. Now back to the drawing board. Wish me luck!