What's the point? Still ducking and diving.

January 27^th. 2017

How mighty is the ‘Zon’? I queried the fact that the paperback version of Hell’s Gate shown on their dot.com website, was the wrong one, and that the right one was shown on the UK product page. The answer I received still baffles me: it is because Amazon.com only work to one decimal point that they could not show the latest copy of my book because the trim size is 5.25 inches (x 8”). I know; I couldn’t either. This vast, unstoppable monolith that consumes all markets in its wake and gobbles up small businesses was brought to its knees by a decimal point. Someone should write a book about it.

I completed the questionnaire for Santonu Dhar during the week, which he transposed into an interview for his website. It’s standard fare really, but nevertheless it’s another contact in another part of the world. And my thanks to Santonu for doing this. The link is http://bit.ly/2nhmdMx. I also heard from a chap who our CHINDI group made a connection with some time ago — Jamie Dyer of South Waves Radio. He is back in business doing author interviews for his on-line radio station. We haven’t been in touch for over a year, so it was nice to know that he is back. We should be hooking up soon to record an interview.

I’m dithering again — procrastinating is the word. I was playing around with my website, which definitely needs some work on it, and also trying to add five chapters which are an extension to my novel, The Eagle’s Covenant. The intention was to send it to my subscribers, but as I read through them, I realised that these should be allowed to run into a full length novel. The question was, how could I do that when I don’t have a plot? Then I read something from David Gaughran that pointed me to the author, Libbie Hawker. She has written a helpful instruction book called Take off your pants. Libbie had her first book traditionally published, but had written it without a planned plot line: something I tend to do with most of my stuff. So, getting back to the Covenant, I began to think about turning this book into a trilogy, simply to compete with the writers who self-publish their series novels successfully. What I needed was a pre-panned plot line with an arc covering the three books. Could I do it? Could I really come up with something that would mean putting myself in a literary straitjacket? Well, I’m going to give it some serious thought once I have picked the bones out of Libbie Hawker’s book. Oh, I messed up my website by the way: managed to delete it and had to delve into the site history to get it back.

My wife and I went to the pictures yesterday. We saw The Darkest Hour. It was a brilliant performance by Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill. I remember when I was stationed with the RAF Airfield Construction Branch in 1963, being “volunteered” on to the Guard of Honour with about fifty other poor souls. We spent the most part of that year rehearsing for Winston Churchill’s State funeral. We became very good at marching, forming two lines from three on the march, rifle drill to bring us to “arms reversed at rest” as the cortege went by. But I never did get to his funeral because I was posted to Germany before Churchill died. People of my age will remember the great man, and I can only hope that the younger generation will understand just what he did for us when Hitler’s tyranny decimated Europe.

News of Tuppence and her weight loss programme. She almost blew it! Pat left a ham sandwich in the wrong place for about one minute. Tuppence got to it and practically devoured the lot. My wife was furious, but I couldn’t help laughing; Pat’s anger was with herself really because she was so looking forward to that sandwich (she’s on a diet too). You’ve got to love them, haven’t you?

Next week (tomorrow evening) begins with me preaching my first sermon at our church as a fully-fledged member of the preaching team. Then somehow I must get to grips with my WIP and the idea of writing a trilogy. Good thing the first one is already in the bag. Wish me luck!