One Gee's enough

Our week began in a similar fashion to the previous one: shoot into the hospital on Monday morning for a blood test (for Pat), dash home, bite to eat, walk the dog and then back for the afternoon chemo session. Home by six o’clock, grub, feet up, watch TV. Phew! Poor Pat: this chemo session was more tiring for her, probably because she started her morning tummy jabs on Monday, which usually means her immune system is at its lowest. The jabs are finished now, and she is showing signs of improvement already, thank God. We now have one eye appointment for Pat this week, then a couple of weeks before we’re back on the treadmill.

Some sad news for me as well this week: my elder sister, Joyce, died after an operation which she knew could be fatal. She was 90, very frail, and not really expected to last much longer. She had a fall at home which led to the op and her subsequent death. In the midst of life etc…

I struggled to get through the crime thriller (?) I was reading. The author, who currently has a series on Amazon and apparently doing well, made what I believe is a basic mistake, and one that irritates me intensely. The two main characters, one a DCI and the other a DS were called Grecko and Grace. The more pages I turned, so my irritation increased I was literally speed reading just to get to the end. I mentioned this to one of my sons during the week. He told me that when he attended a script writing course in London about twenty years ago, they were told never to use the same initial letters for characters because of the confusion it would lead to. This was the same script writing school that Guy Ritchie had attended the year before my son. So, I’m not alone in considering that kind of thing as poor writing. But that’s my opinion and I could be wrong.

No news yet from Joffe Books about Past Imperfect, but I don’t really expect anything until probably the end of the month.

Having ‘finished’ that book I started looking for something else, going through the best sellers etc. on Amazon until I leapt back into my past and downloaded a Hammond Innes novel. Innes has always been my favourite writer and I've read most of his books, including this one, The Lonely Skier. I can’t remember anything about it of course because it was so long ago, but already I’m enjoying a master wordsmith. Incidentally, it was his novel, Campbell’s Kingdom that inspired me to write North Slope (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01L02R626): published by Macmillan in 1978 and saw me being described as a “gifted narrator” in the Financial Times. Thanks to Hammond Innes.

I managed to make more microscopic progress on my current WIP. I will get there eventually, but I have to fit my writing time in when I can. I’m currently writing this blog in the front room after walking the dog, quick shop over the road, and getting the ironing done. And on top of all this, just like everyone, I have to give serious thought to the corona virus and all it portends, particularly as I’m looking after a vulnerable woman, and also because I’m at that age (79 this month), which also puts me in that category. I would have been travelling up to London tomorrow for the Self-Publishing Live show at the South Bank on Monday. I cancelled my ticket last December, so have had plenty of time to get used to the idea of not going. The London Book Fair has been cancelled, and we wondered if the SBS Live would be too. But it’s going ahead, and they are expecting most of the 900 who purchased tickets to attend. A few have pulled out because of the virus implications, which is a shame for them.

That’s it then. Now, where are my pills? Wish me luck.

Questions, questions, questions.

No, no blowing of trumpets, simply that I was nominated by my Chindi colleague, Helen Christmas, to participate in a summer blog event. It meant spending a little more time on social media than I really wanted, so I’ve taken a shortcut and answered the questions that Helen answered. She did set me new ones, but I’d answered those I saw first and couldn’t be bothered to go through them all again. So, here are the questions that Helen had, followed by my answers. The weekly blog follows the Q&As.

When you were little, what did you dream about becoming when you grew up?

I wanted to be a Trolley Bus conductor so I could slide the poles out from beneath the bus and lift them to change the pick-up arms on to another set of overhead wires. See? No ambition!

What is something you like to do the old-fashioned way?

Write with a fountain pen.

What is one of your favourite smells?

Fresh cut grass.

If you could call anyone in the world and have a one-hour conversation, who would you call?

There is no-one outside of my family that fits that criteria, but if it was for someone long dead I would have to choose two people (I know — it said one). Jesus would be my first, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows I am a Born-again Christian. The other is my mother who died a few years before I had my first book published. She was an ardent reader and was never to know how proud I would have made her.

What job would you be terrible at?

Anything a woman does around the house.

If you had a million pounds/dollars, what would you do with them to help the most people?

Because it’s not enough to buy an ailing football club, I would try to do my best for local charities, and also my church here in Aldwick.

For one day, you can do whatever you want. What would you do?

Emulate my son, Terry, and fly a fast jet.

Give me three words to describe yourself.

Optimist. Talkative. Supportive.

What is your favourite food treat?

Mince, mash, vegetables and gravy. (I know it’s boring, but I’m a simple man with simple needs.)

What is your favourite outfit?

I like to dress in spivvy clothes but have long given that up. I used to like wearing a dark shirt, leather jacket and slim trousers.

You have one last wish… go for it!

A complete cure for cancer.

My apologies to Helen for not following the rules. You can find Helen’s excellent blog at https://samefacedifferentplace.wordpress.com/2020/02/26/.

So, how as the week gone for me and Pat? She had chemo last Monday, which doesn’t seem to have affected her too much. We understand there is usually a downside, but we’re not complaining. We were called in by the hospital to have a blood test because Pat’s had been done more than 48 hours before. That meant a quick dash into St. Richards, home again, walk the dog, grab a bite and get back for her one o’clock appointment. They have changed the chemo schedule too: it means we’re in again next Monday, and then not for three weeks. We have also been given all Pat’s appointments up to the end of April.

I submitted my book, The Boy from Berlin, https://www.amazon.co.uk/B079SSJP9V to BookBub for a featured deal at the beginning of the week. They accepted it but not for the USA. I was given the opportunity to promote it in Canada, Australia, India and the UK. They didn’t give a reason for the ban on USA, but I suspect it’s because the story is about the race for the Whitehouse, and the main protagonist is a right wing, white racist supremacist, and also the chief suspect for the murder of a State senator. The police office leading the investigation is Lieutenant Amos, a black cop! I guess BookBub considered it a bit delicate and maybe have an influence on the presidential election coming up this year? (He says with tongue firmly in cheek). So, Donald Trump can sleep safely in his bed and dream of another four-year term.

I finished reading The Auction Murders by Roger Silverwood; his third in the DCI Angel series. I think I have a problem with police procedurals because there seems to be the need for the main character to have a problem, whether domestic, emotional, or physical, and this requires a lot of wandering off plot to fill the reader with narrative that, for me, doesn’t drive the plot forward. It isn’t just this book too; I’m finding the same with the one I’ve just started, but more about that when I finish it (if I do).

I’ve heard nothing from Joffe Books about the progress with Past Imperfect. I don’t really expect to for a while; it’s just me getting itchy feet and wanting to see it finished and ready to go.

I received an email from one of my new subscribers who had signed up for a free copy of Hell’s Gate. The message was clear: “Stop sending me emails.” I guessed she meant to unsubscribe, which I did for her, and sent her a reply to say I’d done this. I received an email the following day from her asking me if my book was available in paperback! Hmmm! I wonder if she’s bought one. I live in hope. Wish me luck.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Well, the excitement level went up in the Parker household this week, but it was all about my book world. More of that later. Last Monday Pat saw the specialist who said that her blood test showed that things were normal. This meant she could continue chemo, which would be next Monday. We were a little disappointed to think she had to wait a week, but the prescription for the chemo is made up at Worthing hospital, and takes about three days. She’s been a bit flat this week, but I can’t expect her to be jumping through hoops every day; living with cancer can be soul destroying.

Now, the excitement level. Readers of my blog will know I’ve just had the jacket of my romance, Past Imperfect, redesigned. I then began a tentative promotion campaign on Amazon, but so far that has only produced two sales. I was on the point of signing up for a different type of promotion with the company who did the jacket when I received an email, out of the blue, from Joffe Books (rhymes with coffee) wanting to ‘relaunch’ Past Imperfect. I can promise you that it had nothing to do with the redesigning of the jacket. Joffe Books bought all Robert Hale rights about a year ago from Crowood Press. I had two titles left over from Hale that belonged to Crowood but managed to get the rights back over a year ago; this meant I had no connection with any traditional publisher. Somehow, Joffe Books picked up on Past Imperfect and that’s why they got in touch with me.

So who are Joffe Books? They publish indie writers; mainly crime but do have an interest in other genres. They are one of the most successful indie publishers on Amazon, having sold 1.4 million books in 2017 and in 2018 held seventeen of the top 100 titles there. When they take on a writer, they do the lot: editing, proof reading, formatting, jacket design, and promotion. It costs the writer nothing. There’s no advance, and royalties are paid quarterly.

I first came across Jasper Joffe on a Mark Dawson podcast a couple of years ago, so I have a good understanding of how he works. I did submit a manuscript to him but heard nothing back. He usually takes on about one in a hundred submissions, so to be ‘picked up’ in this way is something of a game changer for me. I now have to wait for things to happen. They have everything they need from me, so hopefully I won’t have to wait too long before I see things moving.

The email from them took me back to the seventies when I received a letter from my agent to say that Macmillan had made an offer to publish my first book. I remember standing outside the chicken sheds where I’d been doing some electrical work for the chicken farmer, when Pat turned up in the car, our four boys with her, clutching the letter. We ended up dancing round the yard, me in my overalls and wellie boots, Pat clinging on for dear life and the chicken farmer wondering what the hell was going on. No, I didn’t do any of that when Joffe Books got in touch, but metaphorically I came pretty close. What now? I’ve just got to settle down, keep calm and hope I can look forward to a renewed career. Wish me luck!