Wednesday 13 July 2016


                                                                                  My Day


I was never one of nature’s addicts. I smoked spasmodically up to thirty odd years ago then gave it up without a problem when a TV programme showed the damage I was doing to my innards. I once smoked a joint in Amsterdam and such is my abysmal tolerance to drugs that I became almost catatonic. My wife thought I was having a stroke. Luckily she was having a joint herself so she managed to see the funny side. I drink, but not to any excessive degree, in fact I thought I was immune to any sort of addiction until I began writing. This was about seventeen years ago. Since then I’ve written sixteen books published in print, many by mainstream publishers Little,Brown, plus another six e-books, several, so far unsold, scripts, some short stories and a few books started but abandoned.
In short, I write because I’m addicted to writing. I’m a retired builder who always had a couple of sidelines in stand-up comedy and free-lance painting. My writing day begins when the mood and the idea takes me, which can be any time during the 24 hour day. Many’s the time I’ve woken up in the dead of night with an idea I knew I must get down lest I forget it when I get up. I go next door into my writing room―I call it the office ―with the intention of getting the basic idea down and no more. I emerge hours later when the sparrows are singing outside and my wife’s wondering how come she’s got the bed to herself. It’s during these illicit hours when I’m at my most creative. I find my best ideas take shape when my mind is completely at rest, lying in bed having just woken up in the dark, the world is quiet and my brain is giving my ideas its complete and undivided attention.
I’ve tried writing these ideas down on a bedside pad, in the dark, reaching out from under the duvet with a sleepy arm, hoping my pencil is moving in the right direction and ending up trying to translate a page of hieroglyphics the following morning.
I play golf twice a week and never allow that to interfere with my writing. It’s a game for which a have a great love, but little talent. I need the exercise, I enjoy the camaraderie, the fun and the rare feeling of triumph when I hit a good shot. As a stand-up comedian I still do after-dinner work, perhaps a dozen gigs a year. I don’t paint much anymore. I intend to but haven’t yet got around to it, maybe I’m afraid it’ll take up too much of my time. Painting’s addictive as well.
So, I suppose my writing day is between the hours when I’m not doing anything else. There are 168 hours in a week, golf takes up maybe a dozen of these; sleep takes up 50 to 60, being a loving and dutiful husband, father and grandfather takes up time I can’t put a quantity on; leisure time is important although I regard writing as part of my leisure time so, somewhere within this 168 hours, I reckon there are about 40 or so hours when I find time to sit at my computer, happy as Larry (whoever Larry is). When the muse is upon I have been known to write for six or seven hours nonstop―as many as ten thousand words in a day. Others days I spend hours just doing corrections and improvements, not advancing the book a single word, just making it better. This is equally as satisfying. Some days, if the ideas aren’t there I don’t bother to write at all. I don’t worry because I know the words are in there somewhere, just not ready to come out that’s all. This is probably why I don’t suffer from writer’s block. Not sure I believe in it, to be honest.

Quite often, on my way to bed I’ll tell my wife I’m just nipping into the office to switch off the computer. Then I make the mistake of sitting down to take a quick look at what I’ve done that day and perhaps make the odd correction... perhaps more. After I’ve spent ten minutes or so by my writer’s inner clock I’ll switch off and go to bed. My wife will wake up and ask me what I’ve been doing in there for the last two hours. She’s a very understanding woman who realises that two hours of highly concentrated creativity can be compressed into ten mental minutes. At least that’s my excuse.




                                                     PAPER VERSUS KINDLE ?

As a writer I have to choose paper, as traditional publishers sell more of my books than Kindle. Yes I know this is not the way things are supposed to be going in this business but it is from where I am. To sell on Kindle I need to be an active marketer which I ain't. All I want to do is write my books.If they don't automatically sell themselves once they've been Kindleised there's  not much more I can do, with me being so useless at this social media lark. This is a pity because as a reader I think Kindle is great. 

         I mentioned this to my wife, Valerie, who's an avid Facebooker. She asked me how long it was since I posted a blog and I said it was some time in 2014 but I got no comments so I gave up bothering. She said blogging isn't about bothering it's all about just sticking your thoughts down somewhere...and that's my problem. I told her that my thoughts are not really for public consumption and she said some people seem to think you’re quite witty, especially the ones who pay you good money for speaking at their dinners. So why not try this wit of yours out on them?  Easier said than done, said I. Making people laugh on the printed page isn't easy. When was the last time you laughed at a joke in a joke book? Humour is all about rythym and timing. I had to agree that I do try and write with that in mind but whether it raises a smile or not is up to the reader. Any humour I write in my books comes direct and unintentionally from my strange mind and has got me into no end of trouble over the years, mind you, it’s also subsidised me as a poverty-stricken writer. Oh sod it! Right now going to show off. I did a golf club dinner last Friday where I got a standing ovation followed a couple of days later by this email:

    Dear Ken
I would like to thank you on behalf of Cleckheaton GC for an enjoyable and most entertaining evening. Many positive comments were received and some expressed you are the best guest speaker the club has had in quite some time... A night I will certainly remember and cherish. I hope you continue with your after dinner speaking for years to come - you are clearly gifted. 

If anyone is in the market for a golf club speaker you can check on the similar comments I’ve received over the years on my Speaking page.



   Anyway, back to me writing. I have a saga, NEARLY ALWAYS (Piatkus),  due for publication in  April and a crime, DEAD OR ALIVE Severn House), due out in June and another saga, a WW1 drama called TELL ME IT'S NOT TRUE (Piatkus)  due out in November. Three books in nine months. Not that I wrote them in nine months...it took me almost two years. In fact right now I'm on with two books: a crime called THE DEFENESTRATION OF JOE SANTIAGO and a saga called ROBBERS RAGS AND RAINBOWS. I'm hoping to have them both finished by the end of the year. 'Why two books at once?'  you might well ask. Well I find that sticking a book away in a drawer for a few months allows me to come back to it with fresh eyes and ideas.

Anyway, back to humour. As I write it occurs to me that I should include an after dinner story with each of my blogs. Okay, they may make you wonder why I even get paid,
 much less given a standing ovation.

    Man staggers into a pub with sweat pouring down his face. ‘Good grief!’ says the landlord, you look in a bad way What’s the problem?’
     ‘Oh, I’ve got this woman in the back of my car in your car park,’ says the man. ‘I’ve had her there for five hours and I can’t satisfy her. She’s a real nymphomanic.’
      ‘Tell you what,’ says the landlord, ‘you take over behind the bar for half an hour and I’ll take over in the back of your car.’
       ‘That’s very decent of you,’ says the man.
        ‘Think nothing of it sir. All part of our customer service.’
         So the man takes over behind the bar and the landlord goes to the car. He’s been there about ten minutes when a policeman comes shining his torch in all the cars.
       ‘Hello, hello, hello!’ he says, shining his torch in the back of the car. ‘What do you two think you’re doing in the back of that motor car?’
         ‘It’s all right, officer,’ said the landlord. ‘I’m just making love to my wife.’
         ‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry sir. I didn’t realise it was your wife.’
         ‘No, neither did I, ‘til you shone that bloody torch!’


Usually a winner but remember, ‘its the way you tell ’em.’ I’ll try and remember to do another blog next month, including an after dinner story.


       

Tuesday 12 July 2016



                                             THE HERO OF THE GRAVEYARD

I was talking to Mike, an old pal of my brother, John, in a pub yesterday and he told me a story about our kid that I can't wait to tell his family.As young men the two of them were on their way to the cinema one particularly foggy evening when our John suggested taking a short cut through a graveyard. The fog was such that Mike, walking just a few feet behind our John, could barely see him until John stopped, to look down at the foggy figure of a woman who looked to have collapsed on a grave, right in front of a headstone.
    'Are you all right?' he asked. No reply.
    So John decided to do the heroic thing and get the woman back to her feet, which he did by grabbing her by the armpits and heaving her upright. At that point the woman's husband, who had been waiting nearby, appeared out of the gloom and explained that his wife hadn't actually collapsed, she was just having a pee!

Since my last blog we've voted to leave Europe and are in the process of getting a new prime minister and I didn't think it was all that long since I did my last blog. Must buck my ideas up. In fact since my last blog I've had two books published...properly published by mainstream publishers. Not that I'm knocking those only publish on kindle, I've got six published only on kindle myself. However I've got another book due for publication by Piatkus in November. It's called Tell Me It's Not True and is set during world War One. The book title is a repeat of words uttered by one of my female protagonists who has been told her husband has been killed in the war only she feels him to be still alive. Is she right? You'll have to read the book to find out.

Right now I'm writing two books in concert. It's OK I've done it before. Perhaps I'm the only writer who can work that way but I find it helps when the ideas stop flowing on the book I'm currently writing and yet I've been piling up ideas for my other book and making notes of them. Right now I'm about 50,000 words into a saga, currently called RUNAWAYS and 40,000 words into a crime called THE DEFENESTRATION OF JOE SANTIAGO. I'm just about to move onto the crime book and add another 30,000 or so words to it by which time I'll have enough ideas stored up to go back to RUNAWAYS. It could be that I'm the only writer who works that way. I'd certainly be interested to hear from anyone else who does.

I've just been writing some stuff "of interest" for my publishers marketing people, and I mentioned the boys comics I read when I was a lad. There were four main ones: THE ADVENTURE; THE ROVER; THE HOTSPUR AND THE WIZARD. The stories were all crammed inside in a tiny font, no more than 7, with around 2,500 words per page. The pages in the comics varied from 15 to 20 which means that on average a comic held around 44,000 words, and, using the schoolboys' swap system, I read all four comics each week. Had I spent that much time on my homework I'd have been a genius.