Love me, Love my cat

This is the story of how stroking a cat can change your world. You have been warned...

I first met Greebo the cat (indeed named after his Discworld alter-ego) on August 10th 1998. He was laid on the grass outside the house of the girl I had met two days earlier. I approached, he rolled over, I stroked his tummy...“Is that my cat?” asked the girl stood in the door. At this moment, Greebo, who had enough of my attention, bit me. “Yup, that’s my cat,” the girl stood in the door confirmed.I bid my farewells, with no intent of seeing girl or her cat again...Ha! Little did I know that Greebo wasn’t nice to anybody, voluntarily offering his tummy was tantamount to a proxy proposal of marriage.  Despite living almost 300 miles apart, I saw quite a lot of that girl, Vee, (and her cat) and by November of that year, I had offered Vee a place to stay while she looked for work in London.It would transpire that the girl and the cat came as a package deal. “Love me, love my cat,” she said. And since it turned out I loved the girl, this wheezy, allergic-to-cats, tenancy-agreement-says-no-cats-and-besides-I-don’t-do-cats fool of a man agreed to this odd two-for-one offer.Of course, we hadn’t checked with Greebie (as he was affectionately known) if this was acceptable. Turns out, that being hand weaned from the age of 3 weeks old gives a cat a certain belief in ownership and he had no intention of sharing. He was the ultimate “jealous puss”.Shortly after Vee and Greebie moved in I found myself in A&E, with a towel wrapped round my arm that was turning steadily red.It was explained to the nurse that I had been attacked by a cat. The nurse was horrified and I think, suspecting some panther-like escapee from a zoo or circus, demanded to know the size of the cat. “Just a small domestic cat,” I replied sheepishly.Pumped full of antihistamines and antibiotics the two four inch gashes on my forearm stopped swelling up, the bleeding stopped and I went home. I still have two beautiful tram-line scars as a constant reminder of that particular disagreement.Oddly enough we got on much better after that and we moved from a flat to a house and we all had more room things improved dramatically and Greebie had pigeons to hunt and embarrassingly, on occasions, other families pets, such a couple of baby rabbits, but that’s another story for a different day.By the summer of 1999 Vee was now my wife and by Christmas 2000 we discovered we were going to be parents (She opened a WonderBra from me, I opened a positive pregnancy test from her. Vee never did wear that bra...)Given Greebie’s reaction to sharing Vee with me, we weren’t sure how he’d take sharing her with a baby, so, on the recommendation of a vet, we acquired another cat, Knut, to keep Greebie busy. She did, but that again, is a tale for another day.Romilly was born in September 2001, just a few days after 9/11 and we worried about what kind of world we’d be bringing a child up in, as I guess a lot of us did at the time.As Milly grew, Greebie became her constant companion and interactive play-thing, they were inseparable. So when Yvie came along in 2007 as the ultimate April Fool’s Day gag (two weeks early) we wondered how Greebie, now 11, would fare...Admirably, it turned out, almost kitten like in his enthusiasm to play, he had the full attention of an almost six year old and a new baby and he loved it. As Yvie grew into a toddler he was often found being half carried, half dragged from one room to another, completely content with his new role in life.Turns out Yvie was born with a hole in her heart (now healed) and Greebie became our early warning mechanism, refusing to leave Yvie’s side twenty-four hours before an inevitable turn for the worse and another emergency admission to hospital.So, in early 2012 when Vee started to feel unwell and lost her voice for seven weeks and Greebie refused to be budged from her side, save to eat and for comfort breaks, we knew something was up, even if then, we didn’t know what. The “something” would turn out to be a tumour in Vee’s Thyroid and in the weeks between diagnosis and the operation I would often wake in the middle of the night to find Greebie lying atop Vee, head tucked under her chin, purring for all he was worth. It was oddly comforting to know that he was doing his best.Vee is still recovering from the long-term effects of her Thyroidectomy and Greebie has been a feline drill in the darkness of the night, purring away still.Then, a week go, it was clear that Greebie himself wasn’t well, so Vee took him to the vets, expecting the usual, “it’s his age, he’s getting old. Give him two of these a day and he’ll be fine.” Alas, this was not to be. After a couple of days in the feline equivalent of Intensive Care, tests indicated that Greebie was very unwell. Kidney failure and, ironically, hyper-thyroidism, meant Greebie, Vee’s baby of 17 and a half years didn’t have very long.The vet boosted him up so he could come home for the weekend, so the family could love him, in the flesh one last time, so our beautiful two girls, who have never known a house without a Greebie could say goodbye. There have been many, many tears.Today, Tuesday, 11th June, 2013, as we lay cuddled in bed dreading the alarm, Greebie heaved himself out from underneath the bed, scrabbled up the duvet and dropped himself heavily onto the arm I had round Vee. A jealous puss to the very last...So, in a cold, wet, rainy and cliche ridden day we dressed slowly and with heavy hearts and glistening eyes took Greebie back to the vet. We held his paw and stroked his head and told him how much we loved him, how much he meant to us, how much he will always mean to us and after an injection by the vet waited for him to go to sleep. It didn’t take very long. It was awful, heart-wrenching and it was absolutely the right thing to do.It turns out I am a cat person. I will miss Greebie in ways I did not think possible until just a few hours ago. I will cuddle my girls and remind myself constantly that if that little black and white cat hadn’t rolled over and let me stroke him 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have any of this.Thank-you Greebie cat. I owe you everything.RIP my little friend.loveDad. x

Seeking Inspirational People

A good friend once said how much he disliked the 'greyness' of corporate life, how empty everyone seemed.  I asked him how much of himself he took to work.  He thought a moment and shrugged. Fair point, he said.  This person, who was always at odds with 'corporate', has now moved on from a life spent running company websites to make award-winning short films. And yet, how grey was he to the co-workers he greeted each morning?I went on a business trip recently, meeting my colleague on the train at Wolverhampton as we headed north.  We'd not spent much time chatting before that (and probably won't again - at least, not through work.)  He was the techie pre-sales engineer and I was the product manager, coming together for a customer visit.  We got chatting.  He was into photography, and showed me his pictures.  His wife had the bug too, and I saw arty night shots of trees illuminated by the two of them as they ran around shining torches in the darkness, while a slow-release shutter rendered the couple invisible.  The photos were very good.  But even better was the picture it painted in my mind of love and life in action.Something got me thinking today.About all the inspirational people.  Not the ones on the big stages, but the ones who aren't really trying to lead anything other than a normal life.About a friend, now gone, who spent his days at home, naked and relaxed, pottering.  Brilliant and very much at one with who he was and how he expressed it.About the primary school teacher whose love of Simon & Garfunkel and the canals of England and Wales, through her methods and wonderful eccentricity, ignited in a ten-year old boy two passions that live on decades later.And about the friend who called today, to speak to my wife, but made the happy mistake of asking how I was, whose comments have left me that little bit more certain about things, and whose remark that she'd been listening to 'Let Her Go' by Passenger took me to the album on Spotify.  Genius.Does corporate need to be grey?  Do we need to strip the personality from our product messaging?  I've always struggled with this, and see no reason why it needs to be this way.And with this in mind, my penultimate shout out (in this unashamedly self-indulgent blog) goes to the copy-writer who I've got to know over the last year, whose battle with bland finally seems to be paying off, as the company he writes for finds a more 'human' voice - and in doing so, will perhaps inspire a few more people to look again at the products and services he's writing about.My last shout... to my wife and daughters, whose unflinching belief is a daily inspiration, adding wind to the sails as I work to justify their faith.The list is not exhaustive, and as I've written just these few I'm reminded of all the people I've not included in this short list.  Hopefully they know.  I guess the point is, be open enough to notice the incidental comments and happenings from which inspiration just might spring, and be bold enough to take a little more of yourself into everything you do.When I was at university, I learnt about a study once carried out on 'luck' by assessing two self-selected samples (unlucky people and lucky people).  Count the number of photos in this newspaper, they were told.  You'll get money once you're done.  And the faster you're done, the more money you'll get.  Three pages in, there was a piece of text that gave the number of photos and instructed people to stop immediately and collect their money.  Lucky people saw it.  Unlucky people didn't, as they stuck to their course and counted the photos, ignoring the text.That's all.Julian 

Reading Writers Annual Writers' Day

Earlier today, a small posse from WordWatchers made its way across to Sonning to participate in the 2013 Annual Writers' Day hosted by Reading Writers.  As part of a two-way, tit-for-tat barter, we were WordWatchers' response for Julie Cohen spending the evening with us back in March (when much fun was had, and many new 'people' were introduced to the group - like Stephen Alexander, for example).Today's response involved John Hoggard, John Potter and me presenting our thoughts on writers in the digital world - covering what this has meant for WordWatchers as a group and for the individual writers within it.Before we got down to business, though, the day kicked off with some literary limbering up, as teams collaborated for 20 minutes to produce a short story based on three pieces - a prop, a location and a character.  Entries were then read out - and if you want to enjoy (?) the WordWatchers effort, you'll find the whole thing at the end of this post.So, for our main event...I kicked things off by taking everyone through the evolution of the group, and how we'd gone from an inwardly focused bunch to a much more industry-aware group of established writers with a great mix of skills and a strong vision for how best to serve the needs of its members.Then, John Potter spoke about his experiences in producing Chasing Innocence, and how important it is to ensure that the words you've slaved over for months or years aren't let down by poor quality packaging.  He spoke about formatting for print and eBook, making sure it's able to stand head and shoulders alongside the traditionally published offerings with which it needs to compete for attention.  He also spoke about the many mistakes he'd made along the way, and how each production, from Chasing Innocence, to Mahrie (his novella) and Out of Time (the WordWatchers' anthology), have introduced new challenges and forced the learning of new skills to ensure the best possible product.John Hoggard then spoke about social marketing, and the need to make sure your high-quality, well packaged book has every chance to stand out in the market, and rise above the noise with some savvy online activity.  He spoke about Twitter, and the approach WordWatchers has taken in eschewing volume for quality, in terms of followers, and how the approach is paying off through some very rewarding online interactions.  And then Facebook, and just how much effort is involved in making the platform work.And there was cake.  Aside from the fine spread put on by our hosts, John H upheld the WordWatchers' tradition and provided a particularly wonderful (and gluten free) apple and cinnamon cake.It was a great opportunity to meet up and discuss writing in a lovely setting, and share in the vast array of experiences (and cake) that each writer brings to the table.And now, you know that short story collaboration you've been waiting for?  On reflection, in the spirit of 'what goes on tour stays on tour', perhaps it's best I don't share it.  What I will say is, it was a lot of fun... and certainly brought out some creativity.  After all, take a look at the prop we had (in the photo).  And that paper on its chest - that's our character (a 19th century body snatcher) and our location (an old convent with echoing corridors).We called it 'The Legend of the Hairy Nun' and it began like this:

Birds sang.  Last night’s moon hung in the bright morning sky like a misplaced reveller.  Morag Blair peered in through the leaded window of the recently abandoned convent.  A chill ran down her spine.

 Definitely not one to be taken too seriously.Well done Reading Writers on a great day.  I look forward to future collaborations.Julian

 

A long time ago...

A long time ago (but not necessarily in a galaxy far far away), the Christmas of 1983 to be precise, my parents took the brave (and horribly expensive) decision to buy me a computer. A Commodore 64. I was 12 and I was utterly delighted, even the the fact that I would have to share it with my sister (three years my junior) couldn't take the shine off it.My parents did add a certain tarnish to that shine when they confessed years later that they were worried about my gambling habit and had bought me the computer in the hope that I would go out less! I was horrified of course, especially as I didn't have a gambling habit, which indicated they really didn't know me very well at all. They had mistaken my trips during the summer holidays to the nearby village/Seaside resort of Seaton Carew to do battle on behalf of the Rebel Alliance (Star Wars sit-down machine) and as a brave futuristic tank commander (Battlezone) as being exactly the same as that of the people who feed coin after coin trying to line up 3 cherries and drop a few quid out of the machine.Of course, even at the age of 12 I could reason well enough to understand that any machine which has written on it that it guarantees to pay out 72% of what it takes in, is effectively fixed and therefore was of no interest to me at all (then or now). No, my idea of winning was to appear on the first page of high scores of both Star Wars and Battlezone, so that as subsequent players fed in their 10p pieces, the initials JMH would briefly enter their thoughts and they might wonder who that player was and how did they achieved such an amazing score (because I did). Occasionally I would be "in the zone" and I would indeed end up in the top 10. Once, on Battlezone, I even got the very top score. Never has a few glowing lines on computer screen meant so much to a teenager.Of course, one could argue that, irrespective of my parents' reasoning, I still owned a C64...Ownership of aforementioned C64 lead to my life, from that moment on, splitting neatly into 3 strands:1) Playing gamesThe C64 was a beautiful games machine and while I owned a reasonable amount "shoot-em-ups" I eventually filtered my games collection down to the open-ended Elite (by Ian Bell and David Braben), my collection of SSI Fantasy Roleplaying games (such as "Shard of Spring") and Infocom adventure games such as Zork.2) ProgrammingI loved to tinker and when my school also got a couple of C64s and therefore a large collection of (expensive) supporting books, such as the "Programmer's Reference Guide" then I started to design games of my own.The C64 programming language was not fun and it turned out that I do not have a natural flair for coding, but I stuck with it and eventually produced a roleplaying game of my own. It used a mixture of graphics (like the SSI games) and text input (like the Zork games) and it was opened ended (like Elite) and it was mine, all mine...It was also rubbish. It was slow, buggy and eventually repetitive, but I loved it, because it was mine.3) WritingWhen I bought my Floppy Drives for my C64 I somehow I ended up with a new operating system for it called GEOS. It came with a proper WYSIWYG Word Processor called geoWrite. Of all the the things I have grown to adore about that time in my life, this, on reflection, was "the big one". I wrote all the time. I wrote with purpose and conviction and at some point, aged around 17, I realised that one of my stories had gotten away from me and that I had just written word and after word after word and had done this approximately 180,000 times.This was the story that eventually became "Three Brothers, Three Swords" (3B3S) a story I never actually quite got to the end of. It was the story I joined WordWatchers almost 20 years later, with the intent of finishing (having started to rewrite it as a 3rd Person Narrative (as the 1st Person Perspective had become too difficult and was the reason I'd stopped writing it in the first place) a few years earlier)."Three Brothers, Three Swords" is of course completely rubbish. It was written by an angst-ridden teenager and is stuffed full of clichés and huge great chunks of it could, at best, be described as "inspired by" The Lord of the Rings, and, at worst, sub-conscious rip-off. It's complicated, unfocussed, has too many characters, too many sub-plots and I was writing it for me, for the simple pleasure of writing so it meanders gently through the world I created (I still have the hand-drawn maps I made) like a tourist guidebook pointing out the best bits to visit...I don't think in the late 1980s there was such a term as "Young Adult" and certainly nobody seemed to be writing books for "us" specifically. How times have changed. So "Three Brothers, Three Swords" isn't dead, but it's certainly in deep cryo-sleep waiting to be re-booted (as JJ might put it) - with 180,000 words of dot-matrix print-out to work through, I've certainly got a lot of raw material and if I chip away enough of the bloat a reasonable YA novel may yet emerge. But not yet, not for a long time I think.So, we finally jump to the modern day, although we have to whizz back to about four years to a point where I've been in WordWatchers for about a year and it's clear that while I'm writing (short stories mainly) I'm not doing anything on 3B3S. At this time Katherine Webb was a full member WordWatchers and had joined with an impressive back catalogue of five novels, the sixth being completed during that first year she was in the group (her seventh novel of course became the well deserved success that was "The Legacy"). I was somewhat ashamed of myself, daring to call myself a writer when I had one uncompleted novel under my belt which I had been clinging to like a rotten corpse for 20 years...Katherine said three things to me (to be fair she said many things (and still does)) and none of them were anything the group hadn't said to me before, but they were delivered together as one neat, concise package: "Give up on Three Brothers, write what you like, write what you know."Of course, I did nothing of the sort, I continued to procrastinate with the best of them and then I unexpectedly got sent to a conference for a week up in Edinburgh. A city which I fell in love with immediately. Work had also booked me into a managed apartment, rather than a hotel. I was alone, I had no distractions and I had a work laptop. I started to write. Actually, that's not quite true - I started to plan.The first thing I did was map out the rules for a computer game called Endless Possibilities, the game I would have designed had I had the skill, had the Internet existed and had home computers had more than 1MHz CPUs and 64K of memory when I designed my own computer game all those years ago.Then I started to write. I wondered, if my computer game existed, who would be playing it and that's when Richard introduced himself to me. Then I wondered why Richard would spend so much time playing this game and a story started to emerge - about loss, and hiding and denial. And with a story, I needed a supporting cast and so I had friends, family and work colleagues and they had stories to tell too. By the time I left Edinburgh I was 8,000 words in to a new novel.Over the course of the next few months I could report to WordWatchers I was making steady progress and by the time I got to 15,000 words I did something I rarely do with a substantive piece of work, I handed it over to somebody else. I gave it to Katherine.She read it and to my astonishment she liked it - but she threw me a curve ball: "I hope Steely is going to feature properly, he's your best character."I checked through my notes and Steely was not going to feature much more than a few Chapters on from where I'd currently got to - he was effectively (supposed to be) a throw-away character, a plot device, nothing more.I re-read what I had written. It was clear, that some unexpected facet of my psyche had been substantiated on the page. Steely was real and he clearly had a part to play. I started to re-write what I'd already written, which was bad enough, but I failed to readjust my original plan/plot. I still had an end-point, but I was way off piste now.I battled on for 95,000 words over the next two years and ground to a halt. In the end I gave it to WordWatchers and demanded they did their worst. As ever, they were utterly brilliant. Every plot-hole ringed, every pointless sub-plot highlighted, every unrealistic interaction left high and dry. But they said I had a really good story it just seemed (to them) that I was 2/3rds the way through my intended word count but only halfway through my plot...They were right of course and if they hadn't seen the potential in the story I would possibly have killed it off there and then. Instead I foolishly promised I'd finish it by my 40th birthday.I lied.My 40th came and went and Endless Possibilities became my Elephant-in-the-room, even WordWatchers stopped mentioning (much).Then in March 2012 I bought myself a little netbook and fell in love with writing Endless Possibilities again (the exact details of this love-up are detailed here). However, I realised that I was stuck with where the story had gotten too at the 95,000 word point. So I jumped to the end, I knew exactly how the story ended and how to get there, so I started from there. For two months I got up an hour earlier than normal (5am), I took the netbook with me wherever I went, I wrote, pretty much, whenever I sat down. After two months I'd written 45,000 words and the story unexpectedly came to an end.That was a very strange moment (and is captured here) especially as I'd always known exactly how the story ended, but I hadn't consulted with the inner writer, I was just the person who loved to write (much in the same way as I had done with 3B3S all those years earlier). So, one morning while I was writing away, I finished a chapter and the voice went off that said "Perfect. Stop there." I sat there for ages because I had so much more to write, wanted to write, but this voice got louder and louder and louder and in the end the person who just loved to write conceded the writer was right and the voice went quiet.I'd finished the novel...Except deep down I knew that wasn't true, but I pretended it was.I had 95,000 opening words (written over 3 years) and 45,000 closing words (written over two months). There was a ruddy big gap in the story, I'd changed so much as a writer in that time, I had a single story told by two different people and definitely no invisible join between the two sections.I set off "editing" - I use the term loosely, because it could equally be described as "tickling". In the first 10,000 words I extracted 1000 I did not need. I figured this would be easy, 10% of a 140,000 word book would get me close to the self-imposed magic figure of 120,000 as being the right length for this story.The further I read, the closer I got to the obviousness of the chasm between the two sections. I edited less, I panicked more and in May 2012 I stopped. Completely.I returned to full blown procrastination. I started writing short stories again. Winning one run by Biting Duck Press in June 2012 just compounded the issue, allowing me to justify my avoidance of EP as honing my skills. When a short story of mine got published in a Science Fiction Anthology in November 2012 my complete denial about Endless Possibilities editing was complete. It was obvious I'd moved on.Except it was obvious I hadn't.WordWatchers knew it too.Finally, in the May 2013 meeting (yes a whole year since I'd actually done any editing of the novel) I promised I'd print the damn thing out and at least read it all the way through as one complete work (no, amazingly, I had never actually done this).Last week, that's what I did and I started to read.It appears to be easier to put a pen line through a word, the end of a sentence, a whole sentence, a paragraph and, as it turns out, a whole chapter (twice over).I have (re)discovered that I really like Endless Possibilities, it gets off to a fantastic start, I am really pleased with the end (there's a section that, one year after I wrote it, made me cry when I re-read it for the first time, which is a very strange feeling). I was, I think, "in the zone" for those two months of March and April 2012, but there's a big chunk of 80,000 in the middle that's messy and self-indulgent. It's not as bad as 3B3S, I have definitely improved so much since my teens, but there are some bits that have no place in a novel...I realise that this re-read was just the first pass and I have grasped the low hanging fruit only and once I have taken a step back after I implemented these initial changes there will be many more and each pass will get harder and harder both in terms of what to "fix" and how to fix it.I am, however, very lucky, because I have WordWatchers and they will not let me take this journey alone.There's one other thing of course, and that is fairly simple, I want "you" to read this novel. Love it or hate it, I don't mind, but I want you to read it and that is the biggest change for me and one reason for that is fellow WordWatchers John Potter, who had never seen EP before and picked up the printed copy and started to read it - he laughed right at the end of Chapter 1, just where he was supposed to. Although unless he reads this he may never know how much of a difference that has made to me, because in many ways, John Potter IS my target audience.Thank-you.JohnPS The irony of the fact that this blog is overly long and self-indulgent, is not lost on me.

Iain M Banks

On the 3rd of April 2013 Iain [M] Banks made an announcement, that started quite simply: “I am officially very poorly”. By the end of that announcement it was clear that Iain truly is the master of good humour, macabre and understatement - he’s dying, and very soon there will be no Iain Banks in the world, ‘M’ or otherwise.Except that’s not true, well, Iain may disagree, but I have a shelf full of books with his name on it and says he’ll live forever, even if it’s in a metaphorical sense (not much consolation I realise). I’ve been thumbing through that already well thumbed collection. Every random page I settled on is a gem, every sentence earns its keep. If I ever become half as good as Iain Banks I will be ten times the writer I am now.There is one book in particular, the first Iain Banks book I read actually, Complicity, where the main protagonist is playing a game called Despot throughout the novel. When my random flicking settled on the chapter where Despot is introduced I laughed, because in my current WIP, the main protagonist is playing a game I made up called Endless Possibilities throughout the story. Endless Possibilities has a substantially different role to play in my novel, but I suspect, all those years ago, Complicity planted the tiniest seeds of an idea in the back of my mind, and, over time, a novel has blossomed. Thank-you Iain.Iain also created “The Culture” when he writes with an M in his name. I was given one of The Culture novels by a friend, “Consider Phlebas”, which turned out to be the first of Iain ‘M’s novels to feature the breath-taking Galaxy spanning but absolutely believable Culture, with their enormous spaceships and tiny, fly sized (indeed fly disguised) robots. I remember thinking how amazing and odd that two authors could have almost the same name. Indeed, I hypothesised that the Sci-Fi author must have had to add the ‘M’ to his name to differentiate himself from his non-SF counterpart! But who could blame me (OK, I could have read the blurbs on the back of the book, or perhaps the “By the same author” section...) so different are the books in style and scale. Yet irrespective of which style he was writing in, his novels are truly mesmerising.Iain’s announcement can be read here: http://www.iain-banks.net/and you can leave your own personal message to him here: http://friends.banksophilia.com/guestbook/ (I hope Iain's not reading these in his precious final few months, I'm thinking they're more of a collective group hug for the rest of us)

Introducing Stephen Alexander

You won't know Stephen Alexander and at 9pm on March 5th, I didn't know him either. However, by 10pm I knew him intimately and I'm going to tell you about him and how we met.We met at the WordWatchers meeting, he was, quite literally, a blank sheet of paper. Under the careful guidance of Julie Cohen, the sheet stopped being blank and Stephen was born.I am not going to tell you how Julie seeds the creation process, but I highly recommend that if you get the chance to do one of Julie's Workshops then you do so. If you're lucky, something quite magical occurs.Below, is a transcription of my scribbled notes (Julie drives you hard, no procrastination, no musings, no mulling over, just bang-bang-bang) - I have fixed the typos but not the style nor grammar. How I wrote the creation of Stephen feels as important as the words themselves.

Stephen is 30 years old, a little under six feet tall (much to his annoyance). He went prematurely grey, so dyes his hair regularly and experimentally, so now he has no memory of its original colour.Despite many expensive treatments his two top front teeth remain resolutely yellow, which is why he doesn't smile very much. His rather angular frame means his choice of fashionable clothes don't fit and he looks awkward.

So at this point I was already intrigued by Stephen, given we'd just met. He's clearly quite vain, he'd like to be taller and not have yellow teeth. He didn't like going grey and so has dyed his hair, but his choice of colours and styles perhaps to draw a viewer away from his awkward shape (and teeth?). I say he doesn't smile much, but I don't know if he's unhappy...But there's more, I got to write (and therefore observe) Stephen in a facet of his normal day-to-day life.

"Stephen slips into the still dark living room. He fumbles around on the coffee table in front of the sofa, amongst the beer cans and finds his wallet, battered and empty save for a few tatty family photos and a maxed out credit card. He doesn't disturb his drunken father asleep on the sofa."

Initially, as I watched/wrote, I presumed Stephen was sneaking away from a party that the beer cans were the visible detritus of a good night had, but this would appear to be Stephen's home, is he sneaking off to work? Is he trying not to wake his father to avoid an argument or fight? Or does he feel sorry for this man? There's clearly some significance to the wallet, he's recovering it even though it serves no function given it is devoid of both cash and credit. Why is it empty? Is this related to the drunken man asleep on the sofa. Is this a one-off or a permanent state of affairs? Given the problem with the credit card, permanent is implied...Stephen opens up to me, answering some of my questions.

The wallet was a gift from his mum on his 18th birthday and it had a £20 note in it, which he spent on beer that night, celebrating with friends. By the time he staggered home the next morning, she had packed and left. Never to be seen again.

Well, that was unexpected. Poor Stephen, carrying that wallet must be torture. A precious final gift (given with love?), a sign of manhood and independence? A constant reminder that its contents got him out of the house and drunk enough to not return in time to prevent her for leaving, or if that wasn't possible, at least say goodbye.He's opening up now, ready to tell me a little more.

Stephen is living hand-to-mouth. He is basically paying for his dad's drinking habit by staying at home and paying "rent". He's desperate to move out, start afresh but how does he abandon his dad ("like she did" he is constantly reminded, because, he is, after all, just like her)?But work has now offered him a promotion, but at the new office at the other end of the country. Can he, should he take the job?

Wow. What a dilemma, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. If he stays, will he resent his father more and more? Really, never be happy? If he goes how long will his father last, will the drinking get worse without him to try and hold it in check, or, without the cash, will he have to drink less. I think Stephen thinks the last of these thoughts is wishful thinking.Finally, in this brief meeting, there's some navel gazing from us both to finish off.

Stephen's best quality: He's "reliable", "will always be there for you..." - for friends and, of course, for family (his dad of course).Stephen's worst quality: he's soft, a push-over, easy to manipulate to the benefit of others.

I think Stephen clearly has a problem here, how does he maintain this air of reliability (which he likes) without others forever taking advantage of his eagerness to please?Stephen doesn't know, because I don't know but, at some point in the future, I'm hoping to find out...So there you go. That's Stephen, a brief encounter, just an hour together and yet I found out so much about him and I really should thank Julie Cohen for introducing us.Julie's website is here: Julie-Cohen.comI can whole-heartedly recommend her workshop, WordWatchers without exception loved the experience.

Potter's February in Writing

Right. It’s now 18:00 on the 5th of March, which means I have just an hour to do this blog and make myself beautiful for WordWatchers tonight. I could of course just go straight to cosmetics but it’s been a glorious month for the WordWatchers collective and I wanted to get this down, else I’ll just go off on some parallel vaguely related discourse tonight and, well, it doesn’t do, really.

Mahrie Kindle Cover

So apart from Charlotte being voted the best historical romance author in the world ever, or something very close, and John Hoggard’s heroics in social media, there is something I wanted to tell you. In fact a few things.

First, Mahrie is almost done. I finished the cover this month which I LOVE and I get editorial feedback from the group tonight. Then it’s two solid weeks to make alterations before it goes to the copy and proof editor. That process should take us to the end of March at which point Mahrie will be released, initially for free for a brief time. So keep your eyes peeled.

In trying to raise awareness for the Potter brand I thought I’d run a final KDP Select promotion for Chasing Innocence. I also wanted to try and up the number of reviews for the book, which I have found are more likely to be given when a book is given away for free. The promotion went extremely well and you can see in this video I created what the results were.

I have for the time being decided to shelf TMWWRWs as I've had to admit, after eight months of hard work, the main character isn't there for me yet. His (dead) wife is, but... It's heartbreaking because so much has been invested but I know when I do come back to Marcus Hangiman I will have written two other books, several novellas and hopefully been stewing his character development in the background all this time. We will see.Which means that Hunting Demons is well on it's way. Hooorah! Sarah Sawacki is back, she's not alone this time but she's got a whole lot of people making life difficult. Where Chasing Innocence was about Sarah protecting and surviving, Hunting Demons is about her evolution, her putting a foot in the ground and saying enough is enough. Facing down her demons. I'm so excited. The book starts in court as we briefly recount how we got to this moment in the series. I'm having SO much fun.It was always my intention to also write about Detective Boer's past and while we touch on this in Mahrie, I have another novella planned for the end of the year which focuses on Boer as the protagonist and excitingly (for me at least) shows as part of a bigger story, his POV in the Mahrie case, as opposed to hers.What else? Well the antagonist in Hunting Demons is particularly scary, So I can get some idea for what is acceptable in the particularly scary antagonist stakes I'm currently reading the first two novels in both Tess Gerritsen and Mo Hayder's Crime series. The first two novels because I'm also interested to see how they transition the key female character between book one and two.I also read the wonderfully literary but brilliant thriller writing of Helen Zahavi this last month. I loved Donna and the Fatman and would highly recommend you check her out. Especially if like me you have an interest in strong but put upon women coming to terms with particularly nasty men. Very much looking forward to Helen's Dirty Weekend.Time's running out. Now to put on my glad rags and get ravaged (editorially) by WordWatchers.Wish me luck, I'm going in. 

Social Media: The Quest for more

On the evening of Feb 21st, three members of WordWatchers, Me, Julian Dobbins and John Potter got together to discuss what we might say to Reading Writers when we meet up in June about the use of Social Media.It was a lively debate and our thoughts as fluid as the beer consumed. John P's fingers were a blur as he did his best to capture our thoughts as a mind map on his iPad.One of the things that I happened on the night, based on one thread of the conversation, is that I created and tweeted this picture:

That, we decided, was one of the joys of Social Media, especially Twitter, that, with the right tools (in this case, a wifi connection, a smart phone and the application PicSay) you could immediately capture a moment and share it with your followers.This is a double edged sword of course, it's so easy to "connect" with your followers, it's easy to fall into the trap of abusing those followers, or, at the very least, taking them for granted. To not actually connect, to simply use Twitter to transmit your content to your followers. It might be easy, but as a follower it doesn't take long to work out that there isn't a real person at the end of the Tweetfeed just a proficient user of the Hootsuite Scheduler (or equivalent). Hence the subject of the picture, which, by late that evening had been tweaked to this:We left the meeting with a plan, of sorts, that in an effort to have something more substantive to talk about with Reading Writers we were going to try and increase the number of "Likers" on our Facebook page, which, at the time stood at a lowly 54.Succeed or fail, we'd definitely have something to talk about!After the meeting I decided to look at some of the other pages I followed, pages with large number of "likers" and a high throughput of content. Most of that content, I noticed, was in the form of images, or pictures with associated text...I was also stuck on my short story that I will be entering into the WW in-house short story competition at Easter (a selection of these stories plus some from our back catalogue will be forming the backbone of our 2nd Anthology, due out in he summer). I don't like to be idle and feel it's important to keep the creative juices flowing even if they're not flowing into a story and so for the last week I've channelled his energies into our Facebook page and into my observational cartoons about Social Media.My breakthrough moment was a picture I'd called the "Roller Coaster of Facebook Insights". The picture itself is good and I'm very proud of it, but it clearly struck a chord and was shared by Samaire Provost, somebody who has become a good friend, first on Twitter and then later Facebook. Samaire is one of those potentially faceless followers that, by making an effort with, I have genuinely connected with. For this reason, she willing shared the picture on a page she was responsible for, a page with 28,000 followers.The response was immediate. The post became our most read ever, by an order of magnitude, at the time of writing and one week on it has a "reach" on Facebook of over 3,600, a number we had only dreamed of.Whatever happens now, we are eternally grateful to Samaire for sharing our content with the wider community and it reinforces what we believe to our main driver for using Social Media, to form friendships, relationships and bonds that are mutually beneficial to both parties in the long term.Using Social Media properly is hard work but if you're using it for the right reasons, it's definitely worth it.I'd like to end this blog on this note - that I'm not the only one who believes that social media is about connecting to people. So I shall leave the final word to Amanda Palmer...Amanda Palmer TED Talk.Thank-you for your time. 

Charlotte Betts wins RoNA Award

WordWatchers' own Charlotte Betts was in London last night for the RoNA Awards, where she was delighted to pick up best Historical Romantic Novel for 2013 with her wonderful 17th-Century romance, The Apothecary's Daughter.  Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan were there to present Charlotte with her award.News of the win reached us as tweets from the event started to appear, including this lovely accolade from fellow short-lister, Susanna Kearsely and then congratulations from Charlotte's publisher Little, Brown, via Charlie King, Marketing Director:The award is well-deserved recognition of Charlotte's talent and continued hard work, not only on The Apothecary's Daughter, but also on her two subsequent books, of which The Painter's Apprentice has also had its brush with award ceremony success when it was short-listed for The Festival of Romance's Best Historical Read Award 2012.The RoNA award for TAD, as Charlotte's winner is affectionately known here at WordWatchers, will find itself in good company, with previous recognition coming from various sources:

• The YouWriteOn Novel of the Year Award in 2010*

• The Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers in 2012

• Shortlisted for ChocLit's Best Historical Read Award 2011

• Longlisted for the Waverton good Read Awards

So, with her RoNA to add to the list, Charlotte is rightly thrilled, and we're hugely proud.  Well done, Charlotte! * I can't resist also pointing out that the YouWriteOn Novel of the Year Award for 2009 went to WordWatcher alumni member Katherine Webb, with The Legacy.

Debbie does a Book-Signing

I defy anyone to be immune to Debbie's contagious enthusiasm, and once again it was out in full force in Newbury town centre.  This time, she took over the children's section of Waterstones, with colouring-in, 'spot the difference' and a wonderful pile of books for signing, and even though it was a wet Sunday afternoon, she seemed to be doing a roaring trade. The book in question was the first of Debbie's series about Alonzo the adventurous and slightly magical chicken, in which we meet Molly the Mermaid and the Pesky Pirates.Proving that sometimes there's just no substitute for old-style social networking, Debbie did a great job engaging with children and adults throughout the afternoon, selling a fair few books as she went and having lots of fun. This is the first of a number of appearances for Debbie and her feathered friend, as she prepares to take Alonzo into several schools in the area.

Potter's month (or three) in writing 2012

It's been about three months since I did one of these so there's a little bit of catching up to be done. First, I guess, we should start with writing.I had plans a year ago of finishing the first draft of TMWWRWs during 2012 and being well into Hunting Demons as we turned into the new year. The reality is I struggled mightily with TMWWRWs. I've gone on about the struggles through the year but round it up quite nicely in this post about emotional colour.In trying to raise my profile and that of Chasing Innocence I thought I'd publish some of the longer stories I'd written back in 2006. Only three were of a commercial grade and I wanted four, so I needed another one. The result was the devoted and quite enigmatic: Mahrie. You can get a preview for each of the stories including the cover art, in Snapshots are coming.During the last quarter of 2012 WordWatchers decided they'd publish their first anthology, which I'm pleased to say features my short story: 'Eye for an Eye'. Abbie Todd edited the stories and Chris McCormack produced the paperback via CreateSpace with cover design inspiration from John Hoggard. I did the Kindle conversion which I'm very pleased to say dynamically supports both the advanced features of the Kindle Touch and Fire devices, along with the basic features of the older Kindles. Chris additionally produced the iBook version.I love doing Kindle book conversions and am currently producing a number of tutorials you'll seen be able to see on my blog and youTube. Hopefully I'll have some links next month.As for writing this couple of months I've been busy editing Mahrie . The story is set between 1950 and 1980 and required a lot of work researching and then editing the detail from that time. In spare writing moments I've been editing the first part of TMWWRWs to reflect the slightly altered point of view.Because I've spent so much time struggling with TMWWRWs the next Sarah Sawacki book has had chance to ferment and really take shape. The story planning is so full of rich detail with three primary threads, with all the main characters from the end returning. There is a really great concept for the main bad guy: really, really bad guy. It makes my toes curl just thinking about it. I can't wait to start writing it, which is all the more motivation for me to finish TMWWWRWs.I've read some pretty excellent books these last couple of months, starting with Christopher Hitchens' memoir: Hitch22. There is something remarkable about Christopher Hitchens' writing that leaves me feeling somewhat wiser come the last page. Reading Hitch22 and Christopher's attempt to understand his mother's suicide led me to William Styron's incredible look at depression, titled: Darkness Visible.I love a book recommendation, which is how I came to the haunting dystopian 'Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. It left me with an adjusted perception of the female mindset and for society's almost default stance of devaluing woman.If you're looking for a fun read then you can't go wrong with the very original 'Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window and Disappeared', a compulsive tale not only of what the 100 year old man does after he climbs from the window, but also of the incredible life he has led. Very much reminded me of Forrest Gump in places and quite charming.My top pick for you though as a must read is David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas', the most innovative and brilliant pyramid of separate but related stories covering almost one thousand years of a single soul.Happy writing, see you next month.

Post Christmas...

I did write one more Christmas related 75-word paragraph and originally I wasn't going to do anything with it other than share it with my fellow WordWatchers. I put the general feel of it down to post-Christmas blues.However, my local council decided they had no Christmas spirit and left behind all the black sacks that my neighbours put out (am I the only person who recycles?). The contents of these black sacks are now spread all over the footpath and suddenly my little paragraph seems to have captured the moment surprisingly succinctly.

Fat, bloated, filled to bursting, gulls peck into two week old rotting flesh and loudly decry the waste. Stuffed with paper and plastic bindings of toys already forgotten, broken or pushed into the back of the cupboard, these silent sentinels are dragged to the curbside to await collection. To the curbside so that they can be emptied of the reminders of our excesses. Empty, like the promises to ourselves in the form of New Year Resolutions.

Cheery I know, but cathartic nonetheless.       John

What a Difference a Year Makes

What a year it's been for WordWatchers!  I've just been looking back at the December 2011 minutes to get a sense of what exactly we've achieved as a group in 2012, and it's fair to say we've been busy.Those December minutes show that we discussed our new, yet-to-be-launched website and the new Twitter account we'd just set up.  Now, nearly 3000 tweets and over 600 followers later, all very much thanks to the expert guiding hand of John Hoggard, and with a Facebook page as well, our online presence is evolving nicely.Clearly, though, an online presence for a writer's group is nothing if none of the writers are producing anything to tweet or blog about.  Again, looking at those December minutes brings it all back - what we were working on, how we were feeling about things, and indeed who was actually in the group...It seems amazing to look back at a list of attendees and not see the names of John Potter and Chris McCormack, who actually joined us in February and have been fantastic contributors ever since.  Their arrival coincided with (and definitely helped accelerate) a growing maturity within the group, as we increasingly embrace independent and digital publishing as a business choice rather than a last resort.Ginette succumbed to the pressures of setting up a new business and has taken a bit of a sabbatical.  Hopefully, 2013 will find a more obliging work-life balance.Since then, it's been fairly stable, with numerous approaches from people to join us - and in November we welcomed Colette, who pretty much fills the WordWatchers' ranks.  (You should be seeing Colette on the Authors' page shortly after the January meeting.)And what have all these WordWatchers been up to?At the end of last year, Charlotte was getting ready to welcome the paperback version of The Apothecary's Daughter, while desperately trying to finish The Painter's Apprentice and commence work on a new idea.  Today, both novels are out in the world, and Charlotte and her 17th century biscuits have been going down a storm all over the country.  And that new idea is already with the editor!Abbie managed to write another book too, and we all had the pleasure of reading it.  As ever, we provided our feedback, which was largely that Abbie had written something rather special.  At the time of writing, it's with her agent.  John Hoggard put in a huge effort, especially given a challenging year, to 'finish' Endless Possibilities, which he's currently editing.  He also got published in Fusion, the Sci-Fi anthology published by Fantastic Books and has been doing his usual great job raising awareness through his growing individual and group online presence.A year ago, WordWatchers barely knew anything about Debbie's amazing chicken, Alonzo.  Today, it's real, wonderfully illustrated, and available to buy.  Chris achieved similar success with Pong!, his delightful alien who likes to race, bringing him to life within the pages of a fully interactive iBook, complete with questions about space and an audio book option (voiced by me!).John Potter cracked on with his new novel, but continued to amaze us with his knowledge of all things Kindle-related, as Chasing Innocence climbed the crime charts and found itself a finalist in a Kindle crime novel competition.Everyone else was equally busy, working through and reworking existing novels or sifting through a world of ideas to settle on the one to take forward into 2013.  Me?  I managed to 'finish' The Stationary Half of Goodbye and have started sending it out to agents.And if all that wasn't enough, we produced our first anthology, Out of Time - published ready for Christmas and the January 2013 Writing Magazine competition.  Check out the 'Books' page for this and all the other wonderful WordWatchers creations.Katherine Webb, one of our glittering alumni, continued to see great commercial success, and it was lovely not only to see A Half Forgotten Song make it into paperback and into the charts, but to be able to include one of Katherine's stories in the anthology.It's certainly exciting times at WordWatchers.  Just take a look at the home page for a taste of what's going on.  As for what lies ahead in 2013, I won't jinx anything by making predictions, but it's fair to say that it's going to be another busy one.

The 12 75-worders for Christmas Part 3

There was some discussion on the radio this morning that 12th night was actually last night and therefore all things Christmas related should come to an end, lest 12 months of bad luck is visited upon the perpetrator...However, undeterred I have decided to push on, risk it and share with you my final four Christmas themed paragraphs:

Midnight Matt: Heavy snow cut Lucy’s remote farmhouse off from the rest of the world on Christmas Eve, by road and later power and her generator refused to start. Late that evening she sat with a tin of beans and some flickering candles and hummed Carols to herself. On the stroke of Midnight the driveway was filled with light and the splutter of old Land Rover. It was her Matt, clutching a takeaway, wine and present! (This one was inspired by a mis-typed Tweet by Richard who runs Paragraph Planet, who had meant to type Midnight Mass) When they couldn’t find the brandy Grandpa brought out a dusty old bottle from the back of the larder, after sniffing the contents, he poured it onto the Christmas Pudding. As dad approached with the lit match there was a white flash and a scream as a high velocity silver sixpence hit Granny on the forehead. Scattered across the kitchen, superheated sultanas went bang. Of the pudding itself, nothing remained, save a charred sprig of holly. (This was my personal favourite of the paragraphs I submitted) At 12:01am PST, those still awake, felt suddenly bereft. Children awoke, wailing, from their slumber. It was as if millions of Furbys cried out and were suddenly silenced. CNN quickly started to show wreckage scattered across the landscape as Governments denied involvement while simultaneously terrorists groups claimed to be responsible. However, in the wake of the incident an autopsy pointed to pilot error, induced by alcohol, given the red suited man was 10,000x over the limit. (This was published by Paragraph Planet on Boxing Day, Richard thought it safest not upset the children before the big day...) Margaret didn’t hear the whistling noise to start with, singing along to Christmas Carols on the CD player. When she did hear it, she began a search of the kitchen, listening to the pan of boiling potatoes and the dishwasher. Then, from the oven there was a ‘thud’ and the whistle change to a scream, as foam started squeeze around the door seal. “Roger! I think your fancy recipe for the turkey has gone horribly wrong!”

 Well, that's it, I hope you enjoyed them? I certainly enjoyed writing them, some of them have even given me ideas for future longer stories (and this is one of the main reasons for doing these 75-worders to capture snippets of ideas for stories).Comments, positive or negative are much appreciated.         Thank-you.John

The 12 75-Worders of Christmas Part 2

Yesterday I shared the first four seventy-five word paragraphs I submitted to Paragraph Planet in response to their request for Christmas themed submissions.Today, I share the next four with you:

When Bob returned from his work Christmas party, Margaret was rolling out the icing for their Christmas cake. His novelty tie played “Silent Night” as he crossed the kitchen and tried to steal a piece. It played “Jingle Bells” as Margaret turned, kissing her husband and, with a glint in her eye, undid his tie laid it on the work surface. As “The Snowman” started Margaret turned and battered it into silence with the rolling pin. Jeff in the Benefits Office rubbed his throbbing temple. “Ok... Mary... if we could go through this one more time... You’ve left the name of the father of your unborn child off the form. While I understand this can be a delicate matter, it will help process the claim... So, if I could just have the name? Please don’t say ‘God’ with such with such an exasperated tone, I’m just trying to help, really I am.” On Christmas morning Patricia watched her husband with something close to astonishment. He was being attentive to her and the children, he seemed happier, almost human, not the vile monster he had become over the last few years. “I know you said not to spend much, but I decided to go really big this year,” he said, handing her a gold envelope. She tore it open eagerly. Inside were divorce papers. “Merry Christmas,” he said quietly. The doorbell rang and David, not expecting Christmas visitors, answered with a sigh. Opening the door David stared agog, awestruck, while the Angel, in stereotypical white, complete with glowing halo, explained that He needed to borrow a couple of double-As as His SatNav’s had run out. Ruefully, the Angel continued to explain that He had tried the shop, but Mr. Patel couldn’t see Him and of course it was wrong to steal, even in an emergency.

 The last four will be shared tomorrow.John