Is it worth it?

A new winter coat and shoes for the wife.

I'll stop there. Robert Wyatt or Elvis Costello I am not. I read a post yesterday that didn't so much as depress me, but made me wonder if the direction I and no doubt others are taking is right.

The post in question was discussing the current state of publishing. It said that publishers (i.e. mainstream publishers) are currently only really interested in books they know will sell over 50,000 copies. That certainly would explain the lack of new writers the big publishers are publishing. I don't know if this link will work properly or not, but of the 538 best new sellers on amazon, only 1 is humour. And of the crime thrillers I bet none of their hardboiled main characters have diabetic pony's, dual personalities or fixations with smoked herring.

What genres would sell so many for a new author? Mainstream thrillers (anything to do with Terrorism or Afghanistan seems popular at the moment), ripoffs of proven subject matter (I'm thinking all those Da Vinci style books), chick-lit (no chance) and whatever they reckon will be in fashion next year.

So, do you play the game to get known? Or write what you want in the hope they'll change their policy and open the floodgates soon? Am I being ignorant in thinking that my non-specific genre comedy spy thriller or failed contract killer turned wide boy books are going to make a publisher say, scrap everything else, we were wrong, this will sell millions. It's very unlikely, isn't it?

The other options are smaller publishers. Little or no advertising budgets will unfortunately in this world mean little sales. The print runs won't be big enough for them to discount heavily or supply The Works and other cheap sellers at 3 for a fiver prices. The final option, Self Publishing. Not really much you can say about that is there. At one time I was all for it, but someone talked me out of it. Again, it's the advertising budget and inability to price low that makes this not really an option.

I guess it's all about building a following, isn't it? Without something substantial to read, your following won't get large enough for a big publisher to publish. The smaller publisher route could help build that following over a series of books.

Either that, or play the game. Write want they're looking for. Or, just sell it yourself and make a few quid.


Anyway, cheer up, here's a picture of a haggis, neeps and tatty pie.

No fish were harmed in the making of this post

Until recently, I've never really written in close first person. It's all been third person comedy spies and short stories. But after looking for somewhere to submit a few stories some months back, I came across and read some great first person crime shorts.

So, in between writing two other books, I wrote a few, some worked some didn't. But it on holiday in Scotland, trying to find kippers that a story popped into my head. Scotland is the home of smoked herring after all, but we couldn't find any. We ended up with smoked mackerel which, while being nice and not bony, just wasn't a kipper. That, along with a lot of single malt created the following story which the Flash Fiction Offensive have kindly put on their website this week.

I've now become hooked on writing short first person stories (there's a Ronnie Corbett joke there somewhere). This is a problem, because I've got to finish Too Big To Fail before the christmas deadline, but they keep popping out and I keep writing them. Some of them don't work, some are a bit too dark for me, so I daren't do anything with them. But they keep coming out.

Oh yeah, the link The Flash Fiction Offensive: We Need Blood Here by Charlie Wade

Short Story

Time for a short story, methinks. This one was originally posted on authonomy, but I doubt many people read it.




Safety begins at home



The Royal Society of Health and Safety Inspectors’ annual dinner dance was the highlight of Ray’s otherwise moribund life. It was neither the friendship nor companionship he liked the most, but the planning and execution of the meeting. It was, without doubt, the safest (and possibly the healthiest) dinner dance in the world being as it was planned and coordinated by the most elite of the society’s members.

Sat at his table, Ray inspected the knives (regulation level three sharpness, the potential risk of minor cuts minimised), the forks (category two bluntness, but still a small risk of piercing) and the table cloth (made of 50% wool to minimise slippage.)

Satisfied all was well, he surveyed the room. His colleagues were mingling, drinking and walking round with clipboards. A few of them inspected various items with tape measures and approving nods. He noticed in the corner of the room Greg Nappel, the society’s president, begin his approach to the stage.

The background noise in the room, played at precisely twenty eight decibels, faded. The minglers and drinkers took their tables, some of them inspecting the chair legs before they sat. Ray watched Greg walk to the stage then climb up the reinforced, two-handled ramp clearly labeled, ‘For Trained Operatives only.’ Then, he walked to the ergonomic podium, its height previously adjusted via a clip board risk assessment to not cause Greg any discomfort.

The microphone hissed once as he spoke. “Good evening ladies, gentlemen and Health and Safety operatives.” It was the same joke each year, but it always got a laugh, even from Ray. He continued, “Before the annual ‘Safest Safety Worker’ competition, I’d like to say a few words.”

Then, just as Greg put his hand on the podium for support, it happened.

Richard Binwell, the North East Region’s most senior Health and Safety Inspector, had inspected the podium for all safety fastenings, rough edges, electric and static electricity earthing and also the danger of blinding by reflection from the hall’s many spotlights. However, he hadn’t checked the topple point: the point at which, if pressure was applied, the podium would topple. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t on the safety checklist. It wasn’t on his clipboard.

Via a combination of poor footing, the pre-speech sherry and a heavy hand, Greg’s weight on the podium started to tip it. Losing his balance, he leaned further forwards, helplessly grabbing for the podium as it toppled and he started to fall.

His weight now too far forward, in one last desperate attempt, he lunged for the podium. Mistiming his grab, he instead pushed and, losing his footing, fell after it. The podium fell from the stage, landing first on the head of Western-Super-Mare’s safety representative, then onto the lead table, knocking over two bottles of wine.

In the rush to stand up, the other members of the lead table capsized the table onto its side, squashing the representative for East Grinstead. The falling Greg landed in a pool of wine on the floor, closely followed by the ripped power cables from the microphone and podium lights.

The fatal fizzing electric shock he received created panic amongst the onlookers. Two were crushed to death in the stampede to exit, while sixteen others gained minor injuries including finger dislocations, broken limbs and trampled toes. Poor Ray somehow received a freak castration after falling knackers first into a pile of category three forks while others accidently trampled him in their haste to flee.
The Newspapers, of course, had not only a field day but a whole field week. The annual dinner dance was cancelled indefinitely and a period of mourning set aside for the ex-president and the other deceased.



To big to fail is now 55,000 words long and well on target for the christmas deadline.

Another picture from Village of Joy

A Few Links

Thought I'd share a few links today. A bit of funny, bit of bloggy and a bit of writing.

First up, there's nothing better than well done sarcasm. Topical news sarcasm is even better. First up The Daily Mash another good contender is News Biscuit. Bordering on the ridiculous is Hats of meat which was designing processed animal clothing well before Lady Gaga.

Blogs I like include Marmite and Fluff , Agenthood and Submissionville , The voices in my head , Pie and Biscuits and Culturally Discombobulated.

On the writing front, The Flash Fiction Offensive for the obvious reason, Clueless Ink just look at all them links to agents/publishers etc and finally Strong Scenes

That's it for this week. Up to 45,000 words now, I've been editing and chopping it this week so though I've written a lot more, it doesn't show.


A picture, for old times sake, this from Village Of Joy.

Bagging an agent part 15b

Okay, so there's a lot of talk and advice on snagging a literary agent. Well, I'm sure this has been done before, but...


Dear [redacted],

Please find enclosed the first fifty pages of my epic 250,000 word, young adult novel entitled “Brownley Cotter And The Curious Nark of Spluttergatry.”

Haronda Fitzgerald, Grand Master of the Brackanumpty University of Wizardry hopes this year’s intake of students will be more prolific than recent ones. One of his new students, Brownley Cotter, seems more adept at wizardry than anyone Haronda has seen in years.

After many hilarious scrapes and heroic battles, my novel climaxes with Brownley Cotter receiving his degree in wizardship and defeating an evil Dragon. I feel that Brownley Cotter is not only original but also it would make a good series of books. It could even be adapted to a film!

On visiting your website, I feel we could work well together. So much so, that I have done some extra research on you, both via the internet and also the electoral roll. I think it’s amazing we live so close to each other and your office is only a twenty minute run from where I work.

You won’t believe this, but I’m a Lady Gaga fan too! (The man who was servicing your car told me you had one of her cd’s.) I said to him that your brake lines needed looking at, and he even let me help while he went for a twenty minute cigarette break.

Finally, I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing throwing away your bank statements un-shredded? I hope you don’t mind me going through your rubbish, but I think it’s lucky I did. Also, sorry about your medical condition. It must be so embarrassing, not to mention uncomfortable with all the sitting around you have to do.

Hopefully we can meet up soon. The pub you sometimes visit after work, the Crown, is on my bus route home. I can be there next Thursday, though I have noticed you seem to prefer Wednesdays for an after work drink. Anyway, if you get there before me, mine's a Babycham.

Thanks again and I look forward to our friendship lasting a long, long time.

Yours sincerely



A. S. Talker


Anyway, wrote another 6,000 words last week on 'Too Big To Fail' which appears to now have a permanent name. Still on course for the deadline.

Christmas is getting earlier and all that...

Another post in my 'It's not like the good old days' series, this one covers the phenomena that is Christmas and how it starts earlier as you get older.

Bought a pack of six mince pies today. You know it's Christmas when mince pies are being sold. Love them or hate them, they just say 'Christmas is coming' don't they.

The expiry date on these lovely pies is 20th October. That's 20th October this year. Over two months before Christmas actually starts.

What in the name of arse is going on?

Anyway, I was going to moan about how when I was a lad, you only ate Mince Pies actually at Christmas, and how the shops are already full of a whole wealth of Christmas goods (big tins of Quality Street - yes I bought one, whole displays dedicated to baubles, tat and tins of biscuits - I didn't buy any of them, yet,) but, as I say, in what is probably my longest ever sentence, I'm not going to moan about it: everyone does.

Instead, I'll sound off about what must be the real message of Christmas, and how it's got lost in all the glitter-infested fibre-opticed trees, the lure of the money-grabbing supermarkets and the constant repeats of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That's not what Christmas is all about is it? I truly believe I have found the real meaning of Christmas.

Pigs in blankets.

Little dozy sausages wrapped up in cozy bacon blankets. It's what the day was invented for, a celebration of all things porcine. So simple yet so lovely, these little fellows hang around all year waiting to be devoured (a bit like turkeys) yet they're everyone's favourites. Unlike turkey, you're not subjected to over-kill in a five day period after the huge turkey you've bought has to last a week in various disguises (turkey curry, turkey salad, turkey and chips, turkey surprise.) You usually only get one pig in blanket at Christmas and I'm sure most people would agree, there's never any wasted.

So that's it. Moderation. To keep Christmas special, everything needs to be in moderation and not have a five month build up.

I'm still writing, nearly ten thousand words done last week, so I'm on course for the deadline. It's the editing that scares me a bit.

Queueing and Pushing in

We love queueing don't we? Stick some miserable sod behind a checkout and we'll spend hours standing patiently in line to give them money for some overpriced tat. But what if someone pushes in? What if someone breaks the unwritten code of queueing?

A few days ago in the supermarket, me and my other half, Mrs Pie (not her real name) approached the tills with a trolley full of essentials. The tills were busy, unusually very busy, but eventually we saw one with only one person waiting to be served. So, we headed for it.

This is going somewhere, honest.

Just as we got to the till, two little children (probably about 8 and 10), ran in front of us and stood there, behind the woman waiting. It's okay, I thought, they're with her, probably been looking at sweets or games or whatever. They were slightly blocking the conveyor belt so we couldn't start unloading. But that's okay, we're British after all, we love waiting.

Then, it happened. Another trolley pushed by a woman appeared beside us and tried, slowly, to force it's way in front. Well, that wasn't going to happen was it? I maneuvered the trolley a bit to block her off, but the kids in front were stood in the way so I could only partially obstruct her. These same kids were now looking at this new woman and smiling.

At that point, Mrs Pie turned round to me, she'd sussed what was going on. I was slowly getting there too. These two kids had been sent out in an advance party to sneak in and pilfer our till position.

It came to a head when the woman tried to put a chicken on the conveyor belt, claiming it as hers. Well, Mrs Pie, not known for her shyness, intervened. "Excuse me, what are you doing?" she said. "They saved the place for me," the woman replied. The two kids by now had stopped smiling. Expressions of horror and fear gripped their little faces. They knew something was wrong, knew they'd been used as pawns in some power-mongering, queue-pushing act of anti-politeness.

What did I do, I hear you ask. Well I was trying to think of something to say, some killer, knockout winning line. But, it never came. Six hours later I'd come up with at least three blinders. Maybe if the world had paused at that moment for six hours, I'd have thought of something, but it didn't.

Mrs Pie said something else, something like, "If we'd have known they were saving a place we wouldn't have queued here, would we?" To that the woman replied, "Well if it makes you happy, go on, you have the place."

Well, steam and smoke billowed from Mrs Pie's ears as the other woman walked away. Everyone within a three queue radius was looking at us. The checkout girl was ready to call security, the Police and probably the UN. I eventually thought of something to say. "Just leave it," I said to Mrs Pie, quietly.

My considered and thoughtful attempt the diffuse the situation didn't. The wrath of Mrs Pie found a new home. The look I got could have melted Satan himself.

Anyway, is getting your kids to push in and save places really acceptable queueing behaviour? I think not. Maybe that's what's wrong with this country etc, etc.

Work continues at a fast pace on new book #1, which might be called, "It's different this time."