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Why Tweet, Why Blog?

28/6/2013

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OK, a couple of months in and I'm not sure I'm getting along very well with Twitter. I have few followers and not many more people I want to follow. In fact the biggest disappointment has been the celebrities. Even those I admire greatly come across as crashing pub bores in this medium and, yes, Giles Coren and Danny Baker, that includes you.

And there's so much self-promotion going on it's like LinkedIn on speed. Which is, of course, why I went on Twitter in the first place, having been told that I needed to build my profile, not just for my business but also to get my book published. If I'm honest it just feels grubby. 

There are positives. For starters Nathan Hughes tipped me a 14/1 winner, which was nice, and some bloke published one of my poems which was even nicer. Also, it's a very good forum for sharing links. Much better than facebook. I've come across a load of stuff I never would have hitherto. Some of it interesting.

Including Tania Kindersley's blog. Tania hit my feed with her coverage of Royal Ascot, a stream of grunts and squeals, much like Sharapova in full flow, as she shared her love of the ponies. It acted as a nice reminder to someone doing his conkers that there's more to the sport than just gambling.

Her latest blog-post includes this observation.
When I started this blog, I wanted to make my book go viral, build a brand, make some commercial hay. It was a hard-nosed business decision. Of course, none of that happened. I built a small readership, but nothing like enough to have any effect on sales....

Now the blog has become more inward-looking and less polished and, in an odd way, less needy. When I was busking for custom, I did sometimes get it. Now the thing exists easily, in itself, not trying to gain anything or prove anything or score points. The dear old blog does not mind if the numbers are small. It is just what it is, comfortable in its own skin, operating without fear or favour.

Which is lovely. And something to aim for.


Full blog post here:
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Allders - Croydon

27/6/2013

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A facebook friend was praising John Lewis the other day and it reminded me of Allders, which may or may not be defunct depending on which website I look at. 
 
Allders was a vast department store in Croydon. I was very fond of it. Less so as a child - I remember being dragged reluctantly through the store each December on my mum and nan's annual Christmas shopping trip. But I did like it as an adult in the nineties.  

I remember popping in there at lunchtime on the first day of my new job at CU Head Office and was soon hopelessly lost. For it was a huge department store with few signs.  I finally found the exit several weeks later. This happened for most of my first year. It was like the Cretan Labyrinth with clothes. Occasionally I was ejected into the street in what appeared to be a different decade and once emerged in Nottingham.  I don't remember ever buying anything...

I'm writing this to remind myself to use it as the location for a chase in a detective novel, where the person fleeing is unable to find an exit. Or emerges somewhere completely unexpected. 
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On Westminster Bridge

19/6/2013

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One of my poems published here:



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Iain Banks Stole Our Pitch

12/6/2013

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Yes, Iain Banks is one of my favourite writers. Yes, I have lovingly collected his first editions and yes I once queued for hours in Basingstoke for his signature. But he's really annoyed me right at the death.

When Karin told me of her own cancer diagnosis, we both agreed there was one positive – it surely beefed up our pitch to agents and publishers for our novel 'Farewell Trip.'




“A romantic comedy about terminal cancer written by two lifelong friends, one of whom has terminal cancer.” 


Surely that's a compelling and original starting-point, I said to her, trying to sound light-hearted, spitting in the eyes of death as our main characters do. And then I read that Iain Banks's last, as yet unpublished, novel is about terminal cancer.

As if that's not bad enough I also read that he had written 75,000 words of the book BEFORE he was diagnosed. So not only has he stolen our unique selling point but, like Karin, he also seems to have caught his illness from the hubris of writing about terminal cancer. 


Bastard.






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Can you catch cancer from Hubris?

5/6/2013

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Karin - co-author of our book "Farewell Trip" has just written this on our blog. 

Is Cancer Contagious?

Of course, I'm being facetious.  But it's amazing how a little question like that can become an earworm that repeats itself deep in ones brain in the middle of the night. 

When Gary and I decided that Trip, the male protagonist of our novel, should be dying of cancer, we had no thought for the future or even for our pasts.  I'd had primary breast cancer a few years before and it was all a bit 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt'.  The fact had no relevance to Trip or to our story.  Then we dictated that Ruthie should also have been touched by life-threatening illness.  I can't remember what brought us to that decision, I think it was something shallow like we wanted to show how differently she and Trip dealt with their cancers.  We certainly didn't think about the devastation two such diagnoses might have wrought in the landscape of Trip and Ruth's relationship.

Such hubris.  There we were, each of us safe in the shelter of our own happy, long marriages, happy to fling around drama and trauma and potential tragedy and to leave our poor characters to deal with it all.  Which they did.  Admirably, in fact.  Just as, I believe, we like to think we would do too: cancer?  Got it covered.  Terminal cancer?  No problem, just bring it on.  Affairs?  Pish, mere blips.  Mother died?  Never mind, still got a dad.

In the end, Ruth's breast cancer is only mentioned in passing a couple of times and, of all the parts in the book that could be based on reality, these parts aren't.  The description of her scar, her misshapen breast and the tattoos for radiotherapy are true to me, but Ruth's experience is purely hers, not mine at all.  Interesting then, that she is concerned about the 'can you catch cancer' fear.  Well, to be clear, she thinks that Trip was concerned with the catching cancer fear.


“So, what's this?” JP traces the silvery scar on my right breast, stroking the puckered skin. “Cancer?”

“Yep. Five years ago.”

“You're not bothered by it. By people seeing the scar, I mean.”

I shrug. I'm not really. Strange, considering how vain I am about everything else. It's a stark contrast to the fuss I made about having breast cancer when it was diagnosed and what a drama queen I was during the treatment. Perspective changes.

I lift my arm, show him the deep dip with its accompanying scar in the pit.

“This is where the lymph nodes were taken out. I was lucky, they were completely clear. And this -” I push his finger into the little hole. “- is from the drain they put in. I've got tattoos too, if you look closely, for the radiotherapy.”

“What, these little biro marks?” He touches each one of them, then bends to kiss my nipple. “You're amazing.”


For a second I want to cry. It's true I'm not bothered about the scars, about the way my breast is misshapen because of the tissue removed from it. But, the thing is, Trip, you weren't able to touch it, were you? Oh, you made a point of stroking it when the bandage came off and at various, horribly self-conscious, moments after that to prove to us both you didn't mind the way I looked. But after the operation, you never caressed my breast again, never pinched the nipple hard enough to make me moan, never sucked it - even though you knew how much I liked it. It just made you profoundly uncomfortable. I wondered whether you had some vestigial fear you might catch cancer from it. And then you did.
And now that I've been diagnosed with incurable cancer I have to wonder (just a little bit, in the middle of the night) whether Ruth and Trip are getting their own back. 
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One Two One Two

3/6/2013

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                                                                      One Two One Two


                                                            Life is plural
                                                                      limitless, parallel, curious, sound
                                                                      coursing through the turn and the river,
                                                                      on the shores of rehearsal.

                                                            Death is singular
                                                                       soon, on time, early, check-
                                                                       mated, crossing the bar,
                                                                       rhymeless, alone.

                                                             Life is singular
                                                                       uphill, furious, bound, testing
                                                                       going, a dealt hand,
                                                                       to be frightened of.

                                                             Death is plural
                                                                       suddener, neurotic, infinite, testing.
                                                                       The riffle of chips in an airless basement.
                                                                       A graveyard by the sea.









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