"Write what you know" they say.

Even of what you know is benefits advice work and writing stories about it only pays enough to keep your colleagues in biscuits!



Sunday 23 March 2014

One Big Dilemma

Aspiring author down in 'that London.'
I'm trying to decide what to do about what could be a marvellous opportunity.  Or alternatively, a spectacular waste of time and money.  I've no idea which, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that if the opportunity is presented to me, it'll be because the latter guess is closest to the truth.

Enough riddling, though.  The dilemma is whether to try and hastily knock the last rough edges off of 'Limited Capability', the paperback doorstop of last autumn's ebook serial, in order to enter it into a competition, or allow myself and my 'proof-reading' team of friends time to get it just right. 

With the book almost 600 pages long, proof-reading isn't a task to be taken lightly.  I've had the advantage, not that he might see it that way, of having a housebound husband recuperating after a foot operation to read my copy too as reading text aloud, especially after you haven't seen it for a few months, is a really good way to track down the bugs.  It's not just that the text needs the odd 'typo' zapped.  Already, I've found a few lengthy sentences that don't flow at all well when read aloud; since they are dialogue, they'll need restructuring to ensure that they do.  I'm sure my CAB colleague Tina (who is both proof-reading and, I trust, spotting legal errors) will notice that twice at least I've referred to the 'Personal Capability Assessment' when I mean the 'Work Capability Assessment' (the former being the now redundant 'medical' for Incapacity Benefit, the latter the test for Employment and Support Allowance).  It may not matter to many readers, but I bet Dick Francis didn't misname bits of tack when writing his horse-racing thrillers nor Hilary Mantel send Thomas Cromwell off to the Globe to watch The Tempest.

And I'm not really satisfied with the cover.  I think I need to re-align the image on the front and definitely adjust that on the reverse to make the text more legible, and tackle 'the mystery of the vanishing apostrope'.  I wonder whether to include a 'by the same author' list inside the first title page, or whether that looks pretentious with just two earlier non best sellers to my name, or the 'blurb' for the earlier books at the end of this one.  In short, there's a lot to do to get this book right and I only have a week to deal with most of that and submit my entry if I want to be considered for CompletelyNovel's 'One Big Book Launch' event, where ten selected writers will get the chance to share a central London venue, with the obligatory wine and nibbles and, hopefully, a few movers and shakers from the publishing world.

Now if this really is a great opportunity for self-publishing authors to get noticed by the big guys, thus getting deals and publicity beyond their wildest dreams it'll be very heavily subscribed and, if I am successful, it will be a reflection on the quality, potential and relevance of my work.  If it isn't, and the only entries are a handful of the most confident CN authors rather than the more talented, I'll be in with every chance of winning a place, but for what?  It's the 'Big Book, Little Book' competition from last summer that makes me wary.  Five authors had the chance to be featured on a blog's 'Self-published Sunday' slot; four of us won the opportunity.  As they say in the USA, 'you do the math.'  And it had no impact on sales either.

So, on balance, I think I'll probably pass.  If it is a success for the people involved, hopefully CN will do similar events in future and I can have a go with a completely fresh story, not the equivalent of  The Empire Strikes Back for the rebels at the Solent Welfare Rights Project.  With a little luck and perseverance, 'Limited Capability' might be good to go in time for Stoke's literary festival in June and as it doesn't open with the villain being compared to the Daily Mail I may yet blag a mention in the local paper.  In the meanwhile, at least I've finally plucked up the courage to send my dad a copy of 'Severe Discomfort'.  But that's another story...

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Hot Air and Homicide

There's going to be a literary festival in Stoke-on-Trent this summer.  Exciting news, isn't it?

Well, it seems not.  So far the stories the local paper have printed in anticipation of the event and for World Book Week have attracted few comments, and those somewhat snarky - a photo of Stoke City superstar (and former Saint) Peter Crouch, reading with local children, elicited only rude remarks about the school and incredulity that Crouchy could read.  It's a crying shame, because Stoke-on-Trent has a lousy reputation for educational attainment and a sense that the community is getting behind this idea might help to dispel that.  But it's early days, and with just over three months to the event, I need to consider whether I can use it to promote my own literary efforts.

Opportunity number one is the writing competition announced by the Sentinel.  A chance to show off my skills in a short story competition, no less.  And sadly, no more: a mere 1,000 to 2,500 words.  A hundredth of the wordcount I usually reach telling a tale.  By my standards, 1,000 words is practically Haiku, a mere tweet.  Still, I could have a go - I even have an entertaining idea for what I could use as a theme.  I'm just not sure 2,500 words will enable me to do it well enough.

Opportunity number two is to promote what I already have and the fact that, all being well, I should have a 'new' book (the paperback of Limited Capability) ready to 'launch' in time for the event.  It'll take a clever bit of marketing and a massive chunk of luck to get the Sentinel interested in novels that fly against their usual line on Social Security issues, by casting alleged benefit cheats as the heroes and a fraud investigator as the villain (not to mention that infamous reference in the preface to Gary Pike as 'the Daily Mail in human form').  But it may be that raising an issue that always gets the comments flying in on real life stories is the very thing to get people interested in a literary festival who would otherwise think it's not for them.  If, that is, they can get past the fact that Severe Discomfort and its companion volumes take place 250 miles away, apart from Stoke-on-Trent's cameo appearance as adopted home to the redoubtable Geordie feminist Daphne Randall.

Opportunity number three is to attempt to catch the attention of any literary movers and shakers in town for the event.  I think I can safely rule out David Starkey as a potential patron and my writing seems to have little that would recommend it to Joanna Trollope.  There's always talented local crime writer and self-publishing success story, Mel Sherratt, though.  I have considered getting in touch with her before, but it's difficult to know how.  I'm sure high-profile writers get sick to the back teeth of being pestered by 'fans' wanting them to read their own work, and I haven't even got the feeble excuse of being a fan.  That's no criticism of Mel's writing; I simply don't read crime novels, just as I don't tend to get into police procedural TV shows or series.  Or gore, violent crime or serial killer-themed writing or films generally.  And if there is a polite way of striking up a conversation with a writer that begins, 'I haven't read any of your books and they're not really my thing, but...', I haven't worked it out yet. 

But perhaps there's a thriller waiting to be written on whether a small city like Stoke-on-Trent big enough for two fringe-haired former housing officers with literary ambitions?  "With the city's first literary festival approaching, a charismatic local crime writer seems sure to be the star of the show.  But an ambitious and jealous older rival, hungry for success, has murderous plans to steal the limelight..."

Not really, of course - even Iain Duncan Smith isn't really in mortal peril from me (not while my archery kit is buried away in a spidery corner of the loft, at any rate), so Ms Sherratt can surely rest easy.  Mind you, as a story it could be a proper page-turner, but it'll definitely take me more than 2,500 words to tell it! 

Over to you, Mel?

Friday 7 March 2014

Proof

On Tuesday, I came home to find a chit advising that a parcel had been left with our neighbours.  It was either the maincrop potatoes for this year, or the proof copies of the paperback of 'Limited Capability'.  It was indeed four copies of 'LC'; with the book of the serial weighing in at 577 pages, the taters would probably have been lighter!

I still remember the strange thrill back in January 2013 of opening a neat parcel and finding within two paperbacks with the title 'Severe Discomfort' and my name on the front.  They were the original proof copies of my first book, hot off the press!  I was pleasantly surprised with the quality, that the cover design (home-made) seemed to work and that there were 300 pages of real words inside, all written by me.  Aided and abetted by a trusted friend who had rashly agreed to proof read a copy for me, I slowly worked through the glitches.  Correcting the indentation, which was too deep; culling the excess commas - though with hindsight, I should have taken an equally tough line on the exclamation marks.  Adding the odd sentence, taking out a word here and there, re-ordering a line or two.  Between us, Anna and I caught most of the typos, though a couple slipped through the net. 

The calculation error in Lyn and Terry's benefits escaped detection for months, despite the book being read by both friends and strangers from a benefits background, until my colleague Tina reminded me of the 'Enhanced Disability Premium'.  Sadly, by that stage the book was in general circulation and it would have been prohibitively expensive to correct it.  So we'll have to leave it that the DWP miscalculated and diddled the Walkers out of about £15 per week (that sort of thing does happen, you know).  I thought I had done a more thorough job on the original manuscript of 'Continual Supervision', but when the two proof copies arrived with the spring in their tidy cardboard box with that delicious new book smell, in no time at all I was spotting hiccups, and sure enough a sheet of further corrections arrived from Hampshire in due course.

So I hold out little hope of 'LC' being trouble free.  I've already promised I'll take a tough line on those exclamation marks, and having read the first couple of chapters I really must spare a blameless character's blushes and correct his (my!) miscalculation of ESA at the 'support group' rate for 2011/12.  There's also something peculiar happening with the apostrophes on the back cover 'blurb' (which I recall being a problem with the first proof of 'Severe Discomfort') so I'll probably rewrite it to take them out, as a glitchy cover lets a book down badly.  I may need to adjust the font or print size to make the blurb more legible - or adjust the picture behind it.  The colour scheme has turned out a more browny-red than I intended too, but it still works so I may leave that as it is.

Whatever I do, I mustn't rush and overlook corrections, but I mustn't dawdle either.  Last year, I missed the chance to launch 'Severe Discomfort' during the Eastleigh by-election, when Lyn and Terry's home town was suddenly centre stage of UK politics.  In June, my adopted home of Stoke-on-Trent is holding a literary festival, but stories about it in the local paper have largely failed to generate debate and comment in the way that, say, court reports about people accused of benefit fraud tend to.

I may just have had a cunning plan..!