Over the next few weeks/months, I'll be sharing some new chapters in the lives of characters with links to the Solent Welfare Rights Project, a fictional advice centre based in a south Hampshire town just a little bit like Eastleigh.
If you haven't already met Hilary Carrington, Lyn and Terry Walker, Toby Novak, Catherine Collier, their families, friends and clients, it's never too late to start reading Welfare Rights Lit. If you aren't sure it's for you, there's always some available to try for free. The most recent effort in draft form exists on this blog as a series of chapters starting last November. The first ebook in the series, set eight years ago and entitled Severe Discomfort, is free to download on the first Friday of every month with all the subsequent stories free on dates stated in their blurb.
Here's the link for Severe Discomfort, which is on free download today.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00C69HMRM
It wasn't written to make me rich (and it didn't) but to explain what was really happening to people needing benefits to get by under both the New Labour Governments of Blair and Brown and the Tory/Libdem Coalition that followed them. Things have, without any question, got much worse since and are continuing to deteriorate. It's a challenge to keep the overall tone of the stories upbeat, cheerful and positive but I choose to do so because it is possible to win appeals, to find love and friendship, to make society better, fairer and kinder. It is important to let the people suffering at the sharp end know this and to know that others want it to happen for them.
I don't have the resources for professional proof-readers, designers, marketing campaigns or paperback giveaways. Reviews (respecting these limitations) are welcome, or at least a 'found this helpful' tick to someone who has already placed a review with which you agree.
Daphne Randall's 4mph thrillers are the more commercial end of my writing efforts although I do give them away free too, intermittently. There are little cross-overs between these and the Welfare Rights Lit stories from time to time, including the first episode of the making-it-up-as-we-go-along blog-novel to come which I'll be starting any moment now...
Sunday 30 September 2018
Reality Bites...
Sincere apologies to anyone who has been waiting for more Adventures in Welfare Reform with the staff and clients of the Solent Welfare Rights Project. I had high hopes of spending this summer getting last year's novel-by-blog proof-read and turned into a proper book and of writing revised prefaces and making minor corrections to the old tales, before launching into another saga, not least to reassure myself that I had got all my character's ages, relationships and histories firmly implanted in my mind before subjecting them to another slice of austerity.
So what happened? Well, for one thing, we had a really hot, dry summer (despite this being North Staffordshire) so I had to spend a couple of hours most evenings trundling round the garden with watering cans trying to stop my crops and best flowers from dying, before trekking down to the allotment, accompanied by Himself towing a water barrel, to repeat the process.
The biggest problem, however, has been the actual roll-out of Universal Credit in my patch. It's meant having to do more hours training, writing info leaflets, going to community events and generally helping the front-line fire-fighters on the advice side try to figure out what the actual bloody hell is going on with the DWP. Mercifully - and perhaps unexpectedly - we've had some funding for this from local MPs (not the Tory one) who have realised just how unprepared their constituents actually are for what is coming.
It's also made me realise that there are more dire pitfalls with this pathetic excuse for a Social Security system than I ever envisaged from listening to other people's accounts and reading blogs and reports. Every day we seem to be confronted with some new twist, some completely unexpected idiocy. It's hard to believe that after five years of a so-called "Pause and Fix" approach, there are still so many major bugs in UC. It is an utter disgrace.
So, when I finally stop being too depressed and angry to turn any of the real stuff into inspiration for stories, I will have no shortage of material. In fact, I think we'll probably begin soon with a conversation between Hilary and Daphne, as the latter tries to pick her own way through the mess slowly engulfing her home town - and mine.
So what happened? Well, for one thing, we had a really hot, dry summer (despite this being North Staffordshire) so I had to spend a couple of hours most evenings trundling round the garden with watering cans trying to stop my crops and best flowers from dying, before trekking down to the allotment, accompanied by Himself towing a water barrel, to repeat the process.
The biggest problem, however, has been the actual roll-out of Universal Credit in my patch. It's meant having to do more hours training, writing info leaflets, going to community events and generally helping the front-line fire-fighters on the advice side try to figure out what the actual bloody hell is going on with the DWP. Mercifully - and perhaps unexpectedly - we've had some funding for this from local MPs (not the Tory one) who have realised just how unprepared their constituents actually are for what is coming.
It's also made me realise that there are more dire pitfalls with this pathetic excuse for a Social Security system than I ever envisaged from listening to other people's accounts and reading blogs and reports. Every day we seem to be confronted with some new twist, some completely unexpected idiocy. It's hard to believe that after five years of a so-called "Pause and Fix" approach, there are still so many major bugs in UC. It is an utter disgrace.
So, when I finally stop being too depressed and angry to turn any of the real stuff into inspiration for stories, I will have no shortage of material. In fact, I think we'll probably begin soon with a conversation between Hilary and Daphne, as the latter tries to pick her own way through the mess slowly engulfing her home town - and mine.
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