Yes, you can download ‘Floating In Space’ free for your Kindle until 22nd January.
It’s a novel following the adventures of a young man in Manchester in 1977. No mobile phones, no Internet and a pint of bitter cost only 25p. Here’s me talking about it in Manchester;
Free until 22nd January!
Recently I applied for a managerial promotion and even though I was unsuccessful I did get the opportunity for a temporary promotion as my own manager had been seconded elsewhere. The extra money came in very handy over Christmas but my blogs have suffered. When it’s a little quiet at work I always take the time to try and write something, not always a complete blog but at least something that I can use and work into a blog at a later date. As a manager though that whole concept went right out the window because there was always something to be done; something that needed sorting out. I did get a big bonus in my pay packet but believe me, I really did work for it. Anyway, plenty of time now to relax in the warmth of Lanzarote, contemplate where I went wrong with my manager application and to work hard at blogging and promoting my book, Floating In Space.
I do hate the cold which is one reason why I’ve flown away from the cold of the UK in January. Here in Lanzarote it’s like an English summer’s day; warm but not too warm. Dinners outside on the patio, barbecues, and a lovely warm heated pool. Getting here though wasn’t that easy. Blackpool airport closed down recently which was only ten minutes away from us so instead we had to trek to Manchester Airport, that huge bustling place a good hour’s drive away. Checking in our suitcase wasn’t so bad but the hassle of passport control and the hand luggage check; what a nightmare. We’d left a bottle of water in our bag so that came back to haunt us, my laptop and Liz’s I-pad (which have to be x-rayed separately of course) ended up in one area and our ‘suspect’ case in another surrounded by security people who then emptied my water away and squashed my sandwiches! Not happy! Al-Qaeda have a lot to answer for!
Anyway, getting back to Lanzarote, did I hear people say –six weeks in Lanzarote?
Yep. Six weeks away from the cold and hopefully at the end of those six weeks, that will be six weeks’ worth of blogging, of promoting my book, of e-commerce and networking and even hopefully some good work gone into the follow up to Floating In Space. In my first week I’ve done a huge amount of networking and almost trebled my twitter followers. For a newcomer to self publishing it’s a pretty hard learning curve and there are plenty of blogs out there telling you how to get more followers, how to get more likes and so on. Click here to see a pretty interesting one but at the end of the day it’s you who has to do the work: You who has to make your blog successful.
I’ve noticed on twitter there are plenty of people and companies claiming they can tweet your book and get you a guaranteed thousand followers or more but it all comes at a price. Is it worth it? Well, if it brings in followers and they read your blog and buy your book or whatever product you are selling then great, but if not then that’s more money spent on a wasted avenue. Here’s an interesting post by an author who hit number one on the amazon best seller list and seemed to make his major breakthrough by showcasing two books together and alternating each book as a freebie download over a set period of time. Looks like it worked for him.
Happiness is a warm gun, or so said the Beatles on the white album but for me after a morning writing it’s a glass of red wine on a warm summer’s evening, my favourite salad (onion and tomato) and something cooking away on the barbecue (courtesy of Liz) or the prospect of a short walk down to the marina at Playa Blanca for an evening meal.
Anyway, that’s enough for now, think it’s time for a swim!
Anyone who knows me will tell you I never give anything away free, so just to prove them wrong you can download the Kindle version of Floating In Space free from today until the 22nd January! Click the picture below to take you straight to the amazon.co.uk page!
Floating In space is a novel set in Manchester in 1977 and if you like kitchen sink dramas like ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ and ‘A Kind Of Loving’ then you’ll love this book too.
If you remember the seventies I hope you’ll perhaps enjoy a trip down memory lane, if you’re younger then you’ll be pleased to know life did exist before mobile phones and the Internet were invented and if you’re familiar with Manchester then I hope you’ll recognise some of the locations, particularly the pubs and clubs mentioned.
Here’s me talking about the book on you tube:
I’ve not been lucky enough to have kids but many years ago I remember watching TV with my girlfriend’s daughter, Wendy. I can’t remember the film we were watching but the star was Christopher Reeve, most famous perhaps for playing the part of Superman. Wendy was wondering why he wasn’t ducking into a phone booth to change into Superman and streaking up into the air at the drop of a hat. Well, I thought, it’s time for a serious talk with Wendy about the movie world.
I explained, pretty thoughtfully I thought, about how movies were made, about cameras, shooting, screenplays and actors. Wendy seemed to take it all in but after a while she looked at me, looked back at Christopher Reeve and asked;
“Right, so he’s lost his powers then?”
Here’s another one. One day Tania, Liz’s daughter was asking for a drink of juice. She was very young at the time, just learning to talk so Liz filled her cup with juice and handed Tania the drink. She was expecting a word of thanks but when it wasn’t forthcoming Liz held onto the cup. Tania tugged harder, Liz waited for a thank you. Eventually she said; “Tania, what’s the magic word?”
Tania thought for a moment and replied “Abra cadabra!”
Kids. What funny things have your kids said?
Neighbours! Well, there’s a subject! Some years ago I moved into a place called Newton le-Willows. A nice enough friendly place, I thought, but it was a black cat that caused the end of our neighbourhood harmony.
Okay, here’s how it started; My neighbour was a guy called Tony and he and his wife were going on holiday and he asked me to look after his cat Blackie. It needed to be fed once a day, in the morning, for a week. OK, not a big deal and it put me right where I wanted to be with my neighbour: him owing me a big favour so ‘no problem’ I told him.
Day1
I’m up and showered and all ready for work and so I nip into next door’s and sort out the cat food. Tony has shown me where it’s all kept, which bowl to use and so on. I sort it all out, set it down on the mat and who is there waiting and purring? Not one but two cats. I thought there was only supposed to be one so do I do two bowls? No, he specified the cat food and showed me the bowl (the one bowl) so OK it’s sharing time for the cats and I’m off to work.
I jump in my van and I’m off and as I drive away there are the cats giving me a little catty wave from the kitchen window. Happy days.
Day 2
I mention sort of randomly as I’m off to work that there were two cats in next door’s house and my wife (now my former wife) says, ‘What!’ in a big sort of screamy, scary way and I’m thinking, ‘here we go, what have I done?’ The thing is there is only one cat living next door so I’m tasked to throw out the intruder cat and just to feed the main cat. So, in I goes and I don’t really know which is the proper cat and which is the cheeky intruder cat. Neither of them seemed to respond to the name ‘Blackie’ so sod it I thought. Cat food sorted -I’m off.
Once again as I drive off there are the two cats happily washing themselves in the kitchen window and as I passed by a revolutionary thought occurred to me. One of the cats was actually a black cat so it could be (sound of penny dropping) that he was Blackie and the other cat, the ginger cat was the cat interloper.
Day 3
Feeling a little bit like Sherlock Holmes and armed with this new deduction about ‘Blackie’ I popped into next door and chucked out ‘Ginger’, sorted out the cat food and then left for work. Was I dreaming or did I really see the two cats once again at the kitchen window? Did Ginger have a sort of ‘you’ll have to do better than that’ look on his face? Surely not!
Day 4
According to my (former) wife it was a major criminal offence to have a strange cat enter your neighbours’ house and scoff half the cat food, so once again I chucked out the ginger cat. I did think about locking the cat flap but feeling this could have repercussions in case Blackie wanted to exit the property I left it open. Driving off as usual I spied the two cats smiling happily from the kitchen window engaged in their morning feline ritual of washing themselves, only this time they seemed to have been joined by a third cat! Christ, I thought, hope the neighbours get back soon before a cat colony starts up in their house!
Day 8
Our neighbours returned from their break in foreign climes. I wasn’t sure about mentioning the intruding cat but what the heck; I told them anyway and they said not to bother, ‘that cat comes in all the time anyway. We’re sure its owners don’t feed it properly.’
Day 9
I was outside washing my van and had a chat with my neighbour Elaine, the lady who ran our neighbourhood watch group. I told her about the cat caper thinking it was a pretty funny story but she seemed rather shocked by it all. Well, humour wasn’t one of her strong points I thought as she marched off to see Stella, another neighbour from further up the avenue who I have to admit I wasn’t too fond off. As the afternoon wore on I noticed Stella storm past me and knock on next door’s and have something of a minor row with the occupants. She stormed off fuming and gave me a pretty black look when I offered a cheery “afternoon!”
Day 9, later.
Tony gave me something of a black look too and didn’t respond to my friendly wave. I did wonder if this was vaguely connected to the cat saga. No, surely not I thought. Later, Tony’s wife came round and told me through a veil of tears that Stella had knocked on their door and accused her and Tony of being ‘A pair of f**king catnappers!‘ It turned out that Stella owned the ginger cat and Tony’s wife wanted to know why I had even mentioned it to Stella. Well, I don’t even really know Stella I said, the only person I mentioned it to was Elaine. “What!’ fumed Tony’s wife. (Wish I could remember her name!) The next thing you know she storms across the road, bangs on the door and appears to be having it out with Elaine. I couldn’t hear what was said but there was a lot of finger pointing, some at my house, some at Blackie wandering innocently along the avenue, some at her house and some, in fact quite a lot now I think of it, at Stella’s house.
Day 10
A chance encounter at Tesco’s with Elaine. I’m scooting through the store, not really looking where I’m going as shopping is not high on my list of favourite activities and as I scoot along I’m throwing bread and milk and all sorts of stuff in my trolley when who should I bump into but Elaine.
“It wasn’t my fu**ing fault you know!” she said.
“That’s OK,” I told her, “I never look where I’m going with a shopping trolley!”
“I meant about the cat!” Elaine gave me a mean look and was gone, never to speak to me again.
Good job I didn’t mention that the third cat I saw in next door’s was hers!
Love isn’t some little thing that goes ding!
It isn’t a song that you can sing.
It’s not something that might happen in a flash,
It doesn’t happen while driving and cause you to crash.
Love isn’t something tangible, something you can see,
It might even be invisible, to both you and to me.
It’s something that will join us and hold us together,
It’s a feeling that will get better, whatever the weather.
Love isn’t the singing of a song
But it’s working together when things go wrong
It isn’t the chiming of a bell or the tooting of a horn
But It’s just tears of joy when a child is born.
It’s been a long wait but you can finally buy the Floating In Space paperback version from Amazon! Just click on the picture below to take you to literary heaven! (OK, that’s a little over the top but, what the heck?)
Have you ever read that book by Arthur C Clarke, ‘The Lost Worlds of 2001′? It’s a great book and from a writers point of view a great idea. What Clarke does is take all the unused and discarded material from his book 2001 A Space Odyssey and put it into this book. It shows you the development of the story, how it evolved, the input from Stanley Kubrick, the director of the movie version, and he shows us the different directions the book could have taken and all the avenues that were removed from the finished book. It’s a great idea for a writer because all that work on all those unused pages can now be used. On top of that it shows others how a story evolves, especially when working with someone like Kubrick who had ideas he wanted to incorporate into his film.
In writing Floating In Space I also had a considerable stack of pages I didn’t use. Here’s something that took the main character, Stuart, away from life as a bus driver and went on to see him as a cigarette vending machine man.
I have never understood what people see in cigarettes or what people want from them. Imagine it’s hot, and you’ve been on a long walk or stuck in an over heated car and you’re dying, yes literally dying for a drink and as the cool, cold, liquid; water, beer, or fizzy pop or whatever pours into your mouth the relief flows over you like, well like water. Yes, I get that. I understand it I, but people who tell me they are dying for a ciggy, well, I just don’t get that at all. Those who suck on the noxious fumes of a cigarette and draw them in deeply, well, I suppose it must give them some sort of relief or comfort but am I missing something? Especially when those same fumes can actually kill you? I mean have you ever looked at a packet of cigarettes? I mean really looked? Tobacco contains diesel fumes and other chemicals. Your sperm count may be affected? Incredible that these white sticks of death are so sought after in this society, and also that of course, I sell them.
My phone is ringing for the second time today. It’s the girl from the Bulls Head, a pub set in the country, not that far in the country but far enough for the landlady, a heavy smoker who relentlessly uses the ciggy machine despite the incredible prices it demands, to go into a near fit when the machine conks out.
Betty has left two messages already about her machine not working and she knows I get the messages but she needs reassurance that help, and nicotine is on the way.
“Betty, Stuart here, the ciggy man-”
“Stuart, where are you? The machine conked out last night and I need it fixing. You know there’s no shops around here and now the garage has shut down we can’t get any ciggys!”
“Relax Betty, I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Stuart we can’t wait that long. You know what the customers are like. Stuart you have got to be here today. You’ve got to!”
“All right Betty, relax, relax, I’ll be there later don’t worry.”
“Well, what time? What time Stuart?”
“Betty, I’ve got to go, I’ve got another call coming in. See you later!”
“Stu-”
And I’m gone. I have to give her the chop because otherwise I’d be there all day. And I’ve got more machines to fill, more sticks of death to give out because that’s me, that’s what I do –I’m the ciggy man.
They recently changed my van, a Ford Transit to a Mercedes Sprinter. It’s not great but it’s fast and comfy and I like the air conditioning that keeps me cool. I’ve just done three calls fast and furious. Shoot in, count the machine, shove in a load of ciggys, take out the cash and I’m gone but now I’m ready for a break. I know I’m on for a brew at the Stanley but I’ll just stop in here in the Lodge and hope the manageress is in instead of her miserable husband the manager and no I won’t get a brew but the manageress is so gorgeous that I like to make time to talk to her.
Inside through the main entrance, a quick hello to the girl on reception “Hi” I say easily.
“Any freebies?” Asks the young girl with a friendly smile.
“Next week,” I say and she laughs and says I always say that -because I do and I never give her any but then I’ve no intentions of doing that, not when every loss, even one packet goes out of my wages.
I go through into the pub and it’s just the bar maid who’s a bit of a misery and never has much to say but after a moment when I’m engrossed in counting the machine and entering the figures on to the hand held computer I carry, I suddenly smell that lovely perfume of Jan the manageress and here she is coming over to see me.
“Hi, not seen you for ages how are you?”
“All the better for seeing you. Nine thirty in the morning and you look so gorgeous. I can’t believe it.”
“Gorgeous? I’m a wreck. Look at the bags under my eyes!”
Now she’s mentioned the bags under her eyes to me a hundred times before and it’s obviously some sort of an issue with her. Perhaps that misery of a husband has mentioned it to her and now she’s getting paranoid about it because that’s what women do. They focus on some small insignificant thing and let it ruin their lives. I went out with one girl years ago and she was obsessed with her bum. Always checking it in the mirror, always worrying about it and yet, her behind was a lovely curved behind that worked well with her legs and all her other bits and pieces.
Jan is tall, about thirty-five, fortyish: Lovely thick brown hair all flowing and slightly curly. The sort of hair that you’d love to put your hands through. She’s always well dressed, today wearing a loose shirt with a sort of floral design and a matching knee length skirt, not flowery but with the same sort of purply colours.
“Bags? What bags? What bags are you on about? You’d have bags if you had a job like this, running around with a shed load of cash and cigarettes worrying about all the villains in Liverpool who are probably lying in wait for me somewhere.”
She laughs and it’s a nice warm laugh and I think she was going to run off after a quick word but I’ve got her now. She’s got lovely eyes and I wonder what she’s doing with that misery of a husband she’s got. Have I mentioned him? A right misery.
“Where’s your husband?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”
She smiles and says “Tony? He’s my partner not my husband.”
“Your partner? You’re not married?” Well, this is news to me, in fact the best news I’ve had this week. My mobile phone is ringing and I take a quick glance and see it’s the Bulls Head again and I just reject the call quickly and Jan says “you should have taken that, don’t mind me,” but I do mind her and the news about Tony is good news.
I hang on to her for a while but then she’s off and I fill up the machine, take out the cash, and I’m ready to go. “Put plenty of Marlboro lights in,” she had said because that’s what she smokes which is a shame because I hate women who smoke but as it’s her I’m going to make an exception and yes, I did put in more Marlboro Lights, the sticks of death she prefers.
As I drove away I caught her eye as she signed for some delivery on the steps of reception and she smiled and I thought about how much I liked her and desired her and yet I’d just delivered her drugs of choice.
Round the corner at the Stanley it was time for a brew. The landlady was a young girl called Julie and she was nice, in fact she was very fit indeed. She did a lot of jogging and it was nice to watch her when she filled in for the cleaners on their holidays and she did the hoovering wearing a tee shirt and no bra and it was lovely to watch but she didn’t have the ‘oomph’ factor if you know what I mean.
On the other hand there’s this cleaner there, Marge, who’s in her mid to late fifties and she is so gorgeous it’s not true. Did I say fifties? Me, fancying a woman in her fifties? I can’t believe it myself sometimes but all I do in here is chat and sup tea and eventually Julie who must be watching on cameras or something will come down and we’ll have to get a move on and break up the party. I’m always sorry to say good-bye to Marge. She has the trim figure of a girl in her teens, a lovely warm inviting smile and all she really needs to look a million dollars is for someone to sort out her mop of untidy hair and give her some exciting clothes. Still, she’s a cleaner and she not likely to wear her best outfit for cleaning is she? When I’m ready to leave we stand at the door for a couple of minutes of last minute chit chat and when she’s in close it’s all I can do to stop putting my arms around her and holding her. She’s always on about her partner so I don’t think for a minute she’d be interested in me but the thought is always there and it’s a nice thought. A nice thought to hold on to when you’re feeling lonely and unloved as I sometimes do.
Anyway I go on and on, filling the ciggy machines, having a chat here and there and having a brew here and there. Some pubs you can’t wait to get out of and others I could stay all day.
I pulled the van out of Prescot and cantered up the short stretch of motorway to the Bulls Head. The Bulls Head is in the country; well, in a way but it’s in the start of the country, ten minutes from the M62 motorway, ten minutes’ walk from a small row of shops where you can buy cigarettes; full packets of cigarettes not vending machine packs with sixteen or eighteen cigarettes but no, this customer wanted my cigarettes, my overpriced and under packed cigarettes.
I was listening to Perry Como on my van’s tape deck. Perry Como? I can hear you say, well, I like everything musical except for rap and opera. Sometimes I play rock, hard or soft, sometimes soul, sometimes dance. Sometimes I even play classical stuff like Handel and Strauss.
Just as I pulled up to the Bulls Head I could see Betty waiting. She opened up the emergency exit meaning I wouldn’t have to go all the way round and as I stepped in with my keys and tool box she had the £5.20 in her hands for a packet of Lambert and Butler.
“I though you’d be here ages ago,” She said, anxiously.
“Wasn’t in the area Betty. I had to finish me work in Prescot then drive over.”
“I’ve been in all day. You could’ve come any time.”
“Don’t worry. I’m here now.”
You’d think it was the doctor, coming to see a sick child or something. Instead it’s me. Here to fix the ciggy machine.
The minute I had the locks off and the door of the machine open she was over with her money.
“Here. Twenty Lambert.”
I took the money and slipped her a packet of the life givers.
“Eighteen Lambert,” I corrected her.
“Eighteen,” she muttered as she slit the cellophane with her fingernail and took out a cigarette. “Robbin’ bastards. At least its eighteen. Most packets in that machine you only get sixteen! Why don’t you get twenty? Why can’t they put twenty in? I wouldn’t mind paying five pound twenty for twenty but eighteen! -Robbin’ gets!”
She stuck the cigarette between her lips and lit it quickly in one smooth action slipping the lighter from her hand and back and into her jeans pocket while she breathed in the life giving aroma. The white stick nestled in between her fingers and made the natural trip to her lips frequently. She cradled the white stick feeling it’s warmth, watching it settle in her fingers and develop its comforting grey ash.
It seemed to me that many smokers take on the pallor of ash. Their skin becoming grey, ashen and wasted and people like me could spot them a mile away.
Betty had a nice figure and wore a denim shirt and denim pants. She had big round eyes and with a bit of effort she could be nice. I often wondered what he would be like dressed up for a night out. Not that I could really stand to be near her as she smoked ciggy after ciggy.
“We need a new machine in here you know. If that one’s gonna start packing in like this every five minutes. We’re out in the middle of nowhere here you know. No shops. No nothing.”
What she would have done if she were living in the real middle of nowhere, somewhere like the highlands of Scotland I do not know but already the tobacco was doing it’s work calming her, easing her. She came and leant on the bar folding her arms and watching the workings of the machine with her warm round eyes.
“Look,” I said. “Torn up beer mat. Some plonker’s torn up a beer mat and stuffed it down the coin chute. Probably kids. Do you let kids in here at the weekends?”
“Little bastard! I know who it was. I’ll kill the little toe rag and his Mum when they come in tonight! No ciggys since Sunday afternoon!”
“It’ll be good for you. A break from the ciggys for a while. Do a bit of joggin’, get some nice clean air in your lungs. Come back here for a few carrot sticks and a low fat dip. You should think about you health more.”
Betty laughed and told me the story she had told me a hundred times before about all the people who smoked in her family, like her grandad who lived to be 86 and her dad who’s as fit as a fiddle and how they all smoke non stop.
“Are you rushing off or do you want a brew?”
Now take tea, there’s something that’s good for you, something worth waiting for. I never say no to a brew.
Two things stand out from that journey. One was waking up in the middle of the night, curled up in my seat and watching the two young French drivers effect a driver change while the bus was still travelling at roughly seventy miles an hour in lane one of the autoroute. One driver leant out of the cab, still hanging on to the steering wheel, while the other slipped nimbly past him into the seat. He took the wheel and then reached down to adjust the seat with his other hand. Once he was comfy and settled in, he put his foot down and carried on. The other driver was already asleep in his little bunk.
The other thing was early in the morning we awoke to find ‘Pappy’ as Chris called him, scrabbling about on the floor. He didn’t seem to understand my poor schoolboy French so I had to nudge Chris awake and ask what was going on. After a swift French exchange Chris said he was looking for the false teeth he had dropped in the night. One of the back packers nearby found them and Pappy leapt up, grabbed the gnashers and popped them into place!
Poor old Pappy was not happy when we arrived at his French villa. The villa had come to him after the death of his second wife and there were conditions attached meaning it would pass to her family in full when Pappy died. During his absence, the French relatives must have been getting impatient about their inheritance and they had somehow managed to sell off some parts of his land and rented out the downstairs of the villa to a motor mechanic. Pappy was not happy.
The villa was the second catch. Lovely as it was with its extensive grounds, it appeared to me to have been untouched for many years. There was no running water at all in the house. If we needed water it had to be pumped up from a well in the garden. There were no indoor toilets; one had to use the traditional ancient French toilet outside. Pappy, being unable to reach these facilities in a rush, had a bucket in his bedroom which Chris and his brother Tony also made use of. As I could not approach the bucket without retching I declined to either use or empty it. However, after one evening of excessive drinking they caught me using it and I was forced to empty it the next day. I could only do so by wearing my diving mask and snorkel and as I pottered along to the French toilet the two of them, watching from afar collapsed into laughter which soon passed to me and it was much later, after repeated attempts, when I managed to complete my task.
That snorkel and mask turned out to be pretty helpful in an other way too. As a school pupil at Sharston Comprehensive school, every Wednesday I think it was, we marched the short distance to Sharston baths for our swimming lesson. I use the word ‘lesson’ reluctantly as I really don’t remember getting much tuition at all, As usual I joined the small band of non swimmers in the shallow end of the pool. The teacher tossed us a few polystyrene floats then joined the others at the deep end. That was generally the last we saw of him till the end of the lesson. All the time at that school I can only think of one person who ever made the move from the non swimmers to the swimmers and that was because his dad taught him to swim in the summer holidays. All well and good you may think but what has that to do with a trip to France? Well, simply this, on that holiday in Hyeres, with the help of my two friends and a borrowed dive mask, I finally gained my confidence in the water and learned to swim in the gentle blue waters of the Mediterranean by a quiet beach called ‘Le Cat.’
When the time came to leave, Pappy refused to go. He was Italian by birth but had lived all his life in France and wanted to stay here in a place where they spoke a language he understood. He was very old though and unable to look after himself and after some persuasion, he came with us and returned to the UK. Sadly, he died some time later.
Years afterwards Chris returned to Hyeres to take a look at the old place. He told me that the villa was still there but the land had all been sold and numerous properties now closely surrounded it. The relatives had finally got their inheritance.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 