Well, I predicted I might in September last year, after winning a writing competition to appear as a character in Meg Gardiner’s new book, The Memory Collector.

The book was published in the USA a few weeks ago, and will be published here in the UK in July. Meg kindly sent me a USA edition, and although I’ve not quite finished it yet, I have met myself. Well, the character who now shares my name (poor soul).

And did I die?

Mmm, better not post any spoilers. You’ll just have to buy the book. Go on – it’s worth it!

Google sure are getting about.

I live in a very small market town in the Midlands in England, but have just been “Street Viewed” by one of their cars:

Apparently, it takes several months before street view pictures appear on Google Maps, and part of the process is ensuring their face blurring technology has worked (I feel I’ve given them a headstart already this morning), but it will be interesting to see if a blurred faced bloke in scruffy jeans and a scruffier fleece is leaning casually against my car when they do.

Update 19.03.09 – Looks like even the BBC have picked up on it (no, not me being ‘Street Viewed’, but rather Google’s Street View hitting the UK. 

I’m sure that I would have seen it coming - although perhaps not. How a choice of book title can change the way people refer to you:

‘Ugly’ author a ‘liar and thief’

For 20 years the Telegraph’s Matt has been showing us the funny side of life with his cartoons. Today’s is particularly relevant to a writer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/

(I’ve linked rather than copied – don’t want those copywrite polis (sorry, police – just finished “Naming of the Dead) on my tail.)

T’is October, the month ended by Halloween - or Samhain if you’re a Wiccan or Pagan – the time when the veil between our world and the spirit world is at its thinnest. 

Well, I don’t know about that, but what I do know is I’m taking part in a collaborative Halloween story over on Stephen King’s official message board, hosted by his PA, Marsha DeFilippo and webmaster, Jordan. Twenty of us are taking part, each of us with 24 hours to write 500 words of a story. Not too difficult until you consider that you have to follow on from what the person before you has written.  24 hours suddenly doesn’t seem so long!

Anyway, Robert Gray has got the story off to a fantastic start, and my instalment is due on about the 20th. If you’ve got time, pop on over and have a read: Halloween Story 2008.

 

But I’m more excited than worried! And anyway, I still might not die.

If you think my attitude is flippant, I ought to explain that my death will only be on paper (hopefully!). I won a competition on Meg Gardiner’s blog to have a character in her next Jo Beckett book named after me. Chances are Jo isn’t going to be taking up with a new long-term lover called DJ, so I guess my namesake’s appearance will be more akin to that of a USS Enterprise “Red Shirt“.

That means short-lived if you’re not a Captain Kirk fan.

If you’ve not read the first Jo Beckett novel, why not? Go buy it. Here it is:

Join the club!

Adrienne Kress, author of the great children’s book, Alex and the Wigpowder Treasure, (or Alex and the Ironic Gentleman for American and Canadian readers) has some good posts on her blog about this very thing – check them out:

The Agent Aquisition – Part 1

The Agent Aquisition – Part 2

The first two above chart Adrienne’s own story (and make me smile every time I read them). These next two are her own view of the practical steps to getting published.

So you want to get published? – Getting an agent.

So you want to get published? – from agent to publisher.

Check them out. And buy her book (soon to be plural) – even if you don’t have kids! 

I had a great evening on Tuesday, travelling down to London (well, technically Hampton, but anything inside of the M25 is London to a Midlander like me) with a mate to see two of our favourite authors: Meg Gardiner and Peter Robinson were interviewed and read a brief extract from their new books in front of an intimate audience of forty or so people, which had been organised by CrimeSquad.com and hosted by Andrew Clark.

I have met Meg on a number of occasions and she never fails to be entertaining. Peter was good value too – relatively quiet spoken, but with a dry sense of humour. When asked about comparisons between himself and his main character, DI Alan Banks (DCI now!), he tried to distance himself, but I think I could see more of DCI Banks in him than perhaps he could. Not sure if my fellow audience members would agree?

It always surprises me – no, I don’t think surprise is the right word as I’m not surpised, perhaps amazed is more appropriate – that these events are not better attended. So many people devote a large amount of their spare time to reading these authors, yet so few attend these kind of things to actually meet the people behind the novels. I guess that unless you’re local to an event, then you only find out about them if you’re geeky enough to visit the authors’ websites on a regular basis. Mmm… that must be me then!

Peter Robinson doing well to hide his concern about the future competition for shelf space

 

A relaxed Meg Gardiner having long ago concluded, “Competition. What competition?”

 

And yes, I did take the friend along as protection, after what happened last time!

I’ve been blog-tagged by Meg Gardiner!

 

But it doesn’t hurt – the game is to write down six random things about myself, then tag six others, so here goes:

 

1.      There’s a litre of me swilling around in an American man, somewhere in Washington State, USA (it’s not as bad as it sounds, honest!)

2.      I’ve only ever had three limbs in plaster – but they were all at the same time.

3.      I’ve been hit with a speeding fine whilst towing a caravan, but not whilst travelling at almost three times the speed on a motorbike.

4.      I’ve held a Karate black-belt for nearly as long as I haven’t.

5.      I have a fascination with all things post-apocalyptic – hence my love of Stephen King’s The Stand (can’t wait for my I am Legend DVD – I never made it the cinema in December)

6.      Jeff Wayne’s War of The Worlds sends shivers up my spine!

And now to play tag with six others – let’s see who’s game:

Adrienne Kress

Joe Hill

Jojo Moyes

Don

CD Reimer

Steve Stack

 

Rules:

·         Link to the person who tagged you.

·         Post the rules on your blog.

·         Write six random things about yourself.

·         Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blog

 ·         Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

            ·         Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

I was enjoying a quiet rake through the papers today after an enjoyable Sunday lunch at my in-laws’ (all the tastier because we’ve been sans kitchen for a week – I’m fitting a new one), when I came across the following story, which irritated me more than it probably should:

Judge quashes £300 parking fine…because it set out to ‘frighten and intimidate’ driver

By MARTIN DELGADO
Mail on Sunday
22nd March 2008
 

Car park operators could be forced to stop threatening motorists with huge penalty charges after a landmark court ruling.

In a decision that will be welcomed by many aggrieved drivers, a judge has ruled that the demands for hundreds of pounds in penalties which a parking company sent to one woman driver were illegal because they were too high.

The court was told they were intended to “frighten or intimidate” her rather than compensate the firm for any lost income.

And what’s the problem with this small victory for the oppressed motorist, I hear you ask? Well, nothing, but just look at that sign! 

This follows an article on page 5 of yesterday’s Daily Telegraph regarding a VW ad which appears to show a dog in distress, the final sentence of which read, “It’s welfare was paramount throughout the shoot.” 

Grrrr. 

’nuff said. 

   

  

Happy New Year, everyone – I hope your holiday break was better than mine - I won’t bore you with the continuing tales of woe that befell the Paterson household over the Christmas period.

I’m not normally one for making New Year’s Resolutions, but let’s see if I can stick to these.  

In what she’s dubbed Grammar Humbug Week, Meg Gardiner asks what grammar atrocity annoys you the most? Despite being a relatively recent perpetrator of most crimes against the English language, my own pet hate is the missing apostrophe.  I find this more annoying than the atrocious additional apostrophe. Just.

I have even taken to stopping the car to photograph signs that are a little lacking in punctuation – surely a prerequisite for a signwriter should be an English qualification?

This one was at a day out to Legoland with the kids:

And this one was taken when driving to work a little while ago: 

And I thought it was just doctor’s handwriting that was bad! I’m wondering if my new found obsession is an age thing? It could be, I guess – I’m 40 today!

My re-editing of Depot 573 seems to be taking forever, but I can take heart in the fact that even the best sometimes drag their heels. David Thewliss (that’s Remus Lupin to any Harry Potter fans out there) has just published his first book – seven years after he finished writing it (not that he faced the problems non-celebrity authors face when hawking their wares – his phone rang off the hook with agents wanting to take him on when he mentioned in a newspaper interview in 1999 that he had always written.)  

But it’s Stephen King who takes the prize – He wrote Blaze immediately after Carrie, during the six-month period when the first draft of Carrie was sitting in a desk drawer, mellowing. That would probably be around 1972, some 35 years before the published version finally hit the shelves. I bought my copy earlier this year! To be fair, he did publish more books than there were years in the intervening period.

As there’s every chance I won’t be around in 35 years, I’d better get on with it!

 

I’ve received my manuscript appraisal back from The Literary Consultancy, my prize for Depot 573 being one of the top 100 novels in the 100^th anniversary Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook competition. 

The appraisal was full of head-swelling comments, such as, “This is a lively and entertaining read, with an excellent page-turning quality – and a great title!” It also contained lots of advice and suggestions, so it is with these in mind that I am embarking on the (current) final redraft before I start the frightening task of trying to catch the eye of an agent.  

I’ll keep you posted.

I wrote a single page short story for a competition (which came nowhere, thanks for asking) and decided to enter it into another, but not until I’d made some changes. Rather than a complete rewrite, I decided to see if I could tweak and expand on the original text, and change the entire focus of the piece at the same time.

Here’s the original (Red Brick) which was written as a 300 word single page short, and here’s the revised version (also called Red Brick). The title remains the same, but its meaning is taken a step further. See which (if any) you prefer.

Thursday evening was spent at a tiny library in Great Barr, Birmingham, listening to Meg Gardiner talk about why crime fiction is so popular. It was a fantastic evening listening to, and asking questions of, a first class UK based American crime fiction author. Meg has recently come to a lot of people’s attention after being championed by one of the world’s most popular authors, Stephen King (cue Wayne’s World style “We’re not worthy!”).  

After giving Meg and her husband, Paul, a lift back to their hotel (in what felt like a surreal re-enactment of Roger Moore’s James Bond Citroen 2CV car chase) I got the opportunity to spend some time & chat with them both on a wide range of subjects, including books, writing, kids, Stephen King (the story of Meg’s first meeting with Stephen King last year is great!), Karate, Shaun of the Dead – and even Yetis, but perhaps it’s best if we don’t go there.

The kidnapping came as a complete surprise, though.

OK, so after doing well in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook competition, why am I displaying classic signs of avoidance behaviour? 

It’s my busy time at work, and from this week (and for the next six weeks) I’m going to have to go to work for an extra day a week – that takes me to an impressive – 4 days a week! This means that my writing time is reduced, and I really need to get cracking and finish my re-draft of Depot 573, so I can strike whilst the proverbial iron is hot. 

In that case, why am I throwing even more barriers in the way by just placing an Amazon order for Meg Gardiner’s Mission Canyon, Jericho Point and Crosscut? Because I read Meg’s first book in the series, China Lake (on Stephen King’s recommendation), and now I have this nagging worry that her heroine, Evan Delaney, might be in danger. I need to find out!

Oh well, looks like I’ll just have to get by on 4 hours sleep a night, again!  

Had some great news by email on Thursday. I entered the first 8,500 words of Depot 573 into the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2007 novel writing competition and have just found out I was one of the 100 winners!! But don’t take my word for it – have a look here.

 

Just attended a crime writing workshop with Sophie Hannah.  Turned out to be more of lecture with Q&A rather than a workshop, but she was a very interesting lady, and just a brief overview of the plot of her first crime novel, Little Face, had me hooked. I already had a copy on order from the library, but now have a pristine signed copy in my hands.

 Now, do I have the patience to wait so as not to spoil my new copy?

 Doubt it… 

Wow – I’ve just had a short story accepted for web publication (and when I say short, I mean short!).

55 Words is a great little site that publishes 55 words stories (and that means exactly 55 words – no more and no less). I’ve just heard from Anca Szilagyi that they will publish one of my offerings, Plummet, either later this month, or in April. I’ll post a link when it’s up.

Update 8th April 2007: Here’s that link: Plummet