You Can't Skip Chapters Even if You Don't Enjoy All of It.

I stole this from someone on Facebook. I'm sure she won't mind, and I will let her know of the theft.

If you think of  Life as a book, this makes such sense. "You won't enjoy all of it." But the in-between bits are so worth the read. Treasure ALL of your story. No flinching.

Speaking of Life as a story, one of my sons has asked me to do a detailed history of the wildly adventurous and outrageous men on his father's side of the family, going back almost two hundred years, spanning the globe.  He completed the research some years ago, producing a large and informative description of the lives of Great-Great-Grandfather down to his own father, but believes it deserves a more lively and writerly version --- you know, humanizing the dates and places. These men were certainly not paragons of virtue --lovable scoundrels, if I am kind, irresponsible cads, if I'm less kind. It seems to have been a genetic thing, or at the very least the nurture effect, as they all seem to have shared the same moral code. I wonder if my skill is up to doing justice to them, considering my son's description:

     "Would you read a book about a Victorian middle-class family (The Cremers), whose seven sons strike out around the Empire to four continents, facing trials and tribulations, shipwrecks, cannibals, three wars, a Gold Rush, a South American revolution, mystery deaths and a young runaway who travels the world?"

(And don't forget abandoned wives and children on the way. Stories in themselves.)

These men were not average, but risk-takers, talented in the Arts, bold and adventurous in all they did. They seem to have wanted to leave their mark. I still don't know how I feel about them, but their stories were never, ever boring, and certainly deserve to be told in a reader-friendly, entertaining way.

Along with writing "Winnowing", which I'm determine to publish in 2021, I'll give my all to this Cremer epic. I'll let you know how I'm progressing with it. 

Almost forgot to say that I received my first royalty payment for "Summer Must End" for November sales. It was exciting, even as it was only enough to buy a posh coffee or two. I am not complaining, really. If we thought we were doing this for the money, we'd be unbalanced. I am forever pragmatic and balanced. 

Have a Happy New Year, all. Let's put this nasty one firmly behind us. 

Feeling Sad. Last Novel is on Its Own. Like Your Kid Going Off to College.

 I knew I would feel sad. I've been through this before. We talk about our books as if they are our babies,  struggling for lives of their own. The process can be difficult,  frightening, although eventually rapturous. We persevered.  We nurtured them to completion, to a kind of maturity. And then we have to send them off to find their own way. Summer Must End has graduated. 

"Summer Must End" Available Here

There are three of them out there now. I must admit to constant checking-in on them. A bit obsessive, really, but after years of working on each of them, you need to know what they're up to, without being too obvious about it. At some point, I'll stop and just wait to hear back about Royalties.  I can always obsess again later if I don't hear back.

In the meantime, the novel-in-waiting, "Hafan Deg" is firmly on the backburner. I wanted to release it this year, but it just isn't doing it for me. It's not that it's a bad story, but I have changed. Just as we wrote angst-filled poems as teenagers (well,  I did), so a story about an aging woman's reinvention of herself only spoke to me when I was doing the re-inventing. I'm on a different path now. It can wait a little longer. My new book, "Winnowing" has been taking up a lot of my thinking time. 

Here's a tiny blurb, because we can't reveal too much at this stage.

    Megan is an editor for a tiny boutique publishing house in London. She is particularly jaded with the local dating scene, and has more or less decided to give the whole thing a miss for a while. Until she meets Alistair Clarke,  a young poet her boss has decided to publish. He is neither attractive nor fascinating, but she appreciates his talent and is intrigued by his shyness and reticence. She gradually learns more of his background, and is determined to promote him as fully as possible, falling in love with him in the process. Sinister people begin asking oddly personal questions about him, and she worries, pressuring him about it, dissatisfied with his response. 

When Alistair disappears, she becomes frantic. The only address she has for him is in Wood Green, London, but he hasn't been seen there for weeks. The police are ambivalent. 'Too early to formally report it', they tell her. But then, in his folder of work, left at the office, she discovers a council bill for a property near Shepton Mallet, in Somerset. She has come to love this small, strange man. It's up to her to find out what's going on, isn't it? No one else seems concerned.  Megan is driven; she has never been in love before. 

Talk to you soon. Perhaps you'll tell me what you think of this new novel. Comment below.