the joys of writing part five

This week I received from the printers my proof copy of “Trousers” in paperback. The moment of joy at having my own book in my hands was soon over though when I spotted the errors on the back cover. Now these are mine as I had used a precis of an existing piece with some changes to tense, but had failed to carry the changes through fully. Easily fixed though.

What is taking time, and has upset me more, is that I had employed an editor to review the text before if was passed to Kindle. They had been recommended to me and had suggested some changes and corrected some spelling all of which gave me confidence that they had found the things that I had missed, and it was this text that was supplied to the printer for the paperback edition.

I have therefore been horrified to find that that text is riddled with errors; grammar, spelling, tense and orphan words where an edit has not been tidied up. I am about half way through reading it slowly and carefully with the aim of putting things right as I can’t afford to pay for another edit at this stage. All being well I will be able to revise the Kindle edition and the paperback at the same time.

Another lesson learned the hard way. I shan’t be using that editor again, but will be on the look out for one to take on my next two books, both of which are coming along, albeit the pace of writing has slowed as my primary source of income is placing demands on my time.

So writing is still a joy, but the hard work that I mentioned last time still applies; throwing words onto paper is not necessarily that hard, but the effort that needs to be put in to polish these into coherent sentences and paragraphs, to ensure balance and pace and all of the other things that go into good writing all take time and effort.

the joys of writing part four

A month on from the publication of “Trousers” I finally yielded to temptation and looked at how many people had obtained a copy. I was hopeful that I might have been up towards the top end of  my wildest expectations because of the contact that I have had from people who have read it, but the figures from Amazon show that it is close to six times those wild dreams.

Much of the feedback has been around the three link sections that I wrote about my first, second and third steps on the leadership ladder. To help me write those three pieces I had put together a precis of my career and some stories of events around the places that I have been privileged to visit over the years. The interest in those stories suggested that they might make a book in their own right and I’ve spent much of the last few weeks revising and adding to them to the point that I now have over 90,000 words written and proofed towards what will now be two books. The first will be stories from my various jobs since leaving school in 1969 and the second a series of stories of places and people around the UK and Europe. Current plans are well enough advanced that the e-Book version of the first of the two could be available next month with the paperback about May or June.

Back with “Trousers” for a moment, there has been enough interest shown to warrant a paperback version and that will be out around May. Once released it can be bought from Amazon and other book shops on-line or in your High Street.

As with so many things though, none of this is all that easy. Yes, Amazon make getting the finalised text onto their platform fairly straightforward, but there is a lot to do to get a book to the stage that it is ready. If you put in the effort then it is all worth it in the long run, but even something as simple as blogging takes time and effort to put together. I have been able to keep hitting my 600 words every week for Monday Musings as well as hitting deadlines for three magazine columns, but all of my other blogs have suffered from a lack of my attention as the books take precedence. Oh for 36 hour days and  nine day weeks!

the joys of writing part three

Happy New Year to all of those who follow these jottings.

My holiday period has been spent with a heavy cold and so I have been more than happy to sit and write. My first book, I Don’t Have My Decision Making Trousers On, or “Trousers” as it has become known around my closest circle, was released on Kindle before Christmas and I’m delighted to see that a couple of hundred people have obtained a copy up to the end of December. I will not be buying a yacht of the proceeds, or not at that price, but it is a real pleasure to know that folks are interested enough to have clicked the link on Amazon. If you don’t have a copy there is a link you can click on at the top of the page here to buy yours. If you don’t have a Kindle you can download Kindle for PC or Mac from Amazon. It’s free and you’ll get three free classics delivered with it (or that is the current deal).

Because Kindle isn’t for everyone and some kind people wrote and asked if a printed version was available I’ve just signed off a deal to get “Trousers” into print in paperback form and that will, all being well, be ready to buy in March this year. In its paperback form Trousers comes out at 141 pages, so should meet the criteria of the pocket book that I had in mind. More details when I have them.

At the time that I was putting Trousers to bed, and that took almost a month on and off, the challenge for another book was issued. From various suggestions I have two more under way, but the discipline of writing dictates that I must concentrate on one, and so the choice was to do the business autobiography and leave a second management toolkit book for later in 2012.

Writing about my career and the many places that I have been to has brought back many happy memories. I started writing it two weeks ago and, after a stuttering start as I fathomed out the format that I wanted to use, I have averaged over 3000 words a day so far, parking the book very tidily on 44,444 words last night. Given what I have written so far and what I have roughed out to complete the book it would look very likely that the current project will turn out at over 100,000 words.

Over the course of writing the book I need to decide on a title. Currently I have a working title of Have Briefcase, Will Travel, but there is a list of over a dozen possible options. As many of the sales of Trousers have been international (I did wonder about having a US version where Pants would substitute for Trousers), I’ve been advised that some of my possible alternatives, such as All Roads Lead From Swindon, or North of Watford Gap, or A Stormy Night is Stockport might not mean anything outside of the UK.

Decisions, decisions! There is nothing easy about this writing lark you know, like everything else worth doing the results are best if you put the effort in. And in any case, decisions should be no problem for me, as long as I have the right trousers on.

of beards, and of sexual equality

For those who have picked up on my beard Tweets, the new beard was about a week old when it’s tenure was terminated. I hadn’t intended to grow one, but in feeling rotten with the stinker of a virus that took me over I had neglected to shave for about four days and decided that, with Christmas coming and no need to be anywhere special that I would cease thought of shaving and see what the effect was.

This was not my first beard; I had one for a while in 1980. This was neatly trimmed and in the style of Noel Edmunds. I had worn it for about a month prior to going off on the family holiday with wife, daughter, mother and mother-in-law. Part way through that two week break in Devon I shaved it off. It was two days later that my daughter, then three, mentioned it and the other women in my life caught on. I was unimpressed.

My father wore a moustache for all of the time I knew him, but my personal preference has really always to be clean shaven. I felt that my nose was prominent enough to not need underlining and, as a younger man, my facial hair growth was none too strong, so any dereliction of shaving duties tended to result in me looking as though I hadn’t washed for a week. Designer stubble has always, to me, just looked scruffy and as for the soul patch fad!

But I do recall the wonderful Jack Hargreaves telling us in one of his Out of Town programmes that he had decided to stop shaving on reaching retirement age, and that perhaps was partly in my own decision to just let the beard grow last week. It wasn’t an impressive or bushy fungus, but I had begun to quite like the look and had got used to the feel. However, the distaff side had other views, and yesterday’s ultimatum was issued. It was, like so many such utterances, completely futile, but I felt that compliance was best and so the razor was deployed.

Did she notice? No, she didn’t, not until I enquired if she was satisfied with the results. Imagine the results of my failing to notice the new coiffure, dress, perfume or whatever? There is no way on earth that women really want equality of the sexes; why would they want to give up this power over us men?

the joys of writing part two

Over the last month I have put together my first eBook, published yesterday. I’ve also written my regular column, a few other blogs, an article for a sports industry magazine and about another 10,000 words towards another project. An enforced inability to do what I normally fill my days with has allowed extra time for all this writing, but it has also heightened my respect for those who earn their living from the written word for, whilst I do earn an element of income from some of my writing, most of what I put on paper is not where I earn my crust.

Anyway, it is a very nice feeling to have got the book done. I have gone down the exclusively for Kindle route to start with partly because it is economically viable, partly because it is environmentally friendly, but also because it can be downloaded to your smart phone or PDA so that you can have instant access from your pocket. If you don’t have Kindle then Kindle for PC/phone/PDA etc is free to download so, if you would like a copy of the book you can Get my eBook for less than the price of a cup of coffee!

Thanks to all of you who read myblogs and columns and support me through your comments and emails.

Alec Baldwin and the elegance of air travel

I wrote here the other week about falling standards in passenger appearance at airports. Since then we have seen Alec Baldwin respond to being taken off an American Airlines flight for failing to comply with the directions of the cabin crew.

Mr Baldwin has since issued an apology to his fellow passengers citing falling standards in the elegance of air travel and, in that sentiment, I agree with him. His point supports the thrust of my recent blog, but we come at this from different angles.

I agree with Mr Baldwin that airline standards have fallen as times have got harder for the airlines. I am a fan of American as an airline, and choose to fly with them whenever I am able to make that choice. Certainly they get my vote for any transatlantic flying that I need to do, but they, like all of the airlines that I have flown with over the last couple of years (add United/TED, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic to that list) have sat me on ‘planes that were generally a bit on the scruffy side.

So the airlines have some part in the loss of elegance in air travel, but I would contend that the passengers play the greater part in that loss. and I would cite these reasons for that:

As I have said in my recent blog, dress standards are generally appalling. If people turn up looking like vagrants then they must take the blame for a loss of elegance.

Passenger behaviour is also generally appalling. As with Mr Baldwin, people do not comply with basic instructions. Turn it off means just that, but people don’t. They have some level of ignorance or selfishness that requires then to keep making calls or using the specified devices long after they have been told not to. And US travellers are very bad at this. The ‘plane will barely have slowed on the runway before you hear seatbelts clicking open, phones chirping into life etc.

Next we have carry on baggage. On any visit to a US airport gate there will be people carrying on bags as big as the one I checked into the hold; and they will have more than one. Sure they airlines carry some blame for allowing this, but the passenger is the one pushing the boundaries here.

And this arrogance and selfishness in using devices when you have been told not to, carrying on more baggage than you have been told that you should and dressing like someone who sleeps rough by preference extends to invading the personal space of other passengers and showing a complete lack of respect or courtesy to other passengers.

Yes Alec, I completely agree that air travel has lost its elegance, but the age of elegance was when it was expensive to fly and those that could afford to do so knew how to dress and could behave in a civilised manner towards each other. As whoever it was said, enabling travel for the masses meant that the masses would travel, and as they have done so they have dragged down standards. Catching a ‘plane nowadays has declined to the level of the Greyhound bus as Alec says, but I suggest that it is the passengers who have brought it to that level rather than the airlines (excepting, possibly, Ryanair,  but my contention there is that they are just meeting demand rather than leading the industry).

I mourn the loss of style in travel. I’ve also recently blogged on this in relation to travel by train, and there is little chance of getting it back which is a shame, but declining standards in behaviour generally across society I think mean that it will not come back in the years that I have left on the planet.

Still, I do have some good memories for my dotage, or maybe I could just watch some of Mr Baldwin’s excellent work on film to take my mind elsewhere…..

I could find that offensive, but I’m a grown up and I choose not to

What is it about modern society and this obsession with taking offence?

A supermarket correctly labels its burgers as being reindeer and parents say that it has upset their children, so now they are calling them moose burgers. Well if, on behalf of the moose preservation society, I am offended about that, so what should the supermarket do now?

Jeremy Clarkson makes some extreme remarks about shooting strikers and folks are up in arms. Grow up people; Mr Clarkson makes his living by making extreme comments. His books and TV appearances depend on it, otherwise no-one would take the slightest interest in him and he’d have to get a proper job.

It’s the same with all this manufactured nonsense that surrounds reality TV shows. Simon Cowell allegedly has the hump with his fellow judges (or vice versa), the contestants are slagging each other off or whatever. Does this repetitive pattern not start to dawn on people as “here we go again”. It’s just another attempt to get a hackneyed format into the news.

Personally I find a lot of it offensive, but I grew up years ago and don’t waste my time on such negative thoughts. I could be offended by all sorts of things that I don’t agree with or like, but life is short enough anyway and I’ve used most of mine up now.

Being offended is a self indulgent waste. Get a life, as they say these days, and do something useful and productive.

How to avoid dying in a plane crash

I have cracked the secret of not dying in a ‘plane crash, and all for less than $20. I just bought myself a Ralph Lauren shirt cheap in T J Maxx to wear when I fly.

How does it work? Well, as an inverse label snob I’ve always told people that I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing an RL product, so if I wear one when I fly I can’t die. Simples, as Aleksander would say.

Feel free to pass on the tip, substituting your own preference of fashion house. So far it has worked for me and I’ll let you know if it fails. Oh, of course I won’t be able to will I?

More on a love of music

My parents were not musical. Other than belting out hymns in church with more enthusiasm than technique I can't remember either doing anything remotely musical, and so I don't know where my interest in music comes from.

When I was about 5 I was offered an harmonica by some Polish friends, but I was afraid of these fierce men who spoke strangely and foolishly declined the offer. About 10 years later we acquired a mini piano and I started lessons, getting extra tuition from my music teacher, although I didn't make huge progress. My ambition was to be able to play like Jerry Lee Lewis, or at least in the style of, and I guess that not being able to get remotely near that sound led to frustration.

I did come up with some riffs that pleased me, and transcribed Classical Gas from guitar to piano well enough to play the chordal stuff and have people recognise the tune, but a school concert put me off piano. A pal who was talented enough to play clarinet in the Surrey Youth Orchestra and I wrote  piece, Norman putting a melody over a C-D-G riff of mine and we, not so much recruited as allowed, a female classmate to gatecrash and vamp on the top end of the piano. We thought that we sounded good, but were bounced at the audition. At 16 you tend to over-react to these things.

At 21 my younger sister and her boyfriend bought me a classical guitar and I began the journey that so many have taken in trying to get fingers to work the fretboard. Too many of my pals could play a bit and I lost interest in that too as they would snatch my guitar away saying "no, like this!" and ripping off a tune seemingly with no effort. Keeping the guitar in tune was also, for me, a mystery, but I did manage, a few times, to experience that magical moment when you strum through a couple of chord changes than come off.

The guitar had got me involved with a few local bands as hanger on, beer fetcher and pseudo roadie though, and those links were further forged when I began to DJ in a few pubs. Through circumstances best not revealed here my van became the repository for one band's drum kit and, for about 6 weeks, I became a pub band drummer. Not a good one. Probably not even a competent one; certainly the were many times I would come out of a fill with the beat reversed which would flummox the base player who would just about get back into the new groove in time for me to put in back where we started. The front line were too into themselves and crumpet to notice though, so I survived long enough to realise that having fun was no substitute for making money and I resumed my dual evening jobs behind either bar or turntables depending on which night it was.

Twenty odd years were to pass before my next musical efforts. I was having to spend time horizontal and my son had found my old guitar in the loft. I got him to fetch it down and then to buy me some new strings. Lying flat on my back all day for about three weeks I added bleeding finger tips to my list of medical issues, but I was getting the hang of it. Regular practice led to haunting music shops on Saturdays or if I was travelling on business and came across one. It was on such a visit to Southampton that I saw a music shop having a closing down sale. They had a pair of acoustic guitars left and the assistant handed me one to try. Overcoming the stage fright of having to perform in front of him I sat down and tried it. For a moment I wondered who was playing, but it was me! It was just so much easier with an instrument that fitted the style of playing. "Yours for £20" he said, and it was.

Playing that Hohner "Country" guitar did so much for my confidence. It is long gone now, as have various electric guitars that followed, but I still enjoy having a play when I can get my hands on one.
Maybe I'll take it up seriously when I retire as a hobby. Given my birth year, our shared age and my love of the sound a re-issue '52 Telecaster would be my ideal, but, for now, I'm content just to listen.

 

Standards of dress; why do they even let these people into the airport

When I was younger a trip to Heathrow was a treat. Go up to the viewing gallery, watch the ‘planes and the people and, for a while, be part of the glamour of it all, because those who were travelling dressed with style and elegance.

Now the majority are just a bunch of scruffs, most of whom I would not want in my home let alone to have to share a journey with. I wouldn’t allow them anywhere near the airport, let alone onto a ‘plane.