Ooh, I feel all invigorated gentle reader. Not physically of course; Lord no! Physically I feel like I’ve tried to stop a runaway train with my bare hands. Why only yesterday I came arse-clenchingly close to passing out and measuring my length on the floor of Trevor’s Discount Store in front of about ten people and had to go and stand outside and be supervised by a very helpful and concerned looking lady from Essex until I felt better whilst my wife made the purchases.

Now, that’s what I call embarrassing!

No, the invigoration I’m feeling is more of a sense of achievement and self esteem and, more importantly, an urge to get myself sat in front of the laptop more often and get some bloody writing done.

I mentioned on this ‘ere blog recently that I had signed up to Substack, I even left a link for you to check it out if you recall. I hope you did. Anyhoo, I’ve published my first short story on that particular platform and the feedback I have received from pretty much everyone who has read it has been 100% positive.

People have loved it.

So yes, I now feel like it’s given me something of a shot in the arm, or should that be kick in the arse? Either way I feel mightily inspired to get the next one written and to try and be as prolific with it as I can; especially once I start getting paid subscriptions – which is what Substack is all about at the end of the day – a way for writers to get paid for what they do as, contrary to popular belief, we don’t exist on fresh air and tap water.

The story is called Jessie. It’s about an old soldier who has his faithful old companion dog (the titular Jessie) cruelly taken from him and the retribution that he delivers to the perpetrator. I won’t go into too much detail other than to say you can read it HERE.

It’s not a comedy story by any stretch of the imagination and if you read it in the hope of getting some Joe Wilkie-esque style belly laughs from it then you are going to be crushingly disappointed my friend.

What it is is a 2500-word heart-wrenching tale with a bit of a shock at the end.

Why?

Well, I wanted to stretch my literary muscles a bit and try my hand at something else for a change. I don’t want to be stuck in a rut or pigeon holed. I mean, yes, of course, I want to be known as “that funny bugger who writes comedy novels” but in order to make a living in the cut and thrust world of independent publishing one has to branch out in other directions as well. And that’s what I’ve done with Jessie.

As I say, the response has been overwhelmingly positive and one comment in particular from the wonderful blogger, Shannon Landers of Pages, Wicks and Sips, stated that even though it was a departure in genre it was still unmistakeably my style and that she would have recognised it was my work without my name attached to it. That’s one of the nicest things I think anyone has ever said about my writing style.

So please do have a read of Jessie. It won’t take you long – maybe five or ten minutes and I think you’ll be rewarded for your time by a short yet powerful piece of literature. And, whilst you’re there, subscribe to my Substack as it’s still free to do so.

Incidentally, if you’re ever in Settle town centre then do visit Trevor’s. It’s a terrific little discount shop with some incredible bargains to be had. Just do me a favour and try not to faint while you’re in there.

Well, it seems like forever since my last blog post doesn’t it? It has, in fact, only been twenty days and not as long as you thought. So, I decided that today, being a Monday and with it torrentially pis— I mean ‘pouring’ with rain outside, I would give you all a thorough round up of what’s been happening these last (almost) three weeks.

Don’t think for one moment that yours truly has been sat idle. Well, now and then perhaps when the fibromyalgia has had it’s snaggled, plaque encrusted teeth into me but in-between all that I have been a busy little beaver.

For one thing there has been a plethora of medical appointments for both Ange and myself over that time. Ange, as you will recall, is currently in an ongoing tussle with breast cancer and we’ve been to St James’ Hospital in Leeds to have a consultancy regarding the radiotherapy which starts this week.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I would rather have my underwear infested with the fleas of a thousand goats than have to drive through that particular city and this time proved to be no exception to any of the other hellish excursions I have made there.

I don’t know who exactly designed the Leeds ring road. He (or of course she, we can’t be sexist now can we?) was either a sociopath or a psychopath; I can’t decide which. Whoever it was clearly has a deep-rooted hatred of the rest of mankind.

Then again, let us assume, perhaps, that it wasn’t just one person. Perhaps it was a committee, culled from the very utmost brainless and sick-minded of council employees, none of whom could agree on a single issue regarding the efficient movement of traffic around Yorkshire’s largest city. Honestly, it’s as if some monstrous giant has just lumbered around that area of the North of England dropping bits of road here and there willy-nilly. None of it makes any sense and even the most experienced and cautious of drivers takes his life, and indeed those of his passengers, into his own hands as he attempts to navigate the sheer unmitigated hell that is Leeds City Centre.

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel as we’re going to be staying in Leeds for a few days whilst Ange has her treatment so as to cut down the amount of travelling we need to do.

One thing I will say about Leeds though is that its hospitals are fantastic. I mean compared to Bradford Royal Infirmary; St James’ is like the Ritz compared to BRI being some one-star B&B in Streatham High Street. Believe me, I know, I once stayed in one for a week in 1991 and still have nightmares about it..

Bexley Wing, where Ange is having her radiotherapy, is a sumptuous, almost luxurious building. There are delightful works of local art adorning the walls as you wander through, the lights are soft and easy on the eye, the seating is more than adequately comfortable and the lifts (scrupulously clean) actually take you to the floor you want to go to at the first time of asking. Bliss!

Also (and this was the best bit) there was a well-dressed gentleman playing relaxing classical music on a grand piano in the expansive foyer area. Beautiful it was.

The only music I’ve ever heard at BRI is when a busker playing a badly out of tune guitar asked me for money for the one-chord version of Lean On Me he was performing for the general public by the entrance. I felt I had to give the fellow a pound purely for his bare-faced temerity.

So that was Leeds but even worse was to come the day after. For it was then that I had to negotiate my weary way through the unadulterated driving war zone that is Bradford.

An 82-year-old neighbour of ours had been to St Luke’s for tests and, having been there all day with the promise of transport back to Settle, was told at the eleventh hour that it wouldn’t be happening and that he would have to find his own way home. So he rang me and I did what any decent Christian minded person would do; I drove over and brought him back.

If Leeds traffic system was designed by a psychotic sociopath then Bradford was designed by his evil mentor; for there is surely no other city in the whole world (nay, universe – known and unknown) as vile as Bradford for driving through. I include Birmingham, Leicester and London in there as well. Bradford is worse than any of them.

And, of course, I timed the return journey perfectly to coincide with the rush hour, didn’t I.

My knuckles were white on the steering wheel and a large vein had appeared and was throbbing violently on my forehead by the time I’d got even as far as Bingley and I still had thirty plus miles to go from there.

But, despite a near head-on collision with an idiotic van driver between Hellifield and Long Preston, I made it home again unscathed. Shaken and badly stirred, but thankfully unscathed.

Now then, on to jollier matters.

We’ve had two very special birthdays in the last couple of weeks. Firstly, my mum turned 92 years of age and we made the 150-mile (each way) journey to go and visit her. 150 miles might sound like a lot but not when you’ve driven through Bradford and Leeds beforehand. The motorway was a welcome reprieve.

It’s hard to know what to buy a 92-year-old as a gift so we bought a lovely potted plant for her and treated her to her favourite meal of fish and chips. I’ve never known anyone with such a fondness for that particular dish as my mother.

But it was a lovely day.

The very next day our unbelievably beautiful and talented granddaughter, Erin, turned 18 and reached adulthood. We just cannot believe that she’s all grown up. It’s only yesterday I’m sure of it that I was pushing her on the swings and playing practical jokes on her Mum and Nana with her.

Erin herself was very excited of course leading up to the event and as expected she was spoilt rotten; not least by us. We’re paying for her driving lessons as part of her present and I look forward to the day when she gives me a lift to the post office to collect my pension.

There were several events planned over the course of the week (why do birthdays last so long now?) and on the Tuesday evening we all convened in Skipton for a Turkish meal at the Efendy restaurant. I don’t usually go in for restaurant plugs but, seriously, if you’re ever in Skipton and you want a good feed of beautifully cooked food then that’s the place to go. We had a smashing time.

What else has been going on then?

Well, those who remember my last post will know that I have been working on cleaning up and re-jigging my novels. Starting with the four Blessham Books.

“Cut to the chase Stevenson,” I hear you cry, “what’s the state of play?”

Pretty good actually. Ah Boy! and Medicine Show are damn near finished to perfection. In fact I’m hoping to have the latter back online in all it’s newfound glory tomorrow or Wednesday. The only sticking point with Ah Boy! is whether or not to give it a new front cover. I mean, I like the previous two but I still don’t feel it’s got the right one yet. So a few days of work may still be required on it.

You might be asking yourself why I did it in that order. Surely it would have made more sense to do Ah Boy! and The Pheasants Revolt first. Wouldn’t it?

Au contraire mon ami, as they say in Burkina Faso (Google it), I chose to do it in that order for a reason and that reason being thus: Obviously Ah Boy! needed to be attended to first seeing as how that is the very beginning of the Joe Wilkie saga and therefore I wanted new readers to have the very best experience of that wonderful book as possible. Then Medicine Show, being the latest installment, needed to be in tandem with it’s forebear so that anyone who has read the other three can have the very best experience of that also.

Do you see where I’m coming from?

Well it’s done now anyway so there.

As I mentioned earlier, this Thursday sees the start of the radiotherapy which is going to last until next Wednesday and so it won’t be until then that I turn my guns onto The Pheasants Revolt and Hot Eire but I’ve got the hang of this rewriting thing now so it shouldn’t take too long.

I’m hoping then to return to the current WIP whilst working on the three Ingleby novels at the same time but to be honest Mutch Wants Moor requires very little adjustment and Vole just needs a big reduction in the swear word count. The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham may take a little while longer so I’ll leave that until last.

Ooh! One other thing before I go. I’ve signed up for something called Substack. And, whilst I’m still in the sussing out phase of it as there seems to be an awful lot to learn, you can subscribe to my page/site or whatever they call it, for free, HERE.

Like I say, I’m still sussing out how the thing works but basically it’s a way of writers getting paid for their writing (which is only right and proper) by way of subscriptions. My plan is to serialise a novel through it (separate from Ingleby and Blessham) and I believe that in doing so it ought to sharpen me up as a writer and help me maintain focus. Getting paid has that effect on me.

Phew! There you go then; it’s been a busy time here at Blessham Hall and we’re not out of the woods yet but the future is looking decidedly better than it was at the start of the year when Ange was first diagnosed.

Right, time for a Guinness Zero and a session of psyching myself up for Leeds again. Come to think about it, I may need something a lot stronger than that when it’s all over.

Ee Gad!!! It’s been almost three weeks since the last blog post. I must be slipping into bad habits again. Either that or I’ve been so overcome with the busyness of life that I just haven’t had the time. Still, whatever the excuse its piss-poor of me and I apologise. Note to self – Must do better.

Actually, to tell you the absolute truth, the last three weeks have been punctuated with bouts of crappy health and soul-crushing lethargy mingled with liberal proportions of stress and haring around all over the place. It’s been a funny sort of time.

What I have been doing though is giving a lot of thought to my books.

A lot of thought as it happens.

At one point, can you believe, I even contemplated scrapping the lot of them and starting again from scratch. Yes, that’s where my head has been at.

You see, something has been nagging away at my mind for some time now and it’s this…

Is there really any need for all the foul language in my books?

That is the question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, actually, no, there is no need for it whatsoever. And I’ve reached the decision that it’s got to go.

I read an awful lot, in particular comedy authors such as Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Douglas Adams and the unimpeachable Jerome K Jerome. They all have a couple of things in common.

1. Their books are all arse-clenchingly funny
2. They don’t use bad language.

And if its good enough for the likes of them to keep it clean then its good enough for me.

Oh, for sure, you might read the occasional “Shit” or “Bastard” in their novels but the use of the F word is virtually non-existent. Especially where Pratchett and Jerome are concerned. Jerome of course was writing at the turn of the last century and as such would never have even gotten into print if he’d used even the merest of cuss words. But I challenge anybody to read Three Men in a Boat without crying with laughter, especially the pineapple scene. All good clean fun and quite hysterical.

And as hard as it is to imagine Lady Stark-Raven not effing and jeffing I think the time has come to clean up my act. Not that I’m a great user of profanity myself; I’m not, but I now just feel that using swear words purely for comic effect is, perhaps, a tad puerile and rather akin to some of the utterly pathetic new breed of comedians that we now see who seem to think that shock value is far more important than actual good old-fashioned humour.

So here’s the deal…

I’m shelving the current work in progress for while and I’m going to clean up the existing seven novels and then relaunch them. I don’t want to be associated as a man who gets cheap laughs at the expense of good taste.

I mean, don’t worry too much, I won’t be altering the plots or characters at all. I’ll just be taking out all the unnecessary expletives and replacing them with something a bit more palatable.

I’ve always said that the use of profanity and bad language in my books is to highlight what a sordid little world we live in in the 21^st century. But to be honest now, do I really need to highlight it. We all know, deep down, that we live in a time of sordidness the likes of which have never been seen before. Even in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah.

I’ve mentioned before how influenced I am by the Carry On films and seventies sitcoms. Now, if you watch any of them you’ll come across plenty of innuendo and suggestiveness but very little in the way of actual blunt crudity. I personally think that seeing Sid James going “Corrrrr!” at a bikini clad Barbara Windsor is far less offensive than much of the sexual extremism we see today in the movies these days.

Likewise, I feel that Stan and Jack, from On The Buses, talking about “birds” with leery grins on their faces is far less concerning than listening to the likes of Jimmy Carr or Ricky Gervais making light of the holocaust or the cast of QI or 8 Out of 10 Cats giggling like naughty schoolboys over some sexual jibe that’s been peppered with expletives.

Personally, I believe if you’re prepared to censor the Carry Ons but endorse comedy that makes sick jokes about the holocaust then you really need to speak to a professional psychiatrist as soon as humanly possible.

Anyway, back to my original point, I’m going to remove all the F words, C words, many of the B words (not all) and anything remotely religiously or racially offensive.

I want to be known as a comedy author who doesn’t have to resort to violent language in order to get laughs. And it’s getting increasingly harder to do that in this day and age. But when I read one of the Discworld novels or re-read Three Men in a Boat (which I do every year) and I find myself chuckling away or laughing our loud at the brilliant humour contained within I feel more and more convinced that it’s the right (write?) way to go.

So wish me luck gentle reader as I embark upon this most personally important of missions. It just might be the saving of the Blessham and Ingleby literary worlds and prevent me from doing something incredibly stupid. It shouldn’t take me too long and then I can get back to the current WIP with a clear conscience and a new direction.

Have you heard that old joke that goes “I feel like a new man, the only trouble is that so does the wife!” Yeah, it’s a classic ain’t it? But don’t worry, my wife isn’t looking for a replacement husband but the one that she has is feeling a certain sense of improvement.

So much so that I thought I would post a bit of an update on what I was hoping to achieve in myself this year. Remember the post from January 8^th called Full of Good Intentions You do? Oh, nice one. Well, it’s been sixty-five days since I started on my journey of self-improvement and this is how it’s going.

Let’s get the downside out of the way first.

I’m in monumental pain from fibromyalgia and having serious bouts of fatigue still. Really, it’s quite bad. And the sad thing is I can’t see that changing any time soon.

However, I do still find time to work albeit in short bursts, which are actually turning out rather well and the sequel to Mutch Wants Moor is progressing a damn sight better than my latest book, Medicine Show did at this stage.

Ok, now for the positives.

Well, for one thing, I haven’t had an alcoholic drink since New Year’s Eve. Yes, you heard that correctly. Not a single drop of the stuff has passed my lips and I must say that I feel much better in so many ways. I have a greater clarity of mind for one thing and the writing days I’ve had have been more productive and the output a great deal funnier.

I’ve also been watching the calorie intake and try to keep to around the 2000 mark per day; often less than that. Combined with the absence of booze it has resulted in a 12-pound weight loss so far. And the best bit is that I’m not finding it too difficult. In fact I haven’t felt this determined to drop a few clothing sizes in nearly thirty years.

I can honestly say that I’m not even missing the ale because I’ve found that Guinness 0% is quite the most delicious beverage and just as good as the regular stuff only without the alcohol and about a third of the calories. So if I do feel like a beer now and then that’s the road I take.

On the 8^th of January I mentioned that I was on the very first notch of my belt. Today I can report that I am now comfortably on the second one and contemplating the purchase of a smaller size of jeans as it is getting embarrassing to keep pulling them up whenever I go anywhere.

I’m drinking about three pints of water a day, at the very least, and I’m still on the old rooibos tea several times a day, which is, of course, caffeine free.

Of those 2000 calories a day I mentioned, well over half of it is made up of fruit and veg with the occasional little treat thrown in now and then. Having a wife with type 2 diabetes is helping me to monitor my own sugar intake as well as I am acutely aware that I am at risk of it myself.

I’m still not great on the old pins and the other day my left leg went from underneath me as I tried to stand up which meant that I had to crash back down onto the couch pretty smartish. This means that I haven’t been able to walk as much as I would have liked to have started doing but I have consoled myself with making the effort to go outside every single day without fail; even if just to sit on the terrace and stare at the daffodils.

So the overall picture is a promising one. My internal organs feel a lot better and I had an extremely positive meeting with the respiratory clinic in January where I was told that I was one of the CPAP success stories and am doing great with my sleep.

The CPAP machine is wonderful but I’m also giving kudos to the lifestyle changes I’ve made in improving my sleep. Also, I’ve found these gummies called Ashwagandha which are brilliant little things. They help with anxiety and sleep and they taste quite nice too. I bought them by accident actually whilst trying to buy CBD on Amazon. But it was a most happy accident in the end.

Anyway, I thought I’d post this little update in the hope that it may encourage you if you’re going through your own health or weight loss battles. I don’t to be crass and sit here saying things like “Never give up” and quoting Churchillian style rhetoric but maybe say to you instead that just try and make a few small changes and do your best to stick to them. They’re working for me.

And I’ll leave you with a final thought, that as my dear friend and top bloke Kenny Scotland would say – It’s the small victories that count.

Remember that.

PS – The mouse jiggler is working a treat!

Greetings one and all and apologies for an overdue blog post but I’ve had a rather busy week writing that next novel of mine and I know how eager you all are for it.

Yeah, right!

Anyway, I’ve done four days’ worth of it and the word count is a little over 10,000 so progress indeed.

Now then, on to business.

On the 21^st of January I posted a blog about my weight loss and whatnot and in that blog I mentioned that I had had a considerable shock and that there would be challenges ahead for the Stevenson household.

Well, I now feel in a sufficient place to explain what I meant by that. The short version is that Ange, my lovely, nay beautiful, wife who I adore the very bones of has had cancer.

Yes, that horrible, horrible, shitty little C word that seems to have impacted every family on the face of the Earth at some point has visited Blessham Hall and grown it’s disgusting self into my darling good lady. The good news, however, is that it has been caught early and is being treated by our incredibly wonderful and utterly gorgeous NHS.

Ange noticed a lump in her left breast shortly before Christmas following a walking netball accident where she collided with the wall after catching the ball, would you believe? Her GP sent her swiftly to Airedale hospital where it was confirmed, after a mammogram and other tests, to be cancerous. That was in early January. Hence my feelings of shock and dumbfoundedness at the time.

On 14^th of February (yes, Valentine’s Day) Ange went in for an operation where a lumpectomy was performed and the tumour and lymph nodes removed. I don’t know how it must have felt for Ange but it was one of the longest days of my life waiting for news from the hospital.

But, thank God, the operation was a success and Ange returned home the same day.

True to form I managed to balls things up by pushing her down a corridor in a wheelchair with the handbrake on but the least said about that the better. I called myself all the berks under the Sun for that one. I’m just glad no-one else noticed.

Since then Ange has been recuperating at home and is still quite emotional and prone to bouts of feeling really very poorly. But, not withstanding, she is making excellent progress nonetheless and we are going back to the hospital on Tuesday for a follow up to the operation where the next stage of the treatment will be discussed.

The brilliant news is that Ange won’t have to undergo chemotherapy, which she was dreading, and instead will have sessions of radiotherapy at St James’s Hospital in Leeds.

One amazing thing that has come out of this for me is just how courageous my wife is. I’ve always known that she is kind, warm, generous, funny, inclusive, caring, welcoming and loving. But until now I never realised just how brave she is as well. She’ll tell you herself that throughout this whole episode she has been absolutely terrified but who wouldn’t be? The fact is she’s faced it all with good humour and a determination to beat it and my, already high, admiration of her has increased as a result.

There’s still a long way to go but Ange and I are prepared for the challenges and will face them together as husband and wife as is right and proper and I’ll keep you updated from time to time.

So that’s just a very brief explanation of what’s been going on. There’s been a lot of tears and a good many sleepless nights during the last couple of months and if I were to go into precise details it would require me to write a whole book on it. But anyone who has battled this awful disease will know what I’m talking about.

As a conclusion I’d like to say that the NHS should be the envy of the whole world and I can’t thank them enough for their rapid, professional and sensitive intervention at this time in our lives. I can’t remember at what point during the pandemic that we stopped clapping for the NHS but damn and blast it we shouldn’t have stopped at all. We should be out there every night applauding them until our hands ache from over use. And what’s more, the hapless, hopeless, dishonest liars that run this country should be pouring ten times the amount of money into our hospitals as what they currently are but see fit to waste it elsewhere.

The NHS saved my life in 2003 when I was quite literally at death’s door and moments away from joining the old choir invisible. I owe my life to them and now they’ve taken that vile lump out of the person I love the most in this world and given us both hope for the future.

God bless the NHS and long may they continue.

Did that heading make any sense to you? It wasn’t really supposed to. It’s a cryptic conundrum you see. I’ll let you work it out.

Got it yet?

No?

Some of you have!

Ok, for the rest of you, it’s just a play on words for – Spot the deliberate mistake.

Sorry, I thought it was funny at the time of writing.

Anyhoooooooo… The reason for it is because to my abject, shameful and total horror I have made tons of them. Mistakes I mean. Honestly, there’s so many of them I hardly know where to begin. Typos I mean, loads of ‘em!

When I publish a book I always do several proof reads to iron out any glitches and then when it’s out there for all the world to see I read the finished article again myself just to be doubly certain. And I thought I was getting good at it too. Mutch Wants Moor for example only had four typos and grammatical errors in total and I think Vole had even less.

Medicine Show, on the other hand, has fifteen at least (maybe more) and that is the horror I’m referring to. I’ve just finished reading it on Kindle and it is peppered with typographical and grammatical mistakes. Bristling with them in fact. They mock me from the pages like sooty faced street urchins. Sticking their disgusting tongues out at me and jeering crudely at my gross ineptitude.

I’m shocked gentle reader; I truly am. How on Earth did those literary abominations get past me?

You see, the thing is, in an ideal world my books would all be published by Hodder and Stoughton or Penguin or Random House and as such a professional proof-reading team would be employed to ensure that no typos or grammar cock ups occur. As it is, I have to do my own proofing and I’m now feeling a great deal of admiration towards those professional bods. They really know their game.

I suppose I could pay a professional proof-reader to do it for me but I just don’t have the old fiscal clout to do that as they don’t exactly come cheap and they charge by the word. THE WORD I TELL YOU!!! Fie, fie and Gadzooks!

Anyway, the damage is done now and it’s up to me and me alone to rectify the awful situation. Ergo Medicine Show will have to go offline for a brief spell whilst I right the terrible wrongs I have committed. Plus, it will give me the opportunity to have a word with Amazon about it because there’s something else I’m not happy with which I won’t go into here. Let’s just say they’re not doing their job properly and leave it at that.

Ooh, I could kick myself in the underpants I really could. Fortunately, I know that even attempting such an intricate manoeuvre would probably dislocate both my spine and hips and leave me in traction for many months. So I won’t do it. Still, the thought’s there. Actually, if I’m thinking of paying for a proof-reader could I also pay for a professional arse-kicker?

Just a thought.

So sincere apologies to anyone who has paid good money for Medicine Show and has had to endure the aforementioned affrontery to literature. But look on the bright side; you’re copy of the book is a limited edition, so hang on to it.

In other news: I have begun writing the next novel featuring Archie and Aggie Stone and am up to chapter 7 already. A month of planning went extremely well and I feel very confident about this one. I’m also working on the principle of doing approximately 1000 to 1200 words a day, which is comfortable and do-able for my current physical limitations and as such should see me finish the first draft some time in April.

I hope that’s not a case of famous last words.

So if there’s anyone out there reading this and you have experience of proof-reading copy and you’d like to help out a struggling but brilliant independent author at vastly reduced rates, then do get in touch with me at contact@blesshamhall.co.uk or reply to this blog post. Your services and mates rates will be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, I will endeavour to remove the flies in the Medicine Show ointment and make it right and proper. It’s a crackling little book and deserves to be shown at it’s very best.

Watch this space for further updates.

PS – I have read this blog post through twice and I just know that as soon as it goes live I’ll see at least one typo in it. HELP ME!!!

One of my favourite pastimes is hurling verbal abuse at the television set. In some respects it comes with the territory, being in my late fifties and of a belief that everything was better in the 1970’s it’s only natural that I should rage against the machine as it were. And when I say hurling verbal abuse at the television I don’t mean at the actual device itself; I mean why would I? It’s done me no wrong. No, what I rant and rave at is the constant torrent of utter, contemptible shash that passes for entertainment these days.

Not that I actually watch the telly all much due to the reeking river of decaying digitised offal that flows from it, but when I eventually get round to switching it on my hackles do have a tendency to rise rather. And the very worst offenders of televisual dross, I find, are the adverts.

I think my issue is that the vast majority of TV commercials aren’t actually aimed at me. They can’t be surely, and if they are then they haven’t checked their demographics very well if they think I’m going to be persuaded to play online bingo by some irksome little twat-wazzock from Leeds in a red suit and a hat that makes him look like the leader of the Diddy Men.

Or do they, perhaps, expect me to rush out to buy a new fabric conditioner because some grinning, doe-eyed, Northern Irish yummy-mummy tries to convince me to in an oh so sincere “isn’t life great because I’m covered in painty handprints and toddler vomit but don’t worry because my washing powder is just the best at removing stains” monologue?

Maybe they expect me to reach for my phone and order a takeaway meal that will be transported to my home by a baseball-capped, be-hoodied young man on a bicycle purely because the advert was accompanied by a bile-raising hip-hop soundtrack?

Who knows? But one thing is for certain, they’re wasting their precious time with me.

However, I do understand that marketing in itself is quite a fine art and even though those commercials I mentioned are clearly not aimed at yours truly, they are intended for someone. Someone will see them and be induced to play bingo, buy laundry softener or order greasy junk food on the basis of them.

If I’m going to be totally honest though, the truth of the matter is that those bods in the marketing departments are really rather clever and extremely good at what they do. They do know and appeal to their specific target audiences and undergo a tremendous amount of market research before those horrors of advertising go on air.

And here’s the thing…

I wish I did!

People often ask me if it’s hard to write a novel. I answer in the affirmative that of course it is. It takes a long time to produce between 70,000 to 100,000 words and make it both coherent and entertaining. But the truth of the matter is, that’s still a damn sight easier than trying to sell the bloody thing.

I’m no own-trumpet blower but I do know my way around writing and producing a novel. I’ve done it seven times now so you’d think I would do. What I struggle with immensely is getting it into the hands of readers.

My friend and fellow Indie Author, Julia Blake, recently posted on social media that she had spent a whole week actively pushing one of her books on Facebook and Instagram and yielded only one sale as a result of her labours. And I find that so sad because not only is Julia a very funny lady, she’s a very accomplished and prolific author and deserves a lot more for her work.

Like all indie authors actually.

The horrible truth of the publishing industry these days is this – if Julia was a presenter on GMB or This Morning and if I was a celebrity chef or some grossly overpaid opinion-on-legs on the panel of The X Factor then we’d have publishing houses queuing around the block to sign us up regardless of whatever literary drivel we produced.

And best of all, the marketing would all be done for us. We’d barely have to raise a finger except perhaps for a bit of book signing at Waterstones. We could just sit back and watch the sales roll in.

As it is, we’re independent authors and have to do the vast bulk of our promotion ourselves and this is where I hold up my trembling little hand and say, “Please sir, I’m absolutely shite at marketing.”

And I am. I can be totally honest about it. I’d be more successful as a street sweeper than I would at advertising and raising awareness to my products.

My biggest problem personally is my own reticence when it comes to putting myself forward. I feel almost apologetic about it and I don’t know why. Maybe, like so many of us, I fear rejection or dismissal. Mockery even, perhaps.

After all, who am I? I’m not famous by any stretch of the imagination. My main claim to fame is that Ian Gillan of Deep Purple once angrily threw me off the stage after I’d climbed out of the crowd onto it. Oh, and of course, not forgetting that Princess Anne once told me to get out of her f***ing way! But I was only a child at the time so that one probably doesn’t count. Still, a brush with royalty none-the-less!

My second biggest problem is that I hardly know where to start and my efforts have been pretty dismal.

I have approached some local book shops and two of them now stock my novels but that’s as far as that goes and over the counter sales have been less than spectacular. I do try and promote my books on social media as much as possible but my adverts (for want of a better word) are cack-handed and amateurish to say the least. And I have approached online bloggers and reviewers with varying degrees of disappointment and financial loss. You can only get ripped off to the tune of £35 so many times before you knock it on the head and reach tearfully for the corkscrew.

The next thing I’m hoping to try is advertising directly on Amazon, Facebook, Instagram etc. But that doesn’t exactly come cheap and I’m on a limited, no, restricted, budget here. Plus I’ve heard how some people have received a lot of online abuse from opinionated, unthinking berks merely because the author’s adverts have had the temerity to show up on their Facebook feed. And I’m not sure I have the patience to bite my tongue if some keyboard warrior wants to go toe-to-toe with me. I’m sure I would let myself down badly if I did.

So, that’s my conundrum folks. I’ll happily sit and write the books all the live-long day, but ask me to promote them and I turn into a panic-stricken, gibbering, dishevelled wreck of a man.

I am currently re-reading “How To Market a Book” by the fabulous Joanna Penn and I’m really taking my time with it and trying to glean every single scrap of advice that I can. This will be my third time of reading so it might start to finally register. Who knows, I might be about to turn a corner. One can only hope so.

Actually, I’d better get back to it. In the meantime please could I encourage you to tell people to buy my books. They will thank you for it. I promise.

Sincerest apologies for not posting last week but I was in something of a state of shock. Had a bit of bad, no, terrible news last week that totally upended me and put the mockers on everything. Ergo, progress with planning the next Ingleby novel featuring the lovable canal boaters Archie and Aggie has slowed considerably after what was a very promising start.

But life has a habit of throwing curveballs and this one had a massive curve on it. If it had any more of a curve on it then it would have turned back on itself and gone full circle.

Anyway, I won’t go into too much detail just yet other than to say that there are huge challenges ahead for the Blessham Hall household. But we’re facing it together as man and wife should.

Enough of that though, let’s focus on something more pleasant.

Remember me posting about my good intentions on the 3^rd of this month? You do? Oh good, I was worried you may have forgotten. I’m pleased to see you were paying attention out there. Yeah, especially you. Anyway, the thing is that so far I’ve stuck to those good intentions and it’s paying dividends.

The last drop of alcohol that passed my lips was on New Year’s Eve and since then I’ve been as dry as Death Valley in mid-June. Not so much as a single sip of the hard stuff have I had. And may I say how good it feels.

I’ve also been keeping a very watchful eye on my daily calorie count, which, apart from the odd day, I’ve kept at below 2000 calories and only once did I exceed my daily allowance of 2500 and then only by the merest of smidgeons.

Another thing I was determined to do, you’ll recall, was that I firmly intended to go outside every single day, rain or shine, and try and get some exercise of some kind i.e. walking. Well, I may not have walked very much distance some days but I have done it every day so far. Without fail. Sure, on one occasion, when I was feeling like a large collection of cat stools stuck together with wallpaper paste, I only managed to take a few steps to get some fresh air and gaze at the stars for a few minutes but I still went outside.

And what effect has all this had on yours truly?

A pretty good one actually.

My T shirts fit better, my jeans are looser and according to the old bathroom scales I’ve lost 5 pounds in weight. My eyes are a lot clearer and don’t have that rheumy beige hue about them that I often see gawping myopically back at me in the harsh glare of the bathroom mirror. Even my hair, which is rapidly and alarmingly thinning as if it’s been subjected to a damn good plucking, feels more lustrous and dare I say it, thicker!

On the whole I feel much better about myself. People are starting to notice and I’ve been on the receiving end of several compliments from friends and family. And they’re not just being kind either. No, not at all, they meant it!

So that’s the score so far. The thing now is to keep going and improve even further. The fibromyalgia has been an absolute git this last week and in the past that has led me to fridge grazing and over indulgence in the fermented grape juice; but not this time. And believe me it would have been the easiest thing in the world to slip back into bad habits but somehow I’ve refrained from that and the results speak for themselves.

I’ve also been working on the old grey matter and have bought a book by a chap called Peter Hollins called ‘Think Like Sherlock.’ Being a huge fan of all things Holmes and Watson I was intrigued to say the least when I saw it as a suggestion on my Amazon account and I ordered it post haste. It’s very absorbing and quite an easy read, not overly long either, and I’m picking up all sorts of cool ideas from it.

I’m not suggesting for one minute that it’s going to imbue me with the same abilities as the famed fictional detective that it’s named after, that’s not what the author wrote it for, but it should and is helping me with my overall cognitive function and making me approach problems differently. There’s always an alternative solution you see and this little book is making me think well outside of the box.

Actually, now I think about it, I’ve got a magnifying glass so all I need now is the deerstalker hat and meerschaum pipe and hey presto, North Yorkshire’s most bumbling detective!

Seriously, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve the way they problem solve.

This next week is going to be a tricky one with three hospital visits to attend to between the two of us so I’m going to try and continue with the novel planning as and when I can. And I’ll let you in to a little secret…

I just couldn’t resist…

I had a little dabble writing the first two chapters!

Tee hee!

But it’s ok, it’s ok. I’ve controlled the urge now. Put it down to itchy fingers or a sense of middle-aged urgency to write my next book; I don’t know what, but I’m trying to hold my fire now until that plan is well and truly fleshed out.

Calm yourself Stevenson, calm yourself.

So there you go, a quick catch up. A little bit further down the line I’ll explain what was so Earth-shattering last week but for now I’m trying to remain positive.

And so should you!

That’s got you wondering, hasn’t it? What could P and P possibly stand for? Postage and Packaging perhaps? Or Pride and Prejudice? What about Pinky and Perky? Well, you’d be wrong on every one of them, for the P and P that I’m engaging in this week is Planning and Promotion!

Planning – Idea-storming the next Ingleby novel starring Archie and Aggie Stone.

Promotion – Trying to get Medicine Show into the hands of new readers.

And my motto for both will be slowly, slowly catch a monkey. Although, of a truth, I’ve never quite fully understood what that saying means. I’ve never had even the slightest inkling to catch monkeys. And why would I? I don’t even like seeing them in captivity. Free the simians! That’s what I say. But that’s me digressing.

What I mean is that I’m not going to go at either like a bull at a gate (now I do understand that one) but rather do things methodically, thoughtfully and sensibly. None of that foolhardy rushing into things that upended me and put me on my arse last year. Oh no, I’m not falling into that trap again.

If you want to write a novel then my earnest advice to you is to plan the damn thing to within an inch of its stinking existence. And then, when you’ve finished planning it, plan it some more. That’s where I went wrong the last two times and believe me it’s really not worth the stress of not planning it properly.

I got away with it by the plaque on the skin of my teeth on those two occasions and only then because I’ve now got a bit of experience under my belt when it comes to this writing lark. But by thunder, as Lady Stark-Raven would say, I don’t want to go through it ever again.

No sirree!!!

So the next novel, featuring the lovely Mr and Mrs Stone and which will have the word Moor in the title, isn’t going to have even one word typed in anger until I have a full and cohesive plan of where I’m going with it. At the moment I have a rough outline, figuratively speaking, and I have a beginning, a middle and an end. But there’s so much more of it to flesh out yet. And that’s why I shall be spending several hours each day with an exercise book and a new pack of black pens (fine liners being my weapon of choice) working on the minutiae of the story. Just like I used to in the good old days of 2021 when its predecessor – Mutch Wants Moor – was written.

Aah, good times, good times! The world was a younger and more naïve place in those days.

But then, and only then, will I see fit to begin typing. I owe it to my own wellbeing and, indeed, my sanity to do it that way this time.

And then there’s Medicine Show, my shiny new novel which was published a month ago.

I love that book and am enormously pleased with it but I think I made one glaring error and that was the timing of it’s release. I put it out there three weeks before Christmas when the vast majority of hard-working folks were spending their money on expensively priced gifts, high calorie food and strong liquor and had little left to spare to invest in an independently-published work by a largely unknown author.

I won’t say the sales absolutely tanked but it didn’t do anywhere near as well as any of the other Blessham books in its first month and even the filth-fest that is Vole fared much better in February of last year. So, until I’m a household name and Joe Wilkie is on the big screen whilst I’m on the red carpet, I won’t be going for a Yuletide publication again in a hurry.

What that means now though is for me to get seriously creative and start promoting that lovely little book for all I’m worth. Actually, no, on second thoughts I’m not worth all that much so I’ll just promote it as much as I possibly can on the limited budget I have. Just a case of getting it into the right hands, you see.

My biggest selling book remains Ah Boy! and it may take some time for one of the others to knock it off the top spot and that’s down to promotion.

Which brings me to my second piece of advice to you if you’re hoping to write a novel, which is this: Writing a book is a damn sight easier than marketing the wretched thing. And that’s the absolute truth! Remember that.

I would rather have a blind boil in the middle of my buttock whilst riding uphill over cobbles on a penny-farthing with a wonky back wheel than have to market a book. However, being an indie author, I have no choice. And lets face it, a boil won’t lance itself. Ergo, I’ve got to get good at marketing and so I’m going to re-read the wonderful How to Market a Book by the fabulous Joanna Penn over the coming days. I’ve read it twice already and I’m hoping that at the third attempt it will thoroughly start to sink in.

So there’s the plan for January – P and P. Time management is going to be key to the success of the operation and, as you know, that’s something I’ve been working extremely hard at.

Oh! Hang on, I’ve just thought of another P and P – Pie and Peas! Sorry, I’m being a bit silly now.