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.

Well first off I ought to begin by saying a slightly belated Happy New Year to you all – Happy New Year TO YOU ALL!!! There, that’s out of the way now. Actually, in all seriousness, I do hope it’s a good one for all of us.

Last year saw me publish my 6^th and 7^th full-length comedy novels which ain’t too shabby for a shabby old thing like me. And believe me those books were produced under great duress. 2023 wasn’t a particularly spectacular year for Ange and I in so many ways but we came through it together and we’re looking forward to 2024 with hopeful eyes.

I haven’t made any resolutions as such. I have done in the past; every single 1^st of January. I was going to lose weight or write 3 books in one year or exercise more or drink less or try and do something about all the flatulence etc etc etc…

The list is a long one.

And in all honesty I’ve never achieved a single one of them because I’ve always set the bar too high for what I can actually achieve. You see, deep down, I do know my limitations.

So this year I just want to improve myself in whatever small way I can.

I’m starting with dry January and before any of you scoff, let me tell you that this will be the third year I’ve done it. And I have to say that I recommend it whole-heartedly. I’ve always felt marvellous by February.

Unfortunately, I’ve then gone on to undo all the good I’ve done the rest of the year. I do enjoy a drop of vino but sometimes it’s a bit more than a drop as my waistline will testify.

So from now on I’m going to be an occasional drinker. That’s not a resolution as I know I won’t keep it but I’m going to try and limit myself to just having booze when we’re at an occasion. Weddings, birthdays, parties, bar mitzvahs etc.

To tell the truth, I’ve never been to a bar mitzvah but I’m always up for one if there’s an invite going.

As for the age-old resolution of trying to lose weight – HAH! Never happens. So this time I’m just going to try and eat less and exercise more. I find both of those activities difficult at the best of times but the fact that I’m currently using the very first notch on my belt tells me that something seriously needs to change. I looked in the mirror on New Year’s Day wearing just my underwear and I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t like it all. It was the stuff of nightmares.

Ergo, change must happen. And it can’t just be another resolution that comes and goes but instead has to be a complete lifestyle change. I know it won’t happen overnight and that’s where I’ve gone wrong in the past – believing it will and then getting despondent when it doesn’t. Small consistent steps are what I need to take.

Then there’s my career – being an independent author.

In a nutshell, I need to change how I work. I’ve got to try and be more constant in my approach. Last year I made the massive mistake of launching myself into Medicine Show when the ink was still drying on Vole. I wrote like a maniac for about a week and then hit the proverbial wall and didn’t touch the thing for another two months. By which time I’d completely forgotten where I was going with it and had to back-pedal to try and pick up the threads.

No, that can’t and won’t happen again. I think my books, and more importantly my readers, deserve better than that.

I have been working on my time management an awful lot but it’s those days when my body lets me down that are the problem. I still need to find a way to work when fibromyalgia is kicking the living tripe out of me. Otherwise I lose continuity with the story I’m working on you see.

On those days, when the fibro is at it’s worst, I find it hard to sit on my office chair for long periods of time. The solution to the problem is literally staring me in the face. My office space is in the bedroom therefore why not use the bed when it hits me hard. I can plump up all the pillows (6 in total between us) and fashion a make-shift couch for myself.

I’ve tried it once so far and it works. Even if I get brain fog and drift off for half an hour or so then I’m in the right place where I don’t have to try and fight it. I can close my eyes for 30 minutes and when I come round again there’s my laptop with the document open for me to resume what I was doing. I’ve even invested in a mouse jiggler, which isn’t a sex aid for small rodents but a plug-in device to keep my laptop screen awake whilst I snooze.

I know, I know, I’m making it sound easy when in reality it’s far from it but like I said earlier, small consistent steps and not beating myself about the head and neck with a blunt instrument if it all goes tits up occasionally. Which it no doubt will as that’s the nature of the beast.

So no resolutions but plenty of good intentions. I’m not going to start spouting blasé things such as, “New year, new me!” but I do want to do things differently whilst still being the same old me.

I hope that makes sense.

So indeed, happy new year to you all my friends and here’s to slow and steady self-improvement.

The term poleaxed is a funny one isn’t it. It’s a rather archaic term for one thing, stemming from the Middle Ages when soldiers on the battlefield would quite literally be knocked down with an axe. It’s derived from the middle English word “pollax” which was another word for battle axe and was later bastardised, as much of our language is, into poleaxe.

Today it simply means to be hit so hard by something that it’s difficult to recover. And that’s where I enter the story.

I’ve been poleaxed gentle reader, by COVID 19.

There are two things that I’m finding hard to believe about it right now. The first being, why has it taken four years to catch up with me and the second being, why now? Why just before Christmas?

It’s not fair I tell you.

I did everything right in 2020 when the pandemic was at its zenith. I isolated like a hermit, I wore one of those awful, eye-rubbing masks everywhere I went, I avoided visiting friends and relatives as if they were total strangers to me, I was zealous about keeping my hands sanitised to the point of fanaticism and I followed all the rules even though the lying hounds in our government did not.

And now, here I am, four years later, with the damn thing and its knocked the stuffing out of me and knocked Christmas into a cocked hat.

I was first aware of it on Friday morning having gone to bed on Thursday night feeling perfectly well, in good spirits and full of a rather pleasant medium-bodied Malbec. The next morning I was proverbially poleaxed.

At first I thought that it was just a “bug going around” but somehow that didn’t feel quite right and so on Saturday morning I awoke early and decided to take a lateral flow test and sure enough it read as positive. Bugger!!!

Since then it’s gotten progressively worse. The coughing is both painful and persistent, my head feels like it’s full of play-fighting puppies and breathing is becoming something of a challenge. I can’t remember a time when I drank so much water either as my mouth is drier than a Jewish comedian most of the time. Seriously, the fear I have about our water rates going up is very real.

But if truth be told, I can cope with the physical symptoms. I’ve had a lot worse when SARS nearly killed me in 2003. Compared to that this is a stroll in the park on a sunny Sunday morning in May with a stop off to feed the ducks and then a quick latte and a slice of carrot cake in the café.

What really rankles me the most is that all my carefully made Christmas plans are now just pie in the sky. And believe you me I had planned it meticulously.

You see, I do enjoy Christmas. On my own terms of course; I don’t fall prey to all that commercialism that has blighted this annual festival ever since Coca Cola turned Santa Claus red. No, I love to do Christmas my way and I always, always enjoy it as a result.

I plan a nice meal for the family with the emphasis on rotating the meat choice every time so that we don’t have the same thing two years in a row. I take pride in doing a nice spread and being a good and generous host and I try to buy presents that people actually want or need or would make them genuinely happy rather than some crappy old tat that’s going to be broken by Boxing day or in a charity shop by Easter.

In short, I make a bit of an effort without buying into all that grotesque advertising that we’re subjected to from the middle of October onwards.

But now…

Now all my plans are scuppered by some ugly, grubby little lab-grown virus, invisible to the naked eye. It’s just not showing any signs of leaving and I can only surmise that I shall still be riddled with the wretched thing this time next week.

Oh sure, I’ve got a back-up plan, I always do have one, but it’s not going to be anywhere near the same. I shall miss not being with my granddaughter on Christmas day and spending time with loved ones and dear friends, for truly, that is the greatest pleasure of the season. Can I get an amen? No? Please yourselves, but it is for me.

Instead of the traditional family Christmas my lovely wife and I shall be isolating here at Blessham Hall watching rubbish TV, drinking wine and feeling pretty sorry for ourselves.

Actually, Ange is yet to show any signs of the disease and I’m hoping and praying that it passes her by. She’s had enough health battles for one year and doesn’t need to finish 2023 on another one.

So that’s the situation here. It’s a shame but life goes on and there’s always next year if we’re all still here by then – I do hope we are.

All that remains now is for me to wish you all the very merriest of Christmases. My heartfelt thanks go out to all those who have supported us in various ways and anyone who has bought my books this year and it is my fervent and heartfelt wish that you all have a happy and healthy time on December 25^th.

Cheers everyone and stay safe x

As you all know, around this time of year I like to have a bit of a rant about the gaudiness that has become prevalent at Christmas time. Last year I, quite rightly, had a pop at Tesco for their frankly abominable Christmas advert featuring lumbering buffoons in Santa hats dancing in the snow with wheelie bins. This year though, I thought I’d take aim at the drinks industry.

Christmas, of course, is a time when the drinks industry do their best business of the year as we all tip alcohol down our necks with an almost feverish glee in the desperate hope that it will make us feel Christmassy.

I’ve nothing against that, not in the least, but what I do object to these days is the ever increasing fadiness in the drinks industry. It seems to me that its just one gimmick after another. They know that people just want the alcohol but it’s the tiresome ways that they constantly re-badge the stuff that gets to me.

Time was when you could walk into a pub and the fanciest drink available would be Babycham, which ladies in the 1960s, 70s and 80s would often consume with brandy. It was an expensive evening if your date chose that particular beverage as it was essentially two drinks rolled into one… For the price of two.

Other than that the girls would either have a half of lager and lime, a glass of enamel-loosening Liebfraumilch or possibly both if you were feeling flush and trying to cop off with her. The older lady would prefer a glass of sherry or a bottle of Mackesons and the middle-aged, more sophisticated woman would sip a Cinzano Bianco simply because Joan Collins was in the adverts and it sounded decadent.

Yes, there was a bottle of Noilly Prat on the shelf but no-one ever drank it for the simple reason that no-one, the bar staff included, actually knew what the hell it was.

Men would typically drink pints of beer, hand pumped not bottled, unless it was brown ale. Mixed drinks such as shandy or lager top were considered somewhat on the wimpy side and often frowned upon when drunk by anyone wasn’t driving or was over the age of 14.

And then… along came snakebite, and the game changed dramatically.

Somebody thought it would be a good idea to mix super strength cider with lager and as a result great seething pools of vomit soon began to appear on every street in Britain every Friday and Saturday night as the disgusting fad caught on and spread across the country like a foul-tasting plague. It wasn’t lager, it wasn’t cider, it was just an evil and ill-conceived hybrid of the two whose only guarantee in this world was to make your gorge rise.

Getting off your tits on cheap alcohol is of course seen as a rite of passage in this modern era. And who amongst us hasn’t necked supermarket own brand vodka with their so-called mates whilst talking utter bollocks and making complete twots of themselves in public? I know I certainly have. Thank God for the wisdom of the years, that’s all I can say on that one. You’ll understand when you get to my age kids.

But of course, it didn’t stop at snakebite did it? Oh no, those clever fiends in the marketing departments soon got to work and a whole new level of piss-artistry was introduced. The alco-pops.

I always found the alco-pops to be a particularly heinous invention when you take the time to consider who they were being marketed at. Let’s face it, they weren’t targeting middle-aged men or old maiden aunts were they? No, it was aimed at the young; the very young in fact. No longer did kids have to screw their faces up and gag and retch as they drank their vodka on the swings. Now it tasted like pop or cordial. A thousand fruity flavours to tantalise the teenage taste buds like never before.

This meant that our parks, beaches and other recreational areas were soon liberally strewn with empty WKD, Smirnoff Ice and Hooch bottles as teens the length and breadth of the land got shit-faced on sickly sweet concoctions that, whilst packing a punch, tasted just like Vimto.

But kids tire of things quickly and what one generation sees as cool and trendy the next sees as jaded and pathetic.

What on Earth shall we do? Cried the alcohol producers.

We know, said the marketing men, let’s rehash all the old drinks and fool everybody into thinking that they’re now in some way fashionable.

And so dear old Guinness became no longer the drink of the Irish, the unwell or old Fred at the end of the bar who had three bottles of it on a Friday night that the landlord had to blow the dust off first before he served it. Oh no, thanks to some very stylish advertising involving surf boards and more merchandise than you’d find at a Kiss concert, Dublin’s finest became the go to drink of the hip and trendy young things. Sales of the black stuff shot through the roof and everyone’s iron intake rapidly shot up as well.

But let’s not stop there said the marketing men. Let’s fart about with the Guinness. Yes, it’s a perfectly delicious drink on its own terms but let’s make it extra cold so that it has zero flavour and can hardly be enjoyed by anyone who isn’t an Eskimo, people will still drink it because the adverst tell them to and they listen to every word we say.

They can’t leave anything alone can they?

And so, having well and truly buggered up Guinness, they then turned their guns back onto cider.

Snakebite wasn’t trendy any more unless you were a biker from Croydon or an ageing skinhead fresh out of Wandsworth and something had to be done to get the stuff moving again.

The marketing men spoke and it came to pass that cider was turned into piss water.

Who wants the thought-provoking complexity of traditional scrumpy when you can have syrupy sweet Strongbow, which, like Guinness before it, underwent a quite extraordinary advertising campaign.

Didn’t just stop at Strongbow did it? Along came Woodpecker, Blackthorn, Magners, Thatchers and a whole host of others. And the worst of it was that it didn’t actually taste all that much like cider. It was just fizzy alcoholic apple juice that didn’t really taste of anything. You couldn’t even tell one from the other. They all tasted, and still do taste, the same. At least even with a blindfold on I could tell the difference between bitter, mild and stout. These “ciders” were all just one homogenous great lake of nothingness.

But again, as Britain’s drinkers continued to lose their sense of taste, in favour of utter blandness, the fad caught on and soon every pub in town that once had one cider in stock now had about half a dozen different ciders to choose from as the young men and women over-enthusiastically quenched their collective thirst on the stuff.

However, there were rumblings in the boardroom; the marketing men still weren’t satisfied.

Not everybody was keen on this new, bland cider and so they began to think of a way to make it more appealing to teenagers. The solution was staring them in the face. Good old alco-pops held the key, namely, fruity flavours. And so they made the cider taste like strawberries or blackberries or loganberries or whatever berries they could think of. And it came to pass that cider sales went astronomical.

Giddy with success and high on the smell of money, the marketing men pushed on. Cider became an international concern. We began to see ciders appearing from Sweden, France, New Zealand, Belgium and basically any country on Earth that grew apples. Some of which were almost unpronounceable. The nation had gone absolutely mad for shit cider.

And while our backs were turned and we poured the fruity cider down our throats, out of the blue Gin and Tonic became something much, much more than the drink that made Granny a bit tipsy at Christmas. It went stratospheric. Suddenly, there were more brands of gin on the market than there were off licences. There was a time when you could get Gordons and that was just about it. Now there’s gin distilleries popping up all over the place, including Japan. Come on, you’ve all seen the adverts.

Gin and tonic had gone, literally overnight, from being the beverage of grouchy ambassadors and their fragrant wives in the far flung reaches of the British empire, to become perhaps the number one drink in the country. There are now bars dedicated solely to the sale of it. I heard of one, I think it was in York or somewhere, that has over 1000 gins to choose from.

Now, Is it just me or does that sound ridiculous to you as well? I mean, don’t get me wrong, a nice G&T is a lovely refreshing drink and I often enjoy a large one, but hasn’t it all gone rather too far to the point of confusion.

And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, gin got the alco-pop treatment as well and soon the choice became bewildering with flavours ranging from rhubarb to quince and everything in between with the exception of burnt rubber. So far that is. The entire drinks market had finally lost the plot and gone totally insane. All within the space of about thirty years or so.

And in that time we’ve had urine-esque Mexican lager with a wedge of lime stuffed in the neck of the bottle, Fosters cut with lemon (Cut? Cut? What is it, heroin?), we’ve had unfiltered Stella Artois that looks like a glass full of dysentry, we’ve had revolting shots that come in all the colours of the rainbow and taste like battery acid mixed with treacle, vodka mixed with red bull, which is a bad idea from the start because then you have annoying drunk people who want to stay up and talk a load of bollocks all night, and we also had beer cocktails. As modern parlance would put it, W.T.F! The list is endless.

So what do we do now? Sit and quietly sip our crappy on trend drinks whilst we wait for the next big thing? Not me matey boy. A pint of real ale or proper Guinness or a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon or if it’s a special occasion a large Jack Daniels. Give me that and I’m more than happy.

I could go on and on about what they’ve done to good old-fashioned beer with the huge ever increasing influx of foreign brews with unusual and interesting names flooding the UK market, none of which are as good as our own, but I fear I’m going to make myself physically ill if I do continue.

All I will say is, stop falling for the bloody gimmicks, they’re taking the money out of your wallet and the roaring piss out of you with their sickly, sugary and addictive little drinks. Stop buying into it. It’s just one gormless idiot proof cash cow fad after another and the next one will be along very soon you can be assured of that. I don’t know exactly what it will be, probably alcoholic Bovril or rum and Domestos or Irish whisky flavoured with shag tobacco and talcum powder or something equally as stupid.

Oh, and whilst I’m on this subject, I mentioned pubs earlier but the sorry truth of the matter is that there are very few real British pubs left. They’ve all been rejected in favour of pubbing-by-numbers Wetherspoons and chic continental style bars where sun burnt Brits sit outside and sip there e-number-loaded drinks and cackle incoherently like Macbethian witches whilst imagining that they are in some way cool. A word of wisdom if that describes you – (sotto voce) you don’t look cool.

As those irritating kids from Grange Hill once so sincerely sang, just say no! Say no to the hype.

And don’t even get me started on the sizzling gut-rot poison that is prosecco!

Rant over.

As an independent author, I’m a member of many writers groups and forums on social media. Makes sense doesn’t it? Sharing information, tips and encouragement with one another is a fantastic way for the indie author to not feel that they’re alone, which can sometimes happen.

And for the most part, being a member of these groups is a great experience.

But every silver lining has a cloud.

There can often be a lot of negativity in these groups. Not just from writers struggling with their WIPs or character development etc etc, but more to do with putting an actual downer on the whole ethos of being a writer.

I’ll give you an example.

You log onto Facebook and there on one of the writers groups is a meme about someone having something akin to a nervous breakdown because they are at the editing stage of their book. You see it all the time.

Reams of memes!

Oh, they’re always disguised with a big dollop of tongue on cheek humour with references to copious amounts of coffee and red wine but that veil of humour is obviously transparently thin. There’s more than an element of seriousness behind these memes. They make out that the editing process is in some way similar to some kind of sadistic medieval torture that has to be endured rather than it being an enjoyable undertaking.

And I don’t know why because I bloody well love the editing process, me!

I once read somewhere (I forgot where and who the author was) that writing a novel is a lot like cooking a meal. Plotting the thing is like getting the ingredients together, writing the first draft is the actual cooking part and then the editing/proofing and all that is the washing up afterwards. And I think that is a brilliant and rather accurate analogy.

And the washing up stage is where I am at now with my current WIP and I’m having a great time with it. I think the thing I like most is the anticipation that all the hard work is done, having written well in excess of 85,000 words for this one, and now the end is tantalisingly close. Publication is on the near horizon.

There’s the relief, for one thing, when you read it back and realise that it is a coherent body of work and there are no plot holes or outrageous anomalies that require another month’s worth of rewriting. There’s the joy of discovering that giving almost a year of your life to the project has been worthwhile because you’ve produced something enjoyable and entertaining and the realisation that if you like it yourself then there’s a fair chance that others will too. And there’s the gentle frisson that you feel, similar to an expectant parent, that you’re about to birth a shiny, brand-new novel into the world.

Seriously, the editing process is great fun in my humble opinion.

So, you may ask, whereabouts are we in terms of publication?

Very close actually. The main edit where I add and subtract various bits and pieces and check that the book flows well is all done and dusted and that tomorrow I move on to spelling and grammar checking but also making sure that all of Joe’s little wordplay nuances all match up. That will probably take a full day, or maybe even longer, and then it’s the final proof read which will take a few days as I always proof read at least twice, if not three times.

Or to put it another way, I’ve nearly finished the washing up.

I’ve also begun work on the cover of the new book. The front is pretty much finished and the back is underway. Obviously can’t do the spine yet until I know the final page width of the thing but that’s a small matter that just requires a little bit of basic arithmetic to get right. I’ve learnt a heck of a lot about cover design and formatting in the last four years and six novels.

I do honestly still believe that a December publication is on the cards as I would like people to have the book in their hands for Christmas. It would make an ideal present for the reader in your life (hint hint!) or even just to perhaps give yourself a festive treat.

So yeah, exciting times here at Blessham Hall yet again. And I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you the title as a sort of pre-Christmas bonus. It’s a Joe Wilkie/Blessham novel and it goes by the title of…

Medicine Show

I won’t go into any further details just now but please be reassured that it’s an absolute corker (in many ways actually) and that Joe gets himself into all the usual scrapes and hi-jinks. I’ve read it through a couple of times myself now and it makes me laugh so I hope that’s a positive endorsement for you.

Right, enough said! Must press on. Now, where did I put my Marigolds?

Just a quick one this week.

I’m not a huge fan of Elvis Presley, although I quite like Suspicious Minds and I don’t mind In The Ghetto, but I’d like to quote the man for just a second or two – My hands are shaking and my knees are weak, I can’t seem to stand on my own two feet.

I’ll elaborate.

We’re now one week into November and the amount of progress made on editing the current WIP is exactly… drum roll please…

Zero!

Yes, a big fat zero. Zilch. Zip. Nought. Nil. Nothing. Or as they say up here in Yorkshire – Nowt!

Was I merely full of hot air (or should that be Hot Eire, bit of a plug there) in my last blog post or has something happened to hamper and impede my editing? The answer is the second one. Something has indeed happened.

Look, I know I sounded full of great intentions of what I was going to achieve after the last blog post but since then I haven’t stopped trying to fit a gallon into a pint pot. My body, on the other hand, has stopped. And I can’t seem to get it going again.

Without going into too much detail we’ve basically filled the flat with everything from the caravan, which has now gone to scrap. We didn’t have a large window of time to do it either and so I’ve had to force my weak and wasting muscles into doing things that are, quite frankly, beyond them.

The result?

I’m all shook up.

Quite literally as it happens. I’ve got this uncontrollable shaking in my limbs when I do anything vaguely physical and my restless leg syndrome seems to have taken on a life of its own and my knees are going like road drills whenever I try and rest. It’s all very disconcerting.

I think I’ve broke myself.

It’s a bit like Tonka Trucks. Remember them? Yeah, they were brilliant weren’t they? They were sold as ’The Toys That Last!’ The idea being that they were virtually indestructible. And whilst they were certainly tough and hardy little toys, let’s be honest now fellas, who amongst us didn’t try to prove the slogan wrong? Yes, it took a lot of heavy duty play but they broke in the end. And that’s basically the state of play with me at present. The last week has been heavy duty and now I’m broken.

The solution?

Well, basically do nothing for a week and then try and have a go at editing. That’s the plan. I know it’s not much of a plan but it’s the best I can do for now.

Listen, I know I said I wouldn’t burden you with my medical woes anymore but I just thought I should let you know the state of play with the WIP. I’ll get there. All I can ask is, please be patient whilst I’m being a patient.

As a final note I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to Debbie and Barry Gibson for their fantastic help and support. You two did the bulk of the lifting and have been marvellous. We’d have never done it without you.

I’ve done it! I’ve only gone and flipping well done it! What have you done Stevenson? I hear you cry. I’ll tell you what I’ve done, I’ve finished the first draft of my next novel; that’s what!

The last nine months have been like some hellish, torturous literary nightmare where I have wrestled with the Orcs of comedy writing and emerged scathed (badly scathed) but victorious. Now it all seems like a dream and I can’t quite believe it.

You see, I love writing Joe Wilkie. He’s a lot of fun to work with is that cute and curious little chap. I love to get his words all mixed up for him and I love to create all his little adventures, anecdotes and idiosyncrasies. He’s just a brilliant character and it has been my absolute great pleasure to see him develop.

However…

This time it’s been like pulling teeth!

And I’ve never actually pulled a tooth personally but I’ve had them pulled professionally and it’s not a great experience. Especially for the tooth one imagines. But I digress.

No, the reason for this personal descent into novel writing hades is purely my own fault. What’s the expression now? Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Yeah, well, I didn’t read that last line very closely.

I didn’t plan this novel as well as all the others and it shows in the fact that it’s taken nine months to do the first draft. First drafts just shouldn’t take that long to write.

I planned the first four chapters meticulously in the trusty old exercise book but then I got carried away with myself and started going off at tangents and had to keep reeling myself back in and re-writing this, that and the other. I’ve had to scrap whole passages simply because they were little more than mawkish shash that didn’t deserve to be read by the decent, honest, hard-working book buying public.

And so what is normally a joy; writing a Wilkie novel, became an arduous slog where at times I scarcely dared to turn the laptop on in fear of what horrors would pour forth from the keyboard as my unprepared mind sent all sorts of deranged and erratic signals to my poor, overworked fingertips.

There have been so many ups and downs during the process. On the up side, I wrote 6,500 words in one day and was delighted with all of them. On the down side I wrote about 850 one day which were then mercilessly deleted without hesitation or qualm. And then there was a period of about six weeks where I didn’t even write one damn word because the mere thought of it made me want to puke.

But!

Here I am, bloodied but unbowed (actually I am a tad bowed but that doesn’t sound as good). I have crushed the wretched thing underfoot at last by sheer, almost superhuman, effort and the carcass of the slain beast stands at 82,278 words. Which is actually 8,000 more than my last novel, Vole, when it was complete.

There now follows several rounds of editing before I’ll release it but by then I’ll have it honed and polished to a high degree of excellence and that will be a joy compared to writing it now that I’ve reached the end of the long, dark first draft tunnel.

You may be thinking that after all I’ve just said that I don’t like the book. Au contraire mon ami! Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a very good novel in my opinion and one that I’m now very keen to get out into the public domain. And so it bloody well should be after all that I’ve been through with it.

It’s everything you’ve come to expect in a Joe Wilkie novel. The bumbling but loveable protagonist gets himself into all sorts of scrapes and shenanigans. There are multiple violent outbursts from Lady Stark-Raven. There’s an angry mob (a common occurrence in Blessham). There’s an antagonist like we haven’t seen before who Joe locks horns with and a host of other crazy characters both old and new. What’s not to like?

There’s also a bit of a different side to Joe in this one and he isn’t the hopeless doormat he usually is. Well, not all the time. Most of the time but not all. But I won’t give too much away at this stage.

When will it be released? Well, I don’t have an exact date in mind but I’m looking at early December hopefully so that everyone can fill their Christmas stockings with it. I’ve put the manuscript away for now until next week and will return to it on November 1^st to begin the editing which gives me one month to buff it up and sand off all those splintery rough edges. I think I can just about manage that.

For the next few days I shall simply bask in the radiant aura of my victory over adversity and maybe have a glass of wine or three. Maybe even a fourth.

Sod it, I’ll have a bottle.

Watch this space for further updates.