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End of Another Year!

26/12/2012

The weather is wet, quite mild and when you consider the time of year, it's quite unseasonal really. Rather than huddling together in front of the log fire we find ourselves taking clothes off, opening windows and turning the central heating down. All those pictures in our heads of sleigh bells gently jingling in the snow seem to have gone totally awry this year. We rarely have snow on the ground on Christmas Day in this part of the UK anyway, but it's generally a fair bit colder. Even so, that idea we've been sold through countless books, tunes and movies, of the yuletide being eternally 'white', still persists (in the mind at least!).

Actually, the weather has fallen in line very neatly with the opening chapter of my shortly to be published psychological thriller Roadrage, which opens on a motorway on Christmas Day in torrential rain. Unlike Niedermayer & Hart it doesn't have any kind of supernatural element, but I honestly think it's quite a scary story. The people who test out my work for me before I 'let it loose' and who I trust implicitly, all seem to be in agreement about this. However, I suspect there's no way of knowing exactly how readers will react to it until they actually start reading for themselves - if this kind of prophecy had ever been possible then the big publishing houses would have it all completelysewn up, there would never be any unexpected surprises and every book that ever reached publication would be a number-one bestseller! Anyway, Roadrage is ready and waiting to be finally proofed, formatted and sent off to the printers. I'll be posting more about it in the New Year.

Yesterday (25 December) we were invited to my son and his girlfriend's new house and we enjoyed Christmas lunch with quite a large group of family and friends. It was a proper festive occasion and there was a good deal of leg-pulling and good natured banter - I think we all had a really lovely time (and ate too much!). Today my wife and I have taken things quietly and this afternoon we watched a DVD of 'That's Entertainment', the film made in the 70s to celebrate the first fifty years of MGM musicals. I was eighteen or nineteen and training at RADA when it first came out, yet I am just as mesmerised by its cast of stellar performers today as I was back then - real class never looks dated!

My first book Niedermayer & Hart received its fourteenth consecutive 5* review on Amazon UK yesterday - a bonus christmas present! Reviews are of course absolutely vital to the indie/self-published author, so if you have enjoyed a book (even if it wasn't mine!), please always consider leaving a comment. I have less reviews on Amazon.com but strangely a lot more 'Likes' (comparatively speaking) - seems Americans are far more eager than their British counterparts when it comes to 'hitting' the 'Like' button. It's quite important statistically apparently, or so I am lead to believe, therefore I ask you, if you have enjoyed reading my book (or any book for that matter) to click on the 'Like' button too.

May you enjoy what remains of this festive period, and when the New Year finally arrives I hope you are able to welcome it in amongst friends and those you love. I am sure it is widely wished for that 2013 be a year characterised by hope, peace and generosity of spirit - let's all put our best foot forward and try our hardest to make it so!

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Reflections 2012

19/12/2012

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It's traditionally a little early to start reflecting on the past year. However, it has been quite a powerful one for me and I feel prompted to talk about it. At approximately this time a year ago I loaded the Niedermayer & Hart Prologue up on You Tube. I'd had to learn how to master the software and edit a piece of film first! I'd already set up this website by then as a wrtiting platform and was coughing up an occasional blog post.

If you haven't seen The Prologue - take a 'butchers' as they say in Cockney rhyming slang:

It was filmed in a white van (with permission) over two evenings in the netball courts of Holmewood House School, near Tunbridge Wells. My son, Tom - director/cameraman, and myself - author/actor - were slowly deep-frozen over the two evenings it took us. I'd better mention Judith my wife too, who was crouched (very uncomfortably and uncomplainingly) in the van's rear, making sure I said all the words I'd written!

This whole publishing venture has been a family affair from the very start. In 2011, I completed Roadrage, having finally overcome my reluctance to put pen to paper ever again after my painful experience with Niedermayer & Hart, when, some years before, it had for several months attracted the interest of a major publishing house. Judith convinced me that I now had two decent books up my sleeve, and that we should bring them both out through our little publishing business Odd Dog Press. We'd formed this back in 2009 to produce Judith's non-fiction, local history book, Southborough War Memorial. The development of the internet, Amazon, Smashwords, e-books and digital printing, not to mention Twitter, Facebook etc has made everything possible for the self-published/indie writer. I wouldn't say it's become a level playing-field exactly - but then, how could it possibly be? Personally, I don't expect people to rush out and buy my books just because I tell them they're okay. I do hope however that they'll read the reviews, listen to their friends' recommendations and decide to buy it because it sounds like something they might enjoy. However, like all books, Niedermayer & Hart (and Roadrage when it arrives shortly) is not to everyone's taste. But, if you're thinking is in line with the eighteen different reviewers who have praised it over various internet sites, then I suspect you're in for an enjoyable time reading.

I am very lucky, my wife and son have been my bulwark, and have remained an unerring source of encouragement and support throughout. I suspect I'd have stumbled and fallen out of the race already without their belief in me. Everyone should have a Judith and a Tom Johnson!

I anticipated spending no more than a month setting myself up on social networking sites and e-formatting Niedermayer & Hart to complement the beautiful trade-sized paperback printed for us by MPG Biddles (very professional and highly recommended!). Ahem! If you're a would be self-publishing/indie writer - I suggest you plan on a timescale of more like six months to get all this stuff established for yourself. I never had to worry about a book cover, because Tom produced a beautiful design for it and did all the clever stuff on Photoshop that was required. He also, despite having a busy full-time job, has made three animations to promote my book (and completed two excellent portraits for his own personal satisfaction as an artist! Take a look - www.tomjohnsonart.com ). He has most recently almost finalised the cover for Roadrage - it's stunning!

Apart from my weekly blog, I started actually writing again in June and found by following a fairly disciplined daily workplan was able to produce 2,000 words a day. I'd completed 74,000 words of the first draft of my next book when my dear mother took a fall at her sheltered home in south-west Wales. She should by rights have recovered, but I suspect she found the increasing dependency of her life too difficult to go on with, her condition continued to deteriorate and on 20 November she died. I was fortunate enough to be with her at the time of her 'passing'.

I'd been awake, apart from a brief nap for over thirty hours by the time I finally took to my bed that evening and fully expected to have quite a disturbed night. I was telling my wife just the other day how I woke up in the hotel the next morning from one of the sweetest night's sleep I can ever recall. I had no memory of any dreams, just a great feeling of well-being, and I actually had a smile on my face when I opened my eyes! The words of the 14th Century Anchorite Nun, Julian of Norwich, immediately sprang to my mind, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

The funeral has now passed but I find the grieving process goes on and I daresay will do for a while longer. My wife was only eighteen when she met my parents; she and my son both feel the loss deeply too. When something commonplace occurs in my daily life I catch myself thinking to myself, "I must remember to tell Mam that when I ring her next," - sadly not to be! I am slowly getting used to this.

So, as we approach the end of the year (I'm sticking my neck out here and assuming the Mayans got it wrong!) I find myself already in the mood for reflection. Roadrage will be published in the early part of 2013. Niedermayer & Hart is of course already out in the big wide world and I hope that more and more people will continue to discover and enjoy it in 2013. Amazon have recently reduced the cost of the paperback by 10%, and I have dropped the price of the Kindle version by 30%.until 7 January (normally £3.24 ($4.99) now only £2.22 ($3.49)). If you'd prefer to buy the book from Smashwords with the same 30% reduction then use this code when purchasing at their checkout: KD25R

I hope that you and your loved ones stay safe this Christmas and very much hope to see you again at this blog in the New Year (although I do plan to write one more entry before then!).

Don't eat too many mince pies!

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Sad Time

12/12/2012

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Taking Mam for a paddle on Horton beach, Gower

I have just returned from Wales with my wife and son. We had a busy time, though hardly a joyous one. We travelled down on Friday evening and due to an error on my part (dum-di-dum!), we didn't reach the hotel we were staying at until 3.30am. My wife, who regards her daily seven hours of sleep as sacrosanct, was not amused, and I was quite deservedly in the dog-house for a while. However, because of the nature of our trip - my mother's funeral - I did get early parole.

It is a very odd thing to realise that I am now parentless. While at least one of our parents is still here with us, they remain a buffer between us and our own inevitable demise. For me now, those two individuals who were always there, the bedrock of our whole existence when young, are both gone. I was always the youngest boy in my year at school; as a teenager I tended to mix with a group of friends who were older than me, and for years afterwards most of my acquaintances were often a year or two ahead of me in age. It is therefore an odd sensation to be not only parentless, but at the senior end of things.

My father died before he should have done almost two decades ago. However, Mam continued bravely on. She had a long, often sad and lonely widowhood. Funerals, particularly Welsh ones, are often cited in literature and drama for their displays of piety and hypocrisy. And having just returned from her funeral, I retain some very strong feelings about the way she was undeservedly isolated and neglected in some quarters over many years.

(Hopefully my smiley face will be restored again somewhat by the next time I write this blog!)

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Words

5/12/2012

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I think I must have been born with a love for books and the written word. I seem to possess a fairly vivid picture in my head of every single book that was ever in my house as a child. My uncle recently asked me if I knew of one particular book that his father (my grandad) had read to him when he was a lad, and I could say without any shadow of doubt that I had never seen it. When I was a small child my family were entertained by my eagerness to read anything and everything that entered my line of vision. My parents often described a holiday to London when I was five. It must've been like owning a small, Welsh, walking radio - on the tube train escalators I'd read the passing advertisements proclaiming stuff like, "Players Navy Cut, it's the tobacco that counts ... Pepsi-Cola the light refreshment ... Sirdar corsets for the fuller figure!" You get the picture!

As a Welshman who was always keen to read I naturally loved Dylan Thomas of course. I recall one of my two great English teachers, a lovely man called Terry King, (he was playing Devil's advocate on this occasion I think) informing us that someone had recently accused Dylan Thomas of being a phoney. There was a shocked silence! This maniac's reason for denouncing the great Welsh bard? He had worked out that the numbers habitually scrawled by the side of Thomas's poetical works in progress were in fact references to various pages in Roget's Thesaurus. His conclusion: that Dylan Thomas was therefore a fraud! My view hasn't changed, it's exactly the same now as it was when I was fourteen - basically, that we all have access to our aide-memoires i.e. dictionaries, the thesaurus, but it's 'choosing' where to put the darn words once we've got 'em is the real secret!

When I read Steinbeck it flows so easily that he makes me think writing must be such a simple thing to do. Cormac McCarthy has a poetic feel to what he writes, yet at the same time it's clean and straightforward, he doesn't use much punctuation but weirdly it works like a dream. Dylan Thomas's writing often piles noun after noun on top of each other as if they were adjectives to describe other nouns. These are just three of the many writers I admire. In their written works they pick and utilise words like the skilful craftsmen they are. Each of these writers is completely different, and in his own unique way uses words economically. This is the one thing they all have in common! I adore reading all three.

The following is a treat for anyone who loves word-play - the late, great, comedy writer/actor Ronnie Barker performing a sketch I've always loved:

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End of Another Year!

Reflections 2012

Sad Time

Words

M J Johnson

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