M J Johnson
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Ghostly Stuff

21/1/2015

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Readers of this blog (see previous post) may recall I recently fell prey to the forces of mystery and imagination - a nightmare, me, imagine! I guess I must be a little odd (my wife would maintain a lot odd!), because I not only found the experience amusing but would almost certainly have continued reading the offending book at my bedtime, that is if the wife hadn’t given me a bit of a drubbing down for being so daft. You see, she’s never understood this: I quite enjoy a good nightmare. Although I must confess I have had one or two over the years that I’d rather not have repeated!  

I consider my dreamscape a rich source of some of the strangest and most wonderful imagery, copyright free and ready to plunder (unless of course you’ve just dropped off and watched a re-run of Casablanca in your head). I had a teacher at RADA, a marvellous Polish lady, Maria Fedro, elderly then, but she had in her youth danced for the great impresario Diaghilev’s famous Ballets Russes. I recall she used to tell us how she had imagined and then taught herself some of her greatest dancing roles through dreams. I somehow always understood this; I have often taken many of my most perplexing problems and difficulties to bed with me - and it never fails to astound me how many times I’ve woken up secure in the knowledge that I’ve reached an understanding of a previously unresolved difficulty, or workable solution to a problem. I think I’ve already shared on this blog how the basic idea for Niedermayer & Hart came to me in a dream when I was a teenager in Wales. Admittedly, the final published work bears little resemblance to the original premise, but that tiny seed, sown in the imaginings of the night, remains the source of its story.  

And now onto the cause of my bad dream - Collected Ghost Stories by M R James. 

Montague Rhodes James (1862 - 1936) was a distinguished mediaevalist scholar who during his lifetime published many works of academic significance. However, two generations on, he is best remembered, and deservedly so, as the master of the ghost story. He started writing tales in this form as an entertainment for his friends and colleagues, beginning in 1893 with Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook. A tradition was subsequently acquired of reading a new ghostly tale to his chums each Christmas - the darkest period of the year seems to lend itself perfectly to such a practice. Imagine, after a shared festive meal, they adjourn to James’s candlelit study, and all but one of the candles having been extinguished, allowing James just enough light to read his handwritten manuscript, he begins.  It must have been such a thrilling experience to be one of the first to hear him read a classic like Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad (certainly one of my favourites!), which was delivered in this way to friends and colleagues in December 1903. 

Personally, I think the thing that makes James’s writing so memorable is what he doesn’t choose to tell us - he is economical with his descriptions and in this way he never ‘over-eggs the pudding’. His ghostly manifestations are almost invariably shrouded in a mist, half-seen imaginings, a spidery or tentacle-like arm, a hideously deformed face partly glimpsed through the corner of one eye, a pair of red eyes watching from the dense shadows of a cloister. James often narrates in the first person; however, he is generally telling us a story he was once ‘told’ by an acquaintance or is passing on something that once happened to a colleague. He adopts almost a documentary approach, and deliberately omits chunks of time that are not absolutely essential to the story he’s relating to us. I think this lack of embellishment in the storytelling is fundamental to the effectiveness of his style. We are never going to experience any passage written by James that sounds anything like this: “The ghoulish creature staggered out of the darkness, and where its eyes had once been there were now only gaping pits of raw flesh, oozing with greyish-green slime ...” He is much more likely to describe something along the lines of an impenetrably dense shadow that has inexplicably appeared beside a tomb from where his protagonist thinks he may have caught the tiniest movement or perhaps heard a small, dry, laugh. I know which of these two examples makes my hair go tingly! 

If you’re looking for a gory thrill-fest, then M R James is probably not for you. These are stories to curl up with on a winter’s evening beside a cosy fireside while the wind outside is rattling at the window panes. The language is of its time, of course, however, James isn’t given to verbosity, and his stories skip along at a thoroughly enjoyable pace. When I read these tales I felt that James was simply having a great deal of fun and that he wanted to communicate this pleasure with me, his reader. I can highly recommend them. 

Incidentally, another dark tale, my own story Niedermayer & Hart, is on a Kindle countdown deal at Amazon UK from Monday, 26 January, until Monday, 2 February. If you live in the UK you will be able to download a copy during this period for only £0.99. Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Niedermayer-Hart-M-J-Johnson-ebook/dp/B007BVA2AO

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Whimperings in the Dark!

16/1/2015

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I’d started reading The Long Valley by John Steinbeck shortly before Christmas and was proceeding happily in the company of the great author, before my son and daughter-in-law-to-be presented me with a volume of The Collected Ghost Stories of M R James. A bit like a character in a James tale, I found myself irrevocably drawn to them, and immersed myself in these dark pleasures at bedtime over the next few evenings. 

“You aren’t seriously going to read those before turning off the light and going to sleep are you?” 

“Why not?” I asked (perhaps somewhat dismissively). 

“Because you’ll have nightmares ... you are daft!” 

I smiled and may have gone as far as a scoffing sound. 

A few hours later: my wife was shaking me awake after I was found whimpering; whilst I, simultaneously, gripped firmly in the arms of Morpheus, was being confronted by a coarse-haired creature (no, not the wife! considerably more diabolical!), that was all too rapidly materialising before my eyes.  

Once awake, I was duly told off for foolishly entertaining ghost stories last thing at night. And, as if this wasn’t quite humbling enough, the next day  my son was informed about the incident by the aforementioned wife; yes, gentle reader, they could actually be heard sniggering! In fact, I couldn’t, it seems, have provided them with finer amusement, and for the next few days mockery and derision became my lot; I, who have (I admit to it!) sometimes (often?)  boasted about how untroubled I am by all things ghostly or which go bump in the night. So, understandably chastened by my experience, you’ll appreciate that I didn’t dare  run the risk of embarrassing myself again; M R James was confined to the hours of daylight whilst the Steinbeck became my book at bedtime. It’s proved a comfortable arrangement, and I’m pleased to announce there have been no more whinnies in the dark. 

So, the Steinbeck ... 

The Long Valley was published in 1938. The majority of its stories had previously appeared in various American magazines. The stories themselves, Saint Katy the Virgin being the exception - a strangely whimsical tale set in mediaeval France - are set in Steinbeck’s birthplace, the background for so much of his writing, the Salinas Valley in California. Apparently, Steinbeck demanded that Saint Katy the Virgin be included in the collection, and although I enjoyed it, I have to admit that it does seem a bit of a puzzle alongside the rest. In all the other stories, Steinbeck does what Steinbeck can do like no other: informs us about the human condition. He uses symbolism to good effect, and his descriptive imagery is admirably lean; sometimes a tale’s starkness certainly left this reader with a haunted, almost desperate feeling. However, I never feel that Steinbeck is ever being wantonly bleak. Above all, Steinbeck is telling us stories about human beings and of their relationships to others. He lets us make our own inferences. The scholars, critics and academics have it seems from the very start often been divided on their appraisal of these stories. I’m perfectly happy to let them go on arguing! This collection is eminently readable and worthwhile. 

I’m still reading my collected ghost stories - more to come on these ... if I survive the nights!


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A Package Holiday to Earthsea!

27/11/2014

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I first read The Earthsea Trilogy when I was in my early twenties and absolutely loved it. The books are meant to be read in the order they were written: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan(1971), and The Farthest Shore (1972). My wife (who it is more than likely discovered them in the first place!) and I have often recommended them to friends, we certainly sent our son Tom off in their direction once he was old enough to enjoy them. It was in fact he who first realised that Le Guin had written a fourth book, Tehanu (1990), and I have been meaning to catch up with it for some years. My son recently prompted me to get on and re-read the books by giving me a lovely surprise gift of The Earthsea Quartet a few weeks back. I don’t think he was actually aware, I certainly wasn’t, that Le Guin has, since the publication of Tehanu, added another two volumes under the Earthsea banner, Tales from Earthsea (2001), and finally (the last, perhaps?) The Other Wind (2001). Although I don’t think they’re available in one book as The Earthsea Sextet. Tee hee hee! (Don’t quite know why I think that’s funny!). Anyway, Goodreads sensibly refers to them as The Earthsea Cycle - books 1 - 6. 

As for reading the first three books again over thirty years after my first outing to Earthsea, the experience was quite simply better than I’d imagined. I was both entranced and delighted by the books, not only by the clarity and drive of Le Guin’s narrative but also by the richness and depth of her always economic prose. I love The Lord of the Rings for its wealth and genius as an epic narrative, however, as a piece of fantasy writing, the world and people created by Le Guin in her Earthsea books have a depth and sense of reality with which Tolkien, in my opinion, never managed to imbue his land of Middle Earth or its characters - and she can cover in fifty pages what JRR would need most of a book to say. This was the first series I ever read that was about a school for the training of wizards, and whilst another school is almost certainly more popularly famous these days, if given the choice I’d definitely want my own wizard’s training to take place on Roke. The first three books were wonderful to read again, and the writing, perhaps not heeded by me then as much as now, was elegant and sublime. 

This brings me to Tehanu , the final book in The Earthsea Quartet (as my volume, re-issued in 2012, is entitled). The writing is once again impeccable, however, this is not a tale of epic fantasy like the first three adventures. The main character of the first three books, Ged, is largely absent and the main focus of the narrative is Tenar who we first meet in The Tombs of Atuan. Tehanu has, unlike its predecessors a mainly domestic setting and is concerned (it seemed to me) with the process we all must go through of accepting and accommodating ourselves with life and to how our lives may ultimately fall out. Le Guin has a number of points she wishes to make about gender inequality and the differences between male and female power. I felt that she was (for Le Guin that is) a little heavy-handed at times in her treatment of these matters, and there were just a few moments when I wanted to declare: yes, I already got that. The Taoist philosophy of balance that so firmly binds together this world of Earthsea is never pointed-up or highlighted in such a deliberate way as these feminist issues are in Tehanu. However, Le Guin is a very fine writer and whatever her motives for writing Tehanu, perhaps she simply wished to redress the balance and tidy up the rather male-centric world she’d created in the first three books, and while I’m not wholly convinced that this book should ever have been marketed as the final part of a quartet (so as not to disappoint those anticipating something altogether different, perhaps it should have been presented as a separate story about Earthsea? Just a thought!) it is still a very good book indeed. I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

So, I find myself with two more Earthsea books left to go. Perhaps I’ve had enough, already? Certainly not. I shall definitely be looking forward to reading Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind in the not too distant future ... and who knows, with Christmas fast approaching, maybe Santa, or someone else perhaps, might well be reading this blog post?


And now on to other matters:
PicturePrint versions of psychological thriller 'Roadrage' and horror/thriller 'Niedermayer & Hart'
Over the past ten days I’ve happily been required to fulfil an increasing number of orders for hard copy versions of both my books. Perhaps people are ordering them as gifts for Christmas for their ‘rellies’ or chums? The books are trade paperback (airport) sized, and were beautifully produced to a high standard by the sadly no longer trading print firm of MPG Biddles. A librarian friend claims the books have remained in good physical condition even after multiple loans - so, both good-looking and durable, definitely a winning combination! Anyway, my personal thanks to those of you buying print versions of the books. I do of course appreciate that they are considerably more expensive, but they do make for lovely reading and they look great on a shelf too! If anyone ever wants a copy signed, I’m always happy to oblige, simply get in touch through the contact form on this site.

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Finally, starting today, Kindle copies of my psychological thriller Roadrage are on a countdown deal. Once again, the best price comes at the beginning as it rises incrementally until returning to its normal retail price. I hope as many thriller readers as possible take advantage of this offer. Please take a peek at what people have said about Roadrage on the reviews page of this website, and if your appetite has been whetted - here’s the link to follow Amazon UK


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Nightmare Builders!

5/11/2014

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It has been a strange hectic few months since our summer holiday in Ruhpolding, Bavaria in early August. Upon our return, I’d arranged for some necessary and fairly extensive building works to get underway. I’d considered what needed doing carefully and gone about things cautiously, or so I thought, and had received about half a dozen different estimates for the work. The job mostly required the repointing of brickwork that was in poor condition and had been hidden beneath masonry paint. I didn’t have any immediate contacts when it came to bricklayers, so I used an online directory provider who claim that they thoroughly vet the tradespeople on their website, and that the reviews for them posted by scores of satisfied customers are most definitely to be trusted, enabling you as a prospective customer to feel confident and sleep easy in your bed. A note of warning ... beware! 

What I didn’t realise, and probably most prospective customers don’t either, is that these companies charge the tradesperson a nice fat fee to to use their service. A reputable builder explained that even impressive acronyms for what might seem to us novices as representing solid-as-rock trade organisations, are often meaningless - “Just an opportunity to hike-up the price,” he suggested, and went on to say, “The only way to be sure of a good builder is either to see their work, or, through the recommendation of someone you completely trust”. I entirely agree. These customer-review sites are simply opportunities for tradespeople to advertise their skills and should definitely be seen as such; undoubtedly there are some good people on these sites, but they are easily open to abuse; the danger lies in the perception (which they have a vested interest in promoting) that customers are dealing with an authoritative voice that can be unequivocally trusted ... again, I say, beware! 

After I’d sacked the builders I’d taken on via this well-known website, I rang to make a formal complaint. The girl on the phone was warm and expressed dismay that we had had a bad experience with one of their tradesmen. She said she’d put me through to their ‘Complaints Department’, pointing out that there may be no-one in that office at this time, but reassured me that if I left my name and telephone number someone would be sure get back to me promptly. Ten days later I’d heard nothing and rang again. I was about to be put through to their complaints department once more until I mentioned this was the second time I’d called. I got the distinct impression that most people give up before they make the second call. The apologetic chap I spoke to suggested, as I hadn’t been given an invoice number by the tradesman, that I leave my feedback on their website, which they would understandably, for the sake of fairness (presumably because I might be an unrealistically demanding or even vindictive customer) allow the tradesman an opportunity to comment on and offer his explanation, or perhaps he might be able to put the work right ... after twenty-one days if the matter wasn’t resolved and the tradesman couldn’t justify himself, my comments would be posted on their site. I suggested their organisation, to ensure fairness, might like to send someone over to examine for themselves the builders’ thoroughly dreadful work ... witness for themselves the mortar they’d thinly smeared over paintwork to make it look like they had ground-out and repaired a joint, or see their wafer thin pointing that would no doubt ‘ping-out’ at the first frost. He gently explained that they were not able to make site visits at that time (whatever that meant!). 

It’s quite a big thing to get rid of your builders once works are underway, because by this time you generally have quite a lot invested already in what they’re doing. At first you try to convince yourselves that maybe they just got off to a bad start ... maybe next week their time-keeping and perhaps even their work might improve ... in your heart you already know you’re deluding yourselves ... the sleepless nights have already started! There were four of them and I don’t think I ever saw one of them before 9 am ... some days I didn’t see them at all ... the last straw was when only one of them rolled up for work in the second week at about 11am, broke for an hour’s lunch at 12.30pm, then condescended to do an hour more in the afternoon before packing up for the day. Their on site presence was as rare as a hen’s teeth (as someone who works from home, I took to jotting down their hours) ... four guys over two weeks totalling 72 hours present on site (I suspect time actually working was far less) isn’t going to win any gold medals for diligence and hard work. The moment arrived when they just had to go! And once I’d bitten the bullet it immediately felt better - no work is better than rotten work that is going to require a good deal of putting right. 

However, there were inevitably consequences to bear: I’d agreed to what I’d considered to be a reasonable payment at the end of each week’s work, so we were taken for some money - but in the great scheme of things and against the overall cost of the job, we didn’t suffer too badly. There’s certainly no way of getting any money back, they’re the sort of guys who if you took them to the small claims court, it would not only end up costing you more money, they’d probably claim to having no money at all and would probably be allowed to pay you back at £1 a week. I’d suggest that if a builder requests any interim payments, that you discuss this thoroughly with them before agreeing to it and make any agreed payments a week in lieu. Hindsight is a great thing! 

Once the builders were finally gone we then encountered a couple of weeks of disturbed if not entirely sleepless nights - our home was now surrounded by a large scaffold, costing us money as it lay idle. There has been something of a building boom in the south-east of England this year; the number of other houses in the surrounding streets that bear their own scaffolds confirms this. For over two weeks every reputable builder I approached who came recommended to me turned out to be busy. The situation seemed impossible ... I was comforted by a story I knew from Eastern wisdom about the transience of all things ... “This too will pass” I assured myself many times. And to ease my frustration and to save my nails from being bitten down to the quick, I launched myself at the house’s gable end (not literally!), and my son lent a hand too - I don’t possess the skill to dismantle and rebuild a chimney, but I could certainly grind out and repoint brickwork that would ultimately be painted again. I persisted in looking for new builders and eventually some of the good guys in white Stetsons turned up and took on the more skilled work. We are very grateful to them.


PictureUp to 81% discount on Kindle from 8 November!
And that’s what happened, and why this has been the longest blog-holiday this website has ever taken! I’ve still got a few bits and bobs inside and out to finish off, so I can’t get down to my daily writing schedule again just yet; but I’m no longer solely thinking and dreaming about bricks and mortar - the house is looking great and the end is definitely in sight! I’ve actually started thinking about my books and their marketing again, and recently set up what I hope will prove to be some attractive opportunities to get Kindle copies of both my books at highly discounted prices on Amazon.com and Amazon.uk. The offers will start on Saturday 8 November and go on until Thursday 4 December. Both the books will be available at different times and the price they’ll be available at will vary - I’ll simply say this, remember, it’s the early bird that catches the worm!


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Old Chums and Great Passions

1/6/2014

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PictureA Midsummer Night's Dream (Nov 1970) - Ogmore-by-the-Sea
The wife’s gone off to London for the day (Saturday). She just rang - she’s having a coffee with Bob Mason , an old chum of mine from my teenage years in Wales (see photo left of the Glamorgan Schools' Theatre Company production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream - Bob played Bottom and is photographed with donkey ears, end of third row on right - that’s me seated on end of second row left). We met up again in London about a decade later, around the time my son was born; my wife got to know him then too. Unbeknown to either of us, we’d both trained as actors at different schools in London. We saw a lot of him for a while and then he disappeared from our lives again until about three years back - he tracked me down through my website. He rang yesterday to say he was on a flying visit from Sweden and were we around to meet up? I wasn’t able to get up to London myself today as I had a pre-arranged appointment this afternoon with someone who is going to be doing some work for us. Judith however was actually visiting London today to see her lifelong hero Julie Andrews, who’s appearing on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo.  Sadly, she no longer sings of course, but I think she tells anecdotes and is interviewed by Aled Jones. What’s for certain is that Judith will love it! And when I imagine the audience of two thousand odd adoring fans and think of my wife’s rapturous expression surrounded by all those like minded ‘brothers and sisters’, without being in any way snide, somehow I can’t help smiling.

We should all have at least one thing in this life that we really adore!

Judith and I consider ourselves extremely blessed because we’re enthusiastic about literally dozens of things. Reading is of course a shared lifelong passion. I’m currently reading Jane Eyre, which I’m almost ashamed to say I’d never picked up before, although I have seen numerous adaptations. When I was a boy the BBC took its remit to educate its audience very seriously, and every Sunday afternoon we were introduced to the Classics through various serialisations - I suspect Jane Eyre was first experienced in this way. I know the characters and story in the book very well, so unfortunately there are no great surprises as there might have been, however it is still a great book and remains after more than a hundred and fifty years a total page-turner.

On the subject of books: I am really pleased that lots of people have taken advantage of the ‘Pre-Summer Madness’ low-price promo for Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords (if reading on my website, full details in the column to the right of this blog post). I plan to allow this offer (especially as it’s not officially summer yet!) to run for a little while longer before putting the price up again. Thanks very much to everyone who has posted a review - this is an invaluable promotional tool and always greatly appreciated.

Enjoy your week!


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That Was The Week That Was

16/5/2014

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PictureOur new pond
My normal day for the last few years has been centred around my PC. It’s therefore quite strange, but nonetheless enjoyable, for me to rise each morning and don workclothes rather than the track-suit bottoms and t-shirt which has become my customary writer’s garb. It’s entirely a question of comfort. How did all those writers past manage with all that starch and corsetry they had to contend with, not to mention having to write the whole flippin’ book in longhand? Actually, I wrote the very first draft of Niedermayer & Hart in longhand. I didn’t own a computer at that time, or a typewriter for that matter, in fact, I’d never so much as even typed a letter of complaint to the CEO of a coffee chain on some matter of great national importance like the milk temperature of my daily latte. Times change! But can’t help wondering whether Dickens or Victor Hugo might not have managed to keep going a bit longer and even coughed-up a few more books if they’d been allowed to write on a laptop in a nice loosely-fitting floral shirt, a pair of baggy shorts and some sandals. Goodness only knows what Jane Austen might have achieved wearing a kaftan!

Talking of being strangely dressed, the Eurovision Song Contest, which the wife loves to watch annually (sigh), was won by a bearded lady for Austria! Actually, the bearded lady was a drag artist called Conchita Wurst (stage-name of course!) who said in the interview that I watched on Facebook that he’d invented the persona to promote more tolerance of people who are different. I must say the effect was quite shocking at first, however, he/she really could sing, the song itself was powerful (although in all honesty I can’t remember anything about it a week on!) and it was well delivered - he/she deserved the success.

I suffered some anxiety a few days back when my garden pond, which I had recently dug out and filled, turned into an unappetising pea-soup from the rapid invasion of algae. Fortunately my gardening guru tells me this is just minerals in the water and it will clear. Hope he’s right. Actually, seem to recall the same thing happened to the last pond I had about twenty years back, and that turned out okay! So, fingers crossed.

Most of the week I’ve been working down in our cellar. I plan to screed the floor and make the walls (a little bit) more waterproof. Judith asked me a few days back whether I, being the author of Niedermayer & Hart, didn’t feel somewhat unnerved working for several hours each day in a cellar on my own? I suppose you’d need to know the relationship between Niedermayer & Hart and cellars to understand the meaning behind her question. Actually, N & H managed to pick up this rather excellent review on Amazon.com about a week ago and my tail hasn’t stopped wagging since. If interested in a ripping yarn with horror/thriller elements, please take a look - definitely a lot more fun than working in my cellar!

And that was the week that was - well, sort of!

Stop Press: in an act of pre-Summer madness, I have recklessly slashed the price of both my books on Kindle. You can now buy Niedermayer & Hart (and find out exactly why my wife may be concerned for my sanity after spending prolonged periods down in our cellar!) and psychological/thriller Roadrage (no horror but definitely scary) for just £0.99 each from Amazon UK.

US and worldwide readers haven’t been left out on a great deal either. They can now purchase Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage at the very low Summer price of $1.99 each over at Amazon.com. This US pricing applies to all other countries worldwide.

If you do take advantage of this offer and read either of my books, I am, as always, delighted to receive any feedback!


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And the Winner is ...

13/3/2014

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PictureTwo new garden varieties
It’s rare that I don’t feel genuinely excited about writing and posting my weekly blog. I don’t see it as a chore at all. It has become something that I just do - a bit like brushing my teeth! Last week I was happy to announce my hundredth (blog post) birthday, and although I felt that I ought to definitely mark it in some way, it was with a certain hesitancy that I held a competition/giveaway. I’ve laboured to create interesting competitions before for local magazines etc, and the response has sometimes been about as dynamic as a middle-aged bald guy with a comb-over who acts like he’s a babe-magnet. Not hugely successful in other words! (unless of course you’re Christian Bale in American Hustle!)

I am pleased to tell you all however, that my ‘Hundredth Birthday Compo’ really was not only a lot of fun to do, but also received a terrific response, locally, nationally and internationally. It also received, by quite a wide margin, the most hits of any piece I’ve ever posted on this blog. Thanks very much to every single one of you for taking part! I’ll even forgive the handful of people who ignored my specific instructions and entered the compo by adding a comment to the blog itself without following the right and proper procedure! Tut! Tut! Tut!

N & H proved slightly more popular in terms of requests for a signed copy - but only just, and some folk who have read both books on their Kindles chose Roadrage or either. And the response was overall so excellent that I’ve decided to improve the conditions for winning and I’m therefore going to have two draws, one solely for the UK, the other for everyone who entered from overseas. Each draw will now give away a signed copy of each book - i.e. four books rather than the two I promised. So extra chances!

I’m really sorry that not all of you can be winners - but I guess that’s what makes it fun to enter competitions.

And for all you N & H lovers out there - incidentally, I’m always delighted to hear from you -I thought perhaps it was time I ‘fessed-up, as I reach the final few thousand words of a first draft - that I’ve actually been working on its sequel. So cast your mind back and remember where it left off, all those little loose ends after they’d left Hungary and ...

But don’t hold your breath, it’ll be many months yet before it’s complete!

The competition is now officially closed. I’ll let the winners know who they are very shortly.

Once again, my sincere thanks to all of you!


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Someone Called Round for a Book

27/2/2014

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This morning someone called round for a book, not one of mine I hasten to add. Generally when people call by to make a purchase it’s almost invariably someone local who has come round for a copy of my wife’s book Southborough War Memorial. It was the first book we brought out under our Odd Dog Press trading name in 2009. Actually, at that moment in time, although I’d already written Niedermayer & Hart, Southborough War Memorial seemed like the only book we’d ever be likely to do. I know digital printing and e-books were already around, but they weren’t well established, and it didn’t seem at all practical or even possible back then to bring out a work of fiction without losing a stack of money and ending up with a vast number of yellowing copies of your book stacked-up under the bed!

Judith spent seven years meticulously researching and writing Southborough War Memorial. She abhors every sort of war and violence, yet she had always felt deeply moved by the personal histories of the ordinary men and women (one woman on Southborough War Memorial) who suddenly discover themselves caught up by world events and carried off to a hitherto undreamed of world where killing is organised and systematic, and human suffering and cruelty is on an unimaginable scale. Yet for all the filth and hate and degradation, there is often immense courage, kindness, and powerful demonstrations of selflessness and generosity of the human spirit. Judith took up the task in 2001, suddenly realising that the last living connection to those who had fought and died in Gallipoli, Ypres, the Somme, and many other battlefields in foreign lands were themselves fading fast; she began interviewing in earnest. In fact, by the time the book was published quite a number of  the most elderly of these ‘interviewees’ had sadly passed away. She has often spoken of the eagerness of these people to relate family stories of an older brother, father or adored cousin. As the interviews concluded many of them thanked her for what she was aiming to do. When someone has a relative who has died in a war, that loss never seems to be fully mourned, the grief is never completely come to terms with - least that’s how it seems to me.

Judith planned to do her best to find a photograph and if possible something of the life and death of the two hundred and fifty-two names on our local war memorial. In most cases she succeeded, sometimes the result was beyond reasonable expectation, however, sadly, a few names beat her completely. The book is 254 pages long and its comprehensive indexes list each person by regiment and where they were laid to rest. I saw her break down in tears after setting the whole book and realising she had scanned every image (about 250) at the wrong resolution. For an hour or two I think she actually said she was giving up! It was probably Judith’s determination to finish this massive project, all done in her spare time (as I said, over seven years) whilst holding down a full time job, which in turn encouraged me to pick up my own pen again. I had been utterly discouraged and disheartened by the world of publishing after they’d initially shown so much interest in N & H - but the only thing I got in the end was a couple of free lunches and a lot of hot air and promises! A bit like Scarlett O’Hara I vowed I’d never put myself in such a vulnerable position again - well a little bit like that!

Anyway back to the morning’s book sale. I’d spoken to a bookshop owner yesterday who was ringing to order some books, and he asked if we’d mind someone calling by to get a copy of SWM as they were returning home to Wales. The lady, although originally from Kent, had lived in South Wales for the past twenty years, which of course prompted a nice little chat about home. She said she already owned the Kindle version of SWM which she liked very much but I could tell that she was very pleased to be holding the print version in her hand - book lovers are so transparent! She was also related to one of the names on the memorial - hence her very keen interest in Judith’s book. She asked me what I did and I told her that I wrote stuff too. She went on to ask if she might find my writings on a shelf somewhere and I said there were copies on the shelf directly behind her head.

I pictured another cash sale as she leafed through N & H and Roadrage. She looked very interested. I tried to look nonchalant.

She said she’d check them out on line!

Heigh ho!


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Do They Mean Me?

4/12/2013

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There's a moment in one of my all-time favourite comedies Young Frankenstein, when Friedrich Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is locked in a room alone with the monster he fully believes to be a vicious brute. He naturally fears for his life and all he can think on the spur of the moment to say is, "Hey there, good looking!"

The monster (Peter Boyle), with a forehead like the landing strip on an aircraft carrier and not exactly much of a 'looker', is completely thrown by the remark and looks over his own shoulder to see if someone else is standing behind him, who the good Doctor is talking to.

Sometimes being a writer feels just a little bit like this for me. It still surprises (but mostly just fills me with delight!) when folk I don't actually know, who I haven't had to bribe, blackmail, or pay large sums of money to, tell me how much they actually like one or other (or both) of my books.

Do they actually, honestly, really mean me?

Back at the end of August, Simone, writing a review on behalf of The Orchard Book Club, a group of self-confessed book adorers, left a review on the Goodreads site entitled I absolutely loved, loved loved this book! for Niedermayer & Hart. Simone had read the book on her Kindle. A couple of weeks back, Simone's friends ordered a copy of N & H from my website for her birthday and asked me to write a message in it for her - something that I was of course more than happy to do!

This afternoon, after completing my writing for the day, I checked (as I do every day) my emails, website, facebook page, tweets etc. Simone had sent me a tweet to say thanks for writing in her book, and another to say how much she couldn't stop stroking its lovely cover! See, I said the Orchard Book Club are a group of totally unabashed book adorers!

Anyway, this blog wishes Simone a very happy birthday and many, many, happy returns of the day!

And finally, I'd just like to say how grateful I am to all you avid readers out there who have taken the time and trouble to sit down and say what it is about either of my books they like. It not only means a very great deal to me personally, but good reviews always encourage renewed interest which in turn (hopefully) improves sales. If it weren't for people like you, my books, without the weight of a publishing house and publicity machine behind them, would have reached a tiny audience of mostly friends and family and by now would almost certainly have pretty much sunk without a trace.

If you haven't seen this short clay figure animation, made by my son Tom Johnson to help to launch Niedermayer & Hart ever before - then you're in for a little treat. Enjoy!


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Paper - Still Fine By Me!

27/11/2013

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PictureMmm ... which inspires the least interest?
Before I start, let me just say how personally grateful I am for e-books. This method of publishing has enabled me to reach a far wider audience than would otherwise have been possible. However, I'd be very sad if they meant the end of print. I think it should be very much hoped for that traditional publishing and e-books form a happy alliance.

I don't personally own a Kindle or any other kind of e-book reader. My wife does, and although she only occasionally reads a book on it, finds the experience pleasant. I sometimes read a book on my PC - this isn't entirely convenient, because it maroons me at my workstation, but it's useful occasionally. The obvious drawback of e-readers from my writer's perspective is the missed opportunity for promotion. The print version of a book is like a walking advertisement. Imagine getting into your morning commuter train: you've just finished your book on Kindle and can't think which if any of the 3791 free downloads on the machine you'd like to start next? You look around and notice half a dozen (deeply engrossed naturally!) individuals reading the print version of a book called Niedermayer & Hart. You note the name of the author, one you don't know, and then you notice another half a dozen people in your carriage are reading another M J Johnson title called Roadrage. You do a search, take advantage of the cheaper price on Kindle and download it immediately ... oops ... floated away for a moment there along the river of fame and fortune on the sweet raft of unbounded literary success ... tapocketa ... tapocketa ... tapocketa ...

Seriously though, if print ceased to exist, this long established, simple but effective form of marketing would disappear. It also strikes me that to lose printed books and the interest they generate will only help to make us more insular - which to my mind can't be a good thing - we already spend far too much time locked away in our own little worlds, glued to one screen or another. What I particularly like about print books is a willingness to declare to the world what's being read. You'd undoubtedly be viewed with some suspicion if you got on the morning bus or tube train and took out a book in a brown, plain paper cover. I suppose for some people e-readers make 'naughty stuff' possible, I understand that erotic literature is a rapidly expanding market (no intentional double entendre!).

On holiday last summer I struck up a conversation with an Englishwoman I saw sitting in our hotel's delightful garden. I observed she was reading a thriller by a well known author I'd personally never read. Christine had picked it up for 50p in a charity shop the day they left home and passed it on to me once she'd finished it - another thing you can't do with an e-reader! She and her husband Brian, a lovely couple and both dedicated walkers, were from Yorkshire. We talked books with them on several occasions. If you're a reader, just consider the number of ice-breaking conversations you've had in your lifetime that were initiated by books. I told Brian that I'd been given some of the William Brown books by Richmal Crompton for my birthday this year, and remarked on how much I'd loved them as a youngster.

"I can't really say I was all that fussed about the William books when I were a lad," said Brian.

"Really?" I asked, possibly displaying some incredulity without meaning to appear rude. "What did you used to read as a boy, then?" I asked.

Brian, a twinkle in his eye, stuck out his chest with manful pride and proclaimed,"Captain W E Johns!"

"Biggles!" I said, "Now you're talking!"

We went on to talk 'Biggles'. I think our wives may have fallen asleep at this point.

Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage by M J Johnson are available in print and e-book versions:- Click here to buy a print version directly from this site
For e-books etc. see list to right of page



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