I’m Sitting On A Gem, With No Clue What To Do With It…

I finished the first draft of my sixth book around half a year ago. It’s not the finished article yet by any means but even with the impossibly high standards I usually set myself I know that I’ve got something special here…

The title alone would make people curious enough to want to read it, but on top of that everyone I have given this to has said that this is by far my best work, and I try and only let people who aren’t afraid to say it how it is read my books instead of people who will only tell me what I want to hear.

All my other books are good, they are easy reads that make people want to come back for more, but I didn’t have a clue how to get them to actual publishers. Also back then I didn’t have the belief that anyone would want to publish my books because of how little self confidence I had in myself. That’s why I self published them and tried to get them out to the masses myself.

This one is different though; Now I’ve done it a few times and received positive feedback from people I was expecting to rip it to pieces my confidence has soared and I know the potential of my latest book. I haven’t posted anything specifically about the book since i have heard stories about publishers not wanting to touch books once they have been on blogs, because they have been ‘already published’ so to speak…

I would assume I need an agent, since I know very little about how to get the book seen by publishers. My main worry is that if I give it to someone they can cross my name out, write theirs in and legally make it theirs. Or worse still, tweak it a bit and say that they came up with a better one.

Like I said; I’m my own biggest critic but I know this book will sell in the right hands. Whichever publisher (and/or agent) who is willing to take a punt on it will make some serious money if it is marketed the right way. However I’m stuck in no mans land since I don’t know the law, and worried that some leech is going to steal my work and claim it for themselves.

A Pretty Cool Book Review

For Christmas I gave my brother-in-law’s mum my book to read. She smiled and said she couldn’t wait to read it. I celebrated this by dancing like Luigi on Britain’s Got Talent…

A few days later she came over and told me that she’d given her book to her mum to read.

Let me tell you about her mum: she is an lady in her 80’s would speaks very eloquently and I assume is very well educated. Needless to say I didn’t expect to be allowed back into her home ever again after she read the sex scene and the extremely graphic drug references.

“Please tell me you are joking!” I asked her hoping that she was winding me up.

“No, I think she’ll like it!” She replied.

“She won’t…” My brother in law replied laughing.

A few days later Tricia (my brother-in-law’s mum) came back and told me that her mum liked it. Tricia has a heart of gold so I took this with a pinch of salt, thinking that she only said that to try and make me feel good.

Then a few days ago I was in the car with my sister and she told me she went over to Tricia’s mum’s house and that she had actually read the book. Well, part of it anyway…

“Normally I can tell within a few pages whether a book is going to be good or not. And I think your brother is a very good writer!” She said. “But once I got to the sex scene I couldn’t read any more. Did he have to be so graphic? It does flow really well though. I really liked it up until that point.”

Quite honestly, I’m chuffed to pieces with that. Someone who has zero connection with me who would be the last person I would aim the book at said she liked it (until the sex scene anyway) and she definitely is the kind of person to say if she wasn’t impressed. For me that suggests that the average person would find this a page turner. This might be my wake up call to try and contact a large publishing firm instead of self publishing, as they can reach a far larger audience than me. I’ve got the product. I just need to get it out there to the masses…

I Planned On Doing Two Important Things On Tuesday And Ended Up Doing Fuck All…

I guess this is the point when you come up with bullshit excuses isn’t it…

No honestly! The plan was to stop being a little bitch and get my life back on track again. I’ve had more than enough time to mope, so Tuesday was the the day to sort my life out.

So what were these two things that were going to distract you from having a mental breakdown?

Well the first one was to get my passport sorted so I had something to work towards, and secondly I wanted to get started on my eighth book. My stepdad spent days trying to get my laptop up and running (including installing a new hard drive which set me back £50) so I thought it would be fun to get back into the book writing side of things again.

I can’t wait to hear what bollocks you are going to come up with…no, you know what; think about it. I’m dying to hear the bullshit that’s about to come out of your mouth…ready? Aaand…GO!

The passport form went MIA. I had two, and I couldn’t find them anywhere.

Ha ha ha! THAT’S the best you could come up with? I even gave you time to think about it as well. You fucking loser!

I found them the next day though, so I sorted that out all apart from a counter signature to prove that I am Sir Lewis of Clarke. Other than that I’m ready to go.

And what about the book you slyly forgot to mention?

I couldn’t get Microsoft Word for some reason. I tried and the computer kept sending me in circles and I quit after 30 minutes. I’m not very computer literate at the best of times so I’m not surprised I had yet another hiccup with this laptop.

Now you are going to tell me you sorted it out the next day, started a new book and are not a complete fucking waste of space. Am I right?

Erm…not quite. I turned on my laptop the next day and it wouldn’t start up at all. After 25 minutes a menu popped up that looked like one of those school computers in the 70’s (complete with pressing letters on the keyboard for options) and it wouldn’t let me do anything. I have had nothing but problems with this thing and to be honest would love to get a sledgehammer and smash the thing up. The problems I had was why I stopped writing my seventh book while I was travelling.

Arr…poor you and your shitty excuses as to why you have failed at life…

I am itching to go believe it or not; I have been obsessing over a plot for a couple of days (including going for walks and runs to let my mind wander and vaguely plan scenes and plot twists) I just can’t jot them down. Most likely though I’ll throw this laptop out a second floor window and buy a new one. At least I’m nearly done with the passport form. Once that’s in motion I can leave the country and not feel dependant on my family, which in truth is the worst thing about what’s happened to me over the last few months.

Goal Of The Season!

My 6 year old nephew walked in as I was playing career mode on Fifa and asked if he could join in. I said yes since as long as I scored one goal (and didn’t concede any) we would have won and it wouldn’t mess up my save.

Turns out that playing two player on the same team is a lot harder than it looks, especially when one of the players is a child with very little interest in football. 60 minutes into the game it was 2-2 and I was starting to regret not saving my game before starting this match. Then my nephew picked up the ball from inside his own half and began to casually jog towards the goal. I rolled my eyes and pretended not to be frustrated as he was wasting valuable time to get a winning goal, soon he was running towards the corner flag.

Then he dodged a challenge and ran towards the box whilst 1 yard away from the goal line.

“Cross it!’ I shouted, more in hope than expectation. My nephew wasn’t dererred though, and from the tightest of angles he spanked the ball past the keeper into the goal whilst still outside the box. I stared in disbelief as he looked so calmly at the screen saying “I scored”

“…What a goal!” I finally stutted, and paused the game so I could show his dad the amazing goal he’d just scored.

“Mate, you’ve got to see this goal he’s just scored!” I said proudly. He couldn’t believe it either and said he was expecting my nephew to cross the ball as it was such a near impossible angle…

We went on to win the game 5-2, scoring another goal each to add some gloss on the scoreline. Uncle-nephew bonding at its finest! He can play Fifa with me whenever he likes if he continues to score corkers like that!