A SUPERNATURAL ELEMENT

THE CIRCUS, THE LIVERPOOL BLITZ AND A TRAGIC GHOST

This year the circus is celebrating its 250th anniversary, which inspired me to write my latest novel, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY.

The story is written for children (10 years upwards) but is also interesting for adults. It has a supernatural element, bringing together my own 19th century ancestor, 'Una The Human Fly', a circus star tragically killed while performing at the age of 16, and Jamie, a fictional descendant of his. It begins in Britain during WW2 with Jamie losing both parents in the Liverpool blitz and follows his subsequent life, much of it difficult, and his burning desire to learn how to fly on a trapeze.

A mix of story telling, circus lore and historical detail, parts of the book are autobiographical. I was born and brought up in Liverpool, and it's the setting for one of my adult books too (ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS). From the mid-19th century my family were circus and theatre performers - acrobats, gymnasts, dancers, singers and musicians

THE BOY WHO COULD FLY is my twelfth book, available in both paperback and Kindle from Amazon.

A BOOK FOR THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CIRCUS

TWO TRAPEZE ARTISTS, LINKED BY BLOOD, LINKED BY THE CIRCUS, DIVIDED BY HALF A CENTURY

THE BOY WHO COULD FLY

There have been three 'final drafts' but it's finished at last. Now comes the wait while it's edited, proof-read and the cover is completed.
In the meantime, here are the first few paragraphs as a taster:
Just before midnight on the 4th of December 1941 a bomb fell on Number 23 Deremont Street,
It killed Jamie Bird's Mum and Dad instantly and it buried Jamie beneath tons of rubble.
Five minutes earlier when the air raid siren began its warning wail his Mum had rushed to the kitchen to cut sandwiches, fill a flask with hot cocoa and turn off the gas. His Dad had rushed upstairs to collect thick jumpers and scarves to keep them warm in the street shelter.
They had told Jamie to wait inside the family's Morrison shelter in the dining room, which was supposed to be safe. But it didn't feel safe. The thunder of bricks, the screech of metal, the groaning of timbers, the hiss of water escaping from fractured pipes terrified him.
'Mum! Dad!' he cried. Where were they?
He called again and again but brick dust had clogged his throat and he didn't think anyone could hear him.

TAKE THREE OLDIES

WHO'S DESCRIBING THE CHARACTERS IN YOUR BOOK?

The way an author describes a character can depends very much on the viewpoint character. A child, a younger adult, a contemporary, each will see/hear/note different aspects. Here are three examples.

TOMMY, AGED 5, MEETING HIS GRANDFATHER FOR THE FIRST TIME:

He thought Grampa looked interesting. He looked like a nice apple, small and round and rosy, and his hair was white and wispy. The top of his head shone through like pink china. His eyebrows were very thick and bushy and when he saw Tommy watching him, he wriggled them like caterpillars. For a moment he looked quite fierce but then he held out his arms and smiled. THE FAMILY ON PINEAPPLE ISLAND)

THIRTY-ISH MANAGER OF A RETIREMENT HOME, DESCRIBING ONE OF THE RESIDENTS:

Art is Patrick's thing. In his room he paints exquisite miniature watercolours of miniature birds - wrens, robins, blue tits. You'd never suspect it to look at him, such a large man, over six feet tall and heavily built. A plain man with a florid boozy complexion and coarse red hair now faded to the colour of stale cornflakes. It's always struck me as odd that he should choose to paint such tiny pictures. (ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS)

Sometimes a mix of dialogue and action work well.

ELEVEN YEAR OLD DANNY AND HIS MOTHER'S SEVENTY-ISH CLEANER:

Up on the first floor I can hear Mrs Maggs, our cleaner, thumping her broom against skirting boards, bellowing out 'Land of Hope and Glory'. Nobody tells her to be quiet, even though it's only half past eight in the morning. I think they're all afraid of her. She appears at the top of the stairs with a cardboard box full of cleaning cloths and brushes. She is wearing fuzzy pink slippers with holes cut out for her bunions.

'What you doin' there?' she asks me.

'Waiting for my Uncle Frank.'

'Hmmph!' She shuffles down, muttering something about persons who have nothing better to do than sit on the stairs getting in other persons' ways and swipes a damp smelly cloth across my face as she passes.

She pulls a duster from her overall pocket and glares at the life sized statue of Mercury beside the front door.

'Some persons,' she grumbles, 'don't know they're born! Some persons just don't know when they're well off, living in one of the best mansions in Bristol, full of statues and stained glass, instead of a Council flat in St Pauls with compensation running down the walls. It's all right for some,' she grumbles, 'but what about them that has to work? Eh?' (THERE'S A LION IN MY BED!)

SWEARING AS THERAPY?

F--K, S--T AND MORE

I'm not a prude. Like everyone else I'm familiar with all the vocabulary and use it, especially when I drop something on my toe or the lights fuse. And as a writer, I'm happy to allow my characters to let fly wherever required.

But I was a bit bemused when browsing through Amazon's books recently and hit on those therapy colouring books for adults. Amongst them were three based on swear words, including of course F--K. S--T, etc, etc.

Is this a new branch of therapy? I have this picture of all sorts of people, tongue between teeth and hidden away in their homes, busily colouring away for hour after hour. What are they thinking? I'd love to know. 

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR BOOK COVER

RIGHT TITLE, RIGHT COVER

As a writer (11 books so far, all self-published) I'm hardworking and I put a huge amount of my time into planning, outlining, writing and rewriting my novels, but as a self-promoter I'm lazy. Really lazy. I have Facebook, Twitter, Link accounts and I have a blog. With each book I finish I promise myself that this time I'll pull out all the stops to publicise it, but most of the time I just can't be bothered. All I want to do is write.

Which is why it's so important to have the best cover and the best title you (or someone else) can design, so that your book may get noticed in other ways.

There are others who, like me, are attracted to obscure titles and intriguing cover designs that don't actually tell you anything, but I think we're in the minority and perhaps it's better to say on the tin exactly what it does inside.

My most successful book has been THE MYSTERY OF CRAVEN MANOR (for children 9-14) which has sold nearly 9000 copies since Autumn 2015. I have two other books for the same age range but they don't sell nearly as well.

I think CRAVEN MANOR is a good adventure story (well, I would, wouldn't I?) but I think the main reason for its success is that it's very clear just what it is. The title is self-explanatory, the house I've pictured is spooky, it's dark, with just a few windows lit up, and even the font I chose for the title (AR CARTER)  which has little white spots scattered around it, adding to the atmospheric night sky) adds to the effect.

If you self-publish like me, you have the choice of hiring a designer for your cover or designing it yourself (I taught myself to use PAINT.NET which is a free graphics programme), but whichever method you decide on, ask yourself whether your cover is saying what it does in the tin.

MORE ABOUT CHARACTERS

MAKE READERS CARE ABOUT YOUR CHARACTERS

The book I believe is my best writing has a large cast of characters, ranging from baby Daisy, who looks like Harry Hill without the spectacles, to the various old people who inhabit Sundowners Retirement Home. Plot is important but if readers don't relate to the characters and care what happens to them, why bother? Here are three from ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS: Charlie, my main character, a 30-something 'ugly duckling' who inherits a fortune and buys a retirement home, and two of the residents, Jenny and Freddie.

Here's Charlie herself: We went to Alma da Cuba, an amazing place, converted from a church. It has this incredible lighting, the alter glowing scarlet and blue, lights everywhere like huge candles, and a mezzanine restaurant above the bar and dance floor. It was gobsmackingly beautiful and I was as gobsmacked as anyone else, until I'd stood around for an hour or more, pretending to admire the architecture, snapping my fingers to the music, making fake calls on my phone. Playing wallflower. After that I escaped to the restaurant and ordered something laced with chillies. I blamed the chillies for my tears, but that was just an excuse I made to the waiter.

Jenny: "I'm such a silly idiot. Scared of my own shadow, my husband used to say. But - I can't help it, I can't - "

I knew Jenny's story. Abused for years by a lout of a husband, who'd recognised from the start a woman he could dominate completely. Jenny must have been a beauty in her youth, even now there's still the shadow of that beauty. But she also bears the marks of that violent relationship. Old breaks. Scars. A malformed cheekbone. There were no children. She had become pregnant once and her husband had punched it out of her. The only good thing he'd ever done was to leave her a reasonable fortune when he died, so that she could find a haven for her remaining years.

And finally Freddie: Freddie was a bank manager in the days when bank managers were always available and happy to be of assistance. He wore sober suits, crisp white shirts and his old school tie, and only his closest associates knew that he was a cross dresser. Even his wife had been unaware until the morning she found him posing before her dressing table in an eau de nil silk Teddy and a pair of her best ten denier tights, at which point she had selected a solicitor from Yellow Pages and commenced divorce proceedings.

Believe it or not, there's a happy ending for two of these three characters. The third - well, I had to have some tragedy, otherwise I might be writing for Mills & Boon!

ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS is one of my books available on Amazon, and I will be donating all my royalties from October, November and December sales to our local hospital's Radiotherapy Unit Appeal and my local church's repair fund.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES

SLAM-BANG BEGINNINGS!

An incredible avalanche of books are submitted for the annual Man Booker Prize. How do the judges manage to read them all?

One judge is said to read only the first eight lines of each novel and if they don't grab her she moves on to the next.

Anyway, that made me reconsider the opening sentences of my work in progress, which is about a boy who runs away to the circus so that he can learn to fly. I  moved a few sentences around, cut out others, and ended up with this:

Just before midnight on the 8th December 1941 a bomb fell on Number 23 Deremont Street.

It killed Jamie Bird's Mum and Dad instantly, and it buried Jamie beneath tons of rubble.

Five minutes earlier when the air raid siren began its warning wail his Mum had rushed to the kitchen to cut sandwiches and fill a flask with hot cocoa, and his Dad had rushed upstairs to collect thick jumpers and scarves to keep them warm in the street shelter.

They had told Jamie to wait inside the family's Morrison shelter in the dining room, which was supposed to be safe. But it didn't feel safe. The thunder of bricks, the screech of metal, the groaning of timbers, the hiss of water escaping from fractured pipes terrified him.

'Mum! Dad!' he cried.

Where were they?


Ten minutes' work but I think it 'grabs' more fiercely.