Casting the TV series, take 2

"Ooh, casting the TV series, what fun!" I thought, reading Gary's post below.

Well, I was wrong, it's not fun, it's  frustrating.  The problem is that the only TV I watch is the Great British Bake Off (Ruby, anyone?) and the last few weeks of Strictly when it's dark outside and the fire's on.  Although I have to confess to switching on and enjoying Agents of SHIELD this week, but none of the actors stood out.

I like Anne and Gary's three possibilities for the older Trip, although would plump for either one of Jack Davenport or Stephen Mangan before the too posh Julian Rhind-Tutt - have never seen Trip as a blond.    Of the three, Stephen Mangan gets my vote.  (And Gazza and I did cast him earlier during one of our writing get togethers, which he appears to have forgotten.  But then both of us have forgotten who was Ruth.)

Having never seen Louise Delamere act, it's hard to tell if she's Ruthie, certainly she has the right looks.  More importantly, she has the right husband.  Gotta adore that idea!  I've always fancied Keeley Hawes could make the role hers, but frankly the married couple trump her.

Older Trip = Stephen Mangan
Older Ruth = Louise Delamere

Sorted.

Now the frustration.  The younger versions of Ruth and Trip.

Karen Gillen just ain't doing it for me.  Too, I don't know, too long-legged, too big-eyed, too...just too everything.  Haven't been able to choose a substitute though - feel free to make suggestions below.  In fact, I implore you, make suggestions below so I don't have to go with Gillen.

Joe Thomas for Trip?  Not a clue about him and have nobody to suggest as an alternative, so young Trip he will be.

Younger Ruth = to be confirmed
Younger Trip = Joe Thomas

Hmmmm, not as satisfying an exercise as it could have been.  If you've read the first couple of chapters - here they are http://garytwynamandkarindixon.blogspot.co.uk/p/wish-you-were-excerpt.html - give us your views.

You never know, it might be important in the future...

Casting the TV Series...

Farewell Trip was actually born on a Sunday morning walk on the Long Mynd with Anne and Bobby. A couple of years have passed and on this morning's walk we indulged ourselves in casting the film. It seems a good time to enjoy our dreams. Whilst we can, before a cold world turns its back in indifference. Besides, what writer/dreamer hasn't done this at some time or other? Karin, of course, will have her own, entirely different, wish-list.

The film will obviously be relocated to America, which means every location would have to change and we focused more on that than on the cast-list.

So Lampeter could become Madison, Wisconsin
Cornwall – Crater Lake, Oregon
Shropshire – Nevada
Paris – Seattle
New York – London and vice versa
Bar Harbour – Northumberland
Reigate – somewhere posh and dull in New England
and Bristol – Portland, Oregon.


Casting the BBC2/Channel 4 series was much easier. Karen Gillan and Joe Thomas for the earlier versions and, as the older Ruth, Louise Delamere, (she was Lia in No Angels). We were arguing over Julian Rhind-Tutt (looks the part – easy segue from Joe Thomas – but slightly too posh) and Stephen Mangan (would be great for the audio book, and speaks very movingly about Macmillan nurses, but doesn't look right).

We'd settled on Rhind Tutt. Well apart from Anne's insistence Jack Davenport got the part, which Bobby ignored in favour of a nice piece of sheep poo. On getting home I googled Louise Delamere to see what she'd been doing lately, only to find she's married to Stephen Mangan. Which was something of a clincher...

Unless you know better...

VALIDATION!

We're going have to change the title of this blog because... wait for it...wait for it...

We've got a publisher for Farewell Trip!

Yep, you read right.  We're real writers now.  Flippin' amazing, huh?

Carina UK is the new digital imprint of Harlequin (which sells in the trad romance genre).  Carina has a wider brief and what looks like brilliant marketing.  Farewell Trip will be available as e-book on their website and Amazon.  Several of their books have made it to the top 10 of the Amazon e-book bestsellers list.

We hope it will be published in 12 or weeks - watch out for it in a Christmas stocking near you...

What a week, eh?

Self promotion?

I have been more than a little embarrassed today.  As you can see below, there is an article in this week's Woman's Own about me. With pictures and everything.

Yep, embarrassing.  It's not the baldy head picture that's the issue. I'm not at all bothered about that.

You see, the whole thing was never meant to be about me.

We were tiptoeing along the path of promoting Farewell Trip and finding an agent.  Trying to find something different about our book (other than the plot, characters and voice, of course), we decided to use what we saw as our two USPs.  Firstly, that Gary and I had written it in collaboration and from a distance.  And secondly, that since the book is about a man who has terminal cancer, the fact I had secondary cancer might be an interesting angle.  So, in every approach to an agent we made and in great hope, we mentioned these things.  To be frank, nobody seemed very interested.

However, we have been incredibly lucky in our friends, several of whom have put themselves out no end to help us get the novel out into the world. Jenny (amongst a myriad other things) put me in touch with Heart, an agency which finds, writes and sells true-life stories to magazines.

It's odd to find that one's own life story is apparently of enough interest to warrant a double page spread in a national magazine, but Christabel (the writer) convinced me she could place the story.  She was right.  She did a great job weaving in Farewell Trip too, but warned me that it's almost unheard of for a magazine to give a novel a plug, so not to expect them to print the blog address or anything like it.

But they did and maybe you're reading this because of that link.  If so, leave a comment on the post or (even better) at the bottom of the extract of Farewell Trip.  Gary and I would really like to know what you think of the book.

Creative differences...

Karin e-mailed me the other day. “Are we having our first author argument?”

Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. Two fairly headstrong souls, one of whom - and I'll leave you to guess which – has spent their life accused of not being a team player, coming together to do something profoundly creative and, by its very nature, individualistic. And effectively completing it without once ever raising their voices or simmering with passive aggressive resentment. Respect to us.

We're meeting up Wednesday to thrash out this utterly trivial difference of opinion. (Me: Description, who needs it? Her: Everyone who's read the book). And even in this instance we aren't even having an argument.

Which does beg the question. Would our novel be better if we were?

Woman's Own

I don't know how many of you will be interested by this next bit of news, but it's very nice to have something purely positive to say for once...

We have been doing some work behind the scenes to get the book published and, as luck would have it, we've managed to bag some publicity along the way. Woman's Own magazine are publishing a 'true life' story about Karin - how the novel came about as well as some stuff on cancer.

The article will be published on September 24th. Do take a look if you're curious!