Farewell Trip - cover and publication date

Exciting times. The book has a release date - 12th December - just in time for Christmas. And a rather natty cover, as you can see.

The cover has been interesting. When we were considering self-publishing I asked my niece, who is studying art for A Level, to have a go at designing one. From our suggestions, she came up with a rather nice picture of a woman reading a letter with Paris as a backdrop.

Later on someone sent us a "secret photo" of what was supposedly our cover, a shadowy picture of an outline of a woman silhouetted against an autumnal tree. We were pretty pleased with that to be honest.

But we're mighty chuffed with this final one, which goes well beyond the obvious. Just a shame we won't be able to hold it in our hands.

Getting close...

Advice for the young at heart

I'm a rubbish blogger. I do very much like the idea of expounding to all and sundry about my inner musings and like even better the idea that someone might find it moderately entertaining.  However, inner musings don't much occur, other than those crucial ones about which type of tea to make (builder's, redbush... Ummmm, builder's, redbush) or whether it's cold enough to justify turning the heating on.

You may be interested to know Mr W's questions to be answered before so doing are 1) how many jumpers do you have on? 2) how many pairs of socks are you wearing? 3) hat? (Not as Scroogey as it sounds, remember I am bald as the proverbial) 4) jumping jacks?  If the answers do not match or exceed 2, 2, yes and 20, the heating stays firmly off. Or not.

However, I digress (if you only knew the joy it gives me to actually write that sentence. No idea why, but it fills me with delight), as I said, I'm a crap blogger.  What's worse is that it means Gary is left with the miserable task of finding something to write upon.

Luckily, as you can see, his mind has plenty of inner musings and they're interesting ones too.  Anyway, my inner musings only conspicuous by their absence, I offer to you a choice morsel from Gary's delicious poetry volume, Silly Verse for Grown Ups.  It's advice he has passed on to loinfruit #1 and #2 much in the manner of a god-dad. Which they don't have but if they did, it would be him.


In The Name Of Love

Isobel, over the centuries not much has changed;
The most important thing about a man remains his name.

Take, for example, a man named Ralph.
Don't date him if he rhymes with Alph.
But if he tells you he's called Rafe,
Fellate him first then make him wait.

Want to meet someone who's as sound as pounds,
Head for a bar in the best part of town;
Shout out Torquil and when someone turns round,
Go and say Oh, there you are. It's your round...

Forget all that nonsense about love, what a bore;
It's a myth put around to keep poor people poor.
And whatever you do, please don't marry
A loser with a name like Stephen or Gary.

Farewell Trip - an update

We've gone quiet of late, stuck as we are between contract and publication. And stuck as Karin is in hospital. So here's an update.

Things are moving behind the scenes. We have completed a structural edit based on feedback from our Carina editors. Their feedback was brilliant - both encouraging and constructive. We've come to realise that the book takes a while to ignite. Until Paris, in fact, the fourth chapter, some 50 pages in. We've tried to fix this as best we can.

I was reading that Amazon/Kindle already has the capability to tell authors at what points readers stop reading their book. That's a mixture of fascinating and terrifying I'd have thought. Future authors will be treated differently. Early drafts will be subject to Kindle focus groups. The readership of the first week's sales will be scrutinised, not by number, not by 5 star reviews,  but by page clicks. "27% of readers are giving up on chapter 3, 18% skipping chapter 4 entirely, and only 2% reading in one sitting. On the plus side, the sex scene in chapter 14 is getting plenty of re-reads."


Anyway, ahead of such a brave new world, we've sent in our dedications, biographies and photos. Next step - some poor soul is to do a copy-edit. We've thrown it back and forth between the two of us so many times it's a hell of a mess. That's our excuse anyway. We wish them luck.                      

No Pasaran

Several people have told me I should be proud of writing a novel. And they're not talking about quality, they're talking about quantity. They mean I should be proud of sitting down and writing a story 75000 words long.

Let's ignore for the moment that this isn't even true. (It was Karin that put in the hard narrative yardage, churning out the chapters, whilst I dicked about on a couple of pages of dialogue.) In reality it's no great accomplishment in itself. It isn't that hard, is it? Write 1000 words a day, and you could have weekends off and still have finished a novel in three months. No bother. You only have to look online to see how many people have managed it.

I say this because a friend accomplished something last week that I really do think is noteworthy, in the field of artistic endeavour.

He staged an operetta about the Spanish Civil War called No Pasaran. To achieve this, he wrote all the music and lyrics (35 songs), auditioned and managed a a cast of 20, plus a group of flamenco dancers, choreographed the whole show, organised the live band, shot some “war footage” to project across the action, was the stage-manager, and even popped up to sing a lament at the end. Oh and he was on the door selling tickets.

Think of that next time you're looking at a blank page.

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?