Lockdown is turning me into Bridget Jones

Phil: With all restrictions in place and our worlds clamped down hard, communications between members of team NolanParker have taken a turn for the weird.

“4067 steps. 2 trains. No cake” I message. “10009” comes the reply.

Basically, we’ve started becoming competitive on the numbers of steps taken during the day. Occasionally, I even win.

Since many of my strolls involve bits of the countryside where I might see a train (how I miss the days of travelling this way) and occasionally, there is a cake pickup involved, I bundle those into the message too.

Trouble is, it all sounds but Bridget Jones. Her diary lists the number of calories eaten, cigarettes smoked and units of alcohol consumed.  At least our messages are a bit healthier!

I suppose describing ourselves in numbers is all we have left at the moment. It’s not like talking about the weather is much fun, and we’re all bored of chatting pandemic!

 

A picture of some cheesecake

Candice and Phil are too busy to come to the blog right now.

Your visit is important to us, so please enjoy a picture of some strawberry cheesecake Phil ate while listening to a poem about dogging.

For your information, it was very nice and so was the poem.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

Why can’t writing be fun?

Phil: For the last few weeks, the Nolan has enjoyed a break from the daily grind which has seen us meeting up on a weekly basis for chatting and in theory, writing.

Truth is, there has been a lot more talking than typing. We’ve done a reasonable amount of planning but progress on Book 3 has been limited.

Both of us have had things other than writing on our minds and since we are mates, we talk about them. Afterwards, we both feel better, not just through the effects of tea and cake either!

I suppose we should feel guilty about this, and we do. But not much.

Writing is great. We’re really proud of the books produced so far, and looking forward to seeing how the next ones work out. But it’s not everything to either of us. We have lives as well.

Does this make us bad?

Some authors take great pride in hitting daily word targets. Writing has, we are told, got to be a painful process. Only by travelling through the fire, can you forge a book worthy of the name.

Well, sorry, but no.

You can’t write light chick-lit fiction if your day is spent agonising over every word. Our style is humorous and if you analyse every single line to death then you’ll suck all the fun out of it. Worse, you’ll create something so convoluted that any reader will need another book just to explain the one they are reading. We don’t want anyone opening ours to have to suffer. I know that “proper” literature is all about this, but we’ll steer clear of that thank you very much. Editing and polishing is one thing, agonising is another and enduring it doesn’t make you a better person.

Taking time to step back and look at what we are doing, we’ve worked out that for us, the journey is part of the fun. Yes, we’d love people to read an enjoy what we produce, but why shouldn’t it simply be a pleasurable activity?

Progress would be quicker if we knuckled down and got on with things, but maybe this isn’t everything. Perhaps the journey should be as pleasurable as the destination.

As it is, the weekly meet-ups are over. Candice has a posh new job and my work is going through one of its periodic explosions of demand. For the minute, tea, cake and finishing the book will have to be a dream, but, as Captain Sensible once said, “You’ve got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you going to have a dream come true?”

Storytelling time

Phil: We came, we saw, we read out a few pages of our book.

Last week, at Storytelling Corner, team NolanParker got up on stage and did their best to bring a tiny selection of Kate vs the Dirtboffins alive for the audience.

We’d picked the very first scene Candice wrote when we were still back at the quango. I’d suggested that we read mine too, but this was vetoed as being too dull. As it was, we were on stage talking about pole dancing and the joys of a busy bar full of rugby players when you are wearing a slip of a dress…

Before the event, and during the interval, we were chatting to some of the audience who seemed very interested in how we manage to write as a duo. It seems that this really fascinated people. We’ve explained that neither of us would have completed a book without the other, and even if we had, the result would be very different. I couldn’t put the correct fashion references in for a start!

Candice was full of cold, but we both enjoyed ourselves a lot. Maybe the sugar rush from the excellent cakes eaten before things kicked off helped, but I think it’s that we love appearing before an audience. I really envy authors who find themselves regularly invited to festivals where they get to talk about writing and stories.

For our part, we’d like to do that but also help people to get into writing. As we both said several times, we really enjoy the process, so why shouldn’t everyone share the pleasure?

The Temperance – a writers retreat

 

Phil: With the NolanParker writing team back in action, we need to find places to meet. Places with Tea. And cake.

In the last few months, a couple of possible venues have opened up in Leamington Spa. One that caught my eye with its retro theme, is The Temperance.

I don’t believe in cluttering up coffee shops with laptops if they aren’t happy to be home to people spending hours working away.  We will buy drinks and food, but people who aren’t composing great works of literature will be quicker in and out and therefore more profitable.

A quick e-mail asking if laptops were OK was swiftly answered with the news that we wouldn’t be the first people bashing out a novel on the premises. In fact, at least one member of staff is an author!

Arriving on a cold Monday morning, we ordered tea and salad sandwiches. These were served in the sort of china my Nan would have approved of. The stuff you drink while holding your pinkie finger aloft!

The sandwiches were delicious, the only complaint being the cake selection was very limited, the previous batch having sold out and new supplies arriving the next day.

For an old-fashioned looking cafe. there were lots of laptops in use, and a couple of people using tables for meetings.

After a bit of chat, we got stuck in. I knocked out 1200 words and Candice started the job of making sure the current manuscript adhered to our timeline.

Very productive.

New Year. New ideas. And cake.

Phil: We’re back!

A trip to a local farm shop cafe and we are stuffing our faces with cake, and talking about writing.

The thing is, our chat ranged far and wide – ending up with some new plans that now just need some polish. Candice has got her research head on and a page full of notes to look at.

Watch this space…

Piling on the Christmas pressure

Phil: So there we are, sitting in a cafe awaiting the delivery of drinks and cake, and La Nolan passes me a Christmas card. I open it up and along with the exhortation to have a merry festive period, is the message above.

Seriously?

I mean, we’ve only just finished Book 2. Can we really be releasing book 3 in 12 months time?

Worse was to come. We exchanged gifts. Normally this is a low key business but this time she insisted that I open this, “Because I want to see your face.”.

I did as I was told and found a copy of the book Make a Killing on Kindle.

Ahah! I realise that as the techie half of the team, it’s going to be my job to make sure our books are found by as many people as possible.

But there was more to come, I opened the cover and found:

It seems someone has serious ambitions and loves Only Fools and Horses.

Somehow, I suspect I’m the Rodders in this partnership. I’ll be getting a 3-wheel van. Candice will be behind the wheels of the Capri Ghia!

Paperback writers X 2

 

Like so much of the DIY publishing world, getting a book out involves quite a steep learning curve. Last time, we spent money with a co-publisher to allow us to concentrate on the writing and publicity. This time, we put the money into copy editing and did the rest ourselves.

We could get away with this because Amazon has splashed some of their cash on a Print on Demand publisher called “CreateSpace”. This means they can offer a service where we upload text and (professionally designed) cover and then everyone can buy the book exactly as they would any other publication. There isn’t even a delay – I ordered the first copy and it was in my hand two days later. Look and feel is good, and better than other similar services we’ve seen.

Best of all dear potential reader, the cost to you is lower than for our first book. A tiny £5.99. Possibly the best bargain this Christmas.

As we sat at our table in Akamba, team NolanParker congratulated ourselves on Book 2 arriving. Not many people write one book, let alone two. However, there isn’t time to be smug, we need to crack on with Book 3 so this time next year, the pile will be even bigger…

Timetable for launch

Phil: We have a plan. After a lunch that was so serious we swapped cake for sponge pudding and custard (a move the BREXIT negotiators would be wise to copy), a plan has been formulated for the launch of our next novel Kate vs  The Navy.

*

Gareth Fothrington-Thomas has made a huge mistake. He’s given Dave Thomas a job without consulting Kate. And Dave and Kate have history – embarrassing, complicated history.

But the Ministry of Defence have just asked KoD Associates to oversee the closing of an almost-forgotten naval base. It’s the company’s biggest contract yet, and a good performance could mean Kate can finally buy Gareth out.

However, nothing is ever straightforward. Tracey views work as a chance to have fun. Kelvin’s virtual life is far more exciting than his real one. And Captain Norris and his crew not only want to stay employed, they’re also keeping a secret. A rather large grey secret.

When Kate misses a key meeting she feels the whole process slipping out of her hands. Even an unexpected upturn in her personal life can’t compensate for the worry that things are about to go horribly wrong …

Join the team who first appeared in Kate vs the Dirtboffins as they become reluctant and unwelcome guests on a tiny island, battle local wildlife and tackle the Royal Navy in another madcap adventure.

*

So, dear reader, you will now be champing at the bit to crack open our latest work. Well, here is the timetable:

8th November – Chapter 1 on-line

15th November – Chapter 2 on-line

22nd November – Chapter 3 on-line and book available to buy from Amazon

29th November – Book reaches the top of all sales charts and we are the toast of the literary world. (I might have made this one up, it’s not actually on the plan)

Along the way we’ll be showing you the new cover and talking to bloggers to sort out some reviews. In the meantime, you lot start saving your pennies and clearing your calendars, you have reading to do!

 

Let’s talk about cake…

Phil: Regular readers will have noticed that team NolanParker enjoy many meetings powered by slices of cake. Since it is National Cake Week, I think we really need to look into this further.

Anyone who looks at me will know that I’m not averse to a slice of cake. However, I didn’t get serious about this until I met the Nolan.

Up to this point, cake munching was a strictly amateur task. Once we teamed up though, and especially once we started this blog, cake eating became more serious. Every cake had to be photographed to appear on these pages.

This has spread to my blog.

Now, when I go to events, I have to include a photo of any cake consumed in reviews. Due to public demand.

This has been going on long enough that I’m now known for my views on cake. It’s got so serious that people now ask me about cake rather than the models I’m supposed to be writing about. I was even waiting for a meeting at a preserved railway a few months ago and a group of hi-vis jacket wearing people spotted me and asked, “Are you here to try the cake?”

Freinds have commented that my Facebook feed only seems to show cake and beer pictures, sometimes both at the same time. This is partly because I’m not a 12-year-old girl who spends entire evenings taking a hundred photos of myself and my friends. Nor am I the middle-aged bloke in the pub last week who spent about 15 minutes casually leaning on a wall posing for his mate to take a photo. There’s probably a story in there as to why he thought that was a good idea but I wasn’t going to ask.

No, the cake is simply more interesting and more photogenic than me. Some people take pictures of cats, I take snaps of cake. I don’t even eat that much of it, but what I do, I generously share via social media. I’m sure this is what Tim Berners-Lee hoped for when he invented the web.

We’re not the only cake-powered writer either. If there is a constant among those we have met, it’s tea (not coffee) and cake. No-one bangs on about posh water and salad in the same way no-one ever has said, “Oh good, cabbage for tea.”.

To be fair, the other constant is running, but I’ve decided that I’ll leave that to Candice.