Selling books is easy for desperadoes

There is an air of the desperado about an author in the weeks before Christmas.

The slithering writer may be seen painfully pursuing sight of a published work in bookshops so they may place it in a more advantageous position, sales wise, going forward.

That way, someone will surely buy a copy.

One hopes.

And perhaps they will, unless a prowling assistant returns it to alphabetical order in the stacks, whence it came

For myself, I like to make my own display of as many of my eight published books as I can find on the shelves.
Once arranged to my satisfaction, I ostentatiously shoot pictures of the display on my phone camera.
This to impress the passing intelligentsia with how important the work by this author is in the world of letters, and semi colons.

Much of this is smoke and mirrors and nothing at all to do with writing a book.
But a book is not written until it is read.
And that person must be an unrelated buyer.

Else.
It's all for nothing, this typing of words.

The neophyte believes that to write a book is sufficient.
A publisher who has taken the work and made it their own with suitable branding and hoopla will take care of the child book as it would one of its own.
This, the new writer believes with reckless enthusiasm.
Alas, for ambition.

For modern publishers behave as if making a physical book from the mishmash of words and perambulating punctuation is sufficient.
Not for them the tacky selling of this latest addition to their publisher's list.
No.

If a bookseller somehow hears about the title and contacts the publisher they will send a copy to the store for collection by the aspirant reader.

And so, the desperado author is born.

 

Storytelling here
Twitter here 

Book

facebook

A knee in the groin

I am in a London airport.

I am mightily vexed with body frisks and repetitive baggage checks visited upon us.

This, in response to people with nothing else to do but attempt to blow up aeroplanes with, or without, themselves on them.

This always strikes me as boredom gone mad.

Anyone who thinks that blowing up other people is a worthy idea needs to meet more personable people than the morose mammals with which they are currently consorting.

A good tickle and a chuckle would not go astray.
 Like.

I am in a lift when a pained man in running shorts and a full backpack arrives in with his fully clad wife.

Her demeanour is one of a person on a mission. She wears a smart business suit. It's light in colour for it is a Sunday.

But she makes it very clear she is there to protect and preserve her man.

He wears a very large brownish medallion that somehow signifies he did something worthwhile, like completing the marathon, just now.

He is so stiff in walking that I am reminded of a crab moving along with determined motion.

I think to ask him what his time was; but if it was not up to his personal best standards, then he might be distraught and the woman in the nice suit might knee me in the groin.

Then I wonder if I will mention that I am in training to walk the Dublin City Marathon, a few months hence.

Perhaps not: I am fully clad for I need a pocketed jacket to carry my books past the airline's weighing machine.

I remain silent.

Next morning, when I tumble onto the road to walk, I am stiff of limb.

I wonder if the suited woman is waiting for me.

Security.


Storytelling here

Twitter here 

Buy the book here 

Training Apaches

The scissors platform is raised high above the swelling mob on the big wide avenue that is the backbone of Phoenix Park.

On it are a man and a woman facing in opposite directions.

The day is warm for a foot race but this pair tell people they will warm them up for the event.
Many seem overjoyed at this news.

Humans jump up and down in response to the shouted commands from on high.

It's hard not to believe that, to a visitor from Mars, humans are a strange species, not to mention to any passing Messiahs, during Lent.

Mass obedience to shouted instructions is the order of the day.

These people have raised funds or paid an entry fee to participate in all of this.

They seem to think it very important to warm up when told to do so.

After all, they will run 10 kilometres around the leafing roads to arrive back here, warmed up and panting, to receive a goody bag of branded goods from various sponsors.

Camera crews are positioned around the course to relay the participants' efforts to a television audience happily sitting down to Sunday roast at home.

Everywhere you look, in hollow or glade, atop mounds of green grass, people gather in bright colours to prepare for the event. They stretch bits of their bodies in different directions to make them more supple.

It is difficult not to think of them as wild Indians preparing to descend in marauding groups on the capitalist intruders all around them.

Would the race entrants move faster if they were told the Apaches were after them? Someone should take a breath and shout a warning.

I may, when the elevated people cannot see who the mischief maker is in the crowd of jumping people.

Storytelling here
Twitter here 

If the hat fits wear it

Walking in the rain will make your head wet.

I walk by the bank of the Liffey near where I live. Rain does not respect our image of our wonderful selves. It comes down in sheets upon my unprotected head and on the land and trees and greenery all about me.

Come summer, this will be a verdant place suitable for tourists, and the like, to have their photos taken by the white water weir.

For now, my mind seeks shelter inside my skull from the hammering of raindrops intent on piercing my being.

When a voice hails me I think it is the Weather Gods mocking me.

It is John the Hatman.

He becomes that when he produces a white plastic bag, with handles, from his pocket and waves it at me.

He is walking a dog on a leash, the bag has come from his pocket, he wears a multicoloured peaked cap himself. The plastic bag is for my head; To keep me dry, he says.

I ask his name.

I pull the hat down over my soaked hair.  It fits. I bless John and all his descendants and thank his ancestors for the fine breeding they have achieved in this man, whom I have never met before.

Later, I come to terms with the awareness that I am waking beneath a bag originally intended to collect John's dog's waste as he perambulated along. I know though, for I have judged John in my mind, that the bag was unused when it was presented to me by a kind man.

I wear it with determination even when the rain stops and the sun shines on my headgear with malevolence.

I pass an Angus steer in a field and say nothing, nor does he.

You either understand these things.

Or not.


Storytelling here
Twitter here 

Book

Other book

Just get to the corner

I decide I will enter the Dublin City Marathon.
As a walker.
Running has a sense of urgency about it that eludes me.

Entering the marathon is an easy decision for the event is on October 27, a public holiday, and my decision is made in the short days between Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Lots of time between the two dates, I say as I reach for the TV remote to change channels.

However, I doubt my sanity when I find that not only can I not walk 42.195 km to begin with; but I can barely make two kilometres from my home without every bone and muscle saying it is mid-winter: when humans are supposed to hibernate, gorge, and be slothful.

I ignore my protesting body and carry on towards the cheering crowds at the finish line in the future of my mind.

Tragically, I make the mistake of telling a select few at festive gatherings that I will henceforth be an athlete in training. They should understand this when I decline to linger on my training days.

Everyone immediately takes sides and make wagers on my likely failure.

Nonetheless, the forgotten warrior inside me rises to the challenge and walking begins more or less each day.

I find a pair of fairly unused hiking boots, a wool skull cap and a heavy waterproof jacket and I venture out in the rains to mortify my body in the name of marathon glory.

A surprised pet dog accompanies me on these forays in the belief that it will not last long and calm will return in time.

For days afterwards I cannot reach the remote and have to rely on family support to watch television.

Just the same, I tumble out of bed to begin again, begin again.

Storytelling here

Twitter here 

Buy the book here

Buy the book here

Kissing Charles Aznavour

The woman is kissing Charles Aznavour on the wrong street in Dublin. She is much younger than he and he seems to be accepting her admiration with benign patience.

It is early morning and I wait politely for her to conclude.

She has asked me for directions to a conference venue.

She and a male companion, not Chuck the singer, are on a street parallel to where they should be and have declared themselves to be lost, to me.

I know where they should be and begin to say so when passion overtakes the woman who takes leave of Monsieur Aznavour now that I have become her guide.

The third person in the relationship tells me they are enroute to a very important conference where a great many important people will gather to hear more important people speak to them about a matter of great importance.

I lose interest when he tells me his own area of interest is in the nuclear field. He waits for a suitably admiring reaction from me; but I am heading home from a session with a physiotherapist for a damaged small finger on my left hand.

My finger hurts from a leap from a high wall and the consequent treatment and I could care less about nuclear.

To no response, I tell him the 18th century building we are standing beside was once a city hospital. I tell him where he is going, The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, is modelled after Les Invalides in Paris, to no response.

By now, Charles is peeling the woman away from his presence.

She smiles shyly at me as if I am party to a great secret; but I now see it is not Charles Aznavour at all, but someone else.

I don't know who he is and wonder if he is French at all, or, just someone she mistook for another.

 I wonder who she thinks I am, as I take leave of them to catch my bus home. 

Nuclear.

Storytelling here

Twitter here 

Buy the book here