Laurie Graham's Blog, page 8

The comment I’ve heard more than any other since Dr Dan’s Casebook was published goes as follows: ‘I want Trevor Buxton as my GP’.  To which I can only reply, ‘get behind me and form an orderly line.’

In my long life I have known doctors of every stripe. Brusque, impatient, hurried, dotty. The GP who oversaw the home births of three of my children had a touch of the Trevor B’s about him. Deceptively bumbling and disheveled, but quietly on the ball. In Ireland, some years ago, we had a doctor who made up, in buckets of unhurried kindness, for the black hole of his filing system.

And the star of them all was the GP of my childhood years, a hearty, no-nonsense spinster who spared herself nothing in the care of her patients. When I was four I spent Christmas Day in bed, recovering from pneumonia, and Dr Brittan called in on her way to church, to see how I was doing. Imagine.

Against all odds, there are still a few Trevor Buxtons around, and we must treasure them. As for Dr Dan, I’m in charge so I can say with confidence that he’ll be following in his mentor’s footsteps.

And yes, I know none of you likes Chloe, but lookee here, you can’t just populate a novel with nice characters. There’s no pearl without a bit of grit in the oyster shell. As Confucius didn’t say.

The post Doctors I Have Known appeared first on Laurie Graham.

Dr Dan is now well and truly launched, on a sea of tea, Doctor’s Orders cocktails (recipe available on application) and generous goodwill. Thanks to everyone who has bought it, read it, reviewed it and is asking for more.

Last Friday, aided and supported by kind friends who know how much I fear social gatherings, I hosted a little tea party for people who have done much to promote my books. The photo, which I submit in evidence, is a bit ‘soft focus’ but it seems to show me checking novelist Judy Astley’s heart with my pink, Dr Dan stethoscope.

I now need to put away my party shoes and get cracking on Book 2. First draft is already shaping up so, as long as I’m spared, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be out by next March. One of the advantages of going ‘independent’ is that I can set the pace. I still feel a bit naked without a big publishing house behind me but at least I don’t have to wait while my book moves at a snail’s pace along someone else’s production line.

In other news today, I have a piece in this week’s Spectator magazine  –  yet another cause for joy in my heart.

Laurie Graham has had a very good week, thank you very much.

The post Back to Business appeared first on Laurie Graham.

I don’t really have anything to blog about today but there’s some new technical folderol about my website which I need to try out, to prove to my webmaestra that I’m not a total dummy. I’ve heard enough pitying sighs for one week.

The young sales assistant in the phone shop was very gentle with me. He just did some rapid swipey, clicky thing and the problem was solved, but I know, deep down, that to him my query was in the same league as asking how to hitch my horse to my car.

I watched a concert last night, conducted by Daniel Harding who looks about 18 and, (I learned in an interval interview) is not only an internationally renowned conductor but also a qualified Airbus pilot. Does it ever seem to you that talents get dished out far too randomly? Some people can understand calculus, do a one-and-a-half somersault dive (with tuck) and make really good bread. Others can boast only one talent. Creating the sound of a duck call with their armpit, perhaps.

There may be no post for the next week or two. I’m off to London to, among many other things, ply reviewers and book bloggers with tea and cake and so well and truly launch Dr Dan. Thus far, readers are liking him. Good, because there’s much more to come.

Report from the coalface of domesticity: Rolos in banana cake are a very good idea. Well, I say that, though no-one around here seems to sell Rolos so, reckless improviser that I am, I used Caramel Nibbles instead. Verdict? pauses to wipe drool from keyboard. Yum.

The post Nothing to See Here appeared first on Laurie Graham.

Killing people is all in a day’s work for a novelist but it doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes it’s clear that it has to be done, though the demise of any of my creations, even a monster, can sadden me. Sometimes it’s a tussle between sentiment and plot. Plot needs to win. Readers may howl and sob, but there it is. I feel your pain.

Recently I’ve been rereading my favourite Larry McMurtrys. This morning, woken early by a window-rattling easterly  –  a grand day for the drying, as they say in Ireland  –  I decided to read a couple of chapters of Lonesome Dove before I got up to brew tea. And gosh dern it if (SPOILER ALERT) Augustus McCrae didn’t up and die again. Nooooh……

It gets me every time. ‘How,’ I think, ‘can I go on and read The Streets of Laredo now Gus is gone? But I do. Bereft but still hooked, I read on.

On the topic of bereavement, I’ve also been speed-reading the much praised A Half Baked Idea by Olivia Potts. I bought it having in mind to give it to someone who seems a bit stuck in a rut of grief, but I thought I’d read it myself first, with very clean fingers.

It’s well-written and very moving but I could have liked it a whole lot more had I not been so horrified by the appalling waste of ingredients, failed projects scraped into a bin, sacrificed on the altar of perfection required for a Cordon Bleu Diplome de Patisserie. However I did very much like the idea of incorporating Rolos into a banana cake.

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I hadn’t planned on taking up a new career in my 70s but there it is. I have now added ‘publisher’ to the list of hats I’ve worn in my life. Never wanted to be one, but needs must, and after many a setback and hiccup, Dr Dan’s Casebook is out tomorrow. The novel that eighteen publishers rejected. I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Some of you have asked me to clarify what self-publishing means to the prospective reader, and also to ask, what can they do to help. I hope the following answers all your queries.

To publish Dr Dan, I have used the self-publishing platform offered by Amazon. This means the book  –  paperback and electronic  –  will only be available through Amazon. I know that the A word is anathema to supporters of independent bookshops, but as a newcomer to the business I have had to choose the easiest, cheapest and most idiot-proof route. And believe me, I have put that last feature to the test.

The most helpful things you can do are to buy and to spread the word. If you buy the book and enjoy it, please post a review on Amazon. Reviews are very powerful. If you don’t feel able to hold your nose and buy from Amazon, how about asking your library to get it for you? Though the wheels grind slow, library requests do bear fruit, eventually, and library loans are a small but important income stream for me.

Meanwhile, I’m back at the coalface, preparing the next book.  Laurie Graham, scribbler, matriarch, bottler and pickler, retired pantomime fairy and now, publisher. Where will it all end? (Rhetorical).

Oh, and I almost forgot to say, I know the new book isn’t up on my homepage yet. The graphics department are backed up with work but my web-maestra promises me it’ll be there soon.

The post My New Profession appeared first on Laurie Graham.

Publication Day minus 6, and in my office (aka the kitchen table) it’s like a NASA countdown. The second batch of proofs arrived and looked fine  –  just as well because I’d run out of time to do much about it if they didn’t  – and as some of you have pointed out, with the next book I’ll have a better idea what I’m doing.

Now a shout-out for help. One huge hurdle for self-publishers is getting their books into libraries. It’s not that libraries don’t want books, but donations have to be catalogued and sometimes libraries don’t have the staff or time to do it. So, if you’re a librarian or related to a librarian, or even remotely acquainted with a librarian, please let it be known that I have ten copies of Dr Dan’s Casebook to donate to libraries. First come, first served. And if you don’t know any librarians you can still give me a helping hand by requesting the book. If enough readers ask, they’ll eventually buy it.

I’ve loved libraries ever since my Mum signed me up, aged four. The main library in Leicester was on the corner of Belvoir Street and Wellington Street and that’s where she used to deposit me while she ran down to the market to buy her veg. There were none of the inducements my grandchildren have been plied with. No dressing up box, no story-telling sessions. Just more books than I could ever read. If she’d given me a sleeping bag I’d happily have taken up residence.

If you find me a taker for a donation, you or they should contact me directly at scribbler2[@yahoo.com]  –  remove the brackets.

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Proof copies of Dr Dan arrived a day early. The cover looked okay. Worth a tweak or two, but alright. Then I peeped inside. Aaaaarrrrgh….. it was a dog’s breakfast. Chapter breaks missing, front matter in the wrong sequence. It looked like a book assembled by a team of monkeys.

So I spent the next 12 hours, heart in mouth, re-formatting the text, re-submitting it, addressing the problems that came boomeranging back to me from the automated system. And so on. That’s the thing about self-publishing. There’s no-one at the end of a phone to whom you can sob, ‘But exactly how do I embed my fonts?’

I think I’ve now fixed everything. I’ll know on Wednesday when new proofs should arrive but by then, if I’ve made another hames of it, it’ll be too close to my deadline to do much about it. I can only hope that my readers will forgive me if it looks like a book I put together on my kitchen table. Because actually, that’s precisely what I’ve done.

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If I were a dog, this is what I’d look like today.  I just learned that a) the Kindle edition of Dr Dan’s Casebook is now available for pre-order on Amazon and b) that proof copies of the paperback are on their way to me.

Suddenly, this self-publishing lark seems very real. Have I actually gone and done it? I believe I have.

Official publication date is September 2nd, though I still have loads to do, not least to update my website, but everyone seems to be on holiday. Never mind, we’ll get there. And then I can buckle down to finishing the sequel. I’m starting to realise how slowly turned the wheels of big house publishing. But no more. Now I’m working at Laurie speed.

Space. This. Watch.

Have you ever considered what kind of dog you’d be if you had orders to reincarnate but were allowed to choose your breed? No? Just me then. I’ve always felt lurchers have more fun than most.

The post The Pace Quickens appeared first on Laurie Graham.

No, not that F word. I’m talking about formatting, a variety of mental torture self-publishing authors must endure in order to make their book printable or readable on a screen.

Formatting is easier than it used to be (they tell me) because there are programmes one can use to bring a manuscript up to trade standards. However, what is a piece of cake to anyone under the age of 30 is mainly gibberish to people of my generation. I find I can read instructions slowly, carefully and repeatedly and still be left thinking ‘hunh?’

Dr Dan’s Casebook is almost, almost formatted for its e-edition, but it has taken me a week of blood, sweat and yes, the other F word. I suspect formatting the paperback will take even longer. Will I find it easier the second time around? I’m not banking on it. It’s a mysterious new world for me, where they speak a different language.

My granddaughter, Ulla, writes a book, draws a cover with her felt tip pens, staples it all together and it’s on her shelf by teatime. She knocks out at least one a week. She has no idea how lucky she is.

While we’re on the letter F, I would like to issue a sincere apology to all flamingoes, past and present. I have spent much of my life mocking them for what seemed to me an anatomical joke played on them by God. Their knees bent backwards. My oldest daughter visited Pensthorpe Nature Reserve this week and on her return advised me that the back-bendy bit of a flamingo’s leg is actually its ankle. Which makes perfect sense.

So, mea culpa. I stand corrected. Knees bending forward, ankles backwards and my formatting brain flat-lining.

The post The F Word appeared first on Laurie Graham.

No summer lollygagging for me this year. I’m going cross-eyed learning the art of book formatting and Dr Dan’s Casebook is starting to look like an actual book. It’s very exciting. Another week or two and I should be able to reveal publication date.

Meanwhile, lest all work and no play make Laurie a very dull old broad, I’m having a yee-haw, Larry McMurtry bedtime reread-athon. Dead Man’s Walk, Lonesome Dove, The Streets of Laredo. Managing a map of Texas from a semi-recumbent position isn’t easy but I find it essential to know my Pecos mountains from my Trans Pecos.

The size of Texas fairly blows my English mind. Indeed my husband always felt Texas should be a separate country, rather than part of the Union, but he thought the same of California. Well, that’s a New Yorker for you.

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