The Pot-bellied Cook and The Three-legged Dog.

It took a while, but I am pleased to say that the first rough draft for the Pot-bellied Cook and The Three-legged Dog is finally complete and it is starting to look the business.  I wanted to go to print by the end of May and I think I might just be able to do it.

As you can see, I have managed to get some pleasing results from my limited knowledge of Photoshop and InDesign and with a few more images here and there - the PBC should be ready.

Carol, has done a spectacular job with the illustrations, and it's time to let the world know about them.  With that in mind I realised that it's time to start cranking up my game a bit and get myself a bit of exposure.

This blog needs to be given a lot more love and attention with more updates about the PBC which, in turn can be drip fed onto Twitter and Facebook.

The website www.hpmmedialtd.com is looking a bit shabby and needs a complete revamp. I do have the facility to make some banners and other simple animations but I am really not sure when I am going to get the opportunity to learn how to do it.

Despite not having a confirmed publishing date I still need to register it with Nielsen and re-establish contact with the big distributors Bertram's and Garner's and maybe get some promotional posters printed up.

Once we have the book in our possession then the fun and games begin all over again.
First up is the book launch,  I have a shop in mind but it's always good to have a plan B as well. Schools, libraries and bookshops need to be contacted - readings need to be organised and then of course it's about getting the word out there using the local media.

Somewhere down the line I am going to need an agent as combining my real life job with that of an Author is going to be really tricky.

On the bright side though, it is a long time since I've been bored.

The Pot-bellied Cook and the Three-legged Dog

 

 Naively, I thought I could race through the production of the PBC within a matter of days; have it ready for print within a month; into the shops by May and have a complete diary of school and library readings booked by the start of the World Cup.

rough draft  2

However, this doesn't look like it's going to be the case.  Having to get to grips with Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator CS6 all at the same time is proving a "tad" bit tricky, and despite all my efforts so far - I've not come up anything that makes me want to puff out my chest and go "Hey, I did that".

Of course I could just opt for the traditional Text vs Images but then the book wouldn't stand out and will always be measured against the HPM.

 The past month has been spent trawling through the thousands of online tutorials that are available in a bid to absorb as much skill and technique as I can.  (As you can see from the spread above - I don't have a particularly high absorption rate.)  The other problem I have is being able to work within the tiny pockets of time that I have alone and come up with something constructive.

rough draft 3

The book will get finished, but there is a huge amount of work needed to do the images justice.

Back with a bang

Pot-bellied Cook and the Three legged Dog (1st rough draft)

I know it's been half a year since I last wrote anything of note - but sometimes life gets in the way and there is nothing you can do about it.  However, over the coming weeks and months I am going make up for lost time by constantly bombarding you with blogs and updates about my new book -

 The Pot-bellied Cook and the Three-legged dog.

Our brilliant illustrator Carol completed the last of the the images in December and normally I would have jumped straight into the project and the book would be well under way.  Alas, life's never easy and one hard drive and operating system replacement later I am finally in the position to start laying out the book and get it ready to print.

It's almost been 5 years since we assembled The Hairy Plug Monster and a lot of the knowledge I picked up then has been buried under piles of other useful/less information.

I seem to remember that every minute detail of producing the HPM took hours of procrastinating, discussion and arguing before we were finally happy with the layout and I think that the PBC is not going to be any different.

Gardening - the cure for writer's block? - No, but it keeps me away from Facebook.

Before I became a children's writer - I was a garden designer/landscaper and not all that bad as it happens.  From having a zero knowledge about plants and the physique of a librarian I quickly learnt many of the skills necessary to have a reasonably successful business and look like a bronzed 'Adonis'  in the process.

Bill Welch aka Chainsaw Bill

 

 

  It wasn't a bad job -  I got to play with dumper trucks and diggers, hanging out with people adept at using chainsaws; I enrolled in a HND design course at college and told everyone I was a garden designer.

 

Then came the easy job of filling in the gaps.

 

Fast forward six years and I had completely fallen out of love with gardening and everything else that came with it.  I used to get really depressed and even panic when I was doing the simplest of garden tasks and found it hard to focus.

 

Then something quite strange happened,  for no apparent reason I bought a packet of cress seeds for Maya-Rose and planted them and within a week, they had been harvested and eaten with a poached egg on toast. 

 

Inevitably this led to Maya-Rose asking - "What else can we grow?"

 

hmmm. . .

 

 

 The following week I went out and bought another 6 packets of various vegetable seeds a set of aluminium takeaway trays and some compost. The next day I dug up part of my lawn and began the arduous task of turning it over into a vegetable patch.  My kitchen window sill played host to a variety of seedlings and before I knew it I was given a choice.

 

a)Throw them away content in the knowledge that if I really wanted to grow food I probably could.

b)Put my boots on, grab a spade, dig up my neglected lawn and turn them into growing beds. 

 

after much deliberating I chose the latter.  My lawn is now half the size and artistically curvy, while the rest is divided between growing beds and wildflowers. (This year it's just daisies, but next year I intend to go the whole hog and do my bit to save the bees.)

 

So over the summer I have been rekindling my love of all things 'garden' whilst at the same time using it as an excuse to not write anything worth reading. 

 

It's not be a totally wasted exercise as I now have a modest collection of courgettes, radishes, peas, beans, broccoli, kale and an equal amount of herbs all coming together rather well.

 

My passion for foraging has taken up most of my spare daylight hours as I am making a massive effort to expand my wildflower knowledge and decode my surroundings when I am out walking the dog.  It's a slow and laborious process, checking and rechecking the petal formations and the leaf shapes to make an educated guess at the many plants that I had previously dismissed collectively as "weeds". 

 

So that's about where I am up to.

 

 

In other news

 

Having narrowly missed out at making the cut for Sound Central Festival in Kabul, I have spent a bit of time tinkering with visuals for my music and  taking samples from vintage radio transmissions to play over the top to give a bit of structure to the pieces.

 

Not having the proper equipment to produce my own, and  having no extra time to sit down properly and teach myself the fine art of film making I have had to borrow visual content from You Tube.  The result naturally being not bad for a beginner but definitely not in any danger of worrying the 'grown-ups'. 

 

Please feel free to leave a comment.

 

Static Island -  The Welcoming Committee

Visuals   "Geheimnisse Einer Seele"

Samples taken from Strange Tales - listen to the full stories here.  http://www.relicradio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Static Island - The Solvent

Samples taken from Strange Tales - listen to the full stories here. http://www.relicradio.com