Jonathan Pinnock's Blog, page 17
February 27, 2014
The Sound of My Voice
One thing they don’t tell you when you start getting into writing is that whether you like it or not, you’re going to end up having to perform your work too. It’s an essential part of the marketing and self-promotion process. There is, however, nothing more off-putting than going to a reading and hearing a mumbled, gabbled, incoherent performance, so it’s worth devoting some effort into getting it right – even if, like me, the last time you performed on stage was at school. And in my case at least, that was a loooong time ago.
Unfortunately, you can practice all you like at home and in front of friends or your writers’ group, perhaps, but the point at which you really start to learn is when you stand up in front of a live audience of strangers and try to convince them that what you’ve written is worth their attention. So over the last few years I’ve sought out opportunities to read my work and the odd thing is that I’ve begun to really enjoy it. There have, of course, been one or two duff efforts – times when I’ve wished the ground would swallow me up – but they’re all learning experiences. But when you get it right, there is nothing quite like the buzz you get from hearing an audience react to something you’ve written. And of course, if you have merchandise (i.e. books) to sell, the better the performance, the more units you shift.
So here are a couple of recent recordings. The first is from the Open Mic night at The Swan in Wedmore. It’s about twelve and a half minutes long:
And here’s one from the most recent Acoustic Night Bristol. Much better sound quality, and only a couple of minutes long:
Finally, here’s something a bit different. It’s a kind of audio story that I put together, and I guess it’s my attempt to try to explore the area left vacant by the likes of Ivor Cutler and Vivan Stanshall. If that isn’t too presumptuous. It probably is, isn’t it? Ah well.
February 19, 2014
TAKE IT COOL Gets a Cover
Got a lot of things to blog about at the moment and not enough time to blog in. However, this is most definitely the most important one. TAKE IT COOL has a cover!
What do you think?
I have to say I love it: it’s neat, it’s eye-catching and it captures the essence of the book.
It was interesting to compare the approaches of 2RP and Salt here. With Salt, you have absolutely no idea what Chris Hamilton-Emery is going to come up with until you get tagged with an image on Facebook. I hasten to add that I’ve been very pleased indeed with the covers for both my Salt books, but it was still slightly alarming to realise that you have no input whatsoever!
With 2RP, on the other hand, Sam asked me if I had any ideas, and I suggested using the label image. I produced a horrifically amateurish mock-up of how it might look, and sent it over. She passed this to her designer, the very talented Yvonne Benting, who applied the necessary magic and turned it into something that looks like a proper book.
So things are shaping up nicely. All I’ve got to do now is complete the final edit before passing it back to 2RP. Reading it through again, and seeing that cover, I’m beginning to think it might just work, you know.
Especially with Ian Rankin’s little contribution. Or Rankin’ Ian, as we should probably start calling him.
February 4, 2014
Forthcoming Appearances
It’s getting near that time of year when the excellent Get Writing conference begins to loom on the horizon like a looming conference type of thing. This year I’m doing a workshop called “Think You’re Funny, Eh?” I’m not entirely sure if humour can be taught, but I am certain that there are a number of relatively simple techniques that can be learnt in order to make humour work better. This is what it says in the programme anyway:
In this workshop, he uses examples from the classics of comic literature (and also, if no-one manages to stop him, his own work) to show you how to locate your reader’s funny bone.
If this sounds like the kind of thing that you’d like to attend, here’s where you go to book. Apart from my own workshop (obviously), I also strongly recommend that you see if you can get into ‘s. The one he did last year was absolutely magnificent.
The other thing I’m doing is an appearance at the BristolCon Fringe, on Monday February 17th, along with Scott Lewis and Snorri Kristjansson. No idea what I’ll be reading yet, but I guess it will have a sci-fi-ish sort of bent. Which could mean almost anything, frankly. I’d go if I were you.
January 22, 2014
More TAKE IT COOL Excitement
One of the most important questions that your publisher tends to ask you prior to publication is “Know anyone who can give us a nice cover blurb?” This time around, however, I managed to pre-empt that one. I knew exactly who I wanted, and I was pretty sure I could get him.
Back when I started blogging TAKE IT COOL, I tweeted links to the early episodes to a few celeb types that I follow on Twitter. One of these was Ian Rankin. Hang on, I hear you say, isn’t he a crime writer? Ah yes, but I happen to know (from watching his Twitter feed) that he’s also a big music fan. And I just had this feeling that TAKE IT COOL might appeal to him. It turns out that it did.
So yesterday I reminded him of this, and then asked him how we’d feel about using “Lovely stuff – Ian Rankin” on the cover. This was his reply. The man is a true gent. The upshot of this is that TAKE IT COOL is going to have a cover blurb from a writer with 30 million sales to his name. How about that?
Another layer of cake icing arrived today, with the announcement appearing in The Bookseller – another first for me. That makes it official, right?
