Graham Parke's Blog, page 5
May 3, 2010
The Mysterious Case of the Crocodile and the Badman...
[image error]What was my three-year old's reaction when daddy waved his oddly picture-less book in his face? That colorless waste of ground-up trees so utterly devoid of speaking animals, fairies, and animal-saving teenagers? Damian's reaction to No Hope for Gomez! was this: he pointed at the book and said, quite seriously, 'Bad man!'
Some explanation is needed here. Firstly, the fact that Damian spoke up in English at all was interesting. The little guy basically has a choice of four languages. There's Dutch, which he speaks at day care. There's Serbian, which he uses to communicate with his mother. There's English, which he uses to communicate with his father. And then there's that fourth language, the one he is actually fluent in. (Sadly, he is also the only person to speak this unnamed language in our known universe, which is probably why he uses it mostly when talking to himself, and when he wants to end phone conversations with his grandparents.)
Secondly, I'd made the mistake of choosing a prime piece of real-estate, time wise, to connect with my son. Dora Explorer had just started. And TV is a powerful force, especially when Dora is at it. This, by the way, was the Dutch version, where Dora Explorer teaches the viewers Dutch and English (not the English version, where she teaches English and Spanish – what a wasted torrent that was, luckily we found out in time before the culmination of languages blew up Damian's brain).
And, lastly, the reader should know that many things can, in fact, be "Badman". From the witch in Snow White, to the invisible foe who tries to steal Damian's pacifier when he's drinking his milk.
(Edit: That particular Badman has since managed to make all pacifiers disappear from our home. Both Damian and I suspect he may have been aided by a crocodile. If you have any information, please contact your local writer’s association!)
However, the Badman referred to in this instance, I discovered with relief, was not daddy for writing a book without pictures and then bothering people about it during Dora Explorer. It was also not the book itself. It was in fact the image of the Worrier on the front cover, created by C. Rodriguez Vega. This Worrior is somewhat of a homage to Rodin's thinker, only with an even less sunny disposition. He sits on a rock and holds his head, worrying. And, if you look close enough, you can see that he is indeed a bit of a Badman!
Click here for a close look at the cover
Some explanation is needed here. Firstly, the fact that Damian spoke up in English at all was interesting. The little guy basically has a choice of four languages. There's Dutch, which he speaks at day care. There's Serbian, which he uses to communicate with his mother. There's English, which he uses to communicate with his father. And then there's that fourth language, the one he is actually fluent in. (Sadly, he is also the only person to speak this unnamed language in our known universe, which is probably why he uses it mostly when talking to himself, and when he wants to end phone conversations with his grandparents.)
Secondly, I'd made the mistake of choosing a prime piece of real-estate, time wise, to connect with my son. Dora Explorer had just started. And TV is a powerful force, especially when Dora is at it. This, by the way, was the Dutch version, where Dora Explorer teaches the viewers Dutch and English (not the English version, where she teaches English and Spanish – what a wasted torrent that was, luckily we found out in time before the culmination of languages blew up Damian's brain).
And, lastly, the reader should know that many things can, in fact, be "Badman". From the witch in Snow White, to the invisible foe who tries to steal Damian's pacifier when he's drinking his milk.
(Edit: That particular Badman has since managed to make all pacifiers disappear from our home. Both Damian and I suspect he may have been aided by a crocodile. If you have any information, please contact your local writer’s association!)
However, the Badman referred to in this instance, I discovered with relief, was not daddy for writing a book without pictures and then bothering people about it during Dora Explorer. It was also not the book itself. It was in fact the image of the Worrier on the front cover, created by C. Rodriguez Vega. This Worrior is somewhat of a homage to Rodin's thinker, only with an even less sunny disposition. He sits on a rock and holds his head, worrying. And, if you look close enough, you can see that he is indeed a bit of a Badman!
Click here for a close look at the cover
April 19, 2010
My Second Appendix...
Do you have any pets?
No pets. Although I do enjoy playing with my Son’s extensive collection of plastic crocodiles.
If Tom Hanks, in the movie Cast Away, unearthed a copy of your book, how would that help him find a way off the island?
He would very quickly find the easiest way off the island. Of course, no-one would ever see or hear from him again…
You just got word that your book has received the 2010 NY Times Bestselling Book Award and have to give an acceptance speech. What would you say?
Well, all joking aside, given that exact situation, I’d probably end up staring ahead blankly, perspiring profusely, and I’d mumble something about plastic crocodiles as they carried me off to a much safer place, possibly with nice, soft padding on the walls.
Tell us a secret no one else knows.
I know what the appendix is actually for.
Read the interview here.
April 18, 2010
To Do or Not To Do...
What’s on your to do list today?
I’ve recently started making daily lists because the spill-over from the Everything-that-still-needs-to-be-done-immediately list became so large that I started ignoring it. (Don’t get me wrong, most items on the daily list still get ignored – afternoon-Graham doesn’t put much stock in morning-Graham’s views of the world!)
Tell us a secret no one else knows.
I know what the appendix is actually for.
Read the interview here.
April 16, 2010
Sky's the Limit.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from and how long have you been writing?
I was born and raised in the Netherlands. As a writer, I absolutely believe the Netherlands to be the perfect place to live if you like year-round gray skies.
Sadly, I don’t.
As for writing, I’ve pretty much been making stuff up ever since I learned to read and write; I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t working on at least a story or two.
Read the entire interview.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
I was born and raised in the Netherlands. As a writer, I absolutely believe the Netherlands to be the perfect place to live if you like year-round gray skies.
Sadly, I don’t.
As for writing, I’ve pretty much been making stuff up ever since I learned to read and write; I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t working on at least a story or two.
Read the entire interview.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
April 13, 2010
Book Promotion for Sissies...
What is the first thing you did to promote your book?
[Graham:] The first thing I did was tell my mother. She has a vast network of avid readers (at time of writing, it topped over six whole people!).
Another thing I did was get my website ready. It looked crappy, like it was designed by a six year old. With one hand tied behind his back. so I made new graphics, changed the layout, consulted with an artist friend of mine, and now the site looks as though it was designed by at least a twelve year old. So that’s a 100 percent increase!
I also incorporated a forum. This way I’ll be able to communicate with readers, and they will also be able to communicate with each other. Which is bound to be more interesting for them.
Find the interview here.
[Graham:] The first thing I did was tell my mother. She has a vast network of avid readers (at time of writing, it topped over six whole people!).
Another thing I did was get my website ready. It looked crappy, like it was designed by a six year old. With one hand tied behind his back. so I made new graphics, changed the layout, consulted with an artist friend of mine, and now the site looks as though it was designed by at least a twelve year old. So that’s a 100 percent increase!
I also incorporated a forum. This way I’ll be able to communicate with readers, and they will also be able to communicate with each other. Which is bound to be more interesting for them.
Find the interview here.
April 12, 2010
If you like this book, you might also like… a couple of women??
I’m all for suggestions. My life would be far less interesting if not for the constant suggestions I receive about getting up in the morning.
Amazon enriches my life by making hundreds of irrelevant reading suggestions for me to sift through in search of that one little gem (think of it as the Amazon Easter Hunt). But none of these suggestions can top the auto generated one – I presume – that I discovered under my latest interview. The way the page is set up, it seems to suggest that, after the reader picks up a copy of my novel, they might also enjoy a couple of women. It even shows selected pictures.
Of course, if I was less of an insensitive bastard, I might assume that these are actually author pictures and that the site is merely suggesting checking out their novels. But, as I’m not, and we clearly see women and not book covers, I will assume no such thing. Assumptions can be dangerous.
So, instead, I worry about how these suggestions are generated. Are these women selected according to carefully weighed criteria? I mean, not every woman goes equally well with each book, right? I don’t want readers to be put off my book simply because the woman they got with it was too winy. Or wore too much makeup. Or forgot to put the toilet seat back up. Similarly, I don’t think I’d want these women to be too spectacular. There has to be some balance. I mean, who’s going to read a book when there’s a spectacular women waiting for them to put it down?
This new trend has me very worried.
Find the interview here.
Amazon enriches my life by making hundreds of irrelevant reading suggestions for me to sift through in search of that one little gem (think of it as the Amazon Easter Hunt). But none of these suggestions can top the auto generated one – I presume – that I discovered under my latest interview. The way the page is set up, it seems to suggest that, after the reader picks up a copy of my novel, they might also enjoy a couple of women. It even shows selected pictures.
Of course, if I was less of an insensitive bastard, I might assume that these are actually author pictures and that the site is merely suggesting checking out their novels. But, as I’m not, and we clearly see women and not book covers, I will assume no such thing. Assumptions can be dangerous.
So, instead, I worry about how these suggestions are generated. Are these women selected according to carefully weighed criteria? I mean, not every woman goes equally well with each book, right? I don’t want readers to be put off my book simply because the woman they got with it was too winy. Or wore too much makeup. Or forgot to put the toilet seat back up. Similarly, I don’t think I’d want these women to be too spectacular. There has to be some balance. I mean, who’s going to read a book when there’s a spectacular women waiting for them to put it down?
This new trend has me very worried.
Find the interview here.
April 8, 2010
Delusions of Plot and Character
OBS: For me, your secondary characters- particularly Hicks, Warren and the Sombrero guy- bring an almost otherworldly, fantastical feel to the story – what were your influences to create those characters?
Graham Parke: I think that’s life, really. I am often amazed by what life decides to do to me and how it circumvents any plans I’m making with terrifying ease. The things these characters do to Gomez, that’s how I feel most of the time; bewildered and wanting to pull someone on the sleeve to ask, “Okay, so, what was that all about?”
OBS: The way you keep the reader on their toes, trying to decipher what is reality and what is fantasy, is amazing – did you have a clear vision of how this story would end? Or were you dragged along for the ride as well?
Graham Parke: I had a vague idea when I started. I knew bits from the beginning, the middle, and the end. I wasn’t too sure how I would get from one to the other, though. And, as it turns out, what little I knew was wrong anyway.
As soon as the beginning of a tale gets more detail, you gain a better understanding of the middle. As soon as the middle gets more detail, you realize why the ending will never work. In any way, shape, or form. I’ve come to believe that the only real value in thinking you know where a story is headed, is the delusion that you have an ending to fall back on if the real one fails to reveal itself.
Read the entire interview on Open Book Society.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
Graham Parke: I think that’s life, really. I am often amazed by what life decides to do to me and how it circumvents any plans I’m making with terrifying ease. The things these characters do to Gomez, that’s how I feel most of the time; bewildered and wanting to pull someone on the sleeve to ask, “Okay, so, what was that all about?”
OBS: The way you keep the reader on their toes, trying to decipher what is reality and what is fantasy, is amazing – did you have a clear vision of how this story would end? Or were you dragged along for the ride as well?
Graham Parke: I had a vague idea when I started. I knew bits from the beginning, the middle, and the end. I wasn’t too sure how I would get from one to the other, though. And, as it turns out, what little I knew was wrong anyway.
As soon as the beginning of a tale gets more detail, you gain a better understanding of the middle. As soon as the middle gets more detail, you realize why the ending will never work. In any way, shape, or form. I’ve come to believe that the only real value in thinking you know where a story is headed, is the delusion that you have an ending to fall back on if the real one fails to reveal itself.
Read the entire interview on Open Book Society.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
April 7, 2010
Ausies Rock!
Publishing is a difficult business at the best of times and, as you know, few authors ever make it without at least one glowing Australian review. Here now is my first Australian review. Fingers crossed!
"It was so much fun and a complete joy to read Graham’s book, and interview answers! [...:] I had to stop myself from snorting with laughter in public a couple of times."
"No hope for Gomez!, written by Graham Parke, is a brilliantly funny look into the life of an average guy, living an average life, except for the fact he’s part of a mysterious drug trail that may or may not have deadly side effects [...:] Gomez takes most of this in stride, and continues along the path of true love with the sexy Dr Hargrove by agreeing to become her ’stalker-stalker’. Through reading Gomez’s online blog, we are given a very intimate rollercoaster ride through his life, and, to be honest, I’m still not sure where exactly where I am after getting off it! It was worth every twist and turn, though."
Read the review and interview on Open Book Society.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
"It was so much fun and a complete joy to read Graham’s book, and interview answers! [...:] I had to stop myself from snorting with laughter in public a couple of times."
"No hope for Gomez!, written by Graham Parke, is a brilliantly funny look into the life of an average guy, living an average life, except for the fact he’s part of a mysterious drug trail that may or may not have deadly side effects [...:] Gomez takes most of this in stride, and continues along the path of true love with the sexy Dr Hargrove by agreeing to become her ’stalker-stalker’. Through reading Gomez’s online blog, we are given a very intimate rollercoaster ride through his life, and, to be honest, I’m still not sure where exactly where I am after getting off it! It was worth every twist and turn, though."
Read the review and interview on Open Book Society.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
The Science of Bad Luck
I’ve always been fascinated with bad luck.
Is it merely noticing the bad more than the good? Is it that we fret longer over coincidences we don’t like? Do we attract it like some kind of self-fulfilling prophesy? Or is there, as I’ve come to suspect, something far more sinister going on?
My fascination with bad luck heightened while I was writing my latest novel, ‘No Hope for Gomez!’ The main character, Gomez, for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time, decided to put his bad luck to a quantifiable test. He wanted to find out exactly how his bad luck was dosed, and what brought it on. Now here was an interesting notion. One I hadn’t actually thought of myself. So, for a few days, I let this idea stew and ferment at the back of my mind. Then, one night, I awoke with a workable test fully formed in my mind. It was a crazy test, of course. It was insane. It was like trying to lay bare the intricate machinery of the Universe. But it could be done.
At the time, I was working for a company that had its own research department. Our researchers were people who had been hired specifically to come up with interesting (cheap) answers to strange (expensive) problems. They were good at thinking outside the box, and highly adept at building (cheap) models and (inexpensive) work-arounds. So, the following day, I lured one of our researchers away from his desk with the promise of coffee and interesting banter. This in itself was an accomplishment, as researchers always want to try one more thing before leaving their desks. They, in fact, continue to try one more thing right up until the moment the security guards throw them out of the building at night. Anyway, I carefully explained to this researcher my hypothesis (the Universe is inherently evil and some people get dealt more bad luck than others) and I stipulated the test I wanted to perform to prove this.
Read the entire Post on Story Beyond the Book.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
Is it merely noticing the bad more than the good? Is it that we fret longer over coincidences we don’t like? Do we attract it like some kind of self-fulfilling prophesy? Or is there, as I’ve come to suspect, something far more sinister going on?
My fascination with bad luck heightened while I was writing my latest novel, ‘No Hope for Gomez!’ The main character, Gomez, for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time, decided to put his bad luck to a quantifiable test. He wanted to find out exactly how his bad luck was dosed, and what brought it on. Now here was an interesting notion. One I hadn’t actually thought of myself. So, for a few days, I let this idea stew and ferment at the back of my mind. Then, one night, I awoke with a workable test fully formed in my mind. It was a crazy test, of course. It was insane. It was like trying to lay bare the intricate machinery of the Universe. But it could be done.
At the time, I was working for a company that had its own research department. Our researchers were people who had been hired specifically to come up with interesting (cheap) answers to strange (expensive) problems. They were good at thinking outside the box, and highly adept at building (cheap) models and (inexpensive) work-arounds. So, the following day, I lured one of our researchers away from his desk with the promise of coffee and interesting banter. This in itself was an accomplishment, as researchers always want to try one more thing before leaving their desks. They, in fact, continue to try one more thing right up until the moment the security guards throw them out of the building at night. Anyway, I carefully explained to this researcher my hypothesis (the Universe is inherently evil and some people get dealt more bad luck than others) and I stipulated the test I wanted to perform to prove this.
Read the entire Post on Story Beyond the Book.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
April 5, 2010
Importance of Palm Trees
What do you want readers to take away from reading 'No Hope for Gomez!' ?
My ideal reader sits in the shade of a palm-tree, sipping a colorful cocktail, giggling away happily. As soon as he’s finished reading, though, he realizes that his mind is ruined forever. But by then it’s too late.
Read the entire interview on Blog Critics.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
My ideal reader sits in the shade of a palm-tree, sipping a colorful cocktail, giggling away happily. As soon as he’s finished reading, though, he realizes that his mind is ruined forever. But by then it’s too late.
Read the entire interview on Blog Critics.
No Hope for Gomez!
Free give-away NoDate:
