David W. Robinson's Blog: Always Writing, page 16

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A Curious Pedigree

I said yesterday that for a story so concerned with abuse, rape and murder, my novel,  The Handshaker has an odd background.

There’s an old adage that writers should write what they know, and at the time I first came up with the idea, I knew I was in the early days of osteoarthritis. Because I have a tricky tummy, I couldn’t (still can’t) take the anti-inflammatories to combat the disease, and over-the-counter painkillers don’t have much effect. They don’t even kill the pain.

So I looked at alternatives and elected for hypnotherapy. I have to say at the outset, that it does nothing to alleviate the disease, other than to mask the pain.

But I found it a fascinating experience and I began to research the subject. I became so engrossed in it that I took a short course in hypnotism/hypnotherapy. I even practised for a short time.

Unlike other countries, there is no legal requirement for a hypnotherapist to have any qualifications or even training in the UK, a point which I have no doubt many in the profession will disagree with, but which stands even today. At the time, it also applied to counsellors and social workers. Although it’s highly unlikely that any member of any of these three professions will be without training and qualifications, when you get down to the nitty-gritty of hypnotherapy, anyone can pick up a book from the library, practice on his friends and then call him/herself a hypnotherapist.

My purpose in following this course was to ensure I knew what I was talking about when I came to write it up as advice on tackling arthritis. Aside from a few articles, that advice title never got off the ground.

Over the next year or so, I came across cases where the hypnotist had abused his patients. Impossible, I thought. One of the great tenets of hypnosis is that the subject is in control at all times. How, then, could any hypnotist abuse or rape the hypnotised subject? Digging deeper, I learned that these were not isolated incidents, but had happened time and time again all over the world.

The truth, still vehemently denied by many, if not most hypnotists, the world over is that the subject has control over whether hypnosis will happen, but in the deeper states, because hypnosis by-passes frontal memory and produces a form of amnesia, the hypnotist is the one in charge.

I’ve had many debates about this over the last twenty years, and I always come down to one point. The advice given to women when they choose a hypnotist, is to take a friend along. Why? You don’t take a friend when you go to the doctor, the dentist or even the chiropodist or physiotherapist. Why do you need one for a hypnotherapist?

This is not to say that every man or woman who works as hypnotherapist is a raving thief, rapist or murderer. There are a number of bodies out there regulating the profession, and if they lack real teeth (because the law will not back them up) they ensure that all hypnotists abide by certain standards.

This was the initial catalyst for The Handshaker. A rogue hypnotist abusing his clients. I’ll be discussing The Heidelberg Case later in the week, but for now, let me say that this series of incidents, which took place in Germany between 1927 and 1934, provided the final spark for The Handshaker. Franz Walter was dangerous man, subsequently caught an imprisoned for his abuse.

The Handshaker would be much more dangerous. To take his hand is to invite death.

***

The Handshaker is a part of Crooked Cat Books’ thriller week promotion, and is available as an e-book in all formats and paperback from all good e-tailers and retailers. You can check it out and read samples on Amazon and Smashwords.

If you have any questions on The Handshaker or its background, you can post them on The Facebook Crooked Cat Books page and I’ll try to answer them as best I can. (Sorry, but you will have to ‘like’ the page to comment. That’s down to FB, not Crooked Cat.)

Thriller Week on Crooked Cat Books

It’s a special week of promotion for three of Crooked Cat Books titles in the thriller category, and I’m pleased to say that one of mine is included.

 

The Handshaker has a curious pedigree, which I’ll be talking about over the course of the next few days. For those of you like hard-bitten thrillers, the reviews on it are generally very good. But be advised, this is no gentle, Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery. It contains scenes of graphic sex, violence and murder. And naturally, the language reflects the 21st century.

Also included in the promotion are:

The Violin Man’s Legacy, by Seumas Gallacher. It’s one of those titles I haven’t yet got around to reading, but it has 50 reviews on Amazon UK and the vast majority are four and five star.

A former banker, Scottish born Seumas lives in the middle East, and describes himself as a “Jurassic”. I swear I’m older.

Pill Wars by Vanessa Knipe is the final thriller on offer this week. Again it’s one of those titles I haven’t yet got around to reading, but the futuristic premise is one that intrigues me (and I’m sure the Labour Party wish they’d had access to these pills the day before yesterday).

Vanessa worked in an NHS biochemistry lab at one stage of her career, but found it difficult to fit in the shifts with a family life. Best of all, like me, Vanessa hails from Yorkshire.

All these titles are available through Amazon and all good e-tailers.

Like a thrill or two? Get yourself over to Amazon and dig out these adventures.

Out of Order

Reading a book you start at page one, and read forward until you get to the words THE END on page… whatever.

But that doesn’t mean the book was written in that same order, and it’s certainly not the case with my current work in progress, Trial by Fire.

The first draft of this 14th Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery is about half complete and well on target for a summer release. I began by writing chapters 1, 2 and 3. After that, I moved on to chapters 13, 14 and 15, then up to chapters 21 and 22, then back to chapters 16, and finally back to 4 and 5. About half way through 5, I made a start on chapter 6.

Good friend, Carol Hedges made a point on her blog a few months ago that crime writers do it backwards by which, of course, she meant that you have to know whodunit and how they dunit before you can work on the beginning. Carol takes this a stage further by writing the last page first.

I’m not quite like that, but when I begin I always know where I’m going and how it will end. That the ending often changes before I get there, is another matter. Writing the back end first allows me to plug any gaps that may otherwise be created as I go along. And it’s the same with these jumps in the narrative. If I have Joe in a tight spot at the end of chapter three, I jump to chapter 14 to get him out of that spot, and the ensuing chapters take that part of the story a little further.

Meanwhile, back at chapter three, the screws need to be tightened further, to rack up the pressure, which inevitably means going to chapter 13 to hint at a release of that pressure, which will come in chapter 14.

And naturally as the clues keep stacking up, I tend to forget them, so I may as well go to chapters 21 and 22, effectively the end of the book, and write those to ensure I don’t forget anything.

If it all sounds a bit haphazard, it’s because it is, but I store every chapter as a separate file, and only when they are all written, do I put them together as a single document and start the edits.

That’s when the real madness sets in.

I’m on Oapschat

 

Before you ask, it stands for Optimistic And Proactive Seniors Chat, not Old Aged Pensioner’s Chairs, Hats And Teapots.

It’s the brainchild of Jan Rosser who was disturbed by the lack of general sites for the over-55s. You can learn more of Jan’s thinking, HERE.

I found the site via Facebook and I felt right at home the moment I joined, but not because I particularly wanted to mix with people of my age group. I did, but my underlying reason for signing up was my antipathy to being patronised.

Regular readers will know that I don’t enjoy the best of health. I don’t blame anyone for that but me. If I’d taken better care of myself when I was younger, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now. In fact, if I took better care of myself now, I wouldn’t suffer like I do. But aside from having the occasional moan on the blog, I don’t make a big deal out of it.

Other people do.

Admittedly, they’re well-intentioned, but we all know about the road to Hell, and when I have my hearing aids in and they shout like I’m either stone deaf or three hundred yards away, all it does is bombard said hearing aids with raw noise.

The contributors at Oapschat don’t patronise. The site offers sensible advice such as making aeroplane journeys more comfortable, the do’s and don’ts of mobility scooters, and there is a whole range of health tips, but the members also talk about the same things younger people talk about; TV, getting out for a few drinks, going on holiday. And when I say holiday, I don’t mean the nursing homes of Grange-over-Sands, I mean proper holidays: Cambodia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Israel. The only bloke you’ll find prattling about Filey and Scarborough is me.

I don’t know how or when you define ‘middle-age’ but just because you hit this hazy, ill-defined landmark, it doesn’t mean that’s it, your life is over, get hold of a bus pass and feed the ducks in the park every day as a way of passing the time between now and the Grim Reaper’s visit.

I plan on living to 150 just to spite everyone, and when I use the word ‘living’ I mean living. All right, so life in the fast lane might be too much for me, but I’m happy with the middle lane.

As I say in my latest piece on Oapschat, just because I’m 65, don’t assume that my knowhow ends with switching on the kettle.

In Praise of the E-Book Revolution

Back in the days before toys like the Kindle, Kobo and iPhones descended upon us, if you wanted a book, you toddled along to the bookshop, browsed the shelves and picked up a volume…

Or not.

It’s argued that the old publishing houses were the guardians and gatekeepers of quality. There’s some merit in that argument. To make it through the doors of the large publishing houses your tale had to be near perfect. Even then, you had a field of hurdles and hoops to negotiate. Having said that, I’ve read some crap which came through those channels, and some of it was bestselling crap.

Speaking as a reader, not a writer, the self-publishing/e-book tsunami of the last few years has enabled me to read books that I might want to read, rather than those a publisher tells me I should be reading.

Admittedly, there’s a huge amount of dross which is self-published. I’m probably responsible for some of it. But there is also a lot of quality fiction on the SP platforms, from writers I would never have heard of had it not been for the likes of Amazon, Apple, Kobo and Smashwords.

Take, for example, Trevor Belshaw. Trevor is an excellent writer who turns out imaginative scripts for both adults and children. Judge for yourself on his latest blog serial, Out of Control, part four of which went up earlier this week.  For all his efforts, Trevor’s foot almost got trapped in the door when the publishing houses slammed it shut.

There are problems with self-publishing. It’s so easy it tends to convince anyone and his wife that they have a potential bestseller in them. I’ve been at it thirty years and even I’m not that arrogant. It also tends to leave the writer as a jack of all trades, and I’m not simply talking about the perennial problem of selling books. I’m thinking more of writer, proofreader, editor, formatter, cover designer… and sales director.

An entire industry has grown out of this revolution. Armies of individuals and small companies dedicated to helping the self-publisher with editing, proofing, beta-reading and so on. Some are shysters, determined only to relieve you of your money and do little in return, but hey, that happens with any innovation. Caveat emptor.

There’s another angle to this business, an advantage which benefits both readers and writers. The rise of the small, independent press. My publisher, Crooked Cat, is such a company. Established in 2011, the first titles went out in 2012 and I’m happy to say that one of my Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries was amongst those first releases.

Notwithstanding the doomsayers, many small presses, like Crooked Cat, are still around, still providing a quality threshold for the reader at attractive prices, and providing a platform for writers, relieving them of many of the tasks the self-publisher has to shoulder.

Some of those companies are here and gone in the blink of an eye. My first publisher was one such. Mentioning no names, he was around in the early days of the web, and signed up two of my social comedies. The week after I signed the second contract, he went bust.

I take the optimistic view. If it had not been for the advent of the e-book, he would never have been there in the first place, and I would still be knocking on the doors of the big houses, keeping my foot well out of the way.

Do You Make Your Characters Suffer?

It’s no secret that I don’t enjoy the best of health. Most of it is self-inflicted: too many years of too many cigarettes, too many years of poor diet. Some of it is down to work: too many years of working outside in all weathers.

But all of it is good for the writer in me.

Come again?

There’s an old adage: write what you know. When you’re talking about novelists, we can add a rider. Learn to learn. In other words, if you don’t know something, then learn about it. Nothing, however, can beat personal experience, and when it comes to building characters poor health can be useful for adding that extra dimension which brings a character to life.

For instance: do you know how severe the pain is when gallstones decide to let you know they’re there? I do. Until I had my gallbladder removed in 1989, I have spent as long as an hour curled up in a foetal position on the floor, waiting for the agony to pass.

Have you ever had a coronary angiogram? I have, and I remember the worry as we were coming up to it, and the flood of emotion when they told me my ticker was essentially sound (but if I didn’t stop smoking, they couldn’t extend the warranty).

Like most writers, I make extensive notes as I go through life: things which worry me, things which amuse me, frighten me, fill me with elation, and when it comes to fleshing out characters I can throw all these in, and that includes ill health.

Consequently, Joe Murray’s heart attack that never was at the beginning of Costa del Murder, mirrored my own such event early in 2010. Sheila Riley’s gallstone attack in Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend was drawn from my own experience of them. Joe’s coughing episodes in The Summer Wedding Murder mimic my own COPD, and the biggest hypochondriac in the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, Sylvia Goodson, is diabetic. By coincidence, so am I.

We Brits are natural moaners, and everyone loves to whinge about their aches, pains and ailments. Am I using my characters to vent my frustration at the way I can’t improve my health? Or am I really giving them that extra something they need to bring them to life.

Maybe I’ll know more when I make Joe’s ankles swell the same as mine do when I sit for hours at the workstation.

I Have a Plan

I figure that as A Theatrical Murder made it to #6 in the Amazon UK cozy-crime chart, today is as good a time as any to look at my methods.

I’ve always made the point that I’m a pantster not a plotter. At the absolute most, I scribble out one page of a rough outline and then begin writing.

When I start on a new novel, I know the opening, I know the ending, I even think I know whodunit. Trouble is, the characters often take over during the course of writing.

Nowhere was this more irritating that in A Theatrical Murder. Although short, it was all but finished coming up to the New Year. Then suddenly, the characters took over and the character who I thought dunit, didn’t. It was someone else and for a completely different reason.

This last minute change caused me a delay of three months (albeit compounded by ill-health) and I feel it was this which led Lesley Cookman, creator of the excellent Libby Sarjeant series, to comment on the book, ‘So obvious when you realise the twist. It even fooled me and I’m a theatrical.’ Sorry, Lesley, but there’s a certain tingle factor in putting one over on a fellow scribe.

I said a few days ago that I’m taking the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries back to basics, beginning with the next title, Trial by Fire. As a part of this reinvention, I’ve written a more detailed plan than normal.

WHAT? I HAVE A PLAN?

It’s taken two or three days to get it together, and emails have been bouncing back and forth between myself and editor/advisor/good friend Maureen Vincent-Northam, but the plan runs to four pages.

Oh. Is that all?

It’s still minimal, but it’s still an advance on a series of rough notes scribbled on the back of a Tesco bill.

With the plan in front of me, I can theoretically get down to work, and given my output, I could probably get the first, rough draft together in less than a month.

Theoretically.

In practice, you watch some rotten sod I haven’t even invented yet, turn up and commit the crime and for a different reason.

Writing mysteries? Who’d have it?

***Trial by Fire, STAC Mystery #14 will be with you before the end of the summer. Keep tuning in for more news.

Who Burned Down The Lazy Luncheonette?

 

At the end of Death in Distribution, we learned that The Lazy Luncheonette had been torched. At the beginning of A Killing in the Family, we learned that Joe blamed a certain property developer. Finally, at the beginning of A Theatrical Murder, we learned that although the insurance company have settled up, they’re eager to get their money back from the arsonist.

But there’s a problem: they don’t know who burned down the old Lazy Luncheonette.

The answer will be coming your way by the summer (hopefully).

By ‘hopefully’ I don’t mean I don’t know where I’m at with it. I’m just not certain I can get it written, edited, polished and presented to Crooked Cat by the summer.

Over the last few days, I’ve been in lengthy discussions with my good friend, editor and advisor, Maureen Vincent-Northam, and Trial by Fire (working title) will take the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries in a slightly different direction. We will not see the club off on a weekend jaunt. Instead the tale is set in Sanford and nearby Leeds. Neither will Joe be working with just Sheila and Brenda. He will have professional help in the shape of insurance investigator, Denise Latham.

The other favourites will still be there, including the newly promoted Detective Inspector Gemma Craddock, Joe’s long-suffering niece, and the tale will bring Joe back into contact with an old adversary, Raymond Dockerty, now a Detective Superintendent, with his sidekick Detective Sergeant Ike Barrett.

It’s likely to be slightly darker than the usual Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, but that doesn’t mean to say there will be no humour. Joe’s surly cynicism would make it impossible for him to get through any investigation without one or two chuckleworthy comments. For example:

“We have help, Joe.”

“Who?”

“Denise Latham.”

“She’s helping? I’m doomed.”

Trial by Fire represents a change from the titles I had planned to put out. Both Maureen and I felt that the books were becoming repetitive; something which was noted in several reviews on the last few titles. Trial by Fire is designed to re-invigorate them, and I hope you will approve.

I regret, this blog is still targeted by spambots and I can’t open it up for comments, but you’re welcome to contact me on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Trial by Fire: coming to a Kindle near you by the middle of the year.

Brand Spanking New

 

We’re back. That didn’t take long, did it?

The site has been “rebuilt” inasmuch as it has been re-organised for greater clarity and ease of access.

The front page is now the landing page, and the blog, which is likely to be the most used page, can be found from the homepage menu under the header.

This rebuild is not just about updating the site, but about changing my approach, too. I’ll be blogging more often and with a broader content covering everything from writing, research, and other background work such as the whys and wherefores of locations.

There’ll also be the occasional guest posts, and the standard favourites of humour and holiday hell will still appear.

Hope you like the new layout. Stick around for news and updates.