Ben Adams's Blog, page 4

Book extract: living with your parents…

My book is finished, except for a final professional readthrough from a professional proof-reader. Those of you that have been following my journey from the start (you deserve a reward!) will appreciate what a long journey this has been. It took me a few months to write what I thought was a decent book. It took my editor a month to compile her comments and it has just taken me a month to respond to them.

I am now really proud of the (virtually) final manuscript.

What happens next? Well, I will no doubt have to wait a while to get the final proofed version back. I am also doing some work on my author website. I am paying someone to develop and work with me on implementing a marketing strategy. We shall see whether this is value for money or not in due course.

The ultimate aim is to publish the book early in the new year.

I thought I would share another extract from the book with you all. Feel free to tell me what you think.

Living with my parents isn’t easy. Having your old bedroom back more than twenty years after you left home and sharing the house with your parents is a big change from having your own kids, house, garden, telly and wife (yes, in that order). This significant step backwards in my life has taken some getting used to. I have to remind myself to abide by my parents’ rules while in their house. Rules like washing up straight after a meal rather than when there aren’t any clean dishes left in the cupboard and cutting my toenails in the bathroom not in front of the telly. Talking of the telly, I also have to make sure that the next time I watch playboy tv when everyone else has gone to bed, I turn the channel back to BBC before I turn the tv off. Mum is still getting over the embarrassment of having her women’s institute friends thinking she watches porn.

Having me as a lodger isn’t easy for my parents either, especially at their age. They are both approaching their seventies. They are physically fit but my dad had a hip replacement last year and needs the other one doing too so he is temporarily less mobile than he would want to be. Mum could probably still climb a mountain faster than me and both of them can drink faster than me.

Before I moved in, they were very set in their ways. They had a routine for what rooms in the house they would sit in at different times of the day (kitchen in the morning, conservatory in the afternoon, front room in the evening). Meals were served at 1 o’clock and 6 o’clock and after dinner they would listen to The Archers then move from the radio to the telly in time to watch the soaps. They would go to bed straight after the 10 o’clock news.

Except for a short but explosive teenage stroppy period, I have always got on with my parents. We don’t do cuddles and all that stuff, but pre divorce, I used to go round there once a week with the family, have dinner, play board games and generally drink too much London Pride. I made another of my vows when I moved in with them. I wouldn’t just use their house as a hotel. I would make the effort to continue spending quality time with them. This isn’t proving easy.

‘Quality time’ these days seems to mean sitting around a kitchen table littered with empty London Pride cans and Prosecco bottles, picking my life apart. Now anyone over the age of two would probably be capable of picking my life apart. But my mum and dad consider themselves uniquely qualified to do the job with a forensic precision. They were both social workers in their former lives. My mum used to do something worthy with the parents of children with disabilities and my dad used to manage a ‘family services unit’, whatever that means.

There is only so much frowning over my previous life choices or suggestions about future life choices that a man can take. I reached my limit today. Mum cooked a traditional Sunday roast, beef and all the trimmings. We washed it down with our usual beverages. Our plates were empty, our stomachs full and our tongues alcoholically lubricated when mum asked me where it all went wrong.

‘What do you mean ‘where did it all go wrong’?’ I asked.

‘With your life, Graham. How did it come to this?’ She even did that palms up, arms outstretched hand gesture thing when she said ‘my life’, presumably meaning everything. Where did everything go wrong? Thanks mum, build me up, bolster my confidence.

I thought about going for a glib response but the earnest look on mum’s face made me change track.

‘I don’t know mum, I guess my marriage just wasn’t meant to last.’ Ok so it wasn’t exactly an insightful answer but it was the best I could do.

‘That’s nonsense and you know it Graham.’ mum continued. ‘Marriages need to be worked at. It wasn’t as if either of you had an affair or anything that drastic. Surely you could have worked through your differences?’

‘You didn’t even see a marriage guidance counsellor.’ dad chimed in. We did actually but I hadn’t told them about it because they would have had a go at me for walking out in the middle of a session.

And so it went on, two against one, tag-team wrestling. My parents still seem to think the sun shines out of my ex’s backside. They act as if she is their daughter rather than me their son. They still hold out a hope that my perfect ex will have me back. I wouldn’t go back even if she would have me back. Which she wouldn’t.

I have told my parents time and again that my ex and I split up because of our terminal irritability with each other, our mutual intolerance of each other, our irreconcilable tv viewing schedules. We just didn’t like each other. I tried to explain that to my parents but, to them, not liking your other half doesn’t constitute grounds for divorce.

‘You should have paid more attention to her when you had her.’ dad advised. Why didn’t I think of that?

‘Those poor children.’ mum offered. Why didn’t I think of them too? I was on the ropes by this point, being seriously double-teamed by my parents, but wasn’t about to submit.

‘Bloody hell, will the two of you just leave me alone. I have had it with your sniping at me. You might have been married for ever but all you ever do is sit on your arses watching crap on the telly. I’d prefer to be single and living than married and dead.’ The ‘atomic drop’, the ‘full nelson’ and the ‘gorilla press’ all combined in to one move. That told them.

‘Happy mother’s day.’ mum muttered as I was heading for the door. Shit.

At this point, I think I should make a confession. Being divorced, separated from my kids and my marital home (not to mention my ex) is quite stressful. It is quite a large upheaval in my life and may just have caused a slight emotional imbalance in my otherwise rock-solid equilibrium. In other words, I may be a bit self-centered at the moment, even a bit emotionally unstable. Not to the extent that I am about to charge around Morden with a lethal weapon killing random strangers, but enough that I may snap at my parents from time to time.

I need to put an end to alcohol-influenced conversations about my life.

Google: my new BFF

‘Six months to get a life’ is coming along nicely. I am still working my way through the manuscript, fine-tuning it ready for submission to the proof-readers by the end of the month. The aim now is to publish early in 2015. I can’t wait.

It occurred to me today that I should add in an ‘author’s note’ or ‘acknowledgements’ page of some sort.

If I was being brutally honest, my author’s note would say something like:

“This book has been made possible in no small part thanks to the efforts of Mr and Mrs Google. Their dedication to the project has been nothing short of immense. They have never let me down whenever I have called upon them. They are true professionals. Oh, and can I thank my children and my editor too.”

Of course I use a million other meticulous research methods to ensure that the facts in my book are unfailingly accurate. Without a doubt though, I have used google the most.

I thought it would be fun to list a few of my searches.

Women’s dress types (I am a bloke after all!!)

Different approaches to marriage guidance

The medical term for the heel bone

Boxer shorts v briefs

Ridiculous job titles

Festivals in Weymouth, UK, in June

Small live music venues, London, 1968

Correcting errors on a birth certificate

The difference between compliment and complement (I should have listened more in English lessons)

Workplace jargon

Sexually transmitted diseases (I was glad I had no first-hand knowledge of this topic)

Typical book word length (I was anxious to avoid a ‘War and Peace’ scenario)

It would be great to hear some of the more bizarre google searches you have undertaken.

And, google, as I have sung your praises here, in return can you please put my book as the first search result people see whenever they search for anything to do with divorce, relationships, family life, comedy, sex and contemporary fiction for the entire month of January please.

Ben

And my editor said…

I love my editor. I have never met her and she may already be married but make no bones about it, I love her.

I sent my first book, ‘six months to get a life’ off to her a few weeks ago. I have been a nervous wreck ever since.

By the time the book came back, my nails were shorter, my hair greyer and my blood pressure higher.

But the wait was worth it. She likes it! She thinks it’s funny and that it could be a commercial success.

Of course she didn’t just say that everything about it was perfect. In fact she has provided lots of really constructive suggestions that I will now be enthusiastically working on over the summer.

In particular, she has challenged me to develop the characters more. Particularly for those of you that are writing your first book at the moment, I thought I would share some of her comments.

At specific points in the text she has posed questions like:

“Does he think Julia fancies him?”

“Is it OK by Graham? Does he mind being told he isn’t great in bed?”

“Shouldn’t Graham acknowledge that he’s being a bit of a dickhead?”

“Could you use this as an opportunity to show us what’s going on in Sean’s head?”

“More of a reaction/comment here from Graham, please.”

“Pretty twattish response from Graham – we should see her anger.”

“Wouldn’t Graham think about sex more? Wouldn’t he want to know about Dave & Helen? Has he slept with Amy? Does he want to? Does he think he will?”

“So what’s he like? Describe him. Can we see Graham being bitchy/jealous/competitive.”

“Does Graham fancy ‘short skirt Sarah’? He’s single again – he’d be considering the idea, wouldn’t he? Space here for him to think about whether he’s attracted to her/feels attractive himself/is he ready for anything new/what’s his self-image/how confident does he feel? Etc. Try to do it via physical details, eg might he check to see if he’s got a beer belly/does it show/should he go to the gym later.”

My editor also said a couple of things that I would love your views on.

“Really? I don’t believe a parent of teenagers wouldn’t have heard of au pairs.” What do you think? Have most parents of teenagers heard of au pairs?

“Coffee? Teenagers don’t drink coffee.” Is she right here? Are my kids odd?!

And whilst she liked a lot of the funny lines in the book, she didn’t think this one worked. Do you?

“I actually took my ring off on Christmas day and chucked it under a sofa in my family home in disgust at being bought a ‘beard care set’ for Christmas. I haven’t even got a beard.”

Book cover – which do you prefer?

Choosing a book cover is so important. As a reader I will shy away from tacky-looking covers or covers that suggest to my subconscious that the book is a bit too girly or paranormal or whatever for my tastes. A glance is all it takes to put me off a book.

The trouble is, a cover that might put me off might at the same time attract others to at least read the book’s blurb.

I have just received the attached two cover designs for my first book, ‘Six Months to Get a Life’. I would love to know what you think of them.

I wait with baited breath!

Ben