The Parsonage Plots

[James]

Writing is a great excuse for not doing anything else, and having been under the surgeon's knife recently I've indulged myself for a few months. The result is another novel. In this one the tenants of a set of allotments go about their daily lives of mischief, sex(always implied rather than graphic) and alcohol consumption.
At 52K words it's not yet full term, but I'm at a point where I need to sit back for a while to consider how it is to conclude. Anyone like a quick shifty at it in its raw state?
All comments welcomed.

[Rob]

James wrote: "Writing is a great excuse for not doing anything else, and having been under the surgeon's knife recently I've indulged myself for a few months. The result is another novel. In this one the tenants..."

Can you fire it over in a form I can read on the Kindle? Word is okay.

Hope the knife-work wasn't too serious.

[Will]

I'd love to take a look but my writing email is currently SNAFU. Give me a couple of days to fix it and then I'd be delighted to take a look.

[Cee]

James wrote: "Writing is a great excuse for not doing anything else, and having been under the surgeon's knife recently I've indulged myself for a few months. The result is another novel. In this one the tenants..."

I'm clear for reading at the moment, James. Not promising I'll be able to get through it all, but would be more than happy to give some general feedback on what I can manage.

Same as Rob, if it can come in a form that I can add to my Kindle app, that'd be great. (I think I've managed to add Word docs to Kindle in the past. Best send to ceeteejackson@gmail.com )

Cheers

COLIN

[James]

They are on the way gents.

[Andy]

Yes please, flick me over a copy mate.

I've reading one now - the new Daniel and George adventure from Phillip Smith - but I'll be finished that soon.

Cheers.

[Andrew]

I wouldn't mind taking a look.

[Will]

Fixed my email, so I can take a look too. wall(at)will-once.com.

[James]

I'm getting an invalid recipient error Will. I've tried an old address I had and that should get to you.

[Will]

James - that's because I'm a fat-fingered old fart who can't spell his own (pen) name!

Received successfully on the second attempt.

[Nico Meert]

I would like to have o look at it too if it is ok.

[James]

I've been a bit quiet recently. Correcting the hundreds of typos and drawing the illustrations for this. I tend to type at a fair speed, hammering the words onto disk as the thoughts flow, and a decade or so ago I could be certain that there would be few errors. But having spent the last month correcting and polishing this one I think that owning a bus pass for ten years has a detrimental affect on one mentally. In my saner moments I know the different use of 'their' and 'there' and the 'its' rule. But it seem that such moments are less frequent after a seventieth birthday.

Any others of you got any similar experiences th share?

[Cee]

Congratulations on your 70th, James!

This being a CLOG post, I'm not sure whether you're being serious or not. I know there are a few typos in the text above, and if this was not a clever ruse to elicit a reply, then I apologize.

Certainly, I have seen very little evidence of this in The Parsonage Plots, as far as I've read. (I'm dead slow and stop, I know. Baseball season's started! And summer league tennis.)

I gotta say - I love it! I reckon it's your best that I've read. Maybe because I can imagine the set-up so easily. It's perfect, gentle and subtle humour matches so well with the characters and their descriptions.

It reminds of the humour in the early to mid Last of the Summer Wine TV series.

And once again, your attention to research, like you did with 'Nights of Old' (?) is fantastic.

If I've been dismissive of your recent writing experiences, then I am sorry.
But I'm still loving your work. :)

[James]

Thanks CT,
I think the error rate increased in later chapters, but SWMBO had ferreted most of them out and a fairly clean version is now in existence.
Thank you for the nice words. It was only when I I reread it in entirety that I realised that I'm writing to formulae, with the characters described in early chapters with minor incidents of their own, and coming together into a more elaborate story in the second half. It shows in the chapter lengths.
Not sure what I'll do next. I started a rustic Saxon story but stopped after half a dozen chapters.
My grandson posed for a few of the illustrations in this one. Perhaps I'll do a children's book with lots of drawings and few words.

[Cee]

:-D

[James]

Quote<< Cee: 'It reminds of the humour in the early to mid Last of the Summer Wine TV series.'>>

Just a cotton picking minute! Are you suggesting I share Bill Owen's predilection for wrinkled stockings?

[Cee]

The writer bloke doth protest too much, methinks. ;)

[James]

Finally got this ready for publishing. Paperback is available from

https://completelynovel.com/books/the...

and I'm thinking about the Ebook. Some of the illustrations are more than half a Demi page and they tend to break the text on Kindle devices.
Anyone have a feel for what proportion of ebook users leave the wifi on? Then I could embed URLs.

[Rob]

I can only speak from experience but one of the reasons I like the Kindle is that I can load a bunch of books on it and then take it on my travels, where a WiFi signal cannot always be guaranteed. I think I'd regard it as a formatting error if I were to find a book with a missing image - i.e. because the device couldn't draw down an image from a remote source.

Are the images necessary? I read the whole thing and never once felt the need for illustrations to supplement my imagination. I think the writing stands up well on its own, and I don't know many people who regard illustrations as an essential element of a novel. Just my view, of course.

[James]

Thanks Rob,
It's the old question of control over the presentation of the work, and if the ebook reader should get as close a facsimile as possible to the hard copy on paper.