Pistols for Two ~ Breakfast for One

From kindling to Kindle

2011-04-30T13:43:00.004+01:00

Hard copies of 'Pistols for Two - Breakfast for One' are disappearing fast, presumably being used for kindling. Fewer than 30 hardbacks left, and no paperbacks (they burn more effectively, I am told).

But fear not, zealous (hem hem) readers - although it's been available on Kindle for several months, 'Pistols' can now be downloaded at the staggeringly good, knock-down price of £0.69 (or $1.14 for our American cousins). More than a packet of Jelly Tots, admittedly, but it won't rot your teeth. Much.

Ding-dong, m'dears. Very ding-dong.

MJD
30.iv.11

A Series (Perhaps) of Tat - cont.

2010-04-24T17:57:00.005+01:00

PART II: targets – one must reach one’s targets

The two and half readers who happened upon Part I of this potentially occasional nonsense actually seemed to have read the thing. One even passed comment on it that was not entirely derogatory (though I may not have been reading between the lines). Spurred on by this overwhelming reaction, here’s Part II.

The title of this snippet may sound like a local government department mantra, but we are told by publishers that it is of increasing importance to ‘know’ (or rather, attempt to predict) a book’s commercial potential: where does it fit into a publisher’s current list, or its back-catalogue? More importantly, where does it slot into the marketplace? In other words, if we’re being blunt, how will it make the publisher any money?

By way of example, a friend of a friend &c. &c. told me that she had heard how the publishers of Twilight thought, on reviewing the manuscript: ‘Yes, not bad, this. We might shift a few thousand copies. Only a small print-run, I think, but it’ll make a few quid for us in a niche kind of way’ (I paraphrase, I believe). Result? BAM. Stratospheric worldwide sales of more than 100 million copies; a series of blockbuster Hollywood films; every single one of Stephenie Meyers’s books an almost instant bestseller. (Perhaps now she can afford a few more ‘e’s in her name.)

So publishers don’t always get it right. The Twilight example is, of course, a rare example of them getting it wrong with extremely positive results. Paying Sarah Palin US $7 million for her autobiography? I believe I have already reserved my seat on the fence.

It has been often said (by my damned publishers no less, the swines), that Pistols defies any kind of categorisation. It doesn’t really fit into any genre as neatly as one might hope. It’s not really crime. It’s not historical fiction in the traditional sense. God knows it’s not literary fiction. And it’s certainly not an autobiography (*winks*).

Yes, I like to think that it might raise the odd giggle amongst readers. So I guess it might charitably be classed as ‘comedy’ – but what kind of comedy? Obviously not chick lit. But not a farce either. Hmmm. I like to think of it as a caper. And not in a pickled berry kind of way.

Part I of this tat looked at inspirations behind the writing of Pistols. The Flashman novels, Fleming and Bonfiglioli all had their parts to play. In its review of Pistols (as a result of its hitting the editors’ desk on Authonomy back in May 2009), Harper Collins said that this type of market – the Flashman-like caper novel – was ‘heavily competitive’. They mentioned James Delingpole’s Coward series as being in a similar vein. Mark Gatiss’s Lucifer Box novels probably also fall into that category.

In terms of aiming at a particular demographic with Pistols, as I said in Part I of this bilge, from the start I set out to write the type of book that I, as a reader, enjoy, and that I always find very hard to find in the shops. Kyril Bonfiglioli came closest to my ideal type of writing in that respect, and he’s not exactly widely-read. A crying shame, of course, and if I had my way he’d be on the national curriculum in a flash. No wonder the country’s on its back, as Hammersley might say.

In my mind’s eye Pistols’ core target market was always going to be classically-educated tossers (in the most charming sense of the word, naturally); male; late twenties/early thirties who like adventure and a bit of intrigue, and with a taste for fine dining, fine women and fine tailoring.

Their age-group? I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess anywhere from 16 upwards. I’d hope.

I honestly didn’t think that women would really like Pistols. As an extreme, some of them might even aver that the book is sexist, that Hammersley himself is an invidious chauvinist and entirely divorced from the notion of sexual equality. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to learn that almost from the start of the book being made available to the public in one form or other, women readers seemed to engage with and buy into it as much as the men. And that was rather wonderful.

I shall leave it to two of Pistols’ very earliest and very loveliest of readers, Ms Noelle Pierce and Ms Val-Rae Christensen, both women of discernment, wit and charm, to sum up our hero respectively:

“In addition to being similar to his dear creator [the author makes no comment], Hammersley is a quick thinker and a realistic hero (he actually gets *hurt* in fights). I rather like him more than James Bond. And that's saying a LOT.”

“Hugo? Darling Hugo? *Thud, pant, thud* Well, what is there to say about him, really? He pukes well. Gets out of most any scrape. I suspect smells divine when he is not smelling of a ‘Stygian cess pit’ and is generally an all around charming fellow. Only do hold onto your bicycles. And your knickers.”

Who’d have thought it? Hammersley a hit with the lay-deez after all. He so very much likes to meet his targets. And ideally to take them to dinner.

MJD II
24.iv.10

A Series (Perhaps) of Tat

2010-03-29T20:51:00.002+01:00

The Whys, Wherefores and What-on-earths

PART I: inspiration, not perspiration

I’ve heard it said that people get more out of a book when they feel an intimacy with it, an understanding of its background or genesis, and how it came to be. Certainly whenever I’ve read bits about books I’ve loved, and what drove the author to write them, it’s raised Eyebrow 1 (Dick’s unfailing arbiter of wit and elegance, qualities which will always get his attention) to more than half-mast.

So I thought I’d jot down a few ideas behind how Pistols came about. It may be of interest, or it may not. We shall have to see. This is Part I. If people like it, Part II might pop along later.

Before we kick off, I should put to bed one common theory. The author is not Hammersley, as much as he would like to think that he is. This is a Most Important Thing to understand. He may share certain characteristics with his hero (a Y-chromosome, for example – just), but it must be pointed out from the start: apart from the drinking, the womanising and the run-ins with the Mafia, Pistols is entirely a work of fiction, do you see?

***

There’s nothing like a bit of inspiration for a writer to get writing. Many authors I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know over the last 18 months are insatiable readers. Insatiable. Can’t get enough of the stuff. I’m not one of them (see below for why), but, contrary to frequent allegations to the contrary, I can actually read, and do so on occasion.

I’m a big fan of Fleming, particularly the Bond novels. Many dismiss them as pulp nonsense, but his prose is marvellous. Simply marvellous. Elegant and refined, as smooth and suave as the screen Bond would turn out to be (far more so than the Bond of the books). Reading Fleming made me realise that when I tried my own hand at writing a novel, third person narrative was the way to go. But then I read the Flashman series.

Now I always knew that when I came to write a book (been planning on doing it since before university, way back in the mid-90s), my main character would be male, as charming as an anus such as I could write him, a lover of women, a wielder of adverbs and a connoisseur of the finer things in life. I knew he’d get into scrapes, and that more often than not his luck and charm would carry him through. And I knew he’d talk like a preposterous, upper-class tit, an attribute with which I am well familiar.

Readers of Pistols pick up on the similarities with the Flashman books straight away, although the biggest influence George MacDonald Fraser had was to switch my mind from Fleming’s third person to the inimitable first. So much more scope for anecdote and asides, and Hammersley is obsessed with those. Again, GMF’s prose is exemplary. He has a journalist’s way with precision, and is never, ever prolix (another skill that continues to elude Hammersley).

However, my all-time favourite writer remains Kyril Bonfiglioli. Quite possibly you’ve never heard of him. You must emend this state of affairs immediately, or we shall not get along. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. The Mortdecai Trilogy will do for starters, but then The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery and All the Tea in China. Bonfiglioli is a chap who, when working his way through a crowded pub holding a glass of whisky, accidentally bumped into a pair of lovely lay-deez, spilling some of his beverage onto each, and immediately quipped: “a Haig on both your blouses!” We shall even forgive him the use of an exclamation mark for such remarkable wit.

I can point out to any who care to hear of it the precise chapter in Pistols that I started to write after I had encountered Bonfiglioli for the first time. He gave me a confidence and an inspiration that I rarely encounter in life, and quite possibly Pistols would not have been completed without him.

I read about a single chapter of P G Wodehouse when I was at Prep. school back in the 80s. I think it was some Jeeves. Our task the following English lesson was to write a story in that style. I got involved, loving every minute. Wodehouse’s style seemed to speak to me, and I felt comfortable in the worlds he created with such effortless accomplishment. I was never aware that he’d been such an influence on Hammersley until I signed up to Harper Collins’s Authonomy website and people starting likening Pistols to an X-rated caper in a Galahad Threepwood sort of fashion. Nowhere near as good, of course, but it was a start. I’d not read a word of Wodehouse since that English lesson, and I started my first Jeeves novel only some time after I’d finished Pistols. But I think the Plum influence must have stayed with me subconsciously all those years.

And here’s the thing. Apart from these writers, I don’t enjoy many books at all. Most of them bore me to tears, and I switch off after a page. When I read, I like to be grabbed by the lapels and hurled between chapters, battered about the head with challenging words, ridiculous names and such an overuse of adverbs that Jane Austen would feel ashamed. And because I’d not encountered many books that could give me that kind of rollercoaster ride, I thought I’d try writing one for myself. So I tried.

Pistols is the kind of book I like to read. I wrote it for me, always thinking that if someone chose to publish it, that would be an added bonus. It will never be a bestseller. Nowadays one has to sell droves in Asda and Tesco to achieve that. And I don’t think Hammersley would take too kindly to being stuck alongside the sandwiches and pasta salads.

Someone once described Pistols as like a ten-course Christmas dinner: very nice, but just too much. I think that’s probably fair enough. I like Christmas dinners, and the more courses, the better. Readers tend to love Pistols or loathe it. It’s one of the Marmites of the literary (I use the word in its most charitable sense) world. And I’m at peace with that. More importantly, so is Hammersley.

MJD II
27.iii.10

'Pistols' now available

2009-10-31T18:08:00.008Z

Yes, some lovely (deluded?) folk have seen fit to publish my tat. The book was released on 14 November 2009, and is available for ordering, both hardback and paperback, from all good bookshops and (with free postage) from the Diiarts website: http://www.diiarts.com/.

Five cracking books by different authors have also been published by Diiarts. You could do worse than read them, you know. You could, for example, read 'Pistols'.

I am simply the worst person to have a blog

2009-09-06T12:43:00.006+01:00

The reason being that I am an idle bastard.

I also have absolutely nothing either of interest or humorous to say (those of my acquaintance can confirm this).

BUT.

But.

I have just noticed that this blog has picked up another follower. Yes! It's SECOND follower. *Imagine*. If that's not worthy of a mention in a NEW post, I don't know what is. Another person to disappoint, do you see?

No wonder the country's on its bleedin' back. Keep calm and carry on, m'dears.

My new website

2009-09-03T10:43:00.001+01:00

Wit and wisdom to follow.

Silly buggers

2008-08-28T10:03:00.006+01:00

Where people waste hours of their life.