Rudeness Will Get You Nowhere

There’s a website local to us where people can make recommendations or ask for recommendations, for example for cleaners, plumbers, or electricians etc.

I thought I’d give it a go and ask if anybody in the vicinity could alter 8 pairs of curtains for our holiday home.  I’d bought them cheaply for £175 in yet another store’s closing down sale (they would have normally been priced at £550).  The hems all needed taking up a few inches, and although I can do it myself, I would rather somebody else did it as a professional seamstress would more likely make a better job of it.   I also added that I’d been quoted £240 from a lady who runs a local dressmaking shop, which I thought was rather on the high side.

The replies came in thick and fast.  One woman told me to ‘get real’, and that £240 is the going rate for altering that many curtains.  Subsequent messages from her became so obnoxious that I blocked her, and she hadn’t even offered to alter them in the first place!  Others quoted more than £240, and some even asked me what planet I thought I was living on.

However, each respondent obviously wanted the job.  I started receiving private messages from a few of the ladies who had originally given me extortionate prices.  They’d ‘had a think’, and surprise surprise, they had decided the price they’d quoted could be reduced.  So far I hadn’t replied to any of them, as their attitude had pissed me off greatly.

The lady who did get the job gave me a quote straight away of £145.  She had her own workshop about 2 miles away, which I never knew existed, and she had been polite from start to finish.  I took the curtains to her last week, and we chatted away like old friends.  I shall be using her for any alterations in the future, and so it just goes to show that politeness does pay.

Some people are too quick to flare up over the slightest thing, and I tend to stay away from them as much as I can.  It doesn’t hurt at all to be polite and civil.  At work we have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy.  Any patient yelling and shouting at the other end of the phone soon gets to hear the dialling tone, as the receiver gets replaced rather smartly.  People, including those like me who live on a different planet, don’t like being yelled at, and the sooner folk realise this the sooner they will get what they want!

 

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Speak ‘Proper’…

Tags

East End

There’s a chap on TV around 6.30pm who always used to say…”Coming up – all your news and wevver“.  However, quite recently he now takes great care to pronounce ‘weather’ correctly with a rather pained expression I might add, which leads me to think that somebody at the BBC has had a little word with him.

This so reminds me of one of the many childhood battles between my mother Dot and me over pronunciation.  My East End accent for about the first 20 years of my life was execrable (although I didn’t know it then), but I used to argue my point with Dot that I’d only inherited the accent from her!  Back would fly the retort from Dot that at least she would know when to speak properly.

Yes, Dot could apply when necessary one of those cut-glass telephone voices that used to make me giggle when I heard it.  Back in the bosom of her family her accent would resemble Chas ‘n Dave’s, just like the rest of us.  I used to tell her “I am what I am, and don’t try to change me.”

As I grew older I realised that yes, an accent does make a difference.  Compare the well-modulated tones of the late Dan Maskell at Wimbledon for example to the ‘regional’ accent of the ‘news and wevver’ bloke, and you’ll see what I mean.  You may have an IQ off the top of the Mensa scale, but if you eff and bleedin’ ‘ell, then people are going to judge you.

When I garnered some sense I did try and improve my accent.  Funnily enough I don’t hear the East End accent so much now living in Suffolk ( different accent altogether, sadly), but I had a pleasant surprise last year when visiting the East London cemetery to lay flowers on Dot’s grave, who is buried there with her mother.  A couple of ladies were chatting as they stood around a nearby grave, and I had a little thrill of recognition at the accent.  It was my accent – the one I’d grown up with, and up until then I hadn’t realised just how much I’d missed it.

What Everyone Seems to be Doing in 2019

There’s one word that sums it all up.  It’s a word that I learned from the pain medicine nurses back in 2006 regarding patients that come up with every excuse under the sun why they cannot diet or do any exercise.  What’s the word?  It’s…

Catastrophise.

Ankles or knees might give way if the patient ventures out of their armchair.  Their glands might explode, or sudden unfamiliar movement might send them into a diabetic coma…

It’s not only pain patients that catastrophise.  Look at some of the catastrophic scenarios on the daily news bulletins about another word that I’m heartily sick of… Brexit:

• The price of goods might go up in the shops.
• It might be harder to acquire medications (stockpiles are already being assembled).
• There might be queues at borders due to heightened customs and passport checks.
• Flights to the EU might be grounded.

And it doesn’t stop there.  About September time my holiday home site starts to bombard owners with catastrophising letters regarding what might happen if they don’t pay to have their caravans ‘winterised’.  Sam asked them what he had to do to ensure the van  will still be usable when we return in the spring, and he was given a list of tasks to carry out, which of course the site will do for a fee.  We looked at the list, and for instance they charge £65 for ‘draining down’ the caravan, which took Sam about 10 minutes to do.  They ask for £20 to top up the radiators with Fernox, which prevents the water inside from freezing.  My son, a heating engineer, says this is unnecessary if the central heating system has had nothing done to it, as it’s a closed system.

To my horror, Sam started catastrophising at the weekend.  We’re going to have two rooms plastered, and all the furniture needs taking out and storing in the garage. Sam catastrophised about the garage flooding, and I had to remind him it’s only flooded once in 28 years!

My son’s mother-in-law constantly catastrophises; it does my head in.  It makes me wonder whether catastrophising might be the new trend for 2019?

 

 

 

A Rather Unattractive Man

Tags

#ageing, Ageism

I felt a blog coming on when I read a news item today about a bestselling French author and film director, who is 50 years old.  This man told Marie Claire magazine that he could never love a woman aged 50 or over, because he prefers the bodies of younger women aged around 25.  He states that the body of a 25 year old woman is ‘extraordinary’, and the body of a 50 year old is ‘not extraordinary’ and regards them as invisible.

I looked him up on Google.  Rather unsurprisingly he does not seem to be married.  I assume that working in the film industry where the young and beautiful pout and prance about obviously seems to have warped his mind.

In my opinion this man’s statements say a lot about his personality.  It says that he views women as air-heads and sex objects or arm/eye candy to be used just for his personal gratification and then discarded when their youth has passed.  He obviously has no interest in probing the mature minds of middle-aged women who have gained much wisdom through life experiences.  He assumes that all women aged 50 or over are unattractive because they are post-menopausal or have let themselves go.

This also made me wonder… what do younger women think about middle-aged men of 50 and over?  Have 50 year old men let themselves go?  I would say that yes, some have, but others look after themselves and remain attractive.  You cannot tar every 50 year old with the same brush.

Would a 25 year old woman want to date an ordinary 50 year old man who is not a bestselling author and film director?  Yes of course, just as sometimes younger men want to date older women, because they see them not as bodies to be ogled, but people in their own right with opinions to be respected.

I like a lot of 50 year old men – just not him!  To me he is very unattractive, and I’m not just talking about his body here…

 

 

Making Our Mark

It was interesting to watch a documentary by the comedian Sir Billy Connolly, who stated that he does not fear death.  He laughs a lot despite having to cope with Parkinson’s disease and a degenerative brain condition, and considers old age (he is 75) as an adventure which will prepare him for the spirit world.

He feels his life is slipping away, but he’s not frightened.  Instead he finds it ‘interesting’ to witness his decline and to how bits of him and his talents are slowly disappearing.

“It’s as if I’m being prepared for something, some other adventure, which is over the hill. I’ve got all this stuff to lose first, and then I’ll be at the shadowy side of the hill doing the next episode in the spirit world.”

What a wonderful way to look at old age and its declining faculties!  Sir Billy is also grateful for having ‘made his mark’ in life with his creative talents, and states that this achievement is a great companion in his old age.

Yes, it must be very satisfying to know you have ‘made your mark’ in life, so to speak.  It occurred to me that we authors are also trying to do exactly the same thing, but with books instead of comic genius.  Unfortunately there are many more authors than comedians, and so to gain literary recognition is a somewhat longer process for us, if it happens at all in our lifetime.  Sir Billy has the luck to be both a comedian and a traditionally published author, and so…yes… he has certainly made his mark and should be proud of his efforts.

So… my question for writers is this:  Do you as a self-published author feel you have still ‘made your mark’ even if you never find an agent or that big publishing deal?  

I for one think that yes, I have still made a small stamp on the world with my books.  They’re out there in the world, people on the whole get pleasure from reading them, and although I may not sell as many as Sir Billy, people do buy them.

And what of those who do not have creative talents?  How do they make their mark?  With some it might be satisfying to know that their children will live on and remember them.  Others may possess sporting talents or be a mathematical wizard for instance.  Whatever the speciality, we generally like to know that our lives have been worth something and that we will not be forgotten.

Hello From a Small Island

How’s Christmas been for you?  For Sam and I it’s been one hectic merry-go-round of visiting relatives or being visited, but we’ve enjoyed the time to catch up with people we haven’t seen for a while.

Now we’re at the van and things have calmed down a bit.  After getting the decking cleaned and bagging up mountains of fallen leaves, we breathed a sigh of relief at the chance to do our own thing.  There’s not a lot of people around on our holiday site at the moment, so last night we both decided it would be awesome to put our coats on and sit on the decking in the dark with a cup of tea… so we did!  The weather was mild, the sea was calm, and nobody walked by and thought we were peculiar.

Just read that the HMV shop has gone into administration.  I received some HMV vouchers for Christmas, and so we’re off to join the queue of disgruntled customers trying to swap their vouchers for goodies at the Newport branch.  Sam, cynical as ever, went into our local big supermarket yesterday and told me of the large queue that had formed of people taking back unwanted Christmas presents.

For kids and those of a religious persuasion, then Christmas obviously means something to them, and so it should.  However,  Sam and I beg to differ and we share the view that it’s a total waste of money buying presents for adults, as the queues of people in shopping centres taking back presents on Boxing Day to get money back or credit notes in order to get what they really want tells the actual story.  Neither of us believe in chopping down trees for the sake of it, either.  Oh dear, we really are party poopers aren’t we?

Happy New Year to my WordPress friends; hope you got what you wanted for Christmas.  We’re going to party on New Year’s Eve … just for the sake of it!

 

 

Another Year of Blogging

I’ve just been comparing last year’s WordPress stats that I made a note of in my diary with today’s figures, as it’s interesting to see how many hits and new followers I’ve had since December 2017.

This time last year I’d had 29,210 views, 792 followers, and 1091 posts.

This year I’ve had 53,866 hits so far, 4262 email followers, 1393 blog followers, and the number of blog posts I’ve written has risen to 1631.

I’ve learned a few other things too along the way, which I’ve listed below:

1. Not to bombard readers with ‘buy my book’ blogs.  Once in a while is enough!
2. To re-blog any posts that I find interesting, and/or share on Twitter or Facebook.
3. Not to blog just for the sake of it when I’ve nothing in particular to say.
4. To think of ways to share other bloggers’ posts.  At the moment I have a ‘Friday Click & Run’ and a free monthly writing contest.
5. Not all writing/screenplay competitions are genuine. Some are there just to take your money.
6. Not all author services are genuine. Some are there just to take your money.
7. To check out small publishers very thoroughly before signing away the rights to your book (s).  You can easily find a print-on-demand publisher yourself and keep all your royalties.
8. It’s a bit overwhelming to join too many Facebook groups, as it interferes with writing time.

I hope you all have a happy and restful Christmas.  I won’t be writing much over the holidays, but will be back bright and breezy in January.  Let’s hope 2019 is a good one for all of us.  x

 

Painting Pebbles

I had a message from our daughter-in-law asking if we could look after our granddaughters so that she and Leon could do some Christmas shopping.  So this afternoon we took the two girls (aged 11 and 13) out to lunch at Frankie & Benny’s, and then took them to see The Grinch at our local cinema.  Following this we brought them home to ours for tea.

I’d been wondering which activities would appeal to both of them when I originally agreed to babysit, and so bought some acrylic paints and a selection of pebbles for painting.  I reckoned this activity would keep them amused until tea time.

Freed of their phones, we all sat around the table, chatted and painted pebbles.  This activity, simple as it was, seemed to go down very well.  The girls commented on how quiet our house is, and we replied how we like it that way.  They’re used to the TV being on in the background at home, and at first they whispered until they became used to the silence.

They remarked about how much they’d enjoyed themselves when it was time to go back to Mum and Dad.  I know as soon as they get home they’ll be on their phones again, but hopefully they’ll remember how nice it can be to sit around a table with family members and chat face to face.

Painting pebbles is cool.

 

A Fascinating Creature

I know it’s a strange subject to write about, but I’m fascinated by my son and daughter-in-law’s tortoise.  Little Sheldon is 4 years old; they’ve only had him since July, and so a tortoise’s habits and lifestyle is still a learning curve to them.

When he’s not plodding around the garden in the summer or getting lost inside the house, he’s usually in his cage in the front room.  The house and the room that Sheldon is in is always kept a regular temperature.  However, at the end of October Sheldon stopped eating and drinking and began to move less.  My son plied him with food, but he refused to eat anything.  Marc read up on tortoises via Google, and then realised that of course Sheldon was going into hibernation for the winter.

My question is this:  If Sheldon is in a warm room all the time, how on earth does he know it’s winter outside?  Marc found out that tortoises’ brains secrete a hormone that tells them it’s time to sleep, and then pure instinct I suppose must tell them to stop eating for a few weeks before they hibernate.  Marc discovered that as their digestive systems shut down for hibernation then any food inside them rots, and so a body full of rotten food eventually causes death for any hibernating tortoise.  Sheldon usually throws himself on tomatoes and gobbles them up, but for weeks had not taken a drop of water or even a morsel of food.

When I went to Marc’s house today, my little grandson took my hand and pulled me towards the fridge.  There lay Sheldon in solitary splendour in the vegetable drawer at the bottom, covered in hay.  I’m not sure if it’s a nice way to spend the winter or not, but I sure wouldn’t mind sleeping January and February away under my duvet!

They’re going to warm him up again after Christmas and give him tasty treats.  I wonder whether they ought to leave him to wake up naturally in the spring?  Does anybody else have any experience of looking after tortoises?  Funny little creatures, aren’t they?  Some of them can live for 200 years.

 

 

Authors Beware

Last week I was surprised when I decided to submit a tweet for December’s  #PitMad exercise.  I had sent a few tweets in the past, but they had never been favoured by any agents.  However, to my surprise, within a short while of sending my tweet, it was liked by somebody I assumed was a literary agent.

Having been stung in the past by a few small publishers eager to make a fast buck, I decided to do my homework and check this person out.  I found out the ‘agent’ who liked my tweet is actually an ‘acquisitions editor’ from yet another small publishing company, where there is a distinct overlap between the authors and the staff members..

The write up by Victoria Strauss on the threaded view in the Absolute Write forum says it all really:

I just reviewed an I……. W…. contract, and it’s pretty bad. Among other problems: an agent-of-record clause that empowers the agent in ways that may exceed the actual author-agent relationship; editing clauses that empower the publisher to edit and make abridgements without the author’s consent (the author’s only recourse is to walk away); vague language that makes it hard to figure out the meaning of some of the clauses, including the actual term of the contract; and language that empowers the publisher to bill the author for unspecified editing and production costs if the publisher decides the author is in breach or has missed a deadline. There’s also language that suggests that they compensate “referral agents” for sending authors their way.

I……. W…. appears to have published just 10 books since its 2016 startup. This is a really, really slow publication schedule–kind of hard to understand, given that there’s a pretty big staff for such a small press. The publishing schedule is also troublingly irregular, with several months’ gap between releases in some cases. For instance, they released a book in November 2016, then nothing until March 2017, and then nothing until August. It’s just not very professional.

The books’ Amazon sales rankings are dire, especially the Kindle rankings. Doesn’t look to me like a publisher that’s putting a lot of effort into marketing and promotion.  

So authors, beware when you take part in #PitMad next time.  It’s not always literary agents who favour your tweets;  sometimes it’s an ‘acquisitions editor’ from a small publishing company that Victoria Strauss has already checked out and given the thumbs down to.  You need to do your homework and find out if it’s worth sending off that manuscript you’ve worked so hard to create, or whether it’s better to self-publish.

From what I can tell by using a print-on-demand publisher/distributor like Ingram Spark and then registering my books with Nielsens, it’s only the same thing that many small publishers do anyway, and so you might as well pay Ingram’s fees, do it all yourself, and be your own small publisher and cut out the middle man/woman/person/ who is after a slice of your royalties.  Nielsens then add your books to Gardners, and hey presto, your books are then able to be seen by buyers from the big bookstores.  I’ve sold far more paperbacks via Ingram and their Advance catalogue in the past couple of months than any other sites where my books are on sale (one morning I checked my Ingram dashboard and I’d sold 27 books overnight!).

Of course I’m sure that there are wonderful small publishers out there who do care about marketing your book, and who do not want you to sign away the rights to your work for 5 years or more.  Also I’m after the one whose top priority is not how much money they can make from my work.  As I said before, I’m sure there’s a lovely small publishing company out there –  it’s just that I haven’t met them yet.

I’m still going to increase the word count on my story and send it to a few chosen literary agencies.  I’ll even take part in the next PitMad exercise on 7th March.  You never know, a bona fide agent might even ‘like’ my tweet!