Where have you been?

Evening gang,

Remember me? It's been 2 months since I last posted anything to this blog. Time flies when you're busy as a bloke who is busy.

First off, I notice that this blog has now attracted well over 14,000 views, visits, call it what you will. For that I'm grateful as I am prone to ramble and, lately, vanish.

Since my last post the new football season has begun and Liverpool are finding life difficult without Suarez. Meanwhile Man Utd seem to be winning while being awful. Still, early days yet. In Brendan we trust. For now.

So, what have I been up to all this time? Well, plenty, but equally I've been consciously trying less hard, putting less pressure on myself to deliver. I've ticked most of the boxes I needed to for the year so I've eased off. My job's sorted i.e. permanent. A lot less cash, but nothing I can't work with. Plus there are currently quite a few jobs out there like mine and they all pay well. I've just applied for one actually so we'll see. But I'm easy either way.

The wife is also in the job market as part of her ongoing reinvention. I'm not ashamed to say I tend to treat her as a long term investment. Had a few crap months but you stick with it and then... well, let's just say I'm starting to reap the rewards and that she's progressing nicely.

We've bought another couple of houses as part of our fledgling buy to let business and next year should see that start to deliver real profits which should be exciting. Been bloody hard work though which I'll remind people when I'm an idle millionaire and they think I fell into my cash.

We've also been on our first break since we bought our dog - 18 months ago. Only to York, but it was excellent. I went big on the hotel, as you'd expect from me, and we spent enough in 48 hours to cover a long weekend abroad. But it was superb. Hopefully, now we know we can safely leave the dog, we can get back to our old ways of trekking about all over the place.

So, where does that leave the writing then? Well, on the back burner a bit. FEAR is still ongoing and should still be out this year. But I'm not going to rush it and have tweaked it several times. But, I have entered it in the northern crime competition just to show I'm making the effort. Also, I've just finished a free giveaway for The Trust. It was downloaded 3900 times over the weekend which is no bad thing. I also made half decent royalties last month too.

Quick story. The thing that prompted the giveaway was a review I received for The 24 Hour Jazz Café while in York. It was a scathing 1 star review which basically said the book was nothing but an excuse for violent sex and murder. Now, if they'd said that about The Trust I could kind of get it. But the Jazz Café is primarily about two mates running a jazz club who accidentally get drawn into a murky world. There is one scene in the whole book where a prostitute is violently abused and left for dead. The scene is telegraphed very obviously and, because it's a book, you are free to skip past any bits you don't like. Either way, that 1 star review had a hefty impact on the overall rating of the book which, until then, had only received 4 and 5 star feedback. I hope the clown who dismissed the jazz café grabbed a free copy of The Trust. It gets nasty from page 4 and goes downhill from there.

Rant over.

In other news, my fantasy author chum Frion Farrell has her new book out at the end of this week. Her debut was a winner so keep your eyes peeled if fantasy is your bag.

Finally, we had the house decorated while we were in York. Ace to come home and find it done. We had a surveyor booked to come the same afternoon which didn't hurt. Long story short, they valued the house 40 grand over what we paid for it 5 years ago. Means nothing in terms of selling it, but means lots in terms of taking equity from it to buy houses. A very good day indeed and a wicked investment.

Right, that's it for now. I'll try to make more effort but there's lots going on. All my books still available, if you're classy buy the paperback.

Have you been watching the commonwealth games?

Hi gang,

I have, just a bit this week because I'm off work. It's been top notch. Tonight being a case in point. Men's 800m was top drawer, 200m also really good.

I've also been to Chester today to see a mate and his wife. Always good, nice lunch, few ales, wander round, can't go wrong. Went to see the play in the park earlier in the week too. Hansel and Gretel. Very well staged, well lit, great sound etc. The actual material felt a bit light to me, lot of noise but not a lot of content, but a good spectacle none the less.

Just as an aside, I was reading a review of A Streetcar Named Desire which has just opened in London. Apparently Gillian Anderson gives a career defining performance. I was reading this at 3:30 this morning and I'd had a bit to drink, shocker! Anyway, I booked tickets to see it when they do the NT Live broadcast in September. It's only £13 a ticket and an ace way to see live theatre if you can't be arsed to take time off work to trek to London. I woke the wife up to tell her. She wasn't thrilled at the time.

Mind you, I wasn't delighted when she dragged me out of bed at half 9 this morning to go to Chester. I soon rallied once we'd stopped at the services for a brew and sausage bun. Once we walked to the lunch spot in Chester I was all set for a couple of ales.

Other news - I've been shortlisted for interview for the job I'm currently doing. I have mixed feelings about it which I won't bore you with here.

So, book news? Well, the new, shiny version of The 24 Hour Jazz Café was released yesterday. The Kindle version is available now, the paperback will be out any day - just depends how fast Amazon do their bit. What's new about it? Primarily I wanted to tweak the paperback. So the cover is now matt, the pages are now cream and it's totally reformatted so it's a hundred pages shorter. But as I was doing this I rewrote bits too. It's now about 2000 words longer, plenty of scenes have more detail and some plot points are tighter and better explained than before. As a result I decided to relaunch the kindle version too.

FEAR is progressing well, I'm not killing myself to get it done though. I'm submitting the first 3000 words of it to a competition in August, along with 3000 words of the new jazz café. Can't hurt. I've also sent an extract of the new jazz café to an agent, just for kicks. In the morning I will also be submitting the new jazz café to the Guardian book of the month competition. Again, no harm in trying.

So that's about it. Lot's going on as ever. Could live without the huge pay cut coming my way shortly but such is life. On the plus side we've just bought two more houses as part of our Buy To Let project which means we have three. Safe as houses.

Right, ale, Tele, early bed since I've only had 5 hours kip.

Is it better to admit defeat?

Evening gang,

Been awhile - again. Looks like that's going to be the way of things from now, there just aren't the hours in the day.

On the plus side I've finished the new edition of The 24 Hour Jazz Café. Just the new cover to work on and then I'll launch it. Woo etc.

Struggling a bit with the editing of FEAR but only because it's quite a complex plot and I need to concentrate and I exist in a state of permanent weariness. I will, as ever, stick at it. But since I've got one eye on doing some submissions in the next month or two I might throw what time I do have at my new book, the third jazz café novel, and see how that pans out.

Side projects starting to take shape. Had a meeting with financial advisor and it turns out we have a few options regarding finance for Project Slumlord (which is the fun name we've chosen for our Buy To Let adventure). 1st step is to talk to bank on Monday and then hopefully we can crack on. One thing I have learned is that I won't be using Ratcliffe and Bibby to manage any future properties. Frig useless. It will be July on Tuesday and I am yet to receive last month's rent. I emailed them last week, no reply, rang them Thursday only to be promised someone would call me back. It's now Saturday night and nothing. So to recap - R&B estates. Crap. Feel free to show this to them, it might get them to pull their finger out. Bear in mind I am paying them for this awesome service, as well as covering the mortgagee myself since I'm not getting the rent. Good job I've got pots of cash!

Speaking of which, had tidy Birthday. Pressies from wife on way, spent the day shopping in Manchester where we did some damage. Wife got a Mulberry bag though so it's all smiles. Also got a couple of cards from work which I always find a bit odd, as well as a pressie.

Dog's driving me mental, wildly time consuming. But of course that could be fixed by working less hours - hence my drive to get Project Slumlord off the ground.

Finally, how awesome is the World Cup? One of best ones in my lifetime. Wimbledon also shaping up nicely with Federer playing great so far.

Tomorrow's plan - get a Rug Doctor to clean carpets. Dog related grime. Then wife related mooching.
It's her birthday on Monday so we're going to empty a flash bottle of champagne tomorrow night and try not to be grumpy.

Did I mention I was invited to go talk to a local writing group? I went a few weeks ago. They were all essentially concerned with how they could get their work published. I was very patient but the simple answer is to look on the internet and put in vast amounts of hours like I do. Can't see many of them putting in 18 hour days every day just to get a book out though. Bless.

Which leads me to the title of this blog. I have been pondering making these books my last ones, at least for the foreseeable future. I struggle to find time to write and when I do I'm rarely happy with the results and that's before I promote it, do this blog etc. Since plan A (quit work) isn't feasible, then the only way to have more free time is not to write. I can become another one of the millions of retired folk who then decide to be writers. Then again, I could shoot myself.

Still, Old Ma Sinclair didn't raise quitters. She raised over confident, mouthy alcoholics so we shall see. I've got two finished books to play with which will see me to the end of this year. After that....* shrugs and finishes brew*

Until next time...