Saturday 13 August 2016

IRON HORSE

A Taste of the New Book
Sometime around October, my new book of short travel stories will come out. To bridge the gap, here is a taste of what is to come. It is a story based upon an experience related to me by someone I met on the road quite a few years ago in Canada. I hope you like it - it's a freebie.

Iron Horse
It was back when he was living alone in the shack.  A long hard winter had kept him in one place – forced him inside. Inside was against his nature, as was staying in one place, but he’d have died otherwise.  The rusting metal cabinet he’d managed to drag into the shack had got him off the floor at night, but even with all the junk, the old blankets and newspapers, the cold managed to work its way through and into his bones.

It had been a still night with not much wind and he’d slept well until the early hours. Something had woken him.  Something out of the ordinary - not a wild dog or a twister. He stuck his head out from under the ragged blanket.  For a while there was nothing. Pretty quickly his head started to ache from the cold and he began winding the blanket back around him, then he heard it.  The rumble of a big old motorcycle engine, somewhere out there in the hills.  It was moving slowly, labouring over the rough terrain.  Joel sat up.  Were they coming for him?

Joel had always known it was a risk to camp out in the shack.  Apart from the pipeline, it was the only structure for miles and it stood near the track.  Anyone passing would be drawn to it.  A month back when a water company pick-up had passed, he’d messed up the interior in a panic then quickly buried himself in the sand like a desert gopher until the intruders had moved on.  The bastards had taken the binoculars he’d left hanging inside.  This time he decided he’d stay put.

“How do?” Said Joel, thrusting out his hand in the manner of a man who was the proud owner of a property. The biker had parked up right in front of the makeshift doors. He’d dismounted but left the old motor turning over.

“What d’ya have, mail for me?” asked Joel, with a smile.

“Saw the shack way back, when I cleared that ridge,” said the old man, gesturing back into the hills.

He was a sight for sore eyes, Joel thought. Like something from an old western – some kind of medicine man or fairground horseman. His long grey hair and beard were dusty from days or weeks riding through the desert. He wore no crash helmet. In its place a battered old cowboy hat. He had a cowboy’s bedroll too, strapped to his handlebars. The bike was probably as old as he was. Both looked in need of a good clean-up and some running repairs.

“Nice old bike… once upon a time,” said Joel. “Why don’t you turn her off so we can talk?”

“Ah she’s ailing a bit,” he replied, “kickstart arm’s sheared the spindle. I have to bump her. At my time o’ life that’s a bit of a challenge. Knees have gone south. Gone in the garbage is the truth of it. These ones is tai-tanium they told me. Take some getting used to. Ache like an angry whale in cold weather. I'da been better off with the old uns. This your place then?”

The old man tried to make more of the shack with his sweeping arm gesture than it really was. A generous thought, which Joel spotted and was grateful.

“Yeah, I kind a laid claim on it,” explained Joel, casually. “Was hiking cross country, heading up to Canada eventually. Clean air, rivers, fishing, all that. I done my time working in the city and I had enough of it. I though deserts, you know, they’re always hot. Well not here they’re not! When the winter set in I couldn’t survive in the tent. That’s when I came across the shack. I just pitched up behind her for a couple of days, keeping outa the wind. One night I was so cold I thought I’d die. I went delirious – right outa my mind. In the morning I woke up in the shack. She saved me. Saved my life for sure. Go on turn her off, I’ll bump start ya after. I got some coffee and a camp stove. Just one cup but I’ll drink from the pot. Name’s Joel. Glad y’stopped by.”

The coffee took some time to boil. The old guy introduced himself as Richard.

“They call me Kit.”

“How long you been travelling, Kit?”

“Travelling most of o’ my life,” said Kit. “No plans to stop, neither.”

“Ever had a wife, Kit?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither. Girlfriends, lady friends and what have you but no wives, no thank you!”
“Oh I’da had a wife if one had a been willing!” said Kit. “Just never worked out that way. Couldn’t change my roving ways I suppose. So Ruby there’s the nearest I ever had to a wife.”

Kit nodded towards the old Harley Davidson, clicking now and again as she cooled off.

“Hah, well she’s a fine old lady, Kit, I’ll say that.”

“Won her in a fight,” said the old man, chuckling.

“You’re joking now?” said Joel, pouring half the coffee into a battered tin mug.

“True as I sit here! I was with a bunch of other guys out west. We were a band I suppose you could say. Troubadours. Bunch of outlaws on bikes turned up at the bar we’d agreed to play in that night. Sons o' bitches said it was their local bar and we should git out of town. The owner he hid behind the bar counter. Customers slipped out the back door. They was all afraid of these guys. I was fearless back then – a bit stupid was the truth. Anyhow I asked ‘em who the leader was. A huge barn door of a guy with a big scar across his mean face stepped forward. I said I’d arm wrestle him and if I lost we’d leave town. While we sat down and prepared, Little Lonnie our fiddle player was round the side pulling the electric cables off their bikes. Meanwhile the owner’s wife had called for the cops. While I was being beaten at the arm-wrestle by the big ape, Lonnie was under the table cuffing the ape to the big steel table leg. When the cops came they had to chase him a mile into the brushwood, dragging the table behind him. Yep, them outlaws went to jail. Bikes was impounded. Cops told me if nobody else come forward, we could make a claim for ‘em. After a month that’s what we did. Ruby was the best of ‘em. Yep, I had my eye on her from the start.”

“Love at first sight then?” said Joel.

“Yep, that’s the story! She’s an old lady, but she’s never let me down.”

Kit drained his coffee.

“I hope y’make it to the border, Joel. I really do. Want my advice, get y’self a set of trucker's cards and bum lifts by night. Cops'll leave y'lone. Y'ready to bump her?”

Joel got to his feet. Kit did the same but more slowly and with a prolonged groan.


“Tai-tanium my ass!”


People I've Met On The Road should be out – in the first instance as an e-book – by the end of the autumn (2016). Sorry for the wait. 

Check out Mark Swain's other books at:
Mark Swain on Amazon UK
Mark Swain on Amazon .com

and on this blog (add your e-mail to receive updates)

Tuesday 30 June 2015

New Travel Book

People I've Met On The Road
The title of my new book.
All my life I have carried with me, the memories of interesting people I have met whilst travelling. I have had a wanderlust since I was able to walk. My parents were afraid to leave the garden door open. Turn their back for a moment and I would be over the garden gate and heading for my local garage, pestering the greasy-faced mechanics with questions or watching petrol being put into old Morris Minors. They used to laugh when they saw my distraught mother arriving. My childhood was a rapid (not rapid enough for my liking) acceleration towards when I could escape – get out into the big wide world and travel.

Linocut for new book cover print

Memories
I am fortunate enough to be blessed with a very good memory (although unfortunately not for tedious academic work). When I began travelling, I was as much taken with the characters I met as I was by the fascinating places I travelled through. Even as a six year old living in Singapore and Malaysia, I used to wander into kampongs (small villages of thatched or tin-can roofed bamboo huts) and make friends with local children. They taught me noughts & crosses (tick-tack-toe) and card tricks. Later I began hitchhiking and taking trains and buses – initially without my parents knowledge. Despite being in big trouble on each occasion and suffering punishment, I was always eager to tell my family about the people I had met on my illicit trip. My parents worried of course. What kind of weird people might befriend me? Surely one day my luck would run out? And yet, be it through wiliness or good fortune, nothing bad ever befell me. Quite the opposite. People fed me and paid for me to go into cinemas, swimming pools, race circuits or motor museums. People even drove me home or phoned my parents to tell them I was fine (after we had a phone). The more I travelled the more emboldened I became and the more I knew this was where I belonged.

A Collection
The book is a motley collection of people I have met. Some stories tell of adventures I had with these people, where others simply focus upon their characters and what they may have told me. These little potted histories stretch over a period of around forty years, yet they are as vivid in my mind as they were the week after they happened. And if anyone should suddenly realise that they are one of the characters in the book – I have changed most of the names, for obvious reasons of privacy, since I am unable to contact them – then please do not hesitate to contact me, even if just to say hi.
Mark Swain E-mail


People I've Met On The Road should be out – in the first instance as an e-book – by the end of the summer (2015). Please look out for it at:

Mark Swain on Amazon UK
Mark Swain on Amazon .com

and on this blog (add your e-mail to receive updates)

Sunday 7 June 2015

The Building Of A Longboat

Two Authors And A Longboat
Back in October 2014 I wrote a blog about accidentally connecting with a fellow author via Twitter - Previous Blog. Anthony Howarth and I both write books about adventure / travel. Having read his book Boat, People and Me, I was inspired by his ambitious project to lengthen the 9.1m Maurice Griffiths Waterwitch sailing boat, in which he and his wife learned to sail and traversed the Atlantic. When I say lengthen her, I mean by 5m no less, in order to produce a longboat on which they could live, mainly on European inland waterways. Invited to help, I spent a couple of gruelling weeks in October helping to saw "Boat" in half, remove the substantial cast-iron keel, stretch her by 5m and connect the two halves with the beginnings of a new backbone. A little over two weeks ago I returned to help progress the project further.

The Longboat Takes Shape (Tony takes lunch)

Progress
I did not expect to return to find the Longboat nearly complete. Tony Howarth is one of the most determined, principled and dedicated men I know but he is 77yrs old and he has put his body through a certain amount of abuse in that time. No amount of tenacity or self-belief will allow someone of this age to lift heavy materials day after day, climb ladders or traverse the delicate framework of a boat skeleton without risking serious ill-effects or even disaster. My being involved enables Tony to guide my brawn and enthusiasm using his brains. And with this combination we manage to achieve a great amount. Others in Mortagne boatyard are impressed. They did not believe it was even possible. Tony has become a bit of a folk-hero to them. I have become "The Woodpecker" - dogmatically chipping and hacking away at rotten wood or rock-hard old epoxy each day to remove large chunks of the vessel. I have felt somewhat like a heavy-handed medieval surgeon, ruthlessly hacking away so much of the original body (without anaesthetic) that there is barely anything left beyond the skeleton.

Only deck, deckhead & bulkheads have escaped The Woodpecker's 
heavy-handed surgery in the original cabin sections

Boatyard celebrations for those involved in lifting a new flying bridge into place 

This last two weeks saw us remove much of the superstructure and fittings from the two cabins at each end of the hollow 5m new extension section, as well as building and fixing into place countless new ribs and stringers to form the shape of the new boat. Finally the Longboat has taken shape and she looks superb – totally like she was meant to be that way in fact. During the lengthy and laborious 12 days of work, Tony and I found ourselves discussing - often sparring - over various political, social and literary issues. Just like last time I felt I came away far wiser, with greater skills and insight and perhaps a little more tolerance. I also learned a lot more about the underlying issues of Tony's "Africar" venture (the first car to be purpose designed for use and local manufacture in 3rd world and developing countries - see website).

Skeletal Beauty - New Ribs

It's Not All Work
One of the great pleasures of being involved in this project is undoubtedly the time spent in a French boatyard and in the beautiful and historic region of Charente Maritime (north from Bordeaux and south from La Rochelle). While Tony and I work in the boatyard, "People" (in the books) runs their Gite (holiday cottage) business in a beautiful village nearby. There they have a substantial collection of traditional stone houses on a large plot of land, with a swimming pool etc overlooking fields of vibrant sunflowers and vines. People is a great cook. It is a great life but one they have decided to retire from in exchange for slow travel, living aboard the Longboat (anyone interested in their idyllic property and readymade business can contact them at: carolyn@borges-howarth.net) I do hope I too remain this adventurous into my seventies.

I did manage a swim after work - The view from my lovely Gite

It is hoped that the Longboat will be in the water by late October this year. I am likely to make a further visit for the next tranche of reconstruction work before then. That is an exciting prospect. It has me thinking about what I might do boat-wise after that. I am already looking at a boat project of my own, involving sailing inland through Europe to Istanbul (as done in 1925 by the great Negley Farson). If anyone has a boat they'd like to give me I'd be happy to hear from them.

If you would like to read one of the series of Tony Howarth's books, 'Boat, People and Me', go to your local Amazon website or click this link:
Boat, People and Me on Amazon UK
Boat People and Me on Amazon.com








If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, you can find this along with his two collections of short stories on Amazon, Smashwords etc. 
In the UK his books can also be found in all Waterstones Bookstores.

Monday 27 October 2014

Two Authors In A Boat

The Background
In 2013 I encountered and 'followed' Anthony Howarth on Twitter. His tweets seemed to centre on his recent book about his and his wife's ocean sailing adventures (Boat, People & Me), along with his frustrations over various political injustices in the the world. I was drawn to them. There was irony and there were curt, irascible comments smouldering with dark humour, which I returned commented on. We agreed to read each other's recent books (I had recently had Long Road, Hard Lessons published) and pass honest comments. His story of learning to sail, buying a 30ft yacht in the UK, repairing her then sailing to La Coruña in Spain was as inspiring to me as it was entertaining. By the end of the book I felt I knew him fairly well. I think Tony felt the same after reading my story of the 10,000 mile cycle journey I made with my teenage son from Ireland to Japan. Hence my belief that it is not really so crazy for the two of us to agree to work together on Tony's current boat project, not having actually met one another, however wildly ambitious the project may seem to others.

The Teela Brown - 29ft Waterwytch by Maurice Griffiths built 1959

The Project
I think it was in early 2014 that Tony told me he and his wife (the impressive 'People' in his book) were planning to sell their current home and adjoining gites, located between Bordeaux and La Rochelle in France, then extend their old 30ft sailing boat by 5m to form a long 'barge yacht' for living and travelling on Europe's inland waterways. It sounded ambitious. Various sailing friends of mine used words like 'crazy'. Knowing something of Tony's background as an engineer and a car designer, however, I did not doubt his ability to make a good job of it. Moreover I had an overwhelming feeling that this was something I wanted to be involved in. I went ahead and offered Tony my help.

"He sounds like he might be difficult to work with," said a friend of mine.
"All the cleverest and most interesting people are!" I replied, undaunted.

Tony - The look that says 'Doesn't suffer fools gladly'

Hesitant Beginnings
The only hindrances proved to be financial (as many boat owners will know, such a project can easily run into large sums of money). I did not need or expect to be paid, I reassured him. There was one other problem Tony hadn't told me about. He had recently had one of his shoulder joints replaced and as yet could hardly use that arm. His doctor had warned him off such heavy work. Disappointed, I accepted that this was an immovable object. Since I had a work commitment to go to Asia for a year or so in 2015 it seemed I would not be helping even if the project went ahead after Tony had regained the use of his left arm.  However, after about a month had passed I received another e-mail from Tony.
"If you can spare 2 weeks in October, I would appreciate your help. My shoulder movement is much improved."

The Journey Down
On October 7th I set off from home in the rain during the early hours. I had taken delivery of a new
motorcycle 2 weeks before and had been looking forward to using it for the 800km journey down. I was not long out of the tunnel and into France when a predicted storm struck. I was travelling at fairly high speed along the autoroute minding my own business at the time. It was as if a dam had suddenly broken in front of me. In a second nothing was visible except the blurred brake-lights of large trucks and cars. I was already drenched. I closed the throttle and braked gently, hoping nothing was too close behind or that the 4x4 somewhere in front would brake too hard. I waited for visibility to return. It did not. I was riding blind, surrounded by large vehicles in a similar state of uncontrolled momentum. Fortunately none of us made contact before we had managed to slow to around 10mph. Cold and sodden I completed the rest of the journey with gritted teeth, determined to arrive at Tony and People's for dinner. Major challenges already and the boat work had not even begun!

Settling In
After a hot shower, dry clothes and great dinner I got to know Tony and People and our proposed agenda. The following morning we headed for the boatyard in Mortagne Sur Garonne. It was a pretty place. We drove to the boatyard in one of Tony's 'Africars'. These are cars that Tony designed to be used as affordable daily transport on the roads of Africa, where traditional 4x4 vehicles like Landrovers and Landcruisers still get stuck due to unworkable ground-clearance. They were featured in a five-part Channel 4 series in 1984 when they drove them from the Arctic to the Equator. Unfortunately, due to financial and political barriers at the time, they never went into full production. Experiencing the amazing qualities of these vehicles at first hand was a real privilege, and I really believe there is still time for production to happen.

The Africar - a truly amazing vehicle by any standards

Let The Butchery Begin
On our first day at the boatyard, Tony and I began by attacking the two fin-keels. Despite the nuts inside the hull having already been removed by the charmingly French boatyard owner, Claude, the bolts were pinched fast in the damp, swollen hardwood and marine ply. Even having driven the bolts out with great effort, the addition of a magically gravity-defying adhesive sealant named 'Sikoflex' used by Tony when he had extended the keels 15 years before in Florida, ensured that the extremely heavy galvanised steel keels refused to budge. Much chiseling and hammering was required before they were dropped. Following this achievement, day two proceeded with us drilling through the length of the main deep centre keel, then chiseling between the holes. The nuts of the 3ft long keel bolts had also been removed inside, but like the fin keels this huge and heavy sandwich of cast iron, hardwood and lead simply hung there. The eight huge threaded bolts were stuck fast. Pinched tight enough to allow the weight of that keel to sit there with daylight visible through the cut. Moving those long bolts at all proved impossible with normal tools. Perturbed, we took ourselves off to a builders merchants where Tony purchased a number of large steel log-splitting wedges and a 4kg sledge-hammer. This was my kind of tool. Judging by the distance he stood back I think I shocked Tony with my ability to swing it, given my skinny frame. Slowly, a millimetre at a time, the bolts moved. Buckets, of sweat, sparks and 3hrs of animal effort resulted in the driving out of the loosest bolt. It took a further day to remove 3 more before resorting to cutting the remaining bolts off with an angle-grinder. The keel came down with a sudden crash onto the waiting stands. By this time the stalwart Claude had moved the boat into a large covered shed.

Insect-like boatmover transports Teela Brown to a boatshed

 Main keel stubbornly refusing to budge despite wedges and violence

Finally after cutting through bolts the deadweight keel drops with a crash

Sawing A Woman In Half
The old keel lifted out of the way, Tony proceeded to carefully mark out the cut-line around the centre section of the 'Teela Brown's' hull. The following day, while Tony was away on other business, I ran a jigsaw around the marine-ply sections then finished the surgery with a nice sharp handsaw to cut through stringers, ribs and the agonisingly solid hardwood keel base. I felt nervous, as an apprentice magician might, sawing his first woman in half. Having expressed my reservations over my surgical efforts to Tony by phone, I was mightily relieved to receive his congratulations the following morning when he inspected the work. Soon after this Claude appeared at the open front of the shed with a large tractor pulling a boat-loading trailer. The bow-half of the Teela Brown was gingerly lifted forward with the insect-like square boatlifter and placed onto the trailer. With meticulous accuracy she was then moved forward until exactly 5m was left between the bow-half and the remaining stern. Measurements checked and double checked, both halves were fixed in place with supports, ready for the transformation work to begin.

"Tony, I will need a new saw"




The tense separation procedure ends with a couple of attractive cross-sections

The Transformation Begins
The first thing that became apparent to me, standing back and looking at the two halves of the boat, placed where they were destined to become fixed, was how utterly beautiful she was going to look at her new length. It almost seemed that she had always been intended to be that length. It was reassuring. Not such a crazy idea after all eh?

 The Teela Brown stretched to her future layout position
(I will not be doing the same with my motorcycle!)

Tony explains his plan to a group of amazed boatyard onlookers.
"Nobody has ever attempted such a thing before," says Claude.

"Now for some more gentle, technical work," I told myself.
But the hard physical work was not yet over. My next job, Tony told me, was to cut out stepped joints at each end of the old keel, ready to receive the 5m longer new keel base. For two days I ate and breathed hardwood chippings and sawdust. Somehow, whatever protective masks and equipment I wore, that stuff found its way into every orifice. So relieved was I when I finally completed this excruciatingly awkward task, that I celebrated by driving out the remaining five long keel bolts that remained stuck fast in the base of the hull. It was cause for celebration and only pure coincidence that we returned to Tony's lovely home that night to find that People had prepared fresh Garonne oysters (the best) for supper.

The Technical Bit
In the last few days of my visit, Tony and I prepared three large 6m long planks of iroko hardwood to bridge the gap between where my handsaw had cut through the base of the keel and where those two ends now stood. This was my first experience of using large quantities of epoxy adhesive on a boat hull. It is a messy business, dependent upon good planning and careful application. Tony taught me well. The following morning I was amazed to find that I could stand on the newly fixed wooden bridge and jump up and down with no ill-effects. This left us with two days to prepare the template for the sixteen new ribs to form the skeleton of the new 5m mid-ships section of the boat. To my great delight we actually managed to achieve that and to make the first sections ready to be sandwiched together with epoxy. By the time I left on my motorcycle for England, the transformation had truly begun to take shape, ready for a dramatic re-launch in July 2015.

 Two halves of the boat re-joined with small matter of a 5m gap to infill

Sense of hard-won satisfaction written across this man's face

The Sadness Of Leaving
I had learned a great deal about boatbuilding during my two intensive weeks of working with Tony and a certain amount about myself I did not already know. I had also learned a lot about Tony. My respect for his knowledge is only matched by my admiration for a somewhat frail one-armed man of 76 who would take on a project like this so calmly. Of course it is nothing compared to what he had to go through with his Africar venture. Tony will now work a week on a week off most of the time to ensure that he allows his shoulder to improve steadily. He will be assisted by his very capable wife. I feel sure that things will continue to progress well until the re-launch. Especially now that People is on the case.
I enjoy challenges, hence my desire to be involved in Tony's dramatic boat transformation project. After two weeks of nice warm weather, I was unsurprised to find myself riding through the tail-end of a hurricane as I headed north. But it was nothing compared to what Tony and I had managed to achieve in two weeks. Clinging on tight as I was buffeted about the debris-covered A10, I thought back on the day that the two halves of the Teela Brown had been separated. A crowd of boatyard onlookers had gathered open mouthed around the newly laid out boat as an audience might around two halves of a saw-wielding magician's pretty assistant in separated halves of a box. What was the plan, they asked?

"I'm doing it as a present for my wife," said Tony. "We need a bigger boat to live on but she didn't want to give up the one we have lived with for nearly 50,000 nautical miles. Too many memories."

Tony was once Britain's top magazine photographer, 
but 'selfies' were new to him.

If you would like to read Tony Howarth's book, 'Boat, People and Me', go to your local Amazon website or click this link:
Boat, People and Me on Amazon UK
Boat People and Me on Amazon.com

If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, you can find this along with his two collections of short stories on Amazon, Smashwords etc. 
In the UK his books can also be found in all Waterstones Bookstores.


Monday 12 May 2014

Press Release – English Down The Pub

English Down The Pub is a new book written for use by both students of English and Teachers of English. It will also be of interest to those wanting to know about modern English culture. What readers will not be anticipating in a book of this type, is comedy. The book could be described as 'tongue in cheek', except that its mission is very serious.

The Language As It Is Spoken
It is a constant source of frustration for many, that foreign people studying English are taught language that is not authentic. Although it is technically 'correct' English, much of it is a form of English rarely used by real English people – at least not in the last fifty years. This book has been written in order to put that right. It provides the essentials of 'real' English – the colloquial language that you will find being spoken every day by real English people going about their normal lives. The author of this book believes that English Language teachers who are primarily instructing students wishing to speak modern functional English for practical conversational purposes, are doing their students a great disservice by not teaching them the language that the man in the street speaks. This includes giving them a working understanding of English swearwords and what is / is not appropriate – since we know that most English people swear at least socially and often at work too.

Realism and Humour
The book is structured to deal with common social functions, such as meeting people and making introductions, ordering drinks and food and making conversation. The dialogue is not the stilted or 'wooden' language one normally finds in a textbook, instead it is vibrant in its authenticity and often very humorous as a result. The reader or language learner is treated to such amusing scenarios as 'how to avoid a fight' and 'looking for love'. Since many people go to pubs to meet a prospective partner and most of us have witnessed aggression in drinking venues at some time, this does seem justified. In all scenarios both a formal and informal dialogue are given as examples. Something of the uptightness of the English is revealed in these comparative dialogues. This is culturally useful to language learners of course, but it can be hilarious to any reader and in particular the English themselves. Some of the swearing will be shocking to many English readers, but there is a refreshing honesty about it. Of course it goes without saying that learners need to be taught correct formal speech at the same time as the colloquial. The non-English reader needs to be made aware of just how critical it is to get the level of formality or looseness right with the English. Most English are still, after all, obsessed with what is or is not 'proper'. In order to make things clear, the rule in this book is that where people might swear or use slang in real life this is reflected in the dialogue, along with an explanation of meaning and where its use is appropriate. As a past EFL teacher of many years, the author has found this technique very popular with students in the classroom and has witnessed great upsurges of student enthusiasm as a result. Reading the book, one can certainly see why!

There are ways to liven up bored students

As if we had not been treated to enough comedy in this book, in the final chapter we find a choice selection of popular English slang and swearwords. This last section will no doubt prove popular and useful due to its authenticity, but not even the most serious elderly lady or the strictest vicar could fail to fall about laughing at the example dialogues or explanations given about the literal meanings of popular English swearwords.

Image courtesy of www.oldparn.com

Slang & swearing are endlessly popular with language learners

Despite all of this hilarity the book is very informative, both in its clarity about how the average English man or woman in the street communicates and about the still prevalent pub culture in Britain. Modern trends in public houses are helpfully explained, including the increasing trend for gastro-pubs and the emergence of micro-breweries and micropubs. Naturally the background related to English brewing and beer drinking is explained. This all provides a pleasing and unexpected bonus for those expecting merely to learn about the English language, which has to be a good thing. One can even imagine the book finding its way onto those bookshelves that one can still find in the WCs of the English gentry.

 Image courtesy of www.tvrecappersanonymous

Reviewer comments:
"Consider it a Pythonesque field guide to colloquial English. Invaluable to serious teachers and foreign learners, yet unforgivably hilarious to the rest of us. I ruptured myself laughing." Axel Anders.

The book English Down The Pub is available online only and priced very reasonably at £2.90 / $3.99

Download from Amazon.co.uk
Download from Amazon.com
Download from Smashwords

Saturday 22 March 2014

New Book Launch

The Truth In The Lie
After what seems like an age spend in the editing stage, The Truth In The Lie has finally launched. It has been a frustrating six months but looking at it now, it seems well worth the effort. I am so pleased with the cover. The story behind the cover photo is a fascinating one and will be the subject of a future blog post on its own. The editing of the stories was the work of my very literary eldest daughter, as described in the previous blog. She did a better job than I could ever have imagined. In fact I would say she is a natural.

The book has been out barely a day and already I am receiving feedback. Some people are fast readers. Thankfully that feedback has been good. As with my last book of short stories, people have commented upon the authenticity of the characters.

"Is that guy in Red Card based on the footballer you used to know in Ireland?"
"Be honest Mark, the Dottie in Dottie's Diary is based upon my friend Jo, isn't it?"
"I hope the cafe in All In Good Time is not my cafe, Mark. I could lose a lot of customers!"
"Mark, I read your book. Tell me, The story Traffic... how the hell did you know that about me?"

and most worrying of all –

"There seem to be several characters based upon you, who are all preoccupied with their mortality."

For a brief summary of each story, see the previous blog (below).

To find the book and to discover the characters for yourself you should click the link to Amazon or Smashwords below or in the right-hand margin of this blog.

Cover photo by Fumiko Jin - Taken in Hokkaido, Northern Japan. 
Story of the photo to follow in a future blog

The Truth In The Lie - Smashwords (all e-book formats)
The Truth In The Lie - Amazon UK (Kindle)
The Truth In The Lie - Amazon.com (Kindle)

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Monday 16 December 2013

The Tyranny Of Editing

New Collection Of Short Stories – 'The Truth In The Lie'

My new collection of short stories, entitled 'The Truth In The Lie', seems long overdue to me. I thought it would be out long before Christmas but it's dragging its feet – or rather, I am. Some of these stories are new and I'm quite excited about them. Others were written a while ago. Before the last collection (Special Treatment & Other Stories) in fact. These are the stories I was not 100% comfortable with when the stories for the last collection was selected. "Better to hold these ones back," I said to myself. They needed more work, and I hoped, as many of us writers do, that the spark that would ignite each of them would come to me if I was patient. Periodically I have re-read them and on occasion ruthlessly edited them – slaying numerous darlings in fact – and around three months ago I felt confident that they were ready. At this point my very literary (despot) eldest daughter came home from working in a retreat in the Spanish pyrenees. She is home for a few months and asked if she could do some paid work for me.

"You could edit my next book of short stories," I suggested. "It's about ready to go but could do with a final check."
My Current Editor

The next day she began. Ten days later she presented me with a document with a mass of yellow 'Track Changes' suggestions. I have read through it. Unfortunately she has not been over-zealous. Although there were only one or two typos, she highlighted many areas where stories could be improved. I should be grateful but I must confess to some sense of frustration. It was not what I had been expecting. The publishing date has had to be pushed back to a major extent and that does not make me feel good.

And there was me thinking I had learned all I needed to know from my first two books! So having one's book edited is painful. Yes I knew that, so how could I have forgotten so easily? With my first book - Long Road, Hard Lessons - A non-fiction book about my 10,000mile cycle journey with my teenage son, I endured about two weeks of very defensive arguments with my content editor, who is an old friend. Him being an old friend probably didn't help in many ways. It certainly didn't make him any less brutal with me. In the end, however, I realised that he was right about 95% of what he said, so why not save myself the pain and just accept it, bar any parts where he had misunderstood my intended meaning.  The whole point of getting someone else to edit, is that however good we get at editing our own work, we will always need a separate pair of eyes and at least one outside point of view in order to make it as good as it should be. So this time I have not argued with my daughter - at least not yet. I am grateful for the fact that she has taken the job so seriously and made such an effort.

Image courtesy of www.thechurchofnopeople.com

So whereas this blog should have been telling you that the new book is now available, instead it is telling you that it's not. What I can tell you, I will:

Cover
I have no cover yet, but I'm inclined to go for the same traditional (Penguin classic style) cover as with Special Treatment & Other Stories. I'm not a traditionalist by nature but I can't stand those cheesy (as I see them) airport thriller style covers that look like a graphic design student had a month to kill and needed to impress someone. I like the cover to intrigue the reader about what's inside rather than to get them so excited about the cover, that what's inside can only seem like an anticlimax. Or perhaps I just prefer 'classy' to 'loud'.



Story Genre
The stories are, like the last collection, subtitled 'Excursions Into The Lives Of Others'. They are somewhat voyeuristic in style. The reader may feel they are prying. Things are disclosed or hinted at which we feel perhaps we shouldn't know – some readers may even feel a sense of discomfort. Perhaps some of that discomfort is about the fact that most of us recognise something of ourselves and our own lives in these characters. Scary! But I sense that much of what seems to make people uncomfortable, is their own overwhelming desire to know more.
The title, The Truth In The Lie, was chosen because of the number of times I have been asked whether my stories are based upon truth. It seems obvious to me that every fictional story is based upon truth – personal truths from past experiences or those I have heard of, and 'great truths'. Many so called great truths may never actually have happened, yet they are universal truths of life, understood by all.

Story Outlines
My Only FriendAn elderly widow in Lisbon is estranged from her son who prefers to live in squalor and idleness since the death of the father he adored.

A Minor DistractionA rich American man on a train in Africa tries to tempt a poor young girl into his carriage while stopped at a wilderness station. The tragedy that ensues hardly seems to touch him.

Greta A pair of travellers arrive in a rural Hungarian hotel where all is not what it should be. They are shown to their room by a young woman who seems something of an automaton. 

All In Good Time A woman who runs a cafe is told she is being watched by the security forces. It seems unlikely until one of her staff disappears under strange circumstances.

Masaji A father and son attempt to escape from China on foot after their visa runs out. 

In The Line Of Fire A man in a war zone is attacked and hounded by those he once regarded as friends. They seem unwilling to allow him to leave the area, however.

Never Give Up Exhausted after several days at work, a man begins to experience strange occurrences while driving home through a long road tunnel.

Traffic An art dealer makes his first trip to Africa and almost immediately becomes the victim of not one but two carefully engineered scams – or so it seems. 

River Witch A young man camps by a river and is shocked to see a naked young woman float past as he lies in bed enjoying the early morning sun. How could he not go after her?

Red Card Once a promising professional footballer, Pat Carmichael becomes an alcoholic loser after he suffers a crippling injury. Finally after two years of depression he picks himself up.

Drawn To The Light Travelling home on his daily commuter train, David is drawn to something strange he sees in the dark while the train is stopped. What he sees transfixes him.

Dottie’s Diary Two women hill-climbing in Wales take shelter in a stone barn. Soon they are joined by a wealthy local woman who invites them home where they meet her husband. He is familiar to one of them. 

Burned On Him A rather reserved family meet for a weekend at the parents' house where a revelation by one sister causes an argument and unexpected consequences.

The ‘F’ Word A conversation overheard on a train with three children, their mother and her friend. 

The Bottle Lady of Luang Prabang Surreal happenings when a group of friends meet at their regular breakfast cafe by a busy main road. "The chink of glass in the early morning traffic haze."

If you would like to purchase 'The Truth In The Lie' (which is now available in print or as an e-book) please click one of the links to the main sales sites, where you can also find other stories by the same author:

Mark Swain on Amazon
Mark Swain on Smashwords