Peeps, I'm away now for two weeks.
Let's see if I get anything done, eh?

Tara.
Reg :-)

Friday is THE day.
On Friday the Tenth of July, me, myself and my little tribe of Jones family credit crunch survivors will be flying to Majorca for two weeks of sun, beer, sand, beer, laziness and more beer with a couple of John Collins thrown in for good measures.
To say that I can't wait is an understatement of biblical proportions, bested only by Marshall Petain's claim that Verdun was, "a bit of a pickle". (OK, OK he didn't actually say that but I haven't any ready quotes to hand. However, I'm sure you get my meaning.)

Anyway, while I'm basting myself under the Iberian sun, (well all but Iberian) like a beer-bellied, oven-ready chicken, I'm hoping to be able to splat down a couple of lines of my new project.
Not only that, dear jealous reader, but I am also hoping to meddle a bit with Division of the Dammed part II, GULAG!!
Gasp, shock, horror…

Hey, why not, eh?
You only live once and I seem to have run aground already with the new thing. Only temporarily of course, I'll be back up and swinging like a punch drunk heavyweight before the bell goes for last orders, but I have taken a tasty right cross on it at the moment.
However, this is the plan.
What happens if I'm marooned Writer's Block island with only the one project? I feel like a fraud using that term but there's no other phrase for it, anyway, Writer's Block bowls me a googly and I'm run out on the crease…What then?!?!
Disaster, Catastrophe, Four Editors of the Apocalypse, Extinction Level Event, Day of Judgement??

No my slippery fish-brained, deluded friend, all is well.
Plan B simply sets itself in motion and I slide neatly back on the trail with Von Struck and the chaps before you can say, "Howzat!"
Now don't be such a nay-saying sissy and start preaching about getting confused with the two plots, the characters, the research, the facts and the many types of Gin blah blah blah…
Because I won't, you see (?), you great, big dollop of school custard, give me credit for at least half a brain cell wontcha?
I'll have everything to hand, except for t'internet, and I'll go from that; making corrections on my return Sausage-side. The plot, my Wikipedia notes, I have it all on the laptop.
It's a great plan, nothing can go wrong and I CAN'T WAIT to put it in motion.

If I don't write before, I'll see you when I get back.
Reg :-)

PS. Honestly, I'm so hyper right now, does it tell?

Once more the soiled curse of rejection smears my literary track record.
I received the email only yesterday and this is how it went.

"Thanks but no thanks. In fact, we'd rather slip a couple of rabid ferrets down our collective grollies than print anything your talent-deprived fingers could ever push out. All the best with your next project, loser."

I think that's how it went; well that's how it's stuck in my memory anyway.

"Harumph" was my response.

Well, I've still another three short stories out there, and my MS, so all is not lost dear reader.
Nil Desperandum, right?
(How often have I written those words over the three years I've been doing this Blog?" Too many, thinks I.)

Only one week and one day until I go on holiday.
I'm taking the laptop and hope to be punching the keyboard with Anthophiliatic diligence the whole time I'm there. Fourteen days of all the sun induced creativity I can fit in.
It'll all end in tears at the bar, (it is all inclusive so I have to get my money back somewhere, right?) but who cares?
The will is there, the story is thrumming along nicely and I cannot wait.

Right, I'm off to do some stuff in the garden.
Have a nice day.
Reg :-)

Has it been a week already?
I have nothing to write I'm afraid.
So I'll leave it, shall I?
Yeah...
Tara.
Reg :-)

Once, long ago, before I woke up and screwed my head on properly, I contacted an agent here in Germany.
At that time I was convinced I needed a representative to sell my tome to the great wide world and so make my millions. This lunacy all stemmed from those bloody forums that are full of people who haven't really a clue about the industry themselves, but insist on dishing out bad advice as if it were from Dan Brown, Ken Follet or J.K.Rowlings personally.
Anyway, as I wrote, I thought I needed an agent.
I sent my manuscript off to several agencies around Britain and America, all to no avail.
I was simply too unknown to be interesting and my book was crap as well, I guess. ;-)
Whatever, one day, whilst licking my spiritual wounds from yet another rejection, I came across an agent in the Writers and Artists Yearbook who was based in Hanover, not fifty minutes drive by car!!
Hurrah and hussar I thought as I happily punched in the telephone number, this could be my lucky break, (which sadly it never is, no matter how often I think it will be.)
I was put straight through and spoke to a very nice chap who said to me that if I write the manuscript in German, he'll take me on.
Now, needless to say I was a bit flummoxed; smugly pleased with my marketing skills but still flummoxed.
Why would any agent say that without even seeing my MS???
So I asked him and the answer is amazing. The thing is you see, according to the agent, Germany, that great land of scholars and poets, is suffering a drought in the creative writing game. There are loads of books on the market but the majority of them are translations from foreign authors.
Gasp!
Of course he could have just been pulling my leg, or perhaps he was a madman or whatever reason you can find to not believe him. However, it's still amazing to me that so many German language prints are translations, especially when you consider the population count of the German speaking lands. A good measure of this is the fact that I have never once read a book translated into English by a German author. Not one. Well not intentionally, lol.

So why is that?
Why is a land like Germany a poverty stricken desert when it comes to authors? Is it because German is such a hard language to translate?
I think any translation work is hard and very often a lot of the original magic of a story is diluted by the act of the conversion itself. However, if that were the case, why do the translated novels by English speaking authors do so well in Germany?
It's all very strange.

Whatever, I didn't try to translate my book and now it's at a publishing house in London somewhere been given a critical once-over… hopefully a not too critical once over, mind.

Have a good one.
Reg :-)