Bestseller? Downloaded a few thousand times!

I have copied another Twitter post. I’ve been told I’m far too modest and should be promoting myself as a writer. People like my work (see the Amazon 5-star reviews). I have another novel out soon: ‘The Man who Played Trains. I’m about to finish its third (or fourth or fifth?) edit – and that’s after three rewrites.

Practice makes perfect? Hung on the wall of the maths master’s room in one of my old schools (state secondaries, nothing posh) was a full length banner that said ‘A THING WORTH DOING IS WORTH DOING WELL’. That I remember it so clearly must mean something. I was only at that school for a year but, rather bizarrly, I remember the master’s name. It was Pemberton.

Playpits Park is NOT a spy story. It is an unusual (and I’m told gripping and haunting) coming of age novel.

Richard Whittle – talented writer to watch…

Wasn’t me that said it Guv, honest!

 

 

Independent Publishers are the Future

Many new – and very good – writers (and I mean good – there are so many mediocre ones around) are tiring of established agents and publishers. The world is changing. How many new writers have had a recommendation like this from one of the few remaining big boys? (more often than not they can’t even be bothered to reply). So, thank you for the publicity, independent publisher URBANE! Even though Playpits Park is already available on Amazon (with around 2000 downloads and 5-star reviews), you took the trouble to promote me on Twitter!

Haynes model engine

Santa bought one of these from Halfords for the 9-year old (6 years after I first mentioned him, see here). Construction took days, with him working on the first bits. Things got hard – expected – and I took over. Two days later I wished I had been building a real engine, not a plastic one (I have built real ones without instruction books, honest!) First there was a part missing. I thought I must have dropped it. After four of us searching the room for it (it was a tiny spring), I discovered on Google that the part was also missing from other people’s kits. The instruction book had mistakes and ambiguous drawings, resulting in me dismantling and reassembling chunks of engine in a trial-and-error rebuild to make the thing work. Finally I got it going. 9-year old VERY pleased…

VIDEO HERE: