Ra-Ra-Royalties!!!!

This morning - this wonderful, glorious, splendiferous morning - I have received royalties. Now, you might think for a writer this is nothing to make a song and dance about - but for me it's a BIG, BIG deal. Royalties have been sadly lacking in my life. I was, I'm sorry to say, sadly misled about royalties.

Having learned everything I knew about royalties - the magic money that allegedly appears "just like that" in your bank account every six months - from a Jilly Cooper novel where the heroine received her royalties in just such a way (yes, I know it was fiction, but I knew no better and I believed it, okay - oh, and I was also under a similar misconception about VAT payments courtesy of a Dick Francis novel but that's another and infinitely more painful story), when I first had a book published I assumed that's what would happen to me. That every March and September for the rest of my writing life some massive amount of money would be deposited in my account. Enough money for me to live a life of idleness, gluttony and hedonistic sloth until the next royalty payment was due.

Oh, those heady, innocent days...

As no-one in authority (here I mean my agent or publisher or anyone else slightly grown-up in the writing world who should have known that I was a total dill-brain) disabused me of this notion, and also because my first novel - Going the Distance - had a titchy advance and sold loads of copies courtesy of the WH Smith Fresh Talent promo thus providing me with a four-figure royalty sum just six months after publication, I was convinced that my Jilly Cooper idea was in fact correct. That for every book sold, you, the author, received 10% of the cover price. That my life of grafting in the pub and panicking about the overdraft was a thing of the past. So, come the next book and next royalty period, I simply expected the same amount to arrive. Hah! March came and went; so did April. Not a sniff of a royalty sausage.


I remember, to my everlasting shame, ringing my agent to enquire where my royalties were. When she said there weren't any I had a temper tantrum. No, I did. Honestly. I roared and screamed and drummed my heels on the floor. What, I enquired loftily, did she expect me to live on?

Oooh - the embarrassment when she explained (way too late in my opinion) how the royalty payment system works... Simply, you have to sell enough books to earn out your advance and then you get percentage royalties (read your contract, poppet) on every copy sold after the publisher has clawed back what you've been paid. Oh, the mortifying shock! The pain of realising that, even once I'd sold enough copies (about 27 billion) to pay back the (tiddly) advance, I'd then receive a small percentage of the cover price of each book. So, after the massive (and non-existent) 27 billion sales I'd get something like .05p per copy if I was very lucky...


And then, it was explained, that if books went into supermarkets the publisher paid to have them on the shelves, ditto the bookselling chains especially if your novel was to have a prominent position like at the top of the escalator or an end-on shelf-display - and don't talk about promos or windows! Just don't! So, those sales cost the publisher dearly, didn't cancel anything off your advance payment debt, and earned you, the author, sod all. But think of the kudos, poppet - the joy of seeing your book on the shelves in all those famous shops...

Bugger the kudos! Kudos didn't butter no parsnips in this house I can tell you. What I wanted - nay - expected - was hard cash. I wanted royalties. And there weren't any. And there never have been. Until today...

Today, much to my incandescent joy and surprise I've been paid loads (well, okay for me it's loads - for other authors it probably isn't) of dosh from Germany. Royalties. Real royalties. For Sommernachts-Zauber. This is the German version of Love Potions, and it came out (fabulous floral cover, by-the-way, which sadly I couldn't paste on here for some reason) in May this year. They paid me an advance of 5,000 Euros for it (which was lovely and made us and the bank manager very happy) last year, and the royalty period was only up to the end of June - and - bless its lovely flowery little cotton socks - it's earned me 7,000 Euros - IN A MONTH!!!!! Which means, I suppose, that to have earned out the advance, it must have sold tons of copies in Germany (although no-one has actually told me this and of course it might be some huge mistake) and right now I don't care because I've got ROYALTIES!!!!


And yes, I am going to sponsor myself and everyone else on the charity walk with lots of it because - well - because I damn well can!!!

P.S. I've just read this through and I know if I read it on some other writer's blog I'd go "smug cow" - so please, please don't think this was written to brag or show-off - I'm so skint and I was just so thrilled and excited!

These Boots Were Made For Walking????

Much as I think these boots are the most gorgeous things I've ever seen, there is - for once - a serious reason for me using this particular pic of fabulously coloured boots that probably were never made for walking, and - again for once - a serious reason for this post.

On Sunday 26th October I'm joining the "It's Not Just A Walk In The Park" to raise money for Oxford's brand new custom-built cancer centre. And because I'm useless at asking for money and want to get the begging bit out of the way - I have an online sponsor site, open now until January, under my married name (Jones being my maiden name) as the whole family are taking part. It's at:

www.justgiving.com/christinamarshall

- and I'd be so grateful if anyone would/could pop along there and sponsor me. Thank you!

I've never taken part in a charity walk before but I do walk at least 4 miles a day as part of my exercise regime so I should be okay... The cancer centre is absolutely state of the art and the reason we're fund-raising is to provide, furnish and equip a dedicated relatives area. Sadly, having lost so many friends and close family to cancer in very recent years, I know how desperately important it is for relatives and friends to have somewhere to go during procedures, stay near-at-hand overnight, or just to - well, wait.

There are hundreds of people taking part, and I'll be walking with The Toyboy Trucker, Elle and The Doctor as well as all our friends and most of the people from our estate (which should be - um - amusing...). We have a choice of T-shirts (I think Debs had this dilemma recently too) that are either obscenely tight or like marquees... Think, given the current Weight Watchers outing, that mine will have to be one of the latter! Anyway as we have to wear the names of the people we're walking in memory of emblazoned on the front of the T-shirts, mine will need to be large...

So, on Oct 26th I'm going to be walking in sad-but-proud memory of my best friend Pat (bowel cancer), my sis-in-law, Ali (leukaemia), my substitute mum, Win (bone cancer), my lifelong biker friend Paul (oesophagial cancer), and my dad-in-law Don (stomach cancer). They were all a huge part of my life and I loved them all very much and their deaths broke my heart.

I know this blog post is a bit downbeat, but the fund raising really does mean an awful lot to me and even more to those who are currently undergoing treatment as well as their friends and families.

Thanks for reading this...

When You've Got A Minute, Love

"When you've got a minute, love..." Those six words are the drinker's mantra and the barmaid's nightmare. Whether you work in a city bar or a country pub, you'll hear them over and over again. They'll be uttered by dozens and dozens of people a night, all with leery grins and empty glasses. You'll hear them in your sleep. They'll become the most irritating words you've ever heard...


And as I'm definitely a barmaid who writes rather than a writer who works in a pub, and because yesterday was a pub day, I thought I'd expand a bit on the other side of my working life.



I've been a barmaid on and off since I was eighteen. I've worked in cocktail bars, nightclubs, fancy restaurants, posh pubs and complete dives and I love it. People are funny. People in pubs are even funnier. There's nothing like working behind a bar for people-watching and I get loads of inspiration for my writing from my barmaiding. Barmaids are mother-confessors, lovers, mistresses, best-mates - all things to all men. The punters seem to forget you're a real person with a life outside the pub, and they regale you with the most hair-raisingly intimate details of their lives, never dreaming that they'll suddenly meet you face-to-face over the frozen peas in Tesco.

We've got two pubs on the estate - The Weasel and Bucket (which I lifted lock, stock and - er - barrel - how apt!) for the pub in Seeing Stars, and Hairy Harry's which became The Barmy Cow in Love Potions - and I work in both as and when needed.

This week, as well as the fair and Weight Watchers and the writing (what writing???) I've been needed in both and yesterday had to dash between the two. First it was a very busy lunchtime shift in the Weasel and Bucket. My near-neighbours, Maudie and Wilf, came in for the pensioner's special. It was goulash. Sometimes it's curry or chilli depending on what colour it turns out. We always serve it with rice and chips and bread and butter and a pudding, and for three quid it's quite a bargain and very popular among the older estate residents.



Well, Maudie and Wilf were halfway through their goulash, when who should walk in but their son Jerome with Nancy from the end house. Together. I don't mean holding hands or anything, but together none-the-less. Tracy, who was on lunchtimes with me, couldn't stop giggling. She's very young and not as used to Jerome and Nancy as we are in the terrace. Because it was sunny and autumnally warm yesterday, Nancy was in a pretty floral shirtwaister and peep-toe sandals but her moustache totally ruined the look. They ordered two pensioner's specials which Tracy was all for serving them, but I stepped in because neither Nancy or Jerome are a day over 45.



In the end Nancy settled for one full-price spag bol and asked for two forks. Maudie and Wilf got a bit worried over Jerome having a fork (probably because Jerome's social worker doesn't like him having pointy things in case he attacks his electronic tag or an innocent bystander) and no dinner, so I gave him some bread and butter and a spoon. This came in handy for his pudding which was yellow and lumpy so it might have been something and custard. Then they went and joined Maudie and Wilf for a game of shove ha'penny and, by the time I left, everyone seemed very happy.



And, yes, it bothered me afterwards that none of this seemed remotely odd to me...



Then last night I had to do three hours in Hairy Harry's. Fortunately this shift went without incident - unless you count old Arthur Pedley (yes, he was my template for Slo Motion but as he doesn't read anything other than The Sunday Sport I don't think he'll ever realise it and try to sue) being caught trying to beat the smoking ban (still) by having a crafty fag in the gents. As he loudly and fairly aggressively refused to relinquish his cigarette, I put it out by dousing him with the remains of a pint of cut-price Amber Ale. Arthur dropped the dog-end down his singlet in shock and smouldered for ages. We had to close the gents for an hour as the smell of burning pensioner and warm beer is never a good combination.

Hopefully I won't be needed behind either bar for a while as I must, must, must write Moonshine - but after yesterday's double-whammy, at the moment all I can hear in my head is the plaintive cry of "when you've got a minute, love..." Aaaargh!!!!

Weighty Matters

Well! This is it then - this will be my staple diet for the next - oooh... forever and ever I suppose (or at least until I can fit back into the scarlet silk mother-of-the-bride frock...). Yes, I've done it. Gone back to Weight Watchers - and ooooh noooo! It was far, far worse than I'd even thought... I now need to lose 10lbs just to get out of the scary "obese" zone and into the much more friendly "overweight" area. And 20lbs to get back to where I was when I reached my WW goal earlier in the year.

And yes, Mags, I blame YOU! Best friends DO NOT force other Best Friends to eat their body-weight in ice cream (so many flavours, so little time) in one short week's holiday, or stuff toffee apples and candy floss to explosion point in a mere 48 hours... It wasn't even as if I had any say in it, was it? You asked me, and, as a good friend, I had to do it... It had absolutely nothing to do with that family-sized box of fun-sized (not very funny now, thank you very much) Toblerone I had for my birthday and ate in three days, or not being to keep my hands off the cheese, or the fact that a meal's not a meal without something gooey, sweet, syrupy/chocolatey at the end of it... I shall post my WW losses (and gains - oh, the shame!) on the blog every Wednesday to frighten myself into sticking to it.

The trouble is, overall it's not such a huge amount to lose before Easter - but there's Christmas in the middle - so, the plan is to stick to it before the festivities, eat myself silly for a week, and then become a diet-bore again until I can shimmy into the scarlet silk. Watch this space...

Other ramblings - the fair was lovely. I had a great time. Monday was dry and cold, Tuesday was wet and warm - and both days I was joyously working on the toffee apples and candy floss (the least said about the amount I ate the better) stall. I'm allowed to do this as I'm the proud owner of a Food Hygiene Certificate. I got it as part of my NVQ in Hospitality. The brewery I'm employed by insists on all bar staff having an NVQ in Hospitality - we spent a weekend in a country house hotel trying not to kill each other or poison the guests, and learned all sorts of exciting things and did team building which went well until Naomi ran off with one of the waiters and we were a person short. Anyway, sorry, I've digressed - the fair was fun, the stall was snug, and it was great for people-watching. Nothing funnier than watching the one-day cabinet ministers and judges and minor royalty from our local boys public school, let out for the occasion, down burgers and chips like there was no tomorrow and then leap on to vomit-making rides like Body Count or Meteor Strike and - well - vomit...

Oh, and I've heard back from My Weekly about the serial. They are still accepting serials (but only short ones) but are pretty well stocked at the moment. However, they're considering Back-to Back, but only if I rewrite it to make it more family-friendly and less edgy. So while Woman's Weekly found it old-fashioned, My Weekly want it more cosy. And MW didn't think it was contrived, but intriguing and exciting. And I always thought MW and WW aimed for the same market - still, I'm delighted to be given another chance with it so will try my damnedest to turn it into something saleable.

Now starving and going to slink off to bed with a tomato and GK Chesterton.

Swings and Roundabouts

I know the title could well be about the ups and downs of being a writer - but today it isn't. Today it's really apt because I'm just about to take my annual skive from the desk, and the pub, and the cats, and Elle and The Toyboy Trucker, and I'm going back to my fairground roots (see Stealing the Show...).

Monday and Tuesday sees our town's annual Michaelmas street fair (the longest street fair in Europe apparently) which is loved by the town's youth (and those not-so-young, actually) and loathed by all the newcomers (they all bought posh and eye-wateringly expensive flats in the old brewery/old cinema/old mill house and somehow no-one mentioned the fair and they now have paratroopers and waltzers outside their bedrooms for 48 hours each October and keep having petitions about it...) but as it's a charter fair and been going since the 1400s only the Queen can revoke it - and somehow I can't see that happening anytime soon.

So, because my godparents will be here with their dodgems and gallopers and other more scary hi-tech rides and their candyfloss/toffee apple stall, and because they're quite old now, I go and help out... Well, actually it's nothing to do with them being quite old - it's just because I LOVE it. I shall be doing whatever is needed - but as the weather is very cold, very wet and very windy, I hope they'll be kind and give me a job taking money in a nice snug pay-box...

Oh, and on a writerly note, I see in this week's My Weekly that they're running a three-part serial. I thought they'd stopped having serials??? Anyway, nothing ventured and all that, I've just sent them my three-parter, Back-to-Back, that was so cruelly rejected by Woman's Weekly. I've no idea if they'll like it or even want it, and maybe they'll think it's contrived and old-fashioned too (oooh, please - not that!) - but as I can't think of anywhere else for it and as I always try and send stuff out over and over again, it seemed daft not to give it a whirl.

I'll let you know what (if anything) happens when I'm back from all the fun of the fair...

I Am A Real Writer. I am! I am! I am - I think...

The blog is mostly going to be about writing stuff today and - phew! The My Weekly interview has just finished and it was lovely! I don't mean my part in it was lovely (I waffled and giggled and flapped and repeated myself as always), but Wendy, the interviewer was wonderful. She asked such great questions, made it all so easy - like chatting to a friend. I'm so glad it's over though - I hate talking about myself. Well, you feel such a show-off, don't you? And I don't think I have anything remotely earth-shattering to say (although I'm really good at remembering those clever little quips, sparkling witty anecdotes and humorous gems the minute it's over...) - so again, hats off to the lovely Wendy for making it a breeze.

Also this morning I've sold a short story to Allers mag in Sweden. Yippee! This was one I'd had published in People's Friend a couple of years ago - so maybe this is a good writing tip? Anything suitable for PF might well be worth subbing to Allers to sell Swedish mag rights? I shall certainly try them with some more...

And I'm thrilled to discover that the online romance site Cata-Network are going to review Happy Birthday on their Single Titles list - so more good news, well, hopefully, unless they absolutely hate it of course, in which case I'll probably cry.

Now all I have to worry about is if I'll finish Moonshine in time... if the Telegraph are still laughing their posh socks off over my first love revelations... if the Daily Express are ditto-ing their less-posh dittos ditto over my childhood... and if I'll ever be brave enough to face the audience at the Manchester Literary Festival on Oct 18th... I've just been sent the details of my slot (a romance panel with the mega-famous Mavis Cheek and Penny Jordan - think I must be the token chav) and it sounds great if only I could convince myself I was A Real Writer...

I am A Real Writer.. I am A Real Writer... I am A Real Writer...

First Love

Today I'd intended to write Moonshine this morning, then go to the lunch time session of Weight Watchers, and then (after the crying had stopped) be dutiful, and spend the afternoon alternately writing and concocting inedible (see Fine Dining blog entry!) little lo-cal meals to pop in the freezer.

As always with my higgledy-piggledy life, this didn't happen.

What did happen was a) My Weekly rang and asked if I'd like to be a feature in their Christmas Special. I misheard this and thought they'd asked me to write a feature, so we talked at cross-purposes for ages and I made a bit of a prat of myself, frankly. Anyway, once we'd sorted out that they wanted someone to interview me about my writing life (WHAT writing life???) and they'd be ringing me to do this on Friday, and I'd got all excited and a bit big-headed, there was just time to grab a small Toblerone (eaten standing up so the calories wouldn't count for Weight Watchers) and head off to the spare bedroom. Then b) happened...

b) was the Daily Express. They wanted to do a feature too. (Think that the lovely and efficient Little,Brown publicity girl is working overtime - bless her. I've never been so popular - and certainly never had TWO national publications approach me on the same day). This time it's going to be on my childhood. And I had to provide them with notes so that when they rang me we'd all know what we were taking about. Well, they might - I never do.

So, by the time I'd stopped preening and showing-off and smirking smugly, and rapped out a few notes about my youth and emailed them, it was too late for Weight Watchers and I hadn't actually even opened the Moonshine file. So I ate two more (small) Toblerones. And then there was c)...

c) was the Sunday Telegraph. And my admiration for my publicity girl knew no bounds!!! They wanted a 1,000 word article on My First Love (human, not animal - otherwise it would have been my cat, Smokey Seaward, at the age of 7). And they wanted it today. And that's where the rest of the day has gone... lost in blissful dewy memories of Being A Teenager In Love. 1,000 words wasn't enough! I got goose-bumps just thinking about how we met, and all that starry-eyed obsession. Remembering all those lovely, wonderful, mad, never-to-be forgotten moments... Writing and deleting and writing again about how it feels to be madly, truly, deeply in love for the first time ever... Re-living every glorious minute, hearing the umpteen "our tunes" in my head, picturing his face, his smile, his long legs and Hendrix-hair... I sent it just now, smiling nostalgically, but oh, it's been a wonderful way not to write Moonshine or find out how fat I am...

Now I have to go and be a grown-up again and feed the cats and find a suitable pierce-and-ping for The Toyboy Trucker's tea and I'll probably be able to force another Toblerone in there too - but at the moment I'm still 17 and wildly, dreamily, soppily in love...