Thwarted! For now...

So last time we spoke, I raved a bit about the glories—the ease!— of self-publishing via Smashwords. Perhaps I spoke a little prematurely. Sure, formatting the book was slightly tricky but hell, I did it, and I'm Queen Luddite. I got the cover designed, it looks hot, I have to say (thanks, Stu). And I uploaded the lot to Smashwords. They accepted it, yippee! Than they spat me back out. It seems I hadn't quite ticked all the boxes.

This process is a little trickier than I had anticipated. Doesn't mean it can't be done. Doesn't mean it won't be done. But there are a few hiccups I hadn't counted on. For instance, I didn't realise - duh! - that I'd need an ISBN number. A barcode as such. Why I didn't realise this is bizarre and a little embarrassing but there you go. How else can retailers know where to send my giant royalty cheques? Luckily for me, Smashwords recommended an Aussie ISBN website. I'm in the process of acquiring a book of 10 ISBN numbers (just $80 all up, people), then that's sorted for a few years/decades. (Really, with all this mucking about, you don't expect me to find any time to actually write anything else, do you?)

I also didn't realise I needed a US tax file number. The very thought sends shivers down our collective spines but, again, why I hadn't anticipated this, is beyond me. If you don't provide a tax number the US government withholds 30% of earnings. SO WHAT you might chorus? What's 30% of NOTHING? Then, you do the maths and realise that you're already giving your life's work away for a measly $2.99. Why let Uncle Sam take a whole dollar? What the hell did HE do? They don't even tax Bill Gates that much. (18% if you must know.)

Fortunately, I do have an old Social Security number from my three years working in the US, so I may use that. Or will that only open a can of worms? Will a helicopter suddenly descend upon the house, bright lights, a Swat team in place to demand where I've been for the past 12 years and why the hell haven't I been paying tax in God's Own Country?!

NOW we know what we needed publishers for.

I'm now in consultation with my Aussie tax bloke to find out the best course of action. Perhaps 30% ain't so bad...

But you know what? I still would rather go through all this crap then have to deal with a publisher, or not as the case currently is. Sure, a publisher would do all this for me, cross all these Ts, tick all the boxes. But I can still do it faster. They say it takes around a year for a publisher to turn a book around. So far, it's only been about six weeks for me. So we're doing okay.

Speak to me again in a month.
xo

Slamming towards Smashwords

I'm inches away from getting my first crime novel up on Smashwords. I'm in edit/cover design phase and then it's hey presto! A book! Or, more precisely, a self-published ebook. My very first, and I'm not sure why it hadn't occurred to me earlier (I've got four manuscripts currently gathering dust in my hard drive).

Actually, that's not strictly true. I know exactly why I've never self-published before, and it has a lot to do with the nonsense surrounding the 'real' publishing world. It seems like a no-brainer now, of course, but five years ago it was a shameful idea to self-publish. Something only the truly desperate did. Patronising, I know, but there was this impression back then that if you even attempted to self-publish, you were a sad twat who would NEVER get a 'real' publishing deal. Ever again. Of course that's what the 'real' publishing world wanted you to believe. But guess what? I never did get a publishing deal anyway. So what was holding me back?

Well, my 'Ludditism' didn't help of course, and my aversion to all things techno (and my knack for making up really lame words). Cost, that was a factor, too- you used to have to re-mortgage the house to even contemplate printing your own books. And then there was my own bullshit. I really needed the affirmation that came with a BIG publishing house telling me my work was so bloody fabulous they just had to get it into stores worldwide. Pronto! It was just affirmation, something I need less of as I age.

Today, thanks to the likes of Smashwords and co, I can put my own stuff out there, for nix! It's now so cheap and easy, my seven-year-old could do it. With his pocket money. Most importantly (for my pathetic ego at least) it's also more acceptable now. Everywhere I look people are self-publishing ebooks. It's the reason the 'real' publishing world is in freak-out mode (and the reason my agent has struggled to get them to even look at me, or so she kindly reassures me). I love that! I love that the little people can fast track the process and put their own stuff out. Sure, it might get lost in the quagmire, but at least it's OUT THERE. Not hiding away in my hard drive waiting for some publishing stranger to give the nod.

This month I'm giving myself the nod. Then, if you (dear readers) like it, you can give me the nod, too. If you don't, well, what have I lost? Exactly bloody nothing.

Viva la people power! (Or something like that.) I'll let you know how I go...

The Agatha Christie Book Club

The Agatha Christie Book Club©

By Christina Larmer

NB: Dear readers: Here are the first few chapters of a new crime fiction series I am writing based around my passion for Agatha Christie murder mysteries. It is the first in the series and will feature a book group who end up investigating mysteries that arise in their neighbourhood. I already have the next two books mapped out. Please let me know if you’d like to read any more from Book One.

Thanks,

Christina Larmer

Prologue

She needed to teach him a brutal lesson, but she couldn’t quite work out how. She shivered a little and turned the heating up. It was one of those fancy turbo blaster gas thingamejigs that had baffled her once. Before. But she had mastered it eventually, had sat herself down and read through the blasted manual—what the ideal temperature was, how to use the timer so it would switch on a good half hour before she headed to bed. She had worked it out, and she would work out a solution to him, too. She knew now that it was possible, that she wasn’t the ‘useless maid’ he constantly referred to. She would show him, and she would show his ‘precious princess’, too.

They would both learn the hard way.

But how? The woman sat, wedged up against the headboard of the bed and gave it some thought. To her left was a small table with the usual bedside accoutrement—a large, pearl coloured lamp, a clock radio (another thingamejig she had mastered, thank you very much), a glass of water, today’s local rag, opened at the classifieds, a half-read biography, her old watch, recently discarded, and a container of floss. She picked it up and absentmindedly pulled a long strand out, snapping it off and applying it to her recently brushed teeth. As she pushed and pulled, twisted and yanked, her eyes dropped back to the bedside table, and that’s when she saw it. The answer to all her prayers.

She would create the perfect murder. What a brilliant idea!

She dropped the floss to the floor and smiled, the first time she had smiled in months. Then she picked up the book and continued to read...

Chapter 1: Two weeks earlier

Alicia Finlay was in the wrong book club.

Of course, she hadn’t realized it at first. Had come along, every month for three months, the latest Booker Prize-winner wedged under her arm, a strained smile on her lips, and pretended to be having fun. But there was no fun to be had. On the fourth Monday night it dawned on her.

It was the table of canapés that first drew her attention to it. Not because she wanted to eat them. Quite the contrary. The stiff cardboard crackers adorned with dribbly yellow and red gunk resembled something her dog recently brought up. No, it was the simple fact that they had been placed to the side, just out of reach. So, too, were eight sparkly crystal wine glasses and two bottles of Merlot, opened, inviting, yet unattainable. It would all have to wait until the serious chatter was over. She knew how things went. Alicia’s mouth salivated. She glanced at the man to her right but he was deeply engrossed in something the woman to her left was saying.
“It’s not so much the physicality of the tear drop,” the woman, Verity, was saying, “but the way in which it draws the reader into the major themes of the novel. There really is a reoccurring water motif running all the way through this book. Don’t you agree, Alicia?”
She darted her eyes from the wine bottle to the grey haired woman talking and smiled awkwardly. “Oh, well, I—” She paused. Laughed a little. “Actually, sorry, wasn’t really paying attention. Thought I might help myself to a glass of red.”
“Red?”
“Yes, red wine.” She stood up. “Does anyone else want me to get them a glass? Something to eat?”
Kirsten, the book group’s hostess, sat forward with a start.
“Ahh, sorry, Alicia, but it’s not really time for wine, we’re still in discussion mode.”
She tapped her wrist watch.
“Oh,” said Alicia, dropping reluctantly back into her seat. “We can’t discuss and drink at the same time?”
Kirsten smiled politely, exchanged glances with another participant—they had exchanged those kinds of glances before—and shook her head, no.
“Why not?” Alicia persisted and Kirsten looked slightly taken aback.
“It’s just not what we do... here.” She fumbled for her sheet of questions. “Okay then, if we can return to the subject at hand. Where were we exactly? I think we were up to question five? Yes, style of writing. Have you got anything to say about that, Wilfred?”
She stared pointedly at a large man with a shaggy beard and gold-rimmed glasses who was slouched in an armchair across from Alicia. He pushed the glasses back into position and then slid one hand down to his beard and began caressing it lovingly. He’d been waiting for this.
“Yes, right well, if you ask me, and I believe you just have, I really have my doubts about this chappie. His writing, well, it leaves a lot to be desired don’t you think?” A few murmurs of agreement broke out around the lounge room where the meeting was being held, and, encouraged, he launched into his trademark monologue on the fallibilities of today’s novelist. There wasn’t a decent writer left in the world, apparently, not since Hemingway and Salinger had a good book been published. Alicia couldn’t help wondering what a science lecturer would know about that but pushed the thought away and let out a long, soft sigh instead.
Why hadn’t it dawned on her earlier? Why had it taken four sessions and a forbidden bottle of wine to make her see what was probably blatantly obvious to everyone else in the room from day one?
She just didn’t fit in here.
If truth be told, Alicia Finlay didn’t give a toss about literature. She just wished she did, in the same way a woman who guiltily watches Desperate Housewives on TV, wishes she could find the strength to switch over to that really important current affairs show on the public broadcaster. She just didn’t have it in her. She just didn’t care enough.
Alicia’s mind wandered now to her own bookshelf in the small, semi-detached house she shared with her sister Lynette and their Labrador Max. The shelf was huge, took up an entire wall and tipped ever so precariously to the right. It was cluttered with well-thumbed paperbacks, mostly crime novels, and mostly by British author Agatha Christie. Alicia’s smile returned. What really woke her up in the morning and saw her drift off to sleep most nights was an old-fashioned whodunit. And if it happened to be penned by the Queen of Crime herself, all the better.
She suppressed a giggle. Imagine if she suggested Murder on the Orient Express for the next book club! Wilfred would have a fit. Kirsten would choke on her chamomile tea. And I’d be in book heaven, she thought.
That’s it. Enough’s enough.
She stood up. She walked across to the table. She picked up the bottle of cabernet sauvignon and poured herself a generous glass. As she did so, the room fell silent behind her and she could feel their eyes boring into her back. She wondered if Kirsten would tackle her to the ground and wrench the wine out of her hands screaming, “But it’s not drink time yet!”
She turned around slowly and tried for her bravest smile. Kirsten’s eyes were abnormally wide. Verity looked nervous, glancing between Alicia and Kirsten. And Wilfred had stopped stroking his beard.
“What are you doing, Alicia?” Kirsten said eventually.
“Just helping myself, before I head off,” she replied.
She finished the drink, placed the glass down and reached for her handbag.
“Where are you going?”
She took a deep breath, tried for a smile. “Look, I’m really sorry, guys, I gave it a go, but this club is clearly not right for me.”
They all looked stunned, as if it hadn’t even dawned on them, and Alicia realised then that it probably hadn’t. They were so self-obsessed they hadn’t noticed the elephant in the room. A wistful look crossed Verity’s face and for a moment Alicia thought she might leap to her feet and follow her out.
“But... but what about your book?” Kirsten demanded, grabbing Alicia’s pristine copy of the latest award-winning novel from the coffee table and thrusting it towards her.
“Oh no thanks, Kirsten, you’re welcome to it. I’ve got much better things to read at home.”
And with that Alicia Finlay walked out on the Monday Night Book Club, their suffocating rules and their tediously dull literature. And she returned to her inner city home where her sister was just starting work on a crispy duck stirfry, her dog was wagging his tail maniacally, and her latest Agatha Christie novel—Murder At The Vicarage—was waiting, temptingly, by her bedside.

“I think you should start a book club,” Lynette announced between mouthfuls of dripping duck and broccoli. Alicia scoffed and Max pricked up his ears hoping the conversation had something to do with food and his mouth.
“Um, I don’t think you’ve been listening to me, Lynny, I hated the book club. I’m never going back. Why would I subject myself to a whole new one? It’s masochistic.”
“No, not that kind of book club. Start your own. One totally devoted to what you like.”
“Well, that would be crime fiction and last time I looked, you don’t have book clubs about that.”
She scooped a chunk of duck from her bowl and dropped it into Max’s waiting mouth. He slunk back under the table, satisfied.
Lynette frowned at her but let it pass. “Why not?” she said instead.
Of the two sisters, Lynette had always been the fearless one, always ready to dive head first into life, never considering consequences or looking back. Alicia, six years Lynette’s senior, was quieter and more conservative, less likely to just jump. She considered Lyn’s question and found that she came up short. Why not indeed?
“Seems to me,” Lynette continued, “that plenty of other people love crime fiction, too. You’re hardly alone.”
“Hell, more people read crime fiction than bloody Man Booker prize winning tomes of trite. Just look at the Millennium trilogy.”
“Exactly! So, it won’t be hard to get a group together. Just ask around. Or get on Twitter. You’ll be inundated. But if you’re not, I’m happy to plump up the numbers. I’ve always had a soft spot for Miss Marple, you know that.”
In fact both sisters had been Agatha Christie devotees since childhood, a legacy passed down from their mother, Amelia, who possessed almost every book in existence and read and re-read them at will. Their father, Tom, and brother, Monty (named after Agatha’s own son would you believe), were less inspired by the Queen of Crime and preferred a good, modern thriller complete with double crossing CIA agents and at least one missing nuclear bomb.
Alicia put her fork down, she could hear her heart beating suddenly, as though it had only just come to life.
“I’m not sure how it’d work,” continued Lynette but Alicia was way ahead of her now.
“I know how it’d work! Oh, it’d be great. We’d all choose our favourite crime novel and focus on a different one each fortnight. I’d start with Death on the Nile and then...” She stopped, darted her eyes from left to right. “No, no, forget that. We could all all choose our favourite Agatha Christie novel! It could be an Agatha Christie book club!”
Lynette frowned slightly and took a gulp of her white wine. “Well, that might be taking things a bit far. I mean, are there enough books to sustain it?”
“Enough books? It would take us about four years to get through them all, Lynny. The woman was prolific. She wrote something like 50 books in 35 years.”
Lynette looked impressed. “There you go then.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, this is the best idea you ever had!”
“I thought my duck creation—I’m calling it Lucky Duck by the way—was the best idea I ever had.”
“Nah, that comes a distant second. Good name by the way.”
Alicia began to contemplate the club and her heartbeat continued to accelerate. She hadn’t been so excited by anything in such a long time. Not since the receptionist at work had convinced her to take over her seat at the Monday Night Book Club.
Her heart skipped a beat. She knew how that had turned out. She slumped over her bowl.
“You really think it will work?”
Her sister winked. “’Course it will! You just have to get the right people together this time. Set up a Facebook account or start tweeting every one you know. How hard could it be?”

“Oh my God, it sounds like a bloody nightmare,” said Ginny, the aforementioned receptionist, over the espresso machine in the office the next morning....

to be continued

My Friendship Quest (a non-fiction work in progress)

From Boarding School to Beverly Hills...

One woman’s quest to find true friendship

It’s the middle of winter, my husband has just been diagnosed with cancer and all I can think is, ‘I have no friends. Oh my God, I have no friends.’ Before you think me horribly selfish, or distracted at best, let me explain. We’re stuck in the waiting room of a busy Urologist’s. To my right is an old man who looks bored and disinterested, as though he’s been battling cancer his entire life. On the other side sits a younger man with sheer terror written all over his unwrinkled face. And next to me is my husband of 10 years, Christian, quietly staring into space as his right foot taps away maniacally. He’s worried about his prognosis, I know that, and completely unaware that it’s 20 minutes to three. The children need picking up from school and we’re an hour’s drive away. I don’t want to bother Christian with this now. I don’t want to bother him at all. But I have gone through my mobile phone contact list and come up short. As I slip the useless thing back into my handbag, I realise I have no choice.

            “Do you know anyone who could get the kids from school?” I ask softly, embarrassed. He looks at me, confused. “It’s nearly 3pm, sweetie.”

            “Oh, yeah, right.” Christian shakes himself out of his reverie and retrieves his own phone. Within minutes he has scanned his address book, chosen from any number of possibilities, and placed the call. “Glenn will get the boys for us. Happy to. Says not to worry.”

            “Thank you,” I reply, and he goes back to his tapping. But it’s not the kids I’m worrying about. It’s me. I am riddled with guilt and feelings of impotency. In my husband’s hour of need, I cannot offer him the kind of support he can offer me.

I read once that everybody needs at least three reliable friends they can call on in a crisis. Now, at the age of 42, a crisis had landed firmly in my lap and I have been found wanting. From the minute my husband discovered that odious little lump, our life has quickly spiraled into a seemingly endless stream of specialist appointments, medical tests and surgery. With young sons aged five and eight, a seven-acre property, and no close family living close by, now is as good a time as any to call on those ‘friends’ to help with babysitting, lawn-mowing, whatever it is we might need. The problem is, when I take a mental stroll through my address book, the journey quickly becomes very unsettling. Forget three reliable friends, I cannot think of even one. Not one single friend to collect the kids or provide a shoulder to cry on or bring over a comforting casserole when it all gets too much.

Don’t get me wrong. From the moment the whiff of cancer entered our lives, dozens of people have called to offer their help and support. Mortifyingly, not one call came in for me. At least, not from anyone who lived within a 250-kilometre radius. You see, I’m not completely friend-free. Honestly I’m not! I do have some really great mates, most of whom have been close friends for more than 20 years. Unfortunately, when I say close, I don’t mean it literally. They all live far, far away—like that mythical castle you rarely get to see. Three girlfriends live about 900 km away. Two others live in an entirely different state. That makes them fantastic for occasional phone calls and Facebook photo swapping sessions but not much use for scooping up kids at a moment’s notice.

How did I get to this? ... tbc

(next week: what I do to change my friendship status?)

Papua New Guinea book

In case anyone's googling away on googleblog, I thought I should mention the book I'm writing on my father's survey business that began in Papua New Guinea in partnership with Graeme Arman, in 1965, and which continues (sans Arman) today. I'd love any contributions anyone might have on the topic of surveying in PNG and Arman larmer Surveys, if, indeed they know it.

I'm almost finished and I think it will make an interesting read (all 150,000 words of it). Admittedly, the book gets bogged down occasionally in intricate—and necessary—survey details but it's also a fascinating look into life in a 'new' country and how that has progressed over 40-plus years. I use the word 'new' tentatively as I appreciate that the Papua New Guineans actually existed and happily enough, long before white surveyors happened upon their door steps, cement pegs in tow. But it was a very different world to the one these surveyors had left, and an incredible eyeopener, too. From stalking crocodiles to mozzie-infested jungles, from irate, spear-throwing locals to the mammoth gold and copper mines, it is quite an adventure and one they experienced firsthand. Long before road builders came along, the surveyors were donning their boots and trekking through...

The book is due out next July.

Luddite no more

Hello...

Anyone who knows me well knows one thing: I'm a techno-phobe. I don't own a mobile phone, I've never sent a text message in my life and my answer to DVD was, "Well what the bloody hell was wrong with VCR?" (Watch me writhe in agony when the little red circle appears each time I try to skip the piracy warning).

But here I am, with my very own Blog and I feel shamelessly With It. Perhaps there's hope for me after all. Not sure, yet, what the hell these pages will include, but I do know i have my 'mad Welsh mate' Elaine Davies to thank. If it wasn't for her dragging me to the session on blogging at the recent Byron Writers Fest, I may never have given it another thought.

Speaking of which, here's a thought to leave you with until tomorrow (yes, I'm easing in gently)... when I was living in NY I recall my now-hubby's mother calling at all hours from Australia to ask him how to work the video machine. It appalled me. How pathetic. Fast forward 20 years and I can picture my own boys tsking at my ignorance. No thanks. It's time to EMBRACE.

xo Christina
PS: I do have a vague idea what these pages will include. For stray strangers: I'm a writer/journalist/mother/wife/friend/sister/daughter... Future posts will include tidbits from all of the above.