BAD SUNDAY

Didn't win the Euromillions, the most horrendous Sunday morning puzzling and I have no Easter eggs.

GOOD FRIDAY?

Only if I win the £110M Euromillions jackpot. Still I did manage a sale this week. One book - yippee. It was a work colleague though who I had been badgering for a while so it doesn't really count.

It's Easter though and there is a new e-reader out - the Kindle Surprise. Or what about the bread roll who went about the bakery sreaming and shouting - he was a hot cross bun.

Talking about Kindle surprises:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=david+wardle&rh=n%3A341677031%2Ck%3Adavid+wardle

Remember don't shell out for chocolate buy a nice read instead - or even try mine.

SUNDAY POST 2

A little worse than last week on the old puzzle page - better than last week on a couple but quite a bitworse on others - but overall not bad.

SUNDAY POST

What are the chances of anyone happening on this blog who are not only Daily Express readers but are also puzzle fiends? About as good as Jack Bauer having a day of rest. Anyway, if there is, my effort on their puzzle page is on err.... my puzzle page. It was a good one for me today, I like to beat 50% and under 40% is good. Have a nice day.

Blog Off

Boo. I thought I had a brilliant idea but it won't work.

You will see I have created one or two pages, to use an expression, or three to be exact. "Doctor! Oh No!" is an extract from my novel "Trouble Cross" in which part of the time the main character is writing this spoof. I actually wrote this spoof some years before the novel at the request of a colleague who had a boyfriend mad on James Bond. They liked it so much they stuck all the pages up on their bedroom wall - don't ask me why. "Trouble Cross" is actually dedicated to this ex colleague but she doesn't know because they emigrated to Australia.
 
In poetry corner is the only good poem I ever wrote and this is taken from the beginning of "Rewind", my other novel on Kindle.

As for the jokes page, well, this is just because I did threaten my current colleagues to write down and publish all my jokes that they groan at. Unfortunately, I can never remember them afterwards, but the list will grow.

Anyway, I was going to do another page which would be partially interactive in as much as it would be a puzzle for bloggees to solve. I have in mind another novel where a serial killer sends crossword clues to the police after having sent them a wooden frame and numerous alphabet and black building blocks. The police have to build the puzzle including the black squares. As the characters would have to solve the clues I thought it would be useful to see if others could. The puzzle is complete although the story is not written. I was going to put the blank grid on a page with the first clue. If anyone solved it I would put the answer in the grid and post the second clue. Unfortunately, the grid is 27 by 27 squares and is too big. Back to the drawingboard on that one.

However, for any Daily Express readers watch out for Express Yourself which I am thinking of posting on Sundays. The paper has four main puzzles on that day, each with a time limit. I compete against the time and calculate my percentage per game and overall. If anyone wants to compete see tomorrow - if I remember.

The Reluctant Blogger

Why would I want to write a blog? The answer is that I don't. I have to though as part of the marketing for my novels on Kindle. Apparently it's all about social networking and I know as much about that as Baldrick does about simultaneous equations. Anyway, I have set it up but what to do next? Sorry about the name by the way. It was supposed to say something a little different but I haven't got any M pathy at the moment.

Anyway, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away (aka Manchester) I decided to write a book to see if I could. I was 18 working in an office and living at home. I wrote in a notebook at evenings and at weekends. Then I realised that I would have to type it out. I broke my sister's Petite with my two fingers. It took me about a year to write but two years to type although I think that included the year my parents took it off me and forbid me to write anymore because I failed my insurance exams. By the time I was 21 though I had one messy manuscript which I sent off to publishers - you didn't have to go through an agent in those days. Not a nibble. In hindsight I think it was so poorly presented that no one actually read it. Some years later I got seduced into vanity publishing. I sold 72copies and had 428 sent back to me. These disappeared when I rented my flat out. "Trance" was this ill-fated book.

On to 1996 now. I was redundant and out of work for 6 months before I had to move down to London to get a job. I started writing another book and because I had had a little success with making people laugh in one of my previous places of work I attempted a full comedy thriller. I finished it 4 years later, in London by that time. I tried every agent in the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook with no success. Another bottom drawer filler.

In 2004 I made another attempt. Always fed up with my life I had always dreamed about going back and starting again so I wrote about it, although in the end it wasn't about what I would have done again. The story took a life of its own. Another 4 years and then the same success with agents, although one did briefly dabble at looking at the screenplay.

Next it's 2012 and someone at work sends me an article about publishing on Kindle. I didn't have the skills so I paid for someone to publish my last two novels - Trouble Cross and Rewind - and that is the reason for blogging, to generate some sales. (SHAMELESS PLUG)

The plan is to give you some tasters in the sidebars but first I have to learn how to use this thing so for now here is the link.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_12?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=david+wardle&sprefix=david+wardle%2Cdigital-text%2C267

Nanu nanu.