The PINK SOFA meets writer Ian Wilfred

The PINK SOFA is delighted, chuffed and generally over the moon to welcome writer and all-round good egg Ian Wilfred to the Writing Attic. Ian is a total sweetie. If ever there was a thoroughly nice person who deserves all the lovely things in the world, it is he. (And not just because he arrived bringing coffee and a selection of delicious Norfolk delicacies!)

Ian describes himself on Twitter as: ''a 50+ fella that writes female fiction - new book March 2017 - Love my books, garden, westie, husband and Norfolk beaches not necessary in that order.'' So of course the PINK SOFA wanted to know all about the new book, and how Ian felt to be a twice-published author!

''Thank you very much for inviting me onto the pink sofa. As you know my new book The Little Terrace Of Friendships has been out over a month now, and I have talked about it on a few blogs and don't want to repeat myself.

I thought today I would share with you the excitement of my publishing day, but first I must say what an enjoyable time I had getting my book out into the world. Working with Rebecca Emin was so enjoyable: so many laughs and that's just in emails to and fro. The book came out in March, but I had not told anyone, family, friends, or work colleagues, apart from my other half, and to be honest that's the way I was going to keep it. I had ordered a couple of copies of the paperback as a surprise for my sister and step daughter. I wanted it to be very low key as when my first book came out, I told everyone and there was a lot of pressure on me

My publishing day started at 5am on the old Twitter. I could not get over how many people tweeted mentions of it throughout the day. I felt so overwhelmed with the kindness. When the other half was up he asked how things were going, and I said if it got into the top 500 holiday chart and the top 5000 romantic comedy chart on Amazon, I would be over the moon. I kept telling him how it was doing, and we spent the day giggling as at four o'clock in the afternoon it was top 20 holiday reads and 190 romantic comedy. But the biggest shock was when it got into the top 2000 Kindle chart. This was insane ~ way way past anything I could have ever hoped for! We went off and celebrated with fish and chips, sitting looking out to sea on the beautiful Norfolk coast. The perfect end to a funny, strange day 

Moving on a few weeks: the excitement hasn't really died down. The book is doing far better than I could ever have dreamed it would, and I've started telling friends and family about it. I will never make anything near a living from my books and I will be doing the day job way past my retirement age, but earning money from writing was never the aim. I just love writing creating my characters, bringing them to life. Also I have so much pleasure chatting on Twitter to such lovely authors, bloggers and readers. I look at The Little Terrace of Friendships as the icing on my cake. I live five minutes walk from the beach, which I go on every morning with the dog before I settle down to a bit of writing and Twitter, and then in the afternoon I go off to work. I'm so very blessed

As for the future, there will be book three out. This time it's set on the stunning Norfolk coast, and the main character is another strong female! Thank you again for having me on the PINK SOFA: it been so lovely talking to you about one of the happiest days I've ever had my publishing day for The Little Terrace of Friendships.''

Links:

The Little Terrace of Friendships: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XWKKC71
Putting Right the Past: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Putting+right+the+past

Twitter: @Ianwilfred39

Ankles, eMacs and other disasters

They say disasters never come singly. Whoever 'they' are and if you know who 'they' are, please can you give me their names and addresses so I can go round and complain.

All is not currently well at Hedges Towers. Four weeks and two days ago, as I was walking through St Albans to collect the grandchildren, my right ankle gave way suddenly, pitching me into the middle of the street. Not the first time it has done this, unreliable body-part that it is, but by far the most agonising.

Such was the pain coupled with the shock, that I just stayed where I ended up and howled. A car edged slowly round me without stopping. I howled some more. Finally, a nice young woman approached, asked if I was OK (clearly not) and suggested it might be a good idea if I got out of the road.

It appears from the subsequent X-ray that I have torn a ligament. Over a month on and I still can't see my ankle bone and there are interesting blue areas in unexpected places. Oh yes, I hear you chorus, now you'll have lots of time to write the next book. Lucky you, wish I could bust a ligament. Ah but you see, gentle reader, you are reckoning without the 'never coming singly' rule.

My beloved eMac has died. For the computer experts reading this: something has overheated/melted/ buggered/come unattached and I can't access the Hard Disc Drive. For the rest of you: 13k words of the next book are currently stuck inside a dead computer.

A frustrating evening has just been spent in the company of Brian the Super-Techie, a special cable and his reserve Apple Mac trying to access my files. We turned the computer on and off many times. We held down C keys, P keys and T keys. I said F rather a lot.

We ran a diagnostic CD: everything was OK apparently, just not OK enough to let me get at it. We watched an interesting video about taking an eMac apart to extract the HDD. There was a bit where the bloke on the video said : 'Uh-oh, you really want to be very careful if you do this, as it could all explode'  which was a tad worrying.

Trying-to-be-helpful people have said: 'Surely you could just re-write the first part of the book?' Or 'You could always carry on from where you got up to.' Oh, if it were only that easy!

 Last night I dreamed I was trying to remove the hard drive from my 2CV. Makes a change from Manderley, I suppose....