Mike here

I’m doing an interview with the world’s longest running literary agency AP Watt at moment. Here’s a sneek:

Can you tell me about some of the more bizarre submissions you have received?

You get all kinds of things – from someone re-writing the bible and claiming it’s all about UFOs, to a million Harry Potter and Dan Brown copycats. And, of course, there are the deluded many who are convinced they are undiscovered geniuses. It’s a bit like The X Factor auditions on paper sometimes: painful, embarrassing, and very wrong.

Heh heh. So if the bible really was rewritten today what do you think it would say?

Here’s one from Spike Milligan:

In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth.

And God said, let there be lights in heaven to give light to the earth, and it was so, except over England where there was heavy cloud and snow on high ground.

Mike here,

When not making films for GO! Smell the Flowers, BLAM Productions also makes films like these:

The following is actual footage filmed under cover by The Lone Ranger as part of  Hi Ho Books Away at my magazine, The View From Here. The idea is to leave ten hardback literary books in a public space and see how long it is before someone picks each one up.

So when is the last time you picked up a book and what was it?

by Mike

Thursday 10.30 AM UK Time

Listen in live as Flower Founder Mike interviews Rachel Holmes LIVE ! GULP! Click the image above to listen in on Thursday.

Rachel Holmes is the Head of Literature at The South Bank Centre and an Orange Prize and Whitbread Award judge. In 1998 she became part of the launch team of Amazon.co.uk, and was Web Site Manager of the Amazon UK site until leaving in December 2002 to pursue a full-time writing career. Her first book, Scanty Particulars: The Life of Dr James Barry, was published in 2002, and her second, The Hottentot Venus, a biography of Saartjie Baartman, was published in 2007. She has appeared on Any Questions and Newsnight Review.

Who would you like to interview?

Mike here,

I’m interviewing debut author, Mark Piggott, over at The View From Here Magazine at the moment and I asked him about a past agent. This is what he said:

My second agent was Dr Radice at Gregory & Radice (now Gregory & Co). Again, I sent her an MS and she left this message on my phone saying something like,

“… I can’t say I enjoyed reading this – it was like a 500 page suicide note – but if you were to try writing something else I’d like to represent you…”

So tell us about your answer machine messages - strange and bizzare stories please!

Answer Machine Photo Credit: Aneyeforapicture

Left: Mark Piggott

Mike here

I’m reading James Meek’s book We Are Now Beginning Our Descent to prepare for an interview I’m doing with him shortly.

So you are in a plane, over the intercom you hear …
” We are now beginning our descent.”

How do you feel? Are you scared of flying or is the landing the exciting part?

Or the other meaning in the book ….

You are descending into a nervous breakdown. How do you get out of the nose dive? How do you survive? What have your experiences been and do you think admiting to a breakdown still has the stigma attached to it that it once did?

Thanks to Grandpa Ken of the blog  Social Fix for sending us a few of his favourite quotes including this one:

Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in our own.                                                             - Adam Gordon (1833-1870)

Feel free to share some of your favourite quotes right here in comments! Froth & bubble welcome.

The View From Here now has an international writing team made up from Flowers smellers!

Mike, Stella, Paul & Kathleen

So get your dancing shoes on and celebrate!

Check out their profiles and links to their blogs here.

All four will be contributing regularly and will shape the feel and look of the newly launched literary magazine.

Look out for an increase in a sense of community and interaction at The View From Here as we prepare to bring the magazine to a wider audience with a wave of press releases.

Helen Corner, founder and Director of Cornerstones said of the magazine:

The View from Here is a fantastic opportunity for writers and book lovers to be informed and entertained in a personal, friendly atmosphere. Our job is to shape and launch writers to agents with a view to getting published, of which we’ve had considerable success. But not every writer is at that stage, so this is the perfect place for writers to learn from other writers and swap tips.

So do welcome the team on board here and over at The View From Here Magazine! Here we are in action!

We’ll start with this analogy and ask all readers of this post to press on with an open mind

A flock of eagles was pecking seed on a farmer’s land. Since the farmer threw them food every day, they stayed on the farm day after day, month after month. A wise old eagle flew by and saw his friends.

“Why are you on the ground?”

“The human feeds us and we have no need to go any place else,” they replied.

“But you are eagles and have forgotten how to fly. Your realm is in the sky, not on the ground. Let me free you.”

According to the book ‘The Cosmos of Soul - A wake up for humanity’ the physical conditioning of our sensual pleasures ties us to this earthly plane. We have forgotten that we are not physical but bodies of light. We can fly. We can escape our conditioned existence, our hypnotized state, and we have the assistance of an extremely intelligent source, the Sirian High Council, channeled and authored by Patricia Cori.

Yes - A book that was written by someone who tapped into a higher plane that most of us are unaware of.

Are we on the verge of shifting to another dimension people? On the 21st December 2012 to be precise and according to the Maya their calender believed the world will end or at least shift as we raise our game!

Constructive comments welcomed here flower people, preferably from your true self-actualised selves….

Mike here (that’s me below right)

A younger child is dragged away screaming by his parents, ‘I want to see, I want to see,’ ‘No you’re not watching this ungodly show a minute longer.’ Punch wriggles free and brings down his stick over Jack Ketch’s head. The children laugh in relief, Ketch is dead. Death, death, the sentence is death. The Devil appears. Not even Punch can escape death. Death, death, the sentence is death. Pretty Polly holds up a card with Boo, written on it. Boo, the children shout.

Extract from my novel, The Dandelion Tree

Punch & Judy at the seaside - you can’t get more British than that! Except it didn’t originate in England, but I’ll gloss over that minor point. So what things do you see as typically British? Be interesting to see what other nationalities think of as British.

Cucumber sandwiches anyone?

Picture used by permission: Matt West

Mike here,

I’m interviewing Julian Barnes at the moment. Julian is an award winning author of over 10 novels, two of which have picked up Booker nominations. In the past he has been, amongst other things, the deputy literary editor for The Sunday Times, the London Correspondent for the New Yorker magazine and has appeared on Desert Island Discs.

Anway, one question I asked him was …

In Nothing to be Frightened of, you say that if you were to live your life again then you “could discover quite new sorts of disappointment.” Are there things that you would still like to try and do you think they will deliver or, as you say, lead to further disappointment?

Yes, I think I said: discover new pleasures and interests as well - some of which will probably end in disappointment. That’s the nature of life. Given an eternal lifespan we like to imagine we could succeed at most things. But let’s be realistic: given the time left, I reckon that if I took up, say, the tango it’d probably end in disappointment. I think what I want to discover from now on are new places and new people rather than new skills.

So flower smellers, are there places you would still like to discover and people you’d like to meet?

So picture the scene. - we were about to send the complete manuscript of GO! Smell the flowers to a potential agent in London.

‘There must be something different we could do to send with the book?’ We said. ‘ Something a bit…..different ‘.

Later that day in a discussion thread the gang at Fabulous photo gifts (AKA Flowers founder Purple 13 AKA Jonathan) suggested we tried a jigsaw version of our book cover.

That weekend the UK based Fab photo gifts team worked their magic and on the Monday morning the agent had not only our manuscript but a jigsaw version of our book cover that was very well received. We’re Tom Peter fans so do click the jigsaw piece or our book cover for a taste of Tom. We’ve had comments on his blog over the last couple of years and met the man himself…we think he’d like the agile reaction and slim line efficiency that Fab photo gifts shared with us. In fact, heres Tom in action….

How did the Fab team respond so quickly without sacrificing quality? We’d love to know. Thanks for GOing the extra mile for us Fabulous photo gifts!

We’d love to know how you did it and if anyone else has had any recent experiences of great service -service that relishes GO!ng the extra mile. Do tell! Thanks again flowers founder Fab photo gifts - you’ve a customer in Dubai now - us!

Mike here,

I’ve just finished an interview with author Tom McCarthy in which I asked him:

What’s your ideal night out/in?

This was his answer!

I once woke up to find, on my coffee table, a pair of skimpy knickers, white powder residue and an open copy of Francis Ponge’s ‘La Partie Pris des Choses’. I can’t remember what I’d done the night before - but whatever it was, that’s my perfect night.

So what’s your ideal night? In with the cat watching TopGear or out on the town?

Picture Credit: Alisa Conan

Well what a week it’s been with the lively GO!ngs on in the garden with a new look, new visitors and our first rejection note from an Agency in London after they considered our his n her book, GO! Smell the flowers. Here’s what landed in our inbox earlier after 4 weeks of waiting and finger tapping, as they smelled our written flowers, hopeful that they’d take us on in the first bite:

Sorry I missed your call today and thanks for the prompt. I’d been meaning to write to you this week.

I’m very sorry to say that I’m not going to be the right agent for you. As much as I personally enjoyed reading your submission – I’m afraid that with my tough agent specs on it doesn’t work for me. I take on very few projects per year – 2 or 3 and so I have to feel totally convinced before offering to represent someone.

The Pease’s are a great endorsement; the title you’ve chosen is appealing (and would appeal to a US market I think also) – although it would benefit from a tagline; your writing style is clear and honest and readable.

Books are a subjective business and I’m sure you’ll find interest from another agency. I do wish you very good luck.

Will you collect the ms to send to you or would you like us to recycle it here?

Recycling wasn’t an option we’d considered but hey, if JK Rowling had 49 rejections then we’ve still got someway to GO! Our tagline  ‘One journey, many discoveries’ appeared not to have been clear, talk about a kick in the flowers.

 SO, onwards & upwards as we scour the wirters and agents year book with that clear sense of direction and relentless pursuit of becoming published authors as we stand out from the crowd:

 We dust ourselves down, we move on we continue to smell. Has anyone else had that sinking feeling of rejection lately, do tell! Group hugs welcomed.

Mike here,

Award winning author, Paul Torday, did an exclusive interview for me this week. Last week Bridget Jones said of Paul’s new book, The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce,

“Hmmm not so sure about the book title Mike. Rather long.. and boring.”

So I said I would ask him! Ha! Bridget. The title was originally called Bordeaux, so …

Mike: Your new book, “The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce”, has a long title with the same number of words as “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” Was it hard to come up with the title and what are your thoughts on what makes a good book title? Is it for example best to choose one that gets the book of the shelves, or one that after reading you see perfectly fits the book?

Paul : I guess the title, and the cover, are all about getting the uncommitted book buyer to pick it up from amongst all the others on the table, and have a look.

Mike (trying to push it!) : How would you respond to the criticism from some that these titles are to long?

Paul: It’s a matter of taste. What is too long? I’m trying to get the reader to think ‘What on earth is that all about?”

So what do you think is best, the first version in the picture above or the second?

Vote please! And what are your fav book or film titles and why?

I didn’t follow Urban Pagan’s advice in the interview though, “I’d take a pillow to your interview with him as if he talks like he writes you’ll be sparked out after about 3 minutes .” LOL

WARNING: Have you noticed the doomsday countdown a few posts below this one? Part of RYK’s plan to destroy the world under the cover of a Flowers software relaunch?! Must stop him. Do I cut the blue wire or the red?!

Welcome, pull up a seat and order from the menu here at cult hangout Leopold’s, Mumbai, whilst you’re writing that bestseller to follow the success of Shantaram!

Leopolds, serving the locals and passers by of Mumbai since 1857, a favourite, owing its recent star status to Shantaram, a story based loosely on the life of author Gregory David Roberts, a former Australian convict known as Lin. This fictionalised account of the real life adventures of author Gregory David Roberts who bescaped from an Australian jail and arriving in Bombay, India with a fake New Zealand passport.

He immediately meets a taxi driver named Prabhaker who gives him tours of the city and a hut in the local slum. Lin starts a free clinic for the people in the slum, and to provide for his own income, he sells drugs to tourists. This gets him the attention of the local gangsters, and he’s increasingly pulled into their world of crime, from counterfeiting to gun running to passport schemes. Lin falls in love, nearly dies in an Indian prison, and survives a continuing series of adventures. More than just an account of drugs and crime, Shantaram is the story of a man who, even in a life of violence, genuinely loves those in his life and the city that became his home, Bombay.

Only last month, Madonna & Guy Ritchie took an extended New Year’s break in the region, dropping into Leopold’s and walking around Cuffe Parade, a seafront neighbourhood where million-dollar high rises sit next to fishermen’s huts, typical of the gulf between the city’s richest and poorest.

Well we’re reading Shantaram at the moment, highly recommend it and are flexing our Amazon affiliate muscles and offering it here -  you can buy it as well and if you don’t like it we’ll refund your money.

Comments please! Can us flowers smell the next Guy Ritchiefilm? Is this right or wrong - actually living in the slums and really getting amonst it? We’ll be featuring what we found at Leopold’s in our next post that features food n drink.

So, an escaped convict turns to become a Doctor in the slums treating the poor in another country. Should this be allowed or should he be locked up? Do tell….

Mike here,

I’m reading The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday at the moment after his publishers sent me his book to help me do an interview with Paul about his new book.

Here take a sip:

My life has been mapped out for me. I would break the hearts of my parents, of old Simon Hartlepool, and especially I would hurt Ed, if I suddenly changed my mind. That’s not how one behaves. One’s not allowed to do the unexpected. Life isn’t allowed to be unexpected.

Often we live our lives by maps other people draw up for us. Our parents, friends, family can all decide what is best for us and to step suddenly of a path that they have laid down before you can be a hard thing to do.

So have you ever stepped off and done something that meant following your own dreams or breaking from what was expected from you?

Do tell us your Tales of the Unexpected.

I’ve been absent from the blog for a while. And for that apologies. But while I was away I had an aha moment I’d like to share with you all.

The reason I was away from Flowers was because I was writing a book and had a deadline to meet. My publishers wanted the manuscript. Actually, my deadline was 10th Jan. But on 6th Jan I realised I’d do a crap job if I raced to meet that date and asked for an extension. They gave me  another month! I was ecstatic. Now I would have time to do the book and loadsa other things. So I bunged a few extras in my diary and felt quietly confident about 10th Feb. Then, around 4th Feb I thought ‘oh no, I’ll do a crap job if I race to meet that date’ and asked for another extension. Let me say here and now that that is the first time I have EVER asked a publisher for an extension. It is just not done. Nice kind publishers gave me another week and I ate another slice of humble pie and decided to wipe my diary clean of everything except my book. That was when the aha moment came along.

The moment I stopped trying to be Superwoman and to do it all I made a space in my head large enough for a good idea. And suddenly, with 7 days to deadline I decided to add some new material to the book - which meant I had to interview people and do even more work. BUT my idea was a brilliant one. And, had I not had the time to focus on just the one job I would never have had it.

In the end I submitted my manuscript 3 days early!

In focusing on one thing at a time I could not visit the blog. One day I was still in my pyjamas at 5.30 pm. But I did a better job than I would ever have done had I carried on multi-tasking.

As my dear friend Robin says: ‘I can do anything, I just can’t do everything.’

So, superwomen and supermen out there - what do you think?

Jo, expat inspirer

Oh and watch out for Career in Your Suitcase 3rd edition due out end April!

Well this is our last time here at flowers until Monday 18th February as we head off to meet RYK and the gang in Mumbai to decide the next flower smelling software to take on board the buzz here at flowers.

It’s going to be difficult not to post, comment or check in but we’ve promised not to and just let things take their course here. This at a time when GO! Smell the flowers ‘the book’ is on an agents desk in London who’ll be letting us know in March if they’ll be taking 2 years of work on board.

So gang, over to you, enjoy and we’ll see you on the picket line!

Well folks we’re spending all weekend trawling through the Writers Market UK handbook in search of agents and publishers who’ll take GO! Smell the flowers on board. Rather than self publish we’ve decided to give it a GO! through traditional means. With Allan & Barbara Pease now on board having foreworded our book we’ll be able to open a few doors with their 20 million copies of their various books sitting on shelves around the world.

‘Times are bad, Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book’

 - Marcus Yullius Cicero, statesman, orator & writer (106-43BC)

The conceptual draft of the cover of GO! Smell the flowers is here for all to see - we may GO! for this one or keep it simple and go for the flower smelling green as per the founders badges in the right hand column of this here blog. Decisions, decisions!

Any comments welcomed on this cover and please do share your book writing tales or plans. We’ve got another 3 planned including one called ‘The Flower Smellers’ that may well involve and feature YOU and certainly the founder of this community!

Is writing a book on your list of things to do or have you already been there and done that? Do tell paperback writer!

Mike here with a progress report on my job hunting.

Starting to look at jobs that involve website and blogs in the publishing industry.

A friend of mine, who used to work for Penguin Books, suggested that I contact the person who oversees their pixel world. So I am checking that out at the moment.

Will let you know how it goes.

So while I wait, go ahead and share how you ended up with the job you are in now.

Hang on I’ll just put the kettle on first.

Mike here,

Madame Bovary is a novel that caused its author to be attacked for obscenity and he was prosecuted way back in 1857 for”offenses against public morals.”

The reason? It depicted sex, in what was at the time graphic detail.

Flaubert was acquitted but the experience fueled his hatred of middle-class morality.

In my book The Dandelion Tree, I had to grapple with the question of how to portray sex scenes and the morality issues I had to work through to include them.

So what do you flower smellers think about sex in literature today?

Do you think there is to much of it?

And when there is sex, do you think it should just be suggested or are you happy with details?

Mike here keeping a low profile with AC back in town,

Yesterday O’DB said in a comment here at Flowers

“- just saw the ‘kite runner’ at the flicks … very sad film, and yet hopeful & uplifting in that bittersweet way - think i’m easily played emotionally, push the right buttons and all of a sudden the air is filled with grit and it’s slipped annoyingly into my eyes again.”

And I saw the film last night as well. Loved it so much I blogged about it and included O’DBs comment in my post. See my review here.

So let’s all come out of hiding from Aussie Cynic, and Go! fly some kites together.

Group hug anyone?

Avter a few comentz yisterdee, we ask yer - duz speling reely matter on blogz? Unforgiveable or acceptable provided that da mesige getz across? Do tel!

Maybe a spelling bee contest is the answer?

Mike here, with a little extract from The Dandelion Tree on Christmas morning…

Scene 7: Int. Bedroom – Christmas, Year: 1995 - Morning
ISAAC wakes after his first night together with REBEKAH. He reaches over to place a hand around her. She is gone. He walks downstairs. There is no sign of her in the kitchen; he stuffs a mince pie, then walks to the lounge door. The smell of pine needles fills the air as he opens it, the open fire glows from the night before. On the floor is REBEKAH. She lies with pinecones around her, naked apart from a sheet of wrapping paper around her chest, another around her hips.

ISAAC: Rebekah?

REBEKAH’S eyes are closed; there is no response. He walks to her and looks at the snowmen smiling on the gift wrap. There is a tag attached to REBEKAH’S ring finger. ISAAC stoops down. It reads:

Remember I am for life, not just for Xmas.

ISAAC pulls REBEKAH up into his arms, the snowmen rustle as they crease.

ISAAC: Wake up Rebekah.

REBEKAH opens her eyes; the Christmas Tree lights twinkle across her sleepy glaze. ISAAC kisses her.

ISAAC: Good morning, Happy Christmas, I like my present.

REBEKAH: You do?

ISAAC: Subtle, is it a leap year?

REBEKAH: Well?

ISAAC: Yes, let’s marry today, yesterday, all our days.

So …
Happy Christmas Flower smellers! What presents did you all get?

So flower smellers, as xmas approaches some of you may to enjoy a pantomime or even a show down at your local Broadway equivalent!

What if we had our own festive story, based on who we are as a community? Well, we can at least give it a try as our founders get to know each other and more readers drop in and post comments!

We ask all visitors and founders of GSTF to add a couple of sentences and keep the story moving between now and the 25th December. Try and involve the folks you know from here if possible and work in other festive tales if you wish and even youtube clips & links! Multi-entries allowed per person so fill yer festive boots! So, presenting our festive tale of GO! Smell the flowers……

‘ He’s BEHIND you’ shouted………..

Mike here going for a short post following on from here.

Act 2 of my short Xmas story. It’s mine. I wrote it. Read it here!