Where am I now?

It's now ten days since I set up in business as a writer and publisher. I am a sole trader with the business name of Brook House Enterprises. How far have I got?

Well, there are ideas and ideas and ideas and some of them are taking shape.
The Brook House booklets on local history are really taking shape. I have set myself two deadlines:
1) Friday 7 December - launch a five-part series based on the articles I did for the Craven Herald in 2002 titled Ingleton's Dickensian Characters.
This will co-incide with late night shopping night in Ingleton which usually has a Dickensian theme.

2) Saturday 26 January - launch a five-part series called Voices of Old Ingleton at St. Mary's CofE.
This will also be a whole weekend given over to Old Ingleton History as part of Hope 2008.

The articles for newspapers and magazines are still at the ideas stage. I have a Wordpad document in which I put down all my ideas. I open it every day and look at the latest ones. Most are viable in the cold light of day, some are not. But the viable ones don't come to life.

Why not? Well, there are several reasons:

1) The theme is a current topic, and these go out-of-date extremely quickly.
To get published, I would have to write my thoughts down straight away, send it
off by email to a daily paper and hope it caught the feature editor's eye.

2) I haven't studied the market and can't find an outlet.
I have one in mind about using Plusbus tickets when I travel by train and I even have a travel mag I would like to write it for. But I just don't get on with it. I hate to use more than two syllables but I am a slave to procrastination.

The George Hope novels have got stuck after three chapters. I have discovered that my main character takes centre stage only in chapter 2 so I need to put him firmly in his place in chapter 1. The third chapter reads more like a play than a novel.

It is a conversation between George and his best mate in the pub. I find that dialogue comes a lot easier than I thought it would. It just seems to flow. But now I have to fill it out with description. O well it's all a learning curve.

I know I have committed myself to Miss Write. Our wedding took place on 22 October 2007. I think I am making progress in our relationship, but this is not a honeymoon.

Plusbus or bust!

I went to Liverpool on the train yesterday. My main reason was to visit my Aunty Mary who is in Broad Green hospital. The second was to try out Plusbus. This is a bus ticket you can buy with a rail ticket.

The idea behind Plusbus is that it gives you unlimited bus travel within a specificied area of a city in the UK when you go by train. But I had the notion that not all bus company employees would know what it was. The reason for this being that the idea is little known, and the ticket looks just like a train ticket. And I was proved right.

Because when I went to the Travel Information Centre in Liverpool the lady there told me in no uncertain terms that I could not use that ticket on Liverpool buses because it was a train ticket. So I then went to Lime Street Railway Station Inforamation Centre and they told me I could.

Well, I found that the driver of the first bus only paid a cursory glance at my ticket because he was wanting to set off, but the second one at first refused to accept it saying it was a rail ticket.

But when I gently explained what it was and how I had bought it, he inspected it closely and let me on. It was a good job he did because for most of the journey I was the only passenger. This was because I was riding into the city when everyone else was going home.

O, and my aunt? She's doing fine.

He replied!

Within 40 minutes of my sending him the email quoted in the last blog GP Taylor replied!

I hate the word but I was GOBSMACKED.

I have emailed several well known writers over the last few weeks and not heard from any of them. Yet I got this back from him straight away:-

I certainly will [pray for you].

You have God and Yorkshire on your side...

I have decided to step out in faith today as a writer and publisher. This came about because I took delivery of the Writers and Artists Yearbook on Saturday. Audrey spied it and said I should set up in business as soon as possible so that such purchases come under the business account.

I prayed about this and felt that God was saying that now is the time.

Does this mean I have found my way home? I don't know yet. As I said in my very first blog only God knows that.

Keeping reading and find out with me.

Here I go!

It is 5.50 a.m. on Monday 22 October 2007. I have just sent this e-mail to the writer GP Taylor.

It says it all:-

I asked you two questions at Greenbelt Arts Festival at the Cheltenham Racecourse over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

The first question asked you to tell us the difference between self-publishing and vanity-publishing.

The second was: As I do not live in London can I ever be a published writer?

When I told you that I live on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales you told me to have a go.

Well, here I go. Today I become the writer Pete McCabe trading as Brook House Enterprises. It is 5.43 a.m. and I have just read your article on self-publishing in the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2008.

Thanks for your advice, both oral and written. Do pray for me.

And I ask you to do the same.

Blog Mobile

Here I am in Ingleton Library blogging under the auspices of Mary the Community Information Assistant (otherwise called a librarian) and her employers North Yorkshire County Council.

It's great to be here. I remember writing an article in the Lancaster Guardian a few years back about the great facilities there are here. But it's not just here. I have used Lancashire libraries a lot too, and they are very useful. I would imagine the same is true across all the counties of England.

I once sat here listening to Radio Gloucestershire as I worked on the computer and they had an item on the news that people are using libraries more but the number of book loans is going down. I sent them an e-mail to say that this was because people were using computers as I was at the time.

This morning I went to IMC and opened up the Prayer Room during the Coffee Morning. Although I had spoken to the right people about it, no-one there knew that it was going to happen. That was because Madeline and Mary who lead the Coffee Morning team were away on holiday. This was the unforeseen circumstance I talked to Audrey about over breakfast. There is a law I developed when working at Beaumont College: Something is bound to go wrong somewhere.

As it was, I had it covered with a little speech I had prepared for any eventuality. It worked. Henry Reid came up for a few minutes and this was one more person than I was expecting. So it got off to a good start. The lack of background sound and heating will be overcome in the near future.

Who knows what will happen next week.

Confession time

One promise I made to myself for this time of non-employment was: Don't watch day time television. This I have kept since my resignation.

But my boys watch it when they're at home. May God forgive me, I was tempted by one of those loan ads today. As I walked in the door from walking to buy milk at the Co-op, the voice-over was saying If you're a home owner just ring us for a loan. I confess I was tempted.

When you haven't got any money it's a great temptation to get into debt. But I am reminded of another quote, which should be in even deeper red than the others. It is from George MacDonald Fraser, the author of the Flashman series. He said it to his wife when he lost his job: I can write us out of this.

May God help me to do that.

Capernwray Capers

I took a couple from Peru to Capernwray Bible College yesterday. They are Raquel and Max who run a clinic, kindergarten and churches in the upper Andes.

They have been supported by IMC for some years now. They come over every few years to tell their supporters about the work they do and to introduce new people to it. So yesterday it was the turn on the Capernwray students.

Two things hit me about the place.

1. The building was an enormous mansion




2. The students were very young - 19 or 20 - and mostly girls from North America
   
   
   
   This is the house:
   
   

The North American girls looked like this:



They were fresh out of High School and were spending a few months studying the Bible in the depths of Lancashire before heading off to University.



Some of them were very touched by what Raquel and Max said.



I was interested to hear that it is exactly 60 years since the College opened and that the founder, Major Ian Thomas, died only in August aged 92.



What a place. What a man. What a story.

Setting up a routine

Whenever I go for counselling or advice about my mental problems the person advises me to set up a daily routine. I have been doing this over the last several months and in general terms it is like this:

AM Writing

PM Research

I tried this yesterday but the research tended to get in the way of the writing because I enjoy it so much more. The writing should take priority because that's the way I will make money.

On the subject of writing for money:

Dr Johnson said: No fool ever wrote except for money.

Everyone to whom I tell my ideas about writing looks at me with a quizzical expression that suggests I need to see the psychiatrist again. And they tell me I won't make enough money to live on, or before I set out on this dangerous course I should seek professional advice.

Well, Audrey and I are going to see our accountant today.

King Solomon wrote this in the book of Proverbs Chapter 3 verses 5&6:-

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
And he will direct your paths.

This has been my way of life since November 1974 and still is. It works.

Writing in Skipton

I went to a meeting of the ACWWYRG ( Association of Christian Writers West Yorkshire Regional Group) in Skipton on Saturday. A retired teacher called Pauline Bell talked about her life and how she became a crime writer.

In the afternoon she led a workshop. We had to look at the photo of one of her grandsons and make notes on what we saw. Then she asked us to spend ten minutes writing an imaginary piece about what he might have done at playtime on his first day at a new school. I enjoyed it and have decided to rejoin the ACW (Association of Christian Writers) national group.

My relationship with Miss Write is becoming more committed.

Blog 100 - Love your neighbour

I have just returned from a trip to the local garage to fuel up for today's adventures. I had interestingly different encounters with my neighbours at the same time.

When I was filling up my car the man who lives next door pulled up and got out of his large 4x4. I acknowledged and spoke to him but he completely ignored me.

On the way back I met my brother-in-law who lives two doors away driving the 15 year old Pugeot that used to belong to my in-laws. He stopped for me to go past on the narrow country road. I waved to him and he deigned to lift his hand but not smile.

Finally I met the man from the next house along careering down the lane that leads to our houses in his fairly old Escort. He pulled up sharply and went into the side. He got out, inspected his car and spoke to me. I advised him not go so fast next time.

These developing encounters with my neighbours was not what I was expecting when I set out. But I'm glad I had them, they gave me something to think and blog about.

Goodbye Mr Ruskin. Hello Brook House Enterprises

I have had to say goodbye to the MA Course at the Ruskin Centre.

To be honest, I struggled with it all last year. There was my depression, then family problems with dad, the boys and finally me.

My not having a job now means that I have no income and my inability to concentrate for long has meant that I would find it very difficult to cope with the workload. So, citing the above as reasons, I have departed the course.

This meant that I was no longer entitled to the counselling I was getting at the University, as I would no longer be a member of it. But I felt it was time to finish that anyway. I am ready to spread my wings and become what I know I am: a writer.

On Wednesday I spent an hour and a half with a Business Consultant at HSBC in Kendal talking over my ideas. He thought they were sound and so I am going to become a sole trader working as Brook House Enterprises.

Brook House Enterprises will have two active arms: Brook House Publishing bringing hope to the world through the English language and Brook House Properties building the Kingdom of God in Ingleton.

Watch this space.

A full day

I went to Manchester yesterday with Pauline and Lynn my fellow students on the Ruskin MA Course. We met on the train and then went to an exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery.

Later we adjourned to Manchester Town Hall and listened to a lecture about Ruskin and the Art Fund.

It was like a hall of mirrors. The exhibition was a reflection of a large exhibition held in Manchester 150 years ago, and the lecture reflected a lecture given by Ruskin at the first exhibition. But it was great.

Then I travelled back to Lancaster by train, met Nathan and the station and went to watch Morecambe play Port Vale in the Johnson Paints Trophy. We were down 2-0 at half time but came back to draw level and win a penalty shoot-out 4-2. Brilliant. What a day.

Depression? Not yesterday!

headaches, pills and meetings

I've swallowed several packets of Paracetamol lately because I have had an awful headache.

I said to somebody yesterday "I've got a thick head. Even thicker than usual."

This was at the IMC Church Council meeting where I let rip on my feelings about our need to be involved in the Methodist Circuit Meeting. OK, I went over the top. I was shouting into the mike and blasting everyone's eardrums. But it came from the heart.

We need to really pray that when we meet again on Tuesday 5 February the right people are chosen to represent IMC at the Circuit Meeting. They need to be people with the time and energy to help build the Kingdom of God in this area through Methodism.