It's off to France we go!

Tomorrow, Tina and I head out for France for 11 days... I'm REALLY looking forward to it.

Sadly, there is no WinFM bug to cart us across the ocean this time. Instead, responsibility falls to Bebop, our little Renault 19 Bebop. We bought this as a second car because it was French (plenty of spare parts) it was diesel (forty to the gallon) and it was, like the budgie, "cheep!"

We've got about 400 miles to cover, so wish us luck!

He's only gone and bloody done it!!!

After six months of writing, Adventure Eddy is finally finished!

Weighing in at 126,000 words, Adventure Eddy is by far and away the longest thing I’ve ever written. It’s the origin story of Adventure Eddy. Who he is. Why he’s called Adventure Eddy. Whatever the hell happened to make him the way he is.

Now I have to turn that story into something useable.

You see, 126,000 words is far too long.

I need to edit, trim and crop to a projected 80,000 words. The length of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

In real terms, that means one out of every three words I’ve written needs to go.

Concise is Precise

That sounds pretty harsh. Why is it necessary to trim that much?

Well, I’ll be honest. I’m not a great writer. I think I’m great at coming up with stories and I think that Adventure Eddy himself is a fantastic and important guy. But I don’t claim to be Shakespeare. I write Adventure Stories and, in the process of writing Adventure Eddy, I sat down and told myself to pour everything in my head onto the page.

That means an awful lot of the stuff I’ve written is probably unnecessary.

You see, the whole reason I wrote Adventure Eddy in the first place was to answer some questions I had. I was working on The Bootleg Boys. A story in which Adventure Eddy returns from France with a boot load of duty free booty.

It got me wondering: Why was Adventure Eddy in France in the first place?

That led on to my thoughts about The Rules of Engagement, when Eddy’s sister snapped at him for speaking French. Why on earth did he do that?

Finally, there was the orphaned Adventure Eddy story, French Twist. Eddy was in Paris. He was friends with a policeman called Pascal. That had to fit into the canon somewhere.

It was very obvious that a story needed to be written.

So I came up with Adventure Eddy. The story of a chubby, ginger kid who goes from Winchester to Paris and turns from chubby, ginger kid to unemployable ginger rogue in the process.

That’s the story of Adventure Eddy.

I included everything. I promised myself not to edit mid-flow. Too many times before, I’ve tried to make each and every chapter perfect before I’d written it, but ended up writing myself into a brick wall as I did so.

Jack Kerouac style, I was going to write and write and write and deal with the consequences afterwards.

That’s why I’ve got a story that’s 126,000 words long.

It’s all good. It’s all important. Everything that I wrote happened.

But when it comes to the juice of the story. The good stuff. I can trim, snip, cut and edit and produce something that’s short and concise. Less is more, as they say. The answer to all the questions I’ve written about will be implied in what I finally produce as the manuscript for Adventure Eddy.

Just like every writer, I need to edit the hell out of it.

Maybe, then, I can get it published.

What Now?

Well, Adventure Eddy will continue to be published in all it’s unedited glory on adventureeddy.blogspot.com. There’s another two months of posts there, so I hope you stay tuned.

If not, I will be editing, trimming, hacking, slashing and t-cutting the final manuscript and sending it off to a publisher. I will post on rolandhulme.blogspot.com about that.

In the meantime, now I know the answer to all those questions, I will turn my attention back to The Bootleg Boys.

One thing’s for sure.

You haven’t heard the last from Adventure Eddy.

The ONLY song for England

As I've already mentioned, I'm really NOT a football fan. In this era of World Cup lunacy, though, it's hard not to get exposed to it. Kick FM, where I work, is running about three different promotions about the World Cup and it's front page news on every paper.

And with the World Cup come the World Cup anthems.

The more retarded, quirky, xenophobic the better. Did you hear about the funky new version of "Jeruselum?"

Working in Radio, you hear them all... Some truly terribly World Cup anthems... Some good ones...

I have one or two I really like, actually. My bet for the current season has to be Koopas "Stand Up for England." At the moment, Kick FM's put "Three Lions '98" on the playlist.

However, as far as I'm concerned, there's only one song that shouts "England."

From the Soundtrack to the Italian Job - The Self Preservation Society (Original England Edit)

100k and counting...

Adventure Eddy: Chapter Twenty Five

Today, I officially beat the 100,000 word mark.

Adventure Eddy is past Chapter Sixty and it's by far and away the longest thing I've ever written. My stories tend to come to a climax after about 60,000 words, but Adventure Eddy always promised to be something a bit different. I estimate the first draft to wrap up at around 120,000 words and then I need to get busy with the trimmer and bring it down to an acceptable 80,000 words for the final, finished, edited version.

For the layman, that works out as about as long as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

It also marks an exciting stage in the story. The beginning of the end.

This is the bit where the bad guy pulls out a gun and says: "Well, Adventure Eddy, you have discovered my plot..."
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As anybody who has followed the career of Adventure Eddy will know, he exists in an outdated world of adventure stories and crime thrillers. The bad guys explain their plots before they rub their prisoners out and killing in cold blood is strictly frowned upon.

I've tried to shy away from that in Adventure Eddy, but the following still occurred.

This happens in Chapter Sixty-Five, by the way. Got a while to go before you read this on the blog:

Kat was silent, standing by Eddy's side.

Eventually, Eddy asked: "Can I sit down? I'm kind of hung-over."

[deleted] indicated the sofa with the gun.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," he warned. "Any sharp moves and you're dead." He looked emotionlessly at Kat. "Same goes for you, Honey."

I can't help it. So much of Adventure Eddy is fresh and new and exciting to me. However, at the end of the day, I want to write adventure stories and that's what I write. So sue me.

The Rat Pack

Last night, T got us press tickets for The Rat Pack: Live From Las Vegas, at the Mayflower Theatre.

As anybody who knows me will be well aware, I am just obsessed with Frank Sinatra. Last night, I got to pretend, if I squinted my eyes, that I was actually watching him live.

It all started in 1998, when Frank Sinatra passed away. I was sitting in my room in Rose Farm and an old black and white show came on. Channel Four were playing one of the 1961 Rat Pack show recorded at The Sands.

That was my first real introduction to Frank, Dean and Sammy. I sat there, slack jawed, and thought to myself: "These are the coolest men who ever lived."

I went through a VERY early mid life crisis at that point and started listening obsessively to Frank Sinatra's music. Frank was the guy who helped me win over my girlfriend at university (although her boyfriend at the time like Christian Rock, so he never really stood a chance.)

Frank Sinatra was the reason I was so obsessed with going to New York, and I'll forever remember my nights in Hoboken, Frank's birthplace. Except the first one, when I turned up there by accident after one too many martinis.

Throughout the last eight years of my life, Sinatra has provided the sound track. Last night, watching the incredibly performance of Sinatra-clone Louis Hoover, it was almost I got a chance to see the Chairman of the Board himself.

If you get a chance to see this show, I really recommend it.

World Cup Widows

So it's that time of year again... Except, thanks to The Sun, it's like 'that time of the year again' on steroids.

The World Cup.

I have to admit that I'm not a footy fan. Being a slightly chubby ginger kid with big Austin Powers glasses did not immediately endear me to the football fanatics at school. That strange magnetic force which attracted soccer balls towards my head at alarming speeds did not make a big fan of the sport either.

I liked horses and guns. Sorry, there we go. I wanted to be a cowboy since I was, like, six, so horses and guns were all that was worth bothering with and people kicking a ball about just seemed stupid to me. Plus the big group bath at the end just seemed very... well... erm... gay.

Anyway. My time in the states reinforced all these thoughts, since (as anybody who's seen the Simpsons will confirm) Americans think soccer is a wimpy game in which two teams kick a ball about, score no goals and eventually decide the bloody thing through a penalty shootout.

And, as for the group bath thing, while I was on a date with a girl in the Village, a bunch of muscley guys in leather shorts got chatting to us and agreed that the group bath thing was a bit gay. Then they went off to see an off Broadway production of Rent.

So I'll lay my cards out on the table. Football is not a big deal to me. Except, since moving back to England, I've learned to LOVE the world cup.

Saturday. England vs. Paraguay. While Becks and the gang were off showing us their dynamite skills, I went to Tescos. And it was deserted.

I stocked up on beer and food and breezed through the checkout in under ten minutes. On a weekend! Ah, yes, I could see why this World Cup thing might have it's advantages at that point.

On a slight aside, what the hell was with that game? England gets millions of quids worth of hype and then only manages to defeat Paraguay... PARAGUAY, FOR GOD'S SAKE... Because they scored an own goal.

Let me put this another way.

ONLY ONE PERSON SCORED A GOAL IN THAT MATCH. AND IT WASN'T US!

Seriously, if I was Becks I'd have put the 'elephant man' bag back on Rooney's head and flown back in disgrace after that.

Erm. Where was I?

Oh, yes. Today. England vs. Trinidad and Tobago. I drove home from Newbury and the roads were DESERTED. It was bliss. I got my Mini up to 95mph.

So I love the world cup. It's like two hours free from the 85% of the world that I really could do without having to deal with seven days a week.

It's almost worth the embarrassment of thousands of England fans cheering our success, ignoring the fact that we'd defeated a team of people who lived on two separate island (think of the commute) and probably practiced with coconuts.

Sooner or later, we're going to face a European team. And then it'll be back to sixty-deep queues at Tescos. Groan.

The F.B.I. File

Remarkably, the trip to the US Embassy was painless!

Okay, the journey there was a bit of a struggle. First off, it was about 40 degrees, which was fine but not so good since I was in my 'please don't deport me again' suit, which got pretty stuffy. Then, there was the railway to deal with. Having been spoilt by the SNCF in France, the trains in England seem incredibly primitive. They're late. Consistently. When they do shuffle up to the platform, huffing and wheezing like an Austin A35, they're invariably crammed full of people. Then, once you're squeezed in between two middle management types and a tourist from Frankfurt, the train huffs and puffs it's way to London.

It took me two hours to get from Winchester to London. Seventy miles away. Compare that to the TGV's in France, which can whip you across the country from Paris to Marseilles in only three hours. That's over two hundred miles an hour! And you're guaranteed a seat!
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Anyway. Enough of that. I got up to the US Embassy at about 09h15 and only had to wait an hour outside. I spoke to a nice chap who works for Chrysler, getting his visa stamped again. Plus, I met a sweet girl who was engaged to some bloke from the Catskills who she hadn't seen in six months. Reminded me a bit of me and Tina!

Anyway. It took an hour before a tiny woman from Malaysia took me off to the broom cupboard (I kid you not, she unlocked the cupboard with the mops and brushes and fingerprinted me there.) Then she told me how nicely I spoke (in her thick accent) and wished me luck. And I was free to go! She even took two sets of my fingerprints in case the FBI screw up the first lot, which apparently they do more often then not.

On my way out, I met up with my friend from the queue. She had her interview while I was getting fingerprinted and had her passport stamped then and there. Six months from application to visa. Perhaps, for people who haven't got quite such a colourful immigration history, the system works.

Anyway. It looks like I will have the opportunity to visit America again within the next few months. My God, I can hardly believe it!

Off to the Embassy I Go!

Off to get fingerprinted by the F.B.I.

How cool is that? They have a file on me and everything.

Goodbye Sally Fox!

Adventure Eddy: Chapter Eighteen

I've been thinking a lot about what my father said, regarding Adventure Eddy. And I've come to a decision...

When the time comes (when I've finally finished writing the damn thing) the first bit that will be cut will be the first eight chapters.

Snip. No mercy. No reprieve. No re-writes. Just the whole lot gone.

Because, to be honest, they're not essential to the story.

I think writing them was an essential process. It took me with Eddy on his journey from the Wykeham Hotel to the American University of Paris. But plotwise, it established very little.

Eddy lost his job and his girlfriend dumped him. Basically, I wanted to establish that Eddy was pretty pathetic and throw him into Paris with a lot of growing up to do.

But, thinking about it, none of that is essential to the story. The story of Adventure Eddy really begins at Chapter Nine, when the first hotel gets hit by the robbers.

That would be an awesome start to the story.

So it will be.

The focus of the book is on Paris. The real meat of the adventure story is foiling the hotel robbers. The romantic story involves Eddy's unrequited crush on Kat. The eight or so chapter set in Winchester address none of that. They're really not needed.

If I snip them, what do we lose?

Well, in truth, not a lot. The stage has already been set for Eddy to return to Winchester in The Bootleg Boys. Most of the characters we met in the first eight chapters of Adventure Eddy get recycled one way or another. Angus Connelly, of course, is Eddy's best friend and in almost all the Adventure Eddy stories. The borish Tim Pleasant features heavily in unwritten story The Widow of Winchester. Mr B and Chef share quite a few similarities with Curtis Fallon and Chef from The Island Affair, so their fate is secure.

The only person who really falls by the wayside is Sally.

Sally Fox. A unique character. Why? Because she's about the only character I've ever written about who wasn't, in some part, based on a real person.

I needed a plot device. I needed a character to date Eddy, treat him appaulingly and then dump him. That was Sally's only real purpose. So I picked the name Sally because, a long time ago, my then ex girlfriend suggested the name Sally Fox for a character based on her.

But in reality, the Sally in Adventure Eddy isn't anybody. She's a blob, just like she accuses Eddy of being. So she's facing the final, horrible chop.

This now means I can trim a lot of the stuff that happens over Christmas, when Eddy returns to Winchester. You guys haven't read that yet. When the time comes, I'll post my original draft, but I think now the whole sequence set in The Royal Oak, when Eddy encounters Sally again, will face the snip too.

Let's keep Adventure Eddy all about the adventure.

Where's the Adventure, Eddy?

Adventure Eddy: Chapter Seventeen

Well, my blog of Adventure Eddy continues…

I’ve tried to keep updates regular, about three or four of them a week. It’s a long story and it’s going to take a while to get through. At the moment, I’ve just posted chapter seventeen or eighteen. Writing wise, I’ve reached chapter forty. The complete story finishes at around chapter ninety.

This might not fill anybody with excitement. My father, who’s loyally been plowing through what’s been posted so far, pointed out the other day that not a lot has really happened so far. It’s not really much of an adventure at all.

And my only excuse for that is: It’s a first draft.

As I read on Ian Hocking’s website, Ernest Hemingway once said: "The first draft of everything is shit." Now, I don’t know if that’s exactly true, but I do want to stress that the Adventure Eddy I’m posting on my blog is probably very different from the Adventure Eddy you’ll read when, if, it ever goes to print.

I have a story in my head, you see. It’s the origin story, explaining who Adventure Eddy is and where he came from. A huge amount of stuff gets crammed into this story. Unrequited love. A big red sports car. Paris.

When it comes down to it - when I actually finish the story – a lot of that will have to be trimmed. It’s like making a sausage… [what? Ed.] You wrap up the good bit in the middle, but have to do a bit of trimming on either end.

And in this case, in the middle, too. Which means it’s not really much like a sausage.

Anyway. What I’m posting on my blog is the juicy stuff. The uncut, unedited stuff a la Jack Kerouac. The bits that you can sift through to find hints of what inspired the story in the first place.

And, let’s be honest… Who’s going to want to read all that?

So rest assured, when Adventure Eddy is finally finished, it will be hacked and trimmed and nipped and tucked into something entertaining. But until then, I’ll keep posting everything that gets vomited out of my brain onto the paper.

If you want to keep reading, God bless ya. If you want to wait for the finished product, I can’t blame you.

Thanks, guys!

This Writing Life: A gratuitously old-fashioned adventure story

After finding his fascinating blog about writing on the net, Exeter based writer Ian Hocking was kind enough to check out Adventure Eddy, and even had a few kind words to say about it.

You can find out details of his novel here too, which has recently been published. He also makes it available via free podcast.

This Writing Life: A gratuitously old-fashioned adventure story