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VIDEO: My Self-Printed Interview on Writing.ie

10 Jun

Just before I went to Spain I made a trip to Dublin for the day to film an interview with Vanessa O’Loughlin of Writing.ie, an information-filled, fantastic website aimed at Irish writers but useful to all regardless of geographical location if you ask me. (My post 6 Ways to Sell Your Book Using Social Media is a hit over there, apparently!) In the video we discuss Mousetrapped, self-publishing and Self-Printed, and although I really should have worn something else I quite like the look of my eye-shadow.

It’s a bit long and I know myself how long I give videos on blogs, so if you’re looking for something in particular feel free to skip ahead:

  • 0:38: Writing Mousetrapped… and it getting rejected
  • 1:41: Getting the idea to self-publish
  • 3:12: Making the decision to self-publish
  • 4:18: Editing, the importance of
  • 5:00: Holding your horses
  • 5:52: Writing is re-writing
  • 7:10: My scary bedtime story for self-publishers
  • 8:20: Good rejections/my Selling Houses phenomenon
  • 9:40: Sitting on your book.

I have a blog on Writing.ie called Double-Spaced where I just started a Self-Printed Summer. The idea is that for 8 weeks my posts will guide you through self-publishing a POD paperback and e-book, so if you’re thinking of self-publishing, why not do it now? You can read the first post here.

That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend! I’m off to try and get some writing done.

(And watch the Canadian Grand Prix, of course.)

Visit Writing.ie | Follow Writing.ie on Twitter | More about Self-Printed

Focus Group Friday: New MOUSETRAPPED Amazon Listing

13 May

Lovely, intelligent, witty, attractive, (hopefully) susceptible-to-flattery blog readers: I need your help.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve put a lot of effort into preparing the elements that will ultimately make up Self-Printed‘s Amazon listing. Instead of just taking the blurb on its back cover and copying and pasting it into the “description” box, I’ll make the most of what Amazon Author Central offers and also list highlights from the table of contents and put the book’s introduction in as my 4,000 characters “From the Author” message. I’m pleased with it – I think it will be comprehensive, persuasive and absolutely indicative of what the book and the material in it is like.

But my smugness at cracking that particular nut instantly disappeared when I went back to Mousetrapped‘s Amazon listing, which was now looking downright awful by comparison. I’m an avid reader of J.A. Konrath’s blog and he has talked in the past about modifying product descriptions, listings, etc. until he gets them just right. I think this is something self-publishers are prone to ignore; there can be a sense that your product description is locked in stone and as such shouldn’t be changed.

Mousetrapped‘s listing needs to be changed, and not just because it now looks like a puddle of sick. (If and when you read Self-Printed, you’ll know that that’s my new favorite phrase for “crap.”) It’s because its title is – apparently – misleading.

There are a small group of people out there looking for Behind the Scenes at Walt Disney World exposés, the kinds of ones that feature Minnie upchucking into her head behind Cinderella’s Castle after a drinking binge and the like, and they purchase my book – ignoring the subtitle, the blurb, the free sample download, customer reviews, my website, etc. – thinking that it’s one of them. I want to stop these people buying my book, because they’re not getting what they want and I’m getting two-star reviews thanks to their “disappointment.” But that’s only a small problem. A much bigger problem is a kind of converse of that: people who would enjoy a travelogue about a girl attempting to start a new life in a foreign land but don’t want to read Mousetrapped because they think it’s all about Walt Disney World.

So I’m changing it, in the hope that it becomes:

  • more indicative of what the book is about
  • more indicative of what the book is like
  • more persuasive.

Through Amazon Author Central, you get to give your book’s listing the standard product description (up to 4,000 characters), a “From the Author” message (also up to 4,000 characters), a “From the Back Cover” and an “About the Author.” What follows are my new and improved versions of these for Mousetrapped, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. Are they better? Are they worse? Do they give away too much? Are they misleading? Are they persuasive? Is the only thing they persuade you to do is to give this book a miss? Is there anything else I could put in? What star sign are you? Please leave your feedback in the comments and I thank you in advance for all your help, although I can’t guarantee that I’ll listen to it. I’m stubborn like that.

Product Description

[Originally I was going to write a new blurb but then I thought, Wait a second. It's worked for 5,000 copies, hasn't it? So I've left this alone and hopefully the new additions will achieve what I want here, as opposed to changing this.]

Three big dreams, two Mouse Ears and one J-1 visa. What could possibly go wrong in the happiest place on earth? 

When Catherine Ryan Howard decides to swap the grey clouds of Ireland for the clear skies of the Sunshine State, she thinks all of her dreams – working in Walt Disney World, living in the United States, seeing a Space Shuttle launch – are about to come true.

Ahead of her she sees weekends at the beach, mornings by the pool and an inexplicably skinnier version of herself skipping around Magic Kingdom. But not long into her first day on Disney soil – and not long after a breakfast of Mickey-shaped pancakes – Catherine’s bubble bursts and soon it seems that among Orlando’s baked highways, monotonous mall clusters and world famous theme parks, pixie dust is hard to find and hair is downright impossible to straighten.

The only memoir about working in Walt Disney World, Space Shuttle launches, the town that Disney built, religious theme parks, Bruce Willis, humidity-challenged hair and the Ebola virus, MOUSETRAPPED: A Year and A Bit in Orlando, Florida is the hilarious story of what happened when one Irish girl went searching for happiness in the happiest place on earth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PART 1: An Irish Girl in a Disney World

The Call of the Mouse | Arrival | Mousetrapped | Apartment Living | Orientation | Stop This Train | Into the Kingdom | Not So Happy Holidays

PART 2: Good Morning, America!

Miles in America | Mission Space | The Town That Disney Built | Adventures in Humidity | Coffee Has Two ‘f’s | Go for Launch | In God We Trust | Farewell

Um, quick question: why did you call this book “MOUSETRAPPED” when you didn’t work directly for  The Walt Disney Company?

The first time this book was referred to as “MOUSETRAPPED” was back in the summer of 2006, before I’d written a word of it or even left for Florida. I was still in Holland, where one of my colleagues – who knew that my biggest dream was to be a published writer – jokingly said, “You can write a book about this – and call it Mousetrapped!” I laughed the idea off at the time, but then when I arrived in Florida and things didn’t go as planned, this conversation came back to me and I thought to myself, Not only is that a great idea – but that’s a great title!

The book is called MOUSETRAPPED, yes, but so is Chapter 3, in which I describe my life just after I arrived but before I started work. (There was a delay while I waited for my Social Security Number.) Because I had no transport, my world was confined to the triangle formed by my apartment, a shopping mall and Downtown Disney. Therefore, I spent most of my time inside Walt Disney World because I’d nowhere else to go. This is what I mean when I say “mousetrapped.”

I didn’t work directly for The Walt Disney Company, but for an international hotel group who own a property in Epcot Resorts. We were referred to as “cast members,” had to use all the same terminology as Disney used (costumes, backstage, etc.) and attended Traditions, Disney’s orientation program, before starting work.We all loved Disney, and many of the staff had once worked in the parks. What I’m getting at is that we didn’t see ourselves as any different from “real” cast members. We always said, “I work in Walt Disney World” – and we did.

So if you’re looking for one of those Disney exposé books that tell you about the time Minnie was caught behind Cinderella’s Castle upchucking into her head, no, this book isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a book about a girl who got to live in Orlando by way of a job in a Walt Disney hotel and who, inspired by Wishes, tried to make all her dreams come true while she was there, then MOUSETRAPPED might well be it.

From the Author

(This piece originally appeared on InthePowerRoom.com on April 20th, 2011) 

PIXIE DUST AND GETTING WHERE YOU NEED TO BE: The Story of Mousetrapped

In 2006, I moved from my home in Cork, Ireland to Orlando, Florida, to take up a job in a Walt Disney World hotel. I was 24 at the time.

I’d always felt the pull of the American planet (a phrase, I must admit, I robbed from Christopher Hitchens) and was sure that whatever happened, my life would never be the same. Secretly, I planned on marrying a NASA astronaut and never coming back.

My first day of my Floridian life started with the news that I couldn’t work until I got a Social Security Number, and I couldn’t get one of those until the red tape around my visa had been untied by immigration bureaucrats. I didn’t have a car and so found myself trapped in a mile-long triangle formed by my apartment, a grocery store and the gates to Walt Disney World. As for housing, I needed someplace within walking distance of work which left me with two options: take a room in the one apartment that fit the bill or take shelter beneath a freeway overpass. Already living in the apartment were three young girls from Kazakhstan who couldn’t speak English, and hiding there, seven of their closest friends. They were all in the US illegally. And, perhaps more pressingly, they never locked the front door.

I’d assumed I’d be spending my Floridian days skipping merrily through the Magic Kingdom drinking liquid pixie dust through a Mickey Mouse-shaped novelty straw; in reality I was trudging alongside the smoggy highway, sipping on lukewarm Coke in a Big Gulp cup.

Things got better – eventually. But I returned home in 2008, unchanged. (Well, a little bit tan, a disciple of Starbucks and with a serious avocado addiction, but otherwise unchanged.) I even had to move back in with my parents. For shame!

The first thing I did was finish writing my book about the experience, Mousetrapped. Then I spent more than a year trying to get someone – anyone – to publish it. One day I heard a loud crack coming from my chest cavity as I opened the post; the latest rejection letter had broken open my heart. (Too dramatic? Perhaps a tad.) The consensus was that although they enjoyed reading it, no publisher believed there was a market for it. So I decided to take the plunge and self-publish Mousetrapped instead.

This past weekend, I sold copy number 4,000. In the last twelve months, I’ve gone from Girl Who Sits At Desk in PJs to Professional Writer Who Sits At Desk in PJs and Earns Money From Doing So. In between, there’s been newspaper articles, a magazine interview, radio shows and speaking engagements. And everything I’ve done with this self-publishing malarkey has improved my chances of realizing my biggest dream, next to being serenaded by Josh Groban: getting my novel published.

I may never have married that astronaut, but going to Florida did change my life. As Dirk Gently said in Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

— Catherine Ryan Howard, April 2011

About the Author

Writer, astronaut, skinny: CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD wouldn’t mind being any of those things. As well as working as a front desk agent in a Walt Disney World hotel (and then a housekeeping inspector in a Walt Disney World hotel, for a little bit), Catherine has administrated things in the Netherlands, cleaned things on a French campsite and stapled things together in various offices in her hometown of Cork, Ireland. Frequently over-caffeinated, she likes pink, fireworks and avocados and wants to be a NASA astronaut when she grows up. (She’s 28.) For now, she divides her time between her desk and the couch. She blogs at www.catherineryanhoward.com.

So… thoughts? (A couple of sentences will do nicely, thank you. This isn’t an essay question!)

Self-Printing: I’ve Made a Huge Mistake* (But Also Sold 5,000!)

6 May

*This is a quote from one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Arrested Development. My mistake is in fact a medium-to-big one. 

Remember how back when I started this whole blogging about my self-publishing experience thing I said that one of the reasons I was doing it is so that you could avoid making the same mistakes I did, if I made them? Well, dear blog readers, I’ve made a mistake.

The first edition of Mousetrapped was released in March 2010. I was happy with it at the time, but as the months went by I started to dislike its back cover, which was very plain and self-published-looking. (I should say that this was not the fault of my cover designer, because I told him exactly what to do.) The text also had a few typos here and there – an “it” where there should’ve been an “if” and some other beauties – and now that I had a few reviews I wanted to add in a “praise for…” page at the beginning. I also wanted to add an Author’s Note and news of “More Mousetrapped,” the new stories I’d be releasing once a month by e-mail newsletter.

There was also the question of the “In God We Trust” chapter which was a shade (or ten) on the Angry Atheist side; I took a poll of my blog readers and decided to tone it down considerably, relegating the original version of the chapter to the Mousetrapped website. That’s really where the problems started. There were a few Amazon reviews which referred to my, ahem, so-called atheist diatribe, and with this new and improved version those would be referring to the wrong book, or at least the wrong version of the book. They might be turning potential readers off reading a book that in fact no longer contained the subject matter they referred to. And what if someone specifically wanted to buy the new edition? How would they know that the book they were ordering was the new one or the old one? Technically each new edition has to have its own ISBN and changing a significant amount of interior text and the back cover couldn’t really be passed off as “updating” the original.

So I decided to release a new, separate edition. Assign it a new ISBN. Essentially, self-publish Mousetrapped all over again.

(I am, of course, talking about the paperback here. For the e-books I just uploaded new files.)

In my head, this would be a simple process. I would publish a new paperback with CreateSpace and when it popped up on Amazon and Amazon.co.uk, I would first, e-mail them through Author Central and get them to break the links with the Kindle editions and instead create new links to the newer editions. Back at CreateSpace, I would disable all the sales channels for the original edition so that eventually, their Amazon listings would say “Unavailable” and, ultimately, the only paperback copy of Mousetrapped anyone would be able to buy would be the new (and hopefully improved) edition.

In reality it was a flipping nightmare, because the new edition of Mousetrapped never appeared on Amazon.co.uk, the online retailer where the majority of my paperback sales come from. Well, a listing appeared, yes, but it never became “in stock.”

Last year, Mousetrapped appeared on Amazon.com only four or five days after I clicked “Approve Proof” and on Amazon.co.uk only a couple of days after that. But this was pure luck. Publishing with CreateSpace and subsequently enabling their ProPlan for expanded distribution does not guarantee that you’ll end up on there. But if you go onto CreateSpace’s community forums (which I don’t recommend you do because all the useful information is hidden under layers of complaining and nonsense, unfortunately), you’ll see that people thinking their book automatically ends up on Amazon.co.uk – or even that it’s likely to end up there – is a widespread delusion. When I released Mousetrapped last year, there were no guarantees. Now it seems that if your book shows up on Amazon.co.uk and “in stock”, you’re really, really lucky. You certainly can’t plan on it.

This is the official CreateSpace word on it:

“Thank you for contacting us regarding Amazon.co.uk.

You may make your title available for purchase through our distribution channels of Amazon.com, your CreateSpace eStore, and/or the Expanded Distribution Channel for Pro Plan enrolled titles. Unfortunately, we are unable to list the availability of your title through international Amazon websites. The Expanded Distribution Channel may increase your chances of being placed on the site, but it is not guaranteed.

If you are interested in providing inventory to make your title available for purchase, you may wish to inquire about the international website’s Advantage and Marketplace programs. More information about these options can be found through the website’s help section.

Additionally, any updates to your files and/or title information including list price and product description can take up to eight weeks to update through the Expanded Distribution Channel (EDC). Your title will remain available with the previous files and/or title information until these changes propagate through all distribution outlets. We appreciate your patience.”

I waited a few weeks, but soon realized that I had backed myself into a corner, distribution-wise. The new edition of Mousetrapped was available on Amazon.com, yes, but because I’d disabled distribution for the original edition – and the new edition had failed to appear anywhere else – all my other online retailers were out of stock/unavailable. So I did what I should have done in the first place: instead of creating a new, separate edition, I merely updated the existing Mousetrapped. That is, I went onto CreateSpace, put the original edition of Mousetrapped on “hold”, uploaded a new interior and a new cover, submitted it for processing, ordered a new proof, checked that proof and then approved it. Finally I re-enabled all the sales channels for it.

What this means is that although there are two versions of Mousetrapped in existence, i.e. Mousetrapped has two different ISBNs, no matter which one is ordered they print from the same (newer) files. Does this mean that some of the reviews refer to things that are no longer in the book? Yes. Can that be helped? No. I’m certainly not going to go on there and bitch and moan about it, or point out that it’s been removed. (Honestly I don’t think it’s making too much of a difference anyway.) But even if that hadn’t been a factor, I shouldn’t have created anything “new” when I went to make a new edition. I should’ve just updated my existing book, and thus avoided this whole headache.

As for distribution and availability, it would of course be nice if CreateSpace could guarantee us that we’ll appear on Amazon.co.uk. But they can’t, and that’s just a risk we have to take. I’m just hoping that this new book, Self-Printed, will at least rear its head on The Book Depository which will muck up my Amazon sales rankings, reviews, etc. but will allow anyone anywhere in the world (practically) to order my book with free global shipping. It’s the next best thing. 

Mousetrapped monthly sales, all editions, November 2010 – April 2011. 

The good news is that despite all this silliness, as of midnight last night Mousetrapped had sold 5,021 copies. Woo-hoo! December’s e-book craziness was definitely a peak but as you can see, sales seem to be holding around the 800 mark.

  • November 2010: 182
  • December 2010: 424
  • January 2011: 896
  • February 2011: 782
  • March 2011: 849
  • April 2011: 779.

I find 5,000 to be quite a ridiculous number. I never thought I would sell that amount, let alone sell that amount in the first thirteen months. And you know what? I’m not going to downplay it. I’m all for humility but just for today, I’m going to pat myself on the back. That IS a substantial number and I’m proud of it.

Last week I got a lovely e-mail from a gigantic a-hole who told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t understand why I was “styling” myself as a Big E-Book Seller when the likes of Hocking, Konrath, etc. are selling five thousand copies every weekend. Well first of all I’m not styling myself as anything, and if Mr. A-Hole had ever taken five minutes to actually read my blog, he’d have known that. Second of all, I have just the one book, and it’s non-fiction. They all have multiple books and they’re novels. And they’re generally priced at 99c; mine is $2.99 and it’s never been sold for anything less. And the reason I tell everyone how many I’ve sold is not to be all “Oooh, get me. Look how many books I’ve sold!” but because, right from day one, I promised to reveal all about how this would turn out, good or bad. And yes, that means sales figures.

So I guess what I’m saying is BITE ME.

(Not you, dear blog reader, Twitter friend or Nice Person I’ve Met in Real Life. Just Mr. A-Hole. And just for today.)

And because I don’t want to end this or any post on a bitchy note:

Have a great weekend everyone! Love and bubbles and puppies and stuff.

More Mousetrapped: Story #2 Going Out Today

2 May

I’m currently polishing up the second More Mousetrapped story, The Barbecue Incident, so that I can send it out to everyone on the More Mousetrapped mailing list tonight. (A little bit late but hey, I have a good excuse!)

Unlike the first story, this will ONLY be available to mailing list members but there is still time to sign up here. 

What is More Mousetrapped? Well, there’s one area where I have officially flunked out of self-publishing school, and that’s the fact that here we are, a year to the day after Mousetrapped was released, and I don’t have another book. I will soon, but I should really have got round to doing it before now. To bridge the gap, I came up with the idea of More Mousetrapped: short little episodes or stories from my time in Florida that I didn’t put into the book, now delivered straight to your inbox once a month. The first story, Night Ride on the Bee Line, was released last month and if you’re not sure whether or not you want to sign up, here is that story to help you decide:

“I have a confession to make: I’ve told you a lie.

A lie of omission, perhaps, but a lie all the same.

In the “Mission Space” chapter of Mousetrapped, I talked about my first visit to Kennedy Space Center on a morning in March 2007, and how the hour’s drive out there was forty-five minutes longer than any drive I’d done before.

Strictly-speaking, those facts are true. But what I didn’t tell you is that I’d been out to Cape Canaveral once before – and had even seen the Vehicle Assembly Building – and  on that first occasion, I’d also been behind the wheel of my little Mirage.

The first time I drove to the Cape it was late at night, and so the gates of Kennedy Space Center were closed. I wasn’t alone; Eva and her friend Christine were with me. And instead of seeing a Shuttle lit up on the pad, as I had hoped, we ended up in not one but two situations that felt like we were the unwitting stars of our very own very scary movie.

Not everything that happened to me during my time in Orlando made it into the finished book, partly because of the need for a linear narrative and partly because, hey, some boring stuff happened too. But this particular night didn’t make it in because of space restraints; it would have needed a chapter of its own.

Because our night ride on the Bee Line Expressway?

Yeah, that’s a whole other story…

I

‘You want to do what?’

Eva’s voice, tinny on my cheap cell phone, rose with incredulity, but I’d been expecting this reaction and so was undeterred.

‘I think we should drive out to Cape Canaveral,’ I said again, ‘to see if we can see Atlantis on the pad.’

I thought it was a great idea. If you did too, then chances were you didn’t have all the information. It was past six; through my bedroom window I could see the sun was already sinking in the sky. By the time we got to the Cape, sixty long miles to the east, it’d be completely dark. The designated driver (i.e. me) had only been driving for a bare fortnight, and never on dimly-lit country highways in the dead of night. I’d also never been further east than the airport – a ten-minute drive away – and so had no clue what Florida looked like beyond the grey runways of Orlando International. Thus I was completely unaware that despite my romantic space-nerd notions of parking in fields beside vertical white spaceships bathed in beams of godly light (thanks a lot,Apollo 13!), getting close enough to see the parked Space Shuttle would involve binoculars, a NASA employee ID or having a pair of bolt cutters and the courage to use them. And when Eva had asked how I wanted to spend the evening, she hadn’t factored in my New Driver Restlessness Syndrome, which pretty much guaranteed that whatever I suggested, it would involve in going somewhere, and going there in my newly purchased car.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’ll be an adventure!’

Click here to read the rest of Night Ride on the Bee Line.

Pixie Dust in the Powder Room

20 Apr

I’m over on In The Powder Room today (which I KEEP mistyping as the Power Room – Freudian slip?) talking about pixie dust, marrying astronauts and Dirk Gently.

Or, in other words, how life has a way of working out in mysterious ways, even if before it does it beats you up, robs your wallet and leaves you unconscious on the street.

Or something.

“I’d assumed I’d be spending my Floridian days skipping merrily through the Magic Kingdom drinking liquid pixie dust through a Mickey Mouse-shaped novelty straw; in reality I was trudging alongside the smoggy highway, sipping on lukewarm Coke in a Big Gulp cup.”

You can read the full post here.

More Mousetrapped: Night Ride on the Bee Line

29 Mar

There’s one area where I have officially flunked out of self-publishing school, and that’s the fact that here we are, a year to the day after Mousetrapped was released, and I don’t have another book. I will soon, but I should really have got round to doing it before now. To bridge the gap, I came up with the idea of More Mousetrapped: short little episodes or stories from my time in Florida that I didn’t put into the book, now delivered straight to your inbox once a month.

I wasn’t sure what the response would be like, but more than 100 people signed up and last night I nervously scheduled the first email – and story – to go out this morning. (So if you’re on the list, I hope you got it!) While this story is available to everyone, only members of  the mailing list will get them from here on in. You can still sign up here.

So without further ado, here’s More Mousetrapped Story #1 – Night Ride on the Bee Line.

I have a confession to make: I’ve told you a lie.

A lie of omission, perhaps, but a lie all the same.

In the “Mission Space” chapter of Mousetrapped, I talked about my first visit to Kennedy Space Center on a morning in March 2007, and how the hour’s drive out there was forty-five minutes longer than any drive I’d done before.

Strictly-speaking, those facts are true. But what I didn’t tell you is that I’d been out to Cape Canaveral once before – and had even seen the Vehicle Assembly Building – and  on that first occasion, I’d also been behind the wheel of my little Mirage.

The first time I drove to the Cape it was late at night, and so the gates of Kennedy Space Center were closed. I wasn’t alone; Eva and her friend Christine were with me. And instead of seeing a Shuttle lit up on the pad, as I had hoped, we ended up in not one but two situations that felt like we were the unwitting stars of our very own very scary movie.

Not everything that happened to me during my time in Orlando made it into the finished book, partly because of the need for a linear narrative and partly because, hey, some boring stuff happened too. But this particular night didn’t make it in because of space restraints; it would have needed a chapter of its own.

Because our night ride on the Bee Line Expressway?

Yeah, that’s a whole other story…

I

‘You want to do what?’

Eva’s voice, tinny on my cheap cell phone, rose with incredulity, but I’d been expecting this reaction and so was undeterred.

‘I think we should drive out to Cape Canaveral,’ I said again, ‘to see if we can see Atlantis on the pad.’

I thought it was a great idea. If you did too, then chances were you didn’t have all the information. It was past six; through my bedroom window I could see the sun was already sinking in the sky. By the time we got to the Cape, sixty long miles to the east, it’d be completely dark. The designated driver (i.e. me) had only been driving for a bare fortnight, and never on dimly-lit country highways in the dead of night. I’d also never been further east than the airport – a ten-minute drive away – and so had no clue what Florida looked like beyond the grey runways of Orlando International. Thus I was completely unaware that despite my romantic space-nerd notions of parking in fields beside vertical white spaceships bathed in beams of godly light (thanks a lot, Apollo 13!), getting close enough to see the parked Space Shuttle would involve binoculars, a NASA employee ID or having a pair of bolt cutters and the courage to use them. And when Eva had asked how I wanted to spend the evening, she hadn’t factored in my New Driver Restlessness Syndrome, which pretty much guaranteed that whatever I suggested, it would involve in going somewhere, and going there in my newly purchased car.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’ll be an adventure!’

Click here to read the rest of Night Ride on the Bee Line.

Don’t forget you have to the chance to win one of three signed copies of Mousetrapped this week!

Join me tomorrow for details of Super Secret Self-Publishing Project No. 1!

Mousetrapped Birthday: Project X

28 Mar

So this week is all about celebrating the fact that a year ago I finally decided to stop submitting Mousetrapped to agents, editors, anyone who might possiblly perhaps read it, etc. and publish it myself, and that I didn’t then subsequently fall flat on my face, dig myself into hole of debt or produce a book that looked like something the cat threw up and then another cat threw up on.

This afternoon I’m sharing “Project X”, the book’s original second chapter that got cut because it didn’t really fit in with the rest of the book, and came too early in it for that not to matter.

Project X

In early drafts of Mousetrapped there was a chapter in between “The Call of the Mouse” and “Arrival” that gave a very brief overview of the history of Walt Disney World, from the origins of Walt’s dream right up until the day I arrived to take up a job there.

“On November 22, 1963, Walt Disney looked out the window of his borrowed plane and studied the flat expanse of land below him. He was just south-west of Orlando, Florida and about to decide on a location for his beloved ‘Project X.’

Walt and his team of Disney executives had been searching for a site on or near a good road network. It had to be inland and large enough to enable expansion. The climate had to be warm and sunny. With its newly built Interstate 4 and proximity to Florida’s Turnpike, Orlando appeared to be ticking all the boxes.

What did Walt see when he looked out that window?

Photographs taken at the time show a huge tract of swampland, scattered with clumps of trees and spotted here and there with lakes and rivers. While bordered on its west side by the freshly-laid asphalt of I-4, the site extended towards the east as far as the eye could see.

But that’s not what Walt saw.

He looked down and saw the gold turrets of Cinderella’s Castle.

He saw an intricate, futuristic city of skyscrapers connected by a Monorail.

He saw the realisation of his dream to build an amusement park that both children and their parents could enjoy, and he saw people coming from all over the world to visit it.

Walt saw Walt Disney World.”

Click here to read the full chapter.

Click here for your chance to win one of three signed copies of Mousetrapped‘s new edition.

Join me tomorrow for the first More Mousetrapped story!

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