Once Works Well was pure technology. Now it seeks merely to divert.
Pansy subjects - Verse! Opera! Domestic trivia! - are now commonplace.
The 300-word limit for posts is retained. The ego is enlarged

Saturday 26 November 2011

RoW gets a trailer - sort of

I never need more than one encouragement to publicise any of my novels, and that's what earlybird has suggested. (See Comment, "Works Well: desperate attempt to be popular"). In Risen on Wings, Christopher Day (who speaks first), an English odd-job-man, and Jana Nordmeyer, an American civilian pilot, are cleaning the interior of a Piper Seneca. Both live and work in south-west France.

"... (I) came to France, as I’d always wanted. My first girlfriend here was PCF, an activist with the railway workers and not terribly likeable. But that didn’t stop me. I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse: Tell me about women’s causes, I said. Convert me. The French love being asked to teach, to correct.”

“Was she never taught - beware the English!”

Day was almost upside down with his head in the footwell. His voice echoed in the aluminium cavity. “You’re an American: tough, self-reliant if the clichés are to be believed. I confess: I’m not an American sort of chap. But I was sincere, I promise. I read the stuff she gave me, went to her rallies. She took to me. Two months in she insisted I joined her forever in International Socialism and stopped working for the Anglo invaders. I was grist to her mill, whatever that means. But it didn’t last. Supporting women wasn’t enough. She wanted my political soul and I’m not sure I have one. We had a blazing argument over the authentique recipe for cassoulet. And don’t tell me there isn’t definitive evidence – I know better”

Jana said, “Even a spoonful’s too heavy for me. I take it you came out on top, or rather you shouted louder than she did?”

“French leftwingers eat very badly.” He rose up, his face flushed from being inverted. “Got some Windolene?"

6 comments:

The Crow said...

MORE! Don't stop there!

Rouchswalwe said...

Ah! Now we need music ... I'm thinking some Little Milton in the background!

Roderick Robinson said...

The Crow: It's only a trailer. There are two more references in the novel to the lefty and her cassoulet but they are both buried in the grand denouement which would be like telling you that the butler did it.

RW (zS): For me Milton is either a poet or a form of disinfectant. So you're ahead of me.

earlybird said...

So we don't actually get to read the argument itself?

Julia said...

When will it be ready for a Kindle download? I'm ready for the next installment please!

Roderick Robinson said...

EB: As I mention to The Crow, there are two other brief references to cassoulet and the PCF activist (whom Jana unkindly calls "the Commie") but one if not both occur in the midst of the book's climactic scene and (it's a poor thing but mine own) providing the quote with some context would undermine that which I have striven for. However, take a look at my comment to Julia below.

Julia: I hesitate to embark on this comment since I fear it would be akin to teaching my grannie (granddaughter, in your case) to suck eggs. The good news is that MSW doc files, as RoW, can be transferred to a Kindle on a copy - paste exercise via the PC. The bad news is the Kindle cannot then open them. Instead the doc is sent to Amazon as an attachment to an email which carries the user's unique Kindle address and is bounced back five minutes later, as a .azw download to the Kindle.

Alternatively, the doc file can be converted to a .txt file on the PC and then copy/pasted to the Kindle from the cable-linked PC. This I do not recommend. Because RoW is set in France there are many italicised French words which will lose their italics, making the MS harder to read.

Alternatively, the MS can be read as a doc on the PC. This is hard work.

Obviously the answer is to go the conversion route via Amazon since this takes advantage of the Kindle's user-friendliness. HOWEVER one-third the way into Chapter 10 (set entirely in the USA and therefore of particular interest to you since it is an obvious accumulation point of US booboos), and within the word nematode the text becomes greyed out - but still readable - for 27 Kindle pages. Why? I haven't the foggiest.

OK Prague Polymath, it's decision time for you.