We have a title, thanks to you!!

Many thanks to all those lovely people who joined in my quest for a title for the ebook about Ecuador - both here and in my writing group. (If you've no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down to the previous post.)

It just shows (as if we didn't know) how impossible it is to please all the people all of the time. So I'm just going to run with the title that feels right to me. And, for those who disagree with me, here is my thinking:

I'm not going to use a title that includes 'boobies' - I floated that with tongue in cheek, knowing I'd never use it. I'm a feminist; I've signed the 'No More Page Three' petition; so I won't use female body parts just to make people titter. (And those who read this book will realise that I don't shrink from writing about hanky-panky. I'm no prude. And the birds and animals of Ecuador were having a lovely spring time while I was there!)

Which takes us on to Frogs and Frigate Birds - and the suggestion that I should drop the 'birds'. I can hear the poetry in Frogs and Frigates. But there are no warships in sight in this book. Not even one lurking in a harbour somewhere, nor creeping along the horizon. And so it feels, to me, misleading if I cut the 'birds'. I love poetry in titles as much as the next man or woman, but it also needs to give clues as to the contents of the book.

The next suggestion that needed much thinking: to add a third element. I recognise the strength of threes. But, to keep the rhythm of this, it needs a single-syllable word between the frogs and the frigate birds - making it Frogs, Fr?gs and Frigate Birds. Which, if I had met a frug or a frig or a frag would work - but I didn't. (Though wish I had ... What do you think a frug looks like ...)

So there we have it. Frogs and Frigate Birds it is.

Next stop - a cover.

What I should do - not always what I want to do!

I know I should be telling you more about my wonderful little ebook. (Well, I think it's wonderful - it cost enough in terms of angst to get this far.)

I should be telling you about the challenges of catching buses in Cuba. Well, to be fair, catching the buses was fine; it was buying tickets that could be a bit random. I should be telling you about the vagaries of the casa particular system - a connected system of homestays. Once you have organised a stay in one (a process not without its challenges) your host or hostess will fix the next one. Which means you'll always have somewhere to stay - hurrah!! But you never quite know what it's going to be like till you get there ...

I should be telling you about the music ... and the waterfalls ... and the horse-riding ... and the vultures ...

But what I really want to do - what I always want to do at this point, with the ebook sent on its way - is think about another trip.

So I'll convince myself that if you're wondering whether to buy the book you might like to check out the pictures on my website here (follow the travel links to Cuba), and if you're not - well, me going on and on isn't going to change your mind.

Instead I'll ask you where you would go next, if you were me?

Would you retrace your steps in somewhere you've been before, and if so, where? Would you tramp back into the mountains of Nepal, with their breathtaking views and a cyclone or two? Would you head further east, back to Malaysia, or Cambodia, or Vietnam? Would you tiptoe back into the temples of India? Or maybe west, another road trip in America?

Or venture somewhere new? If I put my mind to it I might have usable Spanish by the winter, which opens more possibilities. So, South America? Somewhere in Africa maybe?

Vultures Overhead.

Tis done. My Vultures flew into cyberworld last Friday, and have been floating around the place landing in an e-reader or several. So all it all it's been an exciting weekend.

It's been a challenge, this little ebook. I have never been quite so aware of visiting a country at a particular point in its history. With Fidel Castro aging (aren't we all?) there is a feeling that everyone - Cubans included - are holding a collective breath. Things will have to change.

Will they? Or is that simply western thinking, unable to contemplate a country that has carved a very different niche for itself when compared to the great gods of capitalistic greed? Are Cubans themselves fearful of what will happen when El Padre dies and America knocks on her door with an invitation for McDonalds, and Coca Cola, and heroin?

I couldn't answer any of those questions - though they lurked in my thinking all the time I was there. All I have done is try to tell you the Cuba I met, in January 2014. It is a personal journey - but I hope I have treated the country and her people with respect. That, to me, is more important than anything else.

But, I hear you ask, where are the adventures? Well, there were some hiccups along the way, and a few people I'd rather cross the road than meet again. And others who made me so welcome I felt like family. Read it and see for yourself!!

The Amazon UK link is here, and US link is here. For those who give Amazon the cold shoulder, you can find it on Smashwords here.

It's launch day for Bombs and Butterflies

Phew - it's been a journey, getting this little ebook ready for publication. It's very different from Hidden Tiger - there were no cyclones, no terrifying brush with wild life (though I did have an interesting encounter with a rat).

The blurb -

Did you know that Laos is the most bombed country in the world? If Jo Carroll had spent more time with her guidebooks and less with a physiotherapist preparing her creaking knees for squat toilets she'd have been better prepared when she crossed the Mekong in a long boat and stepped into the chaos of Huay Xai. But bombs still lie in Laos' jungles, in the rice paddies, and in the playgrounds. While young people open their doors to new ideas and possibilities, memories of war are etched on the faces of the old.

What sort of welcome would they give a western woman, wandering around with her notebook? Would they dare let her peer into their secret corners?

Now, I'm off to buy launch cake. Chocolate or lemon drizzle? Chocolate and lemon drizzle? Meanwhile, So maybe you'd like to take the opportunity to have a little look at my ebook.

You can buy it on Amazon here if you are in the UK, and here in America.
You prefer Smashwords: here. And you'll find it here on Kobo.

Can you write, with All That going on?

We all have times that are a bit full of Life, Ketchup times, when thinking gets a bit scrambled (I know, mixed metaphors, but what do you expect at times like these ...)

Yet I can write. Not made-up stuff. None of those exercises that suggest you imagine yourself on a distant planet now open your eyes and write about what you see. Not a hope of a once upon a time. Nor trying to imagine life as a man, or a person of colour, or a teenage girls with spots. No - any suggestion of 'pretend' and the imaginative half of my brain shot warning sparks. If you try to write any of this stuff down, it said, you'll see it's such twaddle you'll be convinced you've gone bonkers. (Maybe I was, just a little.)

But travel writing is not made up. The bones of the story are there. I could sit with my diaries from Laos know where I went, where I ate, which temples I visited, which wonderful people I met. (Just so you know, I never make up anything in my travel books - everything is as it happened, though some things are played with, just for fun.)

And so it has been possible to use the logical, clear-thinking, unimaginative half of my brain to find stories from my trip to Laos. To tell the truth, it was a relief, when I could find the time, to sit with my memories and the computer and discover that part of my brain was still working. Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, the stories when down.

The first draft done, I read it through, expecting it to be rubbish. And surprised myself. It needed playing with, but the bones of my story had flesh on them now. All it needed was clothes. And so I edited, and edited, and then asked friends and critics to read it - still not convinced that, in my muddled state, this tale was good enough to publish.

But even my fiercest critic (you know who you are) insisted it's good. It's different from Hidden Tiger, but Laos is a very different country. With different ideas and people and stories. Though, like Hidden Tiger, this will also be an ebook - and for the same reason. It's only 30,000 words: far too short for print copies. (You never know, if I do a third trip, I might put them all together and print them - but that's a decision for another day.)

So I sent it off for a copy edit - and now that is back. The blurb for Amazon is in draft form. The cover is gestating. When I get back from Venice next week I'll take another look at the copy edits, knuckle down to final tweeking ... and formatting ... and marketing ...

And the title: BOMBS AND BUTTERFLIES: OVER THE HILL IN LAOS.

Writing the second book.

As some of you will know, there was three years between the end of Over the Hill and my trip to Nepal that became Hidden Tiger. Surely I've had adventures in that time?

Of course I have. I returned to Cambodia and Vietnam at the end of Over the Hill, and was away for two months at that time. I went to tie up the loose ends of the long trip. It didn't stand up on its own - there would have been too many old references to publish that as an independent book. And then I drove down the west coast of America, visiting a couple of old friends while I was there. We had several wonderful evenings reminiscing - conversations that meant everything to us but truly yawn-making to anyone who didn't know us. The drive itself was beautiful, of course, but without the colourful characters or unexpected hotel arrangements that can bring travel in unruly places to life.

So what made me think that Hidden Tiger Raging Mountain should see the light of day?

I can’t begin to tell you just how wonderful it felt to have total strangers tell me how much they enjoyed Over the Hill and Far Away. That is the tale of my decision to abandon work, house, and daughters (adult but important) to trot round the world in my mid-50s, with nothing but a notebook and curiosity to help me get by. It is a tale of the highs and lows, and the final crisis that brought me home. And it seems to have inspired some to tiptoe into the distance themselves. (I know of someone for whom a trip to France was an adventure who is setting off for India in a couple of weeks!)

I felt I owed it to those who had been so encouraging about Over the Hill to make sure this second book was at least as good. 

This trip to Nepal surprised me. I thought I knew what I was doing – and I didn’t. I thought I knew who to trust and who to leave alone; now I’m not so sure. Strikes and power cuts meant making any plans had to be provisional. The weather did its worst. The tiger … don’t get me started on the tiger. So I knew this book would be fun to write – and a fitting follow-on from Over the Hill.  

It is, you must know, only an ebook. I was away for one month – not long enough to fill a whole print book, but ideal length to slip onto your ereader. To those who would like it in print – I’m sorry. It is simply uneconomic to produce a print book that is this short. Maybe you can borrow a kindle, just this once.