The Time Bubble

Last night I finished working on the copy for my book, at approximately 2.30am. This must be what it is like to be a workaholic - there's a comment that will make my ex-Nielsen colleagues chuckle. Why was I up so late? Well, I was almost at the end of the final task before being ready to upload, I had worked all evening with the World Cup as a backdrop and I didn't want to go to bed so close to completion. What I was actually doing was going through the copy for the last time, making all the changes that the proofreader found - and there were a lot. I am completely convinced now that hiring a proof reader is essential if you planning to put out any sort of serious publication. My document, whilst looking OK at first glance had many problems that needed resolving. Whilst it wasn't full of spelling errors there were many small punctuation errors such as use of commas that were picked up on. Then there were all the inconsistencies in things such as times - for example 4:...

I've just updated my author bio at Amazon as I felt that it was, well, a bit boring. So here's the new improved version. I must point before you get excited that sadly the adventures of Captain Jason, like many 1960s episodes of Doctor Who are missing believed wiped. Unlike the Doctor Who episodes though, I am very relieved about this! My new bio is as follows: Jason Ayres began his writing career at Primary School in 1979 with a 94 chapter epic space adventure featuring the exploits of Captain Jason who bore more than a passing resemblance to a famous starship Captain of the era. Sadly the plot was just getting going when his teacher firmly suggested that he try writing about something else. Never one to let the creative sap rest for long, by the mid 80's he was furiously scribbling down plays in "spare" exercise books liberated from the stationery cupboard featuring his various classmates in a number of outrageous and libellous scenarios. These have now ...

There's been so much going on over the past week I've barely had time to breathe let alone blog, but just wanted to put in a quick summary of things we've been up to. Dominating proceedings was half-term - and what a miserable one it started out to be weather wise. We had several outings over the week but most of them were indoor based. The highlight was a trip to Bicester Bowl. Now I have seen this place maligned in some quarters with people moaning that "we need a proper bowling alley" but I can't see the problem myself. We went up there on a drab and cold Friday morning and the kids had a great time. It's handy, within walking distance and cheap - I paid just £7 for the four of us to play. That compares very favourably with prices at the Kassam and others you have to drive too. It was Ollie's second visit there in the past month as his friend Thomas had his birthday party there a few weeks ago. Now Ollie has asked if he can have a birthday party...

As the writing of the book continues to progress (well past the half way mark now) I am continuing to think about some of the other aspects of producing a book other than the writing. You'll recall last time I talked about cover art and categories. Today I am thinking about proofreading and editing. It is generally accepted that books need to be proofread by someone other than the author. I didn't take this seriously when I put my first book out, I considered I could do it myself. I was wrong. The end result was a first draft that went out riddled with errors. Fortunately I was able to pick up on this and get it cleaned up relatively easily and reloaded back on to Amazon. It wasn't as if there were thousands of paperbacks full of mistakes sat on shelves across the country. Even so, it was a lesson learned. Since then I have been really careful with everything I have done and checked and re-checked. Last month when I spoke to my editor at the Oxford Mail he said that...