Launching ‘This Is Not The End’

 

I always feel a hint of trepidation when one of my books goes ‘live’. It takes me back to my early twenties and releasing music for the first time, although even then it was different.

I suppose when I was in my late teens and twenties, the music I released had always been roadtested. The songs had to get through quality control of fellow band members and also would always have been played live several times before making it to the studio.

Writing is quite solitary and there’s no immediate feedback. This provides - especially with my novels- an element of jeopardy. Of course, the novels are proof read and read by what in education we call ‘critical friends’, but it’s not the same as seeing the whites of the eyes of your audience 😂

And so today is the worldwide publication (oh what power lies behind a single press of a button!) of ‘This Is Not The End’, my third novel in a series which tells the tale of Wilf. Wilf is 16 at the start of the first novel, ‘The Broken Bottle’, which is set in the Lancashire/Manchester borders of the late 1980s. Music of the time from that area is a recurring theme. 

By the time we reach ‘This Is Not The End’ Wilf is on the cusp of his third decade, and navigating that tricky first year of undergraduate life. There’s friendship, there’s love, there’s anxiety, there’s fear, there’s threat imagined and most definitely real, there’s naivety and there’s maturity.

I hope you’ll take the time to buy a copy, or dig out a copy from an e-library or similar. 

You can read a like bit more about it here: books2read.com/b/m00DAA

And please feel free to leave a review somewhere like GoodReads or Amazon; it’s as close as I’ll get to see the whites of those eyes…

(The Making of) This Is Not The End

 

The ringing of an unanswered telephone. The clink of a dropped spanner. The muffle of footsteps, unidentified in the dark. The flapping of a letterbox. The unsolicited door knock, close to midnight. The wailing sirens closing in on the park. The thud of a back, thrust against a wall.

We started Wilf's journey with the awkward, spotty teenager from Lancashire falling in love for the first time, beginning to dream about pop superstardom and having his first real awakening to the harsh unfairness of the real world. That was 'The Broken Bottle'.

A year or so later he was enjoying his first taste of parent-free adulthood in the deep south of Eire. Admittedly, it was still under the watchful eye of his aunt but that didn't stop him from getting unwittingly mixed up in the messy complexities of other people's lives. That was 'How Green Are Your Eyes'.

Now we find Wilf in the North East of England, without any responsible adults to guide him along his way and, frankly, life doesn't ever get easier, does it? This is 'This Is Not The End'.
All three stories are very loosely based on some sort of reality. It's hard to write about things without having at least some semblance of fact upon which to base things.

Let's get this clear from the start though: I am not Wilf, nor is Wilf me. However I did grow up in Lancashire, spend a summer in Cork, and go to Polytechnic in Newcastle. That much is true. Indeed, some of the things that happen in 'This Is Not The End' are very much based on my experiences in the north east; others, meanwhile, are definitely forged in the mind. Which are which? I'll let you decide.

The cover is designed once again by Ruby Hartley, and captures many cameos from within the book - see how many you can find once you've read it. Various shots of the cover provide the visual content for the song 'Scotswood Terrace', the video for which is below. I wrote 'Scotswood Terrace' a few years after leaving the North East behind, with my late teens and early twenties very much in mind. It could be a great place to be when things were going well; when they weren't it was far from ideal.

Since completing 'This Is Not The End' I have found myself, in idle moments, wondering what will become of Wilf when he becomes a fully-fledged adult. 'The Broken Bottle' was always supposed to be the first book in a trilogy. Now I'm not so sure ...

The beginning of This Is Not The End

So, over two months since I last put finger to keypad on this blog, March brings us to the start of 2025’s writing stuff.

Coming soon, very soon, is the third in the series of books that follows Wilf through the latter stages of his  second decade.

The novel will be published with an accompanying ten-song soundtrack, on CD with initial physical orders from my Bandcamp site, or digitally with ebook orders from the site. Exciting, eh?

Here’s a taster of both.

Stretching the Intention

The original plan was to write monthly. Not for any reason in particular, other than try and keep up some momentum and to not drown the occasional reader of the posts with a barrage. Technically, I'll have posted in November and in December, although there are over seven weeks between the posts.

It's New Year's Eve. We are four hours short of 2025. The wind is blowing a gale outside. Inside, the house is ill. The lights are deliberately dim. 'Cake' by the Trash Can Sinatras is on the turntable, and I am armed with a cup of coffee. The prospects of a later bottle of 'Winter Warmer' ale are high, and there is a Hotel Chocolat Mince Pie Hot Chocolate sachet eyeing me up in addition.

Today I finished editing a story entitled 'This Is Not The End'. Cryptically, it's the third in a series of books advertised as a trilogy. It features Wilf, hero of 'The Broken Bottle' and 2024's 'How Green Are Your Eyes'. I suspect there may be more of Wilf to come, though.

If there is, it will have to wait in line behind a book of short stories, a story about a man who is supposed to be dead but isn't, a story about a tiny record label on a tiny island in the middle of the English Channel, and a story about a young couple's life in North Shields. Some of these may or may not see light of day. Let's see ...

Thank you for reading this, and if you have read my books too, then thank you. It's always lovely to hear how people have fared with my writings, so feel free to leave reviews on GoodReads or wherever you have bought the books from.

I hope 2025 brings you only good things x

An introduction via the Writers’ Coffee Club

 Over on Mastodon there is a sizeable, friendly and supportive writers community, and many post daily under the #writerscoffeeclub banner. These are a series of daily prompts suggested by the science fiction writer (I think) John Howe. Some are more relevant to me than others, and can give me quite a bit of food for thought. This is true both of my own contributions and those of others.

The first prompt of this month was to introduce yourself in the third person, as if you were a world-famous author. Here was my contribution…

“Of course, John Hartley needs no introduction, but contractual obligations and the need to fill time while we get the previous award winner well and truly off stage mean we have to give him one anyway.

Perhaps best-known for ‘The Broken Bottle’ trilogy, John grew up in the small town of Westhoughton, Lancashire; a town built on weaving, coal and farming.  There is a local legend about a cow getting its head stick in a gate. John didn’t write that, but he could have.

Attending the independent Bolton School on a financially-assisted place, John began to see the differences and social injustices between the wealthy and those less so. This coloured his politics, his writing, and his life choices.

Before establishing himself as the author we now know, love and respect, John performed in a number of bands. Some might say ‘unsuccessful’ bands - they had no hits, no significant fan base, no recording contract. However, that is only one definition of success, and John rightly recalls their fortune in providing and delivering entertainment, love, a creative outlet, a voice for the underdog and most importantly friendship.

It is these themes that John has endeavoured to portray in his writing. Whether that is in his autobiographical memoirs ‘Capturing the Wry’ and ‘Welcome to the Underachievers’, his biography of British band BOB, or in his fiction, including the forthcoming novel ‘The Old Couple’, John is determined that the honest lives of ordinary people are celebrated.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have have managed to get the winner of the ‘Celebrity Book Deal Of The Year’ category reunited with their ego in the Green Room.

Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I ask you to stand and show your appreciation for…”

Well, we can all dream…

It's Easy To Be Wise About Other People's Lives

At secondary school I was never really comfortable in my own skin. That probably goes for most teenagers, but it wasn't helped by the fact that the school I attended was, by and large, fee-paying. I was on an assisted place, which meant that because my parents didn't earn enough money my place was part-funded. We didn't have a car, didn't have a telephone, and had a black and white television. My friends had televisions in their bedrooms.

It took me quite a while to feel proud of my background. The first few years at school I felt envy towards the ease of the lifestyles my friends had. Meanwhile, I was also painfully aware of the mocking I got from others in the year.

A few people took me for who I was, including some people for whom it would have been easier to stay with the crowd and take the mickey. These days I wish I had been able to tell them how much I appreciated that.

The theme of envy and financial disparity is one that crops up in 'How Green Are Your Eyes', the second of the three parts in the coming-of-age trilogy that began with 'The Broken Bottle'. It's not the only reason the eyes are green though ...

www.brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch for your paperback copies

https://books2read.com/u/bPGOPl for your ebooks

How Green Are Your Eyes

 

Growing into my teens I worried I might never not feel homesick. That was despite evidence to the contrary. Some evidence, anyway. The first time I was away from home was a couple of nights in Ambleside with my primary school. I survived, but missed home. A year later the lure of a week in the Isle of Man proved greater than the fear of missing my parents and sister. I had a whale of a time. I managed a couple of secondary school trips away which by and large passed without incident (though listening to Live Aid in a tent as lightning danced around the trees surrounding the school campsite in Saundersfoot is quite a memory). I even managed a French Exchange fortnight, but the yearning for home was much stronger that time. However, I baulked at cub and scout camps and could find any raft of excuses not to join them.

In the summer of 1990 I decided that, with the prospect of three years away at University looming increasingly large, I had better prove to myself that I could be away from home for a sustained time. I'd tried the year before, but tearing a ligament in my ankle half way down a mountain overlooking Grasmere sort of put paid to that particular plan.

So anyway, in summer 1990 I went to Ireland; County Cork to be relatively precise. I didn't know the family I was staying with, although I had been writing to one of the sisters for a couple of years. The plan was to work in the family pub/hotel/bed-and-breakfast/take-away/restaurant and enjoy a part of the world I had never previously visited. The alcoholic father nearly put paid to that, but when he went awol the family instated me in employment where I could be found working in the fish and chip servery at the height of a blistering heatwave.

'How Green Are Your Eyes' draws inspiration from some of the experiences I had and the people I met. It is, however, very much a work of fiction. Indeed, very much the lived experience I imagine Wilf might have had once he had left school in Croalworth, and is the follow-up to his adventures in 'The Broken Bottle'.

The novel can be ordered in ebook here: https://books2read.com/u/bPGOPl

It can also be ordered in paperback, signed by me, here: https://brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch