Take a Dip Into the World of Chocolate

It's that time of year again where we get to eat hollow lumps of over-packaged chocolate.

Today, I'm going to introduce you to a writer friend of mine who is to Easter what elves are to Santa.

John Bradley is a master of chocolate. He was the man behind the Cadbury's Creme Egg.

I met him at Bristol Festival of Literature a few years back where he was talking about his latest book on the history of Fry's Chocolate:




In the spirit of Easter and all things chocolate, I interviewed John about his writing:

Q1) Tell us about your journey into writing?

My first venture into writing was after I left the corporate world and was setting myself up as a marketing consultant. I talked my way into writing a regular column in an industry magazine on various matters marketing to build some awareness of myself. Over time, I realised that I enjoyed writing this 700-word column more than I did doing any consulting that resulted from it. So the next logical step was write more, consult less, which led to the desire to see if I could write a book

Q2) What motivated you to write about chocolate?

Every agent and publisher of non-fiction asks you, "What is your platform of credibility? Why would a prospective reader think you have anything interesting or novel to say on the subject?" 

Having spent 24 years working for Cadbury's, it was clear the only platform of credibility I could possibly have was to write about either chocolate or Cadbury's. As Cadbury's had last had a decent book written about them in 1931 to celebrate their centenary, I decided there was a clear gap in the market.  

I then had to sell the idea to the Cadbury Chairman and some of the Cadbury family, plus get a bulk order for books from the company, before a publisher would even see me. The result was "Cadbury'sPurple Reign" which I reread for the first time recently and was pretty pleased with it given the constraints of having to get it approved by said chairman and family, there's not much I would change about it.

My second chocolate book, a history of Fry's ("Fry's Chocolate Dream" - geddit??) came directly from the Cadbury project. 

I'd accumulated a lot of research material on Fry's because the two companies were intertwined, and there hadn't ever been a decent book on Fry's. 

This one I self-published so didn't have to get all the approvals and bulk sales. I think it's a better story than Purple Reign even though it ends in ultimate failure, plus I was able to adopt a jauntier style more fitting to the category.

Q3) What advice would you offer to other writers trying to sell their books?

Writing and getting published are the easy parts, selling is a grind that never ends. 

No WI meeting is too small or too far away for you not to load a box of books in your car and go do a talk. Social media can be helpful, but its big drawback is you have to be social, which is not my forte!

Q4)  If you could give one piece of advice to your 16 year old self, what would it be?

Work harder. I got through life until I was diagnosed in my mid-20s with Crohn's disease assuming that being bright was a substitute for working hard, so I under-performed my potential in school and uni, and in my first couple of years in Cadbury. 

My diagnosis made me grow up and become much more focused. I tell this story, along with many others, in my humorous self-help book on being ill,  "The Foul Bowel: 101 Ways toSurvive and Thrive with Crohn's Disease", a book I didn't enjoy writing in the slightest, having to dredge up too many memories I'd rather put behind me.




Find out more about John Bradley and his writing on Amazon 

Another writer friend of mine, Ali Bacon, also interviewed John on her blog when he first published Fry's Chocolate Dream. Read it HERE

Happy Easter, and try not to eat too much chocolate!  

Amy Morse is an Author + Entrepreneur = Authorpreneur

Find out more about her books and how she works with small businesses to help them grow through writing HERE

http://amymorse.co.uk/ 


 

Count Your Blessings - Giving up what you don't need

It was Pancake Day yesterday (officially known as Shrove Tuesday) and so today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

I'm not a Christian, like the majority of people in the UK I don't have a religion.

However, I grew up in a country where the Head of State is also the head of the Church of England and our society is built around Christianity. It means I end up falling into step on the rota of public holidays, along with the rest of us, marking Christian points on the Calendar, like Christmas and Easter.

I went to Sunday School as a small child, mostly because my 'boyfriend' at the time (I was about 7) would be there and my parents embraced any excuse for me and my brother and sister to get out from under their feet at the weekend. I went to a Christingle service once (I was about 6), because it meant I got to stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve and enjoy every single minute of Christmas Day! As a kid, Christmas Day is the best day ever because you get loads of presents and can eat junk all day. As an adult, it's a chore because you have to do 'the family thing' but at least you're allowed to drink alcohol for breakfast.

That's about as far as my engagement with orgainsed religion goes. Although I do know the words to some hymns, having been tortured with them at school, and at various weddings, where people pretend to be Christian for the day so they can get married in a fancy building with pretty windows!

Forgive my facetiousness...

On a more serious note, Lent is an important point on the calendar for Christians of various denominations. It is a solemn religious observance, in commemoration of the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the desert. In the Church of England it is traditionally described as the 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter (40 days until the next bank holiday...? Denied!).

The way I was taught about it as a child was; Pancake Day (sorry, Shrove Tuesday) is the last feast where people use up all the fancy ingredients in their pantry like eggs (and Jif Lemon Juice).

I may be making this up in my excessively imaginative writers brain, but I'm sure I have a memory of giving up chocolate for 40 days until Easter. I also remember being impressed by the chef on Blue Peter's ability to flip pancakes - and it still pleases me today when I manage to do it myself!

It's all in the wrist-flick...

It was meeting Angela, from the charity 'Action for Children', who do amazing work with vulnerable children, that started me thinking about the concept of giving something up and being thankful for what we have.

They've started a lovely campaign, reminding us to 'Count Your Blessings' with 40 things to be thankful for and the work the charity does to make those things most of us take for granted accessible to vulnerable children.

You can find it here:

https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/media/5417/count-your-blessing-lent-leaflet.pdf

My favourites from the 40 things are:

Number 37; Unplug and play

This reminded me of a TV show I watched as a kid 'Why Don't You'...


The message was:

'Why don't you just switch off you're television set and go out and do something less boring instead' 

Somewhat ironic that my brother and sister and I used to religiously tune in and watch it every Saturday afternoon (instead of being outside doing something less boring instead...) 



 ...it's still true today but you could substitute 'Television Set' for 'Smart Phone' or 'iPad' or 'Laptop'...

Be thankful for our awesome connected world that allows us instant access to anything.

But make sure you regularly give up that technology too...

• Put your phone down when you're spending time with friends and be social with the actual humans present (it really annoys me seeing people sat around in a bar together ignoring each other, playing with their phones!).
• Instead of reading mindless nonsense on Social Media, read a book instead (perhaps even an actual paper one)
• Instead of playing computer games, play some sport instead

Number 31; Write a note of warm wishes as a bookmark when you lend out a book

I really like this one. This year, I created a list of 40 things to do before I'm 40 .

On my list, No. 11 is: Leave a note in a library book

This has inspired me to make that note a bookmark with warm wishes written on it.

My No. 14 is: Spend a day in the library reading

I think I'll combine the two...


I'll start with this small token...

Someone else is wishing for what you take for granted

 

 

12 Books, 12 Months

I love books. 

I love the smell, feel and look of them. 

I like to see shelves bulging with beautiful books... but, actually getting around to reading them?

That's a whole other matter!

I've never been diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I'm mildly dyslexic, because reading for me is an exhausting process. I have to read and absorb every single word to digest a book, I can't speed read and when I've tried to, the letters and words get jumbled up (yep, sounds like dyslexia doesn't it?).

My genetic Fitzjohn predisposition towards stubbornness, however, has driven me to pursue a career in wordsmithery, just to spite myself!  

One thing I keep saying to myself is; I should read more books. 

It's common sense that to be a good writer you need to be a voracious reader, how else will you improve your craft if you don't learn from the masters of it?

I read non-fiction all the time - blogs, social media etc. and write it too on a daily basis for my Amy Morse, Authorpreneur business. 

I'm also rarely without a book, but I'm lucky if I snatch a few paragraphs of book reading every day. Perhaps a quick dip into a book while I'm on the bus, or in a waiting room and most nights before I go to bed but at that rate, it can take me a couple of months to read an entire book.

I'm a fan of goal setting because I need to impose some structure to my life, otherwise the crazy creative takes me meandering aimlessly into unproductive oblivion. 

It's that ability to tame the creative beast and hone it into something productive by imposing order, structure, systems and processes that make me an effective coach when working with other creative entrepreneurs.

I've set myself a reading target for 2016: read 12 entire books in 12 months. 

But I need more parameters than that, so I've come up with a list of types of books to read to choose my 12 from:

Goodreads also have an annual book challenge to help readers be accountable for their goal.

I've stared the challenge with An American Classic.

I'm reading 'The Grapes of Wrath', by John Steinbeck.

I'm about halfway through it, which isn't bad (for me) considering I only started it a week ago.

I'm enjoying it much more than I expected.

I must admit, I almost gave up at the first chapter. It opens with a narrator's viewpoint of the Oklahoma dust bowl, with endless rambling and repetitive descriptions of the harsh climate and difficult lives of those working the depleted land. Happily, it picks up from chapter 2 where we meet Tommy Joad for the first time.

Personally, I'd have opened the book with Tommy being picked up by the trucker then described the landscape from his point of view as it flashes past the window (but what do I know compared to one of America's greatest 20th century wordsmiths?).

Other books on the shelf, some of which I had for Christmas are:

A Business Book: 

'Business Model You', by Timothy Clark,  Alexander Osterwalder,  Yves Pigneur
 



Alternatively, I also had 'The 4-Hour Work Week', by Timothy Ferriss for Christmas



 A Book of Short Stories

I've had 'Metamorphosis and other stories', by Franz Kafka on my bookshelf for years




Crime Novel

I picked up a signed copy of 'Someone Else's Skin' by my lovely local writer buddy 'Sarah Hilary' at Bristol Festival of Literature a couple of years back and still haven't read it (sorry Sarah!). 

She's had amazing success with this award winning book. 

Look out for Sarah, she's really going places!


I'll keep you posted on my progress, but right now, I have a book to read!

Can you recommend a book for me that would fit in the list?

40 Things to do before I reach 40

This week I've had my 39th birthday.

I'm a great believer in the power of setting goals and have written about this in the past:

In January 2015 I published a post Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated

and followed it up with a blog on How Do You Decide What Goals to Set.

I'm also a big fan of lists.

Anyone who regularly followers this blog on Tom Cat's Mewsings or my Authorpreneur Blog will know I'm fond of writing list posts.

I've completed 3 consecutive 365 projects in the past 3 years, the first being Project Book 365, the second being Operation Author and the third, this year, was less prescriptive but nevertheless I have completed 'Authorpreneur Almanac 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship'.

I talk about my 365 projects on this blog entry: Ideas Are Powerful, Ideas Change Your World

The culmination of this project will be the publication of my first non fiction book 'Authorpreneur Almanac' next year in which I'll share 26 features on writing and 26 features on entrepreneurship.

This year, I'm not doing a 365 project, as such. I have 2 projects planned instead:

1. Read 12 books in 12 months - I'll leave that for next week...

2. 40 things to do before I'm 40

I put a call out on Facebook and with the help of Pinterest I've compiled a list of 40 things to do before my 40th birthday on December 29th 2016.

It was challenging to come up with 40 things. There is so much I'd like to do, in fact, I started a 'Bucket List' Pinterest board as I was finding ideas for my 40 things.

  Follow Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's board My Bucket List on Pinterest. 

Most of the things on the bucket list involve lots of money or being in another country - so choosing small, inexpensive, achievable yet worthwhile things to do - was harder than I expected.

Here are a couple of examples:

I lived up trees as a kid, but haven't done this for years. I think I'll head to Victoria Park in the summer, take a notebook and pen, select a suitable tree then sit up there and write.

I like the idea of going out with some pre-written post it notes of inspiring quotes or messages then randomly leaving them for people to find.

Any excuse to catch some rays this summer...



Here goes, these are my 40 things: