First ride of 2012...

Andy and Matt, Monday 2 January 2012, the Tatsfield

Bus Stop, our first ride of the new year.

It's been pretty lazy over the festive season, but then it's always like that; I start watching late-night TV shows safe in the knowledge that I'm not getting up early to go on a ride. New Year's Day - no ride (Andy would be waking up at his mum's place, not his own, making a ride impossible - unless I went solo). I stayed in bed. Besides, it was another broken night.

I was planning a last ride of 2011, but that was not to be either. To be honest, we need this lazyness to survive and so, last night, the night of Jan 1st 2012, I was in the 'let's get up late' mood. I texted Andy asking if a ride was on the agenda today (Jan 2nd 2012) and, not receiving an initial reply, thought there would be no ride. I stayed up late (1.20am) and watched Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, a live version of the book I'd read some years ago - fantastic! I'd never seen the stand-up version. I hope that Gorman's America Unchained is screened next, possibly today, but I'm sure it won't be - and hopefully not tonight as it's work tomorrow and I'll need to be in bed early for a 6am start on Wednesday (Jan 3rd 2012).

Anyway, for some reason I wake up at just gone 6am today (2nd Jan) and I'm wondering if there's a ride as I hadn't heard back from Andy. My phone beeped a second ago, but could I find it? No. Eventually, after hunting high and low, there it is in my trouser pocket and sure enough, a text message from Andy reading 'Yep'. I had to think fast: do I abort and go back to bed or go on the ride?

"How about 8am?" I texted back.
"Ok" was the reply.

So, not feeling particularly tired, I decided not to abort and here I am sitting at the computer screen writing this post. It'll have to be a short ride as I've only had about four hours in bed. I'm already contemplating going straight to bed on my return, but whether or not I'll have the chance, I don't know.

In fact, I'm feeling pretty tired as I write this sentence, although it's too late to abort now. I'll continue this post later, once back off the ride...

Geoffrey Althoff's front cover illustration.

...it's now 1044hrs, January 2nd 2012 and I'm back off the ride. We rode to the Tatsfield Bus Stop and did our usual: sat there flicking our teabags, drinking tea and eating cereal bars. Our chat revolved around a children's book, Suki & the Christmas Treasure Trove, penned by yours truly and on the verge of publication. It's currently available on Kindle, but I'm about to upload an edited version.

Writing a novel is not easy. Well, it's 'easy' if you know what you're writing about, that's the hard bit, the idea, but then there's getting it down on paper, which is even harder and then, once you've written it, there's the editing - now that's really difficult.

I managed to bag the story, ie the basic written framework, in a month - 30 days to be precise - but it's taken another two years to get it right; and that involved writing another chapter to tie up some of the loose ends, which were left open-ended in what amounted to the first draft.

Only two people have read Suki & the Christmas Treasure Trove, excluding me; they are Geoff Althoff, the illustrious illustrator, and Andy Smith, my NoVisibleLycra partner in crime.

You can read more about Suki & the Christmas Treasure Trove by clicking here. The story is available on Kindle, but a final edit will be on the Kindle site shortly, so if you're reading this on 2nd January 2012 and fancy uploading it, wait a few more days for the final version. The print version will be out soon, I hope! I've got one more error to fix and it's done.

Photos of today's ride to follow...