Alan wrote a Book... Bloody Hell!

I always knew Alan was a bit on the bright side!  It's quite nice to have someone you can check your spellings etc with, now and again as well as clear alpaca poo and do the general manly stuff around the house!  Since we moved here, as I'm sure many expats will agree, funny things happen, strange things occur and of course sad things too.  We had been saying rather tongue in cheek we should write a book between us to be able to share it with others.  Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart is just such a widely read book,  I believe they are making a film out of it next year, and would n't it be great to write the next "Driving Over Lemons!"

To be completely honest, finances pushed us into it, zumba classes for me, and having a go at writing something at least slightly entertaining for Alan.  I had my blogs to refer back to, and I did the first edit.  I am therefore claiming 5% of the credit.  The rest is all down to him indoors!  Alan started in June, and locked himself away in the casita, when we had no guests in there, and wrote and wrote.  Hand written most of that time, as that's the way he rolls!  By September he had finished the book and we sent it out to a few friends,  mainly people that we knew, but not extremely well as we wanted some constructive critism.  Not on the grammar side of things, as we had an editor friend for that, but just to see if it was a reasonably good read.  They said it was, and that gave us the encouragement we needed.

Alan had been contacting other authors of expat books, and came across a lady called Victoria Twead, the author of the "Old Fools" books, they make for hysterical reading by the way!  Victoria was kind enough to reply to Alan, and has encouraged and worked with him, and helped to publish his ebooks, and generally lead him in the right direction, which has been great!  Our great friend Jo is a copy editor, and edited it as quickly as she could for him, and another fab friend Rich designed the front cover of the book, which we just love.  The alpaca on the front is Eduardo!

Since the book has been published, it has had great reviews, plus we have also had emails from readers from all around the world, saying how much they have enjoyed it.  Which is just wonderful to hear.  I first receieved a copy of the papaerback whilst I was in England, in November.  I showed it to my friend Wendy who flicked the pages and said in an really excited voice "Wow!  Look at all those words!"  You know the funny thing is that's the way we still feel about it!  

Of course as time has gone by we have realized quite a lot of things that we have ommitted by accident, so the next one could be started soon.  With a couple of new friends in it (our effeminate friend Justin, and his wife Kylie)  plus two other great friends that we have yet to name!  So watch this space!

If you have bought it... thank you so much, we really do appreciate the fact that people may want to read about our lives, but then I guess maybe you don't take your dog to the vet to be castrated, and have to stay and hold it's legs do you?  Or do you?

Alan's website