Yes, the first apostrophe on the front cover is the wrong way around, but I was unable to alter it. Below are some background details on the fifteen stories featured in Cash 'n' Carrots & other capers.

Watch Your Back

The light-hearted opening story began life in 2010 as a class exercise where we retold a myth in a modern setting. I used elements and characters from two myths to create what became Watch Your Back.

One of the Greek myths I was inspired by featured Artemis - known as Diana in Roman mythology, hence my choice of name for the main character - who is the twin sister of Apollo. She is the beautiful virgin goddess of hunting, nature and of the moon. Her only romantic interest was in a tall hunter named Orion, but Apollo ensured nothing happened. Artemis carries a golden bow, arrows and spear with her. She is always accompanied by the nymphs. Artemis was responsible for the death of Orion. One account of the reason for this states that Orion tried to rape her.

Here are some details of the other myth that inspired this tale: One hot day Akteonas, his friends, and his dogs went hunting. Needing somewhere cool to rest, Akteonas entered, without knowing, Artemis's cave. The nymphs got scared and screamed. They surrounded Artemis so the mortal Akteonas could not see her. But Akteonas saw the goddess. Artemis transformed him into a deer. His dogs saw the deer, chased and killed him.

If you read the story you should spot some of the themes from the two myths.

 

Watch Your Back features two teenage boys whose infatuation with a gorgeous woman leads them into a confrontation with a dangerous man. The original shorter version of this tale was assessed by my tutor Jim Younger, who is also an author. He commented:

‘A deftly managed comedy in the teen-movie mould – like Porkies meets Peeping Tom. Despite the repulsive male characters – or maybe because of them – I was gripped by this tale.’

Bad Language

This piece of flash fiction was written during a creative writing seminar, in 2010, based on the topic of childhood memories. Yes, this is semi-autobiographic!

Bats & Bellybuttons

This is the most recently written of three tales penned after graduating from university. I started this in late February 2013 and continued to revise and edit it until late April.

This is a light-hearted piece with a slightly sinister edge. It's about two young men competing for the same woman in their East Yorkshire village. An escaped prisoner and a lost bat cause chaos.

The character Mr Floppendale appears in a minor role in my Lunar Crescent and Mixed Up novels. He is inspired by my late step-grandfather, Norman Grainger.

 

The heroine, Kate, also appears as one of the main characters in all three novels of my Emma Goodall series. What's unique about Kate is that she's my only character based on a photograph. This came about through a module I did at university, called Writing Character, which involved us searching the web for a couple of photos of people to use as a starting point for short story tasks.

 

I searched a long time before discovering a picture that I felt suited a short story I had in mind. I ended up using Kate for several class assignments, including my final peice for graded assessment. It did well, though I didn't feel it was strong enough to include in Cash 'n' Carrots & other capers.

 

But the great thing to come out of it was one of my favourite character creations, who not only proves to be the ideal heroine for Bats & Bellybuttons, but also fits in perfectly with the Emma Goodall series.

 

So pleased was I with Kate that I found out the name of the American model posing in the original photograph (I actually found several from one shoot, hence how I discovered her name) and sent her an appreciative message on Facebook.

 

Owing to some technical difficulties, four years passed before she responded to my message, in which I asked if she objected to me crediting her in my books for inspiring Kate's character.

 

As it's currently inconvenient to add a credit to the four relevant books, I'd like to use this space to thank Jessica Ahlborn for unknowingly inspiring me to invent Kate Golden, one of my own character favourites.

 

Thanks for Kate, Jess!

Rising Aromas

This is the oldest of the fifteen stories. I wrote the original shorter version of this during a creative writing module in early 2009 before going full time at university. I updated it during my first year and submitted it for assessment. My former tutor Jim Younger's comments included:

'A story in the comic mode – difficult to do, but in this case, a complete success.'

It's about a quirky Japanese man who owns an aromatherapy store in the US. An American couple browse the store and are persuaded to have a massage.

The Dark Hander

This is another tale composed after my graduation. I began this in late January 2013 and continued to revise it for the subsequent three months. This is another light-hearted tale with a touch of suspense. An Englishman escorts a Polish lady home from the village pub, wondering who or what is The Dark Hander. The setting is inspired by the East Yorkshire village where I grew up, called North Newbald.

A Proposal

This one is derived from an assessed piece I did for a creative writing module called Experimental Writing. This revised version is much less experimental than it was when penned in early 2012. Originally this was formatted in the style of a CV and covering letter.

This is now presented as an epistolary story, allowing the reader to see the female character’s reaction to the male character’s ‘unique’ style of proposing to her.

Alternate Angles

I wrote this flash fiction tale as part of a creative writing task, but it was not assessed. We were asked to show one situation from two different points of view. The setting here is an airport where two characters are waiting to fly to France on business.

Stunned

This collection predominantly features light-hearted scenarios with a touch of pathos and irony. Only in Stunned does the mood darken when a woman’s good deed turns her quiet Sunday into a violent nightmare. This is the only thriller I've written. It's set between the fictitious Lincolnshire village of Kalesbury and the actual city of Hull during a cold March day in 2002.

The original shorter version of this story, written and revised during 2011-2012, was graded by my tutor Ray French, who has had several books published. He commented:

‘This is a very ambitious story. In terms of plot it really is very strong. There are a great number of twists, turns, and dramatic set pieces. It's all very carefully worked out.’

Where’s Walter?

I wrote this flash fiction piece in 2009 for a creative writing exercise before commencing full-time study. The task was to decide what happened to a librarian who, after being asked to go to the top floor to collect a book, never returns.

Ant Values

This is another flash fiction piece written in 2009 before starting full-time study. The task was to write a statement arguing the value of an animal or insect that has a bad reputation or is disliked.

The Beauty of Railings

This was originally part of an assessment for my Experimental Writing module at university in 2012. I think it's a 'like it or loathe it' type of story, full of my most offbeat, ironic humour, featuring an unnamed male narrator with a passion for railings, who looks after a dwarf's cat for ten days.

My former tutor David Kennedy's remarked:

'The Beauty of Railings has a good mix of the silly and the genuinely strange. What also works well here is the distracted narrator who can't decide what's important and gets lost in alliteration at several points.'

 

My novelette Shep: A Cat's Tale is a sequel to The Beauty of Railings

Splattered

This is an outtake from my Experimental Writing module. Although I didn’t include it in my assessed portfolio, I did take it into class to receive feedback from my tutor and fellow students in 2012.

 

Splattered originally had six paragraphs, each containing six lines. The idea was to mix up the narration by writing in first, second, and third person narratives for three paragraphs, followed by a paragraph of dialogue, succeeded by a nonsensical one, and ending with a descriptive one.

I didn’t use this in the end as I came up with Raspberries, which I consider to be much better. When I decided to include Splattered in this collection I felt it worked better without the last two paragraphs. The nonsensical section proved too nonsensical, therefore I scrapped it altogether. I made some alterations to the final one and used it to open Arrabella Wellfitt.

Arrabella Wellfitt

I wrote this after leaving university, in late January 2013, followed by several revisions up until April. This is based on a hand-out given to me by former tutor Ray French.

The exercise, named Adding Texture, features unfinished sentences designed for inserting into early drafts of writing to see what direction they take the story, and naturally one finishes the incomplete sentences. I used this exercise to create a whole story, giving it an ‘experimental writing’ feel.

Arrabella becomes semi-famous in her local area when her article on cabbages gets published. A man recently released from a mental home reads this article and is enchanted by the accompanying picture of Arrabella.

Raspberries

This originates from the Experimental Writing module I did at university during 2012. My former tutor David Kennedy's comments on this mainly focused on the formatting, as I'd limited myself to six paragraphs, each containing six lines, which was a type of constraint used for experimental writing.

He also remarked: 'I like the quirkiness of Raspberries and the character's forgetfulness.'

I’ve since altered this to conventional formatting, though the storyline remains virtually the same. It’s about Vicky, a lonely childlike woman of twenty, with a passion for raspberries and a bad memory.

Vicky also surfaces in the title story of this collection.

Cash 'n' Carrots

This light-hearted caper is greatly extended from the piece I used for a university module called Story Structures in late 2011/early 2012. My tutor Simon Kerr, a talented author in his own right, suggested we incorporate one of Christoper Booker's Seven Basic Plots with one of Georges Polti's Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. He wrote:

‘Cash 'n' Carrots engages the reader with a clever use of dialogue. You use the Abduction Situation and the Comedy Plot to good effect.’

The story is set in Hull. Childlike Vicky and her beautiful neighbour Emma find a locked briefcase belonging to carrot-crunching criminal Ivan. Emma decides to hand the case in, unaware that Ivan, now on parole, is watching her.

Vicky and Emma are also main stars in my Emma Goodall series of novels. In this tale they lead different lives, but as characters they each have virtually the same personality.