Ambidextrous Authoring by Barry Upton

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I enjoy writing two books at the same time.  I realise that this isn’t really being ambidextrous but it feels like it sometimes.  The two books are chalk and cheese.  One, the longer and more tortuous of the two, is a new novel called “Sleeping”.  This is my first go at a new genre; a political spy novel with a difference because we are not sure if the protagonist, Malcolm, is a spy or a Walter-Mitty character who wants to make his life more exciting than being behind the scenes in a museum. 

The other book is nearer completion and is much more fun to write: “The English Sailor (Le Marin Anglais)” is a musical take on a traditional Breton folk tale “Peronnik the Idiot”.   It is written for children aged between 10 and 12 years old.   I have just about finished the text and am now in the throes of redrafting the songs.  The music is written by brother Dave, living in Brittany, and follows a suite of musicals called Musical Grimm which we finished a couple of years ago.  We hope that the production will be presented in Morbihan in 2021, once Covid-19 releases us all.

Meanwhile, with my other hand, I continue to build the plot of “Sleeping”.  I am enjoying the difficult task of writing the book without myself coming down on one side or the other yet – is he Malcolm the spy, or Malcolm the dreamer?  It often requires drafting and re-drafting so that readers as well as the writer can wrestle with the conundrum.  Hopefully, it is going to reward the reader when they discover the truth.  I am two-thirds of the way through and expect to have it completed by December.  

Then of course will come the publishing.  But I long ago decided that, if I wanted to keep control of my output and avoid the blues of rejection letters, then I should publish my books myself.  With Kindle Direct all is possible, in both e-book and paperback formats. 

Selling the book is another story and one to leave for today. “Sleeping” will be my eighth novel; “The English Sailor” will be my fourth musical play.  Writing them at the same time has been fun – each offering relief from the other.  Double-handed writing has much to commend it!

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Published by barryuptonauthor

For years I felt there was "a book inside me" - and now that I have retired from a busy life in education I have found the time to bring it out. In fact - this blog is going to catalogue my writing of my seventh novel - "Fugue" - which at he moment is contained in my head and as sketched notes in a spiral notebook. All of my writing tries to give the reader a sense of the places - real places - where they are written. "Fugue" is set on the East Yorkshire Coast - a place where I intend writing much of it. Other books? All published by Amazon as e-books and paperbacks. Please read the paperbacks. I much prefer holding the book I'm reading and hope you will too. "Going Home" was my first novel - set in London's East End, spanning 60 years and is presented as a homage to my mother whose life was made there. Then came "The Academy", set in the mythical town of Elmdale - the real town of Retford - it follows a number of characters who tell their stories of a day in December. Two novellas, mystery thrillers connected by a central character - she is deliciously nasty - are called "Balcony" and "Balcony 2"; they are set respectively in Malta and Tenerife, both places I have lived temporarily and the places depicted in their pages are well known to travellers. The latest two books are really two halves of a long novel, called "St Swithin's Day". This is a dystopian novel following the adventures of a young boy, "The Questor" (Book 1) as he sets out on his coming-of-age trial. He discovers that things in his homeland are not as he supposed and seeks to bring a "New Order" (Book 2). On top of this 'serious' writing I have had fun writing a trilogy of classroom plays based on the stories of The Brothers Grimm: "Piper" tells the story of The Pied Piper; "Chorus" follows the adventures of The Musicians of Bremen and; "Spin" recreates the dark tale of Rumpelstiltskin. All of these have now been developed into musicals and details of them can be found on www.musicalgrimm.co.uk.

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