Hello,


So this is it! August 1st - the last day that my new novel 'THIS FAMILY LIFE' is on sale for 77p. After today it's going to be its regular price of 1.99. The books been out for a month now and it's been 99p and then 77p for the last few days, but it's time to put the price up (sorry). So if you want to get it cheap get it now! If you haven't read it, here's what people are saying.

'This is my first book of Jon Ranch and I can't wait to read the rest....sooooo funny....couldn't put it down....read it in 2 days.'

'Absolutely hilarious read. There aren't too many books that can claim to be a laugh on every page, but this classic comedy from Jon Rance is truly funny. It's refreshing to read rom-com from a male point of view too. Highly enjoyable!

'The perfect Summer read.'

'What an amazing book, I finished it over two days and was gutted every time I had to stop reading to do something else, Jon has an amazing talent to make you feel like you know each and every character and you feel so engrossed in the story it's untrue.'

'Characters you will love and recognise, a story line anyone can relate to that has experience of children ( either their own or friends) and a laugh on every page turn.'

'Best 99p ever spent!'

'This is a touching, humorous, adorable read. I defy you not to read it all in one go, it's fantastic.'

I put my heart and soul into this book and it means a lot to me. These characters have become a part of my life and I love writing them and I hope that comes across in the book. It also means a lot because some of this stuff actually happened to me. I'm a dad. I survived the first year of parenthood and so it's about a part of my life I'll never forget. If you want a very real, funny, and heart warming story about parenthood, family, and being a thirtysomething man trying to deal with both (and often failing) then this is the book for you. It's also only 77p for one last day...TODAY!

Until next time.

Hugs,
Jon X

Hello,

It's here - the final day of my blog tour for 'This Family Life'. I must say that it's been brilliant and a huge thank you to everyone that got involved and did their bit. I'll see you all again for my next book! 

Today is a double blog day so you can see my final blog over on Katy Regan's site right here, and on my website I have a real treat for you. The bestselling author of 'The One Before The One', 'How We Met' and her latest, 'The Story Of You' Katy Regan has written a brilliant blog about trying to add humour to drama - something I often struggle with myself. Before I leave you with Katy's blog, please, please, please, if you haven't already, pop on over to Amazon and have a look at 'This Family Life', it's only 77p at the moment. Cheers!

The very lovely Katy Regan

Hello Jon Rance fans! Thanks so much, Jon for having me on your blog tour. Today I am writing about the difficulties I experienced when writing my latest novel, THE STORY OF YOU. In particular, how I finally learnt to inject comedy in a book that deals with some dark and difficult subject matter.

Have you ever thought, when you’ve read a book how hard it was to write for the author? Like, oh wow, that’s a good scene, I bet they spent a long time in a prison / in Jamaica / in a swinger’s commune for that. Or, how did she come up with that character’s voice or write that sex scene? That must have taken her MONTHS (and a whole lot of getting over her embarrassment.)

Perhaps you have a little (especially if you are a writer) but chances are, not that much, because if the book is doing its job, you are too enthralled in the story, too busy watching the scene to think about what’s gone on backstage.

For me, it’s the same; certainly when reading other books but even with my own. At the time of writing it, obviously, it’s hard. The last book I wrote (the one out now) The Story of You was hellishly hard. In fact I often thought it would never see the light of day.

I always say, writing a book is like trying to do a Bayeux-sized tapestry without your reading glasses: fiddly, intricate, takes forever and you can’t see the wood for the trees.

Then the book comes out and I still can’t read it. It’s like I’ve got post-book-baby-depression: It gave me such hell on the delivery that I don’t want to look at it, I’m not bonding! Then, hopefully a few nice reviews might come in and I can at least read it. A few months down the line and I haven’t forgotten the general trauma, (!) but when I read it, I’ve forgotten which bits hurt the most, which chapters I slaved over, banged my head against a brick wall about and thought would never get finished.

However, I think it’s a useful exercise at some point, to sit down and ask yourself, why was it so hard? What made this book such a beast? If only so that you do not make the same mistakes again, or at least to give yourself a pat on the back and say, I overcame those difficulties and did it in the end.

For me, with this book, there was one over-riding difficulty (amongst everything else: you know, plot, character, structure….the whole blasted thing!) And that was TONE. I like writing funny. All my other books have had a certain degree of comedy, although admittedly have become darker in shade as they’ve gone on. This, my fourth, was definitely my darkest and yet, I still wanted to make it funny. I still wanted that light and shade. That bitter-sweetness which I think reflects real life.  The problem was, when the subject matter is so harrowing in places (I won’t give any spoilers but you can imagine……) how do I inject humour? What is remotely humorous about the sorts of events that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy?

I struggled. A lot. I really struggled to get the balance right and I am not even sure if I’ve managed it now.  I wrote passages then deleted them all when they made me cringe. I cut whole chapters, lots of chapters! I tried to inject comedy where there really shouldn’t be any and vice-versa and it was only a matter of trial and error (A LOT of trial and error) and re-writing that I ended up with something I was happy with.

So along this journey, what were my thought processes?  What specific ‘comedy’ issues did I have? Well, for a start, the main female character in the book is called Robyn and she’s a psychiatric nurse. Obviously her patients are mentally ill and this gave rise to some great narrative potential, drama, conflict and, essentially humour. However, I had to get the humour right, or else it would look tasteless: I couldn’t have her laugh AT her patients – I wouldn’t dream of that and nor would she – but patients do funny things, my research showed me that. I talked to endless psychiatric nurses who told me how nothing was unusual on a psychiatric ward, how literally anything could happen. Every ridiculous scenario I put to them, they said ‘Yep, happens all the time’. However, there is a fine balance, between maximizing the colour these scenes could give in a book, and taking the P out of mentally ill people. One of the central characters in The Story of You is Grace Bird, who has schizophrenia. I wanted her to be central to the drama, but for Robyn to treat her empathetically and sensitively – and also for their scenes to be funny when appropriate.  Much harder than it sounds! Nathan Filer, the author of The Shock of the Fall, which is narrated by a schizophrenic and won the Costa prize, no less gave me some fantastic advice. “Just don’t send her up” he said. “And remember anything is possible on a psychiatric ward”. I tried to remember that as I wrote and I really hope I’ve pulled it off.

My second issue with comedy was the fact that Robyn herself had gone through an awful lot of trauma, but I wanted her to be a funny, humorous person. How could she be irreverent? How would she be an optimistic person? Above all, I didn’t want her to be a moaner and I wanted her to fall in love. And yet, I worked out (sounds obvious but when you’re in it, it’s not always easy to see the wood for the trees) that just because awful things have befallen you (in fact often BECAUSE awful things have befallen you, some of the funniest, certainly the most resilient people I know have been through the worst things) doesn’t mean you aren’t essentially the same person inside. A funny person. Victims of trauma are often the most optimistic of people, because the worst has already happened. This then became the basis for Robyn’s character: She was as strong as she was vulnerable, she still had so much hope despite the fact she’d actually been very unlucky so far. This is the type of person I decided, I’d want to read about, and ultimately who I would want to spend time with (lucky when the book took me eighteen months to write.)This unlocked the ‘Robyn’ key for me.  Comedy can be found in the darkest, deepest of places, after all. It’s just a matter of how you bring it to the foreground.

Follow me @katyreganwrites or pop over to my website http://katyregan.com/

The brilliant 'The Story Of You' out now!

Until next time.

Hugs,

Jon X

 

Hello,

It's the penultimate blog of my 'This Family Life' blog tour *wipes tears from eyes*. Today's blog was supposed to be on another site, but they had some technical problems and so I'm hosting myself! The show must go on! If you missed the last blog you can see it here 

 

OH LOOK, A PHOTO OF ME!

 

 

I’ve written sixteen other blogs, each about a different aspect or theme from ‘This Family Life’ and so I thought for this one, I’d just write a bit about the book as a whole. I finished writing the prequel ‘This Thirtysomething Life’ in 2011 and I never imagined that the book would do as well as it did, get me a publisher and agent, and so when it came to picking book number three I knew I wanted to go back and visit with Harry and Emily again. I didn’t intend to write a sequel, but people seemed to genuinely love the book and I got so many lovely emails and messages telling me how much of the book they could relate to and how much they enjoyed it. I sort of felt like l owed it to them to write the sequel...and not mess it up!

It was actually quite easy to get subject matter for this book because so much of it was based on my own experiences. Surviving the first year of parenthood is a tricky thing and I’ve done it twice and so I have plenty of experience. What was difficult with this book for me was the pressure to make it better than the first book. We’ve all read sequels that quite literally stank up the room. We’ve all seen film sequels and wished they hadn’t made them. Sequels are hard. My main thing was that I wanted to keep the book the same. It had to be believable. The characters had to be the sort of people we all know, the scenes had to be something that we can all relate to, and the humour had to come across as natural. The first book worked because it was about real life and I wanted to keep the same formula and if anything I made it more real, more mundane, and I let the characters and situations speak for themselves.

I’m so proud of my ‘This Life’ series of books because they capture a moment that not only I went through, but I think that all parents go through. They’ve had so many great reviews and in Harry I think I’ve created a really funny, annoying, complicated and yet simple character that people can relate to. ‘This Family Life’ is definitely my favourite book of the series and who knows, maybe they’ll be a ‘This Fortysomething Life’ one of these days!

Below is an excerpt from the book and Harry (he’s a teacher) is off on a school trip for five days and he gets a bit of a surprise when he comes back!

Sunday 21 April 7.15 p.m.

Home. Packing for Dartmoor. Emily putting William to sleep. Dad out with CT. Still raining. I fear Devon might be a bit of a mudfest.

This is my last diary entry for a week. Tomorrow I’m off to Dartmoor on the school trip. Five days of camping, hiking, abseiling, canoeing, cooking, trying to get seventy kids to sleep, realising that half the boys are trying to get into the girls’ tents during the night, making sure they don’t, waking up too early, sharing a tent with Rory and Alan (who has a disgraceful bottom at the best of times), trying to stop the parents who volunteered from drinking and smoking around the kids, and missing Emily and William terribly - I’m sure it’s going to be fine.

I’m going to finish packing and then I’m going to make love to my wife like a man who’s about to leave for war and might never come back.

8.15 p.m.

Emily has a spot of thrush. I had no sex like a man about to head off to war with the horn.

Saturday 27 April 9.15 a.m.

It’s possible that in my absence William has become a Nazi.

‘Look at this,’ said Emily excitedly. ‘I taught William to wave. William, wave at Daddy. Show Daddy how you can wave.’

Then William did what I can only describe as a Nazi salute.

‘What the fuck was that?’ I said.

‘Ear muffs,’ said Emily putting her hands over his ears.

‘Sorry.’

‘That was his wave.’

‘That wasn’t a wave, Em, it was the Nazi salute.’

‘Oh, Harry, don’t be silly.’

‘William, wave at Mummy,’ I said. ‘Wave at Mummy.’

William took one look at Emily and then did the Nazi salute again.

‘Oh, now you mention it,’ said Emily. ‘It is a bit -’

‘Yeah, our son is a Nazi.’

Synopsis

Things that might happen during your first year of parenthood:

1. You’ll get covered in a ‘nuclear’ poo.

2. You’ll be convinced your son is talking with a Japanese accent.

3. You’ll worry that when your son waves, it looks like a Nazi salute.

Of course, this might just be Harry Spencer.

Taking up where This Thirtysomething Life left off, Harry Spencer and is wife Emily are back and trying to survive their first year of parenthood. It has its ups and downs (and a few bits in the middle), but along the way they begin to understand the true meaning of family and what it takes to be a parent.

Featuring a hilarious cast of extras including Harry’s father-in-law Derek, who has a unique problem with Scotch, Steve and Fiona, the parents from children’s entertainment hell, and a yoga instructor with a prominent camel-toe, This Family Life is the ultimate comedy for anyone who is a parent, has a parent, or is thinking about becoming one.

GET 'THIS FAMILY LIFE' FOR JUST 77P!

Tomorrow I have my last blog of the tour on author Katy Regan's website and she's also written a really great blog for me too. So that means tomorrow will be a double blog day!

Until next time.

Hugs,

Jon x

Hello,


For the past three weeks I've been doing a blog tour and it finally comes to an end this week. It's been so much fun writing about my new book 'This Family Life' and also working with so many wonderful writers such as Matt Dunn, Katy Regan, Tracy Bloom, Rosie Blake, Sue Watson, to name a few. I've been overwhelmed by the generosity of so many bloggers who have hosted blogs and helped promote my book and written such lovely reviews. It's been a really wonderful experience and one that I'll definitely do again for my next book. 

As the books been out for a month now and to celebrate the last few days of the blog tour, I'm going to lower the already low price of 99p to a ridiculously low 77p. The reason is that I want as many people to read and enjoy the book as possible. When I self-published the original book, 'This Thirtysomething life' I charged as little as possible because my goal as always been for people to read my work. It's what's important to me and working on the blog tour and talking to so many people in the business, I'm even happier to lower the price if it means more readers. The whole reason we write books is so that people can read them and (hopefully) enjoy them.

I have another exciting double blog day on Wednesday this week with the very funny and best selling author Katy Regan, so please stop by and have a read - it's a great blog. Thanks again for everyone that's been involved in my blog tour - you're all wonderful.

GET YOUR COPY NOW!

Until next time.

Hugs,
Jon X

Hello,


It's another double blog day! As part of my blog tour for 'This Family Life' I'm over on the Novel Kicks website waffling on about how new parents have to juggle work and being at home, while over here you have a treat because the very funny Heather Hill has written a blog just for you. If you don't know Heather, she's a very funny Scottish lady who's just released her debut novel 'The New Mrs D', which has been getting lots of great reviews. You can get it right here. So without further ado, here's Heather talking about a recent holiday she took in Scotland. 

The lovely Heather Hill

Firstly a HUGE thank you to Jon for letting me loose on his site after my hosting his ‘This Family Life’ Blog Tour over on my blog. I wish him the best of luck with his book and the remainder of the tour.

Last week, I took a break from writing for a family holiday off the north coast of Scotland. I was in Sutherland, expecting rain, high winds and a blue tan, yes, but looking forward to taking in some breath-taking scenery. Yet I was pleasantly surprised because we had what turned out to be a glorious week, where I even got to stand on the very same beach John Lennon played on every summer from the age of nine to seventeen. John’s family had a holiday cottage in the stunning little village of Durness, and he would go there for three weeks during the school holidays. And as I stood taking in the immense, wild beauty of Sangobeag Beach, pondering the childhood experiences of one of Britain’s greatest artistic talents, I thought, ‘his midgie bite collection must have been streets ahead of mine.’ Because, after just one day there, I had a braille tattoo where my back used to be. I’m not sure, but I think it said, ‘thanks for lunch’.

There were scores of them, buzzing round my head and taking aim at me like I was King Kong and they were tiny American army pilots. On one particularly damp morning, I found myself emerging from a cloud of them, saying, ‘and tonight Matthew, I’m going to be… Sting!‘ 

SANGOBEG BEACH, SUTHERLAND, SCOTLAND

In Sutherland, they have a weather forecast and a midgie forecast. Although I found there weren’t so many of the little buggers on the beaches, they seemed to like hanging out most around fresh water places. But I’ll share a bit of actual-factual info that could save your skin - only the female’s bite. So if you can stick to just being pals with the Mr Midgies, you’ll be fine. But you must, must go to Sutherland. Nowhere does stunning scenery, peace, tranquility and miles and miles of white, sandy, almost deserted beaches like the Scottish Highlands. And I went to Cape Wrath! Yes, ‘I’ stood on the edge of a cliff at the most north western tip of the British Isles and didn’t fall off. Sorry about that.

Now I am refreshed.

In the words of The Big Yin, one of my comedy heroes, Billy Connolly, ‘you should go to Scotland, it’s a fabbie place.’ And now, I must haste me back to writing my next novel.

You have been reading comedy writer, author and mum of five (not the band) Heather Hill. You’ll find my blog here at: www.hell4heather.com, my daily thoughts and musings on Twitter @hell4heather and my genuinely hilarious debut novel, ‘The New Mrs D’, here: www.bit.ly/TheNewMrsD

THE NEW MRS D - VERY FUNNY!

 

Thanks so much to Heather for writing a brilliant blog. If you want to read my blog on the Novel Kicks site click right here.

Until next time.

Hugs,
Jon X