My blog is on the move!!

My blog is on the move!!

To fit in with Gina's super-swanky web site design and her ever expanding blogs, I've decided to move my blog to be part of her internet universe. :)

If you want to see where I've gone, the link is here

Hope to see you there!

23 years... seems like yesterday

Il destino. Destiny.

Some things are meant to be. Some people are meant to meet.

Gina and I were in the same place at the same time countless times throughout our childhood, despite living quite a distance from each other. I’ll write about that some other time. Today, a day before a very special day, I want to write about the day we met.

Just over 23 years ago, I didn’t know it at the time but I was about to meet my destiny as I wandered around an old building in a language institute in Birmingham.

I was lost, looking for the Japanese class that I had enrolled in for reasons that even I couldn’t explain to myself, let alone anyone else at the time. It was uncharacteristic of me to do anything like that, but I felt compelled to do it regardless. Actually, to say it was uncharacteristic is an understatement; I was a stroppy, arrogant, foul mouthed and angry young man who had just returned from a solitary and painful two year exile in Japan. I hated life, I hated people and I really couldn’t see the point in doing anything.

I remember finding the room where my class was supposed to be and pushing the large old door open, popping my head into the room and saying “Is this the Jap’nese class?” and no, ‘Jap’nese’ is not a typo. That was when I saw Gina for the first time and my life changed forever. Gina was sitting at a desk 15 feet from where I was and, exactly like a movie special effect, the room blurred and zoomed away while Gina appeared to zoom towards me. Time slowed, sound disappeared, my heart and breathing stopped, all of the pain, anger and hatred I had carried for years disappeared as I looked on her beautiful face and saw into her eyes. That moment has stayed with me and I still remember it now, as if it happened just a moment ago.
When I came back down to earth I shook it off. I didn’t want to inflict the emotional baggage I carried on anyone else so I instinctively tried to erase the experience and found myself a place to sit, readying myself for the lesson.

Throughout the next hour I did everything I could to not look at Gina and concentrate on the class but when it was time for a break, it was Gina who sat with me in the cafeteria and whilst others wanted to join the conversation, we sat closely and talked as if we had known each other for years. I was happy for the first time that I could remember and all the walls I had built up over the years just came down for a little while as Gina asked about me and told me about her interest in Japanese art, her love for music, for history, for everything in life. I thought that she was such a contrast to me and I just couldn’t believe how well we were getting on. I didn’t say much, I mostly listened to her voice, which was and is like music to me, and watched her smile more brightly than any smile I’d ever seen before. When we went back to the class, I couldn’t concentrate again. Gina was nearby and I wanted to hear her talk of her life again.

At the end of the class, the room emptied, leaving me alone with my thoughts as I deliberately sat there for a while to give me distance from Gina and everyone else as the building emptied of students and teachers. I reminded myself that I didn’t want to be involved with anyone, it was madness, I had too much emotional baggage for anyone to bear and I remember feeling relieved that I had come to my senses. Anyway, she might not even be interested in me, I reasoned. Entertaining the idea of any other life dissolved and I got up and slowly left the room.

As I headed for the stairs, an urge came over me. I began to run and leapt down the flights of stairs, jumping five or six steps at a time, I rushed out of the building’s foyer and practically flew out of the front door. I stood there in the cold night air and looked left and right as if I were looking for somebody and I remember feeling disappointed. The street was completely empty. I still remember thinking, “What the hell was all that about?!”

Anyway, I headed to the bus stop and remembered feeling so alive as I smiled to myself, remembering the lovely conversation I had with Gina during the break. As I came around the corner to go into the bus stop, there was Gina with her Grandmother and I was greeted with that beautiful smile again. I smiled back and we started chatting again.

Over the course of the next 3 weeks, Gina and myself spent a lot of time talking, at the language class, at her college where I went to visit her, on the phone and then, exactly 23 years ago tomorrow, in Birmingham city centre on New Street and Corporations Street where we went to various shops together, just hanging out and talking before we went to her house and she introduced me to her family. That was November 29th 1986 and it was the first official day of our new life, although to me, that whole November was our first date and I will treasure it forever.

There is a funny thing, the moment I met Gina I knew she would write books and I knew they would be works that would make a difference to the world. I told her this before we even started dating. I never stopped believing this, to me it has always been a matter of fact and that one day it would happen, regardless of anything else in life. I have never put pressure on Gina about this either, she has just always accepted that I hold this unshakable belief in her. Now, her groundbreaking works on Utamaro will help scholars and connoisseurs for many generations to come and her first novel, let alone forthcoming novels, is not only fabulous, it has helped to heal wounds inflicted on us and many, many other people who have suffered from harassment and abuse, doing so with humour and grace, as well as bringing humour to many other people’s lives too. All I can say is, “I told you so.” Haaaa!

I’m posting this blog a day early because tomorrow I just want to spend the day celebrating, watching DVDs, playing games, having pizza and being here, in our special home, with Gina.

Happy anniversary my love, I love you more every day and I still can’t find the words to tell you how much I love you.

'Author's Husband Clone' application - Bug fixes and current issues

Following the discussion on the Red Room version of my blog, "How to sell your wife - Tips for partners of authors" where a request was made for an Author's Husband Clone application, I am pleased to announce that the prototype for this is under development and should be available sometime soon, after all bug fixes have been completed.... which may be never.

At present, the prototype is undergoing further testing and bug fixes. Today's bug fix report is as follows: -

1. The audio recognition seems to fail when the prototype is engaged in computer games, writing blogs or after 3 minutes of discussion. The fix for this is proving unstable and further work is required.

2. The communication synthesizer has a known issue when tasks are listed for immediate execution. The unit states "Just one more minute" in a repetitive loop for several weeks in some cases.

3. The "Start housework" command results in a fatal error and the unit needs to be reset several times before attempting the command again.

4. The humour module is severely under-developed. Unit becomes confused and laughs at own jokes rather than other people's.

5. The timer for the 'Task management' module is faulty. Most notable faults include:

- Unit will take the author's plate to clean during meal times before the author has finished eating

- Unit turns off room lights when exiting a room, leaving the author in complete darkness. Possible fault may not be the timing unit. Evidence suggests that the fault may actually lie in bug fix number 4.

6 The prototype has a peculiar need that cannot be found in the programming. It needs to wear boxer shorts and the same 5 year old Homer Simpson t-shirt during most home based tasks.

7. The prototype's decision making and logic board appears to be bypassed whenever the visual recognition unit scans any item that has "Special offer" or "Reduced price" resulting in the purchase of 162 rolls of toilet paper, 260 tins of baked beans, 74 x 2 litre bottles of Cherry Coke and a large bag of Mintoes which neither the unit or the author likes to consume

How to sell your wife or husband

If this is the first time you’ve read my blogs, it may shock you to know that for over a year now I’ve been doing almost everything I can do to sell my wife. Today, I’m hoping that my blog will encourage you to sell your loved one too, as long as he or she is an author.

Now, before you run to a phone to tell the authorities to let them know you’ve discovered a mad slave trader who specialises in authors, hear me out, you might like what I have to say!

I’m the husband of art historian and novelist, Gina Collia-Suzuki. Before Gina wrote her first book, like many people who know an author, I assumed that once a book is ‘out there’ in the big wide world, that’s all there is to it. A writer writes, a publisher publishes and then people all over the world would somehow know about him or her and hopefully they would buy those books in droves. Simple really.

As I’m sure you’ve discovered from speaking to your beloved newly published one, this is so far from reality that the mind boggles at the thought of it.

Practically overnight, your author will need, or has suddenly needed, to learn new skills in order to make sure that their baby, their precious book, reaches a wider audience. To varying degrees your beloved author needs to be a sales and marketing genius, a publicist, a public speaker (in certain cases), a blogger, a social networking aficionado, etc, etc.

Most authors will have very little support, if at all actually, which I personally find incredible.

You know your own author better than anyone. He or she will have many wonderful skills and attributes, but seriously speaking, when your author looks at this long list of new things that they face, do you not think it will be a little daunting for them, even for the most accomplished? The thing is, I really believe you can help and make a difference.

It occurred to me that maybe you could have a go at selling your own personal author. If you’re willing to have a go, I can assure you that it’s very rewarding and an awful lot of fun. I’m sure that your loved one will probably really appreciate your efforts too.

So, what can you do? You know your strengths and weaknesses, so it’s up to you to decide how you can best help your author achieve his or her dreams.

Here are a few examples of how you might be able to help.

1. Emotional support.

This goes without saying and I am sure you are already doing that, but talk to your author anyway and see if there is anything specific you can do to help.

2. Marketing.

Press releases are just one example. Your author is a wordsmith. He/She will certainly come up with a press release that will wow the world, but you, dear reader, are the voice of the public. Look at the press release, read it carefully. Think about any other angles you can add, any suggestions that may help. Just get involved. If your suggestions aren’t taken up, then fine, it may be that the Press Release is perfect already, but the point is that you are attempting to seriously help.

3. Social networking.

Maybe you like being on-line? Join Red Room, Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads with your author. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never done it before. You can be yourself, have fun, chat to people, get involved with a community. Just being there, supporting your author will help. Social networking is not painful, it’s one of those things that the more you put into it (even if you are just having lots of non-writing related fun), the more you will get out of it.

Get involved with the communities, be yourself, have fun. I personally stick to Red Room and Twitter. Facebook is OK for making friends and keeping in touch, but I don’t feel it has a huge impact. Others may feel differently. Goodreads seems good as well. As you build up your own network of contacts, remember to regularly mention your author, how brilliant he/she is, mention the events your author will be at, post links to their Red Room/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads page often, add anything that you feel will encourage people to find an interest in your special writerly one.

When I have posted certain things on social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook, the traffic to Red Room or Gina's website has spiked dramatically for both Gina and myself. It really works and, as an added bonus, it’s rewarding and fun!

4. Helping at book signings


Maybe you, or someone you know, is good at engaging people in conversation? If so, then attending a book signing event, walking about and talking to readers, and charming them into seeing your special author will be fantastic fun. It’s also one of the best ways to make a book signing event a very lively affair. At the very least, go along to the event to keep your author company and smile, a lot, at everyone... have a laugh. Here’s an example of what we do at book signings .

5. Tell everybody about your author!

Always carry something like bookmarks, postcards, printed paper with a web address, a business card or anything, absolutely anything that has your author’s web address, or book title or anything on it. Give these out to anyone and everyone you meet. The tradesmen who come to do work at your home, the shop assistants you speak to every time you get a newspaper, at the bank, at work to your work colleagues, tell everyone! Ask your network of friends to mention your author to people they know at work. The idea is to spread the word!

Anyway, I think you get the gist. These are just a few examples, you’ll find ways to help your author.

If I may, I’d like to suggest that you sit down and have a cup of tea with your author, talk things over, ask your author what they need and how they think you or people you know can help. I’m sure you’ll soon formulate a good plan. At the end of the day, I’m sure you know that anything you do will help. The hope of my writing this blog is really just to open up ideas that might help because when Gina’s first book was about to come out, I really wanted to help but didn’t know what to do. We sat down, had a cup of tea and talked.

I hope that, if you feel the same as I did, that you’ll sit down and have that cuppa too. If nothing else, you’ll have a good chat at the very least, and maybe even have a good laugh too.

Oh, by the way, if you like this blog, please pass it on and if you could drop by Gina's website it would be appreciated. :)

A place to 'be'

I’ve found it surprising to realise how ‘noisy’ and chaotic most of my life has been. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however it’s been interesting for me to look back at my life and see that even as a child I always sought ways to find a place just to ‘be’, no distractions, no chaos; just me, my thoughts and I.

From around the age of nine or ten I used to spend a fair amount of time at the library in Acocks Green, Birmingham. For me, the transition that I felt as I stepped into the hushed reverence of the library from the busy roads and nearby shopping centre was almost magical. The library was my sanctuary and over the years, if I needed solace, this is where I could be found.
I would sit there, sometimes all day, and read random snippets of almost anything. The Encylopaedia Britannica was a favourite. I would just get a random volume, open it at any point and start reading. I remember picking out books on everything from fantasy, war, athletics, christianity, the occult, philosophy, films, postage stamps from around the world, history (medieval, Victorian, European, etc, etc.), vampires, biology, technology, health, space exploration, travel, languages, myths and legends, etc.

Although the number of books I would go through were immense, I’m not well read at all. I rarely read entire books and didn’t even borrow books to take home, well, not often anyway. I was not an academic by nature, nor was I a great student. I was (and still am) just fascinated with almost everything.

When I was 11 years old and received my first bus pass, I started to visit Birmingham Central Library, the largest of it’s kind in Europe. I spent endless hours in the reference sections, not realising that my soul mate, Gina, was probably there at exactly the same time reading books too. To a degree I also felt that same sense of belonging at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, but always felt I needed to ‘move along’. Perhaps the presence of security people does that. Even if I were alone in a room of exhibits, I would still feel like I was being shooed along by a guard. Hah! I don’t know.

Gina used to frequently visit the Museum and Art Gallery with her Grandfather, so again, we would have been there at the same time many times before we met in 1986.

For some reason, I find it funny, perhaps even a little ironic, that environments such as libraries, museums and galleries that are so peaceful, are filled with items that fire our imaginations, drive furious debates, inspire us to react passionately, whether that be in a good or bad way, coax us to examine and dissect what we read or see, or drive us to discover more and more. I wouldn’t want it any other way, of course, but the thought still puts a smile on my face.

Now, all these years later, thanks to Gina, our home is a wonderful mix of these institutions that we love so much. A beautiful blend of library, museum, art gallery and the warmth of a home, all set within the walls of a Victorian mansion. She has filled this place with history, knowledge, art, poetry and love. It truly inspires a feeling of peace and safety, and is the backdrop for almost endless conversations, laughter or passionate debates when Gina is not focused on her writing. She has made our home a truer reflection of our hearts and minds than I could ever have even imagined and I am very grateful for it.

I find peace in many ways, meditation, being close to nature, watching Gina sleep, reading, etc, but being with Gina in our home brings me the greatest peace of all. It's where we can just 'be'.

Have I told you that I'm married to a genius?

Last week I proudly showed Gina’s books that are on display in the window of Waterstones, Weston-super-Mare, to two bewildered security officers. They were bewildered because their reason for being there was to apprehend me in a shopping centre for taking unauthorised photos within the mall area. Although I had been busy with my camera and tripod, their stealth and skill in executing a covert two-pronged approach to prevent my escape did not go unnoticed. I smiled at them the first time I noticed them from at least 50 feet away and am convinced that they would have prevented the escape of even the most seasoned and experienced criminal mastermind or book terrorist.

Fortunately, I was just a rebel with a camera and once they realised that I wasn’t planning a major book heist, they were kind enough to tell me that I could go on my way, but not before I could stop them from making a swift escape from me as I proudly told them about Gina, her books and how lovely her novel looked in the window display. Marvelous. For some reason they looked very nervous as they stood there. Perhaps it was because I was talking at twice the average speed and was grinning at them like a Cheshire cat on drugs. Being a proud husband can do that, I think.
As they left (rather hurriedly I might add) it was also all that I could do to prevent myself, with chest stuck out proudly, from stopping every passer-by to say “That’s my wife, that is.” and point at the posters with her name on them. Walking, or should I say striding comically back to my car, everyone I walked past received a huge smile, a nod and a greeting. “Helllooooooo!” or “Lovely day isn’t it?”. This brought about a few laughs and smiles. The fact that it was raining, windy and cold might have explained the wide eyed and confused looks that accompanied the automatic “Yes, it is.” response I got from a few of them. Most of them smiled back at me; it’s hard not to smile when one sees another so happy that they look like they are walking on air.

When I got home and told Gina the above, she just smiled. It’s not unusual, apparently.

As a matter of fact, it appears that I am also like this at book signings. She reminded me that at the last event, several people commented on it to her as they came to the book signing table to talk to her. “I’ve been told by your husband that you’re a genius and that I have to buy your book. I don’t think I can argue with that, so can I have a copy?” This comment was made by a few people - how wild is that? All I did was tell them how brilliant she is and told her where they could find her. I had no idea about this until the end of that day; another day of extreme pride in her as I came over to let her know that she had beaten the non-celebrity book signing record again at Waterstones, Bath, one of the group’s flagship stores. I was so excited for her that the lovely comments from the book buyers just flew straight over my head.

It’s good to be an author’s husband. It really is so very good to be Gina’s husband. :)

Saying that though, it is possible I will not be married for long if Gina's latest blog, Seven reasons for divorce, has any bearing on our marriage!

Coffee coloured conversations

A particularly happy day today. Gina is an intensely focused writer, often working from the moment she wakes up until 4 or 5 in the morning. As anyone who follows my blogs knows, I am very proud of her and certainly do not begrudge her working practices. It’s always been my opinion that any creative person should never be interrupted when they are in the zone, as I call it, even if it means they are in that place for months. Today, Gina took a rare break from her work, so, to celebrate, we went to the Mall, near Bristol, and splashed out a little on a very special box of chocolates and had a mooch around the shops. We found a wonderful ratty brooch and a beautiful butterfly necklace for her to wear at her next book signing, both wonderful bonuses as we weren’t looking for anything in particular, it’s just great to come across something special like that.

After our little shopping treat, we went to Costa Coffee for a couple of giant cups of cappuccino, toasted paninis, cake and plenty of good conversation.

When Gina is not working, we are almost always chin-wagging, but, for some reason, it’s just more fun when we sit down in a cafe for a chat and a drink. Today’s conversation was about writing. Well, when I say a conversation, when it comes to plots, characters, twists and turns, new ideas, new stories and new adventures, I tend to listen more than talk. I watch them evolve in front of my eyes as Gina’s words and ideas flow, growing with every word that comes out. It’s amazing. I have never met anyone with so much to write and so much to share. Today, she even talked of writing two completely different books at the same time, just because she cannot wait to get one or the other book onto paper! That’s Gina. Hehe.

I wondered, as we sat there having a great time, how many writers have similar conversations all around the world. I wondered how many plots and characters have evolved over a cup of coffee, growing, solidifying, becoming reality. To a non-writer like me, it’s like magic being weaved before my eyes, the miracle and genius of a creative mind and heart. Beautiful.