The Stories Wot I Am Writing

I am so excited about the novel I am writing now, I cannot contain myself anymore.

Provisionally titled "Petty Chew" (a butchered version of the French term of affection "petit chou") it's a coming-of-age story involving a group of 15-year-old boys from North London who go on a school skiing trip to the French Alps. The main character, Shawn, arrives in France in a melancholy mood after being dumped by his girlfriend of three weeks, Mel, just days before his holiday is set to start. Things don't improve as the school bully sets out to make Shawn and his friends as miserable as possible - and not always on purpose. Guided by the dream vision of Carol Decker (lead singer of T'Pau) and gallons of cheap French beer, Shawn has to take a stand and dig deep to find some self-esteem in the snow-capped mountains before going back for his last few months as a high school student, with or without Mel at his side.

"Didn't you go on a skiing trip with your school when you were 15, Adam?"

Well, yes I did. And it is obviously the inspiration for this story. The story is set in Easter, 1990 - a time period that I will long remember in real life as the start of the peak period of my teenage years. I'm about a third of the way through the first draft, and I really like it, for what that's worth.

I'm writing it alongside "Don't Put Baby In The Corner (and other parenting lessons I learned from the 1980s)" and they are both very fun to write, so hopefully will be fun to read for you all collectively.