...to my blog this week. Hi Miriam, and it's great to have you make a return visit.
MM Hello Angela, and thank you so much for having me
on your blog. When I think of you, I
think of France, mystery and history.
So I thought, what if Martin, the main character in my novel Cultivating
a Fuji, had been sent to France instead of Japan in 1977. How would he have coped there...
Martin turned off the slide projector and flopped
onto the chair behind him. His
presentation had been beyond awful. If
he’d been nervous before starting, and he had, that was nothing compared to the
way he felt as soon as he began. Despite all his practice runs in the hotel in
front of the mirror, when he tried to give a repeat performance in front of
these office workers his confidence went out of the door and the words refused
to form themselves properly.
He wasn’t helped by the smirks he saw planted on
every face in the audience. Couldn’t they have shown a little
understanding? Apparently not.
Now they were talking amongst themselves, the
discussion becoming quite heated and so fast that Martin’s schoolboy French
didn’t help at all. In fact, he
wondered whether, in their rush to talk, they were really listening to each
other. Through it all, the smirks remained, becoming especially pronounced at the word rosbif. He doubted they were planning lunch, which had to mean they were referring to him and his compatriots. Did it show their disdain for everything English? Did they think all English people were like him?
Finally, they turned back to Martin and one of them
spoke.
“Thank you
for this… presentation.” He spat out
the last word, as if he thought any similarity between Martin’s performance and
a real presentation was minimal. “We
have decided we will not buy your system.”
“But you
haven’t seen the demonstration yet!” The shock made Martin forget to be his
usual quiet, enclosed self.
“What we
saw and heard, it is sufficient.”
By the time Martin was again soaring through the
clouds on the short hop back to Heathrow Airport, he’d assigned this trip to
the weighty sack of failures he’d collected over the past twenty-four years,
wishing the first one had never happened.
Why had he been born?
MM I assure you I have nothing against French people,
in general, but I do think Martin wouldn’t have fared nearly as well in France
as he did in Japan.
AW What a great post, Miriam, and thank you.
about the book… Convinced that his imperfect, solitary existence is the best it will ever
be, Martin unexpectedly finds himself being sent to represent his company in
Japan. His colleagues think it’s a
joke; his bosses are certain he will fail.
What does Martin think? He
simply does what he’s told. That’s how
he’s survived up to now – by hiding his feelings.
Amazingly, in the land of strange rituals, sweet
and juicy apples, and too much saké, Martin flourishes and achieves the
impossible. But that’s only the
beginning. Keeping up the momentum for
change proves futile. So, too, is a
return to what he had before. Is there
a way forward, or should he put an end to the search now?
Gradually, as you’ll see when Martin looks back
from near the end of his journey, life improves. There’s even a woman, Fiona, who brings her own baggage to the
relationship, but brightens Martin’s days.
And just when you think there can be no more surprises, another one pops
up.
Throughout his life, people have laughed at
‘weirdo’ Martin; and you, as you read, will have plenty of opportunity to
laugh, too. Go ahead, laugh away, but
you’ll find that there’s also a serious side to all this…
You can get the book from Amazon.
You can follow Miriam on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, Instagram, Wattpad and on her website/blog and social anxiety blog
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