I AM writing this in a writer’s retreat down in Somerset. I’ve come here for four years with nine other writers and between us in all that time we have written approximately ten words.
The world of publishing seems like a fascinating one to many from the outside.
They do not see the reality of it being cutthroat, frustrating, scary and the most unfair playing field on the planet.
So we spend our time together straightening each other out and screaming into a few glasses of prosecco.
It has taken me twenty years to get a book into America and my first took the states by storm last year when it came out (not really… you could count the sales on two hands).
My second one comes out over there next week which has a central premise of… if you have a dream that could be a reality then if you go for it, you could make it happen.
I know this is a good strong concept because I did it myself with my writing. The odds were stacked against me but I am doing it.
I am particularly fond of this book because it features ‘The Lion of Klondyke’. I really wanted to press into the pages the story of Dennis Higgs and his scrapyard-guarding lion Ben.
We all know it’s true and a wonderful mad story and it will be a pleasure to let the legend finally go across the pond.
This book has been out over here for nearly a decade but it is still a talking point among those who come to it fresh because they really can’t believe it.
The research for it was a joy and I had some lovely chats with Dennis back then who told me all about Ben, the lion that used to sit on the carpet in his lounge and watch the telly.
Who scared off the tax man, who used to ride in the wagon with Dennis.
Lions became a bit of a theme of the book, not the least because the book is all about having a lion-like courage of your convictions.
But when it first came out, I headed down to London for a meeting with the publisher, got in a taxi at St Pancras and we ended up getting stuck in traffic for ages.
I got chatting to the taxi driver who asked me why I was down in London and I told him.
He asked me what the book was about and said that he wished he had the courage to make things happen like that.
He was thinking about quitting the taxis, selling up and buying a gite in France with his missus – a pipe dream. I told him he should go for it if that’s what he wanted.
He said he would buy my book and hope it convinced him.
A year later, he tracked me down to tell me he had read the book and he’d gone for it, bought an inn ‘The Golden Lion’ over in France and was as happy as a lion…er pig in muck.
The year later, he sent me a picture of a little baby. He and his wife had never been able to have kids, but at 56 and his wife at 47, it just happened naturally and he was ‘blaming’ me for his happiness and his dreams come true.
Anytime I wanted a holiday, I was to go there on the house.
Would that all have happened if we hadn’t been in that traffic jam? Who knows – but we were and it did.
And people think happy endings only happen in books…
