A week in the life of a book (about 400 pages)

Portrait of the writer as a different man

I thought it would be good to write a little something about Gorse’s first week out in the wild.

It’s been seven days (this is why editors are needed, you know what a week is!) since Gorse hit the shelves and it’s been the most marvellous of times. It’s also made me reflect on how I got here, and, more specifically, the idea of dreams, and fulfilling them.

I’ve absolutely loved all the events that I’ve been a part of so far, talking about writing process and the story that I’ve created. Inspiration and craft, subtext and storytelling.

But a question I’ve been asked a few times now, a statement really, is “isn’t this a dream come true?” or words to that effect. And it is, truly. Just not one I realised I had.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve always been a reader. Always happily devoured everything that came my way. When I used to visit my grandparents, I’d stay in my aunt’s childhood bedroom with it’s odd collection of books on the small shelves next to the bed. Once I’d, inevitably, worked through the books I had brought I would continue my methodical reading of everything those shelves held. Old Jilly Coopers, Tom Sharpes and Punch compendiums. A biography of Peter Ustinov and a book of racing form. All excellent material for an eight year old, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Because books, for me, have always been magic. All these wonderful words and worlds and things just piled, haphazardly, on endless shelves. Library shelves, school shelves, bookshop shelves, waiting room shelves. The careless exposure of a thousand new universes.

The idea of writing a book never occurred to me. Author, as a position, held the same space for me as a princess or pirates for other children. A fun enough game but not something to be seriously considered.

Besides, I had more than enough on my plate pretending to be a princess, pirate, or James Bond (or my particular childhood favourite of a sort of Victorian street urchin called “Sharpeyes” who could spot lost items easily and also had a bow and arrow for some reason).

My friend Becky recently reminded me of our endless adventures (directed, I admit, predominantly by me) on the farm where I lived. The perfect staging for all sorts of games of make-believe. We sallied forth against foes big (giants) small (quite vaguely described “blobs”) and terrifying (whatever lived in the quite real isolation unit of the old Asylum at the end of the track) so clearly something was percolating. It just never occurred to me to write any of it down.

As I’ve written about here, my journey from writing to publication was short, I’ve spoken about writing a novel by mistake, falling into it without much forethought or direction and finding myself, a delighted Alice, in the wonderland of writing.

So it’s been a bit surreal, watching Gorse appear in bookshops that I’ve loved and spent fortunes in, see it appear around the country, around the world. See a future where I’ll have others to sit alongside Gorse, a shelf (or two) of my work. Feel the odd, rising sense of glee and delight and slight terror because I think it is, and has always been, my dream to be an author.

It had just fallen into the trap of most dreams.

I could never remember it, once I’d woken up.