David Roy's Blog, page 16
October 12, 2021
Slovakia
In 2001 I got married. Our honeymoon took in Vienna and Slovakia, and included adventures which provided a new seam of material for my career as a failed writer.
The resulting book, 'Where is Mr Lastic?', went on to be an absolute classic in the genre known as unpublished, despite detailing the time we got detained on the Slovak/Polish border and our trip to Auschwitz. With regard to the latter we stayed one night in the town of Oswiecim, where the hotel staff mistook us for Germans and segregated us from the other guests at meal times. It's all in the book, of course.
Aside from that, I carried on teaching, with writing just a side-line that I hoped would pay off one day. I told myself that I was building up a back catalogue of books which would one day be published and also honing my skills. Whilst the latter was true, the former almost certainly wasn't.
At some point I wrote a book called , 'Hanford', the content of which was so controversial, the idea of it being published actually bothered me greatly. As you can guess, however, I need not have worried.
The resulting book, 'Where is Mr Lastic?', went on to be an absolute classic in the genre known as unpublished, despite detailing the time we got detained on the Slovak/Polish border and our trip to Auschwitz. With regard to the latter we stayed one night in the town of Oswiecim, where the hotel staff mistook us for Germans and segregated us from the other guests at meal times. It's all in the book, of course.
Aside from that, I carried on teaching, with writing just a side-line that I hoped would pay off one day. I told myself that I was building up a back catalogue of books which would one day be published and also honing my skills. Whilst the latter was true, the former almost certainly wasn't.
At some point I wrote a book called , 'Hanford', the content of which was so controversial, the idea of it being published actually bothered me greatly. As you can guess, however, I need not have worried.
October 11, 2021
Blackpool
Teaching paid well enough. For the first year I lived off my girlfriend's wages as I paid off a debt I had accrued following the sale of my first house which I had gone for half the price I'd paid. It was on a notorious housing estate in Preston and after a couple of years we'd been forced out, had the house boarded up so that no one could break in and injure themselves and moved into a rented flat.
These were tough times. Teaching was difficult/impossible. I took on extra jobs to rid my self of debt more quickly and, of course kept writing.
In 2000 we bought a new house and the next year some terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Seeking revenge and a means to defeat the terrorist group in question, the US invaded Afghanistan. A couple of years later they invaded Iraq - a country with absolutely no links to the attack on the US. For me this event was significant because the time was right to relaunch my book about the Gulf War.
Re-worked and with a new title - 'Oil Wells That End Well' - I was set for global domination. It was my time to shine, to strike while the iron was hot and other cliches.
These were tough times. Teaching was difficult/impossible. I took on extra jobs to rid my self of debt more quickly and, of course kept writing.
In 2000 we bought a new house and the next year some terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Seeking revenge and a means to defeat the terrorist group in question, the US invaded Afghanistan. A couple of years later they invaded Iraq - a country with absolutely no links to the attack on the US. For me this event was significant because the time was right to relaunch my book about the Gulf War.
Re-worked and with a new title - 'Oil Wells That End Well' - I was set for global domination. It was my time to shine, to strike while the iron was hot and other cliches.
October 10, 2021
Teacher
For the next ten years, I toiled away as a science teacher, living in a permanent state of heightened stress. I continued to write and as some point I switched from submitting my work to publishers, opting for an agent instead.
It seems as if literary agents had come to the fore and increasingly publishers wouldn't accept manuscripts sent in by authors. My theory is that with the advent of personal computers and the ease with which documents could be 'word processed', more people were trying their hand at writing. The role of the agent therefore was to act as a quality control mechanism for the publishing industry, weeding out the unpublishable manuscripts before they landed on a publisher's desk.
Sadly, my books still seemed to fall into the 'not good enough' category. No agent would take me on.
They were probably right but had someone sat with me and given me advice things might have been different. But, again, that's not how it works.
Oddly enough I don't know which book became book number five, but I wrote it and then book number six and so on. By 2001, I had a decent back catalogue of books that no one would ever read.
It seems as if literary agents had come to the fore and increasingly publishers wouldn't accept manuscripts sent in by authors. My theory is that with the advent of personal computers and the ease with which documents could be 'word processed', more people were trying their hand at writing. The role of the agent therefore was to act as a quality control mechanism for the publishing industry, weeding out the unpublishable manuscripts before they landed on a publisher's desk.
Sadly, my books still seemed to fall into the 'not good enough' category. No agent would take me on.
They were probably right but had someone sat with me and given me advice things might have been different. But, again, that's not how it works.
Oddly enough I don't know which book became book number five, but I wrote it and then book number six and so on. By 2001, I had a decent back catalogue of books that no one would ever read.
October 9, 2021
The Lost Books
In case you're wondering what happened to these books, I think I have paper copies of them somewhere but not electronic copies. I had thought about taking another look at them, re-working them maybe and trying again but in the end it wasn't worth it. What I have done is re-cycle some of the ideas contained in those first books. For Instance, I have written another book called, 'The Innocent Accomplice'. I liked that title and the juxtaposition of those two words.
So, was it all a waste of time? Yes and no. Yes because the books were never published which is the whole point of writing in my view, and no because, if nothing else, I was learning the craft of writing. By book number four I was a better writer than when I started out but still not good enough.
I was still operating under the delusion that publishers would metaphorically read between the lines of my imperfect work and decide to take me on with a view to nurturing my talent. Plenty of evidence to the contrary did nothing to dent my certainty. By now I was working at a high school in Blackpool, which in years to come would give me material for one of my most successful books, but that was all in the future.
So, I started writing again. Book number five would prove to be...
So, was it all a waste of time? Yes and no. Yes because the books were never published which is the whole point of writing in my view, and no because, if nothing else, I was learning the craft of writing. By book number four I was a better writer than when I started out but still not good enough.
I was still operating under the delusion that publishers would metaphorically read between the lines of my imperfect work and decide to take me on with a view to nurturing my talent. Plenty of evidence to the contrary did nothing to dent my certainty. By now I was working at a high school in Blackpool, which in years to come would give me material for one of my most successful books, but that was all in the future.
So, I started writing again. Book number five would prove to be...
October 8, 2021
Anybody out there?
Writing this blog has become part of my daily routine in my new job (since March) of being a writer and publisher. I am painfully aware that no one reads it but as You can see I am undaunted by failure.
When my career as one of Britain's top civil servants drew to a glorious close, I took a job working in a block of flats as a sort of temporary handyman. I was due to start teacher training and that was sufficiently intense for me to give up writing for a year.
This was in the days of sending your manuscript off to publishers in a manila envelope. I had a stack of them at the ready and although I wasn't writing I continued to send Neil Barrie off. Surely someone would recognise my genius?
Sub-consciously I think I knew that I was just adding to my stock of rejection letters every time I slipped the envelope into the post box and yet I had hope. I believed that no news was good news, when in fact no new was no news...
At least in those days, the publishers sent you a rejection letter. Later, in the era of email, you often didn't get any reply at all.
So, we're into 1997 now. I was training to be a science teacher but still had high hopes for Neil Barrie.
When my career as one of Britain's top civil servants drew to a glorious close, I took a job working in a block of flats as a sort of temporary handyman. I was due to start teacher training and that was sufficiently intense for me to give up writing for a year.
This was in the days of sending your manuscript off to publishers in a manila envelope. I had a stack of them at the ready and although I wasn't writing I continued to send Neil Barrie off. Surely someone would recognise my genius?
Sub-consciously I think I knew that I was just adding to my stock of rejection letters every time I slipped the envelope into the post box and yet I had hope. I believed that no news was good news, when in fact no new was no news...
At least in those days, the publishers sent you a rejection letter. Later, in the era of email, you often didn't get any reply at all.
So, we're into 1997 now. I was training to be a science teacher but still had high hopes for Neil Barrie.
October 7, 2021
Neil Barrie
The means by which I would escape from my terrible career in the civil service was writing. I mentioned before that I was not happy in my work but it was more than that; I was actually completely unsuited to it. I was a hopeless bureaucrat and going to work each day to be reminded of my inadequacies in this respect was soul destroying.
The next book was called, 'Neil Barrie Still Eats Pies', named after an unusual piece of graffiti I had seen on the gable wall of a house in Belfast. I never got to the bottom of it. Anyway, the book had three sections: one dealing with my service in the Gulf War, one with my life afterwards and... something else. I can't remember what.
It was heavily fictionalised and at best something of a curate's egg - good in parts. It was not, however, a cohesive piece of work. Again, it was simply not good enough. I sent it to various publishers and the response was always the same - not for us, thank you.
And they were right.
I still held the belief that if I just kept going, someone in the world of publishing would see my latent talent and nurture it until I was a bestselling author. But that isn't how it works and I was very slow to learn. VERY slow.
The next book was called, 'Neil Barrie Still Eats Pies', named after an unusual piece of graffiti I had seen on the gable wall of a house in Belfast. I never got to the bottom of it. Anyway, the book had three sections: one dealing with my service in the Gulf War, one with my life afterwards and... something else. I can't remember what.
It was heavily fictionalised and at best something of a curate's egg - good in parts. It was not, however, a cohesive piece of work. Again, it was simply not good enough. I sent it to various publishers and the response was always the same - not for us, thank you.
And they were right.
I still held the belief that if I just kept going, someone in the world of publishing would see my latent talent and nurture it until I was a bestselling author. But that isn't how it works and I was very slow to learn. VERY slow.
October 6, 2021
The Enemy
On the Side of the Enemy wasn't very good. You can probably see a pattern here. I needed help - I needed an editor probably. But that's not how it works. The prospective author needs to polish their manuscript to perfection before sending it off. The publisher isn't going to accept anything less unless there is some exceptional aspect to the book.
I knew I could write well but I just wasn't producing an entire, cogent book of good writing.
By now I was working in the civil service, a job for which I had neither love nor aptitude. I kept hoping that my literary ship would come in and save me... but that was never on the cards.
Instead of taking my latest book and working through it again to make it as good as it could be, to make it, in other words, a commercial prospect, I did what I always did - I wrote another book. Only this time It was going to be the best book ever written...
I knew I could write well but I just wasn't producing an entire, cogent book of good writing.
By now I was working in the civil service, a job for which I had neither love nor aptitude. I kept hoping that my literary ship would come in and save me... but that was never on the cards.
Instead of taking my latest book and working through it again to make it as good as it could be, to make it, in other words, a commercial prospect, I did what I always did - I wrote another book. Only this time It was going to be the best book ever written...
October 5, 2021
Thought for the day
Thought for the day; it's damned hard to sell books. Yesterday Hobart Books star writer, Judy Upton, had a spot at Shoreham Wordfest to talk about her books and sign copies. The problem? Judy turned up but the books did not. No one in the supply chain wants to take responsibility of course. This is a setback and embarrassing too.
My second book, 'Innocent Accomplice' was set for great things... in my mind but I faced the same problem as before; no one would take it on. I'm not going to waste time blaming the publishers for being short-sighted. They were right. The book wasn't good enough and no one had the inclination to suggest how I might improve it.
Mt response to this latest setback was to write another book; 'On the Side of the Enemy'. This was the one. I was sure of it.
In the meantime, Colin Bateman's debut novel, Divorcing Jack' was doing a roaring trade. We had attended the same school but there the similarity ended. He was a burgeoning writing star and I was working for the Civil Service.
These were my wilderness years...
My second book, 'Innocent Accomplice' was set for great things... in my mind but I faced the same problem as before; no one would take it on. I'm not going to waste time blaming the publishers for being short-sighted. They were right. The book wasn't good enough and no one had the inclination to suggest how I might improve it.
Mt response to this latest setback was to write another book; 'On the Side of the Enemy'. This was the one. I was sure of it.
In the meantime, Colin Bateman's debut novel, Divorcing Jack' was doing a roaring trade. We had attended the same school but there the similarity ended. He was a burgeoning writing star and I was working for the Civil Service.
These were my wilderness years...
October 4, 2021
Covers
My Goodreads account has mostly old book covers and I don't know how to change them. Hmmm.
In other news, Hobart Books star writer, Judy Upton, was due to do a book signing yesterday at Shoreham Wordfest. What could go wrong? Well, the books, ordered with plenty of time to spare, didn't turn up. No one in the supply chain is keen to take the blame.
My first book was called 'Sun, Sand and the Sergeant-major'. I re-wrote it a number of times, changed the title, sent it off to publishers and agents before admitting defeat.
My response was to write another book, which was a thriller called. 'The Innocent Accomplice'. It was a huge hit... in my dreams but the reality was more sobering. I was no further on with my quest to become the next publishing sensation.
Around this time I noticed a book appearing in the shops called 'Divorcing Jack'...
In other news, Hobart Books star writer, Judy Upton, was due to do a book signing yesterday at Shoreham Wordfest. What could go wrong? Well, the books, ordered with plenty of time to spare, didn't turn up. No one in the supply chain is keen to take the blame.
My first book was called 'Sun, Sand and the Sergeant-major'. I re-wrote it a number of times, changed the title, sent it off to publishers and agents before admitting defeat.
My response was to write another book, which was a thriller called. 'The Innocent Accomplice'. It was a huge hit... in my dreams but the reality was more sobering. I was no further on with my quest to become the next publishing sensation.
Around this time I noticed a book appearing in the shops called 'Divorcing Jack'...
October 3, 2021
Starting out
I started writing in 1994 when I had finished university. My first book was my account of the time I spent as a soldier in the Middle East during the first Gulf War. I knew it would be a bestseller but my hopes were confounded when, having finished my great tale of men at war, no publisher would take it on.
Was I disheartened?
Yes.
Did I give up?
No.
So, what was the problem?
I know now that the book simply wasn't good enough. I was competing against writers like Andy McNab who had served in the SAS during the same war and who had genuine ripping yarns to tell. My story of an ordinary soldier who drove a Land Rover and occasionally operated a radio just didn't cut it. Even being able to recount the day when I received four boxes of Tayto crisps through the post didn't quite give my book the edge it needed...
Was I disheartened?
Yes.
Did I give up?
No.
So, what was the problem?
I know now that the book simply wasn't good enough. I was competing against writers like Andy McNab who had served in the SAS during the same war and who had genuine ripping yarns to tell. My story of an ordinary soldier who drove a Land Rover and occasionally operated a radio just didn't cut it. Even being able to recount the day when I received four boxes of Tayto crisps through the post didn't quite give my book the edge it needed...
