This is not a Christmas Story

Someone fatten the calf. Yep, the prodical returns, dragging her tail behind her and mumbling apologies of copy-edits for the first, redrafts for the second, Arts Council evaluation statements and something she does for money that involves using the term Bam-bam's in creative design briefs. See? You don't want to know the details.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a quick little story about Tony Hogan (I've christened his highly dubious charms with his own hashtag on Twitter too - #tonyhogan) because I found some old notebooks the other day….the very, very first draft of what is now Tony Hogan:

 

Once upon a time, Tony Hogan was once called The Dole Cheque Kid. I took six months off work to write it. I knew it would be about the places I had grown up: Aberdeen all the way down to Great Yarmouth taking in every town of high unemployment along the way - it made perfect sense to write my novel in Vietnam. Actually, Vietnam was very cheap and I didn't have a lot of money, so I took myself, a little netbook, no plot outline or any idea of what I was doing, off on a plane.

I lost the first chapter on a Chinese overnight sleeper bus. Well, I lost the netbook the chapter was on thanks to a stealthy knife wielding bag slasher (I slept right through). On the train back to Hanoi from the border between China and Vietnam I took out a piece A4 paper and started plotting.

Back in Vietnam I travelled the length of the country, living for a few months in both Hanoi and Saigon. I hired bicycles, went to cafes and wrote my 1000 words a day by hand, cycled to the nearest internet cafe and typed them up and emailed them home. Afterwards, I went and wrote some more, slurping down Bun Cha on plastic children's furniture in canteens playing South East Asian techno-pop. I spoke to hardly anyone for months, just me and The Dole Cheque Kid and not a thought about anyone else ever reading it.     

Anyway,  the point is that The Dole Cheque Kid has come a long way. Two name changes, many more story changes. Somehow it travelled from those sweaty internet cafes full of school boys playing Streetfighter to the hallowed corridors of the mighty Random House. I still don't really understand that bit myself.

But it started as just scribbled words on a page slightly blurred from Bun Cha noodle splashes. I was so happy in Vietnam, completely peaceful weaving in and out of the moped traffic on my little rusty bike, home to a little room where I'd sit and conjure a Glaswegian council estate, a fishwife's special brand of sweary gossip, the rawness of being young and wanting more. I'd never been so happy and I like to think, when people read Tony Hogan, they'll be able to tell that; that the hot night air tainted with neon flashes and moped fumes will have somehow snuck onto the pages of my very British book.

                                                              THE END