Cool Runnings

Have you seen the film, 'Cool Runnings' about the Jamaican bobsleigh team? Well, it inspired me to write a book which became 'Racing Orange' and concerned the Northern Irish Formula One team. If you have never heard of the team, that's the point really; I was trying to write about something as unlikely as a Jamaican bobsleigh team.

By this time, I was shifting genres in an attempt to find my personal writing niche. I knew nothing about F1 and about how the teams were funded and who designed the cars, so I just made it up, and I think I did a pretty good job. Naturally, being set in Northern Ireland the book had plenty of political intrigue and even had a visit from Bill Clinton, a man revered in that tiny country.

Do you need me to tell you it was yet another flop? I mean, Have you seen it in the shops? Do you own a copy?

The thing is that calling it a flop isn't quite accurate. For it to have been a proper, certified flop it would have been published, marketed and then trashed by the critics and packed off to remainder bookshops. I was nowhere near that stage, Racing Orange was just a flop in my head. For the reading public it hadn't even achieved that status.

But, if you haven't seen the film which inspired it, you're missing out...