When I first decided to have a crack at writing a book – okay, not the first time because that was when I was twenty and I was supposed to be training to be a manager in retail, studying my workbooks and certainly not scribbling away at an adventure story. What can I say? I grew up watching Indiana Jones and reading anything from The Hardy Boys to Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. My heart just wasn’t in retail… With that said I still worked in the industry for a further 13 years and rose from checkout lad to store manager but that seems like a world away now…
Where was I? That’s right, I first sat down to write in our spare bedroom. And when I say spare, I really mean box room because you could quite literally put a box in it and it was full. Often I would end up at the local library, a mix of book storage, adult education centre and Social Services support point. It was a wonderful place. I think some of the staff wondered what I was up to when I arrived at opening time and sat there with my laptop for eight hours straight Monday through Friday (they wouldn’t let me in on Saturdays…) Other staff members, the management, viewed me suspiciously – or at east one did. I had to sign in & out in the register in the end. Other patrons didn’t but it was almost like I worked there (which I did, sort of). I think he thought I was using their electricity to run my business empire or something. Paranoid? Maybe.
Needless to say, the scrutiny got a little much and I stopped using the facilities and returned to my box to finish writing Divided House. Unbeknown to me, my Fathers’ Day present that year from my other half and our two boys was an office chair. Nothing fancy but it beat the old wooden thing that gave me… never mind. I digress.
It was a very thoughtful gift. I’ve sat in many places writing since then, when on holidays on the Welsh coast, in a library overlooking Whitby Harbour and more coffee shops than I can remember. However, that chair has seen most of the words.
Now, if you’re on social media you cannot fail to have missed the guitar man setting up to record his session – if you have missed it, ask a family member or friend because it is a classic case of a chair assaulting it’s keeper… Anyway, that was me recently. My chair has had it and before I face my very own PU-lined Day of the Triffids it is time to upgrade.
I’m going to miss this chair for many reasons, mainly because of the boys as I am sentimental about things like that, which may seem odd to you, but I’ve lined up a suitable successor. Winter is coming and with the children going back to school I will leave the dining room, where I’ve written the last two books in the Norfolk series, and return to my office (a shed in the garden) only this time I’ll be armed with a heated seat and a rolling massage function…
Too much? Surely not…
If you fancy checking it out, you can do so here at a price cheaper than I paid because I wasn’t smart enough to look on Amazon…