It is often said that “everyone has a book in them” and, perhaps it is true. We all have own stories, our family anecdotes, apocryphal or otherwise. But would they make a good book? Hmm...
My long-departed uncle was a GP in the Lake District and I remember my mother once asking him if the amusing and quirky story-lines that took place in the then-popular TV series, “Doctor in the House” were likely to have happened or were they purely fictional. His response was that each and every story could certainly have occurred to a Doctor at some point in their career but the likelihood of such amusing incidents taking place on a regular basis was unlikely to the point of impossibility. The writer would have drawn on the tales of colleagues, friends and the wider medical community in order to create an on-going and humorous (or should that be humerus?) TV series. Take Midsomer Murders, for example; are there actually any residents left alive by now...?
When people discover that I write, they will often respond with “Oh, I`m sure I could write a book...”
But do we really want everyone to be an author?
As a musician (latterly in a 70`s pop/rock covers band), my adoring fans (well, we all have an ego) would often remark that they wished that they played an instrument. My reply was always the same; musicians (as I have stated) have an ego and we need an audience to like us. If everyone was a musician, we would be performing to a room full of critics and that would never do...would it? Similarly with writing. Authors need readers just as readers need authors. I have to be honest, since I started writing I have become much more critical of other authors` work; I suppose it is just simple human nature; we want people to like our books and not to think that they could do better.
When this dreadful pandemic is over it will be interesting to see if there is a rise in writing and, of course, in reading – after all, with furlough, etc. many of us have had a lot of time on our hands (the garden`s looking great, by the way!). I had a conversation some time ago with Lesley, my publisher, about “the way ahead”. Going back a good few years, following the cinematic popularity of Tolkien`s works, there was an upsurge in fantasy writing. Similarly with JK Rowling`s Harry Potter; the enormous success of “the boy who lived” created a big rise in books about magicians and mystical worlds. Even “Fifty Shades” engendered a wave of so-called “porn-fiction”. It seems that crime is heading that way too and that the market-place is becoming rather crowded; there are just too many “Rebuses and Taggarts” lurking in the shadows (although my character, DCI Grant McVicar, is far too imposing a figure to ever lurk...)
Will the next few years see a rise in a new genre? Global crisis, pandemics, lock-downs, conspiracy theories? I daresay we will find out in time.
But what of babies, you ask?
In 1977, there was a prolonged power outage in New York city. Nine months later there was, apparently, a large spike in the birth rate (or is that just another Urban Myth...?) It will be interesting to see what happens in the UK nine months from now.
New Parenting Book, anyone...?