Author Writes Book

For years, I've collected newspaper headlines that leave me thinking "And....?". A top example was a piece in the Express & Echo: 'Police choir sings'. A headline that wasn't quite.

Is it the same with the title above? Well, for me personally, no. For more than fifty years, stories have wandered unasked into my head; I've picked them up, turned them over, tickled their tummies perhaps, and then set them down to run away. But last April was different.

My eye was caught by a piece in the local paper about the venerable Devon & Exeter Institution. This is a splendid organisation - unknown, I would bet, to the vast majority of Exeter and Devon residents - that resides in an unassuming building in Exeter's Cathedral Close. The article told me something of its history but was principally about the imminent collapse of their roof in the very year the D&EI was celebrating its bicentennial.

The following morning I woke up with the first chapter of a book in my head, so I promptly wrote it down (actually, I typed it into my laptop but that doesn't sound quite so authorly). Two days later, I woke up with the final chapter in my head; so I "wrote" that down too,

At the time, I was in a demanding full time job, and the task of filling in the gaps between the first and last chapters hardly proceeded at speed. My book - or rather "The Book" as it is now titled - got its big break during a two week break in Mallorca in July. I am not naturally a hot weather holidayer; and with the temperatures regularly hitting forty degrees and local forests spontaneously bursting into the flame, it was the ideal time to find a shady tree and knock off another fifty thousand words or so.

Even better, my first work meeting after I returned included the news that in my absence my job had actually disappeared. So I was now able (in the gaps between job hunting and voluntary work) to finish my book.

Npw it is done, I feel a bit of a fraud. Am I really the Author if the book (The Book) seems to have mostly written itself? And what should I make of the fact that it features a book which, it appears, can only be read by one person? Is that an awful portent of my potential readership? Perhaps we can re-phrase the old philosopher's question: if a book is not read, does it contain any words?

I suggest you look at www.thebook.me.uk and find out for yourself.