Extraordinary story that desrves a look

[Hardtoswallow]

For those of you who have seen my threads, yes it's me again. I've been trying to get my book HARD TO SWALLOW (amazon.co.uk) into bookshops but as the subject of the book is smuggling cannabis, none of the double- barreled names responsable for fiction buying want to touch it.
Here for your benefit is the story behind the book - I need your help to help me break the system - Read the book and spread the word - I can promise you you'll enjoy it " You are wasting your time" people tell me.


18 years trying to get a book published. Now that can either be described as gritty determination or just plain foolhardiness. Perhaps both descriptions would be accurate.
I wrote my book Hard to Swallow in 1988 on a then relatively unknown island off the coast, Koh Samui. (before it was invaded by jet-skiing, scuba-diving, go go girl- hunting Gap Year travellers).
I needed an excuse to give up yet another mundane job in London to carry myself off once again to warmer and more life enhancing climes having already spent all of the eighties doing just that.
When I was 15 my careers officer at school chirpily advised me that I had a golden future as a supermarket manager or the like. I wouldnâ??t even need a college or university education to be able to reach such dizzying professional heights. Having no particular vocations in life and even less academical talent, I took her advice.
At 19 years old I was the youngest ever to achieve managerial status in a well known Oxford Street department store and I was soon positively suicidal just thinking about spending my next 40 years among electrical appliances and haberdashery items.
A three day Magic Bus ride to Athens and the Greek Islands was the start of my great escape. Various countries in the proceeding years paid host to my hedonistic quest to make the most out of life and avoid working for as many prolonged periods as possible.
In 1986 I had embarked on a little venture in India that involved swallowing 117 Government Issue condoms stuffed with cannabis then taking them through Heathrow customs.
It really was quite an adventure and I thought it might make a good enough yarn to be the subject of the book. The story being autobiographical and being quite fresh in my mind meant that very little creative effort would be needed.
I chose Koh Samui as Iâ??d been there a few times before and I knew that I would be able to spend at least a few months in paradise surviving quite nicely on my humble savings and enjoying myself immensely.
At first I was a little embarrassed about telling the other travellers that I was writing a book. Mainly because I wasnâ??t .Revealing such tacky intentions to do so would also condemn me to actually do it. So I really didnâ??t do very much writing the first couple of months. I was far too busy doing what I do best â?? nothing.
Time passed by rapidly and I started to think that if I were to go home with not even a rough draft of a first chapter, I could rightly be labelled as an even bigger waster than I was already regarded as.
Ensconced in my airless bamboo hut I timidly started to tap out on my cheap clapped out, portable type writer the beginnings of my adventure in India.
My sweaty closet scribblings were soon to be discovered, as unfortunately, in order to get the letters to appear on the paper through the carbon ribbon (PCs had only just been invented), I had to bang on the keys with the force of man breaking rocks.
My hidden artistic activity now revealed I was surprised and delighted to find that my image had been actually enhanced among the other travellers and suffered none of the expected ridicule.
More importantly and perhaps more useful to me at the time the whole book writing thing was making it a easier to meet women, Any help in this department was more than welcome and I was soon to be found slamming away at my typewriter out in the open where I could contemplate the magnificent scenery and be contemplated at the same time.
6 months later I returned to London with a first draft and Malaria.
The Artists and Writerâ??s Yearbook in hand, I started to send off the first three chapters with a synopsis as the good book suggested.
I was convinced I had a very good book written, funny, and fast - a highly enjoyable read according to my Guinea pig readers.
With an almost childlike naivety, I fully expected my book to be snapped up by the first to read it and excitedly awaited a letter or phone call to set up a meeting to talk about my advance payment on sales.
Alas almost every week I was greeted by a large manila envelope sticking out of my post box with my address written in my own handwriting.
At first my heart used to race with optimistic expectation but with every new envelope that arrived I had to prepare myself for the emotional atom bomb that they contained.
All in all I must have received at least 20 of my self-addressed envelopes returning my chapters with the usual polite letter signed by a double- barrelled name.
â??Thank you for kindly letting us consider your work but unfortunately â?¦blah blah
blah â?¦we wish you luck in the futureâ?¦.blah blahâ?�
My devastation was absolute with every rejection and would last until I could send off another envelope full of hope and illusion.
Of course eventually it became clear that my chances of success were anywhere from remote to never in a blue moon. However I continued to send off my chapters with the same conviction as one placing a fiver on a 500-1 outsider.
I am sure that this will be a familiar story to all those first time writers with the same aspirations.
My story however was about to take an unexpected turn.
Somehow a woman who I had met briefly before going off to Thailand managed to track me down. I had to rack my brains to remember who she was. I had sold her Hampstead flat for her when working for an estate agent.
She was a freelance editor and I remember telling her that I was off to write a novel and that she was about to emigrate to Australia â?? Her husband was a film maker or something..
She asked me in a letter if I had finally written my book and then went on to tell me about her life in Australia â?? She now worked as a copywriter in advertising and her husband was back working in the UK. At her insistence I sent her my manuscript to read.
The next thing I know sheâ??s telling me that she absolutely loved the book and she thought I was next so and so.
Things then moved very quickly and she wrote to me telling me that a friend of hers was an editor for a publishing company in Sydney and suggested that I go and stay with her in her house on the beach in Melbourne with the intention of editing the book and to present it to her friend.
This invitation presented me with a huge dilemma.
Anybody else would have said â??thanks but that might be a little difficultâ?? but I for that matter was always open for an excuse to get away. I had already spent a couple of years in Australia and returning had an enormous appeal.
My dilemma however was that in the year after my return from Thailand I had progressed very well in my job and was then in charge of the contract section of a large IT recruitment agency.
I had a lovely bachelor flat in Soho and drove a BMW. It looked as if I had found my niche and all around me were convinced that my nomadic travelling days were over.
After consulting with all of my family and friends as to what to do, I was sure I was going to ignore all of their very sensible arguments and go.
Perhaps the determinant factor was receiving my fatherâ??s remarks:
â??You are just a lazy beach bum, and thatâ??s all you will ever beâ?� â?? Probably true but very harsh.
I havenâ??t spoken to him since â?? That was 16 years ago.
My fatherâ??s words together with my irresponsible nature and predisposition to exploit any opportunity to give up work to the maximum saw me resign and book a yearâ??s round the world ticket with stop offs in Thailand , Melbourne, Sydney, Los Angeles, and New York.
After spending a lovely Christmas on Koh Samui I touched down in Melbourne one hot evening in January 1990.
Susan â?? that was her name- was waiting for me with open arms and a slinky white chiffon dress â?? her long blond hair cascading over her shoulders.
She threw her arms around my neck and smothered a very surprised me with kisses as if I were her long lost lover.
She then whisked me off to a penthouse suite at the Regency hotel.
Champaign on ice next to a huge king-size bed greeted me and I was soon making love to her while contemplating a beautiful sunset over Melbourne.
Passion spent and with her blonde head resting on my chest I realized what a foolish thing we or rather I had just done.
Iâ??d given up everything to fly out to Australia with a positive plan to get my book published. The person on whose help I was depending on was not going to just put this all down to a one night thing â?? What had happened had a distinct air of premeditation to itâ?? She had seduced me. Although reasonably attractive, Iâ??m ashamed to admit she wasnâ??t my type.
It hadnâ??t been a case of love at first sight â?? more like a huge surge of testosterone. I was not under any circumstances looking for a relationship. I was seriously contemplating making a bolt for it at the first opportunity.
I lie wake thinking all night and finally concluded that a large dose of precautious diplomacy was in order if I were to save the situation. When she awoke I told her that what had just happened couldnâ??t happen again if we were to be cohabitating for a few months.
She was visibly upset yet reluctantly agreed with me â?? our relationship had to be a platonic one, not an emotional one.
On the way to her house I was to be hit with more
unexpected circumstances when she revealed to me that her marriage was in fact over and we were to stop off to pick up her 7 year old son Randolph.
Finally the three of us arrived at her house slap bang on the beach.
Scarcely furnished but very cosy. I donâ??t know why I was surprised when she announced that she had to go into town to buy a camp bed for me. The only two beds in the house were hers and Randolphsâ??.
While she was out her son followed me around as I inspected my new abode. Her shelves were stuffed full of dozens books on numerology, astrology and tarot.
I was beginning to seriously regret not going through with my earlier temptation to make a bolt for it.
Later while sipping a glass of wine with her over dinner, I had started to relax a little as she seemed very friendly and sat chatting away about her marriage, her job and her son. There were no signs of the feme fatal that had met me at the airport.
However, when the subject changed to talking about her book collection she revealed that she considered herself a white witch and all of her cards, stars and number consulting had pinpointed me as her saviour, her lover and her all round knight in shining armour.
She informed me of all this laughing as if she were admitting how foolish she had been.
I for that matter wasnâ??t even smiling. My mind was racing. How long had she been planning all this?
That first night I tried to get to sleep in my birdâ??s nest camp bed in the spare room. I was finally just about to nod off when I heard footsteps out in the hallway.
Suddenly a shadowy figure appeared at the foot of my bed.
I pretended to be asleep but soon she was whispering to me to make love to her.
She couldnâ??t sleep for thinking about me. All very flattering but not what I wanted to hear. I repeated my diplomatic speech of the morning and she apologized and went back to her room. I slept about an hour that night.
The next day at breakfast we talked about the book with no mention of the previous nightâ??s goings on and she said that she would work on it when she came back from work. We agreed that Iâ??d walk Rufus to school every day and pick him up.
For the first few days everything went very nicely, Randolph was lovely sociable boy and
once Iâ??d dropped him off Iâ??d go to the beach or watch TV.
In the evening sheâ??d sit at her desk editing my masterpiece.
I began to feel comfortable with the routine and we all got on very well. Randolph sort of adopted me as a surrogate father figure. He loved to introduce me to his friends when I picked up from school. One day on the beach he asked what the best thing that had ever happened to me in my life. I replied that I wasnâ??t too sure. He then told me that my going to live with them was the best thing in his life. Heavy stuff!
He used to go to bed with a pair of my socks â?? comfort socks!
Just when I thought I could handle the situation for a couple more months â?? the time she thought she needed to complete the project â?? The shadowy figure appeared at my bed asking me to reconsider my platonic stance regarding our relationship.
This scene was repeated at least once a week with the same result until it finally sank in that her precious cards and numerology predictions had been utterly wrong.
My spending three or four nights a week out of the house helped to confirm this.
I had met a blond housewife in the town with silicone implants and whose husband spent a lot of time travelling.
The editing nearly finished it was agreed that it would be best if I moved out. I found a room in a lovely flat in St. Kilda owned by an incredibly beautiful English teacher
Roweena McCracken â?? Pre-Raphaelite features surrounded by naturally curly dark red hair.
I unexpectedly fell in love.
I took my edited manuscript to Sydney and handed it to Susanâ??s friend the publisher.
Two days she told me that she had loved it and that she would be in touch.
I went back to Melbourne the happiest man on earth. I was living with the love of my life, and I was finally going to get my book published.
Three weeks passed with no news.
Very very nervous I called the editor in Sydney â?? She told me that due to a death in her family she wouldnâ??t be able to do anything with my book or any book for the foreseeable future.
I asked what she suggested I do â?? I couldnâ??t be waiting around indefinitely in Australia. She told me she didnâ??t know. I suspected that the rebuffed Heleneâ??s hand had been instrumental in this sudden change of circumstances. I had no proof of course. What comes around, goes around.

I was devastated â?? All that I had been through for nothing. My only compensation was to have found the woman of my dreams.
I lived with Roweena in a depressed state of uselessness for a few months more. I knew it couldnâ??t be forever -my money was running out and with only a couple of months to use my around the world plane tickets and the fact that I was to be my brotherâ??s Best man at his impending wedding made me take the decision to head home via Los Angeles and New York.
I made a pact with Roweena that on returning to London I would do a TEFL course to teach English as a foreign Language and that she would travel to London and together we would go to Spain. The plan being to learn Spanish and then travel together to South America.
Two months later and now in London having achieved my TEFL qualification, I called Roweena to see when she was coming. She told me that she wasnâ??t. She didnâ??t feel that the time was right to leave her life in Australia. Our relationship was over.
More devastation â?? My heart broken, I decided to go to Spain anyway and carry out our plan alone, arriving in Barcelona on the 5th of December 1990.
Once established as an English teacher in the Law Society and living with a marvellous Catalan women, Alicia (Weâ??ve been happily married for 12 years now) I embarked on another campaign of sending my now edited manuscript to agents and publishers in the UK.
After getting another dozen rejections from double â??barrelled names, I gave up. It was clear that the world and my book were destined to remain strangers for ever.
I concentrated on creating a relatively normal life, the main instigator of which was the birth of my son Bruno in 1994. The moment he was placed in my arms, I finally grew up.
I eventually became head of English Studies at the law society and in 1999 I started my own IT recruitment company.
We bought a lovely house on the mountain overlooking Barcelona and my life
fell into a relatively calm routine.( Not entirely true as in 2002 my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and for a couple of years, life was anything but calm â?? Thank god
the treatment seems to have been successful and today everything seems to be OK)
Until this year I had occasionally blown the dust off my manuscript only at the request of friends to read it.
However, the story of the book wouldnâ??t rest in peace. I got an email one day from a publisher in Florida saying that somebody had handed them the manuscript (a family friend had mentioned to me that he knew somebody in Florida that was a publisher a few months before and asked me if Iâ??d be interested in him taking it with him on holiday to give to them) and they wanted to offer me the chance to publish it â?? Paying of course. I thought why the hell not â?? at least after all these years, Iâ??d finally have my book published and on my shelf at home.
I went through the whole process; editing, proof reading, formatting and cover design in a few months and was finally sent the final proof in December 2005.
Having the finished copy shinning in my hands after all those years made me break down and cry.
Youâ??d think that that was the end of my book story, wouldnâ??t you? Well no.
Most self-published authors would conform to selling their 100 books or so to family and friends and be happy. I was fully prepared to join them but one day one a friend
told me of an English writer called Stephen Clarke who had written a book called
A Year in the Merd based on his experiences living in Paris. He, like me had published it himself and while flogging copies on the Champs Elysees , he got enough attention to merit an article in the London Metro newspaper.
He was soon picked up by a mainline publisher and sold about 145.000 books last year.
This information weighed heavily on my mind .Why not my book?
I got in touch with Stephen Clarke asking him for advice and he very kindly told me that my success depended wholly on getting some attention
That was all I needed and Iâ??ve spent the last 3 months trying to do just that.
Iâ??ve managed to get the book into two bookshops in North London and two more here in Barcelona Itâ??s available on Amazon.co.uk and through all Waterstoneâ??s Bookstores
in the UK. (Its not on the shelves, one has to order it) Iâ??ve been hounding every publication from FHM to Puppy Love Weekly trying to get a review or an article.
So far my most notable achievements have been to get an article in The Muswell Hill and Crouch End Times and on the 23rd of April, Saint Jordiâ??s Day, Iâ??ll be on the Ramblas in Barcelona on the BCN Booksâ?? stand signing books.
But above all, the sight of my book for sale 18 years later in Muswell Hill Bookshop on display next to Kafka has been the icing on the cake. Until now.

Hardtoswallow Reviewed by Hardtoswallow on 03-08-2006. Extraordinary story that desrves a look For those of you who have seen my threads, yes it's me again. I've been trying to get my book HARD TO SWALLOW (amazon.co.uk) into bookshops but as the subject of the book is smuggling cannabis, none of the double- barreled names responsable for fiction buying want to touch it. Here for your benefit is the story behind the book - I need your help to help me break the system - Read the book and spread the word - I can promise you you'll enjoy it " You are wasting your time" people tell me. Rating: 5

[sim667]

maybe find out who published howard marks books and send it to them?

[jonny]

That was an interesting read in itself, thanks.

And the howard marks books btw are published by Vintage, got em both ere

J

[Hardtoswallow]

Thanks guys - I've also read Howard Marks and I agree it'd be worth a try.