That year I had an amazing mystical experience, and I wanted to write about that, about meditation, and about buddhism. And I wanted to develop the first person narrative style I'd used in Are You Boys Cyclists? What better than to write about going on a buddhist pilgrimage to Nepal, where the buddha was born, and India, where he attained enlightenment? But it didn't turn out like that!
When I finished the book, I sent it to every agent in the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook. No dice. Then I started sending it around the publishers until I reached the ones whose name began with E. Element Books. They said they wanted to publish it and asked for the usual bit of re-writing. Hurrah! But I was in the middle of writing In the Land of the Demon Masters and told Element I'd start doing the re-writes during my next summer holidays. After some correspondence with an editor at Element, I did the re-writes and after a wee while got a letter from them. I was a bit nervous when I got the letter, but strangely enough I wasn't too bothered when I opened it. It started: Dear John, I sorry to tell you .... there was a big stamp across it saying FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATOR. The publisher had gone belly up!!
Then I thought I had made a deal with a publisher in Glasgow last year after a friend of mine read it and liked it so much he wanted to sent it to them. I'm really not sure what happened there, but publishing is in such a ferment right now with the advent of ebooks .... anyway, it was very encouraging that someone else liked the book and it was a great night in the pub!
The Buddha And The Big Bad Wolf is a great title. People have told me it's funny. Yours on Kindle for only £1:71!
