The Book

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Mea culpa – it’s been too long since my last post here. My excuse is it’s been a frenetic time, with lots of professional and personal changes going on – and all for the better, I hasten to add. Still, I’m making it a New Year’s Resolution … Must Blog More!

One of the big developments is the upcoming publication by Lean Marketing Press of my book on the pros and cons of moving abroad. We’re still finalising some details, but it should be out in print in the next few weeks.

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Many years ago I read Peter Mayle’s classic A Year in Provence.

At the time I remember thinking ‘Blimey, that’s the life.’ Writing a few hours a day and then trailing around the French countryside the rest of the time.

Hardly a deep, or unique reaction I know. Everyone thought the same, which was why the book went on to sell so many copies and turned Peter Mayle into a rich and famous man.

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Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Bill Bryson … the list of successful authors who started their writing careers in journalism is a long and illustrious one.

Like so many other journalists, I too have been dreaming of that publishing deal that would set me on the road to literary fortune. In fact, my journalistic career was more happenstance than design, a by-product of my early book writing efforts, rather than the other way around.

The impulse to write has been with me since my exercise book-filled scribbles at infants’ school. But it wasn’t until a backpacking trip around Spain with my wife in 1997 that I took the all-important step, and committed to become a writer. And that means consistently putting pen to paper.

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