Where there's a will.

My first book was written whilst sitting on the toilet in a factory that employed me to sweep floors, so you can imagine the fun I have when people comment - on finding out that I am a writer - 'off course I'd love to write a book but I haven't got the time'. Invariably their faces scrunch into question marks when I ask 'is there a toilet where you work?'

Not that I recommend the loo as a the healthiest environment to write your latest master-piece off course, far from it, infact after six months of sitting on the throne I now suffer loss of feeling in my lower legs and a permanent red ring around my bum. No, rather I am making the point that if you have the will you'll always find a way, but if you haven't or you harbour any doubts or fears then lack of time will always be a convenient excuse not to live your dreams. When I wrote my first book I was doing two jobs and bringing up a family. I wanted desperately to write a book, I was fully committed to writing it and, hey voila! I found the time. But by the same count whenever I failed to fully commit my self to a goal - and there were many such occasions - and when I did not place my heart in the driving seat 'time' was not forthcoming and the vehicle refused to move.

The next convenient excuse (believe me I have used them all) that people lean towards is lack of facility (do you have a toilet where you work?) Granted at some point in your development tools and facilities will be important, and lack of them can hold you back, but that's no excuse for not starting out, and certainly no pretext for not succeeding. Many a thriving, multi-million (even multi-billion) £ business was started from a rickety garden shed held together by chunks of work ethic and a set of hand-me-down, elbow greased tools. A great proportion of successful entrepreneurs build their conglomerates out of cottage industry. Many godzillionaires make (and made) their fortunes not only despite their handicaps but also because of them. Richard Branson's first office was a public pone booth. He had no facilities and no money, but he had a centripetal want (and bollocks the size of coconuts) that attracted success and convinced bank managers to hand over the readies without a security or reference in sight.

Do you realise how many genius ideas are lost when the moment is not seized, and how many are stolen while people stand in the shadow of trepidation? For instance it is thought that some of the greatest writers of each generation never see their name in print and are never published? And it's not because prospective publishers turn down their work, rather it is because the authors never send their work off. Or even worse they never actually write it in the first place.

All my early work was hand written and in severe conditions that did not lend them selves to my quest. Until I could afford a word processor (later a computer) my working tools consisted of one blue biro (with perfunctory chewed top) and a lined, ring-bound reporter's pad kindly donated by the factory stores. I had no 'Time' machine with fail-safe grammar and spell check - unless you count my wife who kept saying things like 'you've spelt that wrong' - and no meaty commission-carrot tempting the words from my often uncooperative unconscious. My only incentive - and my driving force - was the dread of having to work in the factory for the rest of my life. In fact the only thing I did have that set me ahead of the crowd was desire. Whilst I may have lacked the contemporary tools of the scribe and my writing quarters were certainly not ideal (one might say that they were piss- poor) I did desperately want to write; and my want was always greater than my lack. Once you have desire and you totally commit yourself to the process it is almost as though the whole universe conspires to make it happen. Those that don't make the commitment rarely if ever make the grade. And I know how hard it can be, I am sympathetic to family and work commitments, I brought up four children so I know all about responsibility, but as I said - and forgive the reiteration - time is very malleable, it can be stretched, it accommodates committed souls, those searching for the grail of achievement. Paradoxically time can be cruel; it will be gone forever, never to be seen again, if we fail to use it profitably. We immortalise time by investing every second, minute and hour it in the present.

And I figure that when it comes to using our time we would be wise to recognise that we are all alloted the same amount - Branson and Gates only get 24 hours a day - it is what we do with our time that determines where our lives may lead. For me it means getting up early and going to bed late, it also means sacrificing some of the little things that act as time-eating termites. But above all it means refraining from the time honoured excuse 'I haven't got time' because you have. Really! In my experience 'haven't got the time' is just a pseudonym for 'haven't got the will'. You'll always fit in more if 'more' is preceded by a no-excuses personal commitment to make it happen. If you want something enough and I mean really want it with your heart and soul nothing will stop you, nothing will get in your way - even mountains will tremble into molehills.

You don't have to look far to see the people that don't make that commitment. They're the ones sitting in the factory canteen bemoaning their existence and blaming the world for their lack - I was once one of them. Now I make a commitment, and for many reasons, not least because I refuse to be a 90-something coffin-dodger without a Laurel to rest upon, spending my days regretting the things that I failed to do.

If I thought writing the book was hard I was in for a shock when I tried to get a publisher interested in taking it from factory-floor to the shop-shelf.

With absolutely no idea about how to present work to a prospective publisher my bundle of ill prepared pages did more to knock coffee cups of tables and frighten delicate commissioning editors than it did to inspire a royalty advance or even a sympathetic read.
Not surprisingly I received nothing but standard refusal letters and 'don't call us we'll call you' type rebuttals. The more polite of the bunch said 'thanks but no thanks' others, less receptive to my work, cut right to the chase and said 'leave your number in the bin'. It was pretty disheartening.

I was persistent if nothing lese and sent my work everywhere; standard refusals flooded my welcome mat and, at one point (I swear) rejection letters were outnumbering sent manuscripts.

After the umpteenth knock-back I threw my work in the bin and swore never to send it out again. My wife, beautiful little thing that she is, fished it back out and insisted I keep sending it until someone said 'yes' (which she was sure they would). So off it went again…and back it came again. Each time it came in we gave it a new envelope and stamps and sent it back out.
After many refusals Sharon suggested I ring to see if they were actually interested in the premise of my work before I wrapped my life in manila and sent it off to the raping fingers of some literary monster. Summerdale was one of the many names in the 'Small Publishers' section of the Writers Yearbook; it was the first one I rang. Stewart Ferris, the co-owner, listened to my hurriedly oral synopsis and said that (in theory at least) he'd be interested. So off it went.

I was back to letterbox watching and disappointments when the postman didn't call.

Periodically, while I waited, I would read over the manuscript and, according to my mood, would both like and loath what I had written. Weeks went by. By day I was still in the factory, hiding from the foremen and occasionally pushing-the-brush. At the weekends I worked as a bouncer where the pen was definitely not mightier that the sword.

Every morning I listened for the heavy clump of Royal Mail boots on my doorstep. Then one sunny morning, it arrived. I heard the familiar plop of post on mat and rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping over my feet, in the rush. The first good news was that there were no parcel bearing 'you've been rejected again' tidings.

Parcels - as far as writers sending manuscripts are concerned - are a metaphoric boot in the bollocks. An early morning package with the immortal words 'no chance' hidden somewhere inside a very impersonal rebuttal are enough to kill the day deader than Darwin, often even the week, and for some of the more sensitive writers out there a whole career. Parcels from publishers simply do not mess about; there is no preamble; no blue letter then red-letter building you up to the inevitable rejection. No consideration for the writer's esteem or sensitivity just Bang! Right in the knackers, 'you can piss off 'cus you're not good enough'. 'No!' That's what a parcel says. It's so final. Don't you think? Final? It is so absolute. And such a disappointment too. You send your work off and think 'maybe this'll be the one'. Then it comes back, sometimes after months, and all it says is no! You'd think they might build you up to it a little, pyramid the refusal in some way, layer the let-down, perhaps start the letter off with a polite 'listen, we know you're trying really hard, and some of your stuff's not at all bad but ('no'). Small case and in brackets please. It would definitely help.

Parcels? They mean that the publishers have sent your manuscript back and it is enclosed, often in the very envelope you sent it in (sometimes they even enclose a bill for the postage) and even more often unread (you can tell believe me). But letters, now then, that is a horse of a very different colour. Letters say, yes, yes (or maybe)!

There was a letter from Summerdale this particular morning and my expectations bounced off the light fittings.

When you get a letter the day is suddenly grand and the world a lovely place in which to live (and your gonads are safe for another day). A letter means that you are in with a fighting chance.

I rushed to open it but then, in trepidation - actually it was closer to unadulterated fear - I hesitated. Holding my bollocks with one hand (just in case) and the letter in the other I rushed to the loo where I sat silently praying that the literary equivalent of 'get a proper job you spoon' was not emblazoned across the front of the page; an epitaph to the death of a manuscript.

Ironically I was reading the acceptance letter for my first book in the very same place that I wrote it, a toilet.

I nearly woke the whole neighbourhood when I ran back up stairs to tell Sharon the good news. I spoke in rushed and excited tones as I took off my underpants to change - I wanted to get the other chapters in the post box-post-haste. As I stepped out of my boxers my big toe caught on the waistband and I tumbled, not for the first time, arse over tit into the bedside cabinet. The lamp went one way and the last night's wine glasses the other. In my bid to save face and prevent a heavy landing I grabbed the duvet as I fell, inadvertently pulling the bed cloths off to reveal a semi-naked Sharon in the smallest white pants you've ever seen. Well, a man would be a fool not to take advantage. Five minutes later, when Sharon stopped laughing (at me falling over not at the very fast sex) she gave me a big congratulatory hug.

We celebrated my first day as a proper writer in style.

Not to be recommended however, I now suffer loss of feeling in my legs and a permanent red ring around my bum.