/***//***/{"id":983,"date":"2018-11-10T16:56:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T20:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jimmythomson.com\/?p=983"},"modified":"2018-11-10T16:56:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T20:56:44","slug":"books-a-long-and-winding-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dev.hux9.org\/jimmythomson\/books-a-long-and-winding-road\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOKS: A long and winding road"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"\"$ I was 14 years old when I read my first work of grown-up $\"\"$ fiction (Leslie Thomas’ The Virgin Soldiers) and decided that was what I wanted to do with my life. It only took 50 years to achieve that ambition of writing (hopefully) entertaining novels, although I’ve written a stack of other books in between.<\/p>\n

At time of writing (July 2023) I have written 18 books and had 17 of them published, with Mole Creek<\/em>, due out on August 1, on Echo Books.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Prior to that, in 2018, Affirm Press published Tunnel Vision<\/em>, the second of my Danny Clay trilogy\u00a0 – hey, I can dream! By the way, I write all this not to boast, but to encourage other writers to keep going, even when the odds seem stacked against them.<\/p>\n

Writing Tunnel Vision<\/em> was interesting because the previous novel, Perfect Criminals<\/em>, had taken about three years to write, on and off (mostly off). It had begun as an idea which I then used for the 20,000 word submission that got me my MA (Writing).<\/p>\n

Having written 25 per cent of the number of words required for an average commercial novel, I decided to keep going but when it was finished, the search for a publisher was so frustrating that I briefly had it up on Amazon as a “Publish on Demand” and ebook publication.<\/p>\n

However, just when I was ready to give up, Affirm Press came along and I had a two-book deal for not very much money. But I had a deal.<\/p>\n

More importantly, I had a strong idea for where I wanted to take these characters and I knew how to pace the book so I wouldn’t have to cut 13,000 words out, as I did with the first one.<\/p>\n

Having decided to set it in Saigon, I realised that, although I know the city pretty well, I needed to spend some time there being neither a tourist nor a tour guide – both of which I have done a lot.<\/p>\n

So I spent two weeks just scuffing around Saigon, doing the occasional tourist trips – like street food tours on the back of motorbikes – while visiting parts of the city that Westerners are advised to avoid.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

All the time, I was writing and as a result, Tunnel Vision<\/em> took only three or four months to finish and it benefited greatly from that sense of immediacy and urgency (I think). Anyway, it’s a better book and I hope you get the chance to read and enjoy it.\u00a0 Click here<\/a><\/em><\/strong> if you want to buy it online from Abbey’s Books.<\/p>\n

Its predecessor, Perfect Criminals<\/em>, is a crazy romp through television and crime by my hero Danny Clay, a former army engineer turned scriptwriter.\u00a0 I tell people both books are written in the style of Carl Hiaasen. I know, I should be half as talented.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it was something I didn’t even realise I was doing until I rewarded myself for finishing the book by reading his latest novel. Aha! \u00a0So\u00a0that’s<\/em>\u00a0what I was trying to do.<\/p>\n

A reviewer in the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> said Perfect Criminals was “punchily written, packed with hard-boiled humour [and] a ride into the underbelly of the entertainment industry.” Another review in the Melbourne Herald-Sun said “an action-packed and hilarious crime caper, navigating its way through the dark side of the entertainment industry here and abroad.”<\/p>\n

You can judge for yourself by buying a print copy (if you can still find one) or ebook here in Australia\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0or on Amazon<\/a> elsewhere.<\/p>\n

My previously published books include two sporting biographies, two books about sappers (Army engineers) in Vietnam, one about sappers in Afghanistan, one memoir about my co-writer Sandy MacGregor (who introduced me to the sapper stories), \u00a0and one true crime book which turned out to be too true for someone\u2019s comfort.<\/p>\n

There are also two illustrated children\u2019s books, a book about apartment living and another about $\"\"$ buying and selling real estate, and two self-help\/inspirational books that I\u00a0wrote for my former agent (and from which I have been edging away for years, on the grounds that I am the least qualified person I know to give anyone life advice).<\/p>\n

The 17^{th<\/sup> book – the unpublishable rather than unpublished one – was my first attempt at a novel about 25 years ago.\u00a0 I gave up after my first rejection slip. I am a bit more tenacious these days.<\/p>\n}

The new book, Mole Creek,<\/em>\u00a0had a much longer gestation than the other books and started life as a sprawling political novel set in the USA. It was only when I realised that the “McGuffin”, the device that motivated the plot, was actually what the book was all about, and I cut it back by about 50 percent and relocated it to Tasmania, that I got it published.<\/p>\n

You can find out more about all previously published books by going to this page<\/a> and clicking on the links.<\/p>\n

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