admin – Jimmy Thomson

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Anyway, I thought it was time to bring my website up to date. After all, since I last posted anything significant on here, I have had two more books published and acquired a degree.

I have fallen in love with Vietnam and I am planning to lead a couple of tours there – one will be tightly related to Tunnel Rats and A Sappers War (my books with Sandy MacGregor) and the other will be much more about Vietnam as it is now. Â You can read about them HERE.

Somewhere along the line, I have become an ‘expert’ on apartment living – if the definition of expert is that I know where to find out the stuff that other people don’t know. Â The Sydney Morning Herald Flat Chat column is now has a Melbourne edition (the laws are very different so the columns usually are too) and I have started getting invitations to speak at conferences, which is cool as it scratches the itch that might otherwise have me foolishly try to do an open mike night at a stand-up club.

You’ll find the new, enhanced website hereÂ Â http://www.flat-chat.com.au. That’sÂ the place to be if you want to find the most recent examples of my trouble-making and attempts at problem solving in the area of strata living. After a blistering first year when I was getting about 1000 Â readers a day, it has settled down to a sensible 5-600, although it peaked one day when I had a story in the Herald’s online pages read by 123,000 people and at one point 518 peopleÂ were all,Â Â at the same time,Â reading the follow-up on my little website. What was the story? Whether ot not it was illegal to photograph someone’s illegally parked car. Â Don’t ask!

Oh, and I finally acquired a university degree – an MA in writing from the Open University and Swinbourne in Melbourne. Â So I can now legitimately lecture about writing, as I occasionally do, to students who are less well qualified than I am. And, as part of my final submission, I wrote the first 20,000 words of a crime novel that I desperately want to finish but which has lain untouched ever since.

Time moves on so quickly. The kittens (below) who appeared the last time I revamped the website are now cats – one of them a ginger monster. And I have discovered a new desire – the desire to have done something (rather than wanting to actually do it). I’m calling it my Empty Bucket list. Â I would like to have run the City to Surf, I would like to have parachuted from an aeroplane and run for parliament. Â I have no desire to do any of these things in the future, I just think it would be cool if I had in the past.

And on that note, I wish I had started fixing up this website two years ago when those kittens were just fluffy little balls of fur.

Mac and Pepper at about 8 weeks

Â Jimmy Thomson, December 2013

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/all-about-me/feed/ 0 TRAVEL https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/travel-2/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/travel-2/#respond Wed, 06 Sep 2023 14:50:31 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=1085

Considering I hadn’t set foot on an aeroplane before I was 30, I have more than made up for it, racking up the air miles since.

As a traveller, travel writer and a travel guide, in the intervening decades I’ve been collecting passport stamps from Mexico to the Marquesas, including, especially, Vietnam.

You’ll find links to many of my adventures HERE.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/travel-2/feed/ 0 What’s in a Name https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/whats-in-a-name/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/whats-in-a-name/#respond Sat, 19 Aug 2023 02:31:05 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=1071 These days a lot of people talk about creating a “brand. Which is fine except the downside is that you may also be building a pigeon-hole – a little box that people find easy to put you in (if you’re lucky).

As Jimmy Thomson, my brand is, it seems, to become known as a writer and occasional broadcaster about apartment living. I worked hard at that, among other things, for many years.

However, I have a completely separate life as a creative writer – 16 books and three TV series – and the apartment gig muddies the waters.

Case in point: A few years ago I co-wrote and co-created (with the late, great Tony Morphett) the ABC TV drama Rain Shadow, starring Rachel Ward. A sometime later I bumped into her and her actor husband Bryan Brown in a restaurant in the Rocks in Sydney.

Ms Ward, it turned out, didn’t know me from a bar of soap but Mr Brown said: “Are you that bloke who goes on the radio and talks about apartments?” Guilty as charged.

So what do people think when they see my name and maybe even recognise it on the cover of a crime novel. When I see a familiar name attached to something outside its owner’s usual area of interest – like a boxer writing a kids book, for instance – my instinctive response is “get back in your box!”

So I’m changing my name for my more serious crime novels. It’s a long-standing literary tradition. Did you know that Julian Barnes wrote quirky detective novels under the name Dan Kavanagh? And Agatha Christie wrote romance novels under the pen name Mary Westmacott.

Stephen King used the pen name Richard Bachman for several of his early works, such as “Rage” and “The Running Man,” allowing him to publish more books without oversaturating the market under his own name.

Now, to be fair, if I was as talented as any of the above, I would not be writing my own website entries. But please welcome James Dunbar (my first two real names). Mole Creek, my first serious crime novel under that name was released on August 1, is already selling well, and you order it by clicking on this link.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/whats-in-a-name/feed/ 0 APARTMENT LIVING: Highs and lows https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/apartment-living-highs-and-lows/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/apartment-living-highs-and-lows/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2018 21:27:18 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=993 About 15 years ago my partner Sue and I bought a new apartment off the plan

and had a truly hellish time with corrupt committee members, self-serving building managers, incompetent strata managers, rapacious developers, mendacious attack-dog lawyers and neighbours who refused to help but then were quick to point the finger when things went wrong.

Our saving grace was that we are both authors and journalists and we decided to write a book about it to warn other people about the pitfalls.

That was Apartment Living which was published by ABC books. From it came my weekly Flat Chat column, first in the Sydney Morning Herald, now in the Australian Financial Review, which has now been going for 15 years, and from that came the Flat Chat website which offers advice and empathy to the tens of thousands of others who are struggling with the new realities of strata living.

I also turn up once a month on the James Valentine show on ABC radio 702 to talk about apartments and answer questions Title screen shot from listeners and I frequently get asked to speak at conferences and seminars.

If you were wondering, that’s why this website is called The Accidental Guru. I never set out to be an expert on strata living but, hey, if no one else was going to do it, it might as well be me.

In 2014 Sue and I launched a magazine called Title, promoting the positive aspects of apartment living. The website www.titlemagazine.com.au is still going strong although the realities of the print market, the vagaries of advertising and the cost of distribution have overwhelmed its physical incarnation.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/apartment-living-highs-and-lows/feed/ 1 TV: A drama every day https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/tv-a-drama-every-day/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/tv-a-drama-every-day/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2018 21:04:48 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=990 rainshadow

Nearly 20 years ago, when I was a struggling sitcom writer, someone at Channel 7 told me that a new production company called Screentime was looking for an afternoon teen soap.

My then co-writer Steve recalls that by the time I had driven from Epping (Sydney) to the city centre for coffee, I had nutted out a proposal for series that would eventually be called Breakers and run to about 400 episodes.

Screentime meanwhile went on to become one of the major players in Australian TV .

After that I created Crash Palace for Fox and Sky (UK) and co-created (with Tony Morphett) Rain Shadow for the ABC .

In between times, following my philosophy of never turning down a paying gig, I wrote for some weird and not-so-wonderful TV shows.

You can find out more about my TV career HERE.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/tv-a-drama-every-day/feed/ 4 TRAVEL: Are we there yet? https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/travel-are-we-there-yet/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/travel-are-we-there-yet/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2018 21:00:29 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=987 Considering I hadn’t set foot on an aeroplane before I was 30, it’s remarkable that in the intervening decades I have begun to enjoy travel for its own sake.

My partner Sue is even more of a travel addict so we tend to clock up the air miles whenever we can. Our philosophies, however, take us in different directions. When we have been somewhere we like, I want to go back, she wants to find somewhere new.

Being writers, of course, we write about these places and have been published in the travel pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Sun-Herald, the Australian Financial Review, the Australian and too many magazines to mention.

For the past few years I have been a guest lecturer in travel writing at Boston University’s Sydney campus, introducing young American students to the joys of writing about something you love … and, if you’re lucky, getting paid for it.

Meanwhile, I have become a bit of a Vietnam addict and have even started leading tours there. All of which has led to the creation of my website www.mildrover.com where you can find stories and pictures from some of the places I have been. There are also details of my next tour of Vietnam, for readers and writers, in October 2016.

You will find most of my travel stuff by clicking on MildRover.com but there
are still a few pieces HERE. You can read more about Sue on her website.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/travel-are-we-there-yet/feed/ 2 BOOKS: A long and winding road https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/books-a-long-and-winding-road/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/books-a-long-and-winding-road/#respond Sat, 10 Nov 2018 20:56:44 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=983

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.

At time of writing (July 2023) I have written 18 books and had 17 of them published, with Mole Creek, due out on August 1, on Echo Books.

Prior to that, in 2018, Affirm Press published Tunnel Vision, the second of my Danny Clay trilogy – 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.

Writing Tunnel Vision was interesting because the previous novel, Perfect Criminals, 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All the time, I was writing and as a result, Tunnel Vision 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. Click here if you want to buy it online from Abbey’s Books.

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

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! So that’s what I was trying to do.

A reviewer in the Sydney Morning Herald 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.”

You can judge for yourself by buying a print copy (if you can still find one) or ebook here in Australia or on Amazon elsewhere.

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), and one true crime book which turned out to be too true for someone’s comfort.

There are also two illustrated children’s books, a book about apartment living and another about buying and selling real estate, and two self-help/inspirational books that I wrote 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).

The 17^th book – the unpublishable rather than unpublished one – was my first attempt at a novel about 25 years ago. I gave up after my first rejection slip. I am a bit more tenacious these days.

The new book, Mole Creek, had 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.

You can find out more about all previously published books by going to this page and clicking on the links.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/books-a-long-and-winding-road/feed/ 0 Great reviews for Perfect Criminals https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/great-reviews-for-perfect-criminals/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/great-reviews-for-perfect-criminals/#respond Fri, 11 May 2018 08:34:28 +0000 https://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=958 Blah blah blah

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/great-reviews-for-perfect-criminals/feed/ 0 Vietnam Romance and Intrigue https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/vietnam-then-and-now-2/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/vietnam-then-and-now-2/#comments Sun, 26 Jun 2016 23:02:57 +0000 http://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=816 Ever since I led my first tour to Vietnam I have had this sneaking sense of unease. I don’t at all understand why the Australian government so willingly joined America’s war in Vietnam but I do get why Australian troops went there, especially the ‘Nashos” (National Servicemen).

Britain decided not to get involved (we had a Labour government at the time) but since we Brits had basically created the bloody mess by handing the country back to the French, rather than the Vietnamese, at the end of World War II, our hands aren’t exactly unbloodied.

Another thing that intrigues me is why so many Vietnamese (especially in the south) are so welcoming of Australian tourists. But I suppose a story told by someone I met on my second visit kind of sums it up. His father and Grandfather had fought on opposite sides in the “American War”. When the south fell to the Viet Cong, the father was evacuated out, leaving his family, and given a new life in the USA.

Years later, the father came back to Saigon and the grandfather came south from Hanoi to see his son again. It was a meeting they both longed for and dreaded. But then the grandfather said: “We both fought for what we believed in and that’s all that matters.”

My next tour, Vietnam Romance and Intrigue, will try to see beyond the battlefields and bravado. Sure we’ll see the tunnels at Cu Chi – we know their story better than most – but we’ll also visit families in Saigon and Hanoi to find out how they are living now.

Mainly we’ll be following inthe footsteps of Graham Greene and his novel The Quiet American, visiting the locations in the book as well as the 2001 Phil Noyce directed Michael Caine move, and soaking up the splendours of Ha Long Bay as deepicted so spectaculalrly in the 1992 film Indochine (starring Catherine Deneuve) .

It’s a varied itinerary and you can find out more by clicking HERE.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/vietnam-then-and-now-2/feed/ 2 Vietnam Romance and Intrigue https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/vietnam-then-and-now/ https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/vietnam-then-and-now/#comments Sun, 26 Jun 2016 23:02:57 +0000 http://www.jimmythomson.com/?p=816 Ever since I led my first tour to Vietnam I have had this sneaking sense of unease. I don’t at all understand why the Australian government so willingly joined America’s war in Vietnam but I do get why Australian troops went there, especially the ‘Nashos” (National Servicemen).

It’s a varied itinerary and you can find out more by clicking HERE.

]]> https://dev.hux9.org/jimmythomson/vietnam-then-and-now/feed/ 2

You can find out more about my TV career HERE.

You will find most of my travel stuff by clicking on MildRover.com but there are still a few pieces HERE. You can read more about Sue on her website.

You will find most of my travel stuff by clicking on MildRover.com but there
are still a few pieces HERE. You can read more about Sue on her website.