I have one of Sean’s books beside me, ‘Long Time Gone’, the autobiography of David Crosby. It’s funny – when he lent it to me it was to give me an idea of what a really good music biography could be like, one which stood out from the usual album-tour-album pack. As he was my first publisher, I thought they might all be like that – helping new authors on, spotting non-mainstream potential and working closely to ensure everything could be as good as possible.

Having been around the block a few times since, I know that Sean was pretty unique in his capacity as caring publisher/editor – a hark back to a different era, in some ways. Perhaps because his first driver wasn’t commercial (though he made an economic success of Helter Skelter Publishing, to be sure), he cared mostly about getting the good stories out there. These days, as I have all-too-often been informed, this heart has largely gone out of the publishing industry: too much of it is about achieving the quick peak of sales, getting the TV promotional slots, benefiting from the craze of celebrity that seems to pervade every aspect of modern life.

Most of all, Sean was prepared to give something a shot. Not least, me – he took a bet with whether I could write about Marillion, it was him that convinced me to write about Rush (“What’s that – difficult second book syndrome?”). And of course, when Mike Oldfield called Helter Skelter and asked whether Sean knew anyone suitable to help him write his autobiography, wonderfully Sean put me in the frame – what a shame that, due partially to the onset of his leukemia, he never got to publish what he saw as a breakthrough opportunity.

Sean was a meticulous editor – it is only in hindsight that one can see his attention was already starting to waver, as we worked through the editorial process for Chemistry. Naturally gutted by his announced illness in December 2005, he spent the two and a half years that followed going in and out of hospital, all the while trying to get himself back to work. Perhaps he should have canned it all and looked after himself, but again, hindsight is a wonderfully convenient tool. Throughout the whole process I remained convinced that he’d pull through – he was a fighter and a triathlete, and not the sort of person not to get his way. But he didn’t, this time.

It was with rum pleasure that I saw Sean merited an obituary in the Guardian. He was one of those people who never asked for credit or fame, quietly looking to achieve his own goals. It was particularly sad in the last period that I found it difficult (though not impossible) to contact him because from the writer’s perspective I didn’t want to give him any extra hassle, though as a friend I was wanting to be around. But still, I see from others that he had some lovely people around him, which ultimately, is all any of us could ever hope for.

I remember a conversation with Sean, from when I would occasionally pop in to the book shop off Charing Cross Road, or when we’d go over to the Jazz Cafe at Foyles. We were talking about all that modern technology, and how it meant you could work anywhere in the world. “I quite fancy just taking off to an island,” he said, “I could run Helter Skelter from there, its just a case of being able to communicate and exchange documents and PDFs.” Sean, I see you sitting on a sun lounger sipping some gloriously colourful cocktail, overflowing with fruit and paraphenalia. And I raise my glass to you.

Lots of places. Including:

Twitter
Work Blog
Experimental blog
Book blog

There’s more – I may need to bump this post when I think of them.

Blogged with Flock

Its been a while. But I’m back. And there will be books. Lots of books.

Incidentally, this made me laugh – you mean, music reviewers don’t always listen to the whole thing? Shurely you can’t be sherioush

My Christmas present this year was a Nikon D40X camera – I’d sold all my film SLR equipment a few years previously, and I was just waiting for prices to drop, and pixels to rise to the point where it made sense. I’m not a photographer, but I do enjoy taking photos – how fortuitous that my good friend and neighbour Paul Atkinson used to run a branch of Jessops, is a seasoned pro, and also has a Nikon.

Paul took me out the other day to capture a few sunsets: the difference between what I would have taken (think:washed out and hazy) and what he showed me how to do, is quite astounding. I have the latter as my screen background now – it might not win any awards, but it’s got my dog in and it works for me.

I was being a bit slow this morning – in more ways than one, as Liz and I headed off on our morning run. So, of course, I was wearing tracksuit bottoms, and at the weekend I had bought a black windproof top with a hood, which I was sporting as we headed out of the village. We were jogging past one of the outposts of the Royal Agricultural College just as a carload of ruddy-faced students drove out. Winding down the window, one of them cried – in a friendly enough way I should add – “I assume you’re running!” I responded with in a suitably nondescript manner and we went our separate ways.

It was only ten minutes later when I realised the alternative – horror of horrors – was that I had actually chosen to be dressed like that. With some relief the rain hit and I managed to muddy myself up enough to justify my purchase. Oh well.

Never reconfigure your computer before Christmas, or you won’t post a blog until the third week in January. So goes the adage – and well, look, it’s true!

More to follow

I had a day off today. Well, kind of – it was one of those days where I actually got a lot of things done, largely because I’d told everyone I’d be taking it as a day off: my reason was that I had been invited to test out the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras.

I’m still not absolutely sure why I agreed to do it in the first place. Was it driven by my interest in all things new, or my curiosity to see a work in progress on the scale of a station? Was it purely the allure of a free ticket, or something more fundamental, a deep down, inexpressible yearning to spend more time with… trains? Whatever it was, I was in good company, as I found out looking at the motley collection of slightly flummoxed “passengers” that had assembled themselves at St Pancras for the day.

The drill was simple. Turn up with pre-issued tickets (sent in the post), and get on a certain train – as if going to Paris. Get off at Ebbsfleet 15 minutes away, forget quickly about Paris and pretend to be going from there. Find oneself at St Pancras again, forget Paris and check through the arrivals lounge (showing passports – I wonder what would happen if someone lost theirs, having never actually left the country). Check back in and get on a train to Paris. Five minutes later, have train stop and reverse back to St Pancras, requiring one to once again forget about Paris.

Apart from the obvious result that, by the end of it, I was quite hankering after the dirty chic of the Gallic capital, it was all a quite enjoyable affair. For myself I took the role of a “business traveller”, and true to form I also managed to simulate the characters of both “late arrival at terminal” and “apologetic queue jumper”. There was free coffee and tea, a pack lunch and – I am sure this won’t remain the case when the doors open – hordes of smiling security staff to help us through the X-ray checks.

One thing that did surprise me was just how much work there still seemed to be required. While the main concourses were largely sorted, there were swathes of cloth across many of the side-alleys, from which the usual sounds of drills and angle grinders could be heard. For the techies there was Wifi access (though the login wasn’t yet working), and a feature I particularly liked was a 50-yard-long counter with electric points at intervals, for laptops. Though of course, the sockets weren’t yet switched on.

What else? I’d love to be able to comment on signage, announcement quality and passenger facilities, like a good reviewer. Unfortunately however, it looked exactly like a train station, or more specifically, like the soon-to-be-closed Eurostar terminal at Waterloo – apart, that is, from the blank wall of red bricks that faces new arrivals (“Welcome to Britain. Here’s a blank wall, to help your first impressions.”). Most importantly, apart from a glitch at the end (when we were delayed as we tried to leave the platform on the final leg) everything functioned quite smoothly.

To conclude, while I’m still not absolutely sure why I went, I will probably look back on the experience with something approaching pleasure, and with my inner train spotter feeling appropriately nurtured. Peep peep!

Last week I had the good fortune to have lunch with Andrew James, whose father, Ron James has written a number of books about climbing. At the age of 73 he’s still outdoors, these days having hung up his karibiners and turned his attention to mountain biking, but still writing books about his passions. In the discussions it struck me that Ron had cracked what may be the golden rules of writing non-fiction for “the rest of us,” that is, people whose careers and lifestyles lie outside of the mainstream media.

So, what can we glean from Ron’s experiences?

1. Find a domain that has a community. There are plenty of interesting subjects to write about – but like the tree that falls in the forest when nobody is there, it is unclear whether such writings will ever have a readership. This is pure pragmatism – not necessarily commercial as we shall see, but it will only be the most devoted of authors that will write an entire book to reach only a handful of readers. The Internet can be a great help in this regard – message boards and forums are not only a source of information but also can give you a good idea of the scale of the audience. In Ron’s case he has stuck to outdoor sports – niche market perfection, with plenty of devoted followers.

2. Differentiate what you are writing about. It would be pointless to cover a topic in a way that has already been done – unless, in the past, it has been covered poorly. So if you’re writing a how-to guide look beyond the “First lessons in…” to more specific topics, building on the literature that’s already out there. But do be careful not to forget point 1 – you don’t want to end up too niche! For example, Ron’s current focus is mountain biking, to be sure - but for the over-60′s! Don’t be afraid to research the topic and find out what else has been written on it: indeed, it’s good practice to write a proposal, if for no other reason than to ensure you answer the questions a proposal demands – such as, for example, what differentiates this one? 

3. Make sure the benefits are broader than financial. A tough one, this. Its not that nobody gets rich and famous writing books, but more that it is highly improbable. A common fallacy – a bit like seeing someone on the telly and assuming they live in a big house somewhere, whereas the reality is that most actors are only as well off as the next job permits. So, if you’re writing, do so in a way that covers your costs and maybe makes a bit of cash; meanwhile however, ensure take into consideration the wider benefits - through sponsorship for example, or purely the fact that writing enables you to spend time covering a subject you love. Which brings me to…

4. Write about something that you love. There are surely plenty of areas that fit the above three criteria, but you’re only going to get old and resentful unless a certain part of what you do is for its own sake. Write not only because you love writing, but also because you love the subject that you’re writing about, be it music, fly fishing or industrial archaeology.

This last lesson is important. Ultimately, whatever you do, you need to be doing it for your own satisfaction, as well as for the potential readership. This will not only help you enjoy the (sometimes mind-numbing) process, but also result in an output of which you can be justly proud.

Six weeks ago I started reading a number of books, possibly a bit ambitiously I kicked all four off at once. This is no more than checking in as I haven’t yet finished them – but I am over half way. So far I have completed:

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion. Clearly in places a rant and not as well argued as expected in places, but a very enjoyable book and necessary reading for anyone who takes the topic of religion seriously, on either side of the divide.

I felt Mr Dawkins was like the man who finally had had enough of the sniping and negative speak, and in the end felt he had no choice but to say things as he really felt. As such, he made a few cutting remarks of his own – but having got these off his chest, presented the arguments against organised religion pretty well. There were a number of weaknesses – the Buddhists, Hindus and other non-Abrahamic religions got off pretty scot free, and the presentation of religiousness as 2-dimensional, i.e. there was a straight line between atheists and zealots depending on level of belief was, I thought, a bit simplistic.

Perhaps weakest of all was the explanation of the fact that there is no God primarily on the basis of probability. Of course God is highly improbable, but then so is the human race, the latter fact one which Mr Dawkins felt proved itself by the presence of thee and me. The fly in the ointment is perhaps the assumption that we can only judge by what we can measure, when of course at the same time we are woefully inadequate to to such a thing, both from our ill-equipped position at the periphery of some far-flung galaxy and also our fundamental, stupid humanity.

None of which proves there is a God either, but as spake the humanist prophet Douglas Adams, with proof, there is no need for faith. I do wonder about this one – specifically (and I would love Mr Dawkins’ feedback) that perhaps we have a genetic propensity towards such socio-psychological constructs. More specifically still, perhaps it is our drive towards higher planes of thinking that have in some way enabled us to evolve, to the point where we are now. Organised religion may have been the cause of much that is wrong, but what if it is a prime factor in our development as a race?

I don’t know the answer to this, but it is certainly worthy of investigation. Food for thought: would the Buddhists in Burma have taken on the government there, if they had no faith in their own higher powers? Does religion come from community, or community from religion? And indeed, have we really advanced so far in the past 10,000 years that we no longer need such a crutch? As I was walking the dog earlier I was considering the existence of “psychogenes” – perhaps these are as selfish as those concerned with our more physiological aspects (and if these are already well-established and under the scope, clearly I need to read more).

M. Scott Peck – The Road Less Travelled and Beyond. I was really looking forward to this as I got a great deal out of the original The Road Less Travelled, and to be sure there were some moments of clear insight in this book. Indeed, there was a point about a third of the way in where I thought how great it might be if Mr Peck and Mr Dawkins were in conversation together: one, whose science had proven there was no God, and the other, whose experiences in psychology had proven that there was.

Unfortunately, Mr Peck’s book was like a mirror on his own, fragile humanity. To say he had “lost it” towards the end is a bit strong but his arguments were blunted by his own desire to get closer to the higher truth, and to present it from a Christian standpoint (though he did bring in some teachings from other doctrines). It didn’t help either that I was well aware by the time I got half way about his own weaknesses, and while I was happy to reconcile that he could talk about his experiences as a psychotherapist without considering his own shortfalls, I wasn’t prepared to put up with him being too preachy.

In some ways Mr Peck came across like Icarus, having flown too close to the sun, or perhaps one of the architects of Babel, returning from the top but ill-equipped to articulate all he found there. Not long afterwards of course he was to die, all too young, of Parkinson’s disease, proving beyond doubt his thesis of death being the great leveller.

In conclusion, what both books  taught me was that we are all only human, and that there are some things that we can never prove for sure, one way or the other. This is perhaps less about God, and more about us… but still, it may just be the way things are supposed to be.

I’m now tackling Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown, and it is with no small sense of irony that I find myself drawn more towards this illusionist and iconoclast. You see, here’s the rub – I do happen to believe that we can be convinced of all sorts of things, good or bad, its one of the things that makes us human (and its a reason I could never subscribe to the Wisdom of Crowds).  We also love stories (as described in my other book on the go, The Seven Basic Plots) -  these are things that make us who we are. Equally no doubt, is the fact that we love to constantly revisit these arguments. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, with proof there could be no debate. And where would that leave us.

I was prompted to dig into the story behind the picture on my wall, when David Brain questioned whether it was real or photoshopped. The answer – very real – and the bloke in the lighthouse was lucky to get back inside in time!

Brings a whole new meaning to leaving the door ajar