I am a dad of two - a boy and a girl - a husband, a shelf-putter-upper, toilet cleaner, driver, cook, fire lighter, sometime bill-of-chippenham and there was something I forgot... mmm... I write stuff.
In fact, I write for a living, mostly as a journalist specialising in science, technology and the business use of computers (see my publicity site) but actually I'd also like to get my novels published and spend at least part of my time earning a crust as a thriller writer.
It's not always been this way. As an engineering graduate I fully expected to enroll at acting school as a post-grad but simply didn't get round to it. A different calling - that of rock guitarist - got in the way until my, then, partner pointed out I wasn't actually making any money and was living off home-grown mushrooms and liquorice rizzlas.
There followed a mostly-dull career writing software and engaging in IT consultancy culminating in a few trips around the world, bumping into my future wife in a sleazy student bar in Newcastle and a mental crisis when I realised I'd hit my thirties without so much as publishing a limerick in the Maidenhead advertiser - home town btw.
And so I tore up the IT-guy CV and started writing about it instead, gradually encompassing other topics like kitchen taps, fast cars, methane burps and a whole lot of other stuff I've had the privilege to write about. Meanwhile I punt my three completed thrillers to anybody who'll stay sober long enough to listen. It's not as well paid as IT consultancy, or just about anything else, but feeding the soul is more important than filling the bank - or so my editors keep telling me!
If you're here and you're a writer, please get in touch via the comments. If you're an editor, please send me some commissions. If you're a publisher or an agent please get in touch with that three book deal you're just desperate to give away to an experienced writer with three commercial thrillers already written and a hat-full of ideas ready to go.
Remember me? It's been a while.
I'm a bona fide writer now with two published books under my belt. It's only small time with a little publisher but it's nice having the 'real thing' in your hand and getting e-mails from readers saying they enjoyed your book or you touched them in some way.
Not only that but I'm also an editor for my publisher - tend to do that more than writing actually. Getting lazy.
If you want to get in touch, you've got my e-mail/URL. Either way, still hoping to see you in print one day. :-) Jo
Posted by: Joanne Walpole | November 19, 2006 at 10:03 AM