I never expected that writing a couple of books would change my life, but we all make mistakes.
I mean,
don't get me wrong: I'm not yet
battering away seething ranks of cheque-waving publishing executives. Nor, thus
far at least, has any financial planning consultant come to me with the earnest
advice that I should give up the day job
and devote the rest of my life to penning comic novels from a beach bar in the
Caribbean. Those kinds of fondly imagined developments will have to wait a
little longer.
What has changed is my view of other writers
and what, for the purposes of finding a suitably interesting title for this
post, I shall call the kindness of strangers.