If I had a pound for every time someone had asked, “So, when are you going back to Corfu this year, Rick?” I’d probably have a tenner, maybe more. Due to one son graduating from Uni and the other starting, it’s extremely unlikely I will be going back to Corfu this year. This is not particularly good timing when I have a book about Corfu to sell!
However, I am teasing myself, in the most masochistic way possible, by regularly checking the best ‘live’ weather site, Weather Underground, to see just how warm it is in my favourite Ionian island. 22c in the shade today and this in May does make me ever-so-slightly jealous.
Book sales, since you ask, are doing very nicely thank you very much, topping the 200 mark. The odd dodgy internet review aside – and that’s okay because if people don’t like something they have paid for, I have no issue with them being critical – it’s doing better than I ever imagined possible. If things keep going like this, Corfu, not a scorcher will be my passport to early retirement from full time work. Oh hang on: I’ve already done that!
In my mind, I am going to Corfu in July, or maybe August. I’ll soon be at Bristol Airport, checking in then necking that first holiday pint before landing in my favourite place (the island, not the airport, in case you were wondering). I’ll be all set to grill under the Greek sun for a fortnight with nothing but a huge pile of paperbacks and gallons of Royal Ionian Pilsner to interrupt me. It’s going to register soon, very soon hopefully, that I’ll be spending this summer in Good Old Blighty in the hottest summer since 1976! Yeah, right.
I know that my book is far from perfect. It was a huge learning curve which, I believe, will hold me in good stead for the follow up. The nicest thing people have said to me is that they could almost imagine me saying the words. Now, for someone who loves to read anything by Bill Bryson, Clive James and Martin Kelner, this is probably the ultimate compliment. James has the most lyrical, expressive voice imaginable and reading much of his work is like having him with you. If I can get within a million miles of Clive James – and I know I am currently nowhere near him – I will be one happy man.
There is only one thing a writer can do and that is to write more than ever. There’s a follow-up book coming hopefully by the middle of 2017, I am hoping to get a gig at a certain football club and with a local on and off line weekly newspaper which is available at all times (geddit?) and there’s this blog to keep me busy in whatever spare time remains.
Occupation – writer. That’s what I am going to say from now on. Describing the writing as an occupation is not strictly true since that would suggest I earn my living from it, but what the hell?
Corfu, not a scorcher is not the end of the road, it’s just the start. Prepare yourselves for more. You know it makes sense.
