Bolt Action
Page 38
The process of getting a book printed has never been easier thanks to self-publishing and the encouragement, hand-holding and advice available everywhere from college courses to the internet. Yet it also has never been harder. Harder still if, when you started, you were truly awful, as I was. One agent who saw my first completed manuscript said, You Write Like You Have Never Read a Book in Your Life. Then click, no advice, nothing, just conversation over.
From rejection after rejection to, lo and behold, publication is a grinding study in loneliness, and putting one foot in front of the other again and again, until you get somewhere. That this book was published is because of three crucial people who sustained me.
Jo Frank was the person who saw my writing at its very worst and, yet, was able to carrot-and-stick me in such a skilful way that I wanted nothing more than to write and write some more, and prove everybody wrong. She has no equal like that. Patrick Janson-Smith was an enormous and reassuring ally, somebody who left the High Court after testifying in the Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code case to call me, me!, to say he loved my work and was 100 percent convinced I had what it took. Crikey. Me? And finally, the irrepressible Charlie Viney, who never stopped believing. He took a manuscript completed just as the world was tipping into global financial chaos and emerged triumphant with a deal from a publishing industry that otherwise was cutting, trimming, axing and sacking right across the board. He laughs at impossible odds.
At Hodder, this book has been the subject of the most excellent care and nurturing encouragement from Nick Sayers and Anne Clarke. They pointed out a lot of obvious ways to make the book better, which I should have thought of, but didn’t, and several that weren’t obvious at all, but had just the same effect. And it has been Kerry Hood, the best in her business, who has taken on the hardest job of all for an unpublished author: Getting Out The Good Word.
There were many people who contributed to Bolt Action but the most constant source of advice and comment was Jimmy Hurley, for whom Ward 13 was an actual stopping off point, at one time. For the avoidance of doubt, he is not Tristie Merritt, but he could be any one of the other members of her team, except that he gets hay fever, doesn’t like jungles, isn’t very happy with heights etc. etc.
Several people have also happily offered answers to gormless technical queries of mine but asked that I not reveal their names. Others who were of the greatest possible assistance include, in Fiji, Jimmy Samson, Jamie O’Donnell and Sharon Ferrier-Watson of Air Pacific, Dick and Kelera Watling, Dominic Sansom of Samba and, of course, Mere Samisoni, John, Selina, Philip, Ili and Alisi; in the UK and elsewhere, Ben B., Dr Chris Jones, Chris Roberts, John Wright and Ben Herter. I would love to pretend that any mistakes were their fault, but that would not be true and I alone carry the can.
Spare a thought too for Jules Bromley who has read all of my scripts (or at least pretended to) for the last five years, and to my fellow Arvon Foundation students from that one-week course in 2006, and Cath Staincliffe and David Armstrong too, plus Andrew and Sarah Clark, George Manners, Mark Fenhalls, Jon Higton, James Evans and Charlie Ponsonby – who have been great allies along the road.
Finally, there is no way on earth that this incredible journey could have started – let alone concluded – without the support, love and encouragement of my wife Vanessa who has backed me to the hilt and more, having seen something in me that, Lord only knows, remains a mystery even to this day. As to my wonderful children, (tip of the hat to PGW) without the never-failing sympathy and encouragement of Jack, Coco, Leila and Lucky, this book would have been finished in half the time. But it is for them that I write, and it is their dreams that make me want to go to work each morning.
Malton
North Yorkshire
March 2010
Born in London and raised in Fiji, Charlie Charters spent his working life based in Hong Kong and now lives near Malton, North Yorkshire. He had an early desire to become a writer but he did very little about this until turning forty, by which time he had worked, variously, as a racing tipster, war reporter, radio DJ, award-winning TV producer and presenter. He was the youngest ever senior vice president of the legendary sports marketing company ISL, whose collapse in 2001 was the second biggest corporate failure in Switzerland’s history and nearly bankrupted FIFA. Clearly, that couldn’t have been his fault. In 2004, he helped launch the British Lions-styled Pacific Islanders rugby team, featuring the best players from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. He is married with four children and a Labrador that likes to watch the news. You can visit his website at www.charliecharters.com
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Charlie Charters
ISBN 978-1-4976-4067-2
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