At the Gate of the Year

A lovely Christmas present from my friend Anna and her husband Will -
a wooden version of Stuart Manning and Andrew Orton's cover for The Long Game

I’m not generally given to gloomy introspection – well, no more or less so than the average person, I suspect. Of course, every so often I’ll have one of those long, dark evenings of “What’s the point? What am I doing? Why am I doing it?” and all that. But on the whole, I amble along in life as best I can, and perfectly happily.

But when it comes to New Year’s Eve, I do often find it to be a fairly bleak occasion, at least in the last little bit running up to midnight. Due to its very nature, it lends itself all-too-readily to looking back not just over the past year, but taking stock of your existence as a whole, and being drawn to the inevitable question: “Have I wasted my life…?” So, even though the New Year’s Eve gloominess always fades away with the festivities and is gone by morning, it’s worth taking the opportunity to look back, and to celebrate some good and positive achievements from the year.

In basic terms I have not, it’s true, achieved my grand ambition in 2021. I am not a published novelist, nor am I anywhere near to being any closer to achieving that aim. I wrote very little fiction in 2021, and nothing that would ever be submittable for publication in any way, shape or form.

This does not, on the whole, mark the year out from most of the others through which I have lived.

On the other hand, however, writing-wise, this has unquestionably been by far and away the most successful – and to be mercenary about it, certainly the most profitable – year of my life and ‘writing career’ (hah!) to date. I had a book published – a non-fiction book, but still a book, and one of which I am very proud. A lot of people have bought and enjoyed it. Even this week, even today, I’ve still been receiving lovely messages from readers of The Long Game. And yesterday AJ Black put up a very nice piece, and an interview with me for those who’d like to know a bit more about the writing of the book, on his website.

I wrote pieces for the BBC website, and for Doctor Who Magazine again after a few years’ break. I wrote for the Eastern Daily Press when my Nexus documentary was broadcast – a documentary which gained a huge amount of national media coverage, and got me a piece on the Today programme on Radio 4. That documentary is still creating opportunities, too; there should hopefully be some more exciting news to share about that very soon.

I do sometimes, in those occasional gloomy and introspective moments whenever they do happen to arise, wonder if I put too much effort into radio. Work hard on those projects which take up my spare time as well, because it’s easier than trying to knuckle down and do some writing. Whether, if I had a dull job which I didn’t enjoy, I might have made more of an effort with my fiction and actually got somewhere with it by now.

But this is, of course, nonsense. I am in the hugely fortunate and privileged position of having a job that I enjoy. A job that, yes, like any other has its occasional frustrations and irritations. But one which doesn’t give me that soul-crushing despair of, “Oh Christ, I’ve got to go to work today…” whenever I open my eyes in the morning.

I do understand and appreciate how very lucky I am to have that. And I am always very well aware that it will not last forever – at some point, sooner or later, it will come to an end and I will have to re-join the real world. And such thoughts of it being a distraction are probably just excuses – the reason I’m not a published author of fiction is, when it comes down to it, simply because I am not really good enough at it.

Would having a novel published make me a happy and complete human being? Would it leave me content for the rest of my days? Well… almost certainly not. There’d always be the next thing to want to do. I am aware of that, too.

But I’d still like to know how it feels!

Perhaps I can try and take a more positive step in that direction, somehow, during 2022. What that step might be, or in which direction it should be, I have no idea. However, I suppose actually sitting down and writing some more fiction would probably be a good start…

Overall, though, 2021 has been very good to me, and very successful. Fiction, aside, I cannot complain at all. I can only hope anyone reading this has had as positive a year, and if not that 2022 treats you much more kindly.

Happy New Year, everybody!

The Book Tour That Didn't Tour

I've mentioned a few times on here over the past couple of months various podcasts which have been kind enough to invite me on to talk about The Long Game. And since I've been fortunate enough to appear on a couple more since my last blog entry here, here's the full run-down of The Long Game Podcast Book Tour:

This all began in October, before the book even came out - with the "Australian leg" the book tour being my very first podcast interview, a chat with The Doctor Who Show:

 

Then we had the UK leg, still ahead of the book being published, with interviews for the Something Who podcast...

And then for Paul Kerensa's wonderful British Broadcasting Century series...

After publication day in November, the UK leg continued with an interview for the Bigger on the Inside podcast. I was particularly pleased with my answer at the end here about what may be some of the reasons for the enduring popularity of Doctor Who:

Then most recently came the Canadian leg! These interviews were recorded in one order and released in the other - so on December the 19th, Radio Free Skaro released their episode - their 829th, would you believe! - featuring their interview with me:

The Canadian leg then continued a few days later with the release of my final podcast interview to date, with Graeme Burk's Reality Bomb:

I hugely enjoyed recording all of these interviews - not simply having the chance to talk about the book, of course, but also just the opportunity to have a good old in-depth chat about Doctor Who. Which is something I don't, actually, often get the opportunity to do all that much of.

Obviously there's a certain amount of overlap between all of these interviews, so if you're somehow mad enough to listen to all of them there will be a certain amount of repetition. But I did try my best to vary things up a bit, so that if anyone did hear more than one they wouldn't feel entirely cheated!

Thank you to all of these podcasts for very kindly having me on, and for being interested in The Long Game. And needless to say, if you have a Doctor Who podcast and fancy having me on for a chat about the book, do let me know!