Why I'm A Regular Fixture At My Home Town's Library And Leisure Centre!
As a debut author, I owe a great deal of my success with my first two published novels to Gwynedd Council's Glaslyn Leisure Centre and Porthmadog Library.
I spent a lot of time – just before Covid19 regulations were introduced over the last two years – in Porthmadog's leisure centre and library building, sitting on a sofa in the cafe/waiting area and writing my books on an old laptop.
You see, I live alone and off-grid in a converted lorry on the town's nearby business park, so it was really handy to spend a few hours each day at the centre and library, either playing table tennis with the local University Of The Third Age (U3A) and/or drafting my manuscripts.
Now Covid measures are easing, I have returned to become a regular fixture – wearing my trademark kneepads and carrying a rucksack – in my favourite spot.
My first two modern fiction novels – 'Nork From Nowhere' and 'The Ice Cream Terrorist' – are both receiving excellent reader reviews, available at all Gwynedd library branches, and selling hundreds of copies UK-wide.
Without the support of council staff and customers using the library and leisure centre, writing my novels would have been a much harder and more lonely pastime. Many have approached me while sitting on the sofa – with a book promotion poster on the wall just above my head – to ask about, and complement me on, my work so far.
I aim to become a common sight there once again from now on, while still wearing a mask and maintaining social distance. I'm currently final-editing part one of my lifestory – due for publication this Summer – revising the manuscript for my third novel, and writing part two of my memoir which features many mountaineering and outdoor adventures.
My intriguing autobiography – about cruel school days and office romances in Birmingham, a couple of death-defying escapades in the mountains, being a homeless vegetarian hermit, and now living sustainably in my static lorry – is much-awaited by my many new-found readers.
As well as the leisure centre and library, I would also like to thank readers for buying (especially from Browsers Bookshop in Porthmadog), local shops for displaying promo-posters, local company BabiPur for helping their occasional handyman, and my publisher BookGuild Ltd.
