The hardshoulder thing actually gave me an idea for another novel – a ‘Road Book’ as it were: a story of a writer leaving his home (possibly in Edinburgh, although maybe it would be better being further north than that in some croft somewhere, and driving over the course of a weekend down to London for a meeting on Monday morning with his agent, and the publisher who has agreed to take the book. Except that you wouldn’t know that he was doing this until the very end of the book.
The book would be made up of two stories entwined with each other, one a series of monologues of him in his car, and some exchanges between friends and strangers who he meets along the way. The journey could take longer, due to various ‘obstacles’ (he arranges to meet friends for lunch, and he has to take detours due to a big accident on the motorway. As he’s driving he comes up with an idea for another story, and writes this long hand on the way, stopping at the side of the road, in motorway cafes and hotel rooms.
By the time he reaches London on Monday and the purpose of the trip is revealed, he has come to a decision that he doesn’t like the book that the publisher has already seen and that this new book, now finished is the one he really wants to see ‘out there’…
