John Ironmonger's Blog

My lovely publisher Fly on the Wall Press asked me to write a short piece on 'my publication journey.' Here is the piece I sent them ...

I was fifty eightyears old when my first proper novel was published. So it must have quite ajourney then.

Well – not so much.

My problem was asupreme lack of confidence. I never believed anyone would want to read mystories. So I wrote them, and I put them in a drawer, and no one ever saw them.Not even my family. Eventually, one by one, I lost them. A novella about a geneticallymodified marathon runner. A novel about a brotherhood of monks who happen to beimmortal. A half-finished book about a brush salesman who finds himself hailedas a new messiah. A novel in a similar vein about a student doctor who getssent back in time to first century Israel to document the life of Jesus, butcannot find him. Anywhere. He trawls Jerusalem and Galilee looking. One day heuses his twenty-first century medical skills to resuscitate a man in a comawhose body is being prepared for burial. And later to save the life of a child.Oops. ‘I’m not the messiah,’ he tells people. But it’s too late. Already he hasa set of disciples.  And you get the ideafrom there.  A set of short stories. Anovella about the last living tiger ‘Claws’ who has huntsmen clamouring toshoot him. Not all of these were ever finished, some petered out halfwaythrough, but all are dust now. 

It's tough, you see,when novel-writing is your calling. If you’re a painter you can show yourpainting to a thousand people in a single afternoon. They will look at it for twenty-fiveseconds (that’s the average time apparently). It isn’t asking much of anyone tofind twenty-five seconds to appreciate your picture. But a novel asks more. Sovery much more. For a novel I want a week of your time – for two hours a day.Frankly I never had the nerve to ask that.

But of course I didget published. And that is the next part of the journey. I wrote a non-fictionbook (The Good Zoo Guide). I parcelled up the manuscript and posted it toHarper Collins and they phoned me at 9:00 AM the next morning to say they wouldhave it. Gosh. I never thought it would be that easy. In trepidation I sentthem a novel – ‘Daughters of Artemis,’ a sci-fi tale about a worldpopulated only by women. They didn’t want it. So I self-published it, barelymentioned it to anyone, and it is still out there somewhere selling about tencopies a year – presumably to people who buy it by mistake.

Then one day in my midforties I sat at my laptop and wrote a first line. The line was, ‘I amMaximillian Zygmer Quentin Kavadis John Cabwhill Teller. My name includes everyone of the letters of the Roman alphabet with the exception of the letter F. Myfather, it seems, took exception to F.‘ I had no idea what this story wasgoing to be about. I just wanted to start it. Then I discovered that the namelacked a P. So he became Maximilian Ponder. He became a man who had locked himself away to catalogue his own brain.

Well, writing was onlya hobby. The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder took me about five yearsto write. Once it was done, I hid it away; as usual. But three years later Icame across it on my hard drive and I sent a copy to my son, Jon, who by now wasworking as a journalist with the BBC. What did he think of it? Of course hetold me he liked it. ‘You must send it away Dad,’ he urged me. But I didn’t.Not for two years. All the same, he pestered, so one day, on impulse I emailedthree literary agents with the manuscript. And I guess the rest is history.There was a publishers’ auction, I sold the book to Orion for a six-figure sum,and it went on to get short-listed for the Costa.  

There is a moral tothis story for young writers (or even for old ones). First – be patient. Yourfirst novel may not be your masterpiece. It probably won’t be (unless you areHarper Lee or Mary Shelley.)  But writingis a craft. The more hours you spend writing, the better you get at it. It’s nodifferent in this respect from playing piano. So go on writing. Enjoy it. Treatit as a hobby, as a way to unwind. Don’t nurture any great ambitions. Lots ofpeople play piano without ever setting foot on a concert stage. If you don’tenjoy the writing, then readers won’t enjoy the reading. So do it because youlove it. Because you have to. Because something inside you makes you do it. Second,when you have a novel that you are genuinely proud of – show it to someone youtrust. Take advice. And if you both truly believe in it, then go out and lookfor a publisher or an agent. Don’t wait as long as I did.

But if you do wait aslong as I did – well that’s not a bad thing either. Because by now you willknow how to write.

Good luck. And goodwriting.

John

 

 

For Earth Day 2025, my brilliant publisher Isabelle asked me if I might make a video on what I thought we (i.e. humanity) need to do to save the planet. Well it just so happens that I've been thinking a lot about this very subject. I've been writing a book ('The Climate Crisis Picture Book') along with a very talented illustrator, Jemma Pentney, and one of the graphics that we created is a chart to show all the jigsaw pieces we might need if we are to stop adding 37.4 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere every year. It isn't easy to do justice to this in just 5 minutes. But here is my attempt. This might be the most important thing I ever post. But only if people watch it, I suppose. Feel free to share it. Or to comment.  Thank you. 



 

 

Here's a little teaser trailer we made for 'The Wager and the Bear.' It did rather well on TikTok. Over 39 thousand views to date. Do let me know if you enjoy it... It did involve walking into the sea at Hoylake on 2nd February this year. And it probably cost me a suit. Oh well ...

 

My fellow Americans … and myfellow citizens of Planet Earth. Today I want to address you all. We are all onepeople. We may live in different parts of the globe. We may speak differentlanguages. We may worship different gods—or no god at all. We may have leaderswho don’t always agree with one another. We may have voted in support of ideasthat did not win out at the ballot box, or we may live in parts of the worldwhere our voices are not heard. But despite all of this, we all share just onehome. Just one planet. This planet has been the home for humanity for more thantwelve thousand generations. We have no other home, and we never will have. Andnow, for the first time in our history, for the first time in our planet’shistory, it falls to just one generation, and one generation alone, ourgeneration, to make sure that this beautiful, bountiful, extraordinaryworld can remain a sustainable, hospitable home for the next thousand years andbeyond.

Weknow. All of us know. We know the damage we have done to our home. We areentering an era of Fire and Flood, of Heat and Famine. We human beings havealready inflicted changes on our world that we know are irreversible. Ourplanet is warmer than it has been for centuries. Ice caps are melting. Theclimate is in crisis.  We see the firesin California. We see floods. We see droughts. We see the shrinking of forestsand the growth of deserts and the melting of the ice caps that keep our planetcool.  Our descendants are going to livewith the fallout from these changes perhaps for millennia to come.  But we do have an opportunity, a narrow andtantalising opportunity, to rein back some of the harm we have done, and maybeeven to reverse some of the things that are reversible.

Myfellow citizens, this will not be easy. This may be the single most difficultchallenge that has ever faced humankind. Difficult because it will demandcompromise and change for every single one of us. Difficult because it willabsolutely require every county, every state, every nation, and every leader toput aside their differences and work together. Difficult because there will besome who may still deny the urgent need for change. And doubly difficultbecause the solutions we need are enormous in scale, unlike anything we haveever seen before.

Thisis a new beginning for America and a new beginning for the world. From today,from this moment, we are all living in a new world order. Our lives willchange, sometimes for the better, and sometimes in ways we would notnecessarily choose. They will change whether we choose change or not. It willbe better for us to seize this opportunity to drive the changes ourselves, thento wait to see what changes the climate might inflict upon us. I ask you now,as thinking caring beings, to be courageous and resilient in the times ahead.We do this, not for ourselves, not even for our children. We do this for ourgrandchildren, our great grandchildren, and for the next thousand generationsof humans for whom this planet will always be their only home.

Fromtoday we, in America, will begin to enact huge changes in the way we use ourplanet. We will no longer subsidise fossil fuels in any form. We will insteadstart a program of steady increase in taxes on carbon fuels. There will be noceiling on these taxes. Within a year these taxes will represent a 100%increase in prices. Within two years it will be 200%. And so they will rise. Wewill look to the ingenuity and enterprise of the market, of businesses andindividuals to fill the demand vacated by carbon energy and I have no doubt atall that the demand will be satisfied by clean, cheap , plentiful energy.

Myfellow citizens, I have more to ask of you than rising prices for dirty fuels.We will, today, start a programme to plant one trillion trees around theplanet. We will look to the leaders of every county and every state to identifyland for rewilding. And this is where we have a very tough decision to face.Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture and eight out ofevery ten acres of this land is used to grow food for livestock. We need thatland for trees and for biofuels. We need it to restore the wild, and to repairour climate. As a nation we must eat less meat, fewer eggs, less dairy. I amnot insisting that everyone becomes vegan. But I am asking you, each one ofyou, to make a personal sacrifice and reduce significantly the livestockcomponents of your diet. We will look for ways to make this change as voluntaryas possible. We will find ways to subsidise farmers for growing trees andbiofuels on land that once grew feed for livestock. One trillion trees can remove400 billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere—equivalent to more than 10years of carbon emissions.

Thisis difficult for Americans. I know that. But Americans do not shirk ourresponsibilities. That is not our nature. For too many years our nation hasbeen the world’s biggest polluter. We cannot allow future generations to blameour nation for the collapse of our climate. We will not turn our backs when weare called. We will do this. We will lead the world in new technologies forenergy production, for carbon capture, for transport—just as we have alwaysdone. We will change our behaviour and our diets and our lifestyles not becauseanyone is making us, but because these are the right things to do, and we dothe right things. That is what makes me proud to be an American, proud to leadthis great nation.

Butwe are not alone. We will not be alone in this effort. I know that every leaderin the free world would like to be standing and making this speech right now.Not one leader wants their nation to be the one that holds back this globaleffort. But it is harder for a leader of most countries to make this standalone. We know, and you know, and they know, that there is only one countrythat can and must lead this effort and it is us. The United States of America.I cannot tell you how proud that makes me. So we will work with every nation onearth to make this happen. We will measure and track our progress and we willreport to you how every nation steps up to the plate. Today I am calling for anew global security council. This council for the planet will seekrepresentation from every country, representatives that must include climatescientists, biologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. We will look to this newCouncil for the Planet to advise us all on the actions we must take, and wewill take the actions they advise.

Weknow that every country will have different challenges. But we look to everycountry to demonstrate total commitment in words and in deeds to the climaterescue plan. I am confident, very confident, that nations around the world willjoin us within the next few weeks.

 And what if one country chooses denial? Whatif a single nation or a group of states decides that their individual interestsare better served by ignoring the climate challenge. My fellow Americans I amhere to tell you that any nation that follows this route will be no friend ofAmerica. I cannot imagine the United States trading, or dealing in any form atall with rogue states who choose to thwart the climate rescue plan.

Myfellow citizens of Planet Earth. I call upon you all to make this day the firstday in the most extraordinary communal programme of work our world will eversee. In years to come, as we each grow old, we will rejoice to have lived atthis time, to have been a part of this great project, to have bequeathed tofuture generations a planet full of beauty and spectacle, to have savedcountless lives, to have restored the climate that nurtures us all.  We embrace this challenge. And with every oneof us behind it, we will succeed.

Godbless the United States of America. God bless and save Planet Earth. 

 

 

I need to find a "moment" for anewspaper-column pitch, where my life changed. That’s the way the gig works yousee. It’s called the moment that changed my life. My publisher, the brilliant 'Fly on the Wall Press' are keen for me to pitch a script and we'll figure out a way to tie it into the launch in February of 'The Wager and the Bear.' It's a great idea, but this is a toughcall for a writer. Writers aren’t meant to have interesting lives. We are supposedto be slaves to our desks, hunched forever over our typewriters (OK … keyboards),gazing wistfully at a world beyond our windows. We don’t have adventures of ourown. We are expected to invent them. That way, everyone can enjoy them.

Of course this hasn’t always beentrue. Literary history is strewn with hard-drinking, swash-buckling,law-breaking, jail-bird adventurers who somehow managed to find time to put pento paper.  Hemmingway had a remarkably eventfullife if you remember. I’ve seen the spot on the Nile River where he and MaryWelsh crashed their little Cessna plane and had to camp on the crocodile-infestedriverbank. These days, guides on the Murchison-Falls tour-boats helpfully pointthe location out for you. There are still plenty of crocodiles, but thejeopardy is not quite the same. The day after the accident the Hemmingwayscrashed a second plane, and the great writer escaped only by smashing throughthe window with his head. Now that was a significant day. Kurt Vonnegutwas captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, and he survived thefire-bombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker. Günter Grass served in theWaffen-SS and got taken prisoner by the Americans. George Orwell fought in theSpanish civil war where he got shot in the throat by a sniper. It is difficultto imagine these writers producing their masterpieces without these life changingexperiences.

I’m just not sure I can match anyof these. I once spent a night in a French prison (don’t ask)  but it hardly compares with John Bunyan who wasimprisoned for twelve years for preaching without a license, or Dostoevsky’s fourgruelling years in a Siberian prison camp for meeting in a bar with otherintellectuals to discuss utopian socialism. You have to hope the beer was good.Primo Levi survived a year in Auschwitz. Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in the Gulagfor criticizing Stalin. Henri Charrière got sent to a brutal penal colony inFrench Guiana in 1931. He escaped and wrote ‘Papillion.’  

I’m not sure whether to pity orenvy the experience of these writers. They certainly knew how to turn theirtribulations into good stories. And when writers couldn’t find time for adventure,they could often claim a tough childhood. Dickens had to leave school at theage of twelve to work in a boot-polish factory because his father was in adebtor’s prison. Mark Twain also had to finish school at twelve. He went off tobe a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi. That must have been eventful. MayaAngelou was abused by her mother's boyfriend at the age of seven and she didn’tspeak for almost five years. James Joyce grew up in poverty. So did Edgar AllenPoe. So did Frank McCourt. And Tennessee Williams. And Rousseau. And Robert Burns.And Orwell. And Jack London. And D.H.Lawrence. JK Rowling faced hardship as asingle mother living on the breadline. Sylvia Plath battled depression. VirginiaWoolf struggled with her mental health. It makes you wonder if fortitude and atalent with words go hand in hand.   

I can’t really claim a life-changingday like any of these writers. I can’t boast a difficult upbringing and I’venever had to buckle a load of swash. I once saw a Javan rhino. That’s a rarething. I had a holiday job counting elephants in Tsavo. I met Idi Amin in a barand he bought me a drink. I drove across the Sahara in a Renault 5. I playedLaertes in a school production of Hamlet. I was part of a team that broke theworld record for speed-reading Shakespeare. But somehow, I don’t think any ofthese things will feature in my obituary. None of them changed my life. Notreally.

So I’m going to have to keep onthinking. If I ever get the gig I shall post it here and you’ll be able to readall about the moment that changed my life.

 Here we go with some more of the weird and wonderful creations of OpenArt.AI illustrating chapters from 'The Wager and the Bear.' Some are good. Some are , er, less good. One is amazing. I'll let you decide.

Chapter 7: Tom and Monty meet in Greenland. This could be perfect if they didn't look like Russian cosmonauts from 1970. It kind of works though ... I think. 

Chapter 8: We're back in St Piran. It isn't quite how I imagine the path up to the church. And where does that lower path lead? But the church itself and the headland are reasonably Cornish.

Chapter 9: Almost perfect. Menacing and dark. The storm in St Piran

Chapter 10: It's another one in Tintin style. There's no motor on the boat, and Ilse should be younger, but let's not be picky. 

Chapter 11: Now we're doing it. Monty and Tom set off across the ice. Lovely.

Chapter 12: I have to admit it. This picture of Benny and Lacey Shaunessey is my favourite one of all. That's them. It really is. Go Benny!

Chapter 13: Let's be careful not to reveal too much. Welcome to the ice cave ...

So what do you think? Let me know. I'll post more in few weeks.

 
Writers are forever looking for ways to generate interest in our books, and publishers are always keen to encourage us. So I had this idea for 'The Wager and the Bear' (which comes out in paperback in German on 31 October and in English on 21 February). I thought I might ask an AI image generator to have a go at illustrating the chapters, and if it worked, I could bash these out on social media.
Well, my expectations weren't especially high. But it has been a fascinating and generally instructive exercise. If you have read the book  (it is already available in German and Italian editions) you might like to compare the illustrations with your own impressions of the scenes they represent.

(For anyone who wants to have a go at this, by the way, I'm using Openart.AI )
Above is Chapter One. Tom arrives in St Piran, beautifully illustrated in watercolour. I like this. The village isn't quite right and the sky is a bit too gray. But the general impression is good. 
Here is Chapter Two:

So my brilliant editor, Sarah Jayne, says Monty is too tall here. Perhaps he is. But I rather like the sense of foreboding, don't you?
Chapter 3: AI really struggled with this. I must have tried over twenty variations of prompt to get here and it still doesn't feel right. So I shall cheat and give you two versions - the oil painting and the Tintin versions. I can't choose between them. 


Chapter 4 was almost perfect. It is done in a kind of Japanese watercolour style - and it really speaks to me about Tom's and Lykke's meet-cute encounter on the harbour at sunrise. I love this one. 



For Chapter 5 I chose an impasto oil painting style - and I like this too. What do you think?

 
In Chapter 6 Monty goes to meet the new Prime Minister. Here he is looking suitably shifty.


I'll post another set of chapter illustrations in a few weeks. It has been a rather fun exercise, and I am still working through them. Sarah Jayne has warned me no to give too much away. I shall try to follow her advice. Watch this space ...

 I've never posted a poem before. But then I thought, hey, why not? So here are some lines I wrote last night. Landfill.

That brand new coffee maker in its box

The pedal bike you sometimes get to ride

The Merry-Christmas-music-playing socks

The blanket chest that someone left outside

The candelabra and the cordless drill

The painting of a piglet in a sty

The matching set of cases

And the shoes that lost their laces

And the bucket with a hole

And the little plastic troll

Well they’ll all end up in landfill

Yes they’ll all end up in landfill, yes

they’ll all end up in landfill by and by

 

The 3D television

That was wholly your decision

You couldn’t quite envision

Why it gathered such derision

But one thing you can very clearly say

It will end up in a landfill one fine day

The foot spa and the heated hostess tray

The banjo and the yellow plastic sleigh

The printer that always seemed to jam

The winter coat, the retro children’s pram,

The assegai, the ink supply,

The faded regimental tie

They’ll all end up in landfill

Yes they’ll all end up in landfill, yes

they’ll all end up in landfill by and by

 

Well there may be little trinkets hidden somewhere in yourhome

That might survive the disregard of others yet to come

There might be space on a junkshop shelf

For those dumbbell weights

Or that Christmas elf

But don’t expect the future to

Make room for plastic caribou

Or that trendy bomber jacket

That cost a blooming packet

Or those solar lights or stunter kites

Or cricket whites

Or body tights

Say what you will, yet they will still

Go in the spill … and why?

Because they all end up in landfill by and by.

 

The green enamel shower tray

That didn’t match the loo

The tangled box of cables where you don’t know what they do

The hardened glue, the leaky shoe,

The shirt you wore for that interview,

The microwave, the aftershave

The wristband from the Oxford rave

The bass guitar the pull up bar

The items from the school bazaar

Their days now surely numbered are

You’ll load them one day in the car

And drive them to the local tip

And chuck them gladly in the skip

Where unloved things are left to die

And off they go to landfill

Yes off they go to landfill

For they’ll all end up in landfill by and by.

 

Every carpet ever woven

Every fridge and every oven

Every book and every toy

Every box of Christmas joy

Every single DVD

And every tiny bonsai tree

And every leather backed settee

And every helium balloon

And every card that plays a tune

And every tool in ever shed

And every mattress, every bed

Every strimmer, every mower,

Every useless autumn blower,

Every screw and every nail

And every package through the mail

And everything you’ll ever buy

They don’t have long before they lie

Lost, abandoned and forgotten

Deep in landfills dank and rotten

No one there to wish them all goodbye

For all of them ..  and me and you

When all our days on earth are through

will all end up in landfill

Yes we’ll all end up in landfill, yes

we’ll all end up in landfill by and by.

In case you don’t recognise the quotation … it’s from thesong, ‘Bookends’ by Simon and Garfunkel from the album of the same name.The full stanza is: ‘Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a parkbench quietly?  How terribly strange tobe seventy.’  I have often thoughtabout that line – especially in the past few weeks as I passed my own seven-decademilestone.  ‘How terribly strange …’

But here’s the thing. And I hope this is a welcome reassuranceto anyone reading this who still has a way to go before reaching the dreadedbirthday. It isn’t strange at all.  Seventyis normal. There’s nothing to look at here. I’m living my normal life. I’ve anew novel coming out next year and one already in the blocks following behind.I’ve finished the manuscript for a book I’m calling, ‘The Climate CrisisPicture Book.’  I’ve been walking theOffa’s Dyke Path with Sue and with friends. I’ve been on the zip wire at BlaenauFfestiniog. I still go to rock concerts. I still travel. According to the Stepzapp on my phone I walked  4.7 millionsteps in 2023 which works out as around 13,000 steps a day. And I don’t saythis to brag, I say it because every seventy-year-old I know (and I know a few)would tell you much the same thing. I couldn’t imagine sharing a park benchquietly with any of them.

A week or so ago a whole crowd of my family and my very goodfriends ambushed me with a surprise party. It was a genuine surprise. It waslovely. We partied into the night. I love every single one of them for beingthere and for keeping the secret and for being such amazing people. I was tooshocked and unprepared to give a proper speech, but if I had I’d have told themevery day of our lives is a precious gift. And don’t be afraid of seventy. It’sok. For me, seventy is the same as fifty but with problem feet.

The album ‘Bookends’ came out in 1968. Paul Simon and ArtGarfunkel were 26 years old when they recorded it. Of course theythought seventy would be terribly strange. When you’re 26 even 30 is prettystrange. Today they are 82. Older than Joe Biden. I bet they think differentlynow.  I do.   

 

I'm excited to reveal this gorgeous cover from the drawing board and extraordinary imagination of Edward Bettison. Even more exciting, it is ready to pre-order. Just click the link below. If you pre-order I will personally drive a copy to your house with a chocolate cake, prosecco and a real live polar bear*. (*Note: this offer depends upon the availability of a live bear. Also this promise may have been made by a fiction writer and you know how truthful they are).  Please let me know if you like the cover. And check out my website:  https:///www.johnironmonger.com  for more news.