I must have been about 10 years old when I had my first rush of creative writing.

I had been asked by my English teacher, the indomitable, Mr Horne, a man with keen sense of the absurd, to write an essay on anything we fancied for a homework exercise. This was better than the usual subject of, ‘My life So Far,’ and other anodyne subjects. For goodness sake how can a 10 year old write about his life so far, when it has barely started?  

So armed with the possibility of writing what I wanted I set to, lying in front of the open fire and scribbling away in pencil. What emerged, and heaven only knows where from, (probably that mysterious, hidden place in my underdeveloped brain), was a cops and robbers story. I recall it involved a furious car chase before the robbers were finally apprehended with much squealing of tyres, fisticuffs, and jangling handcuffs. Our police rarely carried guns in England in those days so arrests were physical acts of restrained violence. ‘I say old chap, would you mind putting your hands up.’ Bop!

When I presented my masterpiece of prose, scrawled across several sides of an exercise book, Mr Horne said to the class: ‘Adamson has done one of his stories again (I obviously had some form with my long stories), would you like to hear it?’ There was a resounding chorus of ‘Yes please sir,’ and old Hornblower (as  he was affectionally nicknamed by us boys), asked me to read it out aloud to the class. I don’t think he could have read my writing anyway, as it was even worse than it is today. 

This simple act of sharing my crazy story with my peer group was the first time I had ever read my efforts, however amateurish, in public. It gave me an amazing buzz. Even more so, when my fellow pupils seemed to like what they had heard. It was my first experience of audience feed back which I have never forgotten.

As writers, we are always seeking reassurance, never sure if we what we write is unrelenting rubbish with no value or interest to anyone. Decades later, after a career in advertising, in which I spent no small part writing copy for press, radio, and TV ads, I wrote my first comedic crime novel. I was astonished when reader reviews on Amazon included phrases like, “amusing”, “laugh out loud funny,” “lovely evocation of the 1960s,” and other encouraging comments. 

A fellow advertising writer was astonished that I had written and completed an 85,000 word novel, when normally an ad writer’s output could vary from 60 words (30 second TV ad) to 1500 words for a corporate report or brochure. Just completing the novel was an achievement in itself, irrespective of its literary merit. 

I have just completed, and had accepted for publication, my first children’s book of 3700 words. Writing for a different age category was challenging but interesting. I used my young grandchildren as a test market. They have sophisticated tastes and my book is not about wizards, dinosaurs or monsters, but rather something more prosaic, featuring only a stray dog and a street cleaner to pique their interest. Some preliminary illustrations by the talented children’s illustrator, Marek Jagucki, brought the story alive for them and encouraged me to proceed. 

My point is that writing for money rarely pays a king’s ransom, but writing to satisfy your soul is worth all the royalties in the world.