ADVENTURES IN WRITING
Among the many things that can be said about the last year, one thing that hasn’t featured much is adventure. For most of us, stuck in our homes and unable to travel, overseas trips – whether short beach holidays or intrepid quests – have been tantalisingly out of reach.
I started writing my debut novel The Long Journey Home a few years after returning from the longest trip I’d ever done. I began as a volunteer teacher in Myanmar (Burma) and spent some time exploring, from the dusty streets of Mandalay to the wild beauty of the Shan State, before going on to Cambodia and Thailand. I went to six countries in total, culminating in a trip to Borneo to visit my grandfather’s grave, deep in the jungles of Sarawak. It was the most adventurous thing I’d ever done, and my imagination had been sparked.
The trip had drained my finances and when I returned it was necessary to get my first ‘real’ job, working for a small publisher in London. Neither the salary nor the annual
