Native Shore

In one sense, almost anyone can be a writer.

That said, very few ever see their work in a bookshop.

As one of my Stateside cousins often reminds me, “a winner never quits, and a quitter never wins!”

He’s spot on.

This is the essential message that I try to impart when I’m facilitating a workshop on creative writing.

The truth is that most novels never get to the stage of a finished manuscript.

Essentially that is because no one is there to stop the writer from quitting.

In the end, it is more of an endurance test than any flowering of some creative spark.

According to the create date on the original Word Document, I started writing Native Shore in the spring of 2018.

At that point, my debut was still in the editing process with the publisher.

For the uninitiated, the usual time lag between manuscript submission and bookshop is around twelve months.

Therefore, I was writing the sequel to my debut before The Squad was available for sale!

I think that is an approach that would have the approbation of Ange.

This writer never stops.

Native Shore was different in one very important way to The Squad.

It is a high wire act of writing a novel that is right up against the present day.

At the start of 2019, I was concerned that events would catch up with the scenario, which is set in the immediate pre-IndyRef2  period.

I sought out knowledgeable folk in the connected villages of Scottish politics and the Westminster bubble.

Everyone said that a second Scottish independence referendum before 2022 was unlikely, so I ploughed ahead.

Once Theresa May was deposed by the current incumbent at Number Ten, I knew Native Shore could proceed.

Having won a historic election victory on the slogan of “get Brexit done”, there was zero chance that the Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson MP would grant a Section 30 order to the regional assembly in Edinburgh.

Yet the concerns persisted that the entire project could be made redundant by events dear boy, events.

One trusted comrade who had sight of the later versions of the manuscript was afraid that it was so prescient that we needed to get the thing published without delay!

Anyway, I got it over the line.

No doubt, the literary amongst you will have spotted the inspiration for the title.

After the acknowledgements section, it is the first thing that is on the next page.

So here it is for you, dear reader: 

The savage loves his native shore,

Though rude the soil and chill the air;

Then well may Erin’s sons adore

Their isle which nature formed so fair,

What flood reflects a shore so sweet

As Shannon great or pastoral Bann?

Or who a friend or foe can meet

So generous as an Irishman?

James Orr. 

I hope that The Poet of Ballycarry would have approved of the sentiment.

Currently, Native Shore is only available from the publisher, and you can get a signed copy here.

The bookshops will be supplied with them next month.

It’s been quite a journey.

For the avoidance of doubt, the next episode in what is shaping up to be a series is already in the works.

Two of those Moleskine notebooks are already full of ideas and preliminary dialogue.

Some of the characters that I introduced in Native Shore will now move centre stage including a Taoiseach from Sinn Féin.

Keeping it real and all that.

Being a writer isn’t what I do it’s what I am.

Consequently, it is important to never stop.