I Carry A Lot Of Scars. I

The Success That Comes From My Books Is Not Something I Feel Very Comfortable With. Past A Certain Point You Have To Accept The Idea That The Success Is A Lot To Do With The Timing And Luck And That Divorces You From It Massively. There Are Aspects Of It That I Haven't Got Used To At All. But I've Enjoyed Some Parts Of It Massively. It Relates To The Same Reason I Did A Lot Of Backpacking — Partly For The Experience — It's Something To Tell My Grandkids. It's A Weird Chain Of Events To Have In Your Life.

The Thing About Tourism Is Just That It's Incredibly Powerful. It's Like A Gun And It's Incredibly Easy To Be Irresponsible With It. And The Speed Of The Impact That Tourism Can Have On A Place Can Be Quite Breathtaking. It Doesn't Take Years, It Takes Months. That's How Quickly It Works. And It Can Be Quite A Bleak Thing To Witness.

If I'd Learnt One Thing From Travelling, It Was That The Way To Get Things Done Was To Go Ahead And Do Them. Don't Talk About Going To Borneo. Book A Ticket, Get A Visa, Pack A Bag, And It Just Happens.

I Carry A Lot Of Scars. I Like The Way That Sounds. I Carry A Lot Of Scars.

I Wrote A Whole Novel Before The Beach. Unpublishable. Junk. But, For Some Reason I Stuck At Novels And Wrote A Second. Still Not Sure Why I Didn't Give Up. Stubborn, Maybe.