Daniel gave up his dayjob in 1999 to pursue a career in writing, but shortly after IN THE LIGHT OF MIDNIGHT had been completed, he was forced back into commerce to meet financial obligations.
He made meagre attempts at procuring representation for the book but was unsuccessful. The manuscript soon landed in “file thirteen”; however, he kept jotting down ideas for future books. One of these was a one-pager of a conversation between a man and his inner voice. His girlfriend at the time read this and remarked, “This should be out there”. It resulted in the completion of a second manuscript Truth Matters, later renamed FROM STRAW TO FREEMAN. History repeated itself, and this manuscript landed in the same file.
Some years later, Daniel was driving when a thunderstorm broke. As the drops crashed onto his windscreen, he wondered what these drops may have gone through to land up there. Upon arriving home, he sat down and began writing the journey of an individual drop called Splatt. When his flatmate (and dear friend) returned late that evening, she called up to the loft where his desk was:
“What are doing, Daniel?”
“I’m writing a movie script”
“Can I see some?”
“Sure, I’ll print 10 pages for you.”
An hour later she called up again:
“Please print more.”
“I only have five more pages. I’ll let you have them.”
It took almost a month to complete SPLATT, and the pattern was the same: upon arriving home each night, his friend would ask, “What’s Splattie doing?” and Daniel would print what he had written that day.
Once SPLATT had been completed, Daniel googled “film agents”. All he could find was individuals who might be able to put him in touch with an agent for a fee. He clearly hadn’t done any homework before writing a script. So, he turned to the Writers Yearbook and found a single entry for “Animation” in the index – an agent based in the UK. He mailed the agent a sample, and to his utter joy, the agent responded with a contract to represent him. Wow! He googled the agent and saw that he was part of a team that brought a well-known animation series to television. Double Wow! The agent spent many hours editing SPLATT, but Daniel and he fell out when the agent wanted to change Splatt’s character. The relationship soured and “file thirteen” grew.
It was around that time that a friend – an alcoholic in recovery – invited Daniel to attend an AA meeting. Everything that was said during that meeting went grossly against Daniel’s grain. After all Daniel had beaten a cocaine addition by inner strength. That night he wrote down the Constitution for Alternative Addicts which formed the framework for his next book THE LESSER SPOTTED ADDICT. Determined not to let the dreaded “file thirteen” burst at the seams, this book was published in 2012. Although it wasn’t a huge commercial success, Daniel says that receiving emails that said the book had changed mailers’ lives was reward enough.
Fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2023. As a new year’s resolution Daniel decided to revisit “file thirteen” and convert the script SPLATT to a book, which has now been released.
AN AUTHOR IN REVERSE?
It would seem so, because Daniel, chronologically, publishes the last written first. But he says this trend may be broken if IN THE LIGHT OF MIDNIGHT is released before FROM STRAW TO FREEMAN. He adds that HORSE and other one-page ideas may further interfere with this unusual trend. Time will tell.