So I get the kids home form school and there’s this guy in a hi-vis jacket standing outside the house looking a bit lost. Turns out he was here to clean the bins, which would have been all fine with me if I hadn’t already thrown stuff in them again since they were emptied. Anyhow, we get to talking, mostly about where all the rubbish that’s in the bin can go apart from the place it’s supposed to for a bit. For some reason (OK, because of the T-shirt I’m wearing), we get to talking about games and the pros and cons of X-box vs. PS3 vs. PC and I show off how much of a dinosaur (or possibly cheapskate) I am by raising my hand for the PC, my three-year-old version of which continues to kick the X-box’s butt when it comes to graphics and, oh yeah, the games are ten quid cheaper.

So anyway, it gets on to what I do for a living (the wheelie bin guy is, basically, the wheelie bin guy so his side of this conversation is kinda short), and since I practically have a book in my hand through the whole of this conversation (Warlock’s Shadow printed copie arrived today), I get to show off, and then I have my first experience of that conversation. That You-must-be-really-famous-you-must-make-loads-of-money-I’ve-got-a-great-idea-for-a-book-maybe-you’d-like-to-write-it-for-me conversation.

Er, no.

Famous? Well I get to do a panel at Fantasycon (3pm Saturday, but only because I’m fantasy author who’s done some books that happen to have been labelled YA, but it’ll be, er… great. Mostly because of the other panellists). Does that count?

Loaded? Not from writing books any time soon.

But the I’ve-got-a-great-idea-for-a-book-maybe-you’d-like-to-write-it-for-me? It wasn’t a bad idea. Wasn’t fantasy. Wasn’t genre fiction. Wasn’t even fiction. It was quite interesting and we talked about it for a while, but there are so many reasons why something like that wasn’t going to ever work, the primary one being that it wasn’t my story or even remotely related to the stories I like to write.

Everyone has a story in them. I wish Wheelie Bin Guy the best of luck, but he’ll need to do his research. We might talk again and I might even ask a few questions and tell him where to submit to. But no, I will not write your story for you. [1]

[1] Unless you seriously loaded. Or a blood relative. [2]

[2] Oh who am I kidding: If you have enough ice-cream, I have slots free in 2013.