Floating. Or nine years to success

It's nine years since my memoir came out and I'm only just realising it was a success all along

It’s nine years this week since Floating, my memoir about retracing Roger Deakin’s Waterlog in a bid to understand my then undiagnosed anxiety, was published. I was 35 and about to become a parent for the first time. I was also utterly naive as to what I then believed would happen and what I thought was somehow ‘owed’ to me having managed to get a book over the line and onto the shelves of bookshops across the country.

The book took around three years to research and write, starting in August 2012, before a final draft went off to publishers via my then agent in the summer of 2015. My arrogant assumption was that I would be involved in a bidding war that would drive up the price and see me land a handsome advance which would pave the way for a career picking and choosing topics and writing critically and commercially successful titles, therefore fulfilling my dreams and finally making me a fully satisfied adult.

I sat in a meeting at Headline where I was warmly received and told to go away and rewrite the entire book as a swimming journey meets biography of Roger Deakin (the latter is something the lovely Patrick Barkham has since done with his superb book, The Swimmer). I received emails from my agent about where the book had been sent to, big name publishers where I foresaw a future of glamorous dinner parties, drinks receptions and arse kissing (mine, that is).

Best of all, I was ushered into the hallowed ground of the offices of Faber and Faber. Found in a vast building next to the British Museum, this was everything I had dreamed of. Inside, it had a cosy, ramshackle feel despite being one of the preeminent publishers of English literature. I felt at home immediately. I met with Walter Donohue, a renowned editor and erstwhile theatremaker, who had not only read Floating carefully, but had also consulted with other authors I admired about it. We sat down in a huge room on the top floor, books in piles at every turn, sunlight flooding the rooftops of Bloomsbury, and he proceeded to tell me exactly how the manuscript would change. He presented me with a printed image of The Tomb of the Diver, a fresco of a man diving into a turbulent stream, believed to be an ancient Greek relic, first discovered in 1868 in southern Italy. This, he explained, had the potential to be the allegory for my project.

It needed more of me in it, he said. Other authors agree with me, he added. Over the following 90 minutes he talked with such a depth of knowledge about what would happen that I came to believe it. I left the office knowing what I needed to do and believing that Walter was somehow heaven sent. I booked myself five nights in a cottage in Lyme Regis, writing an additional 20,000 words in a series of brutal and cathartic sessions. When I had finished, I bought myself an Eccles cake from a nearby bakery and devoured it after a freezing swim off the town beach.

The rejection came a month later. Walter did not have the final say. The acquisition team did. To say I felt devastated would be a vast understatement. I have a vivid memory of taking some books to be donated in Herne Hill, riding the 176 from my then home in Camberwell and noticing that one of the titles was published by Faber. I was listening to The Smiths and felt an embarrassing amount of self pity.

Months came and went. Headline said they’d take a punt and then didn’t. Then we packed up our things and moved to Brighton. It was on the coast that I found out that I had an offer, from Duckworth, run by Peter Mayer, the once CEO of Penguin who had rejuvenated trade publishing and paperbacks in the 1970s. I was primed for the bigtime. Or at least so I thought.

What I soon discovered was that whether publishing with the big five or independently, everything takes ages. It would be 14 months before Floating would come out. More edits were needed. And, crucially, mine would be one of hundreds of books vying for readers’ attention when it did hit shelves.

Also, my fantasies of a life changing advance, money that could fund me for a year and immediately start work on a new book, were just that. And, knowing what I know now, I didn’t do badly. £5,000, split over two payments. One on signing, one on publication. Knock off 15% in agent fees, then a further 20% for tax. £3,250 total.

In a move so thoroughly out of keeping with my paranoid approach to money, the first tranche, £1,625, was burned immediately. Firstly, I went full Wayne’s World in GAK (now sadly RIP) in Brighton’s North Laine, buying a Squier Jaguar guitar in seafoam green without trying it out. My only regret is not paying cash. (Not today, my good man, I’m feeling SAUCY). Then I came home and booked us flights to Vancouver, returning from San Francisco. To this day, that trip remains the best we’ve ever done.

The months passed and publication loomed. Covers were sent over. Dates were set. I discovered there would be three other swimming books published at the same time. Jenny Landreth’s Swell, Alexandra Heminsley’s Leap In and Jessica J. Lee’s Turning. I was what might politely be described as fuming. This was my spotlight and I didn’t want to share it.

Fuck me was I wrong. I already knew Jenny and was aware of what a queen she was, but soon she became both a mentor and a pal. Alex lived in Brighton and we soon became friends, our boys born within two months of each other. I met Jessica in a coffee shop in Shoreditch when she was in London from Berlin. A couple of years later we stayed in her block in Prenzlauer Berg and she took us swimming in one of her beloved Brandenburg lakes. By this point I had read all three books and, having initially feared them, realised that my inevitable, pathetic jealousy was entirely misplaced. These were, are, incredible authors telling their own stories. Jessica’s and mine were closest in spirit, although her background in environmentalism meant she offered something deeper, more profound about the natural world. Something I found incredibly informative and inspiring.

The launch night at Daunt Books in Hampstead, hosted by Jenny, was, I thought, just the start. In fact, it was the culmination, a celebration. The friends I had swum with along the way were all there. My family. Old university mates I hadn’t seen for years. My agent. Staff from Duckworth. I didn’t realise it, but this was the success. The following morning I searched out and found copies all over London. It was gratifying, amazing even. But all the time I remembered something I’d heard Irvine Welsh say at an event for Skagboys - ‘you learn nothing from success.’ What he was saying was to just enjoy it when it came. Yet while I liked the attention, I can’t with all seriousness say I enjoyed it at the time, not fully. I spent so much time thinking about the next thing. The big reviews, The prize nominations. The next book deal.

Not a single one of these things happened. And rather than being proud of what I did, I felt utter disappointment in what Floating didn’t do. The doors it didn’t open, the fact that it didn’t immediately lead to acclaim in the sense that I perceived it at the time.

Almost a decade down the line, I have a totally different view. Publication in and of itself was a massive success. And success, like failure, is ephemeral. If I look at Floating through comparative sales, it did not even come close to succeeding. Around 2,000 copies sold all told. Still half of the advance left to earn out. But then I think of what 2,000 people look like in a single space and I feel a huge amount of pride that I could reach that sheer number. That feels like a winner to me. That and the fact that, on the morning of publication, Walter emailed me to say he had gone to the LRB Bookshop and bought the first copy out of the box.

These days I wince at Floating when I read it. The naivety, the overly written sentences. I’m still proud of it though. It was a moment in time. A moment I captured. And a moment I was lucky enough to be able to share with readers everywhere.

You can still buy Floating now, from Bookshop.org