Love a Happy Ending Lifestyle Magazine August 2013 | Page 5

walking down street with a hairy forehead and a bottle of Drambuie in his overcoat pocket.
You will go to cafes and eat flapjacks with a pad that you will write nothing in. You will go to
the bank for OTHER people. That is why you will need more than anything in the world, a
deadline. A REAL deadline.
4. You will have to get used to lying to yourself. You will become very good at this. For
instance, I once watched Krufts for three days solid and I don’t even like dogs. I convinced
myself that listening to Peter Purves commentate on the gundog group final was research. It
wasn’t research. I was wasting my time. That’s how much you will not want to write.
Watching a spinoni bitch with a gentle rise from tail to loin will be infinitely more appealing
than writing.
5. Don’t think you’re Charles Bukowsi or Hunter S Thompson. The chances are you can’t
drink whisky and write well. What you will do is write gibberish. You can only do one of these
well at once. Save the whisky drinking for afterwards. Instead welcome your new drinking
friend – tea. You will see a lot of tea.
Ben Hatch is on the road again. Commissioned to
write a guidebook about France (despite not
speaking any French) he sets off with visions of
relaxing chateaux and refined dining. Ten thousand
miles later his family’s been attacked by a donkey,
had a run-in with a death-cult and, after a near
drowning and a calamitous wedding experience
involving a British spy, his own marriage is in
jeopardy. A combination of obsessions about
mosquitoes, French gravel and vegetable theme
parks mean it’s a bumpy ride as Ben takes a stand
against tyrannical French pool attendants, finds
himself running with the bulls in Pamplona and
almost starring in a snuff movie after a near fatal
decision to climb into a millionaire’s Chevrolet
Blazer.
Funny and poignant, Road to Rouen asks important
questions about life, marriage and whether it’s ever
acceptable to tape baguette to your children’s legs to smuggle lunch into Disneyland Paris.
Road to Rouen is published by Headline – you can find it in paperback and eformat on
Amazon. Ben can be followed on twitter @BenHatch.

Brought to you by: Linn B. Halton
Website/blog: http://linnbhalton.co.uk/
Twitter: @LinnBHalton FB: Author Linn B Halton