When a novel arrived in the office earlier this summer by Archie Macpherson, the "voice of Scottish football", it might have been viewed as proof of the adage that everyone has a novel in them.
Silent Thunder (Ringwood, £9.99) is a thriller that moves between Glasgow, Fife and the Isle of May, and involves Eastern European gangsters and secret service agencies from various world powers. As such, the publisher claims, it reveals Macpherson as "a worthy heir to John Buchan and Robert Louis Stevenson".
That may or may not be the case, but for the moment that is beside the point. This was only one of several novels that have been published in the recent months by high-profile media figures, among them Kirsty Wark, James Naughtie, Richard and Judy, and John Gordon Sinclair. Regardless of the merits of all these books, they demonstrate one unarguable fact: even those who are household names feel the urge to immortalise themselves in fiction.
This ambition is not restricted to the famous, as the piles of self-published or one-off novels that arrive at The Herald each week attest. Some of these novels should not be tossed aside lightly but, as Dorothy Parker said, "should be thrown with great force", and some should be treated with more respect, but either way I can think of few better uses of one's time than in exercising the discipline, thought and imagination writing fiction requires. It is an experience nothing else can quite match for pleasure, and despair, even without any prospect - or need - of being published. Indeed, in many cases not being thirled to a publisher's contract or a deadline may sometimes be better, for writer and book.
Those who fear that the age of the novel is dying should look at the extraordinary number of small publishers that have emerged in recent years. Thanks to them, aspiring novelists have access to more outlets than at almost any time since Caxton's day. Added to which, those who can't find someone willing to take them on can publish themselves in print or in the digital ether.
Such easy access to readers is unprecedented. The problem is, with the welter of self-published books and publications from tiny presses added to the tens of thousands of books published by well-established houses whose editors act in part as gatekeepers or guarantors of quality, readers find it increasingly difficult to tell the good from the mediocre or the dross.
Librarians, book reviewers and festival organisers have never been more important. At the same time, while small publishers struggle to promote their titles, those from big houses receive a level of publicity that distorts reality. So a debut novel by a celebrity will get the sort of coverage that suggests they are the new Proust, whereas a fine first novel by a nobody might be lucky to scrape a single review. A glance at any book festival, from Wigtown to Glasgow, Inverness to Edinburgh, reflects this, audiences flocking to hear the famous and buy their book, and the invisible majority, who would barely fill a tent or a hall, yet again left out in the cold.
You would think that the brutal economics and realities of the book world would put most first-timers off, but I suspect that for many, financial reward is almost irrelevant. Where the urge to confront the blank page comes from I do not know, only that half the population seems to be born with it. It must be traced to our prehistoric ancestors, the bone-deep storytelling gene all societies value and nurture. From the mother who makes up bedtime tales for her children, to the grandfather embellishing his boyhood exploits or war-time adventures for a wide-eyed grandson, the anecdotal and descriptive part of our minds remains alert, whatever our age.
Some philanthropist should start a book festival for unpublished or self-published novelists. Taking the commercial demands of publishers, booksellers and full-time writers out of the equation could result in something refreshingly original, and maybe even fun.
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