Why did I do Our Race?

Last year my first book took off. It became an Amazon bestseller and was longlisted for a major award.

It was a scrappy project that no one asked me to do. I did it for all sorts of reasons, the principal two being that it was something I'd always wanted to do and I wanted to attract myself interesting work. Being a recently retired athlete meant that I was allegedly soft skill rich but I was experience poor. I had not a lot of evidence of any professional qualities and creating a book, with all the skills that it involves if you do it yourself like I did, would be a great calling card.

In the end it did better than I hoped. The problem was that the question remained; 'What's next?'

I toyed with various book ideas and did some rough writing. I did a writing fellowship with On Deck at one point but nothing was really grabbing me. I even wrote a post about Second Season Syndrome, concluding with this:

I'm not satisfied with my first piece of work, nor will it set me up for life. What I want to do is create a patchwork, to have variety, to not churn out the same things. It's why a more traditional journalism has never appealed to me. I want to experiment with different mediums and form, not to have to do the same thing, even if writing will probably remain the bedrock of what I do.

The one thing that's certain is that remaining the same will bring diminishing returns. Celebrate success, regroup, find something that excites, then go again. Forward motion is the only solution.

Then I got a DM from a stranger on Twitter.

Trystan Bevan, a Head of Performance in rugby and a fellow first time author, was working on a draft. He'd written GB sprint legend Darren Campbell's autobiography, getting to know him through various professional engagements, and was now working on the story of the GB 4x100m team that won gold at Athens 2004. He knew of my route to publication with Fringes and fancied doing the same thing with this team project. I agreed to meet first leg runner Jason Gardener in Bath. Having grown up in Bath and been aware of his exploits, Jason was someone I was excited to meet anyway. I took my laptop to a cafe and found him sitting by the window with a view of the Abbey.

I showed him everything I knew about self-publishing a book, taking him behind the scenes of my Vellum software and Kindle Direct Publishing account, doing my best to be helpful. You only have to watch their performance on the night to feel your hairs stand on end and I thought their project sounded great.

When Trystan came back to me with an offer I had two choices; help them publish what they had and remain in the background or come in and cowrite, making it a true second book for me. The first way would be easy but wouldn't really be much to do with me. The second would be harder, involve working in a team rather than solo and would take much longer but I’d be right in the mix.

I chose the harder option.

When I left rugby, I felt like I wanted to work in an environment similar to professional sport but with creative projects, a fun place with largely motivated people working towards a goal that, and this is the crucial difference, they have true ownership in.

In sport, you never really own anything. We've seen in the Olympics that you can win Olympic gold but you don't really own that moment. You get the medal. That's the deal. In team sports you play for the glory of the team, the fans, the management and the owners. When times are good they're great. When they're not, you're not a part of what you're doing. Even the greatest athletes have been marginalised from something they thought they were a part of. Ownership was what I wanted.

Fringes gave me ownership and Our Race gives the guys ownership. They get to own their story in a way they were never allowed to before. They get to tell it their way, with their context and feelings that no one has been privy to before. When I read the draft I knew that it had the beginnings of a special tale that ought to be heard. I'm very fortunate that I got to help them tell it.

So that's why this project was so good. It was a team effort between the 6 of us, as well as a cast of other collaborators both paid and unpaid. It moved me away from rugby and out of the fringes to working with Olympic gold medallists, legends of their sport. It made me learn new skills and improve old ones. Most of all, it let me tell a great story.

As part of my patchwork, it's been perfect.