The old adage that everybody has a book inside of them appears to be truer than ever. It seems everyone is actually writing a book. And I'm not talking about books of fiction but rather this new genre which I call 'experience non-fiction' or abbreviated to 'exp-non-fic'. This new brand of book writing is simply based on things that have happened to the writer and are then turned into a book, usually a manual type of thing where you advise your readers on how they can learn from your life. But what's so strange is just how 'ordinary' these lives have been, A classic in this new genre is the recent and big selling 'Run Fat Bitch Run' by Ruth Field. Field became a running zealot and saw the benefits of running 3 or 4 times a week. She then got the bright idea to turn the simple discovery of 'running being good for you' into a manifesto for running which lo and behold has been flying off the shelf. I don't want to down play Field's achievement, in fact I wish I'd thought of it, but it seems odd that such a pedestrian experience as running less than 20 miles a week can form the basis of a best-seller. It's a rather paltry piece of source material for a book when you consider something like Victor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' who developed a theory of what life was all about while he was imprisoned in a concentration camp.

Another example of the phenomenon of exp-non-fic is the recent smash 'Go the F**k To Sleep' which is Adam Mansbach tongue-in-cheek bedtime story for tired parents who have children that won’t sleep. The book, with its expletive-ridden bedtime stories and pictures, was such a hit that you can now find youtube clips of celebrities reading from it. But again, the basis of the book was simply a Dad who couldn't get his daughter to sleep. It's hardly the stuff of Angela's Ashes. But Mansbach had the good sense to take a simple experience and turn it into a best-seller.

So that's it! Instead of bemoaning these simple ideas becoming publishing gold, I’m going to write an 'exp-non-fic' hit. I'm 38 years old and have lived a mildly exciting life. I've attained some degree of contentment. I have something to say. So here goes. It will be called 'John's Jolly Manifesto for Life'. It will be based on seven essential principles that I have gleaned from my experience.....