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If you subscribe to my newsletter (and if you don’t, now’s a good time), you’ll know that I’m taking a mental health break this month. But I wanted to share this milestone—an anniversary, if you will. Eight years ago on this date, I launched my memoir Friends of Mine: Thirty Years in the Life of a Duran Duran Fan. If you looked solely at the numbers, you might say its success was modest, at best. Mediocre, even. It didn’t chart in any best-seller categories. Its sales-to-date haven’t warranted any plaques, and it hasn't won any awards or honorable mentions (except for cover design, and rightfully so). And yet, I consider it one of the most successful books I’ve ever written.
That last bullet point is the one I’m most proud of and most moved by. Ninety-five percent of my Twitter time is spent conversing with fellow Duranies (the rest is about books and cats, if you’re wondering), and so many of them found me (or I found them) as a result of this memoir. We support each other creatively, laud each other’s projects and triumphs, and seek solace in each other during difficult moments. It very well might be my only book that still generates conversation (see podcast links below). I wrote and published Friends of Mine during a time in my life when I was on a fast track to the top of the world. And what’s happened since its release is enough to fill the pages of another book (SPOILER ALERT: a rough draft of said book is already done). Nowadays, when the fate of my author career is still unknown and unresolved, I know one thing for sure: I want to publish that second memoir. Preferably by 2023, ten years after Friends of Mine. Because we’re still on this journey, Duran Duran and me. As I write this, I am surrounded by posters and Funko Pop figures; memorabilia and that photo of John Taylor and me holding each other’s books in 2012—I’m about four months away from the age he was back then. That alone is hard to wrap my head around. We’ve quarantined together. Felt our way through the darkness. We’re emerging on the other side with music to show for it. With writing. With something to celebrate. So today I raise a glass (or a mug with JT on it) to my favorite band, still going strong 40 years later. They’re still the band to dance to when the bomb drops. Still the band to swoon over. Still the band to write about, to be inspired by, to blast in the car with the windows down. Still the soundtrack of my life. Dare I say, still friends of mine. WANT A SIGNED COPY OF FRIENDS OF MINE? Make a special request when you order from This House of Books, and they will ship it to you. (Make sure you specify your request in the Comments on the website's order form, or call the store directly and let them know. Also specify whether you want a personal inscription.) |
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