Too many rabbit holes, information overload and why I find the whole Raynor and Moth Winn saga so distasteful

Authors of memoir have a duty of care to their readership

Hello and welcome to Rosy’s Ramblings.

Having so much information available at our fingertips is wonderful. We can book a holiday, drive to unknown destinations, find out whether an actor is dead or alive, check the opening times of local stores - you name it, we can find out about it. All at the touch of a button and on the move with our mobile phones. Which is brilliant, but sometimes, I wish there wasn’t so much information out there.

Some people spend hours scrolling on their phones looking at mindless videos or silly AI generated images. (What is the latest obsession with toddlers talking like Jeremy Clarkson and all the other people on Clarkson’s Farm?) It’s cute, but it’s not that funny. Instagram is flooded with similar videos. Out of the mouth of babes, not to mention silly videos of an orange man who wanted to make America great again, dancing with Vladimir Putin in a flouncy frock. All very odd and quite surreal.

I find myself scrolling mindlessly at times, caught up in the nonsense of it all, and then get cross with myself for wasting time on such a pointless pastime. I have much better things to do. Like focusing on finishing the edits on book 2 and concentrating on book 3. It also makes me feel uncomfortable when I get snapshots into other people’s lives, usually authors, who are all living the dream, while I am still struggling and swimming against the tide of the shark infested waters of trying to get my book published, which I wrote about last week. Talk about information overload, it’s mind boggling at times and that’s why it’s so easy to get lost down a rabbit hole.

Sometimes, I hop on to Google, have a little scratch around, trying to find out about, say, the latest scandal surrounding The Salt Path. Articles pop up and a gazillion adverts pop up too, asking if I want to buy a subscription to the newspaper or magazine that I’m reading. No, I don’t. Not at this moment in time, thank you. I just want to read the latest development in the saga of Sally and Tim Walker, aka Raynor and Moth Winn, and how she misled her publisher, Penguin Random House. She maintained that she and her husband of 32 years had lost their house, while at the same time, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Publication of her next book has been delayed, which you can read all about here. The fact that Raynor Winn denies misleading her publishers and the public at large, is, in my opinion, distasteful. She stole a large sum of money from her ex-employer and said that she “made mistakes” in her past, for which she apologised. I’m sorry, but stealing tens of thousands of pounds, and then not being prosecuted or punished for it, is more than ‘making a mistake.’ and most people would have ended up in prison, or at least be made to pay for their crime.

To make out that they had their home taken away from them through an elaborate con is also misleading. If the news reports are true, the money that Sally Walker/Raynor Winn stole was repaid by borrowing money against the value of their house, and the debt was subsequently called in by the lender. Fair enough. She sounds like a thoroughly dishonest and distasteful person who misrepresented the facts about her past in the book, which was published as a memoir. This is what Google’s AI says about memoir:

A memoir is a piece of non-fiction writing that shares the author's personal experiences, reflections, and memories, often focusing on a specific period or theme in their life. Unlike an autobiography, which typically covers a person's entire life, a memoir hones in on a particular aspect or event. The genre emphasizes the author's subjective interpretation and emotional journey, aiming to convey the meaning and significance of their experiences.

The ‘terminal illness’ that Moth was allegedly suffering from was remarkable in that the epic walk of hundreds of miles that they embarked upon, seemingly reversed his symptoms. If I had been in a similar situation, I would have got a job, found somewhere to rent and grafted long and hard to find a solution to the problem of having nowhere to live and no income. Digging out antique rucksacks and setting off on a 630 mile coastal hike is the last thing I would have wanted to do.

To write a bestseller was a genius idea, but I wonder whether one of the Big Five publishing houses would have picked it up if she had been evicted from her Council House for non-payment of rent? Hundreds of thousands of people face huge challenges every day, homeless people sleep in doorways and stinky stairwells, but are their stories any less important to share than the Winns’ tale of woe and injustice? I think not.

I have my own backstory, but do I want to use that to sell my book? No, I want my book to be a great story that readers can enjoy. But that’s the difference between me and Raynor Winn. She wrote a memoir. I wrote a novel. My book is completely fictional with characters made up out of my head. Some of them have nuances and characteristics of people I know, but that just brings authenticity to the story. Sally Walker/Raynor Winn lied about her past and covered up aspects of her husband’s illness in order to gain empathy from the publishers and, in turn, her millions of readers. A story of hope and inspiration, as described by Penguin below:

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways

I don’t know about you, but if that was an honest portrayal of what really happened, I will eat my sunhat. And what grief was she suffering from? Losing members of her family? No, losing her home through a bad financial decision and coping with her husband’s illness. Something millions of people around the world do every single day of the week.

My ‘backstory’ is that I lost a brother aged 20 in a road accident when I was just 18, my father died from stomach cancer at the age of 51 when I was 27, and I lost my mother to breast cancer aged 53, when I was only 31. And that is just a small glimpse into my life. These were all harrowing events, which have deeply affected me, but I just get on with whatever life throws at me. I have no choice.

My heart was broken when my debut novel was ‘unpublished’ when my publisher cancelled my contract. I have since found out that she did the same thing to two other authors, so the issue was obviously with her and not with me, or them.

I would like to thank everybody for their unwavering support and kind words of encouragement, telling me to push on and that one day, my book will be a resounding success. I am going to stick with fiction because the truth of the matter is that I am not trying to sell a ‘real-life story of triumph over adversity,’ but merely writing a gripping story, with lots of twists, turns and red herrings to keep the reader hooked to the very last page. Which, according to the many brilliant reviews that my book received, is precisely what I did. So thank you to all those who took the time to write a review. And for all of you who didn’t, your chance will come when it becomes available to buy again soon! I will keep you posted.

I wrote about how difficult it is to break into the Big Five Publishing Houses, Penguin Random House being one of them. Sally Walker/Raynor Winn managed to break into this elusive club and I used to be envious of her. I am no longer in awe of an author who twisted the facts in order to portray a situation that was blatantly not true. Shame on her. But credit where credit’s due, she writes beautifully. I think it’s such a shame that she decided to cover up so much of her past when writing an ‘unflinchingly honest’ book, which is no longer authentic or triumphant.

While I was researching the ongoing saga about the author of The Salt Path, I came across an article about the rise and fall of Michelle Mone, who famously said:

"Saying to the press I'm not involved, to protect my family, can I just make it clear, it's not a crime."

Quite frankly, my dear, that is a crime. And off we go down that rabbit hole, which I will leave you to go down on your own.

We are experiencing yet another heatwave here in the UK and temperatures are well above the thirties, unprecedented on this little island of ours, but which have somehow become the norm of late. My husband and I are going to bimble down to The Swan Inn for a refreshing glass of Pimms in the riverside garden. For those of you who haven’t read The Mysterious Disappearance of Marsha Boden, this is the delightful riverside Inn, which makes up part of the village of Little Twichen, where Marsha Boden disappears. Links coming soon on where you can buy it to keep up with all the latest happenings in the sleepy hamlet where nothing much happens, until the day Marsha Boden goes missing…

This is a photograph I took of the infinity pool at the Coco Bay Resort in Antigua, where my husband and I were lucky enough to holiday a few years ago. I say lucky - it was expensive, but I withdrew money from my savings to indulge myself and have since been working incredibly hard, not only to replenish and grow my savings, but also to try and provide for my future. I lost my entire life savings, but that’s a whole new story and one for another day. It’s not easy, but I have to keep working hard. Not unless, of course, I write a bestseller and can quit my day job. Now that sounds like a genius idea!

Keep cool if you are in the Western hemisphere and for those of you who are not, keep well, and I look forward to sharing my ramblings with you next week.

Take care,