When I first came across Twitter users wishing an author a ‘Happy Book Birthday’, I assumed they were celebrating the anniversary of her book’s publication. I was wrong, of course. The congratulatory tweets were to mark its launch, supporting the author on her big day and helping to spread the word about her shiny new book baby, safely arrived after a hard labour (albeit a labour of love). But unlike other newborns, most books are already years old by the time they put in an appearance. They might be years old before they even get accepted for publication - long, resolvetesting years of rewrites and edits; of submissions, rejections and resubmissions; of champagnepopping highs and chocolate-bingeing lows and everything in between.
By the time I celebrated my own ‘book birthday’ for Agent Starling: Operation Baked Beans - a middle grade comedy adventure about a schoolboy turned time-travelling secret agent - the book was already old enough to vote. Old enough to buy lottery tickets. Old enough to order his own celebratory drink at the bar to toast his long-awaited arrival.
For a history-filled adventure, it’s perhaps fitting that Agent Starling’s roots stretch so far into the past. Not all the way back to Roman Britain, admittedly, but May 2001 is long enough ago for the finer details of the story’s origin to have disappeared into the mists of time. Long enough for the age-old question, ‘What was the inspiration for your book?’ to prove impossible to answer with anything more insightful than ‘I don’t remember.’