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Wilkinson, a media studies graduate, says he doesn’t know how things developed so fast. “I’ve just started plotting book five, actually. I don’t know about burnout. I’ll just write
until I get bored or can’t think of any further ideas. I don’t really think long-term because I have a full-time career working as a journalist, and I don’t know about mentally exhausted. I like
being busy.
“My dad built fork-lift trucks for a living. My brother gets up at 4am to work in a bakery. My sister works for the Metropolitan Police. She was on duty every day during the London riots.
These are properly exhausting jobs. Sitting on a sofa and writing isn’t really a proper job when you compare it to what some people do.”
Fresh-faced, with a haircut straight out of Brideshead Revisited, the neutrino-powered Wilkinson is married to Louise, an industrial chemist, but has no time at present for children.
Instead, alongside his work for the BBC, he will devote himself full-time to his unique literary production line.
He has yet, he says, to come to terms with being a successful author. “The best thing is that I’ve had some amazing emails. I had one this afternoon from a woman who said she had breast
cancer and isn’t doing too well. She said that, instead of dreading the evenings, she was looking forward to them because she wanted to read the next part of my book. How do you respond to that?
It’s just beyond my comprehension.”
Walter Ellis’s novel London Eye is available from the Kindle Store on Amazon or via his
website. You can follow him on Twitter: @Waltroon
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