Running Through the Dark - ‘That could be quite interesting’
Day Two - Pre-orders now available | How the idea of a book came about | How the book deal formed
Pre-orders for ‘Running Through the Dark’ are now available.
The seed that grew
The start of the journey of how I thought about writing a book starts at the beginning of the Pennine Way. I had completed my run of the Coast to Coast in May 2018 and out in hallucinating on the moors on my own with plenty of time to think on that race, I knew that next, I wanted to run the Pennine Way. At the time the male record holder was still Mike Hartley, and I started to look at whether women had run it outside of the Spine Race. I devoured the reports of the male records and attempts, in past Fell Running magazines and club newsletters mostly, and although there were women in their support and crew, I still couldn’t find any records of women attempting it never mind completing it. I decided I needed to speak to the runners of this time and ask around. These phone calls started, shoots started feeling their way out, and I knew I wanted to collect the stories I was hearing before they were lost to time.
‘That could be quite interesting’
A few weeks later I was taking part in a photoshoot with Vertebrate for a Brecon Beacons Trail Running Guide. They had put a call out for runners, and being local to Jon Barton, the founder and MD of Vertebrate, I said I could do it. It was only a couple of weeks after I had run the Coast to Coast, and with work flexible, a trip to the best locations in the Brecon Beacons seemed fun.
I met at Jon’s house and he was driving us down. We ended up getting stuck in traffic and so it was over five hours of us in the car together. I cannot remember all the conversations in the car journey, but I did talk to Jon about some of my ideas for books. Two were rejected, one of those I think was an ultrarunning cookbook, but the collection of the Pennine Way stories wasn’t.
‘That could be quite interesting’ Jon Barton said.
I chatted about how I would also run the Pennine Way, and in my head that would only be the last chapter. Just me and one run at the end, or maybe a slight reference to my training.
The photoshoot was as fun as I expected, and I was prepared with meals and food, knowing how long they could take and how much standing around there could be, and still recovering from my 190 mile race by eating whatever I could. Among the others there, I met Tracy Purnell who was also featured on the front cover and in the shoot with me, and lifelong friendships forged on dragons' back ridges.
I never had any burning desire to see my name in a non-fiction book. My only writing outside my work was a couple of running blogs. I am grateful to Jon for taking that leap of faith. And also for that younger me, the one who despite the doubts, would still put herself forward for books, for races, for saying yes when the outcome wasn’t ever certain. It turned out the universe had a completely different book for me to write.
January 2019
Jasmin Paris set a blazing new record on the Spine Race. I wasn’t planning on running my Pennine Way as part of the race, but I had taken the records for the race as being the current female record. I was talking about the record in with Jon, in the Vertebrate office, as I went in after my Spine Challenger race, to sign the contract for my ‘Pennine Way’ book. ‘You don’t need to get the record’ Jon had said, though I knew I wanted to still. I left the office, stepping out in the winter air, with a plan for this book. I was ready to step out of the well-worn paths of legal drafting, to the colourful stories of sweat, blood and tears of past runners on the Pennine Way.
Returning to Wales
I revisited a couple of photo shoot locations on a solo trip to Wales in 2021, which I write about here in an extract from Running Through the Dark:
I hadn’t camped for this long for a while, so it was stepping into the unknown. I packed up and set off in the rising temperatures. I found three mountain springs just less than a quarter of a mile from my camp, bubbling out of the mountainside, and starting their journey to the sea. I was embarrassed at my panic about water the night before and headed down the hill, even managing some running, to the abbey where I had been a few years earlier doing a photo shoot for a Brecon Beacons trail running book. I had just completed the 190-mile Coast to Coast then; I had plans fizzing around me, so fit, a confident lawyer. It was bitter-sweet; I had started to crumble a few months later. I felt like I didn’t recognise that person.
I moved away from the recognisable spots and climbed up into new territory. It was starting to feel more remote, with red kites soaring over me, quiet paths and feeling hopeful for the week ahead.
I started work on the book with another sentence from Jon ringing in my ears…
‘You need something bad to happen’ Jon said.
I think we were both thinking about a lost shoe on the Pennine Way run, maybe a wrong turn. Neither of us had any idea of the ‘bad’ things I was about to face…
In the next post, I will talk about my writing process and how the words came together.
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If you have a question about book, or processes please comment or message and I will answer any that are not answered already over the coming days in a bonus post.