Summary
Mark and three top journalists and authors on writing a bestseller, nailing the story and getting the scoop.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to a special episode of Red Lines. It's BBC Book Week. We are in the Lyrical Theatre in Belfast for the launch of Sam McBride's book on RHA. Burned. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the process of writing the book. Also with us two people well known as journalists and writers, Susan McKay and Chris Moore you're all very welcome thank you for |
| 0:21.1 | joining us Sam this was the first thing I have to ask you on a day like this is |
| 0:26.0 | why did you decide it was a good idea all those months ago to write this |
| 0:31.9 | particular book I never plan to write a book you hear people saying you know that they they always want to write this or that or whatever and they're trying to find the time for it. I was never like that. |
| 0:42.3 | And what I do, a bit like what you do, is quite immediate. We find a story, we get it out there and we move on to something else. |
| 0:49.3 | And I suppose it was just the accumulative number of things which I had written about this, |
| 0:54.5 | and also just the sense that this was something that was really significant to how Northern Ireland operates. |
| 0:59.8 | And if I didn't write the book, I was thinking, who else is going to do this? |
| 1:03.1 | I have spent two years of my life at that point writing about this. |
| 1:06.9 | It has brought down government in Northern Ireland. |
| 1:09.2 | It has exposed all sorts of stones that have |
| 1:11.7 | not been turned over since the history of the state being created in 1921 in some cases in terms of |
| 1:16.5 | how the civil service operates. And so therefore, it was just a case of if someone else comes in at |
| 1:22.0 | this point and ends up writing the book, I'll be annoyed because I should have done it. And maybe if I had |
| 1:27.1 | known how much work |
| 1:27.7 | was involved I might have thought something else well I suspect a lot of people who write |
| 1:31.8 | books feel exactly that it seems like a good idea at the time and then they're not so |
| 1:36.6 | sure afterwards but tonight is a night to savor people around this table have been |
| 1:39.9 | involved in book launches if you're going to enjoy anything you have to enjoy tonight |
| 1:43.4 | it feels a bit like my wedding well I mean, it feels a bit like my wedding where everybody's |
| 1:47.3 | saying, enjoy it, you know, it's a great moment, but actually you're just nervous the whole |
| 1:51.5 | time and you're trying to think, you know, have I got my speech? And actually, I was saying to you, |
... |
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