Monk Quixote

Ivan Sal­cedo pre­tend­ing to write

(Or where he gets to speak about him­self in the third person)

Ivan was born in Madrid and spent his ear­li­est years mix­ing gin and ton­ics, swim­ming with tur­tles, play­ing foot­ball and invent­ing games with rules that only he under­stood. He was going to be a foot­baller. Or run a bar. And that was that.

Aged 8, he made the unusual deci­sion to leave his par­ents and younger broth­ers behind to live in Eng­land with his grand­mother and uncle. Here he was faced with a strange, new world full of dou­ble glaz­ing, bureau­cracy, tele­vi­sion and round­abouts. He read. A lot. He changed his mind. He was going to be a writer, and that was that.

He wrote a lit­tle, while try­ing to be, among other things, a film stu­dent, musi­cian, door­man, disco-light assem­bler and for four brief but mem­o­rable hours, a mag­got farm oper­a­tive. He found suc­cess in online pub­lish­ing and mar­ket­ing, but told any­one that would lis­ten that it was only temporary.

Fif­teen years later, he realised that he had a career he didn’t want. So he packed it in, enrolled on a cre­ative writ­ing course and learnt to dream again. And that, as they say, is that.

He now spends as much time writ­ing as he can the duende allows and lives with his wife in West Lon­don. They have no cats.

Con­tact via email at Auhor AT monkquixote DOT com.