Made for Walking #author Richard Smith

 Made for Walking is a contemporary novel. 

It follows veteran television actor Syd Price, whose career is disrupted after being dropped from a long-running soap. He teams up with Chloe Anderson, a young model and social media influencer, to film riverside walks, but their partnership develops into a conflict over fame, ageing, and the changing media landscape. 

Described as a novel being infused with music while exploring friendship, modern life, and generational tensions.

To connect with Richard ....
https://richardsmithwrites.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@UCMQDFyjMpN_kxdniho8gIwg 
https://www.instagram.com/richardsmithwrites
https://www.tiktok.com/@richardsmithwrites 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I'm gonna hear good morning to you, Richard Smith. Welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And hello to you and to all your listeners and viewers.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Richard, it is a delight to have you on. Uh you are a curious human, I'm allowed to say. I'm curious about you as an author, hear all about your work and about you. Um tell us about your latest book, Made for Walking.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

It's right. Well, it's a novel, and hopefully it's an amusing one with uh a mix of uh uh things that people will recognise about themselves as well as my characters, and it centers on an aging actor who's been in the same soap for well since the 1970s, sort of think far and away or whatever, but going on for 60 or 70 years, and he's been in it since the beginning, and he thinks he's the top dog. He's been there all this time, he reckons he knows everything. Along come a younger uh uh Instagrammer. Now, this lady is so she's an ex-model, she's really good at doing stuff for Instagram and TikTok, has millions of hits, thousands, tens of thousands of followers, and she's joined the cast of this this soap. So that my main man, Sid, thinks, what is this stuff? I don't understand it. So he tries to bring her around to his way of thinking, whereas she has other ways of thinking, and the tables turn, and then how these two interact and what happens. It's a in a way, kind of like a battle of the generations, but it's also about aging, it's about points of view, and it's about friendship and and also betrayal. So hopefully things that everybody recognises in people they see or in themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And Richard, tell me what I mean. You've written before, which you you can tell us about in a moment. Tell us what was the inspiration, like and and uh is this a stage of your life you're you're writing this book? Is there what was it? What was the inspiration in the background to write this particular novel?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I think my inspiration for everything is people. So when I made films, if you I say my background was I was a filmmaker, I had a production company, directed and wrote for films, I'd be doing a lot of documentaries, and you go into somewhere and say, What is it that you do? And the person would say, Well, it's a bit dull, really. I just and they would they would think that they were undervalued or they didn't have any value. And you just get chatting for a few minutes and you find that everybody's got a story to tell. I imagine your listeners, if if if we brought them on now, we could get them to tell us a story about their lives, and so that's my inspiration. The ordinary things about life that we all recognise and we all like or dislike, but then you weave a narrative, you weave a narrative around it. And what I hope people do when they read my books is that they identify with the characters, either they know them or they know that it's themselves, even, and they they wince when the character does something silly, they laugh when they do something funny, and they they're going, no, don't do, don't do that. Um, so that's where I come from. I just love people, I don't write I hate films, for instance. I've got car chases, we have no plot, no, and and that's what I I don't put in. I what I do is have about how people interrelate and uh get on or don't get on.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

And Richard touched on it. You touched on a bit about you, you know, your work as a filmmaker. Behind you is the most incredible record collection I've ever seen. Um, if do you want to tell us like and and I'm not gonna I'm gonna have to mention this. I mean, people and I'll put links in the show notes. Instagram, TikTok. There are places people can go and find out a little more about you. That's why I said you're a really curious human.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Thank you. The nicest thing I've ever had said about me. Um I I read that Lee Charles, the uh the author, said he took seven novels before anybody took any notice of him.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Um was around in those days.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, he said he thought witness he thought wit witness protection was doing his PR. Wow. So he was so uh so under the radar. So I've got a long way to go. But uh a while back I thought, why don't I make a couple of um Instagram videos about me so that I could increase my following from five to ten or eleven. And I sat down in front of this lot, these records, yeah, and said, Why have I got so many records? I don't know, and I I rambled on a bit about my record collection. Suddenly, my five followers became five thousand, uh, and I'm I'm I don't know where I'm now, thirty, forty thousand. Yeah, some of these you've got a lot of followers, and some of the the weirdest things that I talked about have had the best part of a million views, yeah, and which in a way just supports what I said about people. We I I put one up a few days ago about buying a record with a sticker on it. I mean, how how how minimal is that? And it's been hundreds of thousands of people have come back and said that they've had this problem. So we all share these things, and it and and so I I've been making these videos because not because I was trying to flog the book, but because actually people seem to be interested and want to communicate with each other. Yeah, some of this you you hear horrible things about the internet, but what I've seen, all the comments that have come back from my Instagram and Facebook and and TikTok have been debate mostly nice, um, and it's interesting. So it's it's a it's it's a surprise to me, and this lot are responsible for it. What you can't see is the flaw.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Well, I can kind of see. I mean, I'm assuming it goes on. It's yeah, insane record collection. And yeah, people should go and check out you know your Instagram, your TikTok. It's just it's really cool and it's it's very genuine, Richard. That's what I like. I kind of started watching and then I kept watching. But um, yeah, it's it's a delight to have you on and share. I hope, you know, a new audience get curious uh to learn more about Made for Walking. Are you gonna keep writing, Richard? What's the plan beyond beyond?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Well, I have a there are a couple of early ones which I wrote um little plug ones called um uh what I call I'm still standing and homeward bound, which you may notice if you know anything about music. Uh they are lifts from songs. In a way, that was a mistake because if you go on Google or go on in um uh Amazon and put in Made for Walking or I'm Still Standing, you get this irritating link to songs, not me. You have to put my name in as well. But but the reason I do it is that all my characters, and this is where I come out in it, all my characters have got some kind of interest in music, yeah. And and so uh I have been so I've written those and I've got a fourth one which I've started. The only trouble with doing this fourth one is that I've been interrupted by the Instagram because I've got the I I I actually I understand nothing about it, and and I've got somebody who posters them up, post them up for me. And they said to me this morning, we're short of a post, we need something, uh-huh. So I've got to record something which is writing time out the window, but I hope I get the fourth one out because it's quite different, still about people, but in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

So good. Well, I'm gonna put a link into to you know some of your old work, some of your links on your socials so people can get curious. Um do you have a red, do you have a website, Richard?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

I do, it's um it's Richard Smith's.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I've seen it, so I'm gonna put that in as well. I just wanted to make yeah, I'll put that in the show notes. Um, but you know, your links to socials, that that's a great way for people to get curious and and support you and then learn about your work. Richard, I would love to have you back when future work comes out. I'd I'd love to find an excuse that we can chat again.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Okay, well, and probably you'll find you can't see me because there'll be another wall of records in front of me the way I'm going. But can I I mean there's one other thing, can I just say this? Uh, because of the internet, somebody who runs an online radio station called the Boat Pod asked me to go and do a regular show on the yes. So we've got all this rap music and stuff, which I find inscrutable being play, but I here am I with stuff from the 50s, 60s, 70s, up to the present. And and I take them every month and do a two-hour show. The trouble is I bring the records back from the show, and they're on the floor. I hadn't put them away yet. So and it's encouraging me to put because I want to vary what I play, so I've got loads and loads of old stuff, and I've been buying new things so that it's not just the old, it's also yeah, and I've got about 10 new albums I bought in the last week. It's just it's just it's a disease. It's an affliction.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Hey, there could be worse, you know, there could be worse advices you have, Richard. I think I think it's pretty cool. And I did start, I did start this conversation by saying you're I was excited, you're a cute, uh, very curious human that I wanted to talk to. And you delivered like congratulations on the book. It has been a delight, and I really hope you come back uh and chat again on Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

I hope I'm still around to do it. Yeah, you will be. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Bye.