Having the ability to write a bestselling thriller would probably be enough for most people.
But RJ Ellory isn鈥檛 most people and his prolific output reflects that.
As well as the 30 novels in storage that he wrote before finding a publisher, his 12th (untitled) book will hit the shops next year.
One again, it has been written with extraordinary tenacity.
鈥淚 do 3-5,000 words per day on a PC and aim to complete a novel in 12 weeks,鈥 says Roger Jon Ellory.
鈥淭hen I leave it for two or three weeks, go back to it and then send it to my editor.
鈥淏ut I鈥檓 the kind of person who has to be doing something...鈥
And so he鈥檚 a guitarist, too, working with musicians who are being produced by Jeff Lynne鈥檚 former bass player, Martin Smith.
After changing their name from The Whiskey Poets to Zero Navigator, they鈥檝e just spent nine days recording an album and could be touring next year.
鈥淲e all come from different musical backgrounds, so we鈥檝e ended up with something different, a mixture of Free, The Beatles, Small Faces and the Allman Brothers,鈥 says Roger.
鈥淎s Eleanor Roosevelt said: 鈥業t鈥檚 never too late to be what you might have been鈥. 鈥欌
In the meantime, Roger has another project up his sleeve.
Tonight, he鈥檒l be the star of a free CityTalks event at Birmingham Conservatoire.
Organised by Birmingham City University, the theme of the inaugural night will be 鈥榃e Are Birmingham鈥, with guest speakers invited to eulogise about Birmingham鈥檚 contribution to international culture.
Having travelled widely on the back of his success with thrillers like A Simple Act of Violence (2008), Roger is fascinated by Birmingham鈥檚 contribution to the history of the world 鈥 and perplexed by its inability to get the message across.
A friend of his has made a short four-minute film for screening at tonight鈥檚 event.
Set to ELO鈥檚 Standing in the Rain, it encapsulates many of the most memorable aspects of the city鈥檚 history.
For copyright reasons, the film is unlikely to be seen anywhere else but Roger is delighted with it and will talk for about 15 minutes about what he thinks makes Birmingham 鈥 and the Black Country 鈥 so great.
鈥淚 am really proud of where I鈥檓 from and, on a global scale, Birmingham is something else,鈥 he says.
鈥淗istorically, culturally... from the Gun Quarter to the Jewellery Quarter, pens, pre-Raphaelites and the Lunar Society... this was the city of 1,000 trades.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got Jaguars, Land Rovers and everything from Spitfires and Lord of the Rings to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, UB40 and Simon Rattle and the Symphony Hall, one of the great concert halls in the world.
鈥淭he city鈥檚 motto is 鈥楩orward鈥 and it鈥檚 constantly reinventing itself. The new library is astonishing 鈥 and brave.鈥
Should the old Central Library be demolished?
鈥淎rt Deco used to be considered ugly,鈥 he reasons. 鈥淚n time, we mellow in our attitude towards things.
鈥淚t all depends what鈥檚 going to be there instead.
鈥淚 want the city to renovate Digbeth, where I鈥檓 very pleased to see the Kennedy Memorial.
鈥淲hen I went to Nashville, I was taken to the outskirts and shown a building 鈥 and at first I couldn鈥檛 see why.
鈥淭hen I was told it was built in 1902, to which I replied: 鈥楤irmingham鈥檚 history can be traced back to Roman times and we have buildings like The Crown... from 1368!鈥
鈥淏irmingham is a much easier city to get in and out of than London because of the concentration of the city.
鈥淚 live close to the airport and can get to most places in Europe in about an hour and a half.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a world class city with a history comparable to anywhere else in the world, yet people have a strange misconception of it.鈥
The success of his novels has seen him travelling ever wider 鈥 with France becoming his No.1 sales territory above even England and the US where his books are set.
鈥淚 remind the French of how brave Churchill said its people were,鈥 he says of his attempts to slay popular misconceptions of British attitudes towards a country he loves.
In 2009 during one seven month tour of duty, Roger visited 49 cities in 11 countries and only spent 17 days at home.
He鈥檚 still spending up to five months abroad every year.
鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 say I鈥檓 wealthy 鈥 I don鈥檛 drive a Bentley Continental and I鈥檓 not a millionaire but I support a relatively comfortable lifestyle,鈥 he says.
鈥淚n fact, for a long time I was accumulating a lot of debt, but managed to pay it off about four years ago.
鈥淣ow, my (second) wife works as a volunteer and I send my 16-year-old son, Ryan, to private school. I鈥檓 just content to be able to earn a living at something I enjoy doing when 80 per cent of writers have to have a second income.鈥
Roger never knew his father and the death of his TV actress mother left him orphaned at the age of seven, when his grandmother started to bring the two brothers up.
Her death led to the boys fending for themselves, leading to Roger ending up with a prison sentence for poaching.
His first marriage ended after 18 months in 1989 and he remarried a year later.
After his print debut in 2003, all was going well until last year, when it was revealed he had posted 12 internet comments 鈥 ten praised his own novels, while two were disparaging ones about rivals.
Insisting that it was all blown out of proportion, Roger says: 鈥淚 posted one comment about each of my ten novels over ten years and it was just meant to be a bit of fun 鈥 I鈥檇 try to be the first.
鈥淥f course, I shouldn鈥檛 have done it.
鈥淲ith the others it was like a playground squabble. I apologised to them and they accepted that, so we moved on.
鈥淥ne expert I heard said it鈥檚 believed that 30 to 40 per cent of comments on line are from people associated with a product.
鈥淚 can only look at it as a lesson I needed to learn the hard way.鈥
As we talk in Cafe Rouge in the Mailbox, Roger reveals he admires friend and fellow Brummie Lee Childs, whose Jack Reacher character became a film starring Tom Cruise.
鈥淟ee has created his own genre and writes that kind of book as well as it can be written,鈥 says Roger. 鈥淎nd he鈥檚 very generous, telling me how to get a US agent, which I did.
鈥淏eing a writer is 50 per cent about ego and the rest about insecurity.鈥
Talks about his own novels have been held with Olivier Dahan, director of La Vie En Rose (2007), while Pierre Morrel, the director of Taken (2008) asked for several books to read.
鈥淭hey always say nothing happens for six years then everything in two weeks,鈥 says Roger. 鈥淏ut a film only uses about 30 to 40 per cent of any book, so you can鈥檛 be precious about it and I鈥檓 not 鈥 I don鈥檛 see myself as an important person.
鈥淎 Quiet Belief in Angels (2007), which Olivier was considering, would have had a $70-80 million budget to recreate the New York of the early 1950s. Once you need costumes and so on, the budget doubles.鈥
Roger recently worked on ideas for Channel 4, only for the commissioning editor to leave the company to work for himself.
鈥淲e drew up an outline for a three-part TV series a bit like Red Riding,鈥 says Roger.
鈥淯nlike my novels, it would have been set in Birmingham and been centred on people who had either survived murder attempts on their lives or how they鈥檇 coped with the murder of relatives. It would have been a fresh, British, Birmingham-based crime thriller.鈥
Perhaps now that Steven Knight鈥檚 Peaky Blinders has taken off, there will be another call.
* For details about tonight鈥檚 6.30pm event at Birmingham Conservatoire, visit .
