I am currently in Denver en-route to Chicago and then Boston coming to the end of a manic 2 week publicity tour of the States. In fact I have been promoting the film in the UK, France and the US since mid October and should have completed a total of 200 interviews totalling some 100 hours of endlessly answered questions by the time I get home on the 31st January. Then it is straight to Ireland to promote the film there. If I had known that all these years later I would be doing this I think I would have opted to stay in that damned crevasse.
Having said that the reviews and response has been quite incredible – a little scary in fact. Hits on the website have jumped from a monthly average of 25,000 to an astonishing 270,000 in the last three weeks.
Soon to open in 90 cinemas in France the film has sold to over 25 countries to date and has exceeded our wildest dreams. I think the DVD is due for release in the UK sometime in early April and the film will probably be screened on Channel 4 in about a years time - however this is all dependent on how successful it is in the cinema.
Winning Banff (Canada), Autrans (France) and the Kendal (England) Mountain Film Festivals was a great honour and a welcome acknowledgement from my peers that Void is a fine mountaineering film. I still wasn’t expecting the box office news from Britain and the US, which has been quite staggering.
I know that many people were disappointed by the limited release of the film in the UK, but that was completely beyond my control and Pathe were cautious about how well a climbing drama documentary would do when up against the likes of Lord of the Rings, Master & Commander, Cold Mountain and The last Samurai. To our amazement it seems to have done rather well.
I have just heard that Void has now overtaken Buenavista Social Club, and In bed with Madonna to lie second behind ‘Bowling with Columbine’ as the most successful documentary in UK film history. We are hoping to overtake Columbine but that may be pushing our luck.
The excellent demand for the first run of the film in the UK and news of the Baftas has meant we have an extension for the film across the country so hopefully we can get a word of mouth effect going as happened with the book.
The news that Void has been nominated for the Bafta, British Film of the Year is incredible. To be in a general film category and not simply a documentary category is surprising and to have a climbing film up against Cold Mountain and Girl with a Pearl Ear-ring is a great honour. I’m sure we have no chance of winning but to be nominated is amazing news.
Jonathan Ross predicted that it would be an Oscar pick for this year which was flattering even if he didn’t know it was not eligible for this year owing to its late release in the USA. It would be eligible for next year but everyone will have forgotten about it by then and anyway the idea of it winning an Oscar is too ridiculous for me to be able to comprehend.
The film opened in New York, Denver and Seattle last Friday 23rd January and week-end box office figures make it the most successful film that IFC have ever distributed so at least all the hard work has paid off including an appearance on The Letterman Show and a possible Oprah show slot in mid February – this is getting very silly! It should roll out across the States after February 6th.
For those who were wondering about the next book and the whereabouts of ‘The Water People’. I was working on a novel due to be published sometime this year and had finished 40,000 words and the 1st part of the book before everything ground to a halt because of the publicity tour. I am hoping to get back to work on it as soon as this furore dies down but am now worrying that I may not be able to pick up where I left off. It is a story I have been developing for about four years and it would be a shame if it gets axed when I have half-completed it.
I understand readers doubts about my writing fiction and their preference for non-fiction – but then they’re not doing the writing and I’ve decided to stop mountaineering so I am faced with new challenges about where my writing career will go. For a long time after the last book I felt as if I had written all I wanted to write. However the itch to write, similar to that in climbing, made me change my mind. I hope it is not a mistake and I am not riding towards a nasty fall – at least I’m used to those.
I do have non-fiction plans in the pipe line but writing fiction is very challenging and was something I enjoyed. I also learned a great deal about the art of writing and I feel sure that my later books were a product of that experience. I wrote ‘The Water People’ to see if I was more than a one-book author, in fact to discover whether I was a writer at all. It sold well but was a difficult book with a flawed ending; the sort that you either loved or hated. The present book is a particularly tricky proposition since the dividing line between a poignant and emotional novel and Mills & Boon rubbish is a very fine one. Having said that if it were easy I wouldn’t do it.
I think ‘The Water People’ is out of print and out of licence and the plan was that it would be re-issued as a Vintage title when the new novel comes out – if ever.
I am keenly aware that the film is a chance in a lifetime and demand for my time is naturally going to be very high for the first 6 months after which I’m hoping to settle back into a familiar writing routine.
Climbing and paragliding seems to be a distant memory as I have somehow ended up living to work instead of the other way around. Despite failed attempts on the Eiger in 2001 & 2002 (2003 was the hottest summer in 200 years and deemed far to dangerous to make an attempt) Ray and I still hope to make another attempt possibly in the winter since summer weather seems so unpredictable in the Alps now. No other mountaineering plans will be considered after that although rock climbing and ice climbing holidays, as well as a new found interest in snow boarding and the inevitable revitalising fishing trips, are on the cards.
After interviewing the big wave surfing star Laird Hamilton in Hawaii last year and managing to stand up on a surfboard (for about a millisecond) I quite fancy trying some more. My attempts to look cool while sitting astride the board were an abysmal failure since I spent most of my time turning turtle! I did manage to chat to a lass for about 2 minutes before making a fool of myself again only to discover that she was a climber and friends of friends of mine in Telluride, Colorado. What a small world! The surfing was frustrating fun and pathetic attempts at being a babe magnet were hilariously humiliating – should really stick to gardening.
I have 3 days salmon fishing in Kerry, Ireland next week which will give me a long awaited break and time to consider what has been happening recently and make sense of it all. Dressed in rubber and standing nuts deep in a freezing river with a rod in hand is an oddly contemplative experience; a chance to chill out (literally) and get some reality back into my head.

Joe, Denver, 27th January 2004.