I've spent more than 40 years in international sales and I've lived and worked on every continent except Antarctica. This experience is reflected in my non-fiction book, The International Sales Handbook. Most of all, though, I'm a writer of fiction -- contemporary (in the name of John Lynch) and historical (as R J Lynch). A Just and Upright Man is the first book in the five series James Blakiston series set in the northeast of England in the 1760s; it was short-listed for the Historical Novel Society's 2015 Indie Award and, at the time of writing, is a finalist in The Wishing Shelf's Award. Most historical fiction deals with the lives of rich and important people; mine focusses on those at the bottom of the heap -- the labourers, miners and paupers from whom most of us descend.My contemporary fiction to date comprises Zappa's Mam's a Slapper (also a Wishing Shelf finalist) and Sharon Wright: Butterfly. These books resemble my historical fiction in that they are about ordinary people -- but ordinary people leading extraordinary lives. Which, I think, describes most of us if we'd only take the time to think about who we are and how we live.