THERE is an attitude that's gaining currency now that we're in the midst of a deep recession.
People are talking about turning things around and turning knock backs into opportunities.
Crecora-based Bob Burke is a perfect example of this kind of attitude in action.
Bob had started his working life in the Civil Service after he left school, he "sort of fell into IT". He moved to Dublin with his family and years later they moved to Shannon where he worked in Tellabs. Despite the nine to five slog he was "always dabbling in writing, and I read voraciously."
When Bob was working as an IT manager in Dell a few years ago there was talk of voluntary redundancies in the air. Bob decided to turn his dream into reality. He'd written a book, and he reckoned now was the time to send it out into the world. It was time to close the door on his nine years in Dell and start afresh.
"It was around the time that I was thinking of giving the writing a serious go. I decided to take the package, so at least I felt I wouldn't be saying to myself in six or seven years' time 'God I wonder what would happened if I didn't have a go'.
"I didn't want to have that kind of regret, and literally a day after they announced that the voluntary packages were there and we sat down and talked about it, a publisher said they were interested, not necessarily that they were going to, but that they were interested in publishing the book. So that kind of focused my mind a bit.
"It was a happy coincidence that everything fell into place around the same time and allowed me to make the decision and made me think it might work out after all."
The book is called The Third Pig Detective Agency and it finally hit the bookshelves a couple of weeks ago. Bob is optimistic about the future.
"So far it seems to have gone down very well. It's early days yet, but it's taken off a little bit which is kind of exciting."
Bob explains the background to The Third Pig Detective Agency.
"The premise of it is after the story of the Three Little Pigs finished, the third little pig hadn't much in the way of family or a house, so what did he do with himself?
Well, he decided to become a detective. So he investigates crimes in this fairy tale world where you have familiar characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes in very unfamiliar situations."
He talks with infectious enthusiasm about his fictional creation, and he expands some more about the plot of the book.
"It's his first case. He's down on his luck and things aren't going so well, when a gentleman called Aladdin who basically is very rich, very reclusive, and rumoured to own half the town arrives and says 'I've lost a lamp, it's a family heirloom and I need you to find it for me'' The pig thinks he's going to have the case done and dusted before tea time, and of course it's nothing of the sort."
It sounds like a cross between Chinatown and all the fairy tales you've ever read, and Bob has clearly had an enormous amount of fun writing it.
But where did the original idea come from?
"I think it was a case of when my kids were younger I'd read them bedtime stories. I think my middle son asked me at some stage, 'what happened to the third little pig after the story was over?'
It just set off a whole chain of thoughts and I thought maybe he became a detective, and I used to read a lot of detective fiction, so you have the idea and you have a genre you really like reading and the two just came together and it took off from there."
Very soon the story took on a life of its own.
"The more I wrote it the more I enjoyed it myself," says Bob "so it gave me the opportunity to mess around with it and the characters."
Bob cites an example of how he remoulded some fairy tale characters, and had some fun in the process.
"I wanted Aladdin to have a minder. So I sat myself down and thought who in the fairy tale world would be a good minder. The Three Billy Goats Gruff had a very good career in beating up a troll, so I let the eldest Billy Goat Gruff be his minder. He's a very unpleasant character and he and the hero don't hit it off at all."
Bob also has a refreshing sense of perspective about his work.
"It's not to be taken seriously, it's very tongue in cheek. It's short, it's sweet, it's not going to win the Man Booker prize, but if people enjoy it then mission accomplished."
As it turns out people of all ages are already discovering the delights of The Third Pig Detective Agency.
"It's written for children in their teens, but as it turns out people younger and people a hell of a lot older are enjoying it."
And Bob has already won some new fans.
"I did a talk in my son's class before they broke up for summer, and he had blagged a set of books for his class because when I had to meet the publisher I took him over with me as a confirmation treat. The kids have been coming back and saying they liked it, and kids are very good barometers, if they don't like it they'll say they don't like it."
Bob has already finished a sequel, and he hopes the publisher will get back to him with a positive response. In the meantime he reflects on his success, and his modesty shines through.
"You do a hobby, you fart around with it and never take it seriously. Then you decide to give it a go, then all of a sudden it's on bookshelves. I'm still trying to get my head around it.
"If somebody asked me to what do you attribute it to, I would say I was lucky. I had the right product in the right place at the right time and everything just fell into place.
"Better writers than me will never get published because they approached the wrong person at the wrong time. I just got lucky, so I'm just trying to ride that luck for as long as I can."