As the rejections mount (and they do) self-confidence shrinks (it does).

The project remains the same, the scribbles are titivated here and there, but the tale is still the same.

The tale is still unpublished, is still unread…

Amy has a great journey to take the reader on.

We are NOT a facsimile of something gone before.

Amy isn’t a simpering woman waiting to be rescued.

She is her own heroine – she saves herself!

The magic that flows through her is from the Morrigan, from Badb, from Celtic goddesses.

Amy is flawed, she has depth, she sinks, she nearly drowns in her own sorrow, but she struggles onwards.

We are trying to present a “boy’s own” adventure of courage and resilience full great battles, but also a sensitive tale of emotional trauma and the suffocating struggle towards recovery.

It’s different, but it works. 

The wounds of my ego will be licked.

My battered pride will recover.

I will plod inexorably ever onwards.

Faith can be a painful thing to carry.

Stay safe and try to remain sane!

We all have one, sometimes it’s reassuring and affirmative, and sometimes its cruel and direct.

Your book isn’t published, surely that’s because it isn’t any good?

Cold logic.

Okay my mind goes, we’ll concede that some bits are good, that the premise is different, and that the tale isn’t run of the mill, and yes some of the phrasing is sublime – but, it’s NOT published, is it!

Characters may be fully formed independent entities – but no one knows them!

Argue that if you can writer boy!?!?!

I’d like to, but the echo to every defence of my work is always the same “self-praise is NO praise”.

Ah, logic…

Evidence supports the critics, only an obstinate refusal to back down keeps the journey creeping forward.

Passion burns bright, but so too does the frustration.

Not in print, not being read.

In a world where only one score counts, mine still reads a big fat zero.

The third book from the left, that inviting book with its quirky cover, that table near the entrance in Waterstones, that book isn’t mine…  I wish it was, but it’s not.

Not published, not read.

Down but not out…

Stay safe – never surrender your dreams, because without a dream how are you going to make your dream come true?