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The tale is still unpublished, is still unread…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?

We all know that one, if it falls does it make a sound without a witness?

In the same vein, does a written character exist if not read?

I want to publish, but I want the very best possible version to be offered.

Is this prevarication to avoid judgement, or a genuine desire to polish my work, or indeed fear of the pounds shillings and pence involved in it all?

I think its a paradoxical unity of divergent forces – that or probably some sort of emotional/intellectual constipation.

I want to, I just can’t…

To professionally edit 130,000 words will cost me c£1,500+.

To get that oh so professional cover, again upwards of £200.

Before we’ve even sold a single copy, I’m £1,700 in debt.

A book will sell for say £6.00, that means I need to sell 250 copies to just break even.

Book one, according to accepted writing lore will sell between 250-500 copies, many much, very much, lower…

So, the two headed snake is one of pragmatism, I can’t take £1,700 out of the family budget just to make me a ‘published writer’ – and the second head is one of emotional desire.  If I don’t do something, find some sort of solution I will, I fear, go slightly insane with the frustration of it all.

First world problems – I know.

So that’s me.

Stay safe, remain sane, and remember to tell the ones you love that you do indeed love them!

So, we plod onwards, ever onwards.

Take a bow.

Research is an indulgence we luxuriate it – nerdiness in the buying of new books justified – winner winner chicken dinner.

Words are added to the narrative, passages grow, and some suffer the cut of the edit.

Pennies are counted, some squirreled away, and some invested in the necessity of a few more books.

Cions are collected, not to fund some sort of bibliophilic orgy, cracked spines and the flicking of virgin pages…. 

Oh, the joy of such events, but alas coins, our coins are not needed to make Lucritia Borgia blush, but to meet the overarching directive – PUBLISH.

The current project, the little side projects that feed our needs, all are subservient to a five foot and two-inch woman from my imagination.

Breath must fill her lungs.

Readers must find her tale!

And it is the balance of all the above that we plod inexorably on.

Movement IS progress.

We no longer focus on the distant mountain peak, no we look with glee as each footfall, every pace taken is accepted as progress. 

Incremental, however small, is progress. 

So that’s me.  That’s the latest update from this teller of tall tales.

Stay safe, stay sane, and love life.

I don’t plan, but then again, surely to some degree I must.

It’s one of those more beard stroking literary subjects -planner vs pantster, and to what degree does one method bleed into the other?

The Pareto principle almost comes to the fore here with 80% saying they plan EVERYTHING on a near scene-by-scene line by line basis. 

The balance of the 20%, is again subdivided into 80% writing broad outlines and 20% not.

This then leaves a pitiful 4% of writers as some sort of white-knuckle lightning riding wide eyed no idea what happens next kid of story telling folks. 

Me, I’m part of that 4% minority.

And, for me it’s kinda worked thus far.

Thus far…

It’s not that I don’t keep notes, keep track of what has happened so as not to trip myself up with repetition or indeed contradictions – I do keep notes. 

I plan little bits, like railway routes, these things are ‘truths’ that artistic license or indeed ignorance discount at their peril.

I had to create a pin map of the USA just to keep track with how Amy Grace was crisscrossing that vast country.

I also have a little subfolder full of Victorian female fashion – a little collection of dresses so that I may adequately describe what my MC is wearing (and why). 

However, now I’m trying to write an epic, a true saga, a leather-bound gold leaf embossed heavyweight charting the adult life of one man, his family, his loves his losses and his eventual (and tragic) death; and I MUST plan!

I’ve wedded my tale to immoveable historic events – ergo I MUST plan how to get from event A all the way to Z. 

It’s just how far down the rabbit hole of planning do I go?

I’m not looking to create a pastiche of Richard Sharpe – that ship has successfully sailed. 

I think that if I stick to the actual timeline and opportunities available, then the need for artistic licence will be reduced, as the actual truth of the events under discussion will be entertaining enough.

I’m starting with the Anglo Egyptian war in the Sudan 1855.  This in itself is a wealth of exciting opportunities – the last time British soldiers went into battle wearing ‘red coats,’ the last full cavalry charge (a certain Mr Winston Churchill no less), an army still manoeuvring across the battlefield in infantry squares, and of course the introduction of the machine gun…

So much available…

Will my little writing sanctum sanctorum become a post it note and string madhouse?

Time will indeed tell, but I’m hopeful that I won’t kill the spirit of free form scribbling, and that I’ll still be able to follow the required structure of history.

This is my hope, my dream.

More books need to be read, gaps in my knowledge need filling, but I hope that the finished book lives up to its promise, and that I can do this project justice.

Stay safe & remain sane!

I’ve written a saga in four parts, and it was fun, exhausting, emotionally draining, but immensely rewarding.

Amy Grace has suffered her crime, righted a wrong, and found love. 

All for her is as it should be. 

New adventures are suggested, but for the time being these can wait.

Thrilled beyond measure I am that I did it, and when you get to read it (and you really should), you will be too.

 [Writer takes a bow to polite clapping]

But I want more, so much more.

I’ve always wanted to write one of those novels that are beyond huge, a truly epic historical drama. 

The kind of thing that if Peter Jackson were to film it, he’d have to ask you to cut bits out…  

And I have such a tale in mind.

I’ve been tinkering with it for years.

The Big House is my working title.

The source material is beyond rich, any seed planted cannot fail than to spectacularly bloom.

Were you to be a soldier, a British soldier to boot, then the 1800’s onwards was a true smorgasbord of adventure.

You have the Zulu’s, the Mahdi in Sudan, the Boer in South Africa, the First World War – and as we are writing from an Irish perspective, we also have the collective tragedies of the 1916 rebellion and the catastrophe of the ‘Civil War’ in the 1920’s. 

Cursed to live in interesting times indeed!

If only someone would wrap a tale around all this adventure…

[enter stage left a mild mannered and unassuming writer of tall tales]

This is my aim.  The story already exists – it just needs to be captured and put into print.

So, mutterings will follow on matters military, affairs of the heart (our hero finds love early on) and the poison that is jealousy…

It promises to be a good ride!

Stay sane, love the ones you can, and hold on tight to any happiness!  

All work makes Jack a dull boy.

We all know that one.

Writing shouldn’t be a chore, it should be an act of passion, an act of love.

That doesn’t mean it won’t be hard, can’t be work, but it must come from a near pathological need to tell the tall tale.

Pain can be suffered by both writer and character, can multiply, and run away with itself for protagonist and creator of the prose…

Art is a struggle, a balance between the voices in your head and the limiting speed with which you can type them out and give them life.

The desire to create doesn’t come without sacrifice, without pain and immense frustration, but nothing can reflect to the world if it hasn’t been written.

The great, the good, the charlatans too, all agree that to be a writer you MUST write!

A simple maxim to state, at times a hard one to live.

If new ones won’t come, read, rinse, and improve those that are already there.

And that boys and girls is where I am now.

Read, rinse and repeat!

An old joy has been found; new words may follow…

Stay safe, keep the faith, and remain sane!

Indeed, it’s not a quickie, not an instant leap from keyboard to stardom and a castle in Scotland.

The steps between the two are numerous, and some are forever moving. 

The constant, the never changing aspect is the need to have faith.

If you don’t support your project who else will?

Indeed, if you don’t why should ‘they’?

I have a dream, it’s not for a castle or indeed riches. 

These aren’t the thoughts that keep me awake.

I’ll not reject them should they come calling, but my aim is pure, almost pure enough to be an Arthurian quest.

I want to offer the very best version of my work to the world, and for the cold huddled masses to cast their judgment upon my scribbles, having first read it.

That’s it.

No world domination, now renaming the days of the week or months of the year, in fact I don’t really want an annual day to celebrate my work – I don’t.

So, I continue to sabotage myself with crippling self-doubt, the imposter syndrome rides high…

Something must give, mastery has to be obtained, one side has to concede, hopefully it’s the monkey on my back feeding doubt into my ear that will succumb: hopefully…

While the world suffers genuine problems, this is my indulgence, my vanity. 

Will I drown while pondering my own reflection, or will I fly and soar like an eagle?

First world problems and the ponderings of the pampered – these continue.

Stay safe, look after each other and whenever possible spread the love!

It’s monkey time again. 

Seems that the little beast of self-doubt is never truly vanquished. 

Some echoes never fade, and his grip holds as tight as it ever did.

Self-affirmation can only take you so far, chanted mantras can only do so much.

The elephant it remains.

Art isn’t its own reward, Dorian Gray the only painting designed to be hidden, everything else needs to be seen, cries out into the night for daylight to caress its canvas and oil.

Written words are as impassioned as those masterful brush strokes.

Phrases clever and coy jostle with emotion raw and honest for a caring eye to save them from obscurity.

They are patient, but what they have isn’t inexhaustible, action needs to be taken, screams to be taken!

Your work may indeed fall flat, but it still wants its day in court, it still needs to plead its case.

So, the monkey of self-doubt rides my back, while the elephant in the room shares that deadpan expression, it knows the obvious.

Publish.

Publish and be dammed.

Publish and let the tiles fall where they will.

I could very well be that pretentious prick in the café with the cold coffee letting everyone know that he’s writing a novel…

But this struggle is real, and it keeps me awake at night.

Is my best version good enough? 

First world problems of the safe and the well fed.

My only risk is my ego; not my house, not my life – yet still I dither…

Stay safe – keep sane and as ever thanks for listening!