writing

What’s in a name? 

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

It’s only a name, but then again it never really is, it’s always so much more.  Maybe that’s why writers struggle for untold numbers of hours picking just the right one for their beloved character. 

For me Amy Grace was only ever going to be called such, I felt an instant connection with the name.  John Newton’s words still resonating two hundred and something years later!

I’ve tipped my hat to hymns and pre-Raphaelite painters – John Fredrick Lewis case point. I’ve name dropped John Lilburne et others who were Levellers/Diggers from the English Civil War.  I’ve paid homage to Thomas Pain(e) a pamphleteer (blogger of the 1700’s) as one of the main characters in the Amy Grace sagas.  I’ve name dropped with such reckless abandon that to walk through ANY tale I tell, you’d do well to have a sideways glance at the naming of every character.

I reference so many aspects of my immersion in (pop) culture, that the more of my tales you read the more my musical and literary peculiarities become clearer.  My bent for history, mythology (fairy tales), art and music do indeed bleed into my stories – and why wouldn’t they?

So, when I found myself doing one of those self-dictated writing exercises where you just take an image and try to write about it, I found myself in a bit of a quandary… 

Walls of water rushed across the open fields; each wall chased by its replacement as an invisible army of artisans worked with manic speed to construct the next in line, and the next, and the next…  Lightning struck, but could highlight no gaps, thunder shook the air with a violence that stole the breath from awestruck bodies.  But nothing could compete with the walls of water for spectacle or violence. 

The storm was in ecstasy, the rain manifestation of its joy. The wind howled accompaniments to the booming thunder and flashing lightning, but nothing, nothing could hope to surpass the destruction that such a volume of falling water was bringing! 

The banshees wanted to ride the storm and scream their laments, but this was the domain of the rain, all others would have to wait their turn.  These hours belonged to the goddess of water and no challenge to her power would be permitted.  

Such power I thought must be feminine, must be the work of a female deity, and the simply must be one that I could name drop, there just must be such a suitable reference.  Rabbit hole entered, time spent and conversations with friends and colleagues steered towards the subject. 

[Top tip, don’t ask a writer what they’re thinking about unless you want to discuss something random/obscure and be pulled into the madness with them – don’t make eye contact, just grunt ‘was up’, get your coffee and walk away – it’s safer, it really is.]

Now this was only ever going to be a ‘for fun’ writing exercise.  I had no need for this scene; it was just me writing words for fun.

Background programmes ran most of the morning, little synaptic links came up with ideas, but no solutions.  Masculine gods queued for the job, the candidates numerous and plentiful.  The women frustratingly conspicuous by their absence….

I didn’t NEED to do this, this wasn’t (as already stated) a passage for a tale in progress – this was just for fun!

Anyway, after innumerable false starts and rejected names, I came up with Danu. 

Innumerable academic arguments seemed to exist as to whether indeed she did or indeed did not – she was therefore the perfect candidate.

Every trophy the wind picked up; the rain beat down.  This was her time and for Danu there would be no usurpers.

That was it.  Task complete a suitable name chosen.  

The passage was now complete; the storm was the work of a Celtic goddess called Danu – all was now good in the cosmos. 

All that energy invested for something that in all likelihood would only ever see the light of day in a blog post – her inclusion into a tall tale precarious at best.

This may explain why writing those 173 words took so long, and indeed why writers stand prouder at that little collection of words than a parent beaming at their tiny child and that first potato print painting…  

Peculiar bunch writers.

Hug those you love, remind them that indeed you do, stay safe, and continue to do your best to remain sane! 

Take No Heroes Only Inspiration

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

If I were to state my literary inspirations, and limit those weavers of tales, those who’ve toyed with my imagination and left a lasting impression to just three, if I were to do that, then I’d amongst the many I’ve enjoyed over the years I’d have to highlight:

James Herbert – he wrote horror, and as a teenager I absolutely loved it.  Lapped it up. Spent all my pennies obtaining his works.  He wrote 20 something tales, The Fog, Fluke, Magic, and as I reread them years after their initial release, they still thrill me.  Tales of the extraordinary told in the world of the ordinary.  If I were to attempt the same tales, they would be twice as long (minimum) as that those presented by Mr Herbert.  I’d have overindulged my descriptive passions, where he balanced brevity with such panache.    

James Herbert takes a bow! 

Clive Barker is our second name to drop.  Longer tales than James Herbert, more descriptive fantasy and world building, but nothing is lost with it.  I picked up a copy of Imajica and I was instantly hooked.  More of his output was obtained, Weaveworld my favourite, and the bookshelf creaks to reflect my love of his craft.  Now it MUST be stated that as a rule, and we all break them, I don’t do ‘gore’, as (IMHO) splashes of blood are often used to mask a poorly told tale – not so Mr Barker.  Love his work.

Third from three, but not in matter of influence.  I have to, just absolutely must mention Terry Pratchett and his fantastical social commentary comedy and sheer entertaining brilliance.  I was given Good Omens to read (you like horror – read this) and from that moment on I was hooked.  The premise, the style of writing, the wickedly sharp humour, everything just clicked – and I just love his foot notes that go on for near pages.  I also think he’s written the only book of fiction that has managed to make me cry tears of genuine sadness. Forty odd books – love them all. 

An honorary mention must go to Jerry Ahern and his twenty-nine-book series The Survivalist – pulp fiction at its absolute best.  Whatever ‘literary’ means (and I do debate the snobbery attached to it) entertainment is key – and these books slip the brain into neutral and entertain.

In true Columbo style, one more thing, I must mention (it would be remis if I didn’t) the poetry of WH Davies, Rudyard Kipling and Percy Bysshe Shelly – a medium I’ve only ever dabbled in, but one that I very much admire. 

So, there are my names dropped.  Some names you know, some possibly you don’t, some of the more successful authors conspicuous by their absence Stephen King, Stieg Larson & Margaret Atwood et others.  I wanted to write my ‘top three’ and so I’ve stuck to that maxim.

None of which my scribbles emulate in style, and nor do I attempt to claim any sort of parity.  But I mention these writers whose prose has taken me on many an imaginative journey.  Inspiration from the above has come, and continues to motivate me to tell my tales, to purge my imagination of the stories that it creates.

My struggle continues to reach/create an audience for my work via the ‘traditional route’, and we are continuously teased with the enticing lure of ‘self-publishing’.

Option A is my preference, but B may just become the practical reality of necessity.

So, this missive must come to an end, and the lesson, the point of it all?  Read. That’s it, that’s the aspiration of this scribble.  Read.  One day you may read my scribbles, but until that day read someone else’s and enjoy the ride. 

Whatever you are doing, stay safe, remain sane, and take no heroes – only inspiration!

Oh, the book that bought a tear to my eye – Snuff (harvesting diamonds).   

TBR & WiP

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Time is indeed the stuff of life, and how we spend it is the greatest freedom and responsibility we’ll ever have.

Priorities compete, and sometimes what we should have done, what we should be doing, come second and third to what we are actually doing.

Today’s example is the great battle between that alluring pile of newly purchased books – colloquially known as the to be read pile or TBR and that other passion of the works in progress aka WiP. 

These competing piles are part of our passion for life. 

We read because life enthrals us, and we write because we have tales to tell.

My TBR is never empty, and my WiP never complete.

Yesterday, to my TBR, we added another three eclectic titles.  A book on Irish Fairy Forts, a book about Fake Heros, and finally a reread of a classic novel from my youth – James Herbert’s ‘Fog’.

Now these three recent additions won’t sit on the shelf in isolation, they join an illustrious group of other titles competing for my time.

If a book of say 80,000 words takes about eight hours to read, reading in the evenings after work and all chores of domestic life are complete, one book a week should be achievable.

I have fifteen books in my TBR. 

Assuming the one a week rhythm, that’s enough unread books to last a smidge over three months before my TBR shelf is empty – and that again assumes no new books are added (which they will be).

So, it’s safe to say that we have a lot of reading banked up. 

Then we have the near unquantifiable output that is my WiP. 

As a rule, my tall tales have the two-inch spines, they’re long reads, and even longer writes.

Sometimes the prose flows, sometimes it is an all-consuming passion that precludes all others (domesticity being exempt) and it consumes hours as a starving man eating at a free banquet voraciously eats roast chicken.

And then sometimes it feels like untold hours watching a cursor blink… 

For now, the balance is more creaking spines than tapping keys, but this will change, and the pendulum will swing the other way. 

Point of this missive?

If it makes you happy – do it.

Don’t stop doing what makes you happy.

Don’t feel you need to defend your happiness.

And most important of all, don’t assume you have to read sixty books a year AND write a million words.

Pace yourself, enjoy the ride, pause often, and keep your pursuits as varied as you can.

Hug those you love, stay safe, and try to remain sane! 

Fight Club – Rule #1

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

We all know it, so let’s just not talk about it!

So, it seems, depending upon which tranche of learned wisdom you read, the No#1 rule for writing is (bizarrely enough) tell NOBODY until the project is finished, complete, polished beyond mere shining, and sat on a shelf somewhere waiting to be purchased – only then may you obtain a drum with which to bang!   

This truth I read on an agent’s website. 

Now, as with all things scribble related, an equal and opposite volume of advice exists stating that born again evangelical zeal is the bare minimum – you MUST have a website, you MUST have a Social Media presence (multi-platform is preferable) and you must parade through the streets while wearing a sandwich board and carrying a megaphone… 

Somewhere between the two isn’t truth, it’s just more bad advice.

For my twopence worth – to be taken with a liberal pinch of salt –

I’m a slow learner, but I’ll share this lesson:  Love your work, be unashamed and let the world know just what they are missing!

To thy own self be true. 

Don’t stay in your lane, NEVER only write about what you know, and NEVER, absolutely NEVER build a shrine (literal or metaphysical) to that author you really like.  Never hang on their every word, taking their mutterings and musings as the absolute and only truth – don’t, just don’t.

Take inspiration from as many sources as you can, read widely, discuss, and share wherever possible.

This book, this novel that you’ve poured your heart and soul into deserves the most authentic version of you to parade it – so speak truthfully, speak joyfully.

Buy a drum & bang it!!!

Stay safe – remain sane.

Pavlov’s dog goes to Vegas.

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

That little icon, it’s so inviting, just one last hit for old times’ sake, just one trip round the world, you can control it, you know what you’re doing…

DELETE.

It’s almost an involuntary action, open your phone, click on icon of choice, dribble down chin, become angry/frustrated at the world, loose two and a half hours and have nothing to show for it afterwards.  You don’t feel better, you’re not better informed on world events, you’re not better by any objective measure.

So, you haven’t’ picked up your phone, it’s not ringing so why are you looking at it?

The realisation that your phone isn’t a vital appendage is groundbreaking and liberating.  If someone wants to talk to me it will ping or ring, if it’s silent then leave it alone – do something else!

We’ve been reading – oh the joy, the remembered pleasure of the written world taking you on an adventure.  Currently I’m in Belfast witnessing the battle between a recurring evil and a young woman trying to stop this serial killer – and it’s good.

I’m also when not reading, typing away – purging my own imagination.

The latest missive started as an opening line.  A man sitting on a pavement café in Sardinia, who is just watching the end of a day:

So little liquid, so much potential compressed into it.  It had gone cold, but he still sipped absentmindedly at his expresso.  People came; people went.  Life’s rich tapestry was a slowly changing tableau to his front. He watched but seemed to follow little.  He should have been paying rapt attention, but he wasn’t.   He was a middle-aged man in a nondescript jacket and open neck shirt sitting in a Sardinian pavement café drinking coffee.  He was sat alone, which for this café was unusual, he also had no open laptop, newspaper, or mobile phone competing for his attention, and that if noticed would have struck any viewer as strange. 

But nobody appeared to paying attention to anything.  Everything was slow, mañana personified.  The sun was lazily sinking into the sea, the fishing boats half-heartedly bobbing with the lackadaisical tide, even the evening breeze moved with all the speed of a sulking teenager… 

And good bad or indifferent this little section of prose helped pull me from the abyss that took two and a half hours of my life every day. 

I’m a pantster by trade and I’ve literally no idea where this tale is going, except it is going to Vegas because that town has always fascinated me.

Lots of tall tales have migrated towards Vegas, and HIM is no different.  We don’t know who he is, or indeed why THEY are after him, and importantly neither does he. 

HIM is my post social media project.  A dalliance into writing a short (10,000) word story.  So far, it’s working.

Oh, the tale we are weaving and the fun we are having – Intrigue, murder and a kind-hearted prostitute who doesn’t want or need rescuing.  

So, point of this missive.

Time is the stuff of life, you only have so many breaths/heartbeats etc.  You can spend two and a half hours every day doing something you don’t really enjoy, or you can delete the app and do something else. 

As a child (age spoiler) I remember a TV show imaginatively called – Wdyjsoytsagadslbi?: Why don’t you just switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead?

Maybe the folk in the late 1970’s weren’t too far off the mark?

Stay safe, remain sane AND Wdyjsoytsagadslbi?

#176.

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Walk away, just walk away, don’t look back, never look back.

Social media, it’s a blessing, it’s a key to the great beyond, it’s potentially wonderful, but it is terribly destructive too.

The algorithm picks things for you to see, things it thinks you’ll like, and slowly but surely an echo chamber is created. 

Not just an echo chamber of things you like, but things it thinks you’ll react to.     

Save your sanity and walk away.

Negative comments and stories of sorrow woe and cruelty dominate, and you become the world you read.

You know you’re in control; no collection of ones and zeros is going to dictate your mood – but it does. 

It is pervasive and it is unrelenting – it is all of that, until you just turn it off and walk away.

Two and a half hours a day the average person spends on social media – two and half hours EVERY day!!!

Imagine if you looked at your calendar and saw two and a half hours EVERY day blocked out to read things you didn’t want to read – EVERY day, two and a half hours every day, what have we done to ourselves???

Social media truly is the SOMA of our generation, the true opiate of the masses, and I really need to go cold turkey. 

The plus, my sanity aside, is that time spent scrolling is now spent writing, is now spent reading, and I feel so much better for it – I genuinely do.

It’s not an airport, so your departure needn’t be announced, yet here we are …

Maybe I’ll go back, maybe at some point over the horizon I’ll revisit, but not just yet, it’s too much of a cesspit of sadness – it is the piss-stained wet blanket that smothers/suffocates the entire world.

For now, this is it, this is the only voice into the wilderness that I have.

So, drop by and say hello, or just have a read and mosey on past.

Stay safe, stay sane!

Turning the Supertanker

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

“So, you’re a writer, published anything?”

Shoulders curl in to touch each other, your gaze falls to the floor and a barely audible whisper wrapped in shame says “no.”

That’s it, its all over.  From this position there is NO recovery, you’ve been found out, you are indeed a liar, charlatan, and all-round despicable person.

Stolen Valour vibes permeate the air…

That’s kinda how it feels, maybe not how it goes, but definitely how it feels when folk ask “what’cha doing book boy, you writing a book or sumfin?”

Okay, I couldn’t resist it, yes, a little artistic licence is at play here – after all I am a writer.

The sentiment however, the feeling of despondency and disappointment they remain undiluted and true.

If I was a painter I’d show you my canvas, the result of my effort and you’d be satisfied with my claim at being an artist, so too if I picked up my guitar and played a riff so sublime the very birds from the trees flew down to join in.  At no point would a critique follow about my inability to fill the Royal Albert Hall or have my work displayed in the National Art Gallery in London – nope for those artistic outlets participation would be enough.  For those talented folk, a rendition of Malaguena or just some canvas covered in oils is the only evidence of accomplishment ever needed. 

And yet it’s different for writers.

You can’t stand there with a ream of papers and pronounce ‘ta da’ and expect accolades to fall from the heavens. 

It’s not enough to have written, to have crafted, to have taken the reader on such a journey that for weeks, maybe months later they will reminisce that one scene in the kitchen and long after the book was finished still shed a tear.  

It’s not good enough when you write to have crafted such a tale, for those words ONLY have validation, only achieve worth when they are read.

And therein dear reader of my blog is the $1,000,000 question, the true conundrum of my life. 

My art, no matter the passion of its creation, my art is without worth until it is read.

To be read is the prima facie function of a tall tale, and it is one that I am struggling with. 

I am, I know, stuck in a loop of my own making, and the success or failure of my work is completely within my control.

I can publish via Amazon (et others) and be dammed, let the tiles fall where they will, or I can strive struggle and suffer trying to hook that elusive white wale of a traditional publishing contract.

These I can do. 

Bemoaning my fate, I should indeed abandon.

It’s such a self-indulgent cop out – and reality needs to be acknowledged.

Sympathy evaporates and so too should my self-flagellation.

If I am to evoke Invictus or indeed emulate ‘the man in the arena’ then act indeed I must.

Prevarication is a comfort blanket that protects me from criticism, but it is also one that smothers out any embers of praise…

It’s slow to turn, but the supertanker is changing direction.

Thanks for listening.

Stay safe, hug those you love, and live the life that you’ve been gifted with all the passion that you possess! 

Follow that!

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

We’ve all been there, cursed by that singular slice of genius prose that we then must follow.    

What do you do, just how do you take your reader from something that is achingly beautiful – do you just stop and leave this tale as one of those unfinished masterpieces? 

No, of course you don’t. 

You stare for untold hours upon uncounted hours simultaneously celebrating and cursing that near fluke collection of words. 

Dam those typing fingers, and NEVER forget that judging your genius, sitting, standing in the wings loudly rolling their eyes is the spectre of Imposter Syndrome, a monkey that clings to your back with a tighter grip than a third animal trying to sneak into the ark…

It’s purely subjective, a beauty that rests in the eye of the beholder.

But surly at one time all writers must lift their fingers from the keys, whistle quietly to themselves and then look forlornly for a third hand to pat them on the back? 

A few times the planets have aligned, and words have just fallen into place as if they were in the writers waiting room already written patiently waiting for me, the poor teller of tall tales to find them and set them free.

I wrote such prose when I was trying to describe the hanging of a young woman for the crime of killing her newborn child.  I’d set the scene, scattered crumbs of doubt that she was guilty, laid the premise that that hanging would be a terrible crime against real justice, but that inevitably that the law that protects men would blindly proceed.

The gallows were new stripped pine, they cried, the trees that surrounded the sad scene pulled at the at the air and created a storm, rain was pulled back into the cold sky to fall as vengeful stones of ice. The little tragic body was rushed away to a shallow hole in the ground, while men with upturned collars retreated from the storm, away from the crime. Hopefully the reader sheds a tear at the cruel injustice of it all.  I did.  I do every time I reread it.  It runs over a few pages, and I am so enormously proud of my association with it.

But, back to the point in hand, what then, how do you follow whatever you consider to be the epoch of your creativity?

In this instance, being a ‘pantster’ came and bit me with a hard unforgiving tearing of soft buttock flesh.  I had no plan, no script as to what was to happen next, I’d written myself in to an emotionally exhausting corner with no apparent way out…

What to do, what to do?

True to form I drank tea, drank tea as if some sort of perverse prohibition were imminent. 

It didn’t help.

And it did.

Time to breathe is invaluable.

I had to follow this scene, so I did.

Compulsion is indeed necessity, and so I wrote what happened next, and then what happened after page 43 and took the reader all the way to page 337, and a suitable ending was created.

Of all the problems that a creative soul can ever suffer, this one is the most joyous cross to bear. 

So, this missive will end on a positive.

ENJOY the ride, you paid the money, you sought out this white knuckled adrenaline experience, best you enjoy it!

In ending, I remind all to hug those you love, tell them as often as you can just how important they are in this life that you have, and above all stay safe and do your very best to remain sane. 

Why?

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Back in the black and white days of yore, when dragons still roamed the land and the internet was dial up, all that time ago, I wrote my first book.

I scribbled words together as a rebuff to that contentious ‘best opening line’ debate.  Many enjoyable books have poor openings, and many a great opening line is the highpoint of an extremely poor tale.

It was and remains ever thus.

However, I thought to myself what if I could write an opening line, and then what if I could take a tale all the way from ‘once upon a time’ all the way to ‘the end’?

My foray, my toe dipping moment was agonised over, written, rewritten, and then rewritten again.

I quickly appreciated just how hard it is to write that killer hook.

My offer was – It wasn’t just an isolated cliché, it was more than that, it was a burst of three hot angry and buzzing 7.62mm clichés that struck him hard fast and square in the chest.  They hurt, they stung, they burnt, and just because they could, they hurt him again.

Now, the merit or otherwise of an opening line, I appreciate, is such a subjective matter that has as much to do with prevailing fashions, audience whims as it does actual artistic merit.

A good opening line, or indeed not, it taught me so many lessons beyond stringing the words together.

From this opening line I created a 45,000-word tale.

The resulting book we named after the punishment given to Sisyphus that had him rolling the stone to the top of the hill only for it to roll back down again time after time after time…  an apt metaphor I thought for the (futile) actions of NATO (et others) in the far away plains and mountains of Afghanistan. 

Sisyphus’s Burden set the precedent for all future tales insofar as it was a true ‘pantster’ creation.  It was a journey of discovery as much for the writer as it is for the reader.  This approach has remained with every other tall tale that I’ve created.  I may start with the vaguest of destinations in mind, but the route to be taken is never known. 

My next offer to the world was the result of a pleasant debate around the visual differences (if any) between SteamPunk and Goth – with a slight detour taken to discuss one of my favourite books (take a bow Mr Stoker) Dracula. 

Is this taking us anywhere?

It is, hold on, this is longer than a tweet, but definitely shorter than a book written for a long Russian Winter, so, yes, back to the plot…

If we’d cracked the opening line conundrum AND completed that oft quoted novel that we all have inside everyone of us, then book two was free of any and all constraints – and so it turned out to be.

Many say, ‘stay in your lane,’ or ‘only write what you know’ or more bluntly NEVER attempt to write from the point of view of a character you are not – i.e. a woman, a minority that kind of thing.  How these folk think fiction works – I don’t know, but these are genuinely touted mantras (shocking isn’t it!).

Never one to really understand or indeed accept the rules my next offering was written about a five foot and two inches tall woman.

I chose to write about a woman, because my setting (the late 1880’s) was most definitely a ‘mans world’ AND I chose my female character NOT to be the busty amazonian in short shorts and tight shirts, or that simpering woman always waiting to get rescued by a man, nope with Amy I wanted to avoid those tropes and cliches. 

She’s my attempt at an ‘every woman’ character, a woman that many could relate to.  She fails, she is cut, she is violently beaten and abused, but she survives.  And this theme of violence against women was one I wanted to get right, not to abuse, not to trivialise or titillate.  Cuts hurt, scars remain, and nightmares come back.

Risks are taken, and real-world consequences paid.

We added into our mix a dash of SteamPunk with an eccentric professor and a gifted flying machine, and we sprinkled this tale with a liberal dose of magic, fairy tales and Irish mythology.

The rules say that such a tale should sit around 80,000 words – volume one sits at 130,000.  You are also told NOT to write a series before you’ve managed to sell book one…  Amy and her adventures are four complete tales with a fifth in the works.

All of this may explain why I’m currently failing to succeed in the traditionally published market – an industry seemingly dominated by cold and timid souls whose idea of risk taking is commissioning yet another ‘Twilight Saga’ teenage romance by numbers missive…

Could be that, or indeed my tall tales are indeed without merit – could be option B.    

So, while we contemplate the many mysteries of the publishing world, while we stare at that knot that ties the oxcart to a wall, while all these things happen, while the sands of life trickle through the timer, while all of this (and long sentences) continues, I wish you all the best that life has to offer – stay safe and hug the ones you love!!!

Counting Backwards.

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

I started this entire process with no real aim in mind other than finding out what happened next after my carefully crafted first line ended. 

Back in those simpler times my only struggle was to write the next sentence – but then, and I don’t know at what point, but thirty or so pages into my tall tale I developed a need to have my scribbles read.

This need is part self-serving validation, and partially some sort of philanthropic desire to share this awesome story I’ve been writing.

Friends, total strangers, and all points in between have learnt not to maintain eye contact, to discuss contentious current affairs, matters of faith, anything other than “so you’re a writer, what’ve you written.” 

They’ve learnt it, and I think I’ve learnt it too.

If badgered, if asked more than once they I’ll offer up my scribble, but long gone are those days of self-publicity and puppy dog eyes…

I don’t want to brow beat folk into reading my work, but I do want them to read it [conundrum].

I’ve tried the traditional route to publish my work – score currently reading zero from a lot of submissions.

It could be my submission style, my choice of agents, my timing, or indeed the mediocre quality of my work…  could be any of these, could be many, could indeed be all.

So, undeterred I’ve decided to back myself and publish my own work.

Some say its long overdue, some that it’s a fool’s errand, an expensive one at that!

Most first-time authors sell around 250-300 books (many considerably less), so any return on investment is going to be limited.

I may buck the trend, but if I’m going to plan, then the current trend must be my handrail.

From a commercial point of view my book has many obstacles to overcome. 

Howsoever you cut the number, strike a deal with a sympathetic editor, the initial outlay from the family funds is not insubstantial.

Two big costs I can’t seem to avoid.

An editor will cost me £1500 – £2000, a book cover £400. 

My vanity is £2000 in debt before the first book is sold.

I could of course avoid both costs and publish ‘as is’ – after all a) do I really need a professional editor and b) who looks at the cover of a book?

Okay, I know the answer to both (hence this little missive), but it is still a lot of money just to service my vanity.

So that’s my current struggle, my first world problem.

Stay safe, hug those you love and remain sane!