Brilliantly Edited Garbage

I worked from home at one time. Literally one time. I just couldn’t do it; for a whole heap of reasons. First there was the distractions, such as getting something from the back of the sofa, which suddenly became an absolute priority.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what to write about next that will guarantee success and have the literary world fall at my feet. I doubt anyone does. But it’s not the way to go anyway. On a purely practical level, the timing is against you from the off.

It’s late-March. I’ve just seen yet another physiological thriller launch news on Twitter. I think it’s fair to say that, if I had my time again, I might not have written Child Taken for a May 2017 release. But I didn’t write Child Taken for a May 2017 release….

Writing plays absolute havoc with your family life. You’’ll try to turn any spare moment into an opportunity to write and if you’re working full time, then your working day is going to get a damn sight longer.

I did want to document the experience I’ve had and am still having; to make sense of it in my own mind if nothing else but also to share what I found out in case that might be useful or relevant to someone else. If you can just help one person.

‘Show me the money’ might be the title of this post, used solely to try to get more people to read it, but back then, financial reward was, and still is, the furthest thing from my mind…

I’d always smiled when I heard writers say they wrote because ‘they had to’. I knew exactly what they meant and I envied it because I’d have loved to have that kind of calling to put pen/finger to paper/keyboard but the truth was, I didn’t feel that way.

G.P Taylor had made me think. But he had also began a self-assessment of my then soon-to-be-forty years. Where was it going? Was I doing something that I loved? Could I do anything else? My mother had always said (many, many times) that I should get a ‘sensible job at the bank’….

“There’s only one Graham Taylor” Or so the song goes anyway. This Graham Taylor was also considered good enough to be the manager of his country as well as being on Elton John’s (the Watford FC chairman) speed dial. I never thought he was the only Graham Taylor though.

It began with a radio interview and ended with a novel. On 18 May 2017, my first book, Child Taken, is published by Red Door Books and the first part of my journey will have been completed. So, with roughly 15 weeks until publication, I’ve decided to share my experiences along the way.