How
y'all been? Busy, I hope.
What
have I been doing? Well, today I sent my
new novel out into the world, to find representation and love. It's called 'Shadow of the Mountain', and
it's a contemporary novel about love and faith, about what leads a young man
from a small town in Wales to fighting a war in Afghanistan. I'm incredibly proud of it. I spent two years writing it, poured
everything I had into it - and then some emotional reserves I didn't know I had
besides - and the result is something I hope you, and many other future
readers, will want to buy in the not too distant future.
It's
hard work, writing a novel. It's not
something you can truly do just on weekends, around your other jobs and hobbies
and social life. I mean, I know many do
- many even have success doing it his way - but you do have to make
sacrifices. For two years I've barely
been out socialising. I've spent most of
my free time bent crooked over a writing pad, putting this feverish dream of a
novel that was in my head down onto paper.
Okay, sometimes you go out, because you need a break away, for an
evening or so, but in that time you won't escape that novel burning inside
you. If you're anything like me, you'll
spend that outside time cornering some unfortunate friend in the corner of a
pub and babbling incessantly about plot twists, character development and the
themes of your novel. But when it's all
done - when it's out there, letting others read it, and for the first time in
months your free of it... that's a great feeling, that rush of freedom bubbling
through your veins. You might even look
at all those pages, the multiple drafts on your hard drive, the scribbled notes
left behind, made on beer mats, and waiters dockets and scrap paper, and think:
never again. But you're a writer, this
is who you are, and so...
I
began writing the next novel yesterday, in the pause between finishing Shadow
of the Mountain and sending it out. It's
been at the back of my mind for some time now, an idea growing, shaping itself
in the subconscious, and now it is a life, ready to be transcribed onto the
page. Who knows what she'll be like in
two years. I can't wait to find
out. Such is the life of a writer. Please don't think me as mad as this blog
post has undoubtedly made me sound. If I
do happen to meet you out in a pub, I promise not to corner you and burble wildly. Can't promise you won't start, though,
because this writing lark: it's infectious.
