Good news, my tens of loyal readers! My first novel, a steampunk adventure story (title TBC) is to be published early next year by the good people at Odyssey Books. Those who have been reading my South Hertling Chronicles will be pleased to know that this work will be professionally edited and much less rambling.
When I started writing this blog, the idea was to use it to get a little PR going in for when (if!) I ever managed to get my novel published. And this gave me an idea: there's lots of blogs where professional writers talk about writing and publishing and related ideas. Maybe I should do a similar blog, only from the point of view of someone who hasn't got a foot in the door yet.
But I wussed out. What would happen if I never got that foot in the door? All I'd have is this long, series about failures without a reversal of fortune as a payoff. A constant reminder of what might have been, like Miss Havisham's wedding dress only publically viewable to anyone with an internet connection. And the idea did not please me.
Which is a pity. I should have gone with it. I should have just recorded this journey. There are any number of successful people who can tell you about how they succeeded, but that's only half the story. If you want to succeed, you should not only know how people succeeded, but also how they failed. And I should have been brave enough to write about failure.
Not that I'm successful yet, of course. One of the things that's slowly seeping in is that I've been so focused on this first hurdle of finding a publisher, and now I have to move on and think about editing and marketing my book, working out the sequel (fingers crossed). Perhaps I'll write about some of that stuff. But more realistically, I'll just be hate-crushing on In Search Of… and writing little vaudeville routines about the good people of South Hertling. Either way I hope my readers will stick around – both of you.
Anyway, that's my rant. Buy my book when it comes out, it will be awesome.
PS – To all the nice people who try to spam their sites in comments and get killed in moderation: you are all very polite. Even though your praise of my blog is completely insincere, I still appreciate it.
