Diverse Tales and Emerging Horizons: A Glimpse into My Writing Journey and Adventures in Publishing

My writing continues, it has to, I have to write something every day or I get a bit grumpy. At the moment I have three stories on the go, all vastly different. One is a complete departure for me, a GOT/Witcher style fantasy parody, all swords and dragons and is intended to poke fun at the genre. It’s not a comedy as such, but it makes me chuckle as I write it. But that is well and truly on the back burner for the time being.

The second is ‘The Twinmere Beast’ It’s a monster horror story and is simmering on the side plate at the moment. It is the third book in a collection of unrelated short-ish horror stories that are intended to be read in a day, or at night! The first ‘Perfect Strangers’ is due for publication early in 2024.

But the main story, the one that I am writing in-between writing this blog, is a young adult dystopian thriller. It follows Dhazi, a charismatic young man who brings together disparate warring factions to overthrow a dictator. But you’ve heard that all before, right? well, not like this. Why does the tyrant allow Dhazi to become so powerful? Look out for ‘The Collaborator’.

Things I have learned since I started writing:

The most important thing is to never use one of your friends’ names for a character. Because it doesn’t matter how many times you tell them it’s not them in the story, they will always think that it is, and that’s an issue if the character is a baddie.

I was first published in February 2023, and my work is starting to get out there. Astrid book 1 was exhibited at the London Book Fair, and it generated quite a few unsolicited offers to ‘increase my sales by 100%’ I view a lot of these with suspicion, maybe I’m missing out, but the tone of the emails always make me suspicious, particularly when they mention shared financing.

I did receive an offer to turn Astrid Book 1 into a film. There was glowing praise for the plot and speculation of how well it would do. I had about a minute of excitement, until I realised that there were no references to any of the plot twists and no character names. I did a bit of research and the only information I could find was how the company had gone bust owing a bunch of money.

I forwarded the email to the Society of Authors who gave me a piece of sage advice: a genuine inquiry would be quite short, one or two lines at best. This may not always be the case, but it is something to bear in mind.

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