The Business of Writing

   It's been an exciting and busy couple of weeks since 'No Exit' bought my debut novel 'THE DROP'. I would love to say I have been so busy there has been no time to celebrate but that would be a lie. More than one friend has supported me while I have been writing the book, so it was only right and proper that I had a drink with each of them to celebrate. Call it a thank you because they believed that I would get there in the end. I am about half way through my thanks-yous now, so a spell in the Priory probably beckons when I'm finally done. Do I need an excuse? Not really. If you can't raise a glass or two to celebrate a publishing deal, when the odds against being published are so high, then you will never find an excuse to celebrate anything.

That said, it has not all been drinks and groggy mornings hunting for the nurofen, there has been a surprising amount of work too. 'No Exit' don't mess around and they are already going out there with all guns blazing to publicize 'THE DROP'. There's a web site, announcements on Facebook and Twitter and a Press Release on the way, which means they need as much help and information from their new author as possible. 

Obviously they were looking for anything of interest about me that a newspaper, web site or magazine might like to pick up on. Tempted as I was to tell them a lurid tale of teenage drug use, spells as a 'face' in a football hooligan crew, prison time, rehab, mercenary work in Bosnia and a dozen other common staples you would expect to hear from a new thriller writer, I was forced to settle for the truth. The reality is far more ordinary; a few years as a journalist and a series of jobs in sales and marketing, either side of a mad stint working for an even madder celebrity chef, plus a sad and enduring passion for Newcastle United football club. I'm glad it was all done by e-mail, so I didn't get to witness the underwhelmed looks on their faces in the press office when they read all of that.      

Since then, I've been busy spreading the word about 'The Drop' on-line and in the flesh. The most amusing part is when you tell a friend or colleague who has no idea you spend your so-called free time writing. They tend to give you a funny look, then answer "You've written a book?" sometimes they put it like this; "You've written a book?" and occasionally they say it like this "You've written a book?" which I hope is down to my north east accent and not just because they always assumed English is my second language.

I'm not used to all of this but it is fun and, the more of it you do, the more you begin to slowly and steadily realise that something that did not previously exist, until you dreamt it up in your fevered imagination, is about to be launched onto an unsuspecting world as a fully fledged novel. Blimey!