The Realisation of a Dream

So firstly, I do need to admit that I have been incredibly lazy when it comes to this blog recently! Real life got completely in the way, what with going back to work after a long break, moving house and getting the paperback version of The Last Knight out there. But now I am back, and I do plan on trying to write a little more often on here.

But this post has one purpose and one purpose only. To talk about an event that happened on the 30th of October.

What happened, in a nutshell, was that one of my childhood dreams came true.

When I first started writing, back in my very early teenage years, I decided I wanted to be an author. The way that you do when you're a kid and you don't really understand the work, or the logistics, involved. I just decided that one day I would have a published book, it would be made into a blockbuster movie, and I would hold signing sessions where people would queue for hours to get my autograph.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking, I like to dream big.

For the next 18 years of my life I worked towards that goal though. Not in a particularly determined or focused way for much of the time, but I wrote. A lot. I wrote all the time. I wrote a 20,000 word novel when I was about 15 that I was insanely proud of. It will never see the light of day, but it was a start. When I was 20 I finished writing my second novel. It was the opposite. It was a nearly 200,000 word homage/ripoff of every fantasy writer I'd ever read and loved. But it was far better written. I was growing as a writer with every word I put on paper.

At 24 I finished a third novel. One I was proud of. Really proud of. It was good. It was just too late. Twilight had gotten there first and flooded the market with books about vampires and werewolves. No one would touch Chasing Freedom.

Then at 28 I finished my fourth novel. The Last Knight. A book I was so proud of. A book I wanted to see published.

For two years I worked on it, I edited it to within an inch of it's life and I shipped it around to every Literary Agent I could find. Then I started to think about self-publishing, and the freedom it would give me to do what I wanted. Anyone who has read my blog knows the rest. The Last Knight went on sale June 30th 2013.

Childhood dream #1 achieved.

The blockbuster movie is still a long way off, but on the 30th of October I achieved Childhood dream #3. I held a book signing. And people came...and got their books signed. And I felt on top of the world.

I did a book reading that people seemed to love. I didn't break down and cry like a baby in public (I feel this should be noted because it was one hell of an achievement!).

I did something that I had been dreaming about for 18 years. It does not get better than that!