Hello!

Welcome to my first Blog entry – it’s taken me a while to get into Blogging, but now that I have, I ‘m going to try and make it a regular occurrence!

If you’ve looked at my profile, you’ll know that my first book is due out in three weeks’ time. Let me catch you up on how I got to this point. Several years ago, I was stuck in a job that I hated. One of the people I worked for had just joined Friends Reunited and was trying to convince me to join up too – I logged on, but found that I had absolutely nothing to say about myself. Nothing of interest compared to the managers, company owners, jounalists, IT professionals, etc that my former school mates had become. So, I decided to write a book. I sat down one evening and I typed and I typed…and came up with a whole chapter. That was seven years ago!

In November 2005, my mam told me about a national competition to find an “Undiscovered Author”. I wasn’t interested as, deep down, I knew I didn’t stand a chance. Now, read carefully, as the next bit is a little confusing: on 31st December 2005 (coincidentally, as well as being New Year’s Eve, it was also the closing date for the Bookforce “Undiscovered Authors” competition), I was clearing out my emails and re-read one from a gentleman called Mark Jones. He was the star of the show Boogie Nights 2 (which I’d seen in Blackpool during October 2005) and I had emailed him after seeing his website in the show’s brochure – I hadn’t believed that he would actually reply himself, but he did. I happened to mention that I had seen him in Blackpool when I was there for my birthday, and said that I was feeling old at the age of thirty-one. He responded, saying that he’d done more since he’d hit thirty than he had in his twenties. I re-read that message, and thought, “What the hell! I’m not over the hill at thirty-one – I’ll give that competition a go. What do I have to lose?” So, minutes before the deadline, I cobbled together a synopsis, attached my single chapter and hit the ‘send’ button before I could change my mind.

I’d put it out of my mind, only to receive a phone call in February 2006 to say that I had won the Fiction category for the North East of England! I couldn’t believe it – I laughed and cried at the same time. The only drawback was that there was no completed book…yet. What you also need to know about me is that I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – I look ‘normal’ but spend most of my time completely exhausted, even after a little activity. It’s a hard condition for people to understand. Basically, I spend time in bed or resting, to store up the energy to go somewhere or do something, then following this activity, I spend time in bed or resting to recover from it!!! Fortunately, writing is something that I can pick up and put down when I can do very little else… The rest,as they say, is history and my book, Karma, is due out soon.

From now on, I want to document what happens next. The book market is a very competitive one, and I don’t have money to throw around in order to promote or market my book. How much can one little, sleepy person do to compete with well-known authors and large publishing houses? Well, there’s only one way to find out…

I’m still around, but the pollen has taken its toll. My abseil bruise has finally faded to a ghost of a bruise, and I’m collecting my sponsorship money slowly but surely.

I have still had no response from Discovered Authors, despite a polite letter, and a less polite ultimatum. It seems as though, rather than sort things out, they want me to take matters further (which I will, reluctantly). As you know, I never expected to be an author, but when this opportunity came up, I grabbed it with both hands. I wanted to make the most of it, knowing something this cool was unlikely to happen ever again. Sadly, my memory of this time will now be tarnished by the fact that the company that gave me the chance to be a novelist, have now turned their back on me. I’m not an unreasonable person, and only want what is mine. Nothing more, nothing less.

I do have methods to deal with this, but I don’t want any negativity to affect the other authors I know under the DA umbrella. I’m hoping that they come to their senses, open communications and begin to act in the professional manner I’d expect from a publishing company. Is that too much to ask? I think not.