Thursday 3 February 2011

Baby bird prepares for flight - 18th Nov 2010

The only problem with writing a book is that people want to read it. I know! Would you believe it! I was secretly hoping that these books would go no further that being expensive doorstops or boosting the stocks of the local recycling plant. But no, no. It seems people are intent on purchasing them! In all honesty this is lovely, but extremely terrifying. I’m probably at about 50/50 just now.

This week the first fully printed version of the book arrived. It looks lovely, all shiny and proper. I was excited for all of about five seconds until I flipped open the pages and there were my little stories staring up at me, so innocent and unassuming and I thought – what have I done? Releasing my little darlings into the world so haphazardly?!

Those little stories each represent a moment over the last two years of me learning to write (you can judge for yourself how much I’ve learnt or not learnt, blame my tutor- ha!). Lots of them are based on experiences I’ve had (often the emotion involved  -  I don’t claim to have been a man living in the Gambia!) or remind me of the time when I wrote them. And now I’m afraid to let them go.

The book should be available to buy any day now (I will make the necessary announcements and associated fanfare when the time comes!) I am just in the process of making the final amendments and it will be good to go. So then I have to push my baby bird from the nest and let it fly, poor little thing. I don’t really know if it's ready yet. No scrap that, I don't think I'm ready yet. I'm developing empty nest syndrome already!

So in an effort to ease my separation anxiety I have decided that in the run up to Christmas I will blog about each of the stories: where they came from, what they are really about and what they meant to me when I wrote them. If you’d like a sneak preview of this you can read the interview I did with the Cadaverine Magazine about the first story in the book ‘When I grow up I want to be a Prophet’ here.

Happy Reading!

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