When I was halfway through book one I decide I need some feedback. What if this book is a complete load of rubbish?  I’m nearly up to forty thousand words.  After talking to a few local authors it’s tempting to just keep writing as the story has been flowing out of me.

‘Have you written the plot?’ asks my friend

‘Nup, it just flows. Every time I sit down at the laptop the characters know exactly what they’re doing.  In fact they know before I do sometimes!’, I laugh ‘I watch my fingers on the keyboard, then look up and re-read it thinking what on earth are you doing now Harry?’

She smiles at me ‘That’s perfect, just keep going then’

In the end my doubts get the better of me and I decide to send two very different chapters to a friend of a friend.  The feedback as I suspected it would be was very constructive and exactly what I needed at the time.  All questions and queries all relate to a) what was in the next chapter and I had already written b) what had previously been written or c) what I already knew I needed to work on.

My confidence in the book resumes and to a higher standard.  I start having imaginary interviews in my head with Jonathan Ross.  I try to visualise the front cover.  I have never had an abundance of confidence and I have never really found anything other than dance that I excel in.  Could this be my thing?

On a night out with some school friends I just happen to sit opposite a recently published writer.  I had sent her an email and she had given me some advice about local writing groups.  I have been so consumed by my book I forgot to reply and thank her.  How embarrassing.  She asked me if my book is a public conversation, what a great question I think.  My face reddens slightly, I feel like I am coming ‘out’.

‘Kind of, its funny how it becomes your baby and you become protective, I couldn’t possibly say I am a writer’ I say, ‘I do have about forty thousand words though!’

‘That’s great’ she says, ‘keep going, I’m working on number two now and I don’t call myself a writer yet’

‘That’s crazy, you’re published, of course you’re a writer!’ I tell her.

We talk most of the night in hushed tones.  I steal her away from the other conversations and hang on her every word.

‘When you get your publishing deal, you’ll get an editor and they will help you too’ she says

I raise my eyes to the ceiling and laugh.

‘It’ll happen’ she says

Somewhere inside me I know she is telling the truth.  This book will get published I can feel it, I just don’t know when.

The next day I open my wardrobe and what falls out are two folded pieces of A4 paper, I have carried these around for years, about ten to be exact.  They are the idea for a book and what book two is now based around.  Indicators, synchronicity call it what you want, they are everywhere if you just look in the right places.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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