Where I'm at...

As with anything in life, they say you are supposed to live and learn, well, with my head up my arse for the past few years and not learning from my mistakes i.e. not taking on board the criticisms from my first two books, I still went ahead and self-published my 3rd book 'The Roadie.' This was a book I did not fully enjoy writing for the simple fact that I started it without even having an actual plot. I had started writing with only a vague idea of where it was going. The characters and events were made up as I went along with what was going on in and around my life at the time. It wasn't until after it's release that I took a step back and realised that I had put a lot of my time and hard earned money into something that I did not feel 100% about. The criticisms from this book were much the same as my first two with most of it picking up on my poor grammar and punctuation. (Paying a professional proof reader would have probably solved this.) I'm all for constructive criticism and any advice for future books is gladly accepted but certainly not from people who take it to a personal level. The attitude of some critics was not in a way of 'Maybe you should try doing this for your next book' it was more of 'who the fuck do you think you are publishing a book?'

After publishing 'The Roadie' it was over 6 months before I started work on my next book but during this time I was still noting down new plots that would unexpectedly creep up. I had a notebook full of ideas but my confidence to write another book was still lacking due to the negative comments from my previous work. Then I realised that most of these were made from people who had never actually written a book themselves but are the first to criticise anybody that does. They are the type of people who have more than likely studied a degree in English or literature but creatively, they can't put two fucking words together.

The flipside to all of this is the positive comments, the ones who tell me 'I've never read a book in my life but picked up 'Driving Nowhere' and couldn't put it down.' or 'I liked it that much I've read it 3 times.' A ginger acquaintance of mine, whom shall remain nameless, informed me that my books were doing the rounds in Perth Prison and the inmates there are, well, impressed. Apparently one of them thought 'Driving Nowhere' was a true story. Massive thanks to you guys, glad you enjoyed them. It is because of people like that I am back writing again and with a notebook full of plots I'm going to be around for a long time, so to all of those unfortunate people who just don't get it...Fuck you!

P.s. For those of you who think my characters and stories are based on themselves or people you know, get a grip of yourselves, it's creative writing...of course they are about you :) ...Oh and also a wee note for the people who send anonymous emails...Fucking grow a pair eh!

Dec 2011