Epublishing is old news. No really, apparently it is. Unless you’re a newbie like me, then it’s oh-so exciting! Yes I too have wandered into the wilderness of self-publishing as of yesterday afternoon and discovered it’s not a wilderness at all – positively over-populated you could say, but it still elicited a bit of thrill none the less. Ok, so maybe no-one anywhere ever will download my little darling, but at least I’ve done it. But it was a strange experience. Imagine (gents too, if you will) being pregnant for five years, then without moving from my seat and with very little effort, out popped my creation for the entire world to see. As an event, it felt like a bit of a non-one. Then suddenly I was worrying about every little thing – what if a stray comma buggered-up the integrity of a sentence? What if I’d spelled ‘incorrect’ incorrectly? Lost a line to the foibles of cyberspace? Everyone would think I was an idiot who shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard. Then I heard the words Get Over Your Self and my blood pressure returned to normal. Indeed. Thousands of ebooks get uploaded every year and thousands of readers and reviewers download them every year so it’s good to know that what ever else is going on in the world, we’re still reading.

This short blog then would be an opportune moment to thank everyone who has helped me thorough my literary pregnancy – (you know who you are!) the beta readers, copy readers, editors; those who unknowingly fed my imagination, those who advised and corrected my many and varied mistakes, the friends who stared at me blankly, waiting for an answer, when my mind was engaged elsewhere as the holes in whichever plot became apparent, and even my old postie, who would often ask ‘How’s that book of yours coming along? Not finished it yet?’ – a comment guaranteed to irritate and keep me at my desk all night with the words ‘I can’t come to bed – Postie says I have to finish my book’.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you?!

A Collection of Unsettling Short Stories