Today my debut novel, The Shoreditch Exhibition, is officially published by Roaringwater Books and is available as an e-book or paperback on Amazon.
I am elated. It’s been an incredible struggle and, in my naivety, I thought the writing of it would be the hard part, alas no. The road to publication is fraught but with this accomplished I’m back to artistic angst and brow beating -will the public like it? To a certain extent some of the characters in the book face this dilemma too. Issues of success and acceptance running parallel with the desire to earn enough money to carry on and in my case, will I earn enough to write another book? These questions will take a while to answer but today I’m on a high, the marathon is complete, I’m proud of it and now it must exist in the real world of reviews and public commentary.
I can think of the times when I thought it would never be finished and the times I thought it was finished only to discover another draft was required! I’ve improved as a writer without doubt. The experience has been genuinely rewarding and to finally complete the journey of converting an idea into a novel has opened so many opportunities. I feel as if I’ve just passed my driving test and now I can take my imagination anywhere.
The effort to complete the final draft has been weighing me down for a while, occupying my every thought, overcoming the challenges of narrative structure, character development and the denouement, to name just a few. Today I feel liberated.
It’s difficult using words like liberation and freedom with the plight of Ukrainians on our screens daily. Some are choosing to stay and others fleeing along broken roads to an uncertain future. There is an explosion in the novel and we witness the rippling effects it has on a community torn apart by the destruction. This is all caused by one single blast. We can only imagine how people must feel after three weeks of solid bombing and the long-term suffering that will continue for years to come. There is a plea in the novel, a vision of how, as a race, we may continue to exist. Please read the book and tell me what you think?