Beastie and other stories.

Nobody tells you how much you’ll come to hate your book. Fight or flight. You freeze. You’re being held down and forced to read it again. Try a different font. Try reading it aloud. Give it time to settle. While I was waiting, I wrote a rough draft of the follow-up novel, Angel. Try primal screaming. It doesn’t work but it does annoy the neighbours. At least they know how you feel. The problem isn’t someone else’s.

While you’re lining sentences up like soldiers waiting to get chopped, your mind is such a child, it wants novelty. Demands a treat. Syntax is for the dodos. Saccades are where you find yourself. You can’t read what you’ve written, but some cultish version of it onscreen.

Books aren’t finished. Just abandoned like dog turds on the bridge over the canal to snare cyclists. But I’ve finished this draft of Beastie. Tartan noir, 95 773 words. A clean copy. As clean as I can make it. I don’t think I’m William McIlvanney. I don’t want or need to be. I just need to be more myself. Find the words that make it true. I’m ready to send it to Nikki at Spellbound Books. Then I’ll print out the edits. Sit down and it will all start again with the 343 double-spaced pages and annoying the neighbours.  I’ve a publication date the end of August. That could change. Nothing is certain. We can only do our best.

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