About Me (longer version) 

 

I am a family man in my late 40's, I worked hard all my adult life up until recently. A couple of years before the UK lockdown I was told I had Psoriatic Arthritis. Before that I pushed myself too hard all week to provide for my family, to run a community martial arts / boxing club, and worked the weekends on the doors in a nightclub. This stress, plus maybe the stress of a traumatic childhood, brought my health to a crashing halt as pain, swelling and fatigue quickly followed. 

 

During the lockdown it all became too much as my past resurfaced and my life, like everyone elses’s, became a huge struggle to find focus. It was great spending time with my children and wife, but so much time in the house dragged me down quickly. 

 

This moves us to why I started writing.

 

During lockdown I was fortunate to find help from Somerset Talking Therapy The sessions started me talking and exploring a lot of trauma. As part of the process they asked me to write a letter, and then write some of the things down. What I discovered was that this really helped get the things cleared from my mind. The more I wrote the better I felt. A lot I deleted afterwards because I did not want anyone reading about my childhood, but some I changed. It became the start of a fictional idea based on my childhood ideas, or the world I created as a child to escape the trauma. 

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In 2023 I set myself a challenge to write a novel, or a large book, 90k words was the goal. So I made time to write. However the process was new to me, my education had been fairly average, I'm not even sure now if my use of the English language is correct throughout the book. I'm not saying it is bad, but I know there will be people with a view on it. The important thing is that I do not allow this to become a reason to stop - if we set a challenge we must complete it! I spent hours writing, reviewing, checking it onlline, looking at best practice, basically teaching myself how to write a book as I continue to write.

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The part of the challenge was to complete it without spending money. This made it extra hard, especially when formatting the book for KDP. The use of images is a pain too. I did not want any AI involved in the book so made the cover very simple by creating an energy swirl and that is it. Hopefully it looks okay.

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To view the finished product please visit the Amazon Book Store

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So now the creative challenges are:

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1. Write book 2 (this is well underway)

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2. Create a website to expand and detail the world. Give the readers a visual context to the characters. Add a blog and newsletter service.

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3. Create an audiobook version of the book (done, can be found on Audible and others stores - )

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4. Start to understand how to market a book. Use of social media including Tiktok (a long way off this but still trying)

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5. Put no pressure on myself about numbers of items sold.

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