'The Book That IT...' is born

When I finished writing 'The Book That THEY Do Not Want You To Read' in early 2011, I was very, very excited. I was convinced (naively perhaps) that I had written something unusual, something funny, something thought-provoking and, perhaps most importantly, something which I was pretty sure other people would enjoy reading.
Of course, by the end of 2011, my enthusiasm had all but evaporated under the disappointing weight of rejection letters that fell with disheartening regularity through the letter-box.
Clearly, even though I thought what I had written was good, nobody else did.
And so, as time drifted merrily on into 2012, I decided to hang-up my quill and ink-pot, place my one hard copy of 'The Book That THEY...' on a shelf in my office and leave it there to gather dust and become nothing more than a personal dream unfulfilled.
But then, shazam! Along came e-books and e-publishing and the super-duper people at Autharium and the opportunity to resurrect that dream and make it real.
And now, in mid-2013, all three parts of 'The Book That THEY...' are available on the interweb - a source of immense satisfaction (if not immense riches).
But, a source of greater satisfaction is the feedback that I've received, much of which has been very positive, even from those for whom sci-fi is not normal reading. Not only is the story of Jethro Postlethwaite being well received, but also my style of writing is...and that, my friends, is uber-satisfying indeed.
In all honesty, if I'd have been told by my peers that the story was good but my writing was shit, I'd have snapped my quill and vowed never to scribe another word again.
If I'd've been told that the writing's okay but the story is rubbish, then I'd've drawn a line under the misadventures of Jethro Postlethwaite and moved on to something new.
It's because I've had such positive feedback about both writing and storyline that I've decided (much to my wife's chagrin, no doubt, because there are DIY jobs to do and they will get done, I promise) to press on with the sequel to 'The Book That THEY...', which I have imaginatively entitled 'The Book That IT Does Not Want You To Read.' Clever, eh?
Now this is going to disappoint my mother who has read the first few draft pages of 'The Peculiar Case of God vs Pratt' and thinks that has real mileage, but that, I think, can wait.

So, it's been a weekend of scene planning, of pulling together all my notes on 'IT', of realising that I'm going to have to study things like spectral-phase-shift, melancholia and string theory...
...and I'm very, very excited again!

Let the scribing begin!!

Dark places and a whiney pussy called Andy

I have awoken in one of the darker places of my universe this morning, a place of negativity, a place of frustration, a place where I find myself questioning whether I can be bothered doing some of those things that I am doing...namely writing.
So what has contributed to finding myself in this place?
Well, it's a number of things, each of them fairly petty, childish even, but which, collectively, have transported me to that place where I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just forget about novels and poetry and publishing and all of that shit, and instead spend my free time becoming uber-good at blasting aliens on Halo or beating the crap out of zombies on Dead Island.
So what, my faithful blog-readers may be wondering, has contributed to this veil of shadow?

• Rejection of my children's poetry work by a literary agent - it was a nice rejection letter, but it was a rejection all the same, and I'm not sure I can be arsed sending the poetry off to other publishers and agents when the chances of anyone taking an interest are so small.
• The absence of any sales of my books for the last couple of weeks - there are only so many friends a person can cajol into buying their book, and there are only so many attempts to promote your book that you can have fail before you start to wonder whether it is really worth the effort.
• Recent criticism of my book - yes, I know it was meant constructively and yes, I know I shouldn't take it too personally, but the fact is that I simply don't respond well to criticism and I do take it personally, and I find myself wanting to shout at people and say 'But it's a fucking diary...it's written like a fucking diary...it's not meant to read like a work of elegant prose...'; but that would be so grossly unfair of me because the criticism was offered in good faith and should (no...must) be accepted as such...but that doesn't stop a part of me from feeling peeved about it (that's the childish part of me, by the way)
• Bizarrely unco-operative people - I saw a photo yesterday on flickr which would have been ideal for inclusion in the videoblurb of my book, so I contacted the man who took it to ask permission to use it. He said no, but gave no reason. I mean, come on, it's just a photo of a bus on a street in Manchester. It's not going to win awards. What the fuck is the problem?!?
• The delay in producing an article about my book for the Bolton Evening News - I shouldn't be letting this get me down, after all, it's only been a week since the phone interview with the lovely Miranda, but for some reason I had an expectation...and maybe it was a hope that people would read it and be intrigued enough to download Part 1 and then there'd be more sales...? But then, realistically, will that happen, are people really going to read an article then rush out and download my book to their Kindles?
• No-one responding to requests to review my book (even though I've followed their submission guidelines to the letter) - again, it's unfair of me to criticise people who are doing me a favour, but I've contacted half a dozen 'book reviewers' in the last couple of weeks and not heard a peep from anyone. Again, I find myself asking what the point is.
• Hearing that Dan Brown's Inferno has already sold 228,000 copies in hardback alone - yes, I know that he is an established international bestseller who writes cracking books that are published by a massive publishing house with enough marketing power to ensure my wife's shopping list is made into a bestseller...but that doesn't stop me thinking (in a grossly deluded fashion) that given the time and the support I could do that (Yosser Hughes, eat your heart out!)

I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking it as well.
That Andy Ritchie should pull himself together, get a grip, stop being such a whiney pussy, accept that things are not always going to run as he wants them to run, that people's opinions will not always match what he wants them to match, and he should get it into his thick head that if he wants success he's going to have to work for it because no-one is going to hand it to him on a plate...and if hr hadn't spent half an hour over breakfast this morning, typing this tiresome, maudlin, self-indulgent and, let's face it, pretty wimpy moan-fest, then he could have written another couple of pages of 'The Peculiar Case of God vs Pratt'
He's clearly a dick!

Well...thanks for that...

So should I now hit the delete button and get rid of all his crap?
After all, do I really want people to read about how ungrateful I am, how impatient I am, how envious I am and how fragile, pathetic and insecure I can be about my writing when the dark moods overtake me?

Why not?
After all, isn't that what this blog is all about?

• Oh, that's another thing...not as many people reading my blog...