When the finish line is in sight!

 Taking a break for a family holiday seemed like a good idea at the time but now that it is over and I am back at my desk I have to admit that I feel somewhat under pressure! Perhaps that is not so surprising when I look at my notes and realise that I started this project in September 2009!

4 years ago!

Wow! That’s a lot of exclamation marks! (There’s another one!)

To be fair a large portion of that time was spent in learning all about my chosen subject, the Anglo-Saxon period of English history. Also, there was time taken to develop the story into a trilogy, several re-writes, and 2 major surgical procedures to recover from as well. Tempus fugit as they say.

I also spent a considerable amount of time trying to get a literary agent interested in my project, to no avail. That is all water under the bridge, another popular saying. Having given up on the traditional route to publication, at least for now, I decided to go through the experience of e-publishing.

I only have myself to blame!

Ha, no, not really. It is not a question of blame. The thing is, I like this story that I have written, I like the characters of Coenred, the Saxon warrior forged in battled and honed by a sense of honour that would put a modern-day ‘right honourable’ politician to shame, and Mildryth, a woman fighting to recover what’s due to her and then hang onto it and then avoid the rapacious thief Thrydwulf and then wonder at the sense of falling in love with a warrior like Coenred and then....well, you’ll have to read the book! I believe in this book. I think that the story has human interest and that it plays out against an interesting backdrop featuring a people who have been much maligned since 1066, probably because the victors get to write the history and sadly the winners were not the proud Anglo-Saxons.

The whole world of 1066 has become a part of my world and enriched it as a result. Will ‘The War Wolf’ become a massive international bestseller? I don’t know (although I can dream) but I have set the bar a little low, all I want is for 1 person I do not know to contact me and tell me that they enjoyed my book, not too much to ask for really is it?

I will, of course, be doing the rounds to sell my book, after 4 years work it would be plain stupid not to, especially considering that ‘The War Wold’ is the first instalment in ‘The Sorrow Song Trilogy’, I mean, it’s not likely that anyone will read volume 2 if no one knows about volume 1.

First, however, I have to get my book ready for publication. Actually, it is 98% ready, I am sure of that, but there is still that niggling 2% to sort out. A friend is currently speed-reading through the manuscript to try and offer yet another insight into how I might make the story better, very many thanks Mike. I have joined Kindle and from today I will start the countdown to launch day, which I hope will be on September 20^th, the anniversary of the Battle of Fulford Gate as this is both the main event around which ‘The War Wolf’ takes place and also the anniversary of the actual battle.

I have crossed my Rubicon!