Ten months. TEN BLOODY MONTHS! Forty weeks of my life I've been pregnant with this frigging book. And yesterday, the 28th November, 2012 at precisely 5:03 am GMT, the bastard was born.
It was delivered by email cesarean to its rightful mother in London. The woman who planted the seed. The lady who made me gain a stone by sitting in a chair for ten months while this 600-page monster grew inside me. The editor who, on the 2nd February, got me up the duff by asking whether I'd thought about writing a book for a commercial publisher.
But now it's over. The torment of surrogacy is at an end. Little Hunter has been shipped off to the HarperCollins family, and now I'm just waiting to see if he'll settle in. Will they love him, or decide he's not worth the paper? Will they send him back to me saying he's shit all over the place and can't even punctuate properly? Or will they decide he's deserving of a good home, and ask me to make more babies for them? Let's wait and see. Worst case scenario, I'll give him to my tax-avoiding Uncle Amazon and Aunt Apple to look after.
Well, it's almost Christmas again, and I haven't tallied my book sales for months. But I promise I'll get round to it before the 25th. The monthly cheques are still coming in, so I know somebody's buying them.
So what now? I hear you cry, with genuine interest. Well that all depends whether or not HarperCollins want to sign me up. If they do, then it's back to Europe, a million emails, more editing and start work on the next book. If they don't, then I'll self-publish Hunter and crack on regardless.
There's a certain freedom that comes with self-publishing. It's a little like owning your own pub (I don't think I need to elaborate on that one). Having said that, for your average Joe Bloggs to spend ten months writing when he could be working and earning decent money. It makes one wonder how they manage to do it. I know many self-published authors write in their free time and have day jobs, but Christ! Could you be arsed coming home after eight hours down the factory to decide whether to use a chainsaw or an axe on Mr Biggleton's head in chapter 7?
As for my next book. It's already drafted out (the synopsis that is). DS Liz Porteous - of Facebook Killer 3 fame - leads the way in Hunter and so she shall in the next novel, too. She's a little like me after gender reassignment surgery. Just that she doesn't smoke. Not yet anyway.
I've talked about it for a long time, but I'm definitely going to work on a collection of short, sharp, shocking stories, too. After I get back from the factory, that is. Stinking of fish. They're going to be totally self-indulgent. Stories and anecdotes from my past, carefully crafted into unreadable crap for the masses. Shit! I think E.L. James already beat me to that one.
Anyway loyal readers. I shall have to love you and leave you, as I think I need stitches.
Until I can be bothered to write another blog post, take care of yourselves and remember: Never trust a man with bleached hair and a big cigar.
Regards,
MLS
