The Dead hits the shelves

Thursday saw The Dead 'officially' in bookshops (check the link at the bottom of this). Though it had appeared the weekend before at airports and train stations. I saw it for the first time in my local WHSmith. There it was on the shelf, just like all the other books.

I was expecting more. I wanted a Damascus Road experience. I wanted flashing lights, some kind of spiritual kick in the teeth, a sense which./ riddled my body with a machine gun burst of 'YES!'

But it didn't feel like that at all.

This isn't being ungrateful. What it is, I think, is the sense that this is yet just another part of the whole process of becoming a writer.

I never doubted that I'd end up, some day, walking in to a main bookshop and see my stuff published. I wasn't quite expecting it to the scale that's happening with The Dead (cracking reviews, competitions, badges, stickers, skateboards...), but I still ALWAYS believed. I had to; it was what kept me going. I never wanted to be someone who 'wrote for himself'. The only way the stories would ever work for me was if they got out there and breathed.

So, The Dead's out. FANTASTIC! But I'm already on with other stuff. I've just finished book 2, I'm cracking on with book 3, and I've another few projects I'm sorting out, too. Trying to crack it in this mad world of writing is tough. Exciting. Fun. Terrifying. Brilliant. Odd.

I'm now in bookshops across the country. I'll soon be out in Australia and New Zealand. Hopefully after that I'll get foreign deals (wishing on that star again...) And, strangely, it feels incredibly natural. This is what I've always wanted to do. I've never wanted anything else. Finding my book in WHSmith was like my life turning round and saying, 'See? Told you so.'

I'm a lucky boy, people. A very lucky boy.

Dave

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