Step one, have dream come true...

Step two?

So, after two and half years of writing, self publishing, reading, writing, reading, writing and (yep) writing some more I landed a contract for one of my unpublished manuscripts. Yay!!

Now I have to deliver the book, but that's not the hard part. This book, BURN, is unlike any of my others (not hard since all my books are unlike each other - sci fi, noir, thrillers, historical fiction) because it is contemporary fiction, very Australian.

It therefore made sense for me to retire my earlier stuff and just focus on BURN, and on getting started on a follow-on novel in the same vein.

But I'm finding leaving the other titles behind, even if it is temporary, is like literary amputation! I unpublished them from Amazon, but Amazon won't take down paperback titles because they can still be traded second-hand, so they are still up there, like phantom limbs.

And it's only been a month, so people who got a copy earlier this year are still putting up reviews on sites like Goodreads. Which is a tweak of the knife when the reviews are like "Omg this book was absolutely amazing!":

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

So I tell myself it's all good, those earlier manuscripts were just a part of the journey to help you find your voice, don't look back, look ahead!

Still. I never thought about this part. I have the Beatles song playing on repeat in my head:

You say "Yes", I say "No".
You say "Stop" and I say "Go, go, go".
Oh no.
You say "Goodbye" and I say "Hello, hello, hello"

Goodbye Charlie Jones, Freya Eriksdottir, Tully McIntyre ... hello hello BURN!