The sample book arrived this week from Ingram. I’ve been having a bunch of big feelings about this book finally being real and readable.

I’ve been writing a lot of words over the years. I started working on novels almost as soon as I got out of college (and of course there were pieces of novels before, but I’d never finished a longer work before The Art of Science).

One of the bad habits I got into was not finishing them at the time I wrote them. Maybe it was neurodivergence, and maybe it was just not understanding how the editing process worked.

Don’t Tell Your Mother was originally written in 2009, the year my daughter was born. I took time to edit, to send to different readers (and I also read for them), and eventually I had a book.

My step-dad told me when I was young that nobody writes anything worth reading until they’re fifty, or maybe (strongly stressed maybe) forty. I was published for the first time at thirty – and I wanted to prove him wrong. That I wrote things worth reading. At least I did prove it to myself and others along the way.

However, there are a lot of things I understand better now. So many authors can’t support themselves on their writing because the world is tough and a steady income is needed. So many authors are busy with children and writing is very time consuming and we can’t all make that time on top of a family and a full-time job. So many of us need health benefits so we can’t just quit a full-time job with insurance and hope our written words will carry us through.

While it feels like this book took me a very long time, it also sat for long periods where I didn’t touch it. Some projects are like that – and we don’t always have time to confront a project day after day when we’re so busy with the rest of our lives. Plus, I had this idea that I needed to get out – and I’m also working on it now – that had my attention from the beginning (2006). The problem was I knew I wasn’t a good enough writer to tackle it then, but I think I am now. The multitude of years behind that project shows how time changes the project, and how I look at it now isn’t how I imagined it in the beginning.

I’ve had a few of these ideas over the years that just stick with me, and I’m cleaning them up and doing my best to get them out now. Waiting isn’t making them better, but it does make me want to rewrite the entire thing again. One problem is the next few in the queue are SFF and in my own created worlds – problem only because they’re involved projects and I need to keep them all clear in my head. But also – it just means every project I am bringing out only makes me more excited to share the next one. Stay tuned.

Amazon has a ‘temporarily out of print’ on the Don’t Tell Your Mother page- try Barnes and Noble or BAM. Or send me a message- I am due to buy more books and I could sign and send them direct.