At Last! It is Launch Day - Learning to Dance Again

The first time I published a novel on Kindle, it was a very quiet affair. I uploaded Dancing with the Ferryman onto the Amazon site in March 2011. It happened silently, with no fanfare and no real sense of celebration. Hardly anyone I knew owned a Kindle, so not even friends or family could take advantage of my self-publishing project.

Fast-forward to 2013 and it feels very different publishing my third full-length novel. Learning to Dance Again was scheduled to hit the virtual bookshelves sometime on the afternoon of 20th September and it was a much scarier prospect; and made rather more stressful due to Amazon's failure to stick to my carefully worked out timetable, which delayed it by 24 hours.

Almost everyone I know has a Kindle, an iPad or some other gadget for reading books. The relative success of Dancing with the Ferryman and Chasing an Irish Dream means I now interact on a daily basis with people who have read those novels and have asked for more. It has been the best thing about my fledgling writing career. I never sought fame or fortune when I started writing. I did it for the same reason other people watch soap operas or play bridge or collect porcelain pigs. It was a hobby that turned into a little bit of an obsession. If I put half as much effort into getting fit as I do writing, I would be able to compete against Paula Radcliffe in the next London marathon.

But instead of collecting gold medals and hamstring injuries, I collect feedback on twitter, messages on Facebook, random comments from people in Tesco and Amazon book reviews. All of these things have propelled me forward and kept me going in the wee small hours of the night when I do most of my writing and daydreaming. So, today as I launch my new novel, I know there are people waiting for it and there has been a kind of virtual launch party where some of my friends and family joined me in celebrating its eventual publication. It is fabulous to have such support, and a little nerve-wracking too. It does not necessarily follow that because someone likes my first two novels, they will like the third – but I hope so!

I cannot let this moment pass without mentioning three people who have been particularly supportive. First is my good friend Melanie Hudson who wrote The Wedding Cake Tree – as ever Mel is my go-to gal for discussing plot development and characters. Basically we talk a lot of nonsense about who we would pick for our leading men if our books ever became films. Top of our daydreaming list is Daniel Craig and Ewen McGregor – but I digress! And secondly, my sister Stephanie who also suffered through long conversations about the novel as it progressed.

The third person I have to thank is Becky Sherry. Becky really ought to be a “personal trainer” for writers. Although I have never met her yet, she effectively strong-armed me into finishing Learning to Dance Again way ahead of my intended schedule. Basically, she made me think that if she could kick cancer’s butt then I could put a bit more effort into giving her something to read while she was having chemotherapy. Becky read the very earliest drafts of the novel, that hadn’t had any kind of editing, and still she encouraged me to carry on. And yet the way she comments on Facebook/twitter you would think that I had done her a favour. I don’t think so – I think I got far more out of the deal than she did. And I am so glad that she has recovered and is back to do her mad long distance running thing. I should really hire her as my fitness coach too!