It’s a glib cliché, but it’s also a truism. And it makes sense. If you have an idea and a shot at making it work, why not give it the best chance of success? especially if the idea is something that you’ve been building up to for a couple of years and poured just about all of your creative juices (yuk! Do they smell?), not to mention a good deal of sweat, tears (yes really) and time into. Just re-read that – perhaps I should be writing cheesy motivational speeches for people who have become emotionally involved (unstable/deluded) with their dreams of being an overnight online publishing sensation. Hang on that’s me! OK, I’m paying attention. Go on.

So, the plan is as follows.

1. Write three books in a series. Check.
2. Buy my own name domain name for my author website. Check.
3. Start a blog in the hope of being able to ‘network’ and generate some interest in what I’m doing. Check.
4. Set up a website that will link readers to more information about the series and what’s out next and when.
5. Design and create my e-dust-jackets for the books.
6. Investigate the ins and outs of the Kindle author options.
7. Format first book ready for Kindle.
8. Upload first book to Kindle by Christmas (just in time for the Christmas rush of lucky people who were gifted a Kindle for Christmas and are looking for some free books to download). Yes free. I’m going to give the first one away. Imagine how truly devastated I’ll be if no-one wants to read me for nothing. (Stop thinking negatively. Sorry. It’s just counter-productive and unnecessary. I said sorry. Can we leave it?)
9. Format second book and download to Kindle for a small fee (about a £1) to see if, out of the tens of thousands of people who were happy to read me for nothing maybe some of them will be (a) hooked into following the characters in another tale of policing the South-East of England and (b) don’t mind paying a ridiculously nominal fee for the (pleasure? You’re doing it again. What? Being unattractively self-deprecating. Sorry.)
10. Format third book and download to Kindle to satisfy the nationwide – make that the English language speaking world’s – thirst/hunger/pathological demand for more of the same. These enthusiasts will not mind paying the paltry sum of £2.99 for this book. (Three good reads for under £4!
11. All the time I’m interacting with my legion of fans through my website and blog.
12. Repeat process of formatting and downloading to Kindle the second series of books. By the time the first two have been received to huge critical and reader acclaim I will have finished the third and formatted and downloaded that.
13. Be fought over by agents and publishers (maybe someone could die in the crush? Preferably one of those who rejected me) for my signature pledging the world rights (cinematic and written) to my back catalogue.
14. Accept seven figure non-refundable sum in a five book deal.
15. Be clinically diagnosed with writer’s block.
16. Retire to villa in Bodrum to wake late, swim in the Aegean, breakfast on the balcony and read in the afternoons. Evenings will be taken up socialising, eating and drinking too much and playing the guitar and my own songs in a bar that I bought into because I ran out of things to do with my new found wealth.
17. Die happy.

I didn’t realise that I’d been thinking about it quite so much. Still plenty to do, but five minutes surfing the www for Bodrum villas won’t hurt. After all, fail to prepare…..

A little while ago I attended a lecture/seminar given by a really nice guy. I was attending as an English teacher. The aim of his lecture/seminar was to help us become better teachers. He rounded off by getting a bit motivational. We forgave him this because he was nice. He told us that he was of Austrian-German descent – the same as Arnold Schwarzenegger. He told us that he had been told that he sounded just like Arnold. And he did. If you closed your eyes it was like being told how to be a better teacher by The Terminator. And it was obviously not just me who felt like this because when I looked around the auditorium there were a lot of people lying back with their eyes closed.

Anyway, in his Power-point presentation he put up a slide – a little like the one above – letting us know that success comes in cans, not can’ts. He followed this slide with another that said, ‘Be a can. Don’t be a can’t.’ And he read it out for us in his sonorous , serious Arnie voice. Now, try to imagine drifting in and out of sleep – it was a good lunch – and hearing The Terminator addressing you and a couple of hundred other teachers and saying in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unmistakable Austro-Prussian drawl, ‘Don’t be a can’t’. What would you do? I shot awake and was half way through drawing breath for a big guffaw when, looking about me for others to share the joke with – unintended I’m sure –  I was greeted with stony stares. It was about then that I realised that I had to get out of teaching.

I want to be an author who 1) people read and 2) makes money from what he writes. These are my two aims as a writer. This blog is intended to become my record of how it all goes. I would be really pleased to receive comments from anyone who takes an interest in what I’m doing. (That doesn’t include my ex-wives’ legal teams. You won’t get another penny out of me.)

Some people might say, ‘If you want to be a writer, don’t waste time blogging.’ Others might say, ‘I’ve read some of your stuff; you’ve got more chance of winning the lottery.’ Thanks for that by the way, mum.

In response to the first imagined comment I would say: the reason that I’m blogging about it now is because the books that I’m pinning my hopes on are already written – five of them. Hence the title of this blog, ‘Stage 1 – Complete(ish). I have written three police detective novels in a series and two ‘thriller’ novels in another. Although they are all in various stages of completion, I think that I’ve now got enough in the locker, so to speak, to make a start on Stage 2. I just wish that I could be sure of what Stage 2 entailed exactly. Maybe I could make Stage 2 this blog? Incidentally, I do sincerely hope that in the fullness of time this blog might be something that people who have read my stuff seek out to provide me with their comments, corrections (looks like I’ll be doing my own proof-reading) and suggestions. You know, things like don’t give up the day job.

In response to my mum I’d say, don’t forget my ticket for the Roll-Over.

Eagle-eyed readers might have noticed that neither of my two aims stated above mentions getting published. That’s a deliberate omission. Actually, it’s not in doubt because after much soul-searching I’m going to self-publish through Kindle. I’ll post more on that another time.

But for today and for my maiden voyage into the world of blogging I want to leave it at that because I’ve got something to celebrate. Stage 1 was getting the three books in the series that I’m going to go with first in pursuit of my dream on paper to some degree of satisfaction. Today I wrote the last chapter of book three. Actually, it’s still in the computer, but as an old boss I used to work for once said to me, ‘Near enough is good enough.’