This week’s post is just a quick one letting you know that I have a brand new book coming out on 22nd February!

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side Part Three started life as a screenplay around a year ago. At that time, I had The Boy With The Thorn In His Side Parts One and Two merged into one large book, and the sequel which is set seven years later, This Is The Day also available. However, as I’ve said before, this story and these characters who have been with me since I was twelve, would just not leave me alone. I had this niggling idea for new material, which would move the ending of the original book,  slotting a brand new book between that one and the sequel.

It was a crazy idea, as the new material would mean making subtle changes to Parts One and Two, and the sequel, which would mean unpublishing them all, revising, revamping with new covers and then releasing again. I wasn’t sure it would be worth the risk so I decided to write the new material in screenplay form first.

I did this for a few reasons. First, I’ve always dreamt of these particular books being on the screen. I think they’d make an amazing gritty TV series with a killer soundtrack. I’ve been interested in screenwriting for some time and had Scrivener downloaded with a few screenplay ideas in motion. I also read some books and completed an online course. Also, this was a quick way to get the new material out of my head and onto paper. I used a notebook and carried it around with me, often writing into it while sitting in carparks waiting for school to finish. I’d scribble into it during brief moments of peace at home, writing alongside a coffee before I rushed back out the house. I sat with it in the evenings too, and it just kept growing.

It was so much fun and such an obsession! Of course, when it was done, I knew I had to turn the material into a novel, I just had to. There was no going back now. This was going to happen. I wrote the first draft quite quickly and after a few more sent it to my trusted beta readers. While waiting for feedback, I separated parts one and two and went over them both, cutting the word count, and rejigging a few scenes here and there so that Part Three would make sense.

Parts One and Two were originally published separately so I already had them on my Amazon dashboard, plus they already had reviews. I had to contact the cover designer to see if he could whip up new covers, or make changes to existing ones. A lot of work basically! I then had to redo This Is The Day, making more changes, adding scenes and changing the title to Part Four…

I thought I was crazy more than once but now that the brand new Part Three is ready for release, I’m really excited and certain that I made the right choice. By the time I got to the end of the Part Four edit, I already knew there was going to be a Part Five and Six.

This was very exciting! Part Five has already been written, in rough into a notebook, and Part Six is plotted. I’m not working on either of these just yet, due to other projects, but you would not believe how excited I am to get my teeth into them when the time comes!

If there is one thing I’ve learned from being an indie writer, it’s to leave things open. In fact, I’d say that ALL of my books have a potential sequel coming. Once I’ve created these character I never want it to be over, and it doesn’t have to be.