The End Of The Road

AMAZINGLY tomorrow’s trip to Middlesbrough will bring to an end my four stop WHSmith North of England Tour, which has proven an undoubted success on many fronts.

After three stops in Newcastle, Durham and Gateshead Metro the bottom line is sitting at a not too shabby 141 sales, which adding the 57 I did at Kingston Upon Thames back on January 27, takes me to 198 for my trips South of the Border.

To be quite frank if someone had offered me these sales figures at the start of the year I would have replied: “Thank you very much, what you drinking?!!”

Here’s Hoping My Trip To Middlesbrough Will Be Just The Cup Of Tea!!

But my trips to and from England have also provided a huge source of experiences, locations and people with which to help add colour to my current MS in progress ‘Fear’.

As I write this blog I have just finished the first section of a three/four chapter sequence set on a Virgin East Coast Train, much like the one I have found myself in, on most Saturday’s through February/March!

Maybe, one day if you end up reading this novel, I hope it will be obvious that the minutiae of a routine train journey, if well observed, can provide some very nourishing food for thought!!

But although tomorrow will mark the end of my English lessons, there will be no rest for the wicked as next week I hope to announce a ‘Pop Up’ signing tour with WH Smith Scotland in four or five selected shops leading up to the final of The People’s Book Prize, on May 23, in which I am delighted to say my current work ‘The Shift’ has managed to claim a place.

Looking back over the last few weeks spent in the North East I must say a huge thanks to everyone who has engaged with me, bought my books and no doubt a good few who have been bored rigid by my particular brand of book baloney.

At the moment there are an awful lot of potentially very exciting things happening in the background, that for just now, must be saved for a rainy day!

Having reached 36,000 words of ‘Fear’ the follow up to ‘Heist’ my, as yet, unpublished maiden outing of Ludovic Fear, the disgraced ex-SAS trooper, it’s hard to know what awaits in the future but through all the uncertainty I can promise you one thing….

I will write on!

Adios!