Why?

I've recently completed and self-published my third story. I'll not call them novels because that would give the impression that I see myself as a novelist, or at least a proper one. One that does it for a living. And one whose effort and passion for the task I greatly admire.

I started on Your faith.. just to see what it might be like. I had a small idea, a start and an end with no middle, but wanted to see where I could take it. As I've alluded to in a previous post, it went through a number of iterations. I found it easier to write late evening time. I even managed to carefully select different Spotify playlists to match the particular mood I was trying to convey through the character. It's quite amazing the amount of music from times gone by that you rediscover.

And quite a bit of crap as well.

The Girl on the Park Bench was different. It started with the ending and worked backwards! I'm not really sure what happened with My ZX Spectrum. No music required.

Back to the point though, these (and indeed the other stories) were "side of the desk" activities. As a result, they all took a longer time to complete than I would've liked.

I really cannot begin to imagine the amount of dedication shown by people who do this type of thing for a living. Always awaiting that next advance. Where a "writer's block" really can make all the difference.

Whilst I do intend to increase efforts to publicise the stories around the internet, I am realistic to know that (a) being "best selling" on a self-publishing or electronic platform is not the same as using a publisher and (b) that there is so much stuff of the same type out there; and discovery is so, so difficult. Almost equivalent to landing heads a hundred times out of a hundred on the toss of a coin. Or more likely a million.

Luck indeed. Certainly with the first two stories, although the third may at least gain some interest, should someone have a hankering to return to the by-gone days of the home computer.
So, back to the question at hand. Why? My answer is simple. It's because for me it doesn't matter. Writing my stories is just for fun. A hobby.

I guess it was just to see what it was like. It has been a journey, and I'm happy with the resulting 0.24 royalty every year.

But to those doing this for a living - hats off to you all my friends!