A small announcement

So, this happened: This week I sold my first book!

Wait! What?

No, it does not mean that I am a door to door salesman now. Neither have any publishers picked up my manuscript. However, I did decide to put it up on Amazon as Kindle ebook (hail the cover style that makes you think of the 90s).

[update on 28th of August: Now also available as a paperback https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1688683372 ]

Just look at that dope 90s feeling

Wait! You wrote a book? How did that happen?

Well, to tell you the truth... it was an accident.

It all started in the summer of 2015. I was down with fever and reading Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett and as we all know, it is not wise to read when you are high (around 38 degrees).
After finishing the book, I had the urge to write something (also my feverish eyes could not stand any additional reading). So I started to write... and not even in my native language.
I know, it still makes no sense.

Anyways, after a few weeks, I had a finished short story that was fun and all, but the ending did not quite work. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I sent it to some friends. After positive feedback and encouragement (insert a Personal Thank You here if you were one of these people) I continued working on it.

Soon I had a novella, that was also extremely funny, but that too was not enough.

And then it turned into a novel. But the ending still did not work, so I rewrote it... and then I rewrote it again.

I did get it to work finally and liked the characters and the story, there were obviously some other issues in it that I had missed before. So I tinkered with it some more. Then I sent it out for test reading to several friends and colleagues (I bow to all the test readers who assisted me in this step).
I fixed the mentioned bits and sent it to some competitions.

And... did not win.

To be honest, I would have been surprised if I did. It was my first ever writing in that length. I'm still surprised I wrote it and still have no idea what I'm doing when I write, but I did even less so when I started.
And after 4 years, here we are.
I decided to put it out there and focus on my next piece.

So, are you saying that it is not good? Well, that's not a wise sales pitch, mate.

No, I'm not saying that. However,  take the first book of any author and then take the last one. You see the difference. I'm not saying that I will be any good innit, but...
There are certainly people who would call my first book Pratchett fanfic and I cannot disagree. This is where my language skills and love for books came from.  Developing your own style takes time and practice and I feel the second book (that is already over 50k - I plan to finish it next year) already has its own vibe that seems more genuine.

So, you are rich and famous now?

Hell no!
But if I am lucky, people will like the book, get some smiles and laughs (it's still funny, but also serious - these are not opposites), and maybe even give me enough money for it so I could buy myself a cup of coffee at the end of the month. :) And I will definitely continue writing.
This is not the end. This is a milestone.

How long is it again?

Well, well... oh, you mean the writing?

In MS Word it was around 300 pages, but I also use a lot of spaces to keep the structure more clear. Kindle puts it somewhere around 218 pages, but it might not take into consideration the millions of footnotes.

The journey continues. 

In hindsight, it is obvious that I wrote the first book in the scrum framework - short story, novella, novel, all of them were finished products. I did not even know I had a book in me. Currently, I'm writing knowing that it will be a book. This will make a difference.

Also, I can already hint that it will be in the same world and have many of the same characters (think in style of 5 years later)

When I start thinking about it, the last 4 years of my life have been quite crazy. There have been ups  (for example getting new cats) and downs (... why do you think we needed new cats?) and I feel writing has helped me to survive it. There have been several days like this:

But I'm still kicking, alive and writing.

As Neil Gaiman put it in a speech in 2012

"Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.

Make good art.

I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.

Make it on the good days too."

And I must agree.

Though, I'm not sure how good it is yet. This is for You to decide.
Cheers!