I wrote a book. Blimey!
It’s a short novel called Milk, and it’s available on Kindle and Apple Books (see the links below).
I actually started writing it about 15 years ago, dipping in and out over the years, trying to pull it into some sort of coherent story. I find writing hard, although it is getting easier the more I do. Last year I went back to England for my dad’s funeral, and the trip was inspiring in so many ways (not the funeral part). When I got home, I dusted off the old Scrivener project and really dug back into it.
Long story short, the timing was pretty much perfect, basically coinciding with one of those nice creative spurts I get from time to time, and I managed to pull together a complete draft in just a couple of months.
A bit of backstory. I’ve always enjoyed writing, but like I mentioned above I find it really hard work, and I have almost no confidence in the things I write. In fact, until now, I’d never let another human being read anything I’d written, blog posts not included obviously. There’s a bit of this in the book, as it is loosely based on myself and my experiences living in and around Derby, in the early and mid 1980s.
Once I’d finally pulled the whole story together, I let my sister, Janine, read it, while I sat nervously, convinced she was going to tell me it was rubbish. To my genuine surprise, she loved it, and her feedback and encouragement gave me the confidence to keep going and turn it into something publishable.
Eventually, after much gnashing of teeth, and writing and re-writing, and having several other friends give it a read and offer their feedback, I hired a professional editor, who edited the manuscript and gave me his thumbs up. Then, I sat on the book for half a year, procrastinating, and poking at it, despite it being done, and finally, eventually, pulled the trigger and pushed it out to all the eBook stores.
So… here I am. I somehow ended up with a self-published novel.
If you feel inclined, pick a copy up (it’s cheap as chips), and leave me a nice review. I think it’s great, but then I’m biased, obviously.
Here’s the official blurb:
Milk
Milk is the story of a man, a bottle of milk, and a night that changes everything.
John Thomas leads a quiet life. He spends his days working in a small video shop and his evenings lost in books, films, and notebooks filled with stories no one else has ever read.
One rainy evening, a simple errand to buy milk for his tea leads to a chance encounter with Roota, a young Ukrainian woman who may see him more clearly than anyone else ever has.
What follows is a winding journey through friendship, memory, and the strange poetry of a town after dark. John encounters philosophers in unlikely places, gangsters with hidden tenderness, bedtime stories, late-night dances, old films, and unexpected acts of kindness. As the night unfolds, an ordinary world begins to feel extraordinary.
Set against the backdrop of 1980s Britain, Milk is a warm, quietly funny literary novel about loneliness, resilience, and the extraordinary difference that ordinary people can make in one another’s lives.
Sometimes the people who change your life are the ones you never planned to meet.
Available on Kindle
Available on Apple Books
Available on Bookshop.org
Available on Kobo
Available on Barnes and Noble