Living the Dream

If anyone had told me two years ago that I'd be sitting at my desk as a published author right now, I would have been very excited at the prospect. The past eight months have been an amazing experience for me, since CUT SHORT came out. Fortunately, CUT SHORT has sold exceptionally well, and has received excellent reviews. Recent ones include a gentleman who advised readers to "Buy this book. Steal it. Whatever you do, read it" and a lady who praised me for "going for the jugular."

So far so lucky.

Handing over ROAD CLOSED for printing is rather different. Yes, I was nervous about the publication of CUT SHORT, but that was a quick peek over the parapet. No one knew about it. I could duck down into anonymity again, hiding behind a pseudonym. With ROAD CLOSED, I have a host of fans with expectations. What makes it more daunting is that I no longer have the excuse of being a debut author, with its connotations of innocence, naivete and youth (ha!)

Yes, I'm living the dream. Yes, it's gone about as well as it could so far... and now my head is well and truly above the parapet.

No going back now.

So here I am, blogging and tweeting, emailing and linking, anything to avoid dotting the last i and crossing the final t of ROAD CLOSED so it can be handed over for printing.

Am I nervous? Who, me? No way. I'm not nervous... I'm terrified.

Leigh Russell

Hidden Fears

Picking up on the theme of nostalgia from the previous post, I visited a few local schools and colleges this week and a student asked me which book had had the most impact on me when I was a child. That is such a long time ago! Does anyone read Just William these days? Treasure Island, Heidi, Little Women... There are so many new and exciting contemporary authors writing for the youth market nowadays: Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo, Phillip Pullman, to name just a few. It makes it all the more dismal that so few children are reading, and even fewer teenagers. There are many other, easier, opportunities to fill their time.

In a different context, I had another 'trip down memory lane' recently. On one of my school visits this week I tried to impress on my young audience how ground breaking Dr Who was when it was first broadcast in the 1960s. From Andy Pandy to daleks was a qualitative leap for an unsophisticated viewing audience. Dr Who was the first television programme to employ special effects and it succeeded in terrifying a generation.

I was intially entertained when a dalek asked me to sign a copy of CUT SHORT the other week. Of course I agreed. What author will refuse a sale? The top (lid?) of the dalek duly lifted up and . . . a hand emerged . . . a human hand! . . . proffering money. Of course I knew it was just a plastic shell in dalek shape concealing a man inside, but I couldn't bring myself to put my own hand inside the dalek. Instead, I handed the change to someone else to deliver to the man-inside-the-plastic-dalek.

How ridiculous! But our early childhood fears run deep. The child we once were lurks inside us all, (I won't say like the man concealed inside the dalek - it's too obvious!)

When I'm writing crime novels, I play with my readers' fears . . . a character wakes at night, alone in the house, and hears a door closing . . . a woman walking along a dark deserted street hears footsteps . . .

I knowingly draw on my own irrational terrors in my writing - but holding back from touching a plastic dalek - that was a surprise even to a scaredycat like me! Surely at the ripe old age of mumble (OK, I was watching daleks in 1964) I should have outgrown my fear of a plastic inverted bucket waving a sink plunger? Especially one who had just bought a copy of my book! Of course, without my irrational fears, my writing would be less scarey, but I wonder if anyone has been caught out by a more ridiculous irrational childhood fear , or do I win the wimpy prize for this one?

Leigh Russell