I enjoy the freedom it offers the writer. The challenges are not to be ignored but the rewards for success are there. The world is now the stage and that is an exciting prospect for any writer. The book industry is changing, because the current model that traditional publishers use is, I believe, flawed. Visionaries like Mark Coker are enabling great books to be available to a global market.
Whether the book is a success or not is decided by the readers and not the publishers.

To get feedback from someone who has engaged with a character in the book. A good review is also uplifting.

I was a late starter. I graduated in applied mathematics and worked in IT most of my professional life. I started writing in 2010, In 2013, two novels later, I decided to become a full-time novelist.

I think of them as part of my team. I listen to their comments and suggestions and if realistic I like to implement them. To have a fan base is wonderful.

My next novel is called The Journal of Harry Somerville.
This is a draft pitch for the novel:

It is 1965 and a sixteen-year-old youth is destitute and living on the streets. His future is as bleak as his traumatic past; until the day he inherits a little, leather case from an ailing vagrant, who dies next to him, in the night.

The contents of the old man's case inspires Luke and he sets out to find his parents, the truth about his past, and that of Harry Somerville, a Second World War soldier, with a love of romantic poetry, who suffers an undignified and lonely death in 1965. A war hero, rejected by society.

When Luke marries, the incredible truth continues to unfold; exposing lies, cover-ups, hatred, revenge, retribution and the reason why Harry Somerville died as an outcast.

The denouement brings all three life-stories together, with incredible consequences!

That's easy. I have to get up and jot down the ideas in my head before I forget them.

I enjoy reading Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Dan Brown, Paulo Coelho but honestly there are a lot of good authors about. The book I enjoyed recently was 'I am Pilgrim' by Terry Hayes.

I love walking in the countryside. Playing golf and training through the winter to run 10k's in the summer.

Yes, and it was awful. I think I was about eight-years-old and it was a story about the life of a Roman centurion. I was asked to read it out at school and put most of the class to sleep.

I start with a idea and work on it, sometimes for months. I try to complete a detailed synopsis as early as possible in the process. I find this helps to keep me on course. The meat is put onto the bone as I write. My characters however seem to have a mind of their own.

It might not be obvious, but yes there is, and I'm not saying what it is.