It took 43 years to write my debut novel. Here's why I'm glad it took so long.

I began writing my first novel at the age of ten. It was probably inspired by the horror books I was addicted to at that age, the Pan Book Of Horror Stories.

These gothic slices of macabre were my bedtime books of choice, and no doubt led to some nighttime terrors of my own. But I wasn’t about to allow anything as mundane as a nightmare detract me from devouring these stories like Halloween candy. 

My book, as you might have guessed, never made it past the first few pages and ended its brief, uneventful life in the bin, where it belonged.

Fast forward forty-three years and I’ve just self-published my grown-up crime- fiction novel, Anglesey Blue. I could bullet-point a whole litany of reasons why it took so long, but I looking back, I’m glad I had four decades of experience to write from. 

Life, they say, gets in the way. So it was with me. An interesting job that fueled my creative side, a family, a move to America, all good reasons, or excuses, to put that ambition on the back burner. After all, there was always tomorrow.  

Some writers bloom early, some later, some never at all. For me, the pieces fell into place three years ago. I’d made an aborted attempt at a novel: a family drama set in Northern California. It had some good moments, some great ones maybe, but it never held together as a story. It felt more like a collection of character sketches looking for a plot. This too ended up in its rightful resting place. But this time, instead of waiting another 43 years, I took away two valuable lessons. 

1. Nothing you write is ever wasted. 

2. Forcing yourself to sit down and write every day makes you a better writer.

It’s not that I had nothing to say when I was younger; I just didn’t know how to say it well. Experience matters, but what you learn from that experience matters even more.  

Finding the right lead character, crafting a compelling plot, learning that brevity is the soul of great writing came together when I had the idea for Anglesey Blue and the character of Detective Inspector Tudor Manx. 

Forty-three years later, I'm holding a printed copy of my debut novel in my hand and celebrating, as would my character Tudor Manx, with a gentleman's measure of Single Malt. 

The journey has had its twist and turns, highs and lows, frustrations and elations, but the timing finally seems right. And my advice to any other writers out there on the south side of fifty? Don't wait 43 years to write your book. 

As the quote says, "Tomorrow is a mystical land where 99% of human productivity, motivation, and achievement is stored."  

But today? That's different. Today is where human inspiration lives. Get up early, write, re-write-write again. Do the same the next day and the next. The words won't always come easy, but nothing worthwhile ever does. Remember, you have a lifetime of yesterdays to draw from, use them, abuse them but above all just sit down and write.