Ten years ago this month I published my first novel. I wrote it in July the year before, then spent a year redrafting it several times, while trying to convince myself it wasn’t just a mid-life crises project. I had always wanted to write a novel, I been writing for the better part of three decades, but now I had actually written one. It was finished it was done , it was as good as I could make it. The only thing left to do was to send it out into the world. It was terrifying…

A novel, as I have become fond of saying because the analogy appeals to me, has the authors blood on the pages. ‘You have to bleed a little in the ink, least the words not mean anything’ to misquote Ian Astbury. The other analogy I use a lot is a novel contains slithers of an authors soul. Both are equally apt when it comes to that first novel. It is also something of the ginger stepchild of my novels. I write an ecliptic mix of Urban fantasy, steampunk, and Urban science fiction. I write worlds of magic, or madness powered by steam. I write speculative fiction…

That first novel however is none of these things. It is a contemporary romance between two broken individuals, an exploration of two psychologically damaged, deeply traumatized individuals trying to exist in a world utterly unsuited for them. There is a lot of blood on the pages because when I wrote it I had a lot of blood to shed. Also I was trying to write something meaningful, not to me, but to the reader. Here was pain, here was trauma, here is the light at the end of the tunnel, and yes its an on coming train.

Cider lane is not a nice book, it not a comfortable read, when it is funny it is funny in counterpoint, when it is charming it is charming despite itself. It was never meant to be a comfortable read and if I achieved anything with the novel it was that. Which only added to the apprehension when it came to putting it out into the world.

To understand why I was apprehensive, why indeed I was terrified, one has to consider who I was. My mother taught me to read, she sat with me every night and made me read to her. Forced me to do so when I had hated the very thought of reading. I was dyslexic, though no one knew that at the time. In the late seventies dyslexia wasn’t something anyone had really heard of. If your child struggled with reading, your child was held back and singled out for ‘special’ classes. Stigmatized and considered to be ‘just a bit thick’. Teachers didn’t bother with the ‘special’ kids too much. Of course the trouble with been a very bright child who has yet to learn the word dyslexia, is that you know your are consigned to the ‘just a bit thick’ ‘special’ kids, so you believe it…

My mother bought a book about Dyslexia, which I discovered years later as it was hidden from the world in the back of a wardrobe. Then she made me read to her, as unlike the rest of the world, she did not accept that I was ‘just a bit thick’. As it happens she was not wrong, but thirty five years later when I was about to publish my first novel, in the back of my mind, I was still that kid who was ‘just a bit thick’. Why the hell did I think I could write anything, let alone a novel. Why the hell should I inflict my damaged psyche onto the world? Who the hell would want to read it? Why the hell would I want them to?

Can you say imposter syndrome? Oh I had it bad, I still do in fact. I seek friendships with people smarter than me, because they are the people I want to spend time with, and yet people smarter than me intimidate me. I try to write books that are clever, witty and wise, yet feel I am none of those things, most of the time. I am a terrible fraud, and someday someone will realize this and they will send around the people who will stop me from writing, for my own good.

Ten years ago this month, I published my first novel, and I was terrified.

Cider Lane remains the troubled child of my novels. Some people like it, some people should never read it, some love it, a few hate it. Its not a nice novel, its not a cozy read, and I left a lot of blood on the page, in places too much. It is also not a novel i would write now. Which is not to say I don’t like it or am not proud of it. I am very proud of the novel, I think it is unique and I love it now as I did then. I am just aware of its flaws and that it is the difficult child.

Passing Place, my second novel, contains my soul, the blood on the pages is the bright scarlet blood of the veins. My later novels hide my soul away and disguise the blood. Oh its still there, it just isn’t quite on display in the same way. Perhaps because I am a better writer now, or just because I bleed in a more controlled fashion. Hannibal Smyth, Lucifer Mandrake, Benjamin West, Gothe, Eliza Tu-Pa-Ka, and the rest are all slithers of my soul, they all bleed my blood on the page, but much of the blood is their own. Both Susanne and Colin from Cider Lane bleed directly from my veins. It is an uncomfortable book, it was never meant to be otherwise.

It also goes in hard from the outset. the first chapter is written exclusively from the perspective of a young woman suffering the trauma of watching her parents burn to death in a car crash she has herself just escaped. Her mind shrinking back to a primitive state of survival, deep in a psychological cave, withdrawn form the world. As first chapters go there is nothing soft and cozy about it, indeed the reason for the books eventual structure of alternating between the two main character stemmed in part from needing a different tone to buff the early Susanna chapters. Susanna’s perspective in those first few chapters are deep survival mode withdrawn from eth world. The counter balance are Colin’s chapters which are more open and flowing. Colin is just as broken as Susanna in his own way. More so in fact, his wounds are not as fresh, but they are much deeper, while Susanna had the resilience of youth on her side.

The structure of the novel, with the two main POV’s view flipping on alternate chapters is another of those things that some readers might struggle with. It is an odd structure, the kind of structure a novelist who doesn’t know better might feel is both challenging and interesting. And in actuality it was, once the characters inhabit the same space the first part of a new chapter covered the events of the previous chapter seen from the others perspective. This led to some interesting situations. such as Susanna behind a door holding a carving knife with every intent to use it, while an unknowing Coilin is trying to talk to her through the door. The two perspectives of that situation are very different…

Cider Lane is a complex, uncomfortable read, and I made some choices about structure and narrative I would never make now. It is a novel about surviving trauma, it isn’t supposed to be a cozy read. I don’t ask forgiveness for the ending, nor apologies for the telling. But terrifying though it was putting that first novel out into the world, for all its faults, I am glad I did.

I have not tried to sell the book for a long time. I don’t advertise its existence as such. I don’t take copies to conventions as a rule because its not genre fiction. It doesn’t link into to any other book I have written (Aside one nightmare scene in Passing Place that strikes home with those who have read both) It is however a book of which I am very proud, for all its faults, which are mainly faults of my making, I would never revise it now. Nor ask forgiveness.

Ten years ago this month I published my first novel.

We all begin some where, my journey started when I took a stroll down Cider Lane.