My first post!

Ok so this is different! I've been asked by my publisher Cranthorpe Millner (I will get onto that in a minute) to set up a social media presence to help promote the launch of my new book due for release this summer called The Secret of Haditha.

So here goes...

They asked me to explain how I came about writing the book and the honest answer is by complete chance!

It's my first effort at writing a fiction novel or any book for that matter and I doubt I would ever have even considered the idea if it wasn’t for lockdown back in January 2020.

Boris had just announced our impending imprisonment and my mental health, already fragile, fell through the floor!

But that night something strange happened, I had a dream, (that's not the strange bit) it was about writing the first chapter of a spy thriller, the genre I tend to prefer!

Instead of waking up and immediately turning over to go back to sleep, I actually got out of bed about 3am, which for anyone that knows me well will understand is very out of character! and wrote the beginning of the Secret of Haditha, I stayed up for about 3 hours and then quickly scratched out the plot line for the rest of the story, and from that point I was hooked on writing.

At breakfast that morning I told my wife what had happened and got little interest, understandble based on the fact I had never mentioned the desire to write a book to her in the 20 years or so I had know her!

That day I wrote the next three chapters and found that it really helped with my mental health, I had a focus in the coming days that most of the nation didn't and I'm convinced without my newly discovered writing hobby my depression would have come back with a vengence.

I wonder if anyone else out there had a similar experience during lockdown with writing or indeed anything else that got them through the dark days?

It would be really interesting to hear some similar stories.

Yours in anticipation

Andrew