On my Google home page I have a To Do List, and top of the list is “finish Darkania by Sept 30″. My New Year resolution is to finish it this year, instead of re-reading what I have written and never getting any further. I lie awake at night and think about how the story is going to develop, and promise myself that I’ll get back to it in the morning, but by the time next morning arrives I find other things to do instead, and so Lucy, Ellie and Joe are still stuck in the school library with Phillip Hensby, the author of “Darkania”, and they still haven’t asked the all-important question which will help to move the story on.

I know what they want to ask, but like them I can’t quite think of the correct way to frame the question; even worse, I can’t be sure about what Phillip Hensby will give as his answer. Will he brush them off by offering platitudes or just be dismissive? Or will he give them an answer which has some element of truth in it? I know who Phillip Hensby really is, because I’m the author, but will his answer confirm the children’s suspicions, and might it lead them into danger, as they try to unravel the mystery of the tumbledown cottage; the fate of the boys who disappeared fifty years before; and the connection, if any, with the story of “Darkania”?

I think part of the reason that I stopped writing is because I’ve been disappointed by the fact that only five people have bought my novel “The Story Menders” which I published on Amazon Kindle a year ago, and I probably know all of them. I’ve tried very unsuccessfully to promote my novel, but it’s much harder than writing and editing it, or even self-publishing as an ebook. That’s why it must be so good to have an agent and a publisher to market it for you. However, that was 2012 and this is 2013, so it’s time for me to start again, try writing for the children’s market this time, and once the novel’s finished send it off to some agents, before admitting defeat and publishing through KDP. At least this time I can say that I’m a published author, as long as they don’t want to know how many copies I’ve sold!