I've continued working hard on Hell's Horizon over the last couple of days -- in fact I've been putting in more hours per day than I've done in a LONG while!!! This book started life very unimpressively -- my original idea was to do a grisly but fun homage to the noir films and books which I love so much, stuff like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. The first draft was short and snappy, full of supposedly sharp one-liners ... and it stunk!!! That just wasn't my style. But something about the story appealed to me, so I went back and expanded it, threw in more plot lines and characters, made it a bit more serious. But it still didn't work. Anyone with a modicum of sense would have junked it as a lost cause at that stage, but it gnawed away at me. I've written lots of books in my time, and while they always occupy a lot of my thoughts while I'm working on them, they tend to slip from them afterwards -- except for the good ones. Some of them just don't go away -- that's how I judge what's good and what isn't. Hell's Horizon wasn't working, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I believed there was a decent book in there somewhere, that I was failing it, that it could be better if I just figured out the right approach ...

So I went back to it and tried again. And this time it clicked. This was back in 1997, around the same time that I was working on the first draft of Cirque Du Freak. I'd finished my first book when I was a tender 17, in 1989, and had written quite a few more over the coming years. But it wasn't really until the mid 1990s that I felt things starting to truly come together, when I "found my voice" and began writing books in my own style. I wrote all different types of books, flitting from one genre to another -- horror, fantasy, sci-fi, sex (yes, I've written a few VERY steamy and disturbing books in my time, though none of those have yet to see print, and probably won't any time soon, if ever!!!). But in the mid 90s I began to develop an actual style, one that shone through regardless of the genre I was working with. It didn't mean everything I tried came off perfectly -- but at least I could see my strengths starting to shine through, even when a story wasn't working out quite the way I wanted.

The draft of Hell's Horizon that finally worked was probably one of my happiest experiences ever. The book had thrown up a mountain of obstacles, but by plugging away at it, I managed to overcome all of them. There was still a lot of work to do (here I am, applying the final polishes ten years later!!), but the most difficult part was behind me. I had written something that I KNEW was good, something that I KNEW would work. It hadn't been easy, and it had looked for a long time like I would fail. But pulling success from the fires of defeat is one of the most rewarding parts of being a writer. I don't think you can really appreciate success unless you've stared into the abyss of defeat. I believe that just about every writer (indeed, people in all walks of life) faces a moment in their life (probably lots of moments) when they look into their soul and admit, "I can't do this." Making that admission is an important part of developing. But even more important is then taking that admission, curling your fist around it, and walking forward to do that which you don't think you can do. Because you CAN do it. We all have the potential to do more than we believe we can. It's simply a case of refusing to accept our limits, of constantly pushing to do more, to be better, to go where we know, believe and fear we can't. In life, ultimately, I don't believe there's any such thing as CAN'T. There are those who DON'T. But all of us CAN.

Bloody hell -- I think I sound like a guest on Oprah!! I'm going to stop now before I start calling for a group hug. But you know ... the thing of it is ... all that I just said above?

It's all true.