I've been doing some serious thinking recently about my writing.

Up front, let me say I have few pretensions. I'm not a literary writer. I don't spend days musing over "le mot juste". I just get on and tell the story to the best of my ability. That has led to me being called a hack, but if a hack is someone who values storytelling above literary merit, then I suppose that's what I am.

I know I'm capable of producing readable fiction, quickly. I've written twelve novels in the last nine years, and had nine (so far) published in the small press. And there lies one of the things I've been thinking about.

I'm unsure about my eye for the market. I write what I want to write, producing books that I would want to read. But I'm a fifty year old man steeped in pulp fiction from an early age. I want the big deal, to see my books on shelves in shops all over the world. That's always been the dream, but my obsessions just don't cut it in the marketplace.

I'm not dissing my small press publishers. I'm eternally grateful to them, and they make me warm and fuzzy happy. In 2009 another part of the dream gets fulfilled when I'll have a hardcover edition of one of my books in my hands. That will be more than great. I'll be happier than a whole bunch of sandboys.

But there's still that big dream to keep pursuing. Over the last couple of years I tried to write in different genres, different styles, but I was never comfortable. Once I realised that it wasn't working, and went back to The Midnight Eye, it felt like meeting an old friend. But Derek Adams doesn't bring the big dream any closer to reality.

So I have this dichotomy in my brain... writing The Midnight Eye makes me happy. Having the big dream depresses me.

I have the gap between them to fill. And I'm still unsure if there's a way to close it.

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"One of the premier storytellers of our time" - FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND
William Meikle