I have officially joined the realms of the published author

I have earnt myself a new nickname in the house I live, especially with the 11-Year-Old who has officially dubbed me as 'The-Famous-Author.' He has also stated that he wants me to sign as many pieces of paper as possible, so that he can then go ahead and sell them on in a couple of years time, which is when he predicts I will be officially as big and famous as JK Rowling.

His reasons for all of this? ... Well, after many many months of saying I will do it and then putting it off to watch TV or fall asleep, I have officially published my book: Utopia.

Yes ladies and gents, you are now in contact with non other than an actual bona fide published author who has her own little space on Amazon, ready for anyone worldwide to buy her book. It is rather grand and kinda awesome in a really terrifying kind of way.

You see, this little novel is my baby right at the centre of something that has been my dream ever since I was 10 years old and used to write stories about my class, a new chapter each week that my teacher would then let me read out to the class at the end of the day. We would go on adventures on pirate ships and to distant lands... it was awesome.

From as young as I can remember, I have been saying that I want to be an author. From the moment that I picked up a Famous Five book and became hooked on their stories, I longed to be able to write of my own fictional places and create characters that would never have existed if I hadn't written them down.

Along the way however, when I reached the wonderful phase of life that is teenage-land, a bit of the dream disappeared from me... English was always my favourite subject and I never tired of being able to write, but at the same time, life got in the way and the thought of writing seemed to be childish for a while. Along with this thought, I lost some of my confidence in the words that I wrote. I assumed I would never be good enough to write as my favourite authors, I would never be able to write a scene as beautiful as the ones I filled my head with in the books I read every night before I went to sleep. I let my dream slide, and I stopped writing.

In amongst all of this, I still found myself completely enthralled by the magic of story telling. I watched about 4 movies a week and had at least one book on the go at all times. Every so often, I would come across a book or a film that would be so beautiful and touch my heart in such a way, I would feel a physical ache right in the very core of me; a longing to be able to transform my imagination into words as beautifully as what I had just experienced.

When I hit about 18, I was asked to write a short sketch for the church I was going to at the time. I was apprehensive, I didn't think I would be able to do it. Thankfully however, the people asking me wouldn't take no for an answer and for the first time in 7 years, I wrote a story... or rather a play. It was ridiculous, it was about an X Factor competition with biblical characters as the judges. It was highly non-sensical, with cheap gags and so on, but writing it was the most fun I had had in a long time. I found that it stirred something in my heart that had been dormant for a while. I remembered what it felt like to write fiction again and with that memory came the childlike excitement I had had all those years ago. My younger self woke up from the comatose stupour I had put her in and did a little jig.

Over the years, I have written sketches, plays, short stories and, when I hit 22 and was first overwhelmed with the completely devastating pain that was depression, I tried my hand at a novel. It took me 2 years to write and was called Serenity. Even though it came from a time in my life that was quite dark, it surprisingly wasn't that depressing. It was the best therapy I had ever given myself. Every time I felt low and had no answers to what the real world had to throw at me, I had this completely beautiful fantasy world that I had created to escape to. When people didn't react in a way that made sense to me and only seemed to aggrevate the bad feelings I had, I had characters that did exactly as I told them to. It was the most freeing thing I had ever felt.

Again, last year, out of a nightmare that scared the living crap out of me, I found myself with a need to write a novel. So I wrote, I took the crappiest lemons that life has handed me, my without-fail, regular-like-clockwork, every-night recurrent nightmares, and I made lemonade.

And now I have taken this and stepped out into a world whereby I am allowing my dream to be realised. 27 years of dreaming and hoping all came to a head last Wednesday, as I opened up Amazon and found my book available to buy.

I went to Harry Potter Studio Tours last year with the wonderful One-And-Only-Daniela and found the below quote from JK Rowling written on the wall.

"No story lives unless someone wants to listen."

It sums it up really. I have this story that I want to tell and, at the moment, the only place it exists is in my head. My dream is that I am able to put it into your head too. The love that I have for my characters; the frustration and anger and happiness and joy and tears that I have given them all, I want you guys to feel too.

There is this story I've written and it is from the very heart of me. I was wondering... erm... if you wouldn't mind... ahem... possibly... having a go at giving it a read?

Below is the link to the Amazon.co.uk site. It is available worldwide but it will require you accessing the book from your country's own equivalent Amazon site if you are not from the UK. It's only available electronically at the moment. If you don't have a kindle however, this is fine, neither do I. All you have to do is download the kindle app onto your smartphone/tablet of choice which is completely free of charge, and then after you buy it, the next time you open the app, there it will be, all shiny and new.

My very own book. Utopia: Book one in the Utopia series.

And now for one last thing. Since going over this book with all my wonderful editing skills time and time again, since purchasing my own copy, I have noted some very annoying mistakes spotted around the book... it really sucks.

Anywho... I am choosing to use this as an awesome selling point as, if you buy this first edition, with all the mistakes in, then, when I am (as The-11-Year-Old is convinced I will be) at the same status as JK Rowling, you can then sell this book on for the millions it will no doubtedly be worth and buy an island or a really expensive carpet or whatever it is that the kids are buying these days. You're welcome.

Oh, and please, please, please advertise the hell out of this book for me... even if you hated it, it's fine. Just tell everyone that you loved it. You can lie. I've looked into it and I'm like 98% certain there will be no long term repercussions. Feel free to make up your own lies too... go nuts... hell, tell everyone that by buying the book they will be contributing to sending out a signal to lasers in the sky, targeted on the meteor that is about to hit Earth and without a million of these signals, the lasers won't hit the meteor and the world will end. Thus meaning, that by buying the book, they are contributing to the saving of all mankind (That one might actually be true... maybe).

Or you know, whatever lie you feel called to use... I'll leave that completely up to you.

Thanks to all who have already bought it and to those who are about to after reading this. Feel free to let me know what you think, even if you hated it... that's fine.

Love you all hugely and a little bit inappropriately.

Peace out my lovelies.