It is 2013 and my first novel, Headtaker, has just been published by Black Library.

I've written other stories. The Tilean’s Talisman and The Karag Durak Grudge are both out, and Curse of the Everliving is released at about the same time, but this is the moment, holding a real, beautiful book in my hands, seeing it in book shops, that I feel like a real writer. I attend Black Library Live that year, and the Weekender the next. Headtaker is shortlisted for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award and I get to put on a suit and take a trip to London at Black Library’s expense.

I didn't win.

By now it’s late 2014. City of the Damned is out and I’ve been given the honour of writing the conclusion to the Gotrek & Felix saga.

Written in precis like that, it looks as though everything’s going great, and it is, but I’m still working full-time, in a biology lab at Newcastle University. My dream visions of the rewards showered over the published author are quickly dashed. With the success of Fatherland Robert Harris bought a cottage. With the proceeds of The Tilean’s Talisman I bought a cupboard. I still have it.

I do have a brief spell as a, notionally, full-time author while writing City of the Damned, but only because I don’t have a job at the time. There are loads of great jobs in science, but only if you’re able to move around the world to where the projects and money are. But now I have a house and a little girl coming, so I can’t be upping and going to Edinburgh or Calgary or wherever (I sense there will be a blog about why I left academia at some point), so I trade down to a part-time technical position in York University. The idea is to devote that extra time to doing more writing.

Things get harder after Rosie is born, but looking back I probably wrote some of my best stuff around then. Both Thorgrim and Kinslayer are inspired by impending parenthood and themes associated with that, while Slayer is written in a kind sleepless postnatal daze, bouncing from cold to cold, somehow arriving on schedule as (in my editor’s words) the best thing he’s read all year. It also gets me my second trip to an award ceremony, for the 2016 David Gemmell Legend Award.

I didn’t win that one either. But apparently it pushed The Liar's Key all the way. You just don't beat Mark Lawrence or Brandon Sanderson for the Gemmell Award!

And now it’s 2017. I’ve taken the leap. I’m a full time author.

So why now?

There are lots of reasons. My job in York came to a natural end. I’ve written my first novel for the Horus Heresy in Ferrus Manus: The Gorgon of Medusa. The royalties for my three Gotrek and Felix books are bumping up my basic income from advances nicely. I’ve got lots of books coming out and lots more in the pipe: my first Age of Sigmar novel, an Iron Hand trilogy, I’m pitching for a second Primarch novel (start making your guesses now…), and an Age of Sigmar audio series featuring a set of characters that will make a lot of people very excited, I'm talking with another publisher of tie-in about doing some work for them.

But mostly it’s because it’s time. I’ve been putting it off out of fear for at least the last couple of years, and now I’ve been pushed it’s time to see if I sink or swim.



Wish me luck (i.e. buy loads of my books!)