… finally
There is a simple test you can do to see if you have the patience to write a book. Take an empty milk-bottle[1] and every day add a teaspoon of water until it is full. It’s a good test! Writing a book is an enormous undertaking, especially when – being ill-disciplined in ‘the craft’ bit – you go far over theanticipated word count and, during the time of writing: change jobs twice, get married, have a baby and develop several life-changing medical conditions (or rather, have them diagnosed).
ADHD, it seems, is the answer to a lot of the questions of my life. Never mind the autism, it’s the dopamine which will get you. Making it to almost 50 before being aware I had this thing is, sad to say, not a rare scenario at all these days.
People often used to ask me “when will you write another book?[2]” My response was always the same: “I have to live the ending first.”.
The books weren’t works of fiction, they were hammed-up autobiography. Everything really happened. I couldn’t just go make up some kind of cathartic ending and I had no intent to churn out a volume of ‘lay stories’, God help me.
When I finally felt some kind of end to MAH JOURNEY then I began. What you have the chance to read now is more or less the fourth or fifth draft, the first three being complete rewrites. I’m not a professional writer, if such a thing exists anymore, and my discipline, craft and process were poor. At many points, struggling with the demands of the real world and unable to continue the life of indulgent coping and escape which had maintained me for half a decade before, I’d struggle to write more than a few paragraphs in a session.
Draft, re-draft, disgust. Draft, re-draft, dismay. Over and over. Editing. Re-editing. Re-writing. Re-thinking. Then proofing, layout, art. The amount of work (and money!) is staggering. I’ll definitely never write another book until the next one.
So here it is, years of my life and work distilled into two volumes. I’d like to think it’s something special and unique; a Polaroid of a strange community which exists at a moment in time as the world shifts and changes with increasing rapidity. This thing called game is amazing, yet volatile, and I’ve tried to write with candour and honesty about one (very broken) man’s foray into it. I write unashamedly as a man, too. I make no bows to the current orthodoxy. Here it is raw, the male perspective. Raar!
You might think it’s expensive, but believe me it’s not. I hope that to some people it’ll be worth its weight in gold.
Enjoy!
[1] Showing my age there, eh.
[2] Whereas they usually ask Krauser when he’ll stop.
ps. I’m relying on the honesty of my readers not to pirate the e-book. I hope that after reading you will feel you got your money’s worth. This is years of blood of my sweat, full of my bitterly learned life lessons. Additionally, I’m so out of pocket on the project that unless I make a certain amount back there can never be a DBATS IV!
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