Learning from writing my first novel

I’m a new, published author. I started writing in 2019, just 7 years ago. I became pretty good at the craft in 2022, after 3 years of practice, when I self-published a collection of 3 short stories (mss2).

In 2025, I began talks to hybrid publish with Partridge Singapore, and the result was my first paperback novella, ‘iS’, released early 2026. Just 100 pages / 20k words. DeepSeek labelled it a ‘potential cult classic’, ‘the thinking man’s sci-fi’.

Currently, I’m working on my final long form work, a 44k word novel: Super Derek Underpants. This will be my last major publication before I retire, and it will be free to download from this website, as an ePub. PDF versions will be e-mailed upon request. This is slightly sneaky as it forms a funnel into mss2 and iS!

I really want to share some of what I learned along the way to being (hopefully) successful as a writer. It will only take a few minutes more. 2 points.

Write with soul. Secondly, don’t write with intention. This seems odd. I want to publish a book not soul search. But a little inner seeking can save a lot of drafting and re-plotting, re-pantsing. When someone knows you are telling them a story to get something from them, they turn off. The best successful writers know how to disguise their fame and lure and just deliver the story. A struggling writer must not show it means a lot if someone would please read this ‘Xyz’

I guess that’s all for me for today. I’m sorry for the AI content you may see. I will clean up my site soon.