In a few minutes I'll pull on my coat, lace up my boots, whistle the dog, then I'll walk down to the post office in the village. Barry will cheerfully smile across the counter and say, "Hello, Simon. What have you got for us today? Mmm... That's going to be a pricey one. Ahm, let me see ... five pounds, if parcel post'll do you?"
I tell him it'll do me just fine. But that's when this feeling will come so strongly that it catches me by surprise. A sense of separation, almost of sadness, as if I've just said goodbye to a loved-one. Because there in the parcel I've just handed over is the manuscript of my third novel, Darker. Nine months ago I began with a single sheet of paper and a whole pile of writer's angst. Today, in that jiffy bag, is 120,000 words that tells the story of a family pursued across country by something they cannot see, yet has the power to crush everything in its path.
Ever since my early teens I'd wanted to become a writer. No, it was stronger than that. I craved to be a writer; I lusted after it so fiercely that I thought of nothing else day and night.
But it still amazes me I actually made it. I still wake up thinking it's been a dream; that soon I'll be clocking on at the Council offices where I'd worked all those years.
What makes us into the adults we are must have a lot to do with that conglomeration of encounters and experiences we have from birth onwards. I was born on the 20th April, 1958, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire (sharing my birthday with Adolf Hitler – but no-one's spotted any shared traits – at least none they'll admit to). At four years old I had a live ammunition round surgically removed from my nostril (it's a long story – ask me over a pint at the next convention). Aged five I fell through the ice while walking on a frozen lake. I vividly remember looking up as I sank down deeper and deeper and seeing the little disc of silver that was the ice hole high above my head. For that near-death experience I was told off for wetting my new gabardine coat.
I grew up addicted to Dr. Who, Star Trek, Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5 and Biggles. The Dr. Who addiction stayed with me into adult life – and I probably didn't earn any Brownie points for leaving my own wedding reception early so I wouldn't miss a vital episode.
In my teens I wanted nothing more than to write science fiction, so when Science Fiction Monthly came along it seemed the ideal outlet for my stories. All were soundly rejected. But life has a way of springing eerie coincidences. Although I write horror (but some say it's closer to SF), the two key people who ran the magazine are now my agents.
Late teens, and I discover the small press; soon my stories start to appear in these magazines published by a handful of dedicated enthusiasts. To those who grumble that the small press can never launch an aspiring writer, my first professional sale was directly due to the late Karl Wagner picking my story, "Beside the Seaside, Beside the Sea" (from Chris Reed's BBR magazine), for his anthology The Year's Best Horror XIV (DAW, USA). This was a dream come true. Not only was I to have a story in a real book but I was to be paid for it. The fifty dollar cheque finally arrived and I immediately rushed out and spent three times that celebrating the sale.
To read this it seems my transition from wannabe writer to professional was effortless. It wasn't. I still remember the lean years, writing stories on the portable typewriter I borrowed from my father. The secret of my success? You can attribute that to sheer mule headed persistence. My first two novels, Nailed by the Heart and Blood Crazy were accepted by Hodder in 1994.
And now I'm going to print out this article, switch off the computer, and take that walk down to the post office, feeling the reassuring weight of Darker beneath my arm, all parcelled up and ready to go. And part of me wishes I could glide back in time and visit myself, when I was that lanky teenager, pecking out short stories on my Dad's portable typewriter, forever burning with the ambition to write, so I can say, "Don't worry, mate, you're going to make it." I know I can't, but perhaps I can do the next best thing. If you want to write I can say: "Persevere. Never say die. Because one day I know you're going to make it."