September 2026

‘When is Book Three of ‘The Extraordinary Last Days’ coming out?’

Or how one indie author really can’t multi-task.

Those of you waiting for the third instalment of ‘The Last Extraordinary Days’ — and I know that is a very small number, but it’s not zero — will have to wait a little longer. I hope to release the next instalment on or around Halloween.

But I have a teeny, tiny problem. 

I can’t write in one voice and edit in another. I wish I could, but I can’t. My old man’s brain is not that flexible. Shame. When I try, Lauren sounds wrong in my head, and there’s a mental urge to reach for a sword. Lauren doesn’t even play D&D. Swords are not her thing!

So, blame ’The Ballads of John Black-Song.’ Writing a straight Dark Fantasy Novel, with magic and everything, is why I haven’t returned to ‘Book Three, The Hotel of Ghosts.’ 

Don’t worry. 

The finish line nears. Draft one of ‘Ballads’ is almost complete. And ‘The Hotel of Ghosts’ sits waiting on my laptop.

Except when I go looking for it, the damn thing has gone and fallen off my recent projects list, lost in a crowd of identical program copies. 

My program labelling fails me. The folders it should be in are empty.

I type keywords into my Mac’s search function. Not the most intuitive on the block. When it comes to missing persons, it’s more like a cop station in the sticks rather than the National Crime Agency. 

But I find it. Eventually. It’s there. In all its third draft glory. A massive 151,000 words of it. 

A little pruning required. 

As soon as I type the last word on the initial draft of ‘Ballads’ it will be straight onto editing ‘The Hotel of Ghosts.’

I can’t wait.

‘A Funny Story of an Indie Author on the verge of throwing in the towel and what happened ?‘

The other day, I was in a funk. You know the kind. Where everything you write sucks. Everything you’ve written sucks. It all sucks. 

Now, most days, like most people, I have the rarely celebrated superpower of delusion and somehow manage to convince myself, okay, my writing is not as good as Stephen King, but it doesn’t have to be, and yeah, the stuff isn’t as original as Clive Barker’s or my voice as keen as Kylie Lee Baker’s, but there’s room out there for others, not so good … Reader demand is infinite. And they like what they like. 

And I do it in such a reasonable, adult sounding voice, I almost believe.

Enough to keep going.

But it was a day I’d let the snark out. 

Reason woke up to the real.

Not as good as Stephen King, I wasn’t even on a par with his youngest grandchildren (four-year-old twins by Google’s reckoning who can probably only write their names in crayon). Original, pull the other one, it’s got scary clowns on it wearing Christmas bells? And a female MC. What was I thinking? Madness.

Out went the author copies, straight into the recycling.

Good paper spoiled by bad words. 

I’d had it with writing. Why bother? Six months of hard graft, and for what? One reader. Me. I already knew the plot twists and, worst of all, how it ends. If I want to read, I’ve got a Kindle. There are bookshops. Hell, I have a phone. All a lot easier and more reasonably priced.

Then I got a text. From an old work colleague. Someone I’d not spoken to or seen in quite a while. 

“I just finished your second book. It was great. Really enjoyed it. Looking forward to number 3!”

All change. 

Well, some change. The author copies stayed in the recycling. They are a waste of paper. 

But I will finish that third book. 

Turns out a storyteller narrating their tale to an empty field is not a teller of stories, simply a lonely old fool talking to himself, and an author is not an author without an audience. 

Question.

Is an audience of one enough?

For now, yes.

It has to be.

What’s planned over on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook?

So why should you keep an eye on ‘@ianhedley2014’ over the next month. Those thumbs aren’t pricking for no reason.

There will be more short videos of my thoughts around Lauren, writing a female main character, and why, aside from madness, she is so important. I also return to the reasons why I write, or at least what I once thought.

There will be the same opportunities to immerse yourself in the lived, albeit fictional, experiences of Lauren and Jake.

‘Be safe, be kind, most of all to yourself..’

ianhedley

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