Strange to think, now my new book is for sale, that soon people might be reading ‘The Lost Journey Homeward’, turning the pages and assessing whether they like the story and what they think about my friends, the characters. It’s a long journey writing a book – this one has consumed over three years of my life – but during the ‘work in progress’ stage, there is a intimate, private relationship between me, the author, and my characters and their secret lives within my plot. When a publisher and an editor become involved, as they did seven months ago, some of that privacy and secrecy is peeled away but there’s still enough of a protective shell left between us – me and my story – and the rest of the world to feel safe and comfortable. Today, now that we, author and book, are not only in printed form but also published as a eBook, that final layer is cast off, like a discarded husk, and we are exposed, quivering oyster-like with raw apprehension, vulnerable to criticism and open to attack. It’s daunting. Painful. And exciting!