The long road back...

 


So, the little book on grief that I spoke about in my last blog post is all but finished (as far as these things ever can be...). It's been an incredibly tough 18 months since my devastating bereavement, during which time I have taken part in 2 bereavement courses, had two rounds of counselling/therapy, read countless books on the subject, have been supported throughout by a wonderful peer support worker, and am booked onto a grief 'retreat' this coming November... so no one can say I haven't grabbed hold of every bit of help and support that I've been offered. And yes, things have improved, but I am no nearer being able to function as I used to, am still floundering through what passes for my life, and still searching for answers that I will probably never find. I'm afraid that I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I am no longer the same person as I was pre-bereavement, and that life, to use a well-worn cliché, will never be the same.

However, documenting that first year of grief has been an enormously useful therapeutic exercise, and the healthcare professional that I allowed to read it is convinced that it could be of help to others, so I'm pretty sure that I will do my best to get it out into the wider world. My instinct is to self-publish, for no other reason than I know how long it takes for a traditional publisher to pick up a piece of work (if they take it at all) and I don't want it to languish in myriad slush piles for years on end. And I will publish it under my own name, Kevin Burke, rather than my specfic writing pseudonym, for obvious reasons. It is just too personal, too heartfelt, too honest, to do anything else.

I still don't know how long the process will take, having never tried to self-publish before, but I sincerely hope that it will be out by Christmas. Watch this space, as they say.

*

In other news, the 'Earth 2100' anthology from Other Worlds Ink which contains my little story 'Exo' has been out for a few months now, and I've had another story, 'Wareham Bears' accepted by Australian publishers Gypsum Sound Tales for publication later this year/early 2025 (no date has been fixed yet, as far as I know). The interesting thing about this is that 'Wareham Bears' is a story that I honestly believed no one would ever take as, at 12,500 words, it is well above what publishers usually ask for in a short story call. (The sweet spot is typically round 5,000.) So I had resigned myself to never seeing it in print until GST put out a call for stories up to 20k. I actually had to double check the figure as initially I assumed it must be a misprint, but no, it was real, so off went my 'unplaceable' story and whaddaya know, they took it! So, my friends, the moral of the story is... never give up hope. You'll find a home for your work eventually, if you wait long enough.

Until the next time, keep safe and cherish one another... because you never know what's around the corner...

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