Now that Finbar’s Fiddle is out on Amazon, I thought I would write some of my reflections about writing my first book. Finbar’s Fiddle is actually my second book. The first one, which bears the distinctive name Untitled, remains locked away in the hard drive of my computer.

I wrote Untitled over a span of four years. It is really not very good, but it is a finished book. I will never try to publish it. It will never see the light of day. Untitled is important though. If I had never written Untitled, I probably would not have written Finbar’s Fiddle. Untitled taught me a lot about writing.

Untitled taught me that writing is difficult, time consuming, exhausting even. It also taught me the wonder of bringing thoughts to the page. The excitement of bringing characters to life.   It was the first step on what I hope to be a long journey.

The first road we travel on any journey is the driveway. It may not be long. It may not be impressive, but if we don’t travel that road we will never go anywhere. My first book taught me to begin the journey.