I had written a children’s book called Joshua Stories many years ago which I loved doing. I then wrote an accountancy book called “Finance for Purchasing Managers” which was the sort of book you stand on to find a better book on a higher shelf in the book store. This put me off traditional publishing due to the time it took to publish after writing it, the appalling reviewer who was incompetent in the subject area and the fact that they clearly did not even know the market it was written for despite my protestations. I vowed never to write again. However, I then wrote and self-published an accountancy book called “The Witchbiker’s ride through the Balance Sheet”. It was a gentle love story, involved criminal activities and conveyed the learning through writing it as a novel with a good deal of humour. My students, apart from one, appeared to love it (more than my lectures!) and it sold well through two Universities where I taught. Through that book, I learnt to allow my imagination to run wild and really loved the process of writing for the first time in my life. When I retired from an academic life, I decided to have a good go at a proper novel and so my first one “The Creek” was created. I started it before the Covid lockdown but could not write at all during that time which was strange as I had a lot of time on my hands like many. There was a lot of fear and sadness around at that time and some of our family with young baby lived with us then and we wanted to make the most of our time together. When I finally got down to it  I probably wrote the book within 12 months. I am well on with my second book in the series now.