A word from Daniel O'Leary

Well, I have finally boarded the rush hour train of authorship, crowded with a new styled writer, as desperate as the next to secure a seat at the banquet of success. The  positions available are far outnumbered by those who would seek to partake of the rich and sumptuous feast on offer but this is not sufficient deterrent to those who push and barge and fight to get to the table, and I am no different. The opportunities that currently present themselves to any soul who wants to take up the pen or tap at a keyboard are innumerable; the prevalence of self-publishing outlets, the resources that a solitary storyteller can now exploit to promote themselves, formidable. But of course, such a wealth of outlets engenders its own set of problems, not least the competition vying for a share of the cake from that banquet ever inflating in number. The choice for the reader is overwhelming; some would say the avalanche of material on offer drowns individual quality, buries it in the abyss of anonymous irrelevance. Others may say that there is a danger that the number of writers will eventually surpass the number who actually read…

This then, is the backdrop, the landscape that hovers over the arena into which for the first time after 54 years on the planet, I have chosen to enter. But enter I have and my first effort, ‘The Loss of  Mother’ by me Daniel O’Leary, available on Amazon in kindle and paperback form is littered with typing errors, one of the perils of self-publishing and self-editing and yet, despite this undeniable and empirical fact, some of the reviews have humbled me, indeed, some of their content more seductive than the substance within my work. Am I put off by the competition? Not a bit of it. Am I put off by the improbability of likely success? Not at all. Why do I do it? Because if even one person can extract pleasure from something I have penned, then I have indeed been successful! So be ennobled, stiffen the sinews and summon the blood! Let slip the dogs of war and PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED!!!!