Thank you for taking the time to pop in for a visit. I’m told this is the page where I am meant to provide some background as to who I am and list my achievements and experience. I doubt that will take long! 

I was born and educated in sunny South Africa, and other than a six year spell in what was then known as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), have lived and worked here. For those who may not be sure where it is, it’s stuck right at the bottom of the African continent. The home of ‘Nelson Mandela.’ 

I spent most of my younger years working in the corporate environment until shear boredom and a lack of challenges drove me to venture out into the world of self employment. Not a tremendous success, but nonetheless a valuable experience.

So, where does the writing bit come from? I have been an avid reader since I can remember, and as a young boy spent many happy hours engrossed in an assortment of westerns, spy stories and World War II books. And let’s not forget the James Bond books which were making their appearance in the country. My parents were not wealthy, and so my choices of reading matter were confined to what the local libraries provided. Unfortunately, during the apartheid years, reading matter was subjected to government censorship, so our selection of books was restricted. My first trip overseas was spent browsing the massive book retailers in London and spending, in my estimation, a fortune on books I did not even know existed. Regretfully, some were confiscated by Customs officials on my return to the country. 

Very few days have gone past where I have not spent at least thirty minutes reading a book. What do I read? Almost anything which interests me at the time; both fiction and non-fiction. Some authors do feature highly in my selections, such as Stephen King (of course), Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, David Baldacci and, more recently, Patrick Ness. And let me not forget the old classics (in my opinion) which came from Robert Ruark, Leon Uris, Wilbur Smith, James Clavell, Ken Follett, Tom Clancy, and Tom Sharp, whose two books about the brutality and folly of apartheid are hilarious. From that list, I’m sure you’ve gathered I have no specific preferred genre. If it’s a good story, I read it, irrespective of who the author is. 

And the writing? From an early age, I fancied myself as a writer and as a school kid wrote dozens of what would now be called short stories. Unfortunately, the only way I could get anyone to read them was to fork out something of material interest to them. So few got read. In my early adult years I often mentioned my desire to be a writer which usually elicited a smirk and a ‘don’t be bloody ridiculous, you can’t tell stories’, from the few who would listen. But the burning desire to write at least one novel has never diminished.

My first venture into the craft came with a ‘How to be a home business owner’ book several years ago, which surprisingly still sells copies on library sites, but was certainly no great success. But it did give me the belief I could go further. That came to an end with a medical set back which brought an end to any work-related activities.

Now I find myself in my twilight years with the time to fulfill a lifelong ambition. So I wrote my first novel which appears on the website home page. It has been an exciting, and at times mildly frustrating, process with the discovery of the time-honored phrase that you don’t just sit down and write a book. The learning curve was enormous, but has led me down other untraveled paths such as understanding Ai (the book cover was created using an Ai image generator), learning new software like Scrivener and Gimp, and of course, how to build a website. 

It was everything I had dreamed it would be, and the emotions on seeing my author’s proof copy are indescribable. To use the game of cricket as my comparator; my first innings are completed, and there is not much I can do to change the past, but now as a ‘senior citizen’ my the time has come to begin my second innings, and who knows what that will bring. More books are the plan, with the second and a third already in the plotting stage.

As I travel down this uncharted road, I am reminded of two lines from a song I recently heard on YouTube called ‘Old man looking back,’ by the Jamestown Revival band. It goes: 

‘You realize I’m just learning too. Just a young man wearing an old man’s shoes,’

So true.

But who knows, maybe my detractors who assessed my skills as a budding author as non-existent will be proven right. So what? I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun so far, and intend to keep at, so who cares!

Thank you once again for sparing your precious time to indulge me, and feel free to drop me a line at tonypaull27@gmail.com.

Be safe and never stop dreaming.