It’s finally here. Today my debut collection of short fiction is officially published. Looking Out of Broken Windows is my first book. Way back in September and early October 2012 it started taking shape as a Scrivener file made up of all the stories I thought might make a decent enough collection of my work to submit to The Scott Prize:

LOoBW Scrivener project 24-10-2012

By Mid-October the story order was taking shape using Carys Bray’s tried and tested post-it-notes-on-cupboard-door method of story sorting:

LOoBW post-its 1

By the last week In October 2012 I had a manuscript to read through and check the final order for overall feel and tone:

LOoBW Manuscript

Since then Looking Out of Broken Windows has made the Scott Prize shortlist, been picked up by Salt for publication, and last month appeared on the doorstep of Book It: the Oxted Literary Festival:

LOoBW Oxted copy

Finally, today it’s a real book that looks like this:

LOoBW copy

The Looking Out of Broken Windows blog tour is all over the internet this month. Check out the latest posts here.

You can grab a copy of Looking Out of Broken Windows directly from the Salt store, or from Amazon UK, Amazon US, or any good bookshop (they’ll order it in for you if they don’t have a copy). And you can find all the latest on the launch on the Looking Out of Broken Windows Facebook page.

As for me, once the kids are in bed tonight, I’ll be sharing a meal and a bottle of champagne with Mrs P to celebrate my very first published book. Tomorrow, you say? Tomorrow I’ll be cracking on with writing the next one.