World Walker 1: The World Walker (46 page)

Barrington, meanwhile, never once gave another thought to the octogenarian couple who had shuffled past him on their way into the mall. The old boy, with a Florida tan and bony wrists, had stopped and spoken to him.

"No school today, sonny?" he had said, and ruffled Barrington's hair. If he hadn't been so intent on finding the priest and the girl, Barrington might have considered stopping the old bastard's pacemaker, but he didn't have the time. He just briefly glared at the frail, watery-eyed nightmare in the blue shirt, with his elasticated tan pants pulled up to his ribs. He never saw the old guy turn around and look at him after he'd taken a few steps. He never saw him smile. And he never saw him kiss the old woman with him like a teenager and, his hand tightly holding hers, both of them smiling broadly, stroll out of sight.

THE END

Author's note

Get The World Walker Prologue FREE!

If you're reading this, the likelihood is you just finished The World Walker. My first novel. So, before I go any further, let me thank you. Thank you. I would love to be able to write more books, and you are instrumental in making that a possibility. Don't let the responsibility weigh too heavily on you. If you
really
enjoyed it, I'd love you to leave a review on Amazon. And maybe click
http://http://eepurl.com/bQ_zJ9
to sign up for news on more books and occasional blogs (not many, I'm lazy
and
I'm going to be spending my free time writing the next World Walker book. Yes, there will be another one.) I'm even on FaceBook and twitter, apparently. I'll send the prologue to everyone who signs up above. It tells the story of Simeon, the founder of the Order. In the end, it didn't get included because I wanted to get straight into the action. But if you enjoyed the book, I think you'll like it.

I used to enjoy Stephen King's author's notes as much as his books. More, sometimes. I liked the sincerity, the directness. As readers, we were reminded that the rich work of fiction in which we had just lost ourselves was not the work of some kind of super being, just a regular human being. Well, perhaps not
completely
regular, in Mr. King's case. Every time I read one of those notes, I felt that itch. The itch I hadn't yet scratched, making itself known again. But I never did anything about it. Mostly because, as Ray Bradbury put it, "writers write". Every interview with a writer suggested they wrote because they had no choice. If they couldn't get in front of their computers, typewriters or yellow legal pads with
that brand of pencil
every day, their lives would fall apart, their marriages would break up and they would end up living in a cardboard box, drinking lighter fluid and shouting at pigeons. Hand on heart, I couldn't make the same claim. I wrote, sure, but I always enjoyed the sensation of
having written
far more than actually
writing.

It took me an age to realize many writers feel the same way. I don't know why this information took so long to sink in. After all, one of my favourite writers, one of the few I had read in my teens, twenties, thirties
and
forties is Douglas Adams, and he seemed to hate the act of writing. When he wrote the radio series,
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
, he was famously locked into a hotel room by the producer until he finished it. But, somehow, he managed to author some of the funniest, most thought-provoking books of all time. He also once said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

Don't get me wrong. I have written before. Scripts, sketches, lots and lots of songs. The occasional short story. I had small successes along the way, but nothing to get excited about. I had notebooks full of ideas for novels. But the longest thing I'd ever written was around 10,000 words long. I had no idea how writers sustained an idea for so long. And who'd want to spend all that time trying when the vast majority of first novels never get published? I didn't have that much confidence, but I admired those who did, the talented few who made it.

Then ebooks came along, a novelty at first. When Amazon launched the Kindle, it obviously wasn't going to be a novelty for long. And so a new era began. Writers were publishing their own books. When that first Kindle came along, I was an early adopter. My job at that time involved an awful lot of flying, as I was playing piano and singing in Scandinavian bars most weekends. I used to buy dog-eared paperbacks from thrift stores, read four or five every weekend and leave them in airports, bars and restaurants for the next reader to discover. The Kindle did wonders for my back as I could now lift my carry-on baggage unaided. After re-reading every Sherlock Holmes story, some Dickens and every cheap classic I could find, I started filling it with thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, magic, religion, philosophy. When I hunted the Kindle store for new books, I sometimes came across writers I'd never heard of before. Their books cost me less than a good cup of coffee. I bought some. I'll be honest, many of them weren't so hot. I got a bit more discerning, read reviews, tried a sample. And I found some great stuff out there. Wool, by Hugh Howey, was one I remember. And The Martian by Andy Weir. Now both of them have big publishing deals and The Martian is a movie starring Matt Damon. Self-published books! Everything has changed.

The final convincer (although it took me another four years to start writing, but, hey, I'm a slow learner) was meeting someone who wrote ebooks. Ebooks that sold enough to make him a living. Pot boiler political thrillers, high-octane, violent. Eminently readable, and tens of thousands of readers had discovered this and were buying his books. Murray McDonald. He's even written a scifi novel - The God Complex. You'll find him on Amazon. Just having a friend who described himself as "a writer" without blushing was a new experience. Finally, I had first-hand, undeniable, evidence-based findings: it's possible to write books and make a living at it. For real.

 
I started writing. I still had those old notebooks, but I'd been inspired by an interview with science writer and presenter James Burke, during which he was encouraged to make predictions about the next forty years of technological progress. He foresaw the rise of nanotechnology leading to a society of abundance, without poverty or hunger. I wondered if our age-old hierarchies of the haves and the have-nots would be permitted to be up-ended quite that easily. Then I speculated what the world would look like if the technology already existed, but, for some reason, was only available to a few. Next, for some reason, Roswell, New Mexico, 1947 popped into my head. And, suddenly, it was hard to write my notes fast enough to keep up with the alternative world that was springing into being.

Seb and Mee aren't done yet. Mason haunts the World Walker without us ever finding out much about him, but I know much more than I'm letting on. He'll be back. As will Walt, who fascinates me. I know I'm doing that author thing now, talking about the characters as if they were real. They
are
real! Sonia Svetlana turned up halfway through the first draft without ever featuring in my notes. She was such a powerful character, I wrote her into the story much more fully. Scared the crap out of me, I don't mind admitting. And the Order has always been more than the sum of its parts. It's not going anywhere.

I'm writing this note in a cafe. I've overdone the caffeine today, so it's afternoon tea for me. How civilized. I finished the novel four days ago and sent it to a few friends and family members to check for errors and let me know if it made sense. One of them - Neal - read the whole thing in two days flat and loved it.
Really
loved it. His enthusiasm gave me a glimpse into the way authors feel when their work makes a real, tangible connect with someone else. What a rush! So if this book ends up sinking into obscurity, Neal was wrong. But if enough readers feel the way Neal does, I might end up being able to say, "I'm a writer" without caveats or embarrassment. So, one more time, before I start work on the next book, thank you, whoever you are, for reading this one.
 

Ian W.Sainsbury

Norwich

February 9, 2016