Eldritch Nights: 10th Anniversary

Not that anyone apart from me really cares, but next year is the tenth anniversary of Eldritch Nights and thus my tenth anniversary of me "becoming a writer". Of course, I had written other stuff before, short stories and full novels, but Eldritch Nights is canon as my first fully-fledged novel that I wrote, edited, and actually tried to get published.

It's no coincidence the ten year anniversary of me beginning university is also coming up. Eldritch Nights was very much a reaction to university. Can you tell? Really? I was a very weird person. Still am. A very weird, very angry teenager. Not really a real person. I was so awkward and unruly and lost, and university was supposed to help all those things. But it didn't not really. Now that I'm out of university and in the office, I'm much happier. Honestly, the office is like a spa compared to university. But I'm still haunted by what happened at university. I wouldn't say it changed me for the better or the worse. It definitely changed me, that's for sure.

Eldritch Nights represents the psychodrama of my first year, although I wrote and edited the book during my first two years. I think the especially dark and ugly stuff: the stabbings, dead boys and mental health breakdowns can all be attributed to how I was feeling during my first year while the more relaxed, cooler stuff like the Lovecraftian vibes, the Hip-Hop thread that runs through the book, can be attributed to my second year. My first year was the year of Taylor Swift, of 1989, of #HeforShe, of yet another Conservative government, while my second was the year of Star Wars, of 2016, of Brexit and Donald Trump. Bizarrely, I was nineteen and far more mature so my second year was much better. But this book and its themes and general atmosphere well reflect those turbulent first few years at university and how, while it was going to change me, it would most certainly not be a change for the better.