Over time, the darkness in my head shifted. The self‑recrimination faded, and ideas started popping up. I’d be listening to a book and think, What if the author went this way instead? Silly little stories would spark, and for years I ignored them.

Then one day, listening to Florida Man by Mike Baron — again narrated by R.C. Bray — I laughed out loud at work. That book had me in stitches. It also gave me the idea for this one. Florida has rednecks; Australia has bogans. I’ve worked with enough of them in the building industry to fill a dozen books. Some of the dumb shits I’ve met would have you shaking your head. A lot of the stories in my books were born from those characters.

I pushed the ideas aside for years. I was a high‑school dropout who failed English spectacularly. I didn’t know the difference between a verb and a noun, and honestly, I still don’t, or rightly care. I had no business writing anything. But by then I’d listened to about thirteen hundred books, and one night I mentioned some ideas to my missus. She said, “Write them.” I laughed. I had no idea how.

Another year passed.

My wife‑not‑wife had started nursing in her fifties and worked evening shifts, leaving me alone and unsupervised. One night I wasted an hour scrolling YouTube, then Netflix, and found nothing I hadn’t already watched.

Meanwhile, this image kept looping in my head: a dumbass bogan running down the street with his dick flapping around, a pissed‑off husband chasing him with a knife. I grabbed my tablet and decided to write the first line — but I needed a name. I Googled “Aussie bogan names.” The first one that popped up was Crash. I laughed out loud. Why on earth would you name your kid Crash? The answer hit me instantly, and Crash was born. (For those wanting to know the answer — maybe book seven.)

I wrote the first paragraph, laughed at the stupidity, then jumped around writing random scenes. The book was originally about Crash and Elsie. I wrote a few pages about Elsie’s temper. It was all just dribble pouring out of me.

I sent a scene to my sister. She replied:
“Ok very done.. now did you really write it or chatcpt…?”
“Yes, 100% me.”
“Oh my God. That’s epic. I really liked it. I want to read more…”

So I wrote more. Fifteen thousand words in a few days. It just poured out. The problem was it was all over the place. I had to weave it into something resembling a story. John and Jessica were meant to be cameos but grew out of nowhere to become permanent characters in Crash’s world. It took me six books and half a million words to get to that scene I first wrote and sent to my sister of Elsie storming across the street in a rage.

I wrote the book by asking myself one question over and over: What happens next?
Why was Crash running naked?
Why did John come home?
Why did Jess shag him?
And so on — paragraph by paragraph, seat‑of‑my‑pants writing.

I had no ending in mind. No plan. No plot. Just ideas I wanted to reach.

I kid you not: I was sitting on the couch, keyboard on my lap, no flipping idea how to finish this book when big raindrops started pelting down outside. So that’s what went on the page — big splats on Gertie’s windshield. The last chapter unfolded as I typed. I didn’t know what I was going to write until it appeared.

When I finished, I was shaking. I couldn’t believe it. An English Year‑Ten failure had written a book — 126,000 words from my own head. I started on June 28, 2023, and finished just after Christmas of that year. It made no sense to me, and it took time to accept.

By then I’d already written parts of book two and Elsie’s later scenes (which ended up in book six). I took two days off, then asked myself the next question: What happens now? There was only one dramatic answer. So hey — grab book two.

I’m writing this author’s note on January 10, 2025, after confirming the final edits to book one— which sat in my inbox for three months while I finished book six. I’ve now written seven books in eighteen months and one week, totalling around nine hundred thousand words. And for the record: I didn’t use a ghostwriter, ChatGPT, or any AI. I discovered a love of storytelling, and I hope this becomes my new career.

So far, only my sister, my parents, and three paid beta readers have read the books — two loved them, one hated them.

A massive thanks to my sister Jodie for her encouragement and endless feedback. To my parents, Robert and Christiane, who somehow deciphered my atrocious spelling and grammar and spent hundreds of hours editing before I sent it to a real editor. And to my mum, my biggest cheerleader, who spent hours on the phone talking through characters and clarifying my ramblings.

And thanks to my wife‑not‑wife for her incredibly loud snoring, which woke me at one in the morning and gave me the early hours I needed to write while working full‑time and renovating our house. Without her wicked snoring, these books might not exist.

I hope Crash reaches the person who needs it — someone who needs a laugh to get through another week. No matter what happens, I’ll keep writing. I’m doing it for me, and for the love of it. Who knows where it’ll end.

If there’s a point to all this rambling, it’s this: maybe you have a story in you too. You won’t know unless you start. You don’t need a plot. You don’t need to know your characters’ names. John popped into my head, cause, well, John’s are everywhere. Hanna came from the TV show Hanna. Jessica was my old dog’s name. Evie came from a T.V. show I loved as a kid Out of This World. No deep thought — they were just there.

Stories are everywhere. Maybe you’ve got one. Give it a go. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a book.