A SOFTWARE engineer from Preston has written a book in just one month - and had it published.
Paddy Green, 38, from Fulwood, wrote the 50,000 word novel after seeing a challenge to write a book in just one month on the Internet.
The father-of-one has never written a novel before, but fancied his hand at writing so gave it a try.
And now, the book, entitled The Old Terra Vitae is available to download from Amazon for the Kindle.
Paddy said: “The idea came from a website on the Internet called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I had seen it for a couple of years and thought ‘I should have a go at that’.
“Some days I wrote hardly anything, but other days I went ballistic.”
The book is about a man, in the afterlife, who isn’t having the best of times.
It features his best friend - an alcoholic ghost dog - and the 9-5 grind of a pointless job.
But the, Loupe, the main character decides to try and move on, by exploring his past and what led to him ended up dead.
Paddy managed to fit in writing the novel in between his job as a software engineer in Preston and looking after his 18 month old son, Henson.
He added: “I picked up a short story I had written and had always felt like it should be a novel.
“So I took it apart and started again.
“It was strange because I had not done it before, I didn’t have any point of reference of how I would go about writing a novel.
“I wrote the bits I had in my head and started joining them all up.
“Things happen not necessarily in sequence.”
Paddy said of the task: “It’s not about writing a great novel it is about writing and getting to the end.”
The book was made available to download for the Kindle just before Christmas and between 300 and 400 copies.
And it is also available to purchase as a paper back copy for those who prefer to have a physical book.
So far the book has been give four out of five stars and has been reviewed eight times.
Reviewers have described it as an ‘interesting and unique story’.