Craig Stone

I left school at sixteen with a head full of rocks, a general dislike towards anyone telling me what to do and a belief none of it mattered: because one day I would write the greatest book in the world.

But life is a rusty chicken spinning on a broken church roof at times...

I drifted into twenty-eight, lost, and with a talent nobody knew about. A talent I was seeing as a curse. I still hadn't penned anything worth reading.

I found a normal job, somewhere to live. Twenty-eight turned to thirty in the blink of a moment.

I had to make a decision.

I quit my job. I left my flat and walked into a park with a sleeping bag and a pen. I thought that without the phone ringing, and without the endless excel spreadsheets, and the people sitting around being safe but living out fading dreams - without all of those things, if I just gave it all up, maybe I would make it. Maybe I would write that book that's been on my mind since school...

So I did.

It really is that easy to change your life, you just walk away from the one you're making.

I lived homeless in a park: my beard grew as my spirits rose.

That book is now my first book published called The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness.

My second book Life Knocks was shortlisted for the 2012 Dundee International Book Prize, judged by Stephen Fry and Philip Pullman.

Today...I don't live in a park.

Before I decided to take back my life from everyone else, I was depressed, alone, single: a recluse.

I am now married. I have four published books. I'm the CEO of Words of Stone Ltd and a Partner with a creative agency in London.

But, most importantly of all: I left sad and found my happy.