Some stories wait until their author is ready for them.
 
David McCann began writing In the Depths of a Man’s Mind more than a decade ago — twelve chapters committed to the page before life, as it tends to do, intervened. The manuscript sat quietly while David spent his days in emergency departments across Queensland, caring for people at their most vulnerable, their most raw. Without knowing it, he was gathering material that no writing course could teach: a deep understanding of human nature under pressure, and the emotional truth that would eventually breathe life into the characters of Neleuwen.
 
The seed of the story came from a deceptively simple question. The long-debated claim that humans use only ten percent of their brain had been scientifically disproved — but it lodged in David’s mind and refused to leave. If that were true, he found himself wondering, what might be possible in the other ninety? That question became a title. That title became a world.
 
In 2020, David’s own brain became the story. A series of strange symptoms — persistent cold, cognitive difficulties, hormonal changes — led to a diagnosis of prolactinoma, a pituitary tumour producing excess prolactin and quietly suppressing the life he had built. The years that followed brought treatment, recovery, and something unexpected: the return of a creative fire he had not realised was missing. The manuscript he had set aside found him again.
 
David now refers to the tumour as a friend — not without irony, but with genuine gratitude for the lesson it carried. Life is short. Time answers to no one. He went back to the page.
 
In the Depths of a Man’s Mind, Book One of the Truant Series, was released in 2024. Book Two is imminent. David writes from Brisbane, Queensland, where he lives with the conviction that the best stories are the ones that refused to stay quiet