My Writing History - Born to Write

I know most writers probably say this but it does feel that I’ve been writing and composing stories forever.

There is constantly some sort of story going around in my brain and it wasn’t until a few years ago that I realised not everyone has this inner narrative. Most people do not have the beginnings of a novel or a scene from a story whirling around in their head. I mentioned it to a friend in passing and she looked at me as if I were the looney-toon! No, she never had characters chatting away to each other in her head, she didn’t look at the sea and immediately want to write a poem about it, she didn’t even daydream!

It got me thinking, maybe I did have the pre-disposition to be a writer.

First Steps

One of my earliest writing memories was during the school holidays, I must have been 7 or 8. To keep me amused (and to get me out of her hair) my mother set me a challenge to write a story about a 50 pence piece. And write I did. I wrote pages and pages about this 50 pence piece and the journey it went on, until my jotter pad was practically full of pencil scribblings. Who knew a 50 pence piece could have such an adventure?

My first moment of writing glory was in my last year of Primary School, when I won a writing competition with my story entitled “How the Ladybird Got Its Spots”, very Kipling-esque. My prize was a bag of mini cookies and I was chuffed to pieces. Still am. Technically this makes me Award Winning Author.

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s there weren’t many professional opportunities for writers and I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. I took a University course in practical English, where I studied literature but also wrote my own work, often in the style of the author, eg a Modest Proposal in the style of Jonathan Swift or a dystopia as per Margaret Atwood. I also enjoyed studying poetry in all its forms and emulating the various styles.

After three years of reading, writing and studying I graduated in 1994, still not really knowing what on Earth I wanted to do with myself. Not many companies were looking for graduates who could write a decent Haiku or a rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter. Of course this was still pre-internet days and to find jobs at newspapers or publishing houses generally meant a move to London, which I didn’t want to do.

Instead I fell into various jobs such as bar work and office work and generally spent my 20s having a marvellous time drinking, partying and doing those things people in their 20s do. However, in the background there were always stories. I wrote a lot of words on lots of pieces of paper, jotted down a few poems and started several novels. When I was 26, in the momentous year of the Millennium, I made a resolution to actually finish one of my novels and so I did.

Early Rejections

Still with no internet, let alone a personal computer (I’d typed it on my Amstrad word processor) I invested in the Writers and Artists Yearbook and a couple of ‘How to get Published’ paperbacks - which I’m not sure I actually read - and proceeded to haul my manuscript off to agents and publishing houses. Each one returned with a ‘Thanks but we’re not taking any new manuscripts at this time’ or ‘Thanks but we don’t think your novel is for us’ rejection letters. Every time I posted my ‘book baby’ by Special Delivery at the Post Office I had a little ‘This could be it!’ moment, but each time my book was returned, it was less and less likely. Eventually I couldn’t afford the costs to keep posting and returning and so I gave up, resigning my manuscript to the bottom of a drawer for the moths and worms to find.

Life Gets in the Way

Life moved on and eventually I discovered a love of Interior Design and the creative outlet I needed. I completed my diploma and joined a company where I could use my skills and before long I was also writing the company blog about all things Interiors, which was right up my colourful alley.

With a new job taking up my week and a new man taking up my weekends, I had no time for writing. I purchased a Kobo (after much gnashing of teeth and resistance to anything other than a paper book) and discovered the joy and convenience that it brought. Perhaps I could one day write an ebook, I pondered. I kept pondering this for a further 5 years without actually doing anything about it. The information was there at my fingertips but somehow I never got round to it, something always got in the way, like a social life, like planning my wedding, like watching a Netflix boxset, until now. Now I have run out of excuses.

Hence the start of my blog. It’s time to literally put it in writing, to make myself accountable to myself, my friends and to you, my one, solitary, lovely reader.

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