Stepping out of my comfort zone

Yesterday, I received my novel Seeking The Dark award certificate through the post. I’m so chuffed with my achievement.
When I left school I had no qualifications and my handwriting looked like a five year old. I was ashamed of myself and had no idea what my future would hold. In the last few months while attending my junior school I was tested for dyslexic but this information wasn’t passed on to my secondary school.
After years of working in low paying jobs, I set myself a challenge to see if I could get something into print. I had been researching my family history and submitted several articles to a Family History magazine. These were accepted, published and I was paid for them too.

After running out of ideas for nonfiction articles, I decided to write a novel. Having no idea how to tackle this challenge I began reading second-hand books my husband bought off EBay on ‘How-to’ write to be published. After reading over 250 books Russell told me to get on with the writing as he wasn’t going to buy me any more books.

In 2005 I wrote a short story and took it into work for my friend Lisa to read. She like it but wanted to know more about the character. The short was called the ‘Girl on the Bus’. The short story then turned into a 129k word manuscript. I sent it off to an American publisher who gave me some great feedback but told me it was too wordy. I had no idea what that meant and realised I needed more experiences and a better understanding of the publishing world. So I focused on writing short stories to learn the skills needed to write and edit a novel.

In 2010 I entered the English Heritage writing competition and was one of fifty winners out of a hundred-fifty entries. Then in 2012 I was the overall winner of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival/Writing Magazine short story competition.

After writing and having over 100 short stories published I turned my attention back to editing three novels I had written to put into practices what I had learnt. Seeking the Dark has gone through many rewrites and was published last year. Being my first creation I have been nervous about sending it out into the publishing world. I’m so pleased it has won this award and has helped to keep me moving forward with my writing.
My books has been accepted into the libraries in Essex. I was over the moon when they were accepted and wish I could show my school teachers what I have accomplished on my own, and with some help from my husband Russell and neighbour Joan who proofread my writing.
I can’t thank my readers enough for all the encouragement I had received on my writing journey.