I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I love words, love finding meaning and emotions in them. I believe that a really good story should evoke feeling in the reader and linger in the mind long after the book is finished.
For a few years now I’ve been working on my first novel, a coming-of-age drama called Broken Things. I’ve spent a long time working on it: planning, writing, editing, even hacking away at it. Last year the hard work and persistence was rewarded when I was shortlisted in the Route Publishing Young Author competition.
Unfortunately, I didn’t win the competition, which would have meant a publishing deal for my novel, but the experience made me think that maybe I might actually be okay at this writing thing. Writing is hard, it’s often lonely and insecure, and it’s difficult to believe that you’re good enough or talented enough, to publish a book, never mind make a living from your work.
I don’t know if Broken Things is good enough to get published, but I’ve been working on it for so long that it’s hard to give up on the idea. Plus, with Route’s competition I came pretty close, so it seems a shame to give up.
I’d never considered self-publishing – I always wanted to have a ‘proper’ book released. But last November I attended a publishing workshop run by New Writing North, where not only was I lucky enough to win a manuscript assessment from The Literary Consultancy, I also heard an interesting talk on e-publishing. I was fascinated to learn how easy it was to publish your own manuscript through Amazon, and given that I work in Marketing, with a focus on digital, I wondered if it was something I could do.
The idea has stayed with me. E-publishing my novel is something that I plan to work towards, it’s the whole reason I’ve decided to start this blog. The idea of publishing my book, especially without the validation of a publishing house, is terrifying and I’ve dithered for months.
But now it feels like it’s time to do something. To at least try. So here I am, putting myself out there and hoping that maybe somewhere out there is someone who might like to read the story I’ve written.