Writing Journeys - with apologies to Penelope

Nicola Morgan has a fabulous post over on her blog - http://www.helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/ - about her own personal journey to publication. Twenty one years and lots of low points. What is inspiring about Nicola is that she didn't climb the ladder and then kick it away for those below her - she turns round to try and show those still on the ladder where to put their feet and how to keep going. Too many people operate out of their own insecurities - as I tell my fourteen year old all too often - and very few writers got published easily.

Now after too much TV, I do struggle with the word journey - usually it relates to a few weeks of dancing, skating or eating insects. But let's blot that out and try it here unblemished because a writer's journey can be a long one.

How long have I been writing? My diaries go back to when I was seven, and I have my school Story Book from the same year. I wrote plays and stories and the beginnings of various, heavily derivative books. I lay in bed at night and made up alternative worlds for myself (three sisters in bunk beds joined me regularly to make up the desired foursome that appeared in so many books and for a while I was a twin).

When I was fourteen I wrote my first novel. It was a historical romance and I researched it as thoroughly as I could within the small confines of the borough's library system. It was 80,000 words. I used a thesaurus extensively. I don't think a character ever 'said' - they exclaimed, laughed, sighed, suggested ... I kept lists of the alternatives! There were lots of adverbs too and probably stacks of adjectives. The weather came into it a lot and the dresses were always beautiful. Still, it was there - my first book. I wrote a second a year or so later.

That gave me my first genuine experience of characters coming alive off the page and heading off to do their own thing. In this case, rather dramatically and contrarily, one died. I really wasn't expecting it. She left court - Penelope, her name was, I remember - and went home for a visit. Then she died of the 'sweating sickness' - it ran through Tudor England a few times. Penelope was young and funny; I was fond of her; my heroine's brother was going to marry her - how could she die? All I knew was that she had; and apparently I couldn't change it.

I wrote two more novels in my twenties - both unpublished, both aimed at Mills & Boon. Finally, somewhere around the time I turned 30, I started writing short stories for women's magazines: I have huge affection for The People's Friend, who were the first to publish me, always friendly and supportive. I've since written for a couple more magazines.

The current WIP is a novel for young teens. I always did want to write children's books, after all. The thought that cheers me is when I read of how many authors have a couple of books unpublished in a drawer - I remember the almost forgotten four that I've written. If they are part of my own writing journey, then I'm a long way down the line towards publication!

There is no better way to learn than to write and I loved writing my books. I can write to a brief but I've never been cynical about anything I've written. I've been a magpie all my life - picking up writing tips and experiences of life to use. It all makes up the sum of who I am as a writer. When the characters start to speak for themselves and the story unreels before you as if you already knew it, that's the most exciting feeling in the world; when your writing just flies of its own accord from some deep subconscious place. So everything I've written has been a good part of the journey.

Still - I'm sorry you had to die, Penelope!