As my YouTube channel is growing slowly but steadily, I wanted to forge a little space here for some real talk, to give you an insight into who I am behind the scenes. I don’t know exactly yet what direction I’ll go in here, but this is my writing space, not for SEO, but just for the love of writing itself.
Something that’s consumed a lot of my brain space the past couple of years is writing my teen novel. As I type this I still need to finalise the last few chapters, and I should probably be doing so right now, but alas, here I am, word-vomiting onto the internet. And since the beginning is a very good place to start, I’m going to take you back a few years to where it all began.
Escaping the hum-drum
I spent my twenties feeling unsettled with a capital U. I craved more money to travel, but with zero career direction, I bumbled from dead-end admin job to dead-end admin job. When I was made redundant for the third time at 28, I took this as a sign from the universe. The dull, 9-5 office life didn’t want me any more than I wanted it! It was time to spread my wings.
I took to temping, which suited my commitment-phobic nature far better. I was still earning peanuts, so knowing I wouldn’t save that much money, I looked at how I could travel and earn. Becoming an English teacher seemed like a logical option. I found a TEFL course in my dream country, Costa Rica, and set about saving the money I needed for flights, the course and the cost of living for the month I’d be there.
Spoiler: I didn’t save anywhere near enough money.
While I was temping at a Law university, I learned that postgrad loans were new in the UK. I was excited about my adventure, but this planted a seed I couldn’t stop thinking about. I knew I’d never get a career from my bachelor’s degree, maybe this would be a chance to retrain in something I really want to do, but what?
Getting lost to find my path
I’ve always loved writing without ever really thinking about it, or considering it a career option. That wasn’t something talked about in 1990’s Hull where I grew up. I always dipped in and out of keeping a diary, I even started a blog about my non-existent dating life when I moved to Leeds. FYI, it was terrible and I have deleted all traces of it from the internet.
Then I started a travel blog ahead of my trip to Costa Rica. Again, it was terrible, I was clueless, and all evidence has been erased.
Another thing I started writing while I travelled was a book. The days I spent writing on my laptop in the café at the beach were just as blissful to me as the days I spent exploring with new friends. I started looking into how I, a normal working-class person, could actually write a book.
The idea wasn’t new to me, I knew I had a book in me a couple of years earlier, when I read ‘50 Shades of Grey,’ and thought it was so badly written and she’s sold so many copies, that if she can write, then sure as hell so can I!
But I feared I couldn’t do it with self-motivation alone. That’s why I looked into post-grad courses in writing. I realised that if I wanted to be eligible for the post-grad loan in the UK, I couldn’t work in Costa Rica. I’d need to return home because if the trip was longer than just a travelling trip, I’d have to wait another three years until I could apply. I turned 29 in Costa Rica and the turning-30-panic was setting in. I didn’t want to live like a rolling stone (with no direction at all) any longer and my desire to write overtook my desire to travel.
Cut to 2019. I was 30, living with my dad again, utilising my TEFL qualification to teach online while paying off the huge debts I’d racked up travelling, and commuting to Manchester once a week for my writing seminars at the MMU writing school. Life wasn’t ideal, and far from what I pictured it would be, but I was on my way. I finally felt like I was on the right path, even though I was the tortoise in my own race.
Finding my ‘why’
I specialised in writing for children and young adults because I knew I wanted to tell a coming of age story. I knew I wanted it to be fun, not maudlin or intense. I wanted to create the sense of escapism I had growing up reading Louise Rennison’s series that we affectionately referred to as ‘The Georgia Books.’
My time at the writing school really helped me think about my ‘why.’ Anyone can write a book for fun if they want to, but for a story to be publishable, there needs to be a reason for it. Your character needs to go on a journey and come out the other side a changed person to the one you sent in.
In Costa Rica, I thought I wanted to write a YA about young love. But as I saw my cousins pop onto Instagram one by one, at the tender ages of 11, 12 and 13, they were doing something that triggered a memory of how I felt at that age. They were posting photos of themselves covered in badly edited white scribbles. To hide ‘fat’ and ‘weird chins.’
I can tell you without bias that they are all beautiful. Even if they didn’t fit Western beauty standards, it breaks my heart to think they would cover things they didn’t like about themselves. It reminded me of how I used to scratch my face off of photos when they’d be developed and brought home from Max Spielmans a week after taking the disposable camera in for development.
I felt so passionately that I didn’t want them to waste the energy of their young, brilliant brains being hard on themselves, that my YA love triangle story evolved into a teen novel about a girl overcoming low self-esteem to achieve her big ambitions.
It’s all about purpose
I’m nearly at the end of my first draft after two years of studying, honing my craft, changing the ending twice, redrafting countless chapters, and taking on board feedback from my professors and peers. They aren’t kidding when they say writing a book is a labour of love, but whenever I suffer self-doubt or fatigue I remember my ‘why.’
I really feel like sharing stories, and life lessons is my purpose, and to be honest, the thought of making it to the grave never making a positive impact, being a part of the statistic that so many aspiring writers never finish their book, fills me with enough terror to drive me out of bed at 5am most mornings to make the most of the quiet time and get it done.
My book baby is so near yet so far from delivery now. It has all it’s fingers and toes but needs a little more flesh on the bones before she’s ready for the big wide world. I can't wait to share her with you - watch this space!
