Why I started writing
It sounds a cliché to say some big event happened in my life. An event which would eventually lead me to jump on the path to writing a novel. But it did. One September in 2017 my Dad died. He’d been ill for a long time, so it wasn’t a surprise. In fact, in some ways it was a blessing. Having lost my mum 15 years earlier I was officially now an orphan. And that’s the strangest thing about losing both your parents. Even though I was in my mid-40s, I felt for the first time totally adrift. Cut loose or cut off, I’m not sure which. It was a newfound reality and even though I had my own family to soak up the lost love, it hit me hard. Except I didn’t realise it at the time. I only realise it now of course. Because that’s what happens isn’t it? When you are in the midst of some profound change, you retreat just a little. Retreat into the very heart of who you are, so you can’t see it.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make you a good writer. Looking back, it was probably the very worst time I could start writing. I guess you’ll be the judge of that when you read. However, it coincided with a career break and so when the kids were packed off to school, I spent my days typing black letters on to a stark white page. Retreating into a fantasy world that was so far removed from my own that with every single word, I breathed a little more calmly, smiled a little more. And so to the mother of all clichés, writing brought me back to life, one word at a time—even though I didn’t know I was half gone. But you know clichés are there for a reason. Because they do really happen to everyone. Mostly.
Looking back at my writing now, I can see a lot of my dad in Smailholm. In the character Deablin, who gradually loses her mind in a windowless cave. I was haunted by placing him in a care home towards the end of his life. To the quogs who mined the great fire mountain Rubers Law, with its black slopes and bottle shaped chimneys, a hark back to my childhood growing up amidst the mining and pottery city of Stoke on Trent. And so that’s my story. The story of Smailholm. The time where I retreated a little into my own head and came back out again. One word at a time.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make you a good writer. Looking back, it was probably the very worst time I could start writing. I guess you’ll be the judge of that when you read. However, it coincided with a career break and so when the kids were packed off to school, I spent my days typing black letters on to a stark white page. Retreating into a fantasy world that was so far removed from my own that with every single word, I breathed a little more calmly, smiled a little more. And so to the mother of all clichés, writing brought me back to life, one word at a time—even though I didn’t know I was half gone. But you know clichés are there for a reason. Because they do really happen to everyone. Mostly.
Looking back at my writing now, I can see a lot of my dad in Smailholm. In the character Deablin, who gradually loses her mind in a windowless cave. I was haunted by placing him in a care home towards the end of his life. To the quogs who mined the great fire mountain Rubers Law, with its black slopes and bottle shaped chimneys, a hark back to my childhood growing up amidst the mining and pottery city of Stoke on Trent. And so that’s my story. The story of Smailholm. The time where I retreated a little into my own head and came back out again. One word at a time.
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