How did you get into writing? My word that’s a tough one. On reflection, I think that my main reason for getting into writing is because I believe that everyone, no matter who they are, has a story to tell. More often than not, a great many people tend not to put pen to paper because they feel that they don’t have anything of value to contribute, and as such, many stories, some of which have important messages to convey, or memorable characters to introduce, remain untold.
I’ve always enjoyed writing though I never really thought about pursuing it until early 2005 when my wife told me about a bizarre dream that she had. After I had jotted down a few notes based on what she had told me, I began to see a story unfolding, and, even though I had convinced myself that I wasn’t intending to write a book, over the course of time it soon became evident that it was exactly what I was doing …. And the first story in a series of eleven came into being.
When I read through the finished story, I began to look into the backgrounds of each character, which led to another story, and then another, and before I knew it I’d completed eight stories in the series, with absolutely no idea what to do with them, because at the time I felt that nobody would ever take me seriously as a writer, so I chose not to pursue it.
It wasn’t until sometime later that I considered publishing, and I submitted my work to both agents and publishers, with very little success. I’ve lost count of how many queries I’ve submitted over the years, but I became more and more determined with each and every rejection letter to succeed with this, because I believed that I had a voice and I wanted it to be heard. If anything, I was grateful to the rejections because it was them that helped me to focus on where I wanted to be as a writer.
I confess that there have been times when I’ve wanted to throw in the towel and delete all of my work from my computer (Show me a writer that hasn’t), even more so when I’ve been bombarded by e-mails from publishers who say that they want to publish my work for a small contribution (Which usually proves to be nothing of the sort). I was quite clearly having none of it, believing that if my work wasn’t good enough to be published on it’s own merits, there was no way on earth that I was going to pay for the privilege.
The support I received from family and friends soon put paid to any doubts that I had with regard to my work, and I continued in my quest to become a published author, all of the while either writing further stories, reading articles from other authors, or chatting to other writers in on-line writers groups. On one such group, I saw (Quite by chance) a reference to “House of Honor Books”, so I decided to give them a try, and boy, am I glad that I did?
I know that I may never become a JK Rowling or Phillip K Dick …. But thanks to Jack La Fountain and of course the wonderful guys and girls at “House of Honor Books”, I am at last where I want to be as a writer, and it is more than worth the journey. I don’t know where this is going to lead me in the times to come, but I’m really excited about getting this far.
