Sink or Swim? A Dip out of My comfort Zone

1st November 2024

What was it that drew me to creep cautiously out from underneath my rock to put myself forward as a participant for a webinar on writing and publishing? Let’s turn back the clock.

“You want to be writing.” I can still hear my Dad’s authoritarian voice in my head, his finger tapping down emphatically on the table to drill home the point.

“You’ll be going on to do English, won’t you?”  was the assumption not only of my father but of the many and successive teachers and lecturers… Dear Lord, the time my Dad came home from one parents’ evening practically bursting that the word “Oxbridge” had been mentioned! An excitement which, I hasten to add, I didn’t share…

It started when I read “Little Women.” From that moment on, I idolised Jo: strong, raven-haired Jo who wrote stories. Jo, who was the very antithesis of the introverted socially-awkward child that was me, whose desperate attempts to please invariably fell short or wide of ever-shifting goalposts. I wanted to be Jo and so began my love for writing stories, encouraged, praised and feted by parents and teachers alike. I came alive in – and through – my writing.

So what happened? Think the lyrics to Supertramp’s “The Logical Song…”  Think O’ and A’ level English, with their cage of obligatory and often uninspiring set texts and a requirement to look deep behind the meaning and social context of the story rather than enjoying a story for its own sake, which not only killed off my love of reading for pleasure but also, and arguably worse, my own creative spirit. Yes, I DID “Go on to do English” at university but having had “English! English! English!” rammed down my throat ad nauseum, dropped it in my second year in favour of psychology. In truth, I’d been burnt out with it all by the time I left school but appearances had to be kept up, people to be pleased…

It was 20 years before I could pick up a book for pleasure rather than reference. Even when I did begin to enjoy reading novels again, my own creative spirit still didn’t flow. To this day it’s not something I can force.

Rather sadly, it took social media to reignite that flame, when the little write-ups I did on Facebook to showcase the “nice photos” I took on our Sunday walks became ever more descriptive, detailing not only the sights, sounds, smells, the feel of the air but the emotions and “the little things” that other people tend not to notice. Beyond the dopamine hit of “likes” and the positive comments about how readers felt like they had been there with me, I knew at some deep, sentient level, that I still had “it” after all, a creative spark that had not so much been killed as prised into an ill-fitting round hole. I even scribbled down notes for at least one novel.

Maybe I DID have it in me to become a published author after all, but where to start? It feels like a minefield, cliché as that may be and that’s without me donning the mantle of my own worst enemy, tying myself in knots or self-sabotaging.

So here I am, having not only signed up for the Webinar “Write Your Story” but having been brave enough to push myself well and truly out of my comfort zone in volunteering to write a blog about my experience. Pam Molyneux, the very lovely organiser reassured me that the best thing was to write from my heart, which resonated deeply – so here goes!

Ok… here goes…yep, logged on successfully…that’s a start! Oops – quick adjustment to set it to Video Mode…There we are! I’d missed the introductions – not a good start! I hate being late for anything. On the plus side, it meant we were pretty much straight in and I didn’t have to talk about myself (phew!).

It wasn’t long before the alarm bells were ringing at the realisation that the general theme for the day was self-help books. Oh HELP! This probably wasn’t the time to admit that I not only dislike self-help books but loathe them with a passion. I’ve never read one yet that hasn’t left me feeling inadequate, demotivated or / and downright patronised so my heart sank. Still, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good so I was sure there’d be some crossovers that I could take away and apply to my own prosaic intentions.

Our first guest speaker of the day was the already-published author Jean MacDonald from the Midlife Butterfly Club, who spoke eloquently about her experiences of writing and publishing a book and lessons she has learned on her journey. This I found very useful.

There were two main premises, the first of which was to “have a map.” Not an actual Ordnance Survey map or road atlas but a framework of what you’re going to write. Jean explained how to begin by choosing how many chapters you want to write – she gave an example of 10 chapters but emphasised that this is arbitrary; you decide: this is your book after all! For each of those chapters, write a heading. Once you have your chapters and headings in place, the next step is to take each chapter heading and underneath that, to list the things you want to cover in that chapter. “The shorter the better,” recommended Jean, to keep the reader engaged.

From my own experiences, I do prefer to read shorter chapters so this made sense, however I was a little taken aback by Jean’s statement that apparently the “ideal” is 60 pages! Hmmmm…presumably this is for those self-help books rather than novels. Fair enough. I still “get” the shorter chapters bit, even if the whole map thing took me back to the days of English lecturers insisting that we had to present a plan for every creative essay that we wrote and as an instinctive writer, I would cheat – write the essay then the plan afterwards (naughty girl).

The second premise is to decide when you are going to start writing – and start writing! Write a chapter a day – don’t stop and don’t go back (the two cardinal sins!) until you have finished. The first draft is the first 20% of your book, the remaining 80% is in the editing, for which Jean recommended enlisting a trusted person (you can obviously pay for editing should you choose), however once again, Jean did emphasise that above all it is your book.

What a lot to take in in 10 minutes and I definitely felt that Jean had more to say but we’d a lot still to cover, not least our next guest speaker waiting in the wings. Gemma Holgate used her skills and experience as a published author to set up Madison House Press, an independent publishing company specialising in the genres of non-fiction, memoir and self-help. Gemma was to guide us through the eight-step process she has developed to create a story that not only expands business reach but has a positive impact on the reader, which we were then to put into practice in breakout rooms (thank goodness for Pam’s skills with the techy stuff!).

Oh yikes!

Gemma asked us to consider that when writing a self-help guide, the most important thing to remember was that as the author, you are the mentor, not the hero; the reader is the hero of the story and with that uppermost in mind, were given a title for a model of a book to which we would all be contributing: “A Glass Half Full – The Benefits of Drinking Water.”

Oh double, triple, quadruple yikes! Now I was well and truly in stormy waters, instantly transported back to all those uncomfortable lessons at college and workplace brainstorming sessions when we’d be tasked with coming up with ideas and when, as an introvert, I’d struggle to be heard, even if I DID feel sufficiently knowledgeable or engaged with the subject matter.

Now here I was again all these years later, facing a double whammy of not liking the self-help genre and not feeling engaged. Oh help! Still, nothing ventured as they say.

Gemma shared the 8 steps she recommends when writing a book and at each of the steps, the whole group threw out some ideas after which we were invited into our respective breakout rooms, in the main with one or two different participants every time and tasked with coming up with and writing a paragraph on one of the suggestions from the whole group before moving onto the next step.

 Some of the sections were easier to discuss than others and at time, the conversation drifted instead towards whether we drink a lot of water. The difficulty I had was that I didn’t feel engaged with the subject so you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I really struggled with it. Nor did I didn’t feel that my contributions were particularly good or valuable. I did my best and I can see how this would work very well for the self-help genre but for me personally, I couldn’t see how it could be applied to writing novels.

Having said which, time still flew by and we still had our third and final guest speaker to come.

Learning the hard way as a successful businesswoman and finding herself trapped within a cycle of destructive relationships, it was not until Frances Day discovered energy work that she was able to break free. Aimed primarily at women stuck in similar destructive cycles, her book “Diving Deep to Climb High,” in which she uses her experience in coaching and marketing to deliver her message on harnessing the energy within us for good, was published to critical acclaim and has sold well.

Frances talked us through her three levels of writing and gave examples from her own work. Here I found parallels with Jean’s tips and recommendations at the start of the session and even though my genre is different, I could see how these could easily be applied to novels (particularly the “just get on with it” part).

1. Tell the story – warts and all, a highly cathartic process. Just write whatever comes as it comes and don’t hold back.
2. Edit – take out all that, on reflection, you do not want to include (also be extremely careful about who you include and under what circumstances – no one wants to find themselves the subject of a lawsuit after all).
3. Here, Frances talked mainly about the digital aspect of marketing and one or two of the things she wished she’d known beforehand.

A couple of the ladies had questions for Frances afterwards but time had run away with us all – where had the past two hours gone? Pam thanked the guest speakers – and all the participants and drew the session to a close.

So how was it for me? I found it interesting – and thankyou to Pam and all the guest speakers – but in all honesty, it wasn’t really what I was expecting or hoping for: it didn’t feel like it was “My Story.” However I did it – I’m grateful for the experience and for people’s time. It just wasn’t for me.

Cheryl Myers