To Be or Not To Be a Writer

I always assumed that authors came from a very special mould. They were the kind of people who spent their childhood scribbling down stories whereas I was a bit of a geek. I had one of the first home computers, a Sinclair ZX81 so I was busy writing computer programs while those budding authors were contributing to the school magazine. And while they carved out careers in journalism and publishing, I opted for local government where my creativity was limited to writing policies and committee reports. I might have thought now and again about writing a book, but it was a fleeting fancy. I wasn’t a writer.

This notion was reinforced one day when I was listening to an author being interviewed. He was asked what advice he would give to anyone who wanted to write a book and his response was quite simple. He said that if you really wanted to write a book, then you would have done it by now because you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself. I was in my thirties at this point and I took him at his word. No, I most definitely was not a writer. Except it turns out I was wrong, and so was he.

In fairness, he wasn’t completely wrong, but he wasn’t completely right either. I might not have written that book yet, but it didn’t mean I never would. I was simply missing the two essential ingredients that would spur me on to write my first novel. The first being that overwhelming urge to write and the second the story itself, and by that I don’t mean the one I wanted to write, but the one I had to write.

It was the desire to write that came first although it was far from a pleasurable experience. My young son had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia, the kind that would lay dormant for the next eighteen months and eventually take him from me, and when I tried to talk about it, I found I couldn’t physically get the words out, and so I began to keep a journal. At the same time, I experimented with poetry to make sense of my emotions, not realising how my writing would help me cope with my grief later on. When I lost my son, I thought I was condemned to a world of utter devastation, but my urge to write grew stronger and so did I.

I was determined to capture all of those precious memories and what was more, I wanted to do it properly. I enrolled on a creative writing course run by my local council and set about learning my craft. To my surprise, once I’d committed my memories to paper, my desire to write endured. I still had that half-formed idea about writing a novel, but the author’s advice from years earlier came back to haunt me. If I had wanted to write a book so much, why wasn’t I writing it?

The reason, as it turned out, was that I was still waiting for that second essential ingredient; the story that I wouldn’t be able to resist. It took a couple of years for inspiration to strike, but I remember quite clearly when it happened. I was walking through Liverpool city centre on my lunch break when a bus went past with an advert for The Time Traveller’s Wife on the side.

I hadn’t read the book or seen the film, but as I carried on walking I imagined what it would be like to travel back in time and hold my son again, or better still, to alter events so that he would have survived. My mind kept turning as I wondered what would happen if a mother could see into the future and somehow sacrifice her life for her child. By the time I returned to my desk I had my story, the one I knew I had to write and I could already picture in my mind’s eye the scene where my heroine would do the one thing I couldn’t, to give her life for the sake of her child.

Six months later I had written a full length manuscript, and yet I hadn’t told a soul about it. I didn’t want to tell people I was writing a book because there was no guarantee it would ever be published. I’d researched how difficult it was and the odds alone should have put off, but I took a chance and submitted my work to three literary agents. To my amazement, one of those agents got back in touch and said he was interested. He proposed some major changes which meant rewriting my novel, so I cancelled Christmas and set to work even though I was still expecting it to come to nothing. Surely I couldn’t be a proper writer, I didn’t fit the mould.

I was forty five when Yesterday’s Sun was published and in the last four years I’ve released a further four books and two novellas. It might be true that some authors are born to write but for the rest of us, it takes time, determination and a hefty dose of life to steer us down the right path. My name is Amanda Brooke, and I am an author.

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Amanda Brooke is a single mum who lives in Liverpool with her daughter Jessica, two cats and a laptop within easy reach. Her debut novel Yesterday’s Sun was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and she is currently releasing two books a year. Her fifth novel The Child’s Secret was released in January 2016 and The Goodbye Gift will be out in the summer.

 

Website: www.amanda-brooke.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/amandabrookeauthor

Twitter: @AmandaBrookeAB

Tags: being a writer, featured, inspiration, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing