Why my Attitude To Writing Changed

I’ve always enjoyed writing and harboured dreams of being ‘a writer’ from an early age. However, becoming ‘a writer’ is easier said than done and the dream had to take second place to the real world.

When my children were young I would make stories up for them and that was about as far as the creative juices got. My children were more important than my dream. When they were older I tried to put pen to paper but without much success and it would be 2006 before I wrote my ‘break-through’ story. It was a short story in an anthology sold to raise funds for a charity but it was a ‘real’ book by a ‘real’ publisher and it was a start. More short story success followed and I was even commissioned to write a couple of travel articles. However, the book and the deal that I wanted remained elusive.

Eventually I had an idea for a book and I started to write. I thought it was a good idea, one that had potential but I’ve got to be honest and tell you that I didn’t put the effort in. I wrote sporadically at best and with every new start, I’d tell myself that I’d do better. I’d say that I’d stop making excuses and actually sit down and write. When that didn’t happen, I’d say that I’d do it next time.

All that changed in May 2013.

What I thought was a cold that I couldn’t shake off was diagnosed as Wergerner’s Granulomatosis, a vascular disease that essentially attacks the body’s organs. By the time that it was diagnosed my kidney function was virtually nil and I was lucky that I actually went to the hospital when I did because I might not have made another day.

I don’t mind telling you that that gave me something to think about.

Lying in a hospital bed at midnight, receiving emergency dialysis through a line that had been inserted into my jugular vein was terrifying and the next day all I could think about was how my life had changed. I’d gone from being a healthy, slightly over-weight, middle aged woman to someone whose organs had stopped working. I couldn’t even get out of bed. I had no idea what the future held.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what I had. I was grateful for my husband and sons and for the life that we had but at the back of my mind was the dream that I had never achieved.

It wasn’t so much the unfulfilled dream that I regretted but more the fact that I had never really committed to it.

I had never given it my best shot.

I didn’t want to die with any regrets so I vowed that if I managed to get through the predicament that I was in I would change my attitude towards my ‘writing career.’

However, a few days after I made that commitment I found myself in the intensive care unit with a CPAP mask helping me to breathe. And, the thing about the CPAP mask is that when you are using it there is literally nothing else you can do but think as you lie there and let the machine breathe for you. I thought that I might not get the chance to change my attitude towards anything.

I spent three weeks in intensive care and another three on the renal ward before I was allowed home and it would be many months before I was back to anything like the health that I had before my illness. Only when I was confident that my illness was being managed could I turn my attention to that thing that I had spent so much time dwelling on.

It was managed by dialysis sessions three times a week and as each of those was four hours long I had a lot of time for scribbling away in a notebook. The scribblings were more of a way of changing my mindset than anything else and at home I made a point of working on my book every day.

In October 2014 during one of my dialysis sessions I could sense that something was happening. By the end of November, the nurses on the unit could sense something too. After eighteen months and without warning my kidneys had started working again. This came as a complete surprise to my doctors who warned me that they had no idea how long they would last. ‘One year, two years, ten years,’ was his reply when I asked the question. I’d wanted him to say ‘forever’ but I was willing to take what I could get. I knew that I needed to make the time count.

By January 2015 I was confident enough to send the first three chapters of my book to Accent Press and after a process that included sending them the full manuscript and ideas for more books, in September 2015 I was offered a three-book deal. I finally had what I had dreamed of for so long.

My attitude to writing is different these days. I regard it as a second job and I put the hours in and I get the books written. I have just finished my third book and after two weeks off I’ll be starting my fourth one on Monday.

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Colette was born and raised in Sheffield and remains a ‘Yorkshire lass’ at heart despite living in County Durham since the 1980’s. In 2013 Wergener’s Granulamatosis caused her kidneys to fail which meant she needed regular dialysis sessions. However, after 18 months on dialysis, and totally unexpectedly, her kidneys ‘woke up.’ She is now living life to the full and when she is not writing she is working as a charity retail manager

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Colette McCormick blog – On Books and Life in General

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RIBBONS IN HER HAIR

Jean seems the perfect wife and mother but she struggles to love her daughters whose material comforts mask emotional neglect. When the youngest daughter, Susan, brings ‘shame’ on the family, Jean can think of only one response.

She has to make the problem disappear. Finding the strength to stand up to her mother for the first time in her life, Susan does the only thing that she can to save her baby. What Susan doesn’t realise is that her mother’s emotional distance hides a dark secret of her own.

Examining the divide between generations, between mothers and daughters, this emotionally charged novel asks whether we can ever truly understand another, however close our ties.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing