Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved to read. The real world was sometimes a scary place and reading took her to an imaginary world full of fun and adventures. She would curl up with a good book whenever she could and was often found in bed, under the covers with a torch. She should be sleeping, but instead she was reading.
She gobbled up books like they were chocolate donuts, her appetite out of control as she wanted more and more. The more she read, the more she wanted to read, and the world of story was her favourite place in the whole world.
As she read, she imagined futures where there was always a happy ending. Her biggest dream was to write her own books and share her stories with the world. Her friends wanted to be princesses, ballerinas, and footballers when they grew up. She wanted to be a storyteller, a writer, an author.
It seemed like she blinked, and all of a sudden, she wasn’t a little girl anymore; she was a 50-year-old woman. And her dream had not yet come true.
Well, you’ve probably guessed that little girl was me, and although I always wanted to be an author, I didn’t really believe that an ordinary girl like me could really be an author. So instead, I did the next best thing and became a primary school teacher and got to teach little people to read. In my class, we read lots and lots of books, and I always thought, “I could write a book. I’m really good at writing.” But I never did. Well, not until I was 50 years old.
It took being a widow, being fifty, and a global pandemic for me to believe in myself. I decided to stop saying I was going to be an author and actually be one! I wrote my first book, ‘The Princess Without a Crown,’ and it was published in December 2020. Fast forward 5 years, I’ve published five books and work as a writing coach, encouraging others to write.
My dream has come true, and I believe yours can too. I’ll be popping into The Up and Coming every month, writing about writing, and for now, I have one piece of advice: if you want to be a writer, write!
This was written by our contributing writer, Claire Walsh-Jones.
Image Source: Pexels, Andrea Piacquadio
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