I guess it’s one of the standard questions every author gets asked sooner or later: “What was your journey as a writer like?”
I’ve written all my life, starting way back in my primary school days, when I used to write lurid stories about being stranded on desert islands, unicorns and monsters. My imagination was one tumultuous riot of ideas and images, and still is. The teachers set an assignment, a two or three page essay/story. I used to fill two or three exercise books. I often wish I had kept some of those stories just to reflect on early beginnings.
As I grew, I discovered I had other talents, drawing, painting, even back then my main art subjects were superheroes, which I still like to doodle with today. But writing was always at the forefront.
It wasn’t serious back then, just writing for my own delectation, ideas would come to me, [frequently] and I would just write about it, I often wonder how many millions of words I have written and forgotten.
I discovered camping, travelling, going out into the big wide world, a good source of subject matter, gathering experiences, though, again, at the time, I didn’t realise exactly what a treasure trove of knowledge I was building, or what for. I couldn’t settle, I can’t tell you how many different jobs I had in between travelling through Europe, the near east, the length and breadth of the U.K.
I dabbled a little in sending submissions to literary agents, with absolutely no results, but I wasn’t deterred. I kept writing and sending, happy with the never-ending merry-go-round of sending manuscripts and receiving rejection slips.
I don’t know exactly when it did become serious. Probably when an English literary agent finally accepted a young adult horror novel I had written. I was thrilled to bits. The literary agent, who shall remain nameless, [I’ll explain in a minute], encouraged me to also design and paint book covers for some of his other clients which I was all too happy to do. I even had one accepted and published which was a great boost to my self-esteem.
Unfortunately, it was all a scam. The literary agent was a fraud, he duped me, and several other aspiring authors into submitting the work only to plagiarize it and publish it under his own name. It’s not an uncommon story, and I was pleased when he was prosecuted and found guilty.
But that wasn’t the end of it. About a year later I saw a t.v. listing in the paper for a new adventure series. It caught my eye because the name of the series, and the title font design they were using was the same as the young adult novel I had submitted to the literary agent.
Long story short, the plotline of the t.v. series was exactly the same as my novel, and a lot of the characters matched. I sought the advice of a lawyer who having read my novel and seen the first four episodes of the t.v. series, was so confident in my case, he agreed to take the case pro bono. The case collapsed because we could never make a connection between the literary agent and the t.v. company who produced the series. Here’s the kicker, I was told by the t.v. company if I ever published the YA Novel in its present form I would be sued for plagiarism! Go figure.
To say that little episode took the wind out of my sails would be an understatement. It didn’t stop me writing, but I was reluctant to make any more submissions.
Fast forward fifteen years.
Originally from the U.K. I came to the U.S.A. in November 2017. In June 2023 I received my American Citizenship. I’m not sure what it was, but I felt inspired. I took a trip down to Cancun, Mexico. I was sitting on a bus, and I saw a store with a huge gorilla squatting on the canopy over the store front, the store’s name was JUNGLE. And that’s all it took.
I began writing the first novel in THE JUNGLE SERIES. It just felt right. The words just poured out of me. I finished it, edited it to the best of my ability and decided to take the bull by the horns and start submitting it. [Not with a little trepidation, I might add.] I was thrilled when it was accepted for publication by 4Horsemen Publications, I haven’t looked back since.
I think my story is typical of many aspiring [and successful] authors. If I have made light of it, it really wasn’t. But if you write seriously, it’s not because you want to write, it’s because you need to write. It’s in your blood. Don’t let anyone tell you writing is easy because they don’t know what they are talking about. I love writing, I have never considered it a “job”, but sometimes your characters haunt you, they never leave you alone, they drive you crazy.
Sometimes I feel as if I am going nowhere fast, just spinning my wheels, I have all these stories running around my head like headless chickens begging to be written and I wonder how many will see the light of day. Will I have the time, will anyone even be interested?
And writing goes beyond the actual creative process, that’s the fun part. Building new worlds, new characters, new adventures. Wait till you have to do all the rewrites, the editing…
It’s hard, it can be solitary… But do you know what?
I wouldn’t change it for the world.
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