You're Only A Writer If ...

No matter what I've done throughout my life, there's always someone to shout out about it only being possible to be this or that if you've suffered the dark night of the soul. Apparently, writing is no different. I can only be a writer if I have had a book published, and if I started writing before I hit my mid-30s.

I've got news for you. I'm a writer. I'm not yet published. But then, that's my own fault because I've not made time to see a novel all the way through to its natural conclusion. And I'm way past 35, which again, I guess is my fault because I got older.

And yet I am able to put words down on a page, I'm able to string together a sentence, and create paragraphs, and lo and behold there we are, I'm writing.

If anyone has told you that you're not a writer I suggest you smile and wave, and do your own thing.

I'll forever be thankful of 3 authors I met at a book event in Liverpool's Waterstones because they encouraged me to keep going, to get to that point where I have something publishable. And at no point did they suggest I am not writer until or unless ...

So thank you to Caroline Corcoran, Amanda Brooks and Rachel Lucas for believing that anyone can be a writer as long as you put words down on a page.

Let's get writing.

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