CROOKED CAT AUTHOR OF THE WEEK - DAY ONE: HOW IT ALL BEGAN

My lovely publisher, Crooked Cat Books, is putting one of its authors in the spotlight each week for the next few weeks.  This week, starting today, it's my turn.  I'll start my run of daily posts right at the beginning, with a few words about how it all started.

If someone had told me, ten years ago, that by now I would be a published author six times over and the editor of more than forty other books, I would have seriously questioned their powers of prediction.

I’d dabbled with writing, on and off, for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until after a life-changing event in 2004 that I began to take it more seriously.  I took several courses in Creative Writing in its various forms, but even then, much of what I wrote was of a personal nature, either kept private or shared only with family and a few close friends. 

The turning-point was when I decided to take an additional course – this time in Editing and Rewriting – early in 2013.  My original aim was to learn how to cast a more critical eye over my own work, but one skill which was taught during that course was how to edit what other people had written.  By the time the course had ended, I found myself thinking: Maybe I could do this.  Even if I can’t make it as a writer myself, I might at least be of some use to those who can.  And it would also be a perfect opportunity to channel the interminable rantings of my Inner Pedant into a force for good.

A few weeks later I noticed that Crooked Cat Publishing was advertising for new people to join their editing team.  I applied, they were brave enough to take me on, and it wasn’t long before I was working on the first of what would be many editing assignments.

The step from editor to author took a few more months.  I’d been secretly working on a manuscript which began life in response to the prompt Write The Book You Want To Read.  At the time I was writing it just for myself, but a couple of close friends suggested that other people might want to read it too.  Crooked Cat agreed, and my debut novel was released in February 2014.  Nobody was more surprised than I was when it achieved bestseller status.

Here I am, six years and five more books later, still not quite able to believe that any of it really happened.

Join me again tomorrow, when I’ll tell you a little more about what it’s like to be an editor.

In the meantime, all my Kindle title are just 99p each for this week only.  Click on the book covers on the right to find out more.