Writing is a curious business. You create something out of nothing, find a place to send what you’ve created then wait, knowing that you’ve probably got a rejection coming or (worse) will hear nothing back at all. Before I went back to teaching in 2018 I wrote and submitted as much as I could (in between school drop offs) in order to build up a writer’s portfolio of publishing credits. In the beginning it was hard work and required constant rebuilding of self-belief after each unsuccessful sub. In the beginning I didn’t really let anyone read anything – apart from my writer’s group, when I could – so it was just me, with a dream, pushing myself.
But writing is what I’ve always wanted to do. I love my day job, so much, but writing is my first love and has been since the age of five when I decided I wanted to write books. As a child and for a lot of my adulthood I lacked self-esteem but I’m also incredibly stubborn, and after each failure, I became more determined than ever to keep on going. I’d send each story out five times and only accept defeat if it failed to be noticed after five attempts. Most stories made it. It cost a lot in entry fees, yes, but I felt it was worth the investment as it was building my future, step by step. I was working as a tutor, taxi driver and investing with my husband in a holiday let so I could afford it. Plus, there are lots of free to enter competitions as well.
I’d always dreamed about writing but it began in earnest when my then boyfriend now husband were travelling on a motorbike called Bertha between 2006-8. I began writing a lot and sent a few stories to some magazines. The first two I sent out were accepted, and that was the beginning, except during 2009-2013 when my children were very small and I basically didn’t sleep much, or slept worse than I normally did.
There were plenty of high spots – winning a competition is hitting the jackpot but even a small win or a longlist or shortlist gave me enough encouragement to keep going. I haven’t counted the rejections/unsuccessful attempts to find a story a home but it’s well into three figures. For a while I had about a 10% success rate.
I’ll never forget standing on Hodder and Stoughton’s riverside office roof, sipping champagne and mingling with writers and publishers, shortly before being announced as the winner of their competition with Writing Magazine. It was exactly six weeks after an operation for breast cancer, and I remember thinking how utterly utterly bizarre life could be and how I felt as if I was in exactly the right place. That was what I was meant to be doing.
Did I ever feel like giving up? No. For someone so lacking in confidence I’m not sure where exactly the self belief to keep going came from, but I did, and my plan, such as it was, worked. I built up a portfolio of publishing credits, became a better writer and developed my own ‘voice’. But I needed a balance, and teaching gave me that. Whilst I don’t find quite as much time to write during term time, the time I do have is better used and my family is hugely supportive and they don’t mind me going off into my head for hours on end. I try to write in the bits where they’re all doing something else, and I hardly watch TV. Early mornings are great if I can. This is where I am now, in the middle of an early morning, snow on the ground, wind blowing a hooley, fire lit, cat on my feet, kids still asleep.
My friend and mentor, Alistair Lawrie, has never stopped encouraging me and the writer’s group we are both part of and that he runs has been invaluable in so many ways. Through Zoom, we’ve managed to keep going throughout the pandemic. I am incredibly grateful to him for all the words of encouragement and support over the last 8? years. Without the group it would all have been much much harder. Being brave and letting my friend Roy read my latest book meant I actually finished it. I didn’t think it was that good and was happy to let it sit on a back burner for a while, whilst I became a better writer. He is the sole reason I finished it, and therefore the reason I looked for the right place to send it. His simple words, Believe in the Book, helped me so much when I lost that belief.
Last week I had an exciting conversation with the commissioning editor of the very exciting hybrid publisher mentioned in my last blog. I was excited, yes, to be speaking to her but it all felt RIGHT. I felt, this is where I’m meant to be, this is what I’m meant to be doing, so it all felt very normal and easy. Already I’m thinking about how to develop the story in much better ways and if this road ends up leading nowhere the experience has been invaluable and the book will be better for it.
I’ve been subbing but not as much, and have been collecting rejections on a weekly basis. It was therefore an absolute joy to get on a longlist last week, 50/720 stories, for Reflex Fiction where I was published once before. I’ve got a few weeks to wait to see if I’m at the top of bottom of the list but either way I’m happy as the piece will be published in print in an anthology next year.
About Reflex Fiction
Some horrible things have happened this past year. There’s the obvious one of us all slipping into a weird dystopian novel, but on a personal level there have been some sadnesses and some truly awful things happen to people I love. Sometimes it’s very very hard to find a positive. Sometimes life seems so cruel, so bloody cruel that it’s impossible to make sense of it.
Sometimes the only way to move forward is to simply commit to your life, 100%, be in every single moment and understand when times are precious and be IN them, FULLY. Not there-but-not-there, thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or what you’ve having for tea or how you’ll deal with an issue, but fully there, in that moment, so you know you shared it and you loved it and you gave it your full attention to honour the people you were with. Looking back at photographs I can see smiles and mostly, I know I was there in that moment. Occasionally I know I was living in an interior room and only smiling on the outside and that’s what I’m committing to change. It’s the only way to move forward when unspeakable things happen, when life rips people away from you. When you have to watch people you love deal with things you feel they do not in any way deserve to have, and you’re completely helpless and powerless to do anything to stop it. It’s the only way we can honour those who have gone, those who will go ahead of us, those who will leave a hole for the rest of your own life.
Live in the moment and feel the joy and the love or the pain and the sorrow. Putting that off will only cloud future happinesses – cry when you’re sad, tell people you love them if you feel it, laugh with all your heart, sit there and watch your friends or family and just drink them in, so you’ve no regrets when, in future they’re gone. Be in that moment and hold them close. Give them your full attention, give that moment your full attention. Take a photograph, mental or real, to remember that you were there, you were there and life was good and you touched what’s most important, tapping into the energy of that moment and fully experiencing every single second of it. Honour each other. Find your gang, and be with them.
And in the quiet moments I try to be there too, hear the birds and sniff the roses and look at the stars. I see shooting stars all the time, simply because I walk around looking upwards at night a lot.
And I believe when I write, I’m tapping into something. I can have an idea, but unless I sit down and type, I have no idea how that might pan out. It’s not something I understand at all but fortunately I don’t need to understand it. I couldn’t tell the story out loud because I have no idea what’s going to happen. Stick me in front of a keyboard though, and the story tells itself. It’s really, really weird and I absolutely love it. And being in that moment means that moment is captured forever.
I’m ending this reminding myself to feel gratitude, every single day. To tell people I love, that I love them.To not sweat the small stuff – easy to say, really hard to do. To keep writing because I love it. To be silly. To be myself. To let go of expectations, mine or anyone else’s. To live like I write, walking into a moment, seeing what happens, then going along for the ride.
Emma J Myatt 