Hello my lovelies,
I hope you had a great festive season and are all hyped up about 2020! It’s that time of year again when we look back over the past 12 months, think about our achievements and then about our dreams for the coming year. The end of 2019 was all the more poignant as it marked the end of a decade, and I’ve seen loads of Facebook posts about 2009 vs 2019 and how the decade unravelled for people.
For me, the last decade has held it’s ups and downs, whether personal, professional (the day job) or writing wise. I’m the type of person who likes to think of set backs as opportunities for growth, and the 2010’s have been no exception. In that time my son has finished primary school and is now in Year 10 of secondary school, and my daughter has finished education, pursued a career in childcare and turns 20 this month (!!) Luckily my children are happy and healthy, and I’m proud to have played a part in that. I have gone through a separation and divorce, suffered significant bereavements, moved house twice, moved jobs four times for promotion, met my Fiancé Mark and celebrated his 30th birthday with him in Miami, turned 40, got engaged, attended weddings, christenings, dinners (basically seen the lives of my family and friends flourish), holidayed in Florida and Malta, had road trips across Europe, and added a gorgeous beagle to our family. The list goes on… but what has been constant are my writing dreams, which I am close to fulfilling.
It was in 2010 that I started writing seriously to get published. That year, I won two writing competitions and sent my first manuscript off to the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers Scheme. From there I carried on writing novels and refining them as I got critiques, started this blog, started making connections with the writing community until at the RNA Conference in 2013 I met my now Editor at HarperCollins, Charlotte Ledger, who later offered me a four work contract. Since then, I’ve had three short stories, five novellas and two novels published. In 2019 I signed with a literary agent, Hattie Grunewald at The Blair Partnership (the agency who represent none other than J K Rowling), and set up a YouTube channel to start vlogging about getting published. I finished full edits on my next book just before Christmas – a women’s commercial fiction novel set in Dorset – which will be published by One More Chapter in 2020 under the pen name Ella Allbright. I’m currently working on my next book with Hattie.
But I’m not boasting. None of this has happened easily; it has taken blood, sweat, tears, a good amount of angst and many hours to write those stories and get them published, especially around a full-time day job. I have still not achieved what I want to, which is earn enough from writing to reduce the day job to part-time hours. I am hopeful that with enough hard work and a bit of luck, I’ll manage that this decade. For now I say this to you; if you have a writing dream, don’t give up. Keep going. Write that short story, or novel, polish it, get advice, submit it, and take every knock as a sign of success, because it means you’re trying. And when it comes to fulfilling your dreams, that is half the battle. Be strong, be determined, be brave. Good luck!
Photo by Designecologist on Pexels.com
Until next time, happy reading & writing. Love, Nikki xx
nikkimooreauthor.wordpress.com 