My Writing Journey

I’m back! (After two weeks because exams).

I’ll be honest, I was also a little unsure how to kick off my next post. Lately, there’s been debates over non-issues and bad takes, representation in media, democratic coups and impeachments (from a British perspective), and poverty caused by governments, but I thought I’d save my furious rants for another few posts when you’re all nicely eased in :). So, I’ve gone for something that hopefully is interesting, and won’t give me an aneurysm at 7pm in the evening when I’m really tired.

Other than the mandated literacy classes when I was but a child, the first time I actually wrote a story was when I was six, and let me tell you I die of embarrassment when I read it back. I shall not go into further details other than the fact that yes, I still have it buried in a box that is the culmination of my life in artefacts.

The first real story I wrote was when I was ten or eleven. I had a dream about me and my friends running down a darkened part of the city near to where I lived, and near the local library there was a shimmery, holographic gridlock that towered into the sky. Given that I was invested in Kung Fu Panda at the point and sort of inspired by a manga called W.I.T.C.H (I remember very, very little about that series), I thought, hey, why not? And wrote a story about me and my friends saving the world from dragons. Later on when I was a little bit older I discovered Power Rangers and that would also have a small influence on a few things in my story.

This first draft was written entirely in pencil, in two notebooks, and the absolute state of their condition now gives a pretty good indication as to how obsessed with this story I was. I was infatuated with it. I wanted to read it out to the teacher when they listened to us read in one-on-ones. I would jabber about it to my classmates and wrote them in as side characters. I even decided that we would put on a play of the opening scenes for the talent show (this did not go ahead because of my stage fright).

When I was in Year 8 or so, I decided that I really wanted to publish it, so I sent out like three queries, before heading down the self publication route. I revised it a few times, made the plot a little more complex and a couple of other things. Now, before any of you judge me on this YES, IT WASN’T A GREAT IDEA, I KNOW. There’s a big difference between being thirteen and twenty. But yes, I did self publish it when I was fourteen and my God, the first cover was awful.

That said, my family were so supportive. My mum was essentially my first beta reader and did the grammar and stuff for me. To be honest, if it wasn’t for my mum, I would have never had the same appreciation for writing as I do now. As a little bit of a side note (but a discussion for a later day), one thing I’ve noticed is that my community doesn’t necessarily promote the virtues of reading to children and don’t spend time reading books to them. My mum did when I was little, and the impact it has had on my life is unmeasurable.

Another supporter of mine was my Head of Year, and Art teacher at the time. He showed me how to colour after school one time, looked over my drawings and gave me advice on how to improve my skill set. He also managed to convince me to take GCSE Art, (which at the time I was furious about for letting him talk me into it, but looking back was one of my favourite classes). He was also another beta reader for me and gave me invaluable feedback on my work. When I told him I wanted to republish the next year by taking on board the advice he’d given me and re-do the cover, he offered to send out an email to all the form tutors in his Year (I had changed Head of Years in Year 10) and get feedback from the kids who were essentially my target audience. This final book was called Daimby City: Night Dragon, and would eventually evolve to become Daimby’s Protectors after another major rehaul but that is for later.

I launched this book at a cafe, invited my teachers from primary and secondary school and a few close friends. I also did a talk at a library as part of a week of reading and again, I was lucky to have a lot of people to support me. I thought, hey, end of Book 1. Wrong, very wrong. But for now, onto Book 2, the sequel.

I wrote like 50% of it in a week during the half term when I was young and stress free. Interestingly enough, I remember a lot less about this one. I remember my GCSE art teacher being the one to look over the illustrations for these (he really printed out a reference of eagle wings for me to use!!) and I feel like a lot of my conversations about it happened during the afternoon school art club. The launch for it was done as part of a fundraising event to raise money for a charity trip to Uganda and that was a day of fun after four weeks of pure stress. It’s actually really interesting how a lot of that has slipped through my mind, but it was partially because I was a master of burn out and was taking my GCSEs at the same time.

I have no idea when I started writing Book 3. I can vaguely tell you that it was being revised when I was 18, as I took it on our Geology field trip to Arran. At the same time as writing this I realised that I had matured and fair bit since writing Book 1 and I decided to write that all again. That was on the side. But a lot of Book 4 were certainly done when I was in Year 13.

Because of a new condition in my hand, I was allowed to bring my iPad in to work on, and my new critique partner was a girl who had come to my sixth form in Year 12. We had bonded over Miraculous Ladybug in Chemistry and now she would read the excerpts I had written, give me endless encouragement and listen to my endless ramblings about my story. Adam, an old art buddy, had no choice but to listen to them (sorry, Adam) and our occasional absolutely wild conversations became scenes for my fifth book, with characters named for him and my best friend Samirah. Also shout out to Orlagh (who is an incredibly talented writer), and Jeevan for beta reading Book 1 and 2 again for me, and for Atlas putting up with how annoying I can be.

On to university. All thoughts of writing had been pushed aside for some time. But around the fateful spring last year my attention had drifted during a lecture and I discovered the half done manuscript. Back to writing again, and lockdown in March gave me an excellent opportunity to pursue it with all the spare time on my hands. I finished rewriting Book 1, now renamed Daimby’s Protectors, finished rewriting Book 2, finished editing Book 3 (it still needs more edits) and finished the first draft of Book 4 in time for September. The final part, Book 5 had a few tentative sentences written, and I would add to this during the next few months. I began querying Book 1, but after about 10 (yes, I know it’s not a lot) decided to get some actual feedback after being introduced to Book Twitter and learning a lot more about the industry I wanted to be a part of.

And that brings us up to more current times. Book 1 is being revised still, and I hope I can carry on querying it soon, given the story has captured my heart for the best part of a decade. But I began to wonder what I would do when Saphira, Daniel, Kye, Nusaybah, Emily, Isabelle and Jamie’s story was over.

I had fallen in a bit of a writing rut. I needed something new to focus my attention on and there was one idea bouncing around at the back of my mind, about a working class hijabi who finds herself with magic powers one day. Who was she? What would she do? What was her life like before and after that fateful day? That was pretty much how my new WIP was born and let me tell you now how much I adore Sumayyah, Jaz and Bex (with Saphira, Daniel, Samirah and Adam to guide them).

Phew. That was a weird way to sum up half my life. I’ve never grown as much as a writer until late last year when I met the most incredible people on Twitter (shout out to Four Seasons Cartoon Rep and Raiders!). I’m still learning every day, and exploring issues that matter to me through my work because ultimately, art is always a form of self expression and is uniquely personal to you.

I really hoped you enjoyed that post (or at least found it interesting). Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments (or just comment), and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks!!