Well here I am at the age of 57, Grandmother of 2, totally dyslexic and being asked to do a guest post.

Question: How did this writing malarkey all start? I was recently asked. Good question I replied, now let me think.

About 3 years ago, my partner suddenly became afflicted with a terrible eye disease, which needed a lot of very nasty and serious treatment to save his sight. This meant hours of travelling to Bristol Eye Hospital, up and down sometimes as much as twice a week. This actually wasted so much time it was unbelievable, I would be sat in the car outside, sometimes for hours on end, the parking was so precious, waiting for him to stumble out into the brightness after his treatment, only to come back again a couple of days later and do this all again.

After one particular day where I was waiting nearly 3 hours in the car, my brain numb, listening to the radio and reading at least 2 daily papers and 1 magazine, I decided to clear out of one of the cupboards at home that I knew held about eight or nine of my old A4 writing notebooks. I always took one with me whenever I went anywhere, especially holidays, but never threw them away when I got home. I thought I might bring one with me, and make some notes on shopping for the week, and what little jobs needed to be done at home etc, just something to scribble on to keep me from going insane while I was waiting in the car, and of course I could get rid of all those that were full and needed throwing away. Good job I didn’t. When I got home and went to the cupboard and started going through them all, I was flabbergasted reading through them. Some dated back to as long as 20 years ago, when I was learning to dive in the Red Sea, and there it was again and again and again, the same thing. Although the name of the book has changed now, all these writing books that I have saved revealed to me all my scribblings, notes, thoughts ,traumas, events, oh my goodness, it had been staring at me, right in my face for so long, and here it was again shouting at me very loud!!

The next day we were going to the hospital, my partner spied this pile of notebooks in the back of the car, “What in God’s name are you doing with that pile of rubbish?” he asked me, seeing the back seat piled up high. I smiled back at him and replied, “Oh just something for me to do while I am waiting for you.” My brain was fizzing on the way to Bristol, some 27 miles from Weston Super Mare, which usually took from between 1 hour, to 1 hours and 20 minutes depending on the traffic, and I couldn’t wait to get him out of the car once we had parked. “Go on, hurry up, don’t be late for your appointment.” I shouted at him, I was so excited just trembling at the thought of getting my hungry paws onto this pile of books and start reading what I had already written some time ago. 3 hours later, I had written my opening paragraph, not even realizing while I was sat there, a traffic warden had given me a parking ticket for running over the time I had purchased, I was so engrossed in what I was doing, suddenly jumping up as my partner banged on the window to let him in. I was in heaven, away with the fairies and angels in my own little inner space, and that was it, I was off, sucked into the world of writing, literacy and all the ups and downs this business brings. I was suddenly in love, in love with doing something, for the first time in my life, for me!! Yes me!!

After 3 long years of emotional ups and downs, tears, frustrations, and long nights and early mornings at the computer, she was finally born. Secret Demon, my little baby girl, my nurtured inner child came out into the big wide world, and I am so very proud that she has.

Would I do this again? Yes of course. I wrote so much over the last three years, I now have 3 books and I am just finishing the 4th.

Book 2 is going for editing at the end of April, and the next project is the cook book which has emanated from all the cooking and recipes in the first 3. Excited? You bet!! Just can’t seem to put the pen down, and all this from just being bored and deciding to look back into a pile of old A4 writing books I kept from my travels.

All the time I was bored and needing to be fulfilled, and seemed to be wasting time, the one thing I yearned for all along was right under my nose, I just kept passing it by. So go on! Open up those cupboards, have a clear out, check your junk, you might just find something very precious, just like I did!

 

C.L.RYAN
AUTHOR: Secret Demon

 

Tags: C.L. Ryan