The nuts and bolts of the craft…

Because I’m so passionate about writing and telling stories, I’m always keen on getting others to do the same. I’m always saying to friends (and anyone else) when they tell me something interesting, an experience, a family story, whatever, ‘write it down!’, ‘you ought to write it down!‘ When people say they have a book in them I try my best to encourage them and always want to help them if I can in any way. I’m also very pleased if they have success – so with my creative writing group I push competitions at them, and writing courses, and I’m thrilled if they win or receive some accolade.

So why, if I am so keen for people to get their work ‘out there’ do I feel so miffed when a celebrity in another field has their first book accepted for publication, having only started to write a couple of years ago? I won’t reveal any names, but you might have seen the article in a national paper about someone who had a very successful career in TV for many years, and has still got a high profile, and also has a very successful daughter. The article mentioned that ‘Two years ago I did a creative writing course.’ Well, good, hurrah, excellent! I applaud her! ‘It gave me the nuts and bolts of the craft and I can’t thank them enough’… Really? well, ok… but then she wrote a novel and her agent submitted it to a publisher and now it is about to be published… well I am glad, it’s great for new books by new authors to hit the bookshops… But…

The nuts and bolts of the craft in two years? Really? Hmmm…

I don’t have an agent, or a publisher, but I have self-published on Amazon for Kindle! :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lois+elsden