Becoming an author (Part 1)

‘Barn Find’ by GJ Leonard.

I think it is fair to say 2020 was a strange year for everyone and I had just joined the fifty something club! Although my job was an essential worker, I still had some time off on furlough at the beginning of the pandemic and a few months after that at reduced hours.

II had always enjoyed writing which was the reason I started the 500-word blog. However knowing I was getting some spare time gave me the push to put pen to paper and unleash long held ideas of a storyline, characters, location and plots that all eventually developed into a finished product.

The concept of writing a full-length book was both daunting as well as exciting. I am a novice amateur after all with zero qualifications. Looking back now, I can honestly say it was quite a journey from the first draft to the finished version. It was a challenging learning curve, difficult, taxing, caused a few headaches.

I had found myself becoming interested more and more with the characters I was inventing. I wanted to make them even more real by creating back-stories for them. I found it made them feel more believable and brought those characters to life. I found myself taking time to research different places where I wanted them to be from, with situations I had no experience of, I read up on complicated family dynamics, not to mention elements of policing I had no prior knowledge of.

It pushed me to my limits in many respects. Several times I felt out of my depth and at the limit of my capabilities but after several months of commitment I was eventually satisfied and proud that I had put everything I wanted into it and sensed I had finished the story.

By then I was reminded of the saying ‘Write without fear, edit without mercy’ and I did! Eventually when I felt I had created a book worthy of asking someone to spare her precious time to read it was when my better half got involved. We had discussions over certain areas through the chapters which were worth talking through because changes were made that we both agreed genuinely improved the work further.

Cost was a factor as to why I did not give the book over to a professional proofreader as well as a desire to be responsible for 100% of the finished product. The same thinking was behind designing the cover to reflect the story within. Then learning more and deciding just how to get the finished product out into the world so that ‘Barn Find’ was available to readers to access.

As a chronically shy and private person who has no presence on social media, I decided to adopt a pen name for the author. It also meant my face and voice would not be ‘out there’ to promote the story. Not the best of situation in this digital age, quite a disadvantage!

What to do next?