Writing history......

For as long as I can remember, I've always loved writing and my favourite subject at school (after kissing boys, of course) was English. But apart from those dreadful 'thank-you' notes my mother forced me to write to Aunt's I'd never met, who sent Christmas presents designed for three year olds - regardless of what age I happened to be - my very first real involvement in writing was at the age of ten, where together with three friends, we designed, wrote, starred in and produced our own 'Jackie' style magazine as part of an English project. The 'magazine' itself was terrible (I still have it) but I loved creating it so much, I dreamt about working for a fashion/lifestyle magazine when I grew up. After I left school I tried lots of different things from legal secretary to art gallery sales executive, but it wasn't until 1984 that I finally landed a job in magazine and newspaper publishing - although it wasn't quite Vogue, (nor anything like Jackie either!) I worked on several different magazines before eventually spending 13 fantastic years with TTG UK - Travel Trade Gazette - the UK's leading weekly travel trade newspaper, where I travelled all over the world, went to lots of parties, did 'lunch' and managed to overspend on my expenses account on a regular basis. What fun I had! From there, I moved onto the travel team at the Daily Express and eventually in 1998, I launched my own weekly travel trade newspaper called Independent Travel News. Even though I worked in publishing, immersed in news stories, features and articles, I always secretly really wanted to write fiction. So I wrote short stories for the women's magazines - Best , Bella & My Weekly etc., - in my spare time (often at work - shhh - don't tell my boss! - when it was quiet) and I would send them off - only to have them thump back on my doormat weeks later - along with the rejection slips - all of which I've kept, despite eventually becoming quite successful and having lots of short stories published! In early 1999, due to an abrupt and crazy mid life crisis type event (if you want more details you'll have to buy me several large glasses of wine and set aside a couple of hours!) I left ITN and with the support of my husband, I went freelance, whilst at the same time training to become a qualified Dance Teacher. During my teacher training, I continued to write as much as I could - specialising in the travel market - and I wrote articles, brochures, features, leaflets, copy, in fact anything that would pay! (I'm not proud!) I was lucky enough to get commissioned to write all the holiday brochures for leading Independent Tour Operator, Cadogan Holidays, which I did for two years and in 2004 I also wrote the launch brochure for Emirates Tours UK. While I was freelancing commercially, I also continued to write short stories for the women's press, qualify as a dance teacher and start my own dance classes. (see Dancing History page) Sadly, these days, my writing takes a bit of a back seat as my dance school and my choreography now take up most of my time, and I find that instead of writing stories, I write a LOT of emails, design a lot of posters and update my websites.....and I've recently started to do some website designing (all my sites are done by me) whch I love. (My rates are VERY reasonable if anyone is interested. www.spyderswebdesign.co.uk.) However, I still love to write fiction, and late at night, just the sensible side of midnight, when I'm done with the emails, my hips ache from dancing and my little boy is asleep, I still find time on occasion to add a few lines to all those unpublished short stories saved on my hard drive. I've also written two children's picture books and when I'm brave enough to send them off, I really hope that one day my first children's picture book 'Bear Hug' will be published. Until then - I'll keep writing........ For a quick peek at BEAR HUG...click HERE....if you like it and know any agents or publishers who also might...give them my number!

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