30 things I've learnt from 5 years being published: no 30 – what you do does actually matter
September 6 2023 marks 5 years since my first novel was released 😲
I’ve now published 6, and have 2 more under contract.
To celebrate, I’m sharing a new post about what I’ve learnt from being published EVERY DAY throughout the month. This post is part of that series!
Click here for the rest →
Oh my goodness, I actually feel quite emotional writing this post. I can’t believe I’ve come to the end of this blogging series!
It’s been a really interesting project and I’m SO glad I decided to do it. The most interesting thing I’ve learnt throughout the process is that I feel I could probably go on forever!
When I first sat down and brainstormed the idea of doing a daily blogging challenge to celebrate my five-year-anniversary of being published, I said to myself I would only do it if I could easily come up with 30 topics to write about.
I opened a new Google Doc and I started to jot down some ideas and I’m not kidding - I had 30 ideas in less than 15 minutes.
Turns out I have a lot to say about the publishing industry 😂
So perhaps I’ll keep sharing? I would love to hear from you if you’ve found these posts interesting or informative - please do let me know!
Anyway, onto the final post. I wanted to end on a high note, because I do worry that in laying bare all the things I’ve learnt, I might have put a few aspiring writers off, and the thought of that is really upsetting.
So here we go: the most important thing I have learnt over the past five years is that what I do - writing novels - actually matters.
It matters to me, of course. But much more importantly, it really does matter to other people.
I think writers have a tendency to get so caught up in the mechanisms of publishing that we forget about the impact our writing has on readers.
I don’t know about you, but I often find by the time I’ve finished working on a book I want nothing more to do with it.
By that point, I’ve kind of fallen out of love with it and have moved on to the next book.
I sort of forget that it’s going to go on and live its own life entirely independently of me, in the hands of other people.
But when I hear from readers, I remember. And honestly it’s the greatest thing in the world.
Reading is such a huge source of comfort and pleasure to so many people.
A few months after my debut novel was released, I received the following message from a reader through my author website (see, this is why you need one folks!).
She said how much she’d resonated with the main character’s experience and how much the book had meant to her.
Here’s an extract from her message:
I've just this moment finished reading The Rival. I don't normally contact authors after I've read their book, but I just wanted to thank you for writing it. I'm literally sat here in pieces after reading the last page.
I couldn't DM you on Twitter, and I didn't want to write this publicly so as not to give away the story, but I wanted to contact you and let you know just how deeply your novel has touched me….
I'm due to start an MA in Creative Writing in September. I'm excited to start - and your novel has inspired me so utterly and completely.
So much of Helena's story resonated with me, and I found the ending so close to home and so powerful. Thank you so much for writing this wonderful book.
The sender also shared some of her own experience as a mother with me in the message (I’ve removed those sections for privacy reasons).
I remember receiving this message and feeling quite choked up. It was the best feeling in the world, but it was also a shock to realise how profound novels can be, and how very important what writers do actually is.
It’s a cliche, but the world really does need our stories.
Storytelling is so immensely powerful. In my opinion, it’s the greatest way to connect with our fellow humans.
It’s a universal language, and a way of reminding ourselves that we are all far more alike than we might want to acknowledge. And that’s important.
So keep doing it. It really matters ❤️
Hey, I write novels, but I also build websites!
If you’re an author and don’t have one yet (or you have one that’s so awful you never tell people about it!) then check out how I can help →
