Writing and Me

1.

Making up stories has been part of who I am since I was tiny. At about three years old, on a long coach journey, I was sitting next to a child a couple of years older than me. For nearly the whole journey my companion listened to me telling a story I was making up as I went along.

2.

After learning to write I loved scribbling: compositions in nursery school, then as I got older, essays, poems and short stories. Whilst adolescent at Grammar school those stories were a bit risque. My classmates loved reading them, passed them round to each other and clamoured for more. (I read that Jackie Collins did the same but charged a penny each for hers. Unlike her, I didn't charge for mine.)

Inevitably one of my stories was seen by a teacher and I was sent to the headmistress. I was Jewish, she was anti-Semitic, not a good combination. Rather than acknowledging that I had a talent for writing and channelling my ability into something she thought more appropriate, she made me feel that writing stories was wrong. So for many years I only wrote poems.

3.

Of course I eventually started writing creative prose again. Between then and now I've written loads of diaries, stories, articles, introductions to various books and autobiographies about different times and events in my life and that of my family. I know it's my own fault that a lot of the latter never got finished never mind about getting published. I longed to get my creative work into print for others to read but hangups from my childhood held me back. The way it worked out was that once my thoughts were down on paper, the drive went and I had no incentive to do anything more.

4.

These hangups didn't apply to anything to do with my work though so I have had technical stuff about computers and training published in magazines and business journals. I've also done technical writing for companies including course notes and instruction manuals for computer courses. More recently my work has again been course notes and instruction manuals but these are now for my Astrology and Tarot workshops.

5.

But I've recognised that I can't let my past stand in the way of what I want for the future. I want my words to be read and am starting to do something about it. I've dreamed of getting my creative work into print for others to read. The problem was that once my thoughts were down on paper, the drive went and I had no incentive to do anything more - until recently.

Now I want my words to be read and am starting to do something about it. Recently I've written - and finished - a few things which family and friends have read and said they've enjoyed. Now I want more people to see them too. My first thought was to see if I could get them published in a magazine. Whilst composing a query email to send to editors, I realised I should give an example of my writing style so included a link to my one and only blog, written in March 2013 to tell folk what I did to raise money for Comic Relief. But that was it. But when I looked at what I'd written I realised there was a huge glaring omission, or rather several of them - I hadn't included any information anywhere about me or anything else I'd done.

So now I'm putting that right. As you can see from this scribble, I'm updating my website to include examples of what I've written.

6.

I've created an ALL MY WRITING page with links to all the different topics I've written about. These include the full versions of short scribbles as well as some longer work.

Have a look through, read whatever you fancy, then please let me know if you like my work.

Naomi