Since my last post about Style and the Solitary, there have been several developments. I’m going to copy from the post and add to it.
Thanks again to Melina Kantor and Shoshana Raun, whose prompts and other writing suggestions helped to craft the plot much more than I’d expected. Joan Livingston, who read and commented on my draft, and also wrote the cover line and the brilliant foreword. And Stephanie and Laurence Patterson of darkstroke books whose editing and cover design were magnificent.
Also to all those who have opened up (or will open up) their blogs for me:
You can come to today’s Facebook Launch. Click now and press Going. There will be information about the book in text, photos and music, and plenty of interaction, including a competition.
You can come to the joint online launch event called Ladies Who Launch, where three darkstroke authors will introduce our new books with readings and answer questions. It’s on 6th May. Click now to secure your free ticket.
I was on Facebook recently when one special post caught my eye. I thought, this would be perfect for my Power of Belief series. Fortunately the post’s author allowed me to use her post. It was Jennifer Gilmour.
The post speaks for itself, so I’m copying it here before adding anything else.
This photo just came up in my memories. A production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with my tutors and fellow students. It was way back when I was at Hull College studying Acting.
Here’s a story for you.
At the time I didn’t believe in myself, my mum had instilled in me that I needed a fall back plan because it’s unlikely that this career path would work out for me. It wasn’t just my mum though, but the school system and others around me.
I applied for a gap year in Youthwork and decided not to apply for anything in Acting. I was absolutely gutted when I received some pretty awesome grades from my diploma in Acting. However, I thought to myself that I would carry on with what I had decided and maybe come back to it. I went on to study youthwork at the University of Chester. I found myself doing acting within this, being a part of acting groups and I worked with young people with drama.
My life went in a different direction as most know. I fell into an abusive relationship for several years and I felt my life was on hold. I didn’t progress in myself or with any kind of career.
However, the last several years of building myself back up after fleeing that abusive relationship has given me an appreciation for life. The last two years have been a big game changer for me and I believe in myself. I’ve made sure I take advantage of my freedom and really worked on my self development.
I’ve taken away the negative support in my life, those who said I couldn’t make it or achieve it. In anything I have chosen, I have not stuck to a ‘normal’ job or typical ‘career path’ that the school system encourages. I’m not saying that those paths are wrong or bad but it simply wasn’t right for me. If my creativity had of been encouraged who knows where I would be? If someone had have told me they believed in me, motivated me and backed me- where would I be?
I may not be the actor I wanted to be in my childhood and teens but those experiences have helped me today. Those skills have been put into practice when I speak at events in the UK or happen to appear in the news or on a documentary. They appear in events I host or interviews I facilitate.
That experience wasn’t a waste of time because it only made me certain of who I was meant to be.
If I could go back in time and give myself a message it would be “Believe in yourself and surprise those who don’t believe you can do it”.
I’ve surprised myself in the last two years and I hope it’s turned the heads of those who said I couldn’t do it.
I certainly don’t have a typical day at work in my self-employment. I’m never bored and there’s a different sense of achievement when something works. My hope is that my children see that there are options and that I pass on the message that dreams can be goals.
So my message to you this evening is, whatever has happened in your life… it’s not a waste! It can equip you with what you need to make it happen. Believe in yourself because that’s the number one person you need to convince. If you can’t do that, I’m waving a flag with your name on it and I will personally cheer you on.
*****
Isn’t that amazing? Jennifer’s former tutors thought so, too. They wrote some moving comments, which you can see in this post.
There’s plenty more that I could say about Jennifer, but I’ll let you find out more via the links:
Next week’s post in this series is from Sandy Cee.
Remember, belief doesn’t have to be connected to writing, and these posts don’t even have to be about true stories. If you want to take part, do let me know via Contact above or social media.
In just five days, it will be launched into the world. My first venture into crime fiction. Fortunately, it has some wonderful people to help my baby emerge from the womb.
No, I didn’t mean Nathalie and Asaf. They carry the story through from start to finish. But I’m talking about the lovely, real people who have helped in many ways, and to whom I will always be grateful.
People like Melina Kantor and Shoshana Raun, whose prompts and other writing suggestions helped to craft the plot much more than I’d expected. Joan Livingston, who read and commented on my draft, and also wrote the cover line and the brilliant foreword. And Stephanie and Laurence Patterson of darkstroke books whose editing and cover design were magnificent.
Also to all those who have opened up (or will open up) their blogs for me:
You can come to the Facebook Launch on Monday. Click now and press Going. There will be information about the book in text, photos and music, and plenty of interaction.
You can come to the joint online launch event called Ladies Who Launch, where three darkstroke authors will introduce our new books with readings and answer questions. It’s on 6th May. Click now to secure your free ticket.
Look who’s back on the blog, today. It’s friend and author, Jo Fenton. I knew she went running, but how did it begin and why was belief involved? Here, she explains.
Thank you for having me on your blog today, Miriam.
When I was at school, I was unable to run. I would get ridiculously out of breath, and be coughing for the next 2 days. After 2 attempts at cross-country, my doctor provided me with a sick note that lasted me to the end of my school days, and psychologically for the next 25 years!
Then somewhere in my early 40s, I saw an article about exercise induced asthma. I realised this might be the cause of my inability to run, but did nothing about it at that point. I still believed I wasn’t a runner.
Two years later, in 2015, I came across another article. This one was about Couch to 5k, the incredible program that gets people who can’t run at all to be able to run a full 5000 metres.
On the strength of this, I went along to my GP, a fabulous lady, who provided me with an inhaler, a peak flow meter, a diary, and the encouragement to go for it. Next day, on the way to my writing group, I stopped off at a running shop, had my gait analysed, and bought my first pair of running shoes!
The next morning, 15 minutes after using my inhaler for the first time, I did run 1 of the first week of the program. Running for 1 minute, then walking for a minute and a half, on repeat for a total of twenty minutes. It was a struggle, but I was hugely impressed that I could run that far without the coughing and breathlessness that had previously accompanied any running attempts.
I gradually built up through the program to complete the 30 minutes of running solidly. In itself this was a huge achievement, but being somewhat on the slow side, I only managed to run 3km in this time. I had another 3 weeks left until I was due to run the Race For Life, and I was determined to run the whole way. I kept building up, and on the day, I ran the full 5km without stopping or walking. I was so proud of myself.
I’ve since then run several 10km races (a few without stopping, and many more using the jeffing technique (a mixture of running and walking). I’ve also done a half marathon, and hope to repeat the experience this coming September.
Running has totally changed my life. I’m still slow, but I’ve made loads of friends, joined a fabulous running group called the Prestwich Plodders, and I have recently completed my Leadership in Running Fitness with England Athletics.
My GP and the Couch to 5k program inspired me with the belief that I could become a runner, and I will be forever grateful for that.
Oh, well done, Jo! (But don’t tell my husband about this.)
Author bio: Jo Fenton grew up in Hertfordshire, UK. She devoured books from an early age, particularly enjoying adventure books, school stories and fantasy. She wanted to be a scientist from aged six after being given a wonderful book titled “Science Can Be Fun”. At eleven, she discovered Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer, and now has an eclectic and much loved book collection cluttering her home office.
Jo combines an exciting career in Clinical Research with an equally exciting but very different career as a writer of psychological thrillers.
When not working, she runs (very slowly), hikes, and chats to lots of people. She lives in Manchester with her husband, youngest son, a Corgi, two hamsters and a tankful of tropical fish. She is an active and enthusiastic member of two writing groups and a reading group.
Next week’s post in this series will be from Jennifer Gilmour. If you know Jennifer, you’ll know she’s been through a lot in her life. How did she extricate herself from abuse?
Remember, belief doesn’t have to be connected to writing, and these posts don’t even have to be about true stories. If you want to take part, do let me know via Contact above or social media.
I’m delighted to welcome Alison Knight to the blog today. Alison is an author, a creative writing teacher, an editor and much more. Here’s her story.
WHAT MY PARENTS TAUGHT ME
They say that our early years influence our adult beliefs. I’m grateful that an important lesson I learned from my parents was that I could achieve anything in my life, so long as I was prepared to work for it. Some things would come easy, others would take a lot of hard work. But the belief that it was possible was the important thing.
That belief has helped me throughout my life and continues to do so. I instilled it in my children and grandchildren. It has helped me create a good life in which I am happy and fulfilled. It hasn’t always been easy, but believing it helped me to keep going in the darkest of times.
I BELIEVED I WOULD BE A WRITER
I always wanted to be a writer, but it wasn’t something careers advisors would encourage for a girl from a working class background in London in the 1970s. So I took a business and secretarial course and embarked on a career as a legal executive. I got married, had children, and got bogged down by the everyday pressures of family, mortgage payments and work. I still dreamed of writing though, and took evening classes, joined writing groups and kept trying to write the perfect novel.
LEARNING MY CRAFT
I’d decided at age twenty-five that I would be published by the time I was thirty. I now wonder whether some omnipotent spirit had been listening at the time and decided I needed to learn some hard lessons first. Either that, or said spirit had misheard me, because it actually took me thirty years to get my first book into print!
When I kept getting rejections, I realised I needed to learn more about the craft of writing. In my forties, I went to university for the first time. I was a part-time student. My children were still at home and I was still working full-time. It was a struggle, but I loved it and I learned an enormous amount about both myself and the craft of writing. At the age of fifty-four, I had a first class degree and an MA in Creative Writing and within a year I got my first three book deal.
THE BOOK I WAS BORN TO WRITE
Even though I had many disappointments along the way, I couldn’t give up. I knew that there was one story that I simply had to write – about what happened to my family in the late 1960s. It was a tragedy that affected so many, but I knew that I was the only one who could tell it. I see my years of struggle and study, and my first three books as my apprenticeship. They helped me to gain confidence as a writer, to find my voice so that I could write the book I was born to write.
Writing MINE, my family’s story, took years. I wrote it, sent it out, got rejected, rewrote it, and sent it out again. I had so many rejections. I couldn’t give up but I didn’t know what to do next.
ENCOURAGEMENT FROM AN UNEXPECTED SOURCE
By some quirk of fate, I ended up working alongside a woman called Bryony Evens who had once worked for an agent. Her claim to fame was that she picked up Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone from a slush pile and persuaded her boss to represent JK Rowling. If you want to hear her talking about it on YouTube, see this link. Her belief in that story changed the world!
Bryony was one of the first people to read my manuscript of MINE. She gave me some valuable advice and told me it was a good book. Given her history, I was very happy to believe her! It still took several years to get the final version of MINE published, but her encouragement – added to the beliefs that my parents instilled in me – kept me going.
MY STORY IS TOLD
In 2020, Darkstroke Books published MINE on what would have been my mother’s 90th birthday. After a lifetime of striving for this moment, it finally happened. I had believed I could do it. I needed to do it. I wanted the world to see what I saw, to know the people I knew. I believe I have done them justice. I believe they would be proud of me.
BUT WHAT NEXT?
That belief that I could do anything so long as I am prepared to work for it has kept me strong in many dark times and enabled me to achieve so much in my life. I now believe that I’m not destined to be sitting on my laurels in the next phase of my life because I have a lot more stories to tell. They may not be as personal or as powerful as the events depicted in MINE, but rather they are stories that explore the human condition in all its glory. I want to make people laugh and cry, to challenge the reader to put themselves in my characters’ shoes. My next book, THE LEGACY, was inspired by a scene in MINE and explores how two people respond to an unexpected inheritance. Is it a blessing or a curse? It will be published by Darkstroke Books on 4th May 2021 if you’d like to find out!
Thank you, Miriam, for letting me talk about my belief here. As you said in your recent post, belief can give you confidence, which is a powerful tool that helps us in so many ways.
ALISON KNIGHT, AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alison has been a legal executive, a registered childminder, a professional fund-raiser and a teacher. She has travelled the world – from spending a year as an exchange student in the US in the 1970s and trekking the Great Wall of China to celebrate her fortieth year and lots of other interesting places in between.
In her mid-forties Alison went to university part-time and gained a first-class degree in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and an MA in the same subject from Oxford Brookes University, both while still working full-time. Her first book was published a year after she completed her master’s degree.
Her first novel with Darkstroke Books, Mine, is a domestic drama set in 1960s London based on real events in her family. She is the only person who can tell this particular story. Exploring themes of class, ambition and sexual politics, Mine shows how ordinary people can make choices that lead them into extraordinary situations.
Her next book, The Legacy, is a drama set in 1960s London, exploring how we don’t always get what we want and how we shouldn’t count our chickens before they’re hatched.
Alison teaches creative and life-writing, runs workshops and retreats with Imagine Creative Writing Workshops as well as working as a freelance editor. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She lives in Somerset, within sight of Glastonbury Tor.
Next week’s post in this series will be from Jo Fenton. Remember, belief doesn’t have to be connected to writing, and these posts don’t even have to be about true stories.
If you want to take part, do let me know via Contact above or social media.
***
Remember my new novel, Style and the Solitary, a murder mystery loosely based on Beauty and the Beast. Both stories are about the power of belief.
Style and the Solitary launches on 26th April and the ebook can be pre-ordered now.
Yes, this week, I’m going to tell a story of my own, partly to show that this series doesn’t have to be about writing and you don’t have to be “a writer” to join in. The story doesn’t even have to be true; it can be one you made up, or one you read or watched on a screen.
For A-level, I took Pure Maths, Applied Maths and Music. I spent two years studying those subjects, but the teachers didn’t instil in me any belief in my abilities. There was one girl who was brilliant at Maths and always going to get straight As, and others who were clever. I was mediocre and mostly ignored. In Music lessons, I was the only pupil. I struggled with that and never shined in the lessons. My homework, in all subjects, suffered from my lack of self-confidence.
My father, who was a Maths teacher, wanted to help me. He was disappointed when I refused his help, but it didn’t seem right that he should do my homework for me. However, when lessons and homework finished and we were given time to revise before the final exams, I let him go through the whole syllabus with me, and that made all the difference. Suddenly, it all became clear and I knew that I could do this stuff.
Then and now.
I ended up doing extremely well in the exams, surprising myself and everyone else except for my father – or so he said. He hadn’t helped with Music, but I think that extra confidence spilled over into that subject. Also, I was conscious that the teacher wouldn’t see what I’d written in this external exam. This made me feel free to express my thoughts, uninhibited by her potential comments.
Belief produced results that took me to university, where I didn’t excel, but I did have a good time, meeting some lovely people with whom I’m still in contact.
About Miriam
Miriam Drori survived growing up in the UK and now enjoys her life in Israel (although she misses the UK and is looking forward to being able to visit again). Following careers in computer programming and technical writing, she now writes mostly fiction. Her next novel, Style and the Solitary, launches on 26th April.
Miriam is passionate about raising awareness of social anxiety. Not all her writing includes it, but she never fails to mention it in her bio and elsewhere.
Next week’s post in this series will be from… you, whoever comes first. Remember, belief doesn’t have to be connected to writing, and these posts don’t even have to be about true stories.
If you want to take part, do let me know via Contact above or social media.
Miriam Drori, Author 