I tell you how I came to be a writer (in case you’re interested AND) in the hopes that you will take inspiration in my randomness to know that you too can be anything you want to be. And that if you’ve ever wanted to see a book or an article with your own name on it, I will stand behind that shit 100% and answer any questions you have that I can. 

I'm a huge advocate of people enjoying whatever the hell and becoming whatever the hell they want to be. I have beaten my head against that “It's not for you” brick wall and blamed myself; often for the way I look, speak, work or act. I have worked in gated industries and sexist industries, I've seen the walled-gardens we make both for each other and ourselves.  

Hellcat Publishing has been something I've sat on for a long time and it took me even longer to realise why the name meant so much to me, but it's this – I am different, I embrace the different because everyone IS different and I'm going to keep using that word until it's the new 'normal'. 

I’ve had the arguments with self-proclaimed “creative types” who told me I should be reading and watching stories that make me think. My answer will always be the same; Yes, I find those stories fascinating, I applaud and enjoy those too, but sometimes I just wanna laugh or cry my ass off in the name of a little escapism. And as I’ve said before, escapism was my route into writing in the first place. 

It disheartens me when I see or hear someone putting down or dismissing another person’s dreams, hobbies and preferences. While working in large print – an area of the publishing industry that takes submissions of already-published works from larger publishers rather than authors or agents – I did receive an unsolicited submission in the form of a fan fiction short. 

My manager told me to bin it, I think, it was a while ago, but the advice certainly wasn’t to do what I did. As a writer myself, I couldn’t bear to think of sending anything I’d written out into the void for it to be ignored. I’d have (briefly) convinced myself I wasn’t worthy of a response and thought about giving up – this never lasts long in writers with “the bug” we’ll usually do it anyway (#amIright?).  

I wrote the author a letter, politely explaining why we weren’t a publishing company of that nature and encouraged her to continue writing. As I said, this was a while ago (around 10 years), and she could be a multi-million bestseller by now for all I know! 

Over the years I’ve had many people ask me how to get into writing, how to do it, writers reading this, you’ve all heard “I wish I could write a book” or “I hope to write a book someday”. My answer is always “DO IT!”  

The very fact that you’ve considered it, makes it a very real possibility. 

There will be more of my ramblings to come on the how’s and why’s in the coming posts, for now, I leave you with a reading list I HIGHLY recommend you check out if you don’t feel you can be who you want to be or do what you want to do.  

It’s a photo BECAUSE these awesome creative types and writers gave me the proverbial slap to the face that I needed. I’m still going to do things my way, the Hellcat way, however that shapes out to be this year, but these guys tell ALL of us, that that’s O’Fuckin’kay. 

(NOTE: I am not affiliated with these writers in any way, I just love their infectious positivity)