I had a nice life. Husband John was due to retire. That decision was precipitated when his employer foolishly required him to go back to work in the office rather than at home. “Nope. Not doing that”. We wanted to move to the seaside – only 40 miles away from where we’d lived for many years – and found a fabulous apartment we could just about afford. It has a pool! I cannot overstate the importance of a pool in my life. Everything was hunky-dory but…
There was a massive shadow hanging over this idyllic life. My mum passed away before she could be part of it and I was at my most vulnerable. Without telling you the whole story of my book, because obviously you’re going to buy it, I’d reconnected with an old friend. A very old friend from over 40 years ago. He turned out to be a narcissist, and a cruel malignant one at that. Two years of love-bombing, using me, belittling me, wearing me down until I believed I was worthless. The whole narcissist playbook was thrown at me while I had no idea what was going on. This was not good at a time when I was making new friends and getting to know new neighbours.
Long story short (when does that phrase ever work?) I found a therapist. I got over it – except you never 100% get over it – and wrote a very long blog post. You can see the original post here. It got thousands of views, mainly from psychology and psychotherapy students who had been told to read it.
“I know, I’ll write a book”. Writing is good therapy. I enjoyed writing it. Friends told me it was good, well-written, it flowed etc. Yes, I know now I wasn’t supposed to choose friends as beta readers but one is a famous journalist who knows her stuff and would have no qualms about telling me it was rubbish.
I say ‘I enjoyed writing it’ but that was the actual writing and crafting the whole thing. What I didn’t enjoy was having to relive my story in order to tell it. There were times when sadness and grief took over and I ended up crying and had to stop writing. Again, I got over it.
I had a big problem with someone altering my book since it was my story and had to be told in my voice. I found an editor (I can’t remember how) and liked the way she wrote in her blog. That had to be a good indication of how we would get along. I was shocked at how little I’d remembered about punctuation conventions and how many sections were complete nonsense and needed rewriting but there I was with a finished book.
I considered “traditional” publishing companies for about a minute. Beg the agents, get rejected. One of those agents might beg the publisher. Get rejected again. Have someone who hasn’t lived through the story change the story. Wait years for it to be published. Earn a pittance. Nope, nope and thrice nope. Why would anyone want to go through that?
Early on the process I’d looked at indie publishing companies and made a few enquiries. Some I rejected immediately when they didn’t answer a simple question. One just sent me a contract to sign without even reading my email. One big and famous company didn’t reply for weeks. I embarrassed them on their Facebook page and eventually got a note telling me they were too busy. Brilliant. Getting rejected by indie publishers when much of the book was about rejection. That really helped.
I found a “consultant” and got along with him until he announced he’d made some alterations to my already edited manuscript. No tracked changes version, no indication of what he’d changed, just “I made a few changes”. Trust evaporated in an instant and I was back doing everything myself, which was OK as by that stage I was learning about publishing.
Formatting, cover design? I can deal with that, as in I can use Atticus and find a designer.
Marketing? Ugh. I’d had a lot of marketing experience in my career. I can do the old-fashioned talking to people marketing.
I was involved in internet/digital marketing before most of today’s gurus were a blush on their mother’s cheek. I can do it but I hate doing it. It’s boring. Building a funnel, creating a digital “product” (which no-one needs)? You do you but it’s not for me. The product is my books. I’m not going off at a tangent to sell them.
What I can do is talk to people. I was interviewed recently by an “influencer”. To his horror I turned the interview around and made it about my book. Husband disowned me.
I used to present a business program on the radio and did live tax advice and the Budget program in the days when it was real seat-of-the-pants stuff – before they spoilt all the fun and announced everything weeks beforehand. I can do the chat on radio and TV even though I’m a bit out of practice. I can do the Facebook page stuff, I’ve done that for clients.
The problem is any fun has been stripped out of writing a book and it’s become work. I don’t mind putting in the work but it’s really tedious work and I’m over-worrying constantly about things like keywords and how to stop my helpful friends leaving Amazon reviews. It does seem that however much work you put in they can remove your account for the slightest infraction. Do not get me onto the subject of unfairness. It will not be a pretty fight.
In the immortal words of the Mastermind quizmaster: “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. The book might well warn unsuspecting victims. It might save someone from getting entangled with a narcissist user, although I suspect everyone knows about these dreadful people; it was only me who was too stupid to see the red flags. And that’s depressing!
The cure is to write more books of a cheerful nature, she says writing one about the loss of my parents. But then it’s more of a memoir of their lives and my childhood rather than all about grief. I can’t write a book that will help you through grief. It’s always a personal journey.
Then there’s the series of short stories about our local area. That could be fun. Must get on with that…
[This article appeared on my Substack]
