On point..

Thing is about writing is that you never  know how other people perceive your work. When I tell friends I have trouble sometimes writing at home as the laundry or cleaning will suddenly seem more appealing, they say things like: Go and write in a Coffee Shop. 

That may have worked for JK Rowling, but she was upstairs in a quiet corner with her baby asleep in her pram. Not a noisy, busy Pret A Mange, or a Starbucks. Yet people being the sheep they are, suddenly think inspiration comes from the hiss of an expresso machine. 

I have seen many young women, hammering away at their laptops in coffee shops, desperately hoping that someone will come over read a scrap of what they're writing and suddenly, blam, fame!

Doesn't work like that.

I have been writing since I was fourteen, I read extensively, set myself the challenge to read all the great classics before I was twenty. I wanted to write for a living, but the only thing I was offered was a junior on The Hackney Gazette. Snooty little bitch that I was, I turned it down, ending up going to Hornsey College of Art, then ITV, then ITN, then the BBC.

Writing, writing, writing, all the time. I had some success, my teenage love stories made it into Jackie, later short stories into Woman and Woman's Own. I took writing courses, in the BBC I took the Script to Screen course and the first script I submitted was based on my own newly married life. Write about what you know, was the mantra. So I did. I was disappointed when it was refused after them keeping it for over 3 weeks. I was told by the  Beeb script editors that they had already got something similar in development.

When it came out in 1978 as "Rings on Their Fingers" starring Martin Jarvis & Diane Keen,
a lot of it was lifted directly from my script.  Even the description of my then husband, tall thin, blond. It was frustrating, but I didn't have the guts or cash to sue my then employers.

Years passed, many books refused, many short stories printed, articles on the BBC Sense of Place website, The Guardian, Sunday lifestyle pages. More writing courses, Creative Writing, Writing for Pleasure and Profit.  Articles in History Magazines, History websites.

I started writing my Hilary Long Mysteries about ten years ago, while I was working in Waddesdon Manor. They are based on characters I knew. It was suggested to me by one of the other Guides saying Murder Mysteries were money spinners.  They were, bringing in about £100 a month.

I have always had to have a full time job, both my parents had died by the time I was 23, and I had to adopt my own teenage sister to stop her going into a home. They left only enough money to bury them, lived in a rented flat and had nothing of real worth. So my life as a writer had to take a back stage.

So here I am ancient and afraid for the future as we wait the wrath of Gaia as she takes her planet Earth back.

This is one mystery that I really don't know how it will end.  Keep safe.