I’ve always loved writing and story-telling. But I never thought that one-day I’d be writing about my own life. It’s proving to be a more complicated process than I’d expected!
It started out with the idea of a memoir of my life – something I could pass on to the kids, because sadly my husband Don died from suicide and it was basically going to be the story of moving forward from that horrific event and getting my life back together.
Some time later while trying to move on with life, I eventually met a lovely guy who was also quite creative, but was really uncomfortable talking about suicide.
So he talked me into doing something different – a fictional adventure type story, which brought in some aspects of my life. It was quite a good storyline, and he had some nice ideas, but it was quite different to what I really wanted to write about.
As happens, we’ve since gone our separate ways and I now feel that at last I can write about what I want! But wanting to do something and actually doing it can be two very different things!
I’ve since put the fictional book on hold for now because I'm not sure where I'm going with it. I've done the structure on it, but I'm just still deciding on a couple of things for the climax.
It can get very confusing when you start off in one direction then get pointed in another. Trying to get back on course has its challenges as a writer!
So I’ve just put the book aside for a little while so I can update my personal website – which used to focus on my photography business but now covers a variety of lifestyle topics. I’ve also taken time to research all the various publishing options. Now that’s a story in itself.
When I was a full-time journalist, when you’re given a story you usually have a deadline.
Writing a book? The deadline is your own!
I’ve also discovered that for any ‘first time author’ all the various publishing options are a bit daunting!... and some are either pretty expensive or your return on having to fork out considerable dollars to have it published initially is not all that attractive in the long run.
Of course there’s self-publishing but that has its own issues.
Proof-reading, cover design and layout, marketing and more. Plus you have to consider which of the many distribution options you’d like, such as hard or soft cover books, Kindle format or downloadable PDF. And you can even get your books narrated either by Artificial Intelligence or a ‘real’ person!!
Overall though I think if you're going to self-publish, you need to be very marketing savvy. You've got to be prepared to put a lot of work into getting your name and the name of your book widely publicized.
The Fraser Coast Library regularly invites authors and publishers to speak to people contemplating creating a book and after recently attending a seminar with an independent publisher, my view now is if it’s your first book then it’s probably better to go down the path of finding a traditional publisher.
So while the passion for writing my story is still very much there, I’m going to take my time and go over all the options and continue to look at what’s best for me to get my story about my life out there!
Ahhh… the life of a writer. Easy eh?
(c) 2022 - Jocelyn Watts
Check out her website here: https://jocelynwatts.com/
