A Dream Come True? #amwriting

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions.

I've been writing all my life, but I never considered ever being a published author. I wanted to be an elf, then a Jedi, and then a veterinarian. When I realised the first two weren't going to happen other than in my imagination (although cosplay has allowed me to at least play the parts) and not quite making the university grade requirements for the last, and with my parents aiming for the messiest divorce in the galaxy, I opted for employment.

I got to be a real life mad scientist - well, an analytical chemist anyway - which at least satisfied my love of things scientific.

Up until this point, I wrote purely for the love of writing, of creating worlds, of spinning words together and making them work magic for me. I'd never finished anything anyway that I could ever have submitted. But while me parents were turning my real world upsidedown, the BBC were disrupting my fictional world too. As a lifelong fan of long running scifi series Doctor Who, the news of its demise was just another blow.

18yo me with Sylvester McCoy

In an attempt to heal my broken heart, I spent a frenzied three weeks of Christmas holiday scribbling a 40K story featuring the current regeneration of the Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy. It was the first thing I'd ever completed (and quite possibly part of the reason I didn't make the exam grades I needed. Oops?).

I was so happy to have written something start to finish, but now I had, what to do with it?!
Submitting it seemed the logical step (I wish in some ways I could be as naive and innocent as back then). I knew zip about publishing - I got the address of the publisher from the back of one of my many Doctor Who books and just sent it off (I had looked up how to format it and took the time to do so, so not completely ignorant). I got a very nice rejection letter (I wasn't disappointed because I'd expected nothing), full of constructive criticism (something you'd be unlikely to get now. Years later my husband was at a signing for a well known horror author (Graham Joyce) who told him my 'rejection' was pretty much a 'revise and re-submit'!). The simple fact of a response, and one full of advice and compliments on my writing stayed with me for years, even though it took me another two decades to finish another MS.

When I did finish that second story - again, a frenzied few weeks of scribbling after years of not writing - I faced the same dilemma. Did I stuff it in a drawer or try for publication? This time I had the internet to turn to for guidance, and I had the bonus luck of another new author who took me under her wing. She told me the bare-faced reality of today's publishing, that it wasn't the gateway to instant fame and fortune, that luck and hard work were as important as talent, that there are plenty of scammers out there waiting to take your money, that not everyone will love your book...she saved me from a lot of mistakes and cushioned many of the blows.

Even so, publishing has been tough for me and I've been close to quitting a couple of times. Burn-out has meant I've only lately rediscovered my love for the simple act of writing itself, which is after all why I started down this path.

While publishing wasn't the dream come true I thought it would be, I am proud of my achievements today. The eighteen year old me scribbling her Doctor Who story would be amazed to see it led to 17 titles published, with my debut novel still my best seller and a new release coming 1st of September. She wouldn't believe it if I went back in time and told her! But I hope it might make her feel a little less lost.