#IRISHWRITERSWED
‘It took a few drafts, eBooks or short stories to find my true voice but I am glad I had that time.’
Today I have a guest joining me for #IrishWritersWed whose honesty, quite frankly blew me away. Paula J, aka Amelia J Hunter, chats about her self-doubts as a writer and the journey she has taken to getting published.
I really do wish Paula the very best and I hope you get the opportunity to read her words here today…
A journey I never thought I’d take
by Paula J
Let me just take a deep breath before I begin and get the thought out of my head that I’m not worthy to be a guest writer for this blog and sooner or later, I’ll be found out, the words I am writing will be scraped into the trash bin and I’ll go back to my imaginary world of pretending to be a writer.
But I think I have a window of five minutes before anyone notices. So I’ll breathe, allow you, the reader, to take in these words and exhale the doubt that overcomes this writer.
My own story of writing came along after being an avid reader for years. When being a taxi for the ballerina, or the cello player or the horse rider, I took a book or later my kindle, and read a lot. But to actually put pen to paper or finger to the keyboard came much later.
But I did.
I had an urge that didn’t leave. My fingers twitched, thoughts clouded my waking hours and sometimes my nights too. I’d see something during the day and by the evening created a story in my head.
I needed to write.
I began, cautiously, with an eight-week online creative writing course with creativewriting.ie. This gave me a great boost, enough to think I could do this writing thing!
So I began with a blog, to test the waters, as they say.
I wasn’t brave enough to jump straight in with a novel and actually I didn’t think I could!
I had mixed emotions when my short stories hit over 10,000 views and my twitter feed was filled with notifications. The attention was a little overwhelming.
At this point, I need to backtrack slightly.
Back in 2014 I wasn’t a confident writer and started my writing adventure using a pen name, Amelia J Hunter. Why you may ask, well at the beginning I only told four people that I had started to write and the genre I was writing was of an erotic nature. It was a little secret and if I fell hard, I could go back being me with just my pride hurting. Living in a very small community in rural Ireland, it scared me for people to know what I was writing.
I wrote for the blog for over a year until during the summer I had an idea of a short story and literally ran with it.
I ran so hard that by the end of the summer I had written my first romance novel that was erotic free. I loved it.
It took a few drafts, eBooks or short stories to find my true voice but I am glad I had that time.
I closed my blog, opened a new one, and created a professional looking page without the erotic short stories.
I had become a more serious writer.
I still write under the pen name of Amelia J Hunter. Not that I am hiding, that all changed the day I self-published my fourth novel, Hidden. I came out of the closet, told my now adult daughters, my family and my friends and to be honest, their support has been amazing.
I am so proud of Hidden and the story of the messed up Irish man, Samuel Delaney, that I am now in the writing den (when I’m not studying for my degree) and writing the third book in the Uncovered Series, Revealed being the second.
So where is this post really going?
I want to say, it is okay to be afraid of the unknown, to put your work, your creative skills, ‘out there’, If I had known in 2014 what I know now, I probably would have used my own name and one day I will, I’m working on it, but I wouldn’t change the roundabout route I made to get to be the writer I am today.
Secrets never stay hidden, do they?
They have a way of creeping into your life when you least expect them.
Samuel Delaney never expected his secret, his past, his mother to destroy the man he had fought hard to become.
But when a white envelope with an Irish stamp, containing a letter handwritten in black ink, arrived on a Wednesday morning, it changed everything, risking the most important thing in his life – Faye, his soul mate for the past ten years.
Samuel had boarded a plane thirteen years ago without looking back. Now, he had no choice but to return and bury his past before it ruined his future. But he didn’t expect the secrets to run deeper, down to a rotten root.
Will the discovery of the hidden secrets change him when Samuel doesn’t want to be changed?
Purchase Link ~ Hidden
Bio:
An indie writer who likes to take readers on a journey through contemporary novels. Writing stories with a sensitive nature and characters that are flawed.
Leaving the bright lights of London behind in the early 90’s, Amelia now lives in the Irish countryside with her family, a good coffee maker and plenty of chat. A Mature Student studying a honours degree in Creative Media.
Twitter link for Paula J ~ https://twitter.com/askonly3
LINKS for Amelia J Hunter:
Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/ameliajhunter1/
