What does it take to be a published author?

Photo: Nicola May by Dominic Martin

My Monday evenings are dedicated to Slough Writers. It’s a local group that encourages, supports and inspires writers of all genres. Their eclectic programme of events offers many writing opportunities. Last week, we invited Nicola May, a local author, to share her writing journey with us.

After many years of diligent writing, resilience and perseverance, Nicola is now an established author, fulfilling a long held dream, to become a published author. We had many questions about how she achieved this. She explained how the writing started when she tasked herself (a few years back) to run a half marathon. She kept a diary to chart and track her progress. She confessed that at the time she hadn’t considered the diary would start her writing career, but it did! She enjoyed writing. It was her ‘first and only half marathon’ (completed in a reasonable time of just over 2 hours). What an achievement! I was impressed.

I was also impressed as she took us on her writing journey about who and what inspired her writing. She talked about her characters, the situations they found themselves in and how events unfolded, sometimes good and sometimes bad.

I had a real sense that Nicola’s heart was shared with many characters in her books. She spoke passionately about how she wrote and what she wrote. Nicola shared her writing experience and tips generously and with great honesty. Being an author was not only about writing, it was about marketing, promoting and networking too! She declared, ‘Writing the book was the easy part’.

So what did I learn from Nicola’s visit to our Writers’ Group?

1. The process of writing a book is much more than crafting the words to tell the story.
2. Getting a book published is not for the faint-hearted - persistence, resistance and resilience are needed in bucket loads!
3. Marketing, publishing and promotion opportunities are key on the road to success, especially for the new and unknown author.

Nicola admitted that her journey from writer to published author wasn’t without its challenges but in spite of never having attended a writing class – she made it!

In my opinion, Nicola is woman of substance, determined, persistent and a great role model for aspiring writers. My thanks to Nicola for an inspiring evening. I wish her every success for the future and in my book (yet to be published), she deserves it!