My first post on my new blogging site and it’s daunting! What do you say when at the moment, you’re shouting into the void…questions such as why have I created this other than having some kind of presence outside of social media? All these things going through your head as you’re faced with that dreaded blank screen. I suppose the first place to start is to introduce me to you, and to use it to think through the reasons why I have created this site as I write.
Well to begin with, I am now a published author. A self-published author on Amazon, and I couldn’t be more delighted that I have finally done it. I have been writing stories, telling stories, thinking about stories my entire life. When I reflect on my life, I realise that I have been a storyteller the entire time. From those (sometimes outlandish) stories I told to my parents to excuse exceeding my curfew as a teenager and young woman, to telling the stories in the essays and dissertations I wrote for my history degrees (by far my favourite kind), to the official reports and documents I’ve had to write throughout my previous career, all the way through to the constant scribblings straight from my imagination from childhood all the way through to now, middle age. I’ve never published one of my fictional creations until just a couple of weeks ago, and I will admit to a considerable amount of terror at being so visible in the world with something that is so much a part of me – my writing. The terror is so real that rather than obsessively checking my KDP account (Amazon publishing account) to see how spectacularly well(!) it’s doing, I barely look at it at all. And yet despite that, I am writing the second book in this trilogy and I have every intention of publishing that as well. I just love to write, to research, and to tell a story.
As well as a writer I am a mother, a wife and a dog mum living in rural Suffolk in England. In a previous life as I now think of it, I was a senior executive for 20 odd years working in economic development until redundancy last year. I took it as a sign that I was meant to write (I had already started The Book of Sarah), and I have stuck to that belief despite the difficulties it has brought me financially and in terms of how others have viewed, and often judged, me. I have always had a deep spiritual belief and have spent the past 18 months or so going through a (painful) spiritual awakening. The dark night of the soul is real, but when you come out of it the other side and start to own your authentic self…it’s incredibly powerful. There have been times I have regretted starting that journey, but once you’re on the train you can’t really get off. It’s like choosing which pill to take in The Matrix but the eventual enlightenment is incredibly worth it. Naturally, that journey has influenced my writing and spirituality is imbued in all of it. In fact, it was probably the idea of The Book of Sarah that started me, unwittingly at first, on this journey. So, it’s been an interesting ride but one I absolutely know I was supposed to go on, and I am more and more living a soul-led life rather than an egoic one. It will never be 100% but even 50% is more rewarding I’m finding than anything I’ve experienced before.
I love a good romance book, getting swept away in the fictional characters and their lives. The angst of finding love that isn’t plain sailing with someone who isn’t perfect but is perfect for you. I do love it. I haven’t written that in The Book of Sarah, but it is romantic nonetheless. It couldn’t be anything else! It is also a thriller, something I never thought would be in my wheelhouse but I’ve loved coming up with the mind games the central characters play. And the research has taught me so much including the mathematical theories for winning – and I have never been a huge fan of maths! It has been, and still is, a complete labour of love and I hope people find it and enjoy it.
I am a chronic procrastinator. When things start to feel overwhelming, I am a doom scroller on social media. And I am not a ruthlessly organised person. I would love to be, I have tried to be but it is so far from my personality it’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. For example, I have a diary and I occasionally get a fit of organisation and decide to write down all the things I need to do in a week. It’s great, I even micromanage my time down to 15 minute increments. Then I will not look at the diary for another few weeks or even months. I don’t check the diary on my phone unless I know a hair appointment is due. Maybe it’s a reaction to the 20 odd years in a senior role being a slave to my usually overly-full diary, but I have come to accept that about myself. Ultimately, I do get things done but I prefer to do so now being the creative that I am while admiring those organised people intensely.
I will be honest and say I don’t truly have a clue what I am doing with this. I don’t have a strategy for a plan for it per se. It will probably be the musings of a slightly mad woman. But if anyone is reading, I hope you stay on this journey with me. It will probably be about progress with my writing, information on the books themselves and their content, thoughts about my spiritual journey and I may sometimes feel inspired to write some coaching blogs (I’m a trained Life Coach and Business Coach) – probably more to help me than anyone else but hopefully others get something from them too. So, I hope you stick around and be a part of the story and its evolution with me. If you are at all interested, you can follow me on social media though I am most active on Tik Tok currently. And you can purchase my book on Amazon if you are inspired!
Louisa Simpson 