“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.” ~ Virginia Woolf

When I was eleven I had a nasty accident at school. It was positively gruesome. I remember the day vividly; my class had just come back from a P.E. lesson and we were making our way into the changing rooms. I wanted to tell my best friend something (I can’t even remember what it was), and in my haste to talk to her I placed my right hand next to the hinge of the door as she was closing it. Only I didn’t quite have my finger out of the way…

The ensuing carnage must have been quite a shock for my head teacher, who was greeted by a very pale screaming girl, with the end of her finger missing and copious amounts of blood flowing everywhere.  The trail of blood running from the girls changing room to the classroom must have been redolent of a murder scene. The whole of Bledlow Ridge Primary School knew that something quite grisly had just happened.  He duly picked up the top of my finger and wrapped it up (I never asked what in), and I was driven straight to hospital. The car journey was awful, I was clutching my tawdry severed finger, and as the initial shock wore off the pain grew in intensity.

It wasn’t a clean separation, and I was told that they would try and sew it back on. My mum and my family came to see me before the anaesthetic to reassure me. I had never been under before, and I was terrified I would never wake up again, as the anaesthetist counted down from ten. By the time he reached five I was out cold.

When I regained consciousness my finger was throbbing in agony and I felt groggy. The wonderful get well cards made by my classmates helped to cheer me up in the aftermath of my surgery. The only consolation was that I’m left handed, so it could have been worse, and I got to have quite a bit of time off school.

My mum dug those handmade cards out of her loft recently. They still bring a smile to my face. I remember I couldn’t play netball for months, (which I was absolutely gutted about) and when the bandages eventually came off I was shocked to see that the top of my right index finger wasn’t actually recognisable as a finger. The nerve endings gave me hell in the cold. It was like needle points stabbing my flesh until it went numb.

Needless to say, I have a thing about fingers and doors, and my kids have received several lectures about the dangers of getting a digit caught!

In the midst of my trauma little was I to know that the experience would surface many years later from the depth of my psyche, to provide my muse with inspiration for the misfortune of my first heroine and protagonist of my novel, The Virtuoso.

So you could say the idea has been brewing for a good many years!  Eleven was also the age when I started learning to play the violin. I can’t help thinking that the foundations of the path to publication were laid in 1981…

Stepping Out Onto the Worldwide Amazon Stage

New Kindle Cover

I’m happy to announce that The Virtuoso has now been published on Amazon Kindle today, Monday 15^th December 2014 at a launch price of £3.59. There will also be a paperback version available on Amazon next year. (US Link)

I’m sure I’ll feel a certain amount of satisfaction that I made it this far, for persevering over the seven years it’s taken me (on and off) to complete The Virtuoso, so that I can finally say my work in progress is now a work in print!

I’m now at the stage where I’m excited that my work can open the door to other related creative pursuits. I was fortunate to meet and hear the violin virtuoso, Adelia Myslov in the summer. She played a stunning performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. I asked her if she would be interested in playing a specially composed unique ‘theme’ for The Virtuoso, and to my delight she said yes! The music project is still ongoing and I hope it will be composed and recorded in the not too distant future. Eventually it will be available on iTunes and Amazon.

There is also a book trailer that has been produced for The Virtuoso by 13Media Arts in Daventry. Along with my voice, words and pictures, and Kevin and Darren’s digital jiggery pokery (I mean expertise), I am hoping it will prove to be a successful team effort!

During these years I’ve battled my demons of self-doubt that I could actually be a writer, and a half decent one at that. Well, I’ll leave the judging to my readers (I do hope I have some soon), after all, my daughter Emily is telling everyone she knows: ‘my mum is an author.’

The path to publication hasn’t always been like the yellow brick road! At times I had so many other ‘distractions’ beckoning for my attention; mainly life happening around me. But I found that the more time and effort I put into it,  the more I got sucked into my characters’ world of make-believe, and the more I felt as if I was becoming a proper writer.

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ~ Stephen King