My Writing Journey

Since 2014, when I first found romance books, I have been obsessed with reading. At the time I was going through a divorce with two toddlers, just months after losing my father to cancer. Life was stressful and sad. I desperately needed an escape. My mum handed me her copy of Fifty Shades of Grey and I found my escape in romance books. I read everything I could find in bookstores and later discovered eBooks and Kindle. These stories, with their happily ever after, gave me hope for my future.

Fast forwarded to 2020, my life was back on track. I had a wonderful man and three pre-teens. I had reinvented myself and become a wedding florist, helping couples to make their special day beautiful. I thought my life was well and truly back on track. Until we were all wracked by a pandemic and the industry I loved working in was shut down. I lost a year’s worth of weddings in a week. It was devastating and took months to wrap my head around how to deal with the loss of income and work.

I have always worked in creative industries – fashion, interior decoration, photography – and I was missing work so on the 1st of July 2020, after a conversation with my partner about how depressed I had become not working and wondering what I was going to do for the day, he said, “Maybe it’s time to sit down and write that book you have been talking about.” The plot idea had been scrolling through my head for two years but I had never actually considered I would be able to write the story. But with nothing better to do for the day I pulled out my lap top and started to write. I got out 3000 words that first day and, when I read it back, to my surprise it made some sort of sense. Maybe this was something I could do.

The book I was writing was ‘Only Theo’, Ivy and Theo’s story, and turned out to be the third book in my Broken Point series. To begin with I was writing to get myself out of a bad place mentally but as I kept going I couldn’t imagine not writing every day. So I kept going writing the next book, ‘Always Fraser’, and when this one was done I braved the insecurity that it wasn’t good enough to show to anyone else and let my mum read it. She loved it and encouraged me to share it with others so I found some lovely ladies to beta read for me; they loved my story and gave me the encouragement to publish. And I haven’t looked back. Writing is my happy place, my escape from reality and my sanity when life all gets too much.

I feel blessed every day that I have found so many wonderful friends in this journey already and that people choose to read my stories and ask for more when there done. Their wonderful words keep me coming up with new ideas. My life has truly changed for the better and I hope I’m able to offer an escape for my readers like I found when I needed it most.

Alicia xx