I considered not posting a blog today with so much despair circulating around the USA election result—but I had it prepared, apart from the last two paragraphs, so here it is.

Why do I write?

You may wonder why I’m asking this. I’ve had five novels and three short stories published in just two years so I must be some kind of writing machine, right?

Not really.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. In the years I lived in London and commuted to work and back by train, when I wasn’t reading, I would fill notebooks with stories and ideas. None of the stories ever reached completion. They stayed in a drawer. Getting anything published was only a distant dream.

When I got my first home computer, a Macintosh LC II, I typed up some of the longer pieces in ClarisWorks – my first experience of WYSIWIG, as it was known then (What You See Is What You Get). It was a joy to have black type appear on a white background, as the favourite office word processing software at the time was WordPerfect – yellow type on a blue background. (Honestly, kids today don’t know how lucky they are!)

A younger me at work, 28 years ago

These bits and pieces of stories got printed out (my first laser printer cost more than the Mac) and filed away. Over the years I would take them out at times and think about maybe finishing them.

We moved north and I was driving to work, so the writing become more intermittent. It wasn’t until I was nearing retirement that I started to think seriously about trying to publish something.

Since then, just over three years ago, I’ve hardly stopped writing. When I started though, I could never have imagined I would have an Amazon Author page with a line of books showing.

All those years ago, when I was commuting, I wrote stories to entertain myself. Now that other people are reading my published work, it’s become a job. In some ways that makes it more difficult as I feel I have a responsibility to my readers to give them a good story. Thankfully, I’ve been encouraged, not just by Affinity’s willingness to publish my books, but also by readers who have commented either privately or by leaving a positive review saying how much they’ve enjoyed the stories.

When I knew I would be posting a blog today, I thought it would be a chance to celebrate a historic moment in United States history. Instead America has woken up to a nightmare. And the idea of a woman President remains a dream that may never be realised (in my lifetime, anyway).

I write romances and always aim for a happy ending. So I will carry on writing the stories that make me happy and hope they bring some happiness to others, offering a form of escape perhaps from the gloomy outlook of the world around us.

Book number 5, Christmas at Winterbourne, available from: Affinity eBooks / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords /Apple iTunes