Tag Archives: opportunity

A Coventry Win, And A Guardian Article – Happy Weekend!

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If you’ve read my Author Bio, or my About page, you’ll know that I grew up in Coventry, England. My family have deep ties to the City and most of them still live there, so I visit often. When I returned to the UK in 2012, I spent my first six months back in the country living there again, only moving away due to my husband’s work. It’s a place that holds a lot of happy memories for me.

Coventry is also the real-world setting for my Ambeth books. Alma lives on my old street, and the Gate of Oak is in the Memorial Park, a place that has always held magic for me. It is telling that, when I sat down to write my first book, Coventry was the inspiration and starting point. It is a city I still hold close to my heart.

So, when Coventry was named 2021 UK City of Culture this past week, I was thrilled! I tweeted out my congratulations, adding that I thought it a well-deserved win. Less than an hour later, through the strange workings of Twitter, The Guardian newspaper had contacted me. Would I like to write a piece about the city and why I love it, they asked. Would I? I jumped at the chance, even though they needed it done that afternoon and I was at work – there was no way I was missing this opportunity.

I was given 700 words and a short brief – truly, I could have written double that amount – and feel I only touched on the many layers of history and culture the city holds. The article was approved, and is now live on the Guardian site, less than 24 hours after my original tweet. (If you’d like to read it, click here)

And that’s it! A wonderful, and quite unexpected, start to my weekend 🙂 Wishing you all a great weekend wherever you are and, #happywriting.

xx

Back To A Working Week

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IMG_0303It’s a new year, and a new era for me, as I’ve just returned to office work after more than a decade working freelance. My daughter is older now and soon won’t need me to take her to school any more so, when an opportunity came up, I took it.

I am still writing and marketing, though in a field different to anything I’ve done before. It’s a challenge, and an opportunity to create a role. It’s also part-time hours, in a nice office with nice people, so I feel very fortunate.

The only downside is that I have less time to write my own stories. I have several books on the go – Ambeth Four, Under Stone, is in the editing/about-to-go-to-beta-readers stage, Ambeth Five is three quarters written and Ambeth six is about halfway finished. I also have my vampire novel, Silver and Black, and another idea, called The Grove, which is slowly taking shape. In addition to that, I’m still trying to enter at least one writing competition per month – it’s something I started doing last year and I’ve had some results (although that’s another post). So working five days a week means I’ve had to adjust my writing schedule a little.

Before you all shout at me, of course I know I’ve been really fortunate these past years. Being able to choose my writing time has meant I’ve been able to create a lot of material, so at least now I have a good supply of story ideas to work with. I’m having to be a bit more organised about how and when I do  my own writing, but I’m finding that it’s working so far. Even though I now have less time, I find I’m using it more effectively.

Perhaps there’s a lesson in that.

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.