The Path to becoming a Writer...

  Anyone who knows me will tell you I've always wanted to write...  It just took a while to get here...     

    For me it started in Primary School with what we knew as 'Creative Writing'. In around about Primary Six (about 10 years of age) I had a rather inventive teacher who came up with a star rating system for home-works. The more stars you gained the closer you were to cashing them in for a night off doing homework... As I was truly awful at Mathematics, Creative Writing homework was my best way of earning stars and hence a lifelong passion was born...

    By the time I discovered Mills & Boon in my late teens I was determined that was what I would end up writing. I would tell anyone that would listen that it was what I would do one day. So at eighteen I took a 'year out' and I wrote, the old fashioned way, with pen and paper. But I never had the guts to send anything away so real life took over and I embarked on a long career of careers - you name it, I've done it!

First there was a short stint as a Clerical Officer, then I 'fell' into the music business; first in retail, then retail management, I was a company trouble-shooter for a while and then I ended up in Promotions with a Recording and Distribution Company before I took a sharp left turn and went to work with horses!!

Working at a Riding School I did my British Horse Society exams and an NVQ and was soon teaching small children from as young as four years old how to sit on a pony. This then led to competing my own horse, Charlie, on the local circuit at Dressage, Show-Jumping and One Day Eventing. Some days we even did quite well! But I was keen to do more, so after a stint freelance teaching at Pony Clubs I went to work as a Professional Show Groom and was lucky enough to travel all over the UK and Ireland with some of the most gorgeous examples of Irish Show Horses around! But it came down to a choice between two things I loved in the end and writing won...

So somewhere between the teaching and the travelling I went back to a manuscript I had first started when I was eighteen. I discovered the eharlequin boards  and learnt everything I could about submitting to Mills & Boon - and I took the plunge. That first submission became my first sale and The Bridal Bet, first published in 2003, went to the US and Canada in 2005 and won my first award - The Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for Best First Series Romance of 2005! Suffice to say, it has been a very very lucky book for me...

Now in 2006 I have just completed my tenth title and am writing for the new Romance and Modern Extra lines.

Living the childhood dream?

Yes indeed-y...

And if I can do it... then anyone can!!! So never give up I say. I now look back on all the careers I had, on all the experiences along the way, and I can honestly say it was all good training for what I do now....

Thank you for visiting the site, and if you get a chance, I hope you'll pop over to my Blog to see what I'm up to now...

HAPPY READING....  

Trish