A Passion Project.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to write a book. My grandmother was an african children’s author and her gene passed to me I suppose. I grew up around the arts so stories were all around me. I was one of those children who had imaginary friends, I taught an imaginary classroom of students…yes I was that child and the conversations we had…

In January of 2013, one of my goals was to publish my book. I’ve been working on this book for a looooooong time; years and every year something always holds me back besides being an insomniac perfectionist who always found something wrong with a sentence or a chapter or a character, I was also very afraid to put my work out there. Too scared. I love books, I love stories and I read too many books for my own good and judge authors. To me, nothing is worse than a bad story because it feels like I’m being punished for something I didn’t know I did. So trust me, turning the tables on myself was no mean feat.

Getting closer to the end of the year I started to have those fearful feelings about publishing my book and it didn’t feel like I’d be able to do it. November however, was NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, I’ve never taken part in this but always wanted to. One of my favourite posts was on the Harrods Holiday Window and the story just didn’t want to end there because it wouldn’t leave my head, so I decided to make something of it for NaNoWriMo… Hitting the 50,000 word target by the end of November after too many sleepless nights in three weeks, was one of the most beautiful feelings I’ve ever felt. But by December 1st I knew I wanted to take it further so I spent weeks editing this story, tweaking it and rewriting chapters. It was the most tedious but highly exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. I loved every single minute of it.

My book, The Six O’clock Express is available on Kindle and I couldn’t be happier. This is a passion project and I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

On Passion, In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt laced with Oprah Winfrey,

You must do that thing which you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own It.

Don’t put it off another day, JUST DO IT. You’ll be glad you did. I promise you will.