Our guest feature today comes from author Sarah Scally. Sarah has come along to share her writing journey so without further ado, it’s over to Sarah.
My Writing Journey
Sarah Scally
Thanks for this opportunity to appear on Patricia’s Pen, to talk about my writing journey.
I’ve been writing stories for years and kept them all in a drawer, never for them to see the light of day!! The (long!) route to publication really began for me in 2013 when I took part in a ‘writing for radio’ course and I absolutely loved it. I decided to enter an idea for a radio play competition which was being run locally – and couldn’t believe it when I was chosen as one of two winners. The play was about a group of mismatched ramblers and the adventures they got up as they walked along the south coast. Once the radio play aired, I kept thinking about the characters and what they could get up to, so I decided to continue their story.
In 2019 I joined the Romantic Novelists Association (RNA) and was thrilled to be accepted into their New Writing Scheme (NWS). I submitted the manuscript to the scheme, then rewrote large bits once I’d received the feedback, resending it the following year.
In between, I sent it to the Comedy Women in Print competition (CWIP) and was longlisted for their unpublished category, which was all very exciting! I then put it in a drawer and started another manuscript, the second in the series. I repeated the process, putting it through the scheme again and then once the feedback was good – again, two years later – I began to wonder what to do with them. I had sent them off to some publishers and had received some requests for the manuscript, but it had fizzled out. Then, during lockdown, I joined a webinar about self-publishing, and decided to give that a go – and here we are, with my second book published on 4th April!
BUY
I quite enjoy self-publishing as I get to be in full control of all aspects of the process – but likewise, I am responsible for all of it, and sometimes I wonder if it would be nice to bounce ideas around with others. I am slowly, however, finding my tribe of other authors and fab people who are willing to help me, so I see it as a long term, learning process which so far *touches wood* I am enjoying.
About Sarah Scally
Sarah Scally lives on the south coast of the UK and works for the NHS.
She has written in a freelance capacity for magazines and business journals and writes scripts collaboratively with two friends.
In 2013 she won a competition to write a 45-minute radio play. This play became the novel The Postcard in the Window and in 2020 it was one of twelve manuscripts longlisted for the Comedy Women in Print prize (CWIP) for an unpublished novel.
Sarah has now self-published that novel with the second, It started with a shoe, published 4th April 2024.
Links
Patricia M Osborne 