The silver lining
- florence292
- Mar 9, 2021
- 1 min read
The first lockdown in March 2020 was an unexpected opportunity to knuckle down and finish the memoir I started writing in 2005. Yes it took me fifteen years writing bits and bob in between school holidays. The problem was the gaps in between bouts of writing were so large that every time I sat down to write I had forgotten what I’d already written. I therefore had to start reading from the beginning and by the time I finished reading the existing sections, I would run out of time to write. So, the cycle repeated from year to year. Then Covid-19 unleased its destruction and the world came to a standstill. I no longer had any excuses, so I wrote and wrote, and a wonder happened – I finished it!
What came next was unexpected. An extremely short pitch on #Pitmad on Twitter, opened doors I hadn’t expected and Thread Books snapped up my manuscript. So, here I am, a little more rotund from all those hours of sitting at my desk and the proud author of Coconut.
This book has been inspiring and educational, enlightening and intriguing. I'm so pleased you achieved the successes you have as your clearly deserved them.
Its been thought provoking for me, and inspiring me to try to reach out and try and see if there is anyway to track an old school friend from Nigeria. Elizabeth and her two sisters briefly attended our all girls school in Newcastle. They left an enormous legacy in my years with their sporting prowess, but were taken back to Nigeria suddenly and the brief contact we had in the year after has left me, even now, 3 5 years later, with concerns over their ability to adapt to the culture change, and expectations on them.