How #Twilight Changed My Life and Why I'm Proud To Be A #Twihard (Part IV)

Last week's post ended with me telling you that reading Twilight pulled me out of the depressive state I'd found myself in at the end of 2009. How I wanted to drag out the process of reading the Twilight Saga to hang on to the amazing feeling I got from it. 

By the time summer 2010 came around, I was done with the last book in the series, Breaking Dawn. I ordered a copy of The Host, because I had a feeling that if anyone could convert me to sci-fi and aliens, it would be the author that wrote the Twilight Saga. And I was right. I loved it. It even made me cry a little. Below is the Stephenie Meyer portion of my bookshelf. Waiting for The Chemist to come out in paperback to add to the collection!

Inspiration and Visions

I still felt more positive about life and myself and that thing inside me that I thought had changed? I realised it was the need to write again—not just want, but actual need to write. I felt like I could.

All I needed was an idea.

And that idea came in the form of Jamie (the male protagonist of my contemporary romance novel, Soulmates Saga #1. I woke up on the morning of August 1, 2010, a few days after my 26th birthday, with Jamie in my head. He'd just finished performing a gig in a dimly lit, smoky bar and he looked very moody, reluctant. I could see him so clearly—his hair, his eyes, his demeanour. As though he was a very good friend, I just knew him—his pain, his apathy, his past, his present. What I didn’t know was his future. But I wanted to find out.  

I spent the rest of the day thinking about Jamie’s life, his family, and music, formulated a vague plan in my head for the plot and started writing. Though I hadn’t written anything for years, the narrative flowed so naturally and instinctively from the very beginning. I had no idea whether it was going to be a short story or a novel, all I knew was that I was writing it because I felt like I just had to. Jamie was simply too intriguing to ignore.

The female character Mukti, a young research analyst in London, was supposed to be the opposite of Jamie, but she presented herself differently as I started to see the world from her perspective. She ended up being a bigger mystery than Jamie, revealing her secrets slowly and often changing the direction of the story from where I thought it was heading. That process was very exciting, though. 

Having spent every free evening and weekend writing as much as I could, I completed the first rough draft by the end of the year, and started the laborious process of editing in 2011.  I hadn’t planned for it to be the novel it became, nor had I any plans to try and publish it. I'd only written it because I needed to, because I couldn’t get Jamie and Mukti out of my head, couldn’t stop their story from playing in my mind. I edited it because I'm a perfectionist and knew that it would only improve if I went over it again. When I mentioned it to a friend, of course I was persuaded to let her read it. She said she loved it and encouraged me to try and publish it.


I'm convinced that the vision of Jamie wouldn't have come to me, that acute need to write again wouldn't have manifested, if I hadn't read Twilight. At any rate, I would have remained in that depressed state if Twilight hadn't cheered me up.

I self-published that book as an e-book in summer 2012, which started my indie author journey. I owe a lot to Twilight, if not for inspiring me to write again, to read books regularly again, then definitely for pulling me out of that depressive slump I'd found myself in.

And that's how Twilight changed my life and why I'm proud to be a Twihard.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for reading this post. My books are available at:

Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon. You can find the >>Soulmates Saga here<<

My new book, Heir to the Throne (the first book in a new epic royalty fantasy trilogy), is out now, as is the sequel. More details here.

How #Twilight Changed My Life & Why I'm Proud To Be A #Twihard (Part III)

In the previous instalment of this series, I was talking about settling for writing and publishing non-fiction in my job in the financial services sector and loosening my grip on the dream of becoming an author of fiction because of the writer's block I was suffering from for almost 10 years.

But the thing about settling for second best, and knowing you're settling, is that it never feels like enough. Doesn't bring you true happiness. Especially when the dream clings on to you even when you think you're letting go.


That Cover!

I excelled at my job and was progressing well, fast, but it wasn't what I had passion for. So it wasn't making me happy. Not as happy as when I used to spend hours writing my "novel". But I just couldn't write a single creative sentence, now. Plus, the cold and flu became my constant companion, thanks to the air-con in the office, blasting freezing air from the vents directily above my head all day, every day, all year—summer and winter—and it was getting me really depressed.

I was actually recovering from a cold when I went shopping with my best friend in the winter of 2009. I needed new winter work clothes (or maybe it was just an excuse to indulge in one of my favourite past-times, shopping?) and I also had a book token left over from years ago when I'd won a poetry competition and I wanted to spend it, buy some books to read over the coming Christmas break, get back into reading. I knew I was going to buy Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code but the rest... I'd see what caught my fancy in WHSmiths.

What caught my eye at the book shop was... yes, you've guessed it, the Twilight book cover. Gorgeous. So striking and eye-catching.

 

Now, confession time: I didn't know much about the Twilight Saga back then, had no idea how big the Twihard fandom was. Sure, I'd seen the Twilight film trailer on TV, and I even saw the film poster for New Moon (Twilight Saga, Book 2) that had/was coming out that winter at the book store, but that was it.

I couldn't resist not picking up Twilight, but the blurb didn't scream out "read me!" to me, so I put it back on the shelf. My friend approved of this action—she said she'd heard about the book and it wasn't all good. But the cover was so pretty... I can't remember the number of times I picked it up and how many times my friend urged me to put it back on the shelf.

Stephenie Meyer's The Host was on the same shelf and my friend said she'd heard good things about that book, and that I should get that one if I was determined to buy a Meyer book. Not Twilight. The blurb for The Host however, didn't appeal to me at all. Witches, vampires and fairies I was down with, but sci-fi and aliens? No. It wasn't my thing.

My friend couldn't convince me to buy The Host and I couldn't help picking up Twilight and putting it back on the shelf. After I decided on my other buys, I put Twilight in my basket, much to my friend's dismay. The cover was stunning and it would look great on my new book shelf!

Come Christmas, I was of course, in bed with flu. I'd so been looking forward to reading Dan Brown but I wanted to be 100% better before starting it, give it my full attention, so I opened up Twilight. I probably wouldn't like it, as my friend had warned, but I just needed to kill time until I shrugged off this annoying cold.

But.

But I loved it, from the very first sentence, the first page. I was addicted and it made me feel better, physically and mentally. It will sound strange, but something inside me changed as I read this book and got caught up in the romance and drama. I fell in love with Edward of course, and by the time I finished it, I had a huge grin on my face. I went back to the beginning and re-read it. Then, again. And again. It was a great feeling, and I had to go back for more.

I felt better about myself, my life, my job (even if it meant suffering under the air con vents in the office), and my depressive slump was over. I wanted to re-read the book again but I refrained, else I'd get fed up of it, bored. I didn't want to get fed up. I vowed to read it again next Christmas and a tradition began.

At this point, most readers in my position would order the rest of the series from Amazon, right? Not me. I just ordered book 2, New Moon. I knew that if I had the whole series at my fingertips, I'd finish it within days, and I didn't want to fly through them. I wanted the feeling I got from reading this series to last as long as possible.

This post series concludes in Part IV. 

Thank you for reading this post. My books are available at:

Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon. You can find the >>Soulmates Saga here<<

My new book, Heir to the Throne (the first book in a new epic royalty fantasy trilogy), is out now, as is the sequel. More details here.

How #Twilight Changed My Life and Why I'm Proud To Be A #Twihard (Part II)

The Writer's Block

My father passed away when I was 15 and writer's block set in. My writing is linked to my emotions, so of course, I couldn't write anything creative again.

Life got really hectic after high school. I went to college (A-Level Biology, Sociology, Psychology and AS-Level Chemistry) and then Uni (BSc Psychology at UCL) and reading and writing fiction felt like a thing of the past, the passion of a person that no longer existed.  
And that person kept changing, too. I was still very shy and introverted, but I'd made some good friends in college and Uni, and with them, I sort of came out of my shell. Well, a little bit. Sometimes. When I wasn't busy studying, cooped up in the little computer cubicles in our Psychology department.

Anyway.

In the summer of 2006, I got the results of my final exams at Uni. I was 2% away from a First Class degree in Psychology, at UCL, one of the best Universities in the world for that subject. I was gutted. I couldn't stop thinking about the difference a First—from UCL—would've made for me, as I started applying for jobs.

I didn't mope around for long, though. Just days later, my mum was diagnosed with cancer. It was heartbreaking, for all of us, but we were lucky that the cancer was detected in the early stages, when surgery would most likely be able to remove it all. Her operation was on the same day as my graduation ceremony so I missed it. Of course I was going to be there for my mum. If my writer's block had any inclination to break down, then my mother's condition strengthened the block. I have no regrets about that, though. I was glad to be there for my mum, taking care of her after the surgery.

Once she recovered, she urged me to start looking for jobs and get my career going. I loved the research aspect of my degree; I thought research was what I wanted to do for a living. If I had to choose. In all honesty, I didn't know what I wanted for a career—since I couldn't write anymore, being an author was not an option any more. I was good at most things, but didn't know what would be good for me in the long run.

Once I started my full-time job in the financial services sector, that replaced TV and studies as the thing that controlled/took over my life. I was extremely lucky that I got to write, edit, and publish articles, blog posts and books as part of my job, but it wasn't creative writing. It was analyses of financial data, fact and research-based, informative and impartial. The in-house style was strict and concise, but it was easy for me to adapt to it, as I had to write loads of essays and lab reports for my degree in a similar style.

The dream of becoming a fiction writer dimmed further—I can't say it faded away completely, because dreams like these never do—but I consoled myself by remembering that I was writing and publishing books, something I always wanted to do. It just wasn't fiction, that's all.

This post continues in Part III.

Thank you for reading this post. My books are available at:

Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon. You can find the >>Soulmates Saga here<<

My new book, Heir to the Throne (the first book in a new epic royalty fantasy trilogy), is out now, as is the sequel. More details here.

How #Twilight Changed My Life and Why I'm Proud To Be A #Twihard (Part I)

This post is about how reading Twilight triggered the impulse to write again. I went from not writing anything creative for a whole decade to writing four books in the space of two years. I'm not the only one who was influenced by this paranormal romance series by Stephenie Meyer—on the 10th anniversary of Twilight, so many YouTubers shared how Twilight inspired them to read books again and blog/vlog about books in general, giving birth to BookTube. The Twilight Saga helped me come out of the longest writer’s block I’ve ever experienced, and if you want to stick around, I’ll tell you all about it.

Starting Young

Us authors start off pretty young. From the moment we learn how to string together sentences into paragraphs, we're writing stories, sometimes even producing our own 'paperback' books in school—folding up stacks of A4-sized paper and stapling down the fold (or, the spine) so it looks like a book.

I started writing stories since the moment I learned how to read and write English. It's not my 'first language'. I was born in Bangladesh but have lived in the UK since I was 8-months-old. However, because my family was always moving around in my early years, I only started primary school when I was 7-years-old, after we finally settled down in Bethnal Green, East London. It wasn't ideal, starting school so late and in the middle of the academic year, and I spent that whole year playing catch-up.

I had TV, though, so I could speak and understand English well enough (when I bothered to speak; I was incredibly shy!), but it was in school that I discovered my love for books and reading, where I learned the basics of grammar and expanded my vocabulary. I'd always make up stories in my head, and as soon as I learned how to write them down, I did little else. When I learned that the people who wrote books were called authors and it was possible to become one, that's what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Oh, I was never short of ideas, always writing something, whether it was songs, poetry or short stories. All my 'works of fiction' had a supernatural element, though—witches, vampires, fairies, and other make-believe creatures. These were the beings I loved reading about, so naturally, I'd spin stories around them, too. If I had Harry Potter back then, it would've been my favourite thing to read. And re-read (I try to re-read this series whenever I can now, too!).

In secondary school, we didn't get to write stories as much as we did in primary school, but whenever I got the chance to write creatively, there would always be—where possible—a magical, fantasy, supernatural element to them.

Unfortunately, secondary school was also the time when I, like many others around me, stopped reading for leisure (I loved it whenever we read anything for English class—from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Romeo & Juliet, to Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, and how can we forget The Changeover, and of course Bridge to Terabithia) and TV took over my life (oops!). Not to mention homework. Thankfully, I remained determined to write when I had the chance. Writing wasn't something I gave up on.

Astonishingly, when I came to writing my first "novel"—I have to write the word novel in speech marks because I was only 13/14 when I started this "novel" and it was complete and utter rubbish—it was a contemporary. Yes, a contemporary! No magic, witches, or vampires.

It took me a long while to finish the first draft ~ like I said, TV and homework had taken over my life—but I was proud to have accomplished that. I started planning a "sequel"—don't we all?—and even started writing the "prologue" for it. I could picture a whole series around these characters that I'd created and I seemed to have planted my feet firmly on the path to becoming a writer.

Continues in Part II. 

Thank you for reading this post. My books are available at:

Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon. You can find the >>Soulmates Saga here<<

My new book, Heir to the Throne (the first book in a new epic royalty fantasy trilogy), is out now, as is the sequel. More details here.