Hello Simona! Thank you so much for welcoming me back to your wonderful blog as part of The Cherry Tree Café blog tour. I’m delighted to make a return visit and thrilled to be able to share some thoughts on my journey to becoming an author with your lovely readers.
Earlier this year I wrote a similar blog
post in which I talked about my Path to Publication. I explained how it had
taken me just over five years of creative writing classes, short story writing,
seminars, networking and eventually novel writing before I hit the jackpot with
my #oneday submission to Simon and Schuster. However, a recent discussion with
an old chum has left me thinking I might have got that wrong.
As some of you probably know The Cherry
Tree Café was published last month and I had a wonderful launch party at the
Norwich crafting café, Arts Desire. The guests included a wonderful mix of
fellow authors, family and friends and it was one friend in particular who
threw the whole writing journey scenario out of the window.
Claire and I were at school together a
couple of decades (and then some) ago and when chatting at the party she said
that the one thing in particular she remembered above everything else about me,
was that I always said I wanted to be a writer. Now this came as a complete surprise
to me. Firstly, because I always thought I had been furtive as a youngster
about my literally ambitions and secondly, because it made me realise just how
many years I had let that dream slip through my fingers. My journey to becoming
an author hadn’t actually taken five years at all, but more like thirty.
I won’t bore you with details of the angst-filled
stories I used to write as a teenager or give you the exact number of beautiful
notebooks I collected and never wrote in for fear of spoiling the beautiful
pages with words that were bound to be not quite right. However, what I will
say is this, if you do happen to know which path you want to take when you wake
up in the morning and it isn’t the one you are on, then screw your courage to
the sticking place and give it a go because just like me you may very well
discover that you have nothing to lose, but absolutely everything to gain.
Waking up to the find The Cherry Tree Café
on my Kindle carousel, nestled between the fabulous words of Milly Johnson and
Carmel Harrington, has been a dream come true and I hope you all enjoy reading
it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
About the author
Although passionate about writing from an early age, Heidi Swain gained a degree in Literature, flirted briefly with a newspaper career, married and had two children before she plucked up the courage to join a creative writing class and take her literary ambitions seriously.
A lover of Galaxy bars, vintage paraphernalia and the odd bottle of fizz, she now writes contemporary fiction and enjoys the company of a whole host of feisty female characters.
She joined the RNA New Writers’ Scheme in 2014 and is now a full member. The manuscript she submitted for critique, The Chery Tree Café, was accepted as her debut novel by Simon and Schuster.
She lives in Norfolk with her wonderful husband, son and daughter and a mischievous cat called Storm.
The Cherry Tree Café - the blurb:
Cupcakes, crafting and love at The Cherry Tree Cafe...
Lizzie Dixon's life feels as though it's fallen apart. Instead of the marriage proposal she was hoping for from her boyfriend, she is unceremoniously dumped, and her job is about to go the same way. So, there's only one option: to go back home to the village she grew up in and to try to start again.
Her best friend Jemma is delighted Lizzie has come back home. She has just bought a little cafe and needs help in getting it ready for the grand opening. And Lizzie's sewing skills are just what she needs.
With a new venture and a new home, things are looking much brighter for Lizzie. But can she get over her broken heart, and will an old flame reignite a love from long ago...?
For everyone who loves settling down to watch Great British Bake-Off, the Great British Sewing Bee, or curling up to read Milly Johnson or Jenny Colgan, The Cherry Tree Cafe is a coffee-break treat.
Cupcakes, crafting and love at The Cherry Tree Cafe...Lizzie Dixon's life feels as though it's fallen apart. Instead of the marriage proposal she was hoping for from her boyfriend, she is unceremoniously dumped, and her job is about to go the same way. So, there's only one option: to go back home to the village she grew up in and to try to start again.
Her best friend Jemma is delighted Lizzie has come back home. She has just bought a little cafe and needs help in getting it ready for the grand opening. And Lizzie's sewing skills are just what she needs.
With a new venture and a new home, things are looking much brighter for Lizzie. But can she get over her broken heart, and will an old flame reignite a love from long ago...?
For everyone who loves settling down to watch Great British Bake-Off, the Great British Sewing Bee, or curling up to read Milly Johnson or Jenny Colgan, The Cherry Tree Cafe is a coffee-break treat.
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