A Matter of Perseverance & Sacrifice
by Wendy J. Dunn
Did you expect – when you started your writing journey – to write the way you do now? And do you find household chores, family & work commitments, and writing are difficult to juggle until you've made it big time? Do you find it tough? Don't give up!
Perseverance pays off!
Being a writer demands a lot of sacrifices. It is a lonely vocation. To write a novel, you commit to hours of work—work only you can do, and—to a large part — alone. But you are not alone, but part of a tribe – a tribe I have so often found to be supportive and nurturing.
I have found walking this road life changing. I grow through writing. It renews me, revitalizes me, and makes my life a true adventure. I have climbed a mountain on this adventure. Smile, more than one mountain. Each of my five novels (I am currently considering my options about an unpublished work), my PhD in Writing and my first full length nonfiction work has been a mountain climb. But I now look down at the view in amazement and satisfaction. It took a lot of courage to climb those mountains. It took a lot of courage for me to follow my dream to write. But because of that courage, I now live my authentic life.
I was a child of eight when I first knew I wanted a life as a writer. Other creative individuals also tell me they knew their life’s calling at that age. Once I made that decision, I began walking what I see as the hero’s journey that all writers undertake to call themselves published writers. I still remember the twelve-year-old me reading the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible. Goodness. I learnt a lot about life and sex from both these works. Of course, there was much I did not understand until later. I only knew I must read these works as part of my writing apprenticeship.
But reading books is necessary for my writing health. I also believe writers are what we read and that if you want to write good books, then you need to read good books. Reading feeds into what I call the writerly compost – the sum of our life experience, and where our stories grow.
There was a time in my teenage years when I lost my confidence to write. As a sensitive soul (like most fiction writers), I took it to heart when my beloved English teacher told me I would never become a published author. I later became a teacher, largely because of teachers like her, vowing I would never knock down a child or teenager’s hopes and dreams. But I was an adult before I realised that few of us achieve our life dreams easily, or without being knocked down. By then, I had learnt the important thing was to keep trying and not give up.
Decades ago, before the publication of my first Tudor novel, a bestselling author said to me Perseverance furthers. The years have taught me the truth of that saying. All along my writing road, doors have opened for me. They may not have been doors I expected, but they have proven wonderful, life-changing doors. Over twenty years ago, when I decided to become fully committed to writing, I never thought I would end up employed as a tutor at university, or gaining first my MA, and then my PhD in writing.
How do I write? First, I ignore my messy house. It is my hard held belief that if there is one thing that will prevent women from writing is maintaining a tidy house. I would far rather be remembered as a good writer than as someone good at housework. Sometimes I wish I could ignore cooking, too. But mostly I enjoy preparing food for my family and seeing them enjoy my efforts in the kitchen.
I also believe there is the right time for a story to be told. That writerly compost of ours must be ready to produce that story. As Ursula Le Guin* tells us, ‘The stuff has to be into oneself, it has to be composted before it can grow a story’.
Life brought me to the time when I was ready to give voice to the historical personages in my novels because experience had deepened my ability to write their stories with empathy.
The right moment for me to write begins with an idea.
For example, my Kate Carey novel, The Light in the Labyrinth, birthed after thinking about the painting used on the cover of my first novel, Dear Heart, How Like You?. This painting shows the doomed Anne Boleyn, who I believe is the figure in the background. I asked myself who was the girl in the foreground. My imagination caught alight. What if (two words vital to all fiction writers) she was Catherine Carey, the teenage niece of Anne Boleyn? That what if took me to writing a ten-minute play Before Dawn Breaks, a ten-minute play later performed as one of the ten finalists in a ten-minute play competition in 2009.In 2009, I also received the twelfth rejection for what I hoped would be my second Tudor work, the first book of a planned trilogy on the life of Katherine of Aragon. Yes – my original vision of Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters was written a long time ago, years before it first became published by MadeGlobal in 2016, and then by myself in 2019.
Since then, I have self-published the conclusion to my Katherine of Aragon story, the multi-award winning All Manner of Things, and gained commissions from Pen & Sword Books to write two nonfiction works. The first of them, Henry VIII’s True Daughter: Catherine Carey, A Tudor Life, became published late last year. Also published last year was Mi hermana, mi reina, the Spanish translation of All Manner of Things by Libros De Seda.
I tell you true, perseverance furthers.
* Works cited:
Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Mariner and the Mutinous Crew by Ursula K. Le Guin.
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