The Great Leap Forward

I was invited to contribute an essay to the series ‘The Great Leap Forward’ curated by Laurie Steed.

Published 13th July, 2017 on the Margaret River Press website.

Strong.  Brave. Paralysed.

My brother says ‘You were always strong, brave. I looked up to that. I still do.’

Honestly, I had no idea.

On the inside, it always just feels like a pragmatic weighing up of options and going with the one that will let me sleep at night.

I reveal to a new friend why she’s never known that I write. That I stopped. That I have only just started again.

‘I was paralysed,’ I say. ‘I had my novella rejected eight times, and I had no courage left.’

This essay discusses how I stopped writing and then came back to it. Reading it back a few years after it was published, I am struck by how raw it is – and how long the journey back to writing has actually taken.