This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
My writing career came as somewhat of a surprise! Once hitting my mid-life crisis (but dodging the tattoo and the fast car) after wholly dedicating my life to the care of my children, they asked me what I wanted to do in life while we were discussing their career options. ‘I’ve always wanted to write a book,’ I found myself answering, and so the notion was born. I had no idea what to write about, so after pondering for a couple of weeks, I started plotting a work of fiction based on the one thing I knew the most about: being a mother.
I began to write every afternoon and a year later my book, A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother was finished. I self-published and will always remember the proud moment I showed my children the finished product. I stood in front of them, with a book that had my name on the cover and the message was loud and clear. If I could achieve something by setting my mind to it, then so could they. I would have been happy enough if my demonstration of what hard work and determination could achieve had ended there, but it didn’t. After setting up a Facebook page and a Twitter account, the book circulated extremely quickly and literally became the talk of the town!
What to write about came to me pretty easily, as I was always fascinated with the dynamics around the primary school gates with mothers and playground politics. Of course all my writing was fiction with a huge heaping of one-liners. After self-publishing A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother, I was amazed to see it rocketing up the Amazon charts reaching no 1 in its category and no 11 for Kindle downloads. The reviews were amazing, calling it 'witty' and 'laugh-out-loud funny'. Before I knew it, my wacky village characters were appearing on the page in a sequel, The Misadventures of a Playground Mother.
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This is when my life really took a parallel course with reality. One morning after the school run, I came home to find an email from literary agent Madeleine Milburn – I had just finished writing Misadventures, intending to self-publish again, when Ping! I not only had an agent but within a few weeks, I had a publishing deal with the fabulous Bookouture.
I have now written three books to date. My first two books, A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother and The Misadventures of a Playground Mother are funny novels about life at the school gates. My new book Kitty’s Countryside Dream is a feel good romantic comedy about life, love and family.
I am now a full- time author and I am loving every minute of it.
Christie Barlow is the author of Kitty's Countryside Dream, which is out now!