My Journey So Far in Writing

Not Just Blog-Writing

My blog has been online since April 2018. That’s not very long. During my interview with His Lordship, I realised not many people know I’ve been writing for a longer time than that. On the contrary, I’ve been writing my whole life.
For a long time, I have struggled to find the right output channel. Should I write novels, short stories, sex toy reviews?
I’ve never really described my journey. For instance, did you know I published my first work of fiction on Amazon in 2014? But let’s start at the beginning: my childhood.

Reading and Writing as a Kid

I was born in the early 1980s, and I loved to read. I read books like the ‘Babysitters club‘ and books by Enid Blyton. On flea markets or in second-hand bookstores, I would select pocketbooks, and I would read them over and over. I also read many Dutch novels for children and young adults, often from the 1940s and 1950s.
Next to reading stories, I would write my own. These stories would usually be about a girl in a family like mine, going to the zoo or an amusement park. I would also write short plays which I would perform together with my brother for my parents.

Teenage Troubles

As a teenager, I continued to write. I wrote this one long fan fiction story about the Backstreet Boys, but I also wrote separate stories. Around this time, I began writing my first sexual themed works. I didn’t share any of these stories with anyone. I didn’t discuss them with my friends, they were purely for me. Unfortunately, I’ve lost these first stories. I would have loved to reread them and see where my mind had taken me during that time.

Twenties

In my twenties, I only wrote now and then. Overall, I was too busy with work and my studies. I missed writing, sure, but I wasn’t in the right mindset to sit down and produce anything substantial.

Escape from Reality

Then in my thirties until today. I was unhappy in my retail job and suffered from the famous ‘surely there’s more to life than this’. I had begun writing again, also in a way to escape from my dreary retail life.
In my stories, I could reside at the magical festivals I visited whenever I wanted. The popularity of the Fifty Shades series opened my eyes. I’d been writing this stuff for ten/fifteen years already. And you could actually make money with it?

Self-published

I released my first Kindle book in 2014, ‘One Summer Safe.’ It was pretty bad. It wasn’t edited properly, so it’s not online anymore. But it did show me that it was possible to write books and publish them, and attract readers all at once.

Writing as a Career

After many long and hard discussions with my husband, we decided to give my writing career a chance. We moved to another part of the country where rent was a lot cheaper than where we lived first, and I had time to write.

Lost

But then what? I was lost. I tried to write, but it’s hard without any inspiration or ideas on how to structure such a career. For three years, I tried many different things, but nothing worked. Until, in an act of desperation, I started my blog.

No Way

I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t think I would keep it up for longer than two months. But I did. And then people started to respond to my blog posts and even liked what I wrote and how I wrote.
I had been writing sex toy reviews since 2012, so I added that to my repertoire. And eventually, I released some fictional pieces too. And still today, all of this is going well.

Blogging in a Community

I love most what my blog has brought me. Not just the recognition for my writing skills, but also the sense of community I now belong to. Those years writing here on my own were very lonely.
I love the collaborations I’ve done with other writers, like the recent Fiction Relay. I love how other bloggers ask me to join their projects, even if only for one post. It’s incredible that companies now approach me and want to do something together. Not all work out well, but I love the fact they can find me.

Currently, I’m working on a new project I hope to release early next year. It’s something with which I hope to give back to the community since they’ve helped me so much.

No Great Plan

That’s my journey so far. And no, it’s not over yet, even though I don’t have any long-term goals. You never know where life will lead you. There’s so much content already out there, it’s not a great time to be running a blog. You don’t know what technological developments there are going to be. Maybe AI will take over all writing in the not so far future.
I’m confident I will continue to write no matter what. And I hope to always share it with an audience one way or another.

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