Today it's my pleasure to welcome Wendy Clarke, to share her Chasing Dreams story It might surprise you to know that I never used to have a writing dream to chase… yes really! I was not one of the lucky people born with a pen in their hand, and despite loving creative writing at school, a career as an author had never been on my radar. You see, I didn’t become a writer until my fifties and before that I was a teacher, a wife, a mother. Writing was something I taught, not something I did. A book was to be read not written. Yet, something happened to change this… to allow the writing bug to call to me and let me chase it wherever it chose to lead me. This is my story. It was ten years ago when my life changed and I remember it as though it was yesterday. I had just been told that the small primary school, where I taught English, was closing and all the staff were to be made redundant. I felt numb but it didn’t really sink in until the following week when, instead of going int...
My love of writing song lyrics wasn’t the only secret I’d been keeping. I had notebooks filled with ideas for new characters and plots, partially started short stories and even an entire draft of a novel. Around the same time that I entered the UK Songwriting Contest, I also entered a short story contest. When the results were announced I found I had to keep reading them just to convince myself that I hadn't imagined it and that my name really was listed as the winner. Reaching the semi-finals of the UK Songwriting Contest gave me hope that my lyrics had potential, winning the short story contest inspired me to be brave and do something I’d only ever dreamed about. I signed up for a creative writing class. Now I know in theory attending a course shouldn’t be something that requires courage. I’ve attended many courses over the years, however they were always work related. Well, apart from my brief attempt to learn Spanish, which is probably best forgotten, just like my Spani...