To think about writing a book around my crazy life?!

[itsokayokay]

So I’ve been talking to some colleagues today, just general chit chat but it ended up going down the route of my life and how crazy it’s been.

I’m only young but ive been through a lot in my life 🫠 and recently managed to escape a very narcissistic ex and horrendous marriage, full of control, emotional issues etc.

my colleague very seriously suggested that I think about writing and publishing a book - and it really did get me thinking…

Ive always loved reading, I have an English lit & lang degree, and I adore writing (copywriter by trade)

I guess my question is, where and how would I start?! Is it really feesable and is there a market for actually making money from all the work you put into writing?

Also, is someone’s literal life story something you would want to read? Granted it’s pretty full on and dramatic 🤣

I would love to hear opinions please!

I wouldn’t buy it as I’m terrible for never deviating from fiction, in particular thrillers 😳
However I wish you the best with it. Hopefully it will help you and others.

Your posts dont even read well, so I wouldn't quit your day job.

Also, whilst we're on that- are you quite certain colleagues weren't saying that "you should write a book" to shut you up? I see that as a sort of awkward attempt to finish the conversation/stop you going on.

Its god forbid. Not god for it.

And you're making this subsequent error, on a post which is defending the mis spelling of feasible.

Sorry I know it sounds like im just a total bitch, but you really dont seem cut out for writing with this lack of attention to detail. A publisher would just not have it.

Hmm, I think these days the same true stories are all over the Internet. TikTok is full of people with similar stories. Morning Telly, online and printed newspapers, Chat magazine (does that still exist 🤔)

I would skim read an online account of someone's story (try DM on a Thursday especially, it's full of these accounts ) but I wouldn't give it more than a few free minutes over a coffee. ☕

Nope, you need a completed manuscript, which will have needed multiple drafts and possibly several years of work, and an agent.

You don't just email a couple of chapters to Penguin on a whim.

My thoughts exactly. Her basic standard of writing doesn't say English degrees to me.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just an uneducated peasant who left school at 13 with no qualifications whatsoever. In fact, come to think of it, perhaps I should write a book about my amazing life with a bi-polar addict mother, bullied at school, breakdown at 13, abusive relationship...only to be saved by the love of a good dog... I could thinly disguise it as fiction. Could be a bestseller, made into a movie...🤔

But nah, I don't have the qualifications to be a good writer.

They are typos that’s all.

Thank you to those of you who have been nice and encouraging :)

It wasn’t just the cracker of “feesable”

the OP’s posts are littered with poor grammar, an absence of punctuation and appalling sentence structure.

a copywriter?

“They are typos that’s all”

said no copywriter ever!

I’m not going to sit here on a thread that took me all of 2 minutes to write, and go through it with a fine tooth comb to check for spelling and punctuation errors.

Maybe my writing style is not to your taste, but the way I write for work compared to a quick post I pop up on Mumsnet is considerably different.

I am trying on my mobile phone here, whilst juggling several other things at once - so yes, I’ve made some typos and errors. I’m only human.

My question was to hear opinions on if a book around somebody’s life events is something that would interest people.

It’s now turned more into bullying and degrading my capabilities and writing.

This is not the question I had asked.

Well, there was a spate of books about childhood neglect and maltreatment about 30 years ago, eg 'A child called it'. Fashions change and move on in popular fiction/non fiction, as with everything else, I suppose.
I think maybe you came to the wrong place for advice/encouragement, OP.

There are many, if not the majority of posters on this site that have had many misfortunes, the most common being abuse at the hands of men. Maybe it just seems a little tone deaf to rock up here and blithely ask for encouragement to write about your experience when it is commonplace, albeit tragic on mumsnet.

Good luck anyway, you may well fins a readership - people like tales of adversity.

Then do that - my point want “this is what’s required”, it was “go for it, ignore the haters and give it a crack if that’s what you want”. People get all different starts in life, I’m sure publishing is the same, things can blossom in all sorts of ways.

Seriously OP, it’s a crabby bunch in here today! You do you!

It's just one of those things people say to others, sometimes meant in a kinda snarky disbelief way or a 'stop trauma dumping on me' way.

I don't see there's any harm in writing your own story of your life if you'd find it interesting to do so and enjoyable, but I wouldn't go into it assuming anyone will buy it or want to read it. The world is teeming with people who've been through all kinds of different difficult things, I'd say that's the norm rather than the exception tbh.

OP, you want to write a book? then go for it.

You don't need anyone's permission...

You will always get people (as illustrated on this thread...) who try to smack down anyone who wants to do something creative/a bit different.

Start by doing an outline and writing a couple of chapters and see how you get on.

It might be that the story does not flow and you might end up writing about something completely different or it might work out very well but you won't know until you start.

There are often creative writing groups that you can join for support.

Much healthier to discuss writing with like-minded people than some of the killjoys on this thread.

A good book can be about any subject. What matters is whether you can actually write well enough to make it compelling.

That's exactly what I was trying to point out.
Thousands of us have an amazing life story filled with adversity, but it doesn't mean it is of any interest to others.
We could all start a thread and big ourselves up, but most of us realise that in doing that, we would be opening ourselves up to a barrage of abuse and ridicule.
If you can't cope with the jokes about your "typos" then how on earth are you going to cope when, as a published author, you receive negative or critical reviews?
You are coming across as quite immature and defensive, and I think perhaps you need to address that before you consider writing a blockbuster. Maybe try journaling to begin with, then you won't have to deal with the disappointment that goes along with rejected manuscripts.

I agree it's a tough crowd, but I also agree that 'you shoudl write a book' is something people just say if you are regaling them a bit too much with your drama. It's because they think it will be cathartic for you, not necessarily because they think you are the next great relationship guru or blockbuster writer.

What you think is your unique and 'crazy' experience of a 'narc' partner is often just a depressingly common scenario. Many young women who lack healthy boundaries due to complicated or chaotic childhoods give over several years to controlling, abusive partners because they don't have other, more healthy relationship experiences to compare it to. They make the mistake of confusing drama and trauma and intense jealousy and with passion and profound love.

That's not to say there may not be any value in writing about those things, but I don't think it's interesting or unusual enough to attract the attention of a publisher, unless it's written in the form of an excellent, thoroughly gripping thriller novel. Not as a 'let me tell you all about my crazy life.' Because it's really not that crazy.

If the OP wants to talk specifically about herself as a warning to others she'd be better with a blog or a podcast, or a tiktok channel. Although the market has been thoroughly over-saturated for all of those as well, so unless she's truly excellent and engaging, it's unlikely to make waves. Or money.

Sorry OP, I don't wish to sound negative. Every year hundreds of people will produce their first book and every year several of them will secure a book deal that will be successful and possibly even quite lucrative for them. There's no reason why you can't be one of them, but do be realistic in your approach and your expectations.

A relative of mine wrote a memoir. It was only self published to give to family members but now they are dead it's brilliant to have. I'd encourage you to write it if only for your ancestors!

If your escaped your ex by brutally murdering him, I might read that. Even if you didn't, you could write it that way, and how you stayed one step ahead of the police investigation. Police cat and mouse chases are popular.

Actually, I think this idea has legs. If you can write at pace with a witty and humorous style and maybe create a plot twist, I think there’s definite appeal in a murder mystery which - rather than being about the relationship itself and a load of turgid, maudlin prose about abuse along the lines of “he called her a bitch and she looked soulfully up into his eyes saying, please stop, Mike” etc for 800 pages - begins with the end of the relationship and how the quirky protagonist lives from there.

It's a bloke and he's a twat. Lol.

@itsokayokay
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Broken-Youth-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B003VWCAYS/
Karen Woods wrote a book and promoted it locally by leafleting - which is how I know about it.
I picked up a copy after a month or so from the local charity shop.
She's gone on to write lots more books and has plenty of reviews of some of them so I assume she's done OK.

Her publisher initally was these:
https://www.empire-uk.com/bagheads.htm

if a book around somebody’s life events is something that would interest people.

Well as I said before, you are asking the wrong question. What a book is "around', and whether the events related are true or not - these are not the reasons that a book interests people!

There is some value in including a truth claim, particularly for publishers and to capture initial interest of readers.

A book saying "these are the true reflections of Churchill's private secretary during secret negotiations with Germany in 1943" is interesting, maybe, as an idea - because the person was in a unique and important position and if I read it I might learn new things about influential people. But even so, if it's written incredibly boringly or badly it won't be published, read or enjoyed.

If you're rich and famous enough, and have had access to situations of power or important events, and you believe your take on life has led you to some extraordinary reward, you can pay ghost writers to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of your experiences (cough Art Of The Deal cough).

A book saying "the true story of a woman escaping her husband" might be interesting if that's a subject you find interesting. But it is not of itself noteworthy. This makes it even more important that it is written brilliantly and with something to say thematically about the subject that is more than "This happened to me and it was awful!" There needs to be a take on those experiences that others can learn from, or an artistic expression of those experiences that leads to a deeper understanding.

Zadie Smith's White Teeth isnt just setting out her personal life growing up in a specific ethnic and cultural background but a rich novel saying many things about contemporary society and with complex characters. Monica Dickens wrote lots of books about having everyday jobs but her books aren't interesting because of this. People don't enjoy them because they are around her life events as "woman does training as nurse" - or even, "Charles Dickens' relative gets ordinary jobs then writes about it". They enjoy them because she is an excellent writer of characters and situations who can create comedy from everyday experiences.

In a sense every book is about somebody's life events. It just feels like you don't really know what a book is, and also from your posts don't have an inherent flair for or love of language (otherwise it would show up in your posts - soz, but when you're good with words it tends to show up everywhere). So it feels as though you're completely underestimating what a book entails.

If you have a story to tell that you want to put on the page, you should absolutely do it. I wouldn't worry at this stage about publishing, since that process can be long and arduous. You need to produce the manuscript first, then consider your options if you want to go down the publication route.

There is nothing wrong with writing fiction based on your own experiences. Writing an autobiographical novel is a longstanding tradition, especially for a first novel. But the plot is less important than other elements. Do you have an original approach to the subject matter? Can you create a compelling narrative voice?

Who are your favourite novelists? What is the best novel that you've read in the last month or two?