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'm glad you escaped. There are a lot of books with stories like yours and at least one Hollywood film.

Although, Sleeping with the Enemy does not have a deceased parent in the plot.

I would say, write it but write it for you and then see when you're done if you want to take it further.

Copywriter with English degrees but can't spell feasible...? Really?

I noticed my mistake after posting.

There are no unique stories. After millennia of literature, someone will have done it before. How well you do it is the question.

How do you make money as a copywriter in the age of AI?

Writing your journey will be a good part of the healing process. It may not make a publishable book - it's textbook abusive behaviour. But the process will be good for your healing.

Was your partner convicted?

Is he or any of the people involved still alive?

I've written 'real life' stories for years and there is often so much more to the story but it can't be published because of the legals.

Legal proof will be key as to what you can put in print.

It's very frustrating when you know what really happened but without proof you are risking being sued for libel by the people involved. The mitigation would be you can prove the story is true to a very high legal standard or if the people involved are dead as you can't libel the dead.

It's the reason many authors say 'based on a true story' rather than 'is true'.

As others have suggested, if you really want to make a go of it, write a synopsis and a couple of chapters, and send to some publishers.

I think you have to have a realistic outlook of what you hope to achieve through it, and a fairly resilient self-esteem. The “misery-lit” genre (which sounds unkind, but is publisher shorthand) is quite saturated, and with the exception of a handful of authors with truly unique stories who’ve gained notoriety through it, even if published they often tend to be short print runs and the sort of books which end up in the bargain basement section pretty quickly. If you’re still a bit fragile, you need to think about how you’d receive that.

Have you considered a podcast
Bbc producers always on lookout for original take

That’s a much better idea.

I hadn’t considered actually.. I wonder how to go about this?

I am also worried about being too outing / having legal implications for talking about others.

I think you’d need a decent USP for it to stand out in a sea of other books covering the same topic.

FWIW, I’ve been approached several times about writing a book. My ex husband and his friend killed a man in front of me and were subsequently convicted of 2nd degree murder. We lost custody of our newborn baby and I was deported from the country. All this before I turned 23. There have been multiple documentaries made about the case, and it was headline news consistently for the best part of a year.

I think you should write if you want to, and would enjoy doing it.

Honest opinion though, is everyone (or a lot of people at least!) thinks their life is crazy/special/out of the ordinary - it’s like main character syndrome; when in reality it’s not really the case and others wouldn’t really be interested.

Gosh I am so sorry you went through all of that. I hope you are doing better now

and recently managed to escape a very narcissistic ex and horrendous marriage, full of control, emotional issues etc.

In order to be noticed, you re going to have to do something outside of the ordinary. Or have an extraordinary life.

As previous posters have said, everybody has a narcissistic ex these days. Just go on to the relationship forum alone and see for yourself.

I'm not a fan of controlling relationship and escape stories. I find them depressing and also distressing. To each their own, but it's not something I'd want to read and the market is saturated with this kind of thing. There are so many movies and books already about bad relationships.

This.

It sounds as though it might be good for you to write the book, and if you fictionalise it you will have more leeway to make it appealing to a wide readership.

You could read The Salt Path to see how someone has fictionalised personal hardship into a blockbuster. 😉

Once it's written, then think about agents etc.

OP I hate to break it to you but in my experience (of a quite difficult/shocking early life) when people say "you should write a book" (which they used to a lot when I was much younger/less guarded) they don't really mean they'd be interested in reading it, they mean they don't believe what you're telling them to be true because it's so far outside their own frame of reference and they don't know how else to get you to stop talking. I figured out by about age 19 that it wasn't a compliment, it was a sign that I've overshared, and I stopped doing it accordingly.
The market is absolutely oversaturated with these kind of books and they don't "raise awareness" or warn anyone about anything because they don't reach the people who need the message, they reach Take A Break readers who are the core audience.

Ha!

Lots of people do it. If you would enjoy the process, why not try? Even if it never led to publication it might be a therapeutic exercise!

Am I the only one that interprets 'you should write a book' as changing the subject and they're not particularly interested?! On a couple of occasions people have said it to me and I've definitely thought they meant 'put it in a book if you want to tell people about this, because I'm bored of hearing about it'

Indeed! 😂

Whatever you do end up doing OP at least make sure you have spellcheck turned on! 😁

X post, thank goodness! I thought I was being really weird!

There‘s no reason why not. It doesn’t sound very unique in that I’ve been through the same and more as have many but if you take writing as a character (for instance like Shuggie Bain, which is autobiographical but is not sold as that) then if it is well written people will buy it. Please don’t make it like A Little Life though! Avoid misery porn if you can!

‘Feesable’?

You’re a copywriter with an English degree?
Really?

Already been said and I’d already answered to say I’d made a mistake.

First and foremost, well done for getting out of an abusive relationship.

From your title I expected you to have run away as a child to be a lion tamer in a travelling circus or be a serial bigamist or something, you know, crazy. I’m really not a fan of trauma porn style books and a story about a narcissistic ex and controlling in-laws sounds like a very depressing read.

Writing can be extremely therapeutic though so it might be worthwhile doing as part of your healing process.