I started writing for my younger daughter, who was born with one hand. Her complaint was that in children's books any character with a disability like her was either:
1. The baddy (let's face it, you thought of Captain Hook, didn't you?) with the disability used to show how evil they are
2. A sidekick used in a similar way to a pet, to show the nice side of a main character (good or bad)
3. No character other than "I Am A Person With A Disability" where everything they do relates to their disability, normally in fairly implausible ways
So I wrote a set of adventure stories about a girl, very like my daughter, who was the main character who just happened to be missing her hand. It was harder than I expected because you need to show enough times that she does do things differently to remind the reader without bashing them over their head with the information. She enjoyed it, my son enjoyed it, and my older daughter cringed (she was at that age) and refused to read it. Never mind! Two out of three isn't too bad.
Anyway, that was my first start into writing children's stories, and I found I enjoyed it. This story I started writing a couple of years ago as a totally different story, and I was working hard on it when I developed depression due to bullying at work. One of the hardest things with depression was I had no energy to do anything, and especially no imagination to continue writing.
I've now changed jobs and am getting back into writing. No, there are no characters based on the bullies, although I am tempted to use them in the future. However it's still too raw for me at the moment. I'm also not sure they have any redeeming features either, so they would be pantomime baddies. Maybe I'll just impale them on spikes at a castle gate.
On the subject of pantomimes though, I have written a couple of plays for our local youth theatre. One I cowrote which we described as "Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes meets the Sound of Music" and the other I wrote on my own was based on a WWII book called "Mystery at Witchend". I was delighted to get permission to do the latter one, as it hadn't really been staged before, although my children were less pleased when they were forcibly listening to WWII songs every time we went out in the car so I could choose some for them to sing. I still think one of my greatest triumphs was getting a group of twelve, mostly teenagers, to sing "roll me over, in the clover" without a giggle in sight. To be fair to them, I did change the words a little so it was less obviously suggestive but they did very well.
More about me: I'm not very interesting really. I have three children, and any Zoom calls I do are normally interrupted by the sounds of my son's budgies. They're hopefully moving outside soon. He's not so sure he wants them to because he likes to talk to them every morning and night. He tells them all one by one he loves them, which is very sweet until I say, "I love you too," which is normally answered by a humph. Anyone with teenage boys knows that sound well. He makes similar noises when I suggest a shower might be kind on the rest of the families' noses too.
So what are my qualifications in writing. The best I can do is GCSE English, I'm afraid. I did get an A, but have to admit that firstly it was the year of 100% coursework, and secondly I am pretty certain a mistake was made. Obviously I wasn't going to object, but it was thoroughly undeserved. After that I did maths, maths and a bit more maths. I can't spell - spellcheck is wonderful, if I can get the word close enough for it to guess what I mean. I do know how to use an apostrophe though. That's got everyone reading checking thoroughly through this to see if they can spot a misused one.
And what I haven't told you, but you've all guessed if you've got to the end of this: I tend to write in a stream of consciousness. I can write drivel with the best of them, and, like the average monkey, sometimes it makes some sense. Thanks for reading.
