The Rainbow Girl

One of the hardest things for a writer to take is criticism. I've taken quite a lot recently but to be honest its all been really helpful. Perhaps my toughest critic is my sister Samantha. I let her read things and she rips them apart as woefully melodramatic and repetitive. I have been reworking an old novel for submission to an agent recently, feeling like it was almost there Samantha asked me to read her a little bit. At first I refused point blank, a tirade of tough criticism from her and I wouldn't ever send the book off, but then I came to the conclusion that if my writing had improved then she would be the one to notice it. A no holds barred review is sometimes just what we need.

So.... i sat down to read her a chapter from 'The Rainbow Girl', formerly Being Lucky. She listened, changed a couple of words and then said "Stephanie can I tell you something!" My heart practically stopped. This was it, she was about to completely crush me. "Okay." I braced myself for the death blow. "It's like a thousand times better than it was before. It's really good!"

Fireworks went off. I sat in stunned silence and just stared at her waiting for the 'but'. There was none.

Okay so The Rainbow Girl still needs a few tweaks here and there. It isn't perfect yet and it needs to be but man, if my sister can see how far I've come then surely I'm progressing.

With a week's holiday just around the corner I can happily get my entry ready for Undiscovered Voices, work on my new novel 'Tattooing Angels' and just relish the newfound knowledge that slowly I'm becoming a real, bona fide writer.

My sister has been there for me through a lot of bad stuff recently. She has forgiven me some really massive errors in judgement and she has ultimately been my biggest fan. This photo is of a plate that she bought me in the Lake District earlier this year. I was going through perhaps one of the toughest times I've ever been through and she handed it to me and said it was for inspiration, that it was to help me with my writing because that was where my future was. I hope she was right because I want to prove that by having faith in something that seems almost impossible it can happen.