Review of 2025

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

This is my yearly round up of my writing life in 2025. I always rather look forward to this bit as I can see what I have achieved (or not) and think about setting goals for the following year. Make a cuppa or read this over your lunch hour. This is a long post, but I hope you will get something out of it.

In terms of submissions, it's been a rather lean year, but that is mainly due to producing two books and all the marketing and setting up a book launch for one. In terms of goals, those were my two goals, and  I achieved them.Tinsel Street in particular took off far beyond my expectations. I've heard from my friend, who works in the bookshop in Switzerland, that they are going to order more of my books for next year! I also found out that the bookshop is the largest in Switzerland and what I thought was an English table is a whole floor dedicated to English books, and is one of them.

With all the push to get my Christmas book out there, the book I call my Lawnmower book, a collection of flash stories, became rather overshadowed, which is a shame. My publisher loved it, his words were 'I was hooked'. So as ABBA once said, Take A Chance on Me and try another of my books. This one will really appeal to those of you who like quirky stories of various genres, some humour and some serious subjects. It really is a mix. And as a reminder, most of the stories have previously been published in places such as Visual Verse, Paragraph Planet, Goldust and others. However, there are some new stories in there.

So, on to submissions for 2025. As I said, there were less of them, Here is a rundown:

Poetry - 16 submissions, three of which were published

Flash - 11 submissions, three of which were published

Short stories - 1 submission

Novellas - 2, both published

I am still waiting on three replies - 1 flash, 1 short story and 4 poems submitted together.

So, a lean year, but I am still hitting above the 10% published mark, which is around what is reckoned to be the average acceptance rate of work.

Events:

During the year I attended various events either in person or online. These don't include writing group meet-ups, which tend to be monthly.

Open mic night in London

Webinar series in self-publishing - 6 weeks in all (January-February)

Line Endings correspondence course with Live Canon (poetry) which was incomplete. I don't know what has happened to them. I only received feedback on one poem, and the last tutorial never arrived. I also had no reply from them when I emailed. Disappointing as they are usually very good.

Zoom with three poets - Cafe Lit

Troubador Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester

Making Your Scenes Cinematic - Readsy Webinar

Organising Chaos - Self-Editing Your Manuscript with Writers Online

Outspoken - Live event with poetry and music at the Purcell Room, Southbank, London

Booker Prize Readings - Live event at The Royal Festival Hall, Southbank, London

Poetry Society, poets reading - live link which broke down several times, so I'm afraid I gave up

Other stuff:

This year I finally upgraded to Windows 11, firstly backing up all my files just in case. My little laptop copes well, though I still have the problem with the screen blacking out for a few seconds now and then, though I am still able to keep typing and hear whatever playlist I am listening to! The cost is too much to have it repaired. as it needs to be sent away abroad and I'd be without it for months. My son will build me a desktop, but maybe not for a year as the cost of parts has gone through the roof. He did tell me why, but I've forgotten. In the meantime, I may just have to buy a cheap laptop if things worsen, or my laptop completely crashes one day, God forbid. This laptop was built to specification and has an enormous amount of saving capacity and still runs quickly.

My new way of recording things has worked. Over the years I've tried different year planners, yet they never seem to work for me. This year I bought a book with some tabs, which I labelled Deadlines for submissions, Goals, Mini Projects and Events. This has worked for me, and I can continue to use it in the coming years as it's not dated, and I'm not wasting pages I don't use. It was also a lot cheaper than a Year Planner. Like everything else, its a case of what works for you.

I began writing on Substack this year. The content is usually different to what I write here, but sometimes there is a crossover. I have a few followers, though this blog is well established, and I don't intend to move on from Blogger as we understand each other (mostly!). I did some work on the blog to bring it up to date, and that will probably continue. 

Speaking about my writing life, I hope, helps others to see the positives and the lows of writing. Many people (non writers) have no idea about what goes on behind the scenes. I had some friends who thought my book was available in supermarkets or on Audible. Er..no. Audio is a whole new ball game, and an expensive one. I'm not saying never (I never say never), but not at the moment. There are only so many learning curves I can deal with at one time! I hope I continue to write content that is interesting, but if there is anything you are burning to ask me, you can. Just leave a comment and I will answer.

I would like to thank my family, especially my son Stephen, for all his help, not only the endless tech questions and fault solving with my laptop, but for being so great at my book launch. You couldn't tell from the state of his bedroom that he can be so organised. He was my little right-hand man on the night and dealt with my card reader like a pro. My friend Judith deserves a mention for her enthusiasm and organisational skills for the book launch. She kept everything running like a tight ship time-wise, and for her relevant questions on the night. The book launch was in the local Methodist church cafe and she was asked to write a piece for their Spotlight magazine. I had read it previously, but I've just seen it now in the magazine with a few photos. So thanks for that too. Thanks to Chris from Sutton Writers who wrote a lovely piece with photos for their website. And for all my friends who travelled from near and far to be with me on the night. There aren't many friends who will listen to me waffling on about writing without their eyes clouding over (non-writers), but I have a few, and one said to me recently that she looks forward to me waffling on in the coming year!

My friend Diane, who is one of my beta readers and feedbacker, couldn't be at the book launch, but we met another day and spent hours chatting. She reads most of my work (even the stuff not yet published) and keeps all my work in a folder. She's always saying 'when are you going to send me something else?' We all need friends like these, and I appreciate every one of them.

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

Books:

I've been very lax writing book reviews this year (did I write any?). I'm not going to promise to do better next year, but I will try. I am in the process of reading my 70th book of the year. I've half way through it, and it's another LJ Ross one called The Creek. I've read lots of hers this year, but this is a different series  - the Summer Suspense Mysteries, which I also enjoy. Anyway, here are my top reads of fiction and non-fiction this year:

Fiction:

William by Mason Coile. I couldn't put this one down. Having ventured into the horror section in the library, I picked it because it sounded interesting. The main character is an inventor living with his wife. His computer runs the house, and he has built an AI robot. However, the robot begins to want a life of its own. He has thoughts and is getting out of control. He needs shutting down before he kills someone. Can it be done? This is fast paced, on the edge of your seat stuff. Once the robot takes control of the computer and shuts down the house, they are all trapped. Can they get out? Yet everything is not what it seems as a huge twist arrives near the end. I didn't see this coming, and I don't want to spoil it for you. With AI making a big splash right now, this is relevant about what is possible and perhaps we should be afraid...very afraid. Great one.

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kid. There are some authors whose books touch you, and I have loved everything this author writes. The book is fiction but based on facts. Classed as a Christian book, it is about a woman who meets Jesus. Ana is related to the wealthy and her brother is Judas. She meets Jesus when he is eighteen years old. They eventually marry and live with his family. But Jesus is always wandering off, leaving Ana with the family. The story follows Ana as her own family is driven out and she longs to see her grandmother again. The facts of Jesus' life (apart from the marriage) are based on the New Testament, and when Ana hears that Jesus has been arrested she goes searching for him. This is an excellent book of what could have been Jesus 'life and the settings and characters are believable for that time period. I loved this, though it is heartbreaking, and passed it on to a friend who is equally enthralled with it.

The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter is set in the future. A place built on an island for the future of mankind while the rest of the world is falling apart. Ben's fiancée has been living/working on the island for six months and now he wants to find her. Getting there is difficult and dangerous. People are suspicious, and reluctant to take him there. Once he does arrive, he begins to think this is a good place, but Cara, he is told, is working and cannot yet see him. She is off island. As Ben begins to fall into a feeling of acceptance and the way things work, he also finds things don't add up. Once he begins to question and look for clues himself, people want to stop him. Sanctuary isn't what he thought it was, and evil is at play. Can he find Cara and get them off the island before destruction occurs? A great story this. It draws you in and then turns you.

Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss. Picking any Sarah Moss book is hard because I love her writing, and I've read two books of hers this year. This one is set in Victorian times. Two sisters growing up in an unusual household. Their father is an artist and their mother is a do-gooder to the extreme. Her religious evangelical morals turn her children into a life of drudgery. Anything their mother deems unholy is stamped upon and they are given tasks to complete. They are often cold and hungry. This would be child cruelty these days. Their father indulges them when he can, but he never stops what the mother is doing. I guess looking after children was very much down to the mother in those days. While May poses for her father's paintings, Ally devotes herself to becoming a doctor and working with her mother in the slums. She works hard, but her studies are interrupted by her mother's tasks for a wrong doing which are almost unbearable. This was a hard read, with the cruelty and hardship the two girls live through, but there is a happy ending, thank God! 

I have read a number of Japanese books this year. My youngest son is married to a Japanese girl, and he often passes books to me. It seems Japanese books are becoming really popular now. Two of the books were about life in a Japanese convenience store and the third was part written and featured a local cafe I go to, a very dog-friendly cafe, so I knew all the local places mentioned. I think I shall be reading more books set in Japan. It is a fascinating country,. My son loves it, though he and his wife live here.

Non-fiction

The Criminal Mind by Dr Duncan Harding. I picked this up without even reading the blurb. I knew it was my book. I find the mind fascinating and why people do what they do. No one is born evil. The  book held me all the way through as Dr Harding describes interviewing criminals for court and finding out about their lives and behaviour. Some of it is really sad, their backgrounds. Yet why do some people go through terrible childhoods and never offend while others go on to do unspeakable things to people? I guess its down to how one reacts, and we do all approach things differently. Of course I felt sorry for the victims, who couldn't, but I also often felt sorry for most of the perpetrators. It makes you question things. Haunting. The book is also about the author's life too, what he grew up experiencing himself and how he came to be top in his field. Fascinating.

Steeple Chasing by Peter Ross was a book I received last Christmas. The author visits famous churches and cathedrals, quite a lot of which I've been to. He talks about the history and what is happening now. He speaks with the clergy. I really enjoyed this one.

Estuary by Rachel Litchenstein. Anything about the River Thames and the estuary interests me, and while there was a moment I got bogged down with this book, I really enjoyed most of it. It's about history, the changing times of the Thames and its estuary as well as the author's adventures on the tidal Thames. There are handy maps too.

Auscultation by Ilse Pedler (poetry). I won this book at an open mic night (not for my poetry, sadly, but in the raffle). It's taken me a while to get around to it, but this was really good. Medical in content about humans and animals. Ilse is a holistic vet which comes across in her poetry. I didn't know what to expect reading this, but it was enlightening and sad. I felt at one with this book, maybe because of my love of animals. A really good read. I looked up the title to see what it meant, and it is listening to the body's internal sounds mainly using a stethoscope. Well, you learn something new every day.

There are other books I loved like The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page (fiction) and Offshore by Penelope Fitsgerald about the loneliness of people living in boats on the Thames (set some years ago) and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood which should be in the horror section! Reading her 'author bit' at the back of the book was another eye opener and we should really think about what this world is coming to now as we see what's happening around us. A big warning, I think.

Well, that wraps things up for another year. Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you will continue to drop by. Happy New Year to you all.

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

Review of the Year

 

My resources file

New Year's Eve and the sky is blue for once. For how long, I ask? Anyway, it's that time when I look back on my writing year, warts and all. I find this interesting to see how I think year went to what actually happened. Somehow, it's never quite the same. I had to re-check some figures because Rue (the dog) kept wanting to chew my pen, or walked over me and the book I was using to tally submissions made this year. I'd already abandoned the writing room as he just kept standing on the bed behind me and pawing at me. 

So, the year went something like this:

I submitted pieces to 29 different publishers/competitions, which was far more than I thought, bearing in mind I spent a good deal of the year editing my novella. These submissions would have contained between one and three or four pieces. The breakdown of this is as follows:

Poetry: 25 of which 6 were accepted (one of these is still to be published)

Flash:   10 of which 2 were accepted

Short Stories: 3

Novellas: 3 

Poetry Collection: 1

Pending (waiting on their fate!): 3 flash, 1 novella, 2 stories (included in the tally above)

I admit I was surprised, and the end of the year was more successful than the beginning. I'm also surprised by what gets published and I sometimes wonder if I'm the best judge of my own work! I honestly expected a lot less to show for my contribution to the world of writing this year.

It was a sad year for publications as two of my favourites folded. Visual Verse (online) and Popshot (print) departed this year. Both were important in my life. The first time I read Popshot I fell in love with the art work, and the stories and poems seemed to radiate with me. I'd found a magazine that I adored. And after many submissions, finally my dream came true as they published a flash story of mine.

Visual Verse was my go-to place once a month. Their picture prompts stimulated me, and when I wasn't writing anything else, I'd write and submit to them. Over the years I've had around 30 pieces published by them. Mainly I wrote poetry, but there were a few flash stories too.

There are also a number of presses who seem to be in limbo, with nothing published on their websites and no new submission windows advertised. I fear these will also go the way of the others.

This year also saw the demise of Writing Forum magazine and a couple of other big name small press magazines. Yesterday I was going through a folder where I keep articles torn from writing magazines. I keep them for research. I took out all those no longer relevant, and this included websites of small presses I had kept. Most of these have also folded since I collected them. It's a sad fact that there are more writers than readers, that small presses are usually operated by volunteers who have other jobs and are trying to write themselves. They also struggle to gather enough subscribers to support their press. I try to subscribe to two publications. One can't do them all, and some are now very expensive. I also try to buy poetry books and fiction from the publisher direct where I can.

I've already commented in a previous post about the rocketing submissions fees of some competitions now. I have pulled out of submitting to places due to the cost (especially of first chapter comps). More presses are charging reading fees, though this is mainly in the US. I have paid these in the past, but no more.

I took part in a few writing courses this year:

Five Day Hybrid Challenge through Arvon (through email prompts) which was most interesting, and made me think. This was about mashing up genres and situations. Unusual!

A day class in London with The Poetry School looking at abandoning usual form (what I call experimental poetry).

Writing ghost and gothic stories with Writing Magazine.

I also enjoyed attending a few poetry readings at the Southbank, London and a day up there mainly for unrepresented writers, which was free and the best thing I'd attended in a long while.

The best part of the year was taken up with editing my novella, Tinsel Street, and submitting it. I haven't yet heard back from either place I've sent it to. These things can take an age, but after I had submitted it, I found it hard to write for a while. I think I was shattered. This has been a long journey so far.

I bought the Mslexia Diary & Planner with good intentions and barely used it. I cannot find just what I need in a writing diary. For this year I have bought a much cheaper diary and planner through a charity I support and will see how that works for me.

Plans for 2024: A lot of editing! I have so many things on file just sitting there. I am already editing two pieces, so I have made a start. I hope to submit a little more next year too. I have booked a week's holiday at the beginning of March with HF Holidays as they are running a writing and walking week in Bourton-on-the-Water. This is a first for them, so I snapped up a place as soon as it it went on sale! I've holidayed with HF many times for walking or special interest holidays. They are an excellent holiday company. The holiday includes writing in the mornings and walks in the afternoons and will also include some free time to either continue writing or do some self-guided walks. There is also some evening entertainment. I have been to their hotel in Bourton before and it is a lovely setting.

Away from writing I have read many books this year. Eighty-three to be exact! The books that have particularly stood out for me and make it to my top three (four in the case of fiction) are as follows:

Fiction:

Metronome by Tom Watson. Set on an island where two convicts (a couple) are coming to the end of their sentence, but the warden doesn't come. Everything begins to fall apart and all they thought they understood isn't as it seemed. This is a tense story as the two turn on one another. I think you might call this dystopian fiction, if I have to put a genre on it. A tense and brilliant book.

Maureen Fry & The Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce. This is the last in the 'Fry' stories. It is a small book compared to the others, but so good. Humour and sadness. Maureen goes off on a journey of her own to see a garden dedicated to Queenie. She goes with a degree of anger, but finds something else. Beautifully written.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. This was Michelle's first adult book (I have since read another of hers and loved that too). Full of darkness, ghosts and spirals into madness. A group set out on a scientific mission into a cold place near Norway (I think it is). Accidents happen and one man (main character) is left there on his own waiting for rescue. What he experiences almost sends him mad. Tense and compelling.

Forever Home by Graham Norton. This was my final read of the year. I've love all Graham's books and each time they get better. This one was brilliant. Carol has been living with Declan, whose wife walked out on him and their son and daughter. They become the talk of the village and his children and her mother disapprove. When Declan becomes ill and Carol has an accident, his children take control, having Declan moved to a nursing home and they throw Carol out of the house as they want to sell it. Declan was adamant that he never wanted to sell the house, but the son has a Power of Attorney, and there is nothing Carol can do. Or is there? This story is about dysfunctional family life, secrets and eventually it becomes evident why Declan never wanted the house sold. There are twists (never saw that coming!) and a fair amount of humour. I loved Carol's mother, Moira. I couldn't put this one down. The best yet.

Non-Fiction:

From Source to Sea by Tom Chesshyre. Tom's account of walking the Thames Path is great. I love his humour and because I am walking the path, I recognise some of the places he stayed or saw. This one is a keeper.

Ice:Tales from a disappearing world by Marco Tedesco & Alberto Flores d'Arcais. I don't know why I'm obsessed with cold places, because I hate the cold! But this book was so good and very descriptive. I'll never forget the way the author described the sound of the ice shifting under him when he was in his tent at night. Makes you realise how vulnerable we are. A wake-up call to climate change and what we a losing.

The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry by Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne. These are interviews with patients who have committed crimes. Some of them are referred because they are suicidal, others just difficult. An insight into the mind of others and why they commit violent crime, including murder. When you read the background to some of the patients, it is no wonder they are disturbed. Nothing is ever straightforward. Some of the patients were helped to come to terms with what they had done and were able to move on, others were not. This is a heartbreaking read at times, but also positive things came out of most of the patients mentioned in the book.

Finally, I found a couple of new authors (to me). Mike Gayle writes feel-good books, and I've just found another of his in a charity shop. My book pile is growing again! Anne Booth is another feel-good writer whose second book I must get hold of sometime. Special mention is made to C J Tudor and her book The Drift. This book was pacey and tense with mixed timelines. Cleverly plotted. I think her books are getting darker, but I love them.

And then for Christmas I received Elly Griffiths' Norfolk. Readers may know how big a fan I am of Elly Griffith's books, and this beautiful full colour coffee table books is filled with spectacular photos of places where some scenes from the Ruth Galloway series take place. I love this book and have been eagerly awaiting its release. It was worth it. This is a keeper.

Well, that's me for 2023. Thank you for continuing to read my blog, and welcome to any newcomers. I'd like to read more independently published books next year. If you have any recommendations (your book or someone you've read), please write me a comment. The only genres I don't read are fantasy and hard core horror.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL

Positivity - does it work?

Tea and cake solves everything!

Strangely, since self-publishing my first book in November last year, I have felt more confident. Although very nervous about the response I would get, reviews etc., it has all been positive. Friends have loved the stories and recommended my book to friends of theirs. I know these are friends of mine, but I've never pushed them to tell me what they think, (but they have!) and I only asked couple of trusted friends to write honest reviews, because most people hate writing them and I knew most wouldn't. The best bit I am now selling to people I don't know personally!

Selling direct has been the easiest way to get my book out there, and I've bought a second batch of author copies as I am now getting requests! I wonder whether any of this is down to my new strategery on positivity. I have decided to ignore rejections. Well, not ignore as such, more deal with it and move on.

And I have more good news to impart. My short story Tools of the Trade has just been published online at Aayo Magazine. I was thrilled to get the email and for such a fast response. I only submitted last month. The story was originally shortlisted for a competition back in 2017, I think, but never published. I tweaked the ending and submitted it. I've always liked this story.

I did my first month review using my new Legend Planner, and I beat my goal for submissions last month. I set the goal for five submissions and I submitted seven times. Finding home for work can be tricky and, although magazines advertise in writing magazines as being open, I often find when looking at their websites their submission windows are closed, some for the foreseeable future. Even when submissions windows are open there is the job of searching for the right poem or story for them, something I feel will fit what they publish. I'd forgotten how long it took! I even submitted some poems by snail mail yesterday, which is rare thing these days.It took even longer as I had to print and find suitable envelopes.

Finally, I have a couple of poems in The Peoples Friend Fireside Book 2022. Because it takes so long to get a response and then publication, I tend to forget about these.

So, has my positivity worked? Maybe its coincidence, but I feel good right now about my writing. I have always been honest about my journey to be published. It's been all consuming, downright heartbreaking for a couple of years, but at the moment everything is upbeat. I hang on to these times because they are my insurance for the darker days. Writing is like a rollercoaster and you never know when the next turn comes, how far you will fly, how far you fall. But writing is in my blood. I need to start believing what people tell me about my writing and get on with it. 

Hot, hot, hot

Still Life - Pastel
Found this when having a clear out recently

 I don't know about you, but this heatwave we've been having in London has put pay to most things, and I've struggled to write anything.

I always tend to get up early, and right now it's the best time. I fling open the windows and the patio doors to let in what air there is. My son's pet rats have been suffering too. They are eating less, they lay mainly outside their houses, choosing the litter tray as one option to cool down! We feed them frozen cherries and the occasional dollop of plain dairy-free yogurt (rats are lactose intolerant). They are listless, but always run to see me when I come down in the morning. They know it's treat time!

Ever since I completed jogging one whole lap around the park (yes, I finally did it towards the end of July - it nearly killed me!) I have let my every-other-day jog slip to every two or three days. I've switched to bursts of fast running, which I realise I prefer. I have no goals now, and enjoy just being with nature in the park, and to try to keep fit. However, I've not run since Sunday, the longest break. The thought of dragging myself out in the heat is too much, even at 6.30am.

Writing has also taken a step back. If I can't get anything done by midday then it won't get done, and that goes for everything else! I agonise between sitting in the shade on the patio before the sun reaches me (about 11.30am) and writing. I could take the laptop outside, but it's easier to sit on the sofa with it. What I usually do is use the laptop early and come off it by 10am or so, earlier if I have to drag myself to the shops.

I can't function in temperatures above 30, and we've had that for the last six days. Our house is so hot. There is no one cool room. The other day we moved two patio chairs into the front garden because the sun had gone off from there, but it was still stiffling, plus we live at the end of a road where a busy bypass runs. My son took a reading of the noise level. It came out at an average of 60 decibels. Heat and noise - not a great combination.

I have, though, in the last few weeks, started a new project. I am attempting to write a Novel in Flash. The first attempt I liked, but I didn't feel quite worked. So, I embarked on a second. This one seems better. I did some research into novels in flash, and what I gleaned was that they consist of a series of short stand alone stories that are linked and form an arc of a novel. I've only read one example, which I felt was a bit disjointed, but I am having as go anyway, and really like what I've written.

I have also just started an online poetry course. This is the first week, so it's early days, but I have managed to produce a couple of new poems on this week's theme.

This morning when I came downstairs it was raining. I flung open the windows and let in that wonderful fresh smell. Now the sun is breaking through and temperature will rise, but I think the worst is over. Storms are forecast, and over the next few days temperatures will slowly recede. Maybe I can get some decent sleep, get out for a run, find my brain again!

Stay cool everyone!

Art, writing and the stories creative people make in their heads

Reading about Grayson Perry growing up was a delight (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl). It's a very honest, if sometimes heartbreaking story. But there is also humour. There was something here that resonated with me as a writer. The way he acted out scenes with his teddy bear, Alan Measles reminded me that I often acted out things in my head - stories, well, one really. This one has never been written down and never will be (it wasn't that kind of story). But I did invent a whole family, their loves, their trials and all of it was acted out in my head. I never intended to write it but it did play a big part in my life as it was ongoing and returned to, often daily, as each brother (there were three) struggled in life. The eldest was the sensible one with a family, the second brother was the off the rails one, but I can't remember about the third one. True to later form, it was the off the rails brother I liked most!

I do remember that at one time the middle brother took off in a one of those motor homes and parked in various places. This might have been taken from my desire to travel and have no ties, and I did have a thing about motor homes!

I never considered this inventing abnormal. And now I use this is form to write. I often act scenes out in my head like a film before I write. Unfortunately this often happens at night when I'm trying to sleep, so I either have to get up to write or try and memorise it and write the next morning. Actually I'm quite good at that, memorisng, but it does mess with my sleep.

Grayson Perry had a hard life growing up - his mother had an affair with the milkman and his father left. Grayson was around four then. Grayson's stepfather was often violently abusive, and he used this other world, and to some extent his need to dress up, as a comfort. I learned a lot about fetish, bondage and fantasy!

I can't say my childhood was anything like Grayson's. I had a stable home life, if somewhat sheltered, but I suppose these scenes I acted out was my way of living in other worlds, in other people's lives, and in some way, was my own outlet from the life I felt was restricted. In stories you can do what the heck you like and there are no personal consequences. Ones past does influence the present and future, including writing. Most writers will admit that there is part of them in everything they write. I'd agree. Grayson Perry used his art to unleash his feelings, and still does. I'd recommend this book. It's a short read, but good.

Having read two books about Grayson Perry now (he fascinates me), I feel I understand him much more.