Meet the Author
‘WRITING IT IS THE EASY BIT’ by David Simmonds
Many people enjoyed a lovely evening with journalist, novelist and genuine raconteur David Simmonds, who gave of his time to support the Friends of Wenvoe Library.
David’s career in journalism took him from the newspapers of the South Wales Valleys to BBC Wales in Cardiff, where he worked as a radio and television producer and director.
After retiring, David embarked upon writing and has recently published his novel ‘Jake’s Progress’.
David shared his own experiences of writing creatively, and suggested some advice that he found invaluable.
- Write about a subject you are familiar with. ‘Jake’s Progress’ is set in the South Wales valleys where David himself spent many of his formative years as a journalist.
- Weave a plot around key events/experiences that you and others find interesting and/or entertaining. David was looking forward to writing about a rugby match in the South Wales Valleys.
- Research to ensure accuracy e.g. decimalisation, the flooding of Capel Celyn and the IRA activities all feature in ‘Jake’s Progress’.
- Be consistent in the time you allocate to writing every day. David found the National Novel Writing Month which is held in November each year a very useful tool. Participants have 30 days in which to write 60,000 words. Being a journalist, David was familiar with working to a deadline. He got up 2 hours earlier each morning to write and was kept on target by a graph indicating progress. The focus is on writing and not editing.
- Join a support network to challenge yourself to write about unfamiliar topics, develop your confidence and receive constructive feedback from other like minded people. So many suffer from doubting their own abilities; this is known as ‘Imposter Syndrome’. John Steinbeck himself abandoned a book he had written and then embarked upon a period of writing which led to the publication of the Pulitzer Prize winning ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (1940). It was during this period that Steinbeck concurrently wrote a diary which ‘stands, above all, as a supreme testament to the fact that the sole substance of genius is the daily act of showing up’. For David, the Creative Writing Workshop at Cardiff University led by Lynne Barratt-Lee was instrumental in his progress. He has been successful in writing stories which have been purchased by national magazines and winning the 2017 Artists and Writers’ Short Story Competition.
As the title of the talk suggests, in the end the writing of ‘Jake’s Progress’ for David was the easy part. Publishing a book today is extremely difficult and in the end David decided to go down the route of self-publishing. Publishing companies usually look for an author with a high profile or insist that you have 2/3 books in the pipeline. By choosing the self-publishing route you pay £75 to publish a book and each book is printed individually to order.
The ‘Meet the Author’ evening concluded with David’s thoughts on themes raised by the audience, including free speech and citizen journalism.
Our thanks to David for an entertaining and informative evening.