Gregory A. Hart, Author: My Reasons for Writing

I asked my friend and fellow writer, Gerry McCullough, (author of her recent book Bellfast Girl, out now on Ebook and availible in paperback) to do a guest post. You can find out more about her and her books by clicking on the links at the end of this post.

I’ve been writing since I was 7 or 8. I’ve always loved reading, and because of that, I’ve wanted to write the sort of stuff I enjoy. So I began by copying my favourite writers, and did that for years. It takes a while before your writing becomes actually original!

It’s hard to say what inspired me to write. I grew up in a home where everyone enjoyed reading – my mother, my father, and my three sisters. My older sister took to me to the library when I was 8, and arranged for me to join it. I became an ardent reader, and therefore a writer. At my primary school, it happened that I was put into a ‘house’ called Charlotte, after Charlotte Bronte, and the headmistress, in telling us about the various houses, said, ‘Not everyone in ‘Charlotte’ house will be a wonderful writer – but perhaps some of you will!’ That was a definite spark. I remember thinking, ‘Why shouldn’t I be one?’

I assumed, I suppose, that as soon as I had written a book, the first publisher I offered it to would snap it up. Wrong! I spent years being rejected – a very painful process, I have to say.

Then at last my book, Belfast Girls, was accepted and published by Night Publishing. I’ll always be grateful to Tim Roux for being the first publisher to accept me, after the long discouraging trek around all the major publishers which everyone from Charlotte Bronte to PG Wodehouse and JK Rowling has had. In addition, the group of writers I met through Night Publishing have supported me enormously. I value them highly –they are great people.

Currently I’ve just had my fourth book published – my third full-length novel. So far, there is Belfast Girls, published by Night Publishing, which I’m delighted to say has been doing really well, selling around 15,000 copies, and in the top 100 in overall ranking for over a month; followed by Danger Danger, another Irish romantic thriller, and an Irish short story collection, The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus. (Seanachie is the Irish for storyteller.)

When I had finished writing Danger Danger, my husband Raymond who was setting up his own publishing company, suggested that I give it to him to publish rather than to Tim Roux. Up until then, I had rejected the idea of self-publishing. I thought of it as vanity publishing, and needed the affirmation of being accepted by a ‘real’ publisher, a complete stranger.

However, times have changed. The coming of the eBook and Internet publishing has taken away the stigma from self-publishing. Moreover, I’d now been accepted by an actual publisher and my first book was doing well enough to reassure me. I decided to give Danger Danger to Raymond and since then his Publishing Company, Precious Oil Publications, has published and will publish all my books.

My fourth book is one I wrote years ago – the first I wrote when I myself was an adult. I’ve spent some time updating it for the modern world – it’s about a Belfast girl on holiday in Greece, and the things that happen to her – another Irish romantic thriller! The title is Angel in Flight. The heroine, Angel Murphy, is a feisty young Belfast girl who has been badly hurt and is getting her life back together, and proving to be strong, self-reliant and able to sort out the villains she comes across without waiting for a hero to help her.

21^st century or what?

links for ebooks on Amazon.com and Amazon.uk (You can also get them in paperback.)

Belfast Girls
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belfast-Girls/dp/B008J4NISK

http://www.amazon.com/Belfast-Girls/dp/B008J4NISK

Danger

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Danger-Gerry-McCullough/dp/0952578530

http://www.amazon.com/Danger-Gerry-McCullough/dp/0952578530

Seanachie Tales Old Seamus

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seanachie-Tales-Old-Seamus-ebook/dp/B006WVI37S