For those of us with a passion for writing, be it prose, poetry or scripts, taking it to the next stage – beyond our bedroom desks and to audiences beyond friends and family – can be a daunting prospect. Being a young writer myself, I know exactly how scary it can be, sharing your work with strangers for the first time.
For as long as I can remember I have been writing stories, and although I always had (and still have) a dream of becoming a published writer, for many years nobody but my family laid eyes upon my little hand-made books. Then, when I was thirteen years old and just about to start the hefty task of editing my first novel, I joined a Cuckoo Young Writers group, a fortnightly club funded by New Writing North. Going to the group on Saturday mornings was a great experience that offered me wonderful support, great friends and plenty of biscuits!
And it was through the young writers group that I found out about the Cuckoo Young Writers Award. This was an opportunity to get balanced, professional feedback from the wonderful Elizabeth Day, an award-winning journalist and author, and to take another step along the winding path of an aspiring writer.
Submitting the opening section from my novel (an adventure trilogy starring a pack of wolves in the Canadian wilderness) was, I admit, a pretty scary thing to do, but it was worth a shot. Besides, I had nothing to lose. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen. There are so many other fantastic young writers out there, and I knew that the chances of my piece being picked out were pretty slim. So when I received the email telling me that I had achieved Highly Commended in the competition, one rainy day in June in the middle of my GCSE revision, I was so thrilled that I shrieked and threw my Biology notes all over the floor! I couldn’t believe it – after all the hours I had spent tapping away at my laptop on dark evenings, and dreaming of wolfsong before I went to sleep, Elizabeth Day had given me feedback of the very best kind. Once you have written a novel, it is impossible not to become attached to the characters and world you have spent so much time with, and it becomes something that is very personal to you, a part of you, something that you feel almost embarrassed to share. So to be recognised and praised for all the hard work and for being brave enough to share it is one of the best feelings in the world.
The award ceremony was great fun – I was expecting a brief, informal event at which I would sit down and listen to a speech, walk up to collect my prize when called, and then go home. We were not expecting a sit-down dinner, full orchestra and cocktail dresses, which is what my sister and I were confronted with when we arrived in our jeans and trainers. Despite our initial embarrassment, however, we had a very enjoyable evening and met some other wonderful writers who had won prizes in the various adult categories of the Northern Writers’ Awards.
The Cuckoo Young Writers Awards made me truly realise that my writing has got potential, and that my dream of becoming an author has a chance of being fulfilled. As Meg Rosoff so wisely said, published authors are not, after all, ‘magical unicorns’ – they are ordinary people like you and me, people who have the passion, talent and determination to see their book’s journey through to the end. The particular section that I submitted to the awards – an action sequence involving a caribou hunt – had been rewritten so many times that the different versions combined could probably fill another whole book. So to know that the final version was good enough to achieve Highly Commended was massively encouraging – a sign that I’m moving in the right direction.
I have now finished the first book in my ‘Wilderness’ trilogy and am working on the second, and I have even started to think about looking for a literary agent.
Writing can be difficult to squeeze in around the madness of school and work and life in general, and it’s easy to feel demoralised or demotivated, or even to feel like giving up. But along with the encouragement of my family and friends, it is this award, and the fabulous support of New Writing North, that inspire me to keep going, to never give up, and to believe in the future.
The Northern Writers’ Awards 2015 are now open for submission. The Cuckoo Young Writers Award is for young writers aged 14–18 living in the North of England. This year’s judge is Observer journalist and writer Rachel Cooke. Apply online here. The deadline is Monday 2 February 2015.
