The Summary

It was now two weeks before Christmas 2011 and I decided I needed to take a break. I looked back to the moment when I had handed in my resignation at my company to follow my dream of becoming a published author.

I pondered on the ups and downs I have travelled since, and looked at what I had accomplished so far.

Eleven months had passed since I had sent the email to the operations director giving him notice of my resignation.

Ten months have since passed when I suffered the crippling spinal injury that had sent my body through the gates of hell, and the chronic pain which nearly left my crippled.

Eight months had now passed since the day I handed back my company vehicle, credit card, and laptop. I had said my good byes to my colleges and took the train home. At this point I only had a story in my head, and that was it. Nothing was written down and I had no idea how to go about writing a book.

Seven months had now passed since I started writing, and it was then that Dangerous John, a friend from my local pub, agreed to help by reviewing each chapter as I finished it. They were lovely days; sitting outside on a sunny Friday afternoon with a beer and John’s company as we went through each line I had written that week. I had also volunteered for some charity work, and was helping out twice a week to give my mind something else to concentrate on other than writing.

Six months have now passed and I was seeing my Chiropractor twice a week instead of three times. The pain didn’t abate and I was slowly becoming hooked on over the counter pain-killers. I started to worry that I would have to go under the surgeon’s knife, or worse end up in a wheel chair for the rest of my life.

Five months have now passed as my story flowed like verbal diarrhoea and my money started to run out.

Four months have now passed since I had finished the first draft of my manuscript, and I started to send it out to prospective agents who would hopefully take me on, and then get me a publishing contract.

Three months have now passed since I gave out my first draft to various people to read, and it was the first disappointment (the first of many) as their responses were not as enthusiastic as I had hoped.

Two months have now passed since I started on the redraft of my manuscript so I could enter it into the Times newspaper unpublished author competition. It was also then that I started to make my first attempts at going back into the gym. I found walking eased the pain, slightly, and putting my body painfully through a 30 minute light walk on the running machine seemed to loosen me up.

One month had now passed when I received the first rejections from the various agencies I had approached.

So here I was looking forward to 2012. Just before my break I had completed a third redraft of my manuscript and entered into a second new author competition. I had also joined two online communities and a couple of groups for local writers.

I was looking forward with a positive view towards 2012 although I hadn’t quite worked out let how I going to pay for the Christmas celebrations. Charles Dickens has a lot to answer for with his famous character of Ebenezer Scrooge. Because of this one character millions of people feel they have no option but to get into debt over Christmas because they don’t want to been seen as a Scrooge.