For over sixteen years, I’ve been writing a monthly column for two local community magazines, the Tetbury Advertiser and the Hawkesbury Parish News. Around the middle of each month, I’d down tools to dash off 500 words for each paper – a different article for each of them – to meet their deadlines. I’ve loved every minute of it – even when it meant burning the midnight oil to fit it into my busy schedule. But the time has come to step down to allow more time for other projects.
It’s too easy to say yes to anything that sounds like fun, only to find you have no time to do anything properly, especially when you need to accommodate family commitments, any domestic crises, and hobbies and interests.
This year, writing my second murder mystery play, Murder at the Office, and getting deeply involved in its production, at the same time as writing my next book, Death at the Village Garden Party, squeezed out my weekly blogging habit, and I’m only just now catching up with myself.
I’m hoping this new blog post today will mark the return to my weekly routine.
In the meantime, I’d like to draw a line under my local magazine columns by sharing my final article for the Tetbury Advertiser, which concludes with a kind tribute from the magazine’s current editor. Much the same article appeared in the April Hawkesbury Parish News. I’ll also post text of the article below, so that you don’t have to squint to read it in the screenshot.
My Last Article for the Tetbury Advertiser
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED – OVER & OUT
16 years ago, I left my last full-time day-job. After 30 years of office jobs, I decided it was time to become what I’d always wanted to be when I grew up: a writer. A significant birthday made me realise that if I didn’t start soon, I’d be in danger of running out of life.
A further call to action was the chance remark of an elderly neighbour after attending a local funeral. His late friend had been a great storyteller, but he never wrote his tales down. ‘As I watched his coffin go by,’ my neighbour told me, ‘I was sorry that all his stories were now forever sealed inside that box.’
Not wanting to share that fate, I committed myself from the outset to publish my writing, one way or another.
The first thing I did was to approach the editors of the Tetbury Advertiser and the Hawkesbury Parish News, offering to write a free monthly column for each of them. To my delight, both welcomed my suggestion, and the subsequent editors of both publications have been equally supportive.
I hoped this habit would oil the wheels of my creativity, encouraging me to write and publish books too. Since then, I’ve published 17 novels, two plays and a lot of short fiction, and my agent has so far secured translation deals into German, Italian, Russian, and Japanese. You might say these two columns have served their purpose for me.
In January, I hit another significant birthday. (The clue is in the bus pass.) While I’ve loved writing for both magazines, I’m now so busy with other writing projects that something has to give – and I’d rather it wasn’t my sanity.
So, the time has come for me to step down as your regular columnist. If you’d like to keep reading my musings, follow my weekly blog online at http://www.authordebbieyoung.com. Sign up there for my free Readers’ Club on my website, and you’ll receive a monthly newsletter, plus a free ebook of my novelette The Pride of Peacocks. You can also find me on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. (Social media links are listed on my website.)
You can buy my books online in all formats including ebook and audio, and from bookshops in paperback and hardback. They’re available to borrow from libraries. My seventeenth cosy mystery novel, The Importance of Being Murdered, is hot off the press, and the eighteenth, Death at the Village Garden Party, will be launched in July. I told you I was busy!
Twice a year you’ll find me at the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival (visit hulitfest.com for details), and I’m often speaking at other bookish events locally and further afield.
My latest murder mystery play, Murder at the Office, will be staged by Hawkesbury Drama Group at Hawkesbury Village Hall on 24th and 25th April. (Tickets from hawkesburydrama@gmail.com).
Finally, a huge thank for reading this column over the years, and for your kind comments along the way.
I hope you all live happily ever after.
The End.
New Life for Old Columns
But that’s not necessarily the last you’ll see of these columns. I plan to publish collections in book form.
I’ve already done this for the first 10 years’ worth of columns, with two books for each five years of each magazine’s articles. These are all for sale online in ebook and paperback.
This will be a summer task for me, and I’ll share the new books here as soon as they’re ready.
In the meantime, here are links to the first four books, in case you’d like to read them.
What I’m Reading
In spite of my over-busy life – or perhaps as an antidote to it – I’ve continued to read avidly every day, starting each morning with a chapter or two after breakfast.
Since I last shared a book review on my blog, I’ve finished reading the following:
- Lost Empires – JB Priestley
- An Academic Question – Barbara Pym
- Crampton Hodnet – Barbara Pym
- The Infallible Fortune Teller – John Goodall
- The City of Turquoise and Gold – R Marsden
- The Body The Floats – Jayne Chard
- The Franchise Affair – Josephine Tey
- A Shilling for Candles – Jospephine Tey
- Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found – Andrew Graham-Dixon
If you’d like to find out what I thought of them, you can find my reviews on my Goodreads profile here.
Short answer: I loved them all!
