In the Summer
2011, I was approached by another writer Cheryl Shireman who wanted to pull a
group of women writers together to create a unique book. The object of the book
would be to inform readers about our personal struggles to become established
authors. Every story is an inspiration, some sad, some happy and some tell of
great obstacles these 25 women have had to overcome to get where they are
today. The proceeds of the book are being donated to a Breast Cancer Charity.
We called it The Indie Chicks.
French
fancies!
by Mel Comley
In 1993 I walked out
on my sad and abusive marriage, one that I had stuck with for seven years. At
the time I jointly owned a shop with my ex-husband and my Mother, so we had to
sell the business when the marriage broke down.
If I thought that was
hard it was nothing to what I had to endure the following six years. To make ends
meet, I had to work two jobs for 70-80 hours a week over 6½ days. Take my word
when I say it wasn’t fun.
But onwards and
upwards, when Mum retired we made a spur of the moment decision to leave
England and move to France. We’d never set foot in the country before we came
out here to house hunt, I know, we’re either brave or stupid. I like to think
we’re the former, but I sometimes wonder if that’s the case!
We bought a farmhouse
and barns that needed total renovation. In 6 months I decorated 22 rooms while
a local builder created a gîte (a holiday home) out of a couple of the barns.
After the renovations were completed I grew bored with my ‘early retirement’
and enrolled in a creative writing course. I threw myself into it and over the
next 4-5 years I sat down and wrote three romances and two thrillers.
In October 2009, I
discovered the writing site run by Harper Collins called Authonomy where I
uploaded the first 10,000 words of my thriller Impeding Justice. It took me 8
months to reach the editor’s desk where I received a favourable review from a
Harper Collins editor. The trouble was they weren’t taking on any thriller
writers at that time, they were only interested in printing Celebrity
Autobiographies!
Therefore, in October
2010 I decided to upload Impeding Justice as an ebook. It took a while to take
off but in January 2011 sales really started gathering momentum, but it wasn’t
until I released the second book in the series, Final Justice that sales really
took off.
After selling over
30,000 books in April, I was in the fortunate position of having several agents
knocking on my virtual door. I finally agreed terms and signed a contract with
top New York agent, Richard Curtis. I sent him Cruel Justice the third book in
the thriller series and he tried for 4 months to get me a traditional
publishing contract, but at the moment he admits he’s finding it difficult to
place any books with publishers because of the Indie revolution, which I’m
extremely proud to be part of.
During last Summer, I
edited the romances I wrote at the beginning of my journey. I uploaded A Time
To Heal towards the end of August and immediately received a couple of 5 star reviews
(no they weren’t from my family, they don’t know I write!) some of them were
from my thriller fans who were equally impressed by my romance endeavours.
At the beginning of
September I uploaded A Time For Change, another romance which is actually a
TRUE story of how my dear friends met and fell in love. Obviously they’re names
have been changed, the story has a mystery element to it too.
In October 2011, I
uploaded the third book in my thriller series, Cruel Justice, which is actually
the prequel to my best-seller Impeding Justice. It’s been very well received
and has even reached #2 in the Police Procedural chart on Amazon.
I’m very fortunate to
be able to write full-time (it’s addictive, don’t you know!) and have several
more projects outlined that I intend tackling over the coming winter months.
This is how my day
pans out, first thing, providing it isn’t raining, I take my two dogs for a
walk, actually they tend to drag me round our small village. Then I sit down to
answer any emails and facebook messages I’ve received overnight from fans (yes
I do have them) I then set out to write a minimum of 2-3000 words per day,
before I dip into hours of necessary promoting. That’s the hardest part of
being an Indie writer, the fact that we have to promote ourselves long and
hard. I used to be quite a shy person, but I’ve had to overcome that quickly. I
think deep down, every writer would love to be a recluse and be able to focus
full-time on their creations, unfortunately that’s unrealistic in an Indie
world.
Do I ever think about
my life back in England? No, never, but my ex features heavily in my books.
When I need to think up a baddie character it’s his image I picture in my mind.
As for my murder scenes, I find them VERY easy to write. LOL 
You can find
out about me and my books at the following blogs.
You can
purchase my books in ebook format or paperback from my website. http://www.melcomleybooks.com/
Or follow me
on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mel-Comley/264745836884860
My twitter id
is @melcom1
You can find out about me and my books at the
following blogs. http://melcomley.blogspot.com/ http://melcomleyromances.blogspot.com/
4 comments:
Thanks for sharing my story, Donna. I'm delighted to be part of this inspirational group of women. ;-)
Mel, I thought I knew you but you have taken me by surprise. Richard Curtis no less! My goodness. How awesome. Your life sounds delightful now. Quite pleasant. I'm so glad to have discovered your marvelous books!
Fab story, Mel! So proud to call you a friend! :)
I love your story, Mel, not for what you went through in a bad marriage, but for your courage and resolve in forging a new life and leaving the old one behind. And then, you move to France! It seems like a writer's dream life. Must visit!
Again, thank for sharing your story with us, Mel.
And, Donna, thanks for posting.
Best,
Katherine Owen
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