7 Days with You VBT

Blurb

Sean Johnson’s life as a small-town farmhand has been nothing but predictable, but when he meets Sophia Hillingdon at the local animal sanctuary, she gets him out of an eighteen-year rut, away from the mundane existence on the farm, and a grieving, drunken father.

Sophia is the first person who understands him and makes him believe that he might get out of their small town, who tells him, he has the potential to be whoever he wants to be and do whatever he wants to do.

But as their relationship unfolds, it is the most devastating of news that will change both of them forever.

Excerpt:

I hadn’t been anywhere, but my mind had been everywhere. That’s how I felt that summer. Or more precisely, that’s how Sophia had made me feel by the time summer neared its conclusion. The months of July and August had followed identical patterns to June in that we rarely spent a day apart. We rode with Violet across the Suffolk countryside, sometimes for miles on end, often stopping by at local pubs. Then it would be Saturday. That was the best day of all for there was no work on Sunday, which meant dancing with Tom and Jessica until our bodies could no longer stand. We drank, we laughed, and most nights after, we made love as we tip-toed up the stairs of my father’s house. I was obsessed with everything about her. Yes, Sophia Hillingdon, the girl I’d known for barely a few months was the girl I now wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And though we often drove each other crazy, we soon laughed and made up as if nothing happened. It often puzzled me as to why Sophia found our fights so amusing seconds after we were hot from the exertion of spouting obscenities at each other. Red-faced, she’d often say, “You drive me mad Sean. But, you know something? That’s just how I like it.”

“Why?” I’d ask.

“Us,” she would say. “I love how angry you make me because…. Well, I’m obsessed with you… even our arguments sound oddly beautiful.”

What would I tell a new author?

Read as much as you can! Read, read and read. It’s an incredibly common answer, but there’s a reason writers can’t help but stress this enough. Read your favourite genres but also read stories you wouldn’t normally think twice about. Read the classics. Read non-fiction. Read anything. Writing is one of those professions that you only improve with over time.

It’s also worth asking yourself what kind of author you are. Do you want to write thrillers? If so, perhaps read 20 of them to get a feel for how they work or what you feel is missing from the genre that you could add. Or do you write stories in my genre? If so, the same process applies.

For the writing aspect itself, I’d recommend just sitting down and writing before you even entertain the idea of paying for fancy courses. The writers that do well aren’t always those who spent thousands on a creative writing course. They simply decided to write and showed a desire to improve. Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ is a great book for aspiring fiction writers, while The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglish is ideal for helping beginners learn the importance of showing rather than telling.

Lastly, I’d suggest asking yourself this: Will I be miserable if I don’t write for a living? If the answer is no, then don’t bother. Writing is an emotionally draining and solitary experience that requires sacrifice and commitment. You have to be prepared to develop thick skin in what is essentially a dog-eat-dog industry. It’s a lonely job, and not everyone is fully prepared for the hard-hitting realities that come from writing a novel and attempting to get an audience. You have to bleed for you craft just like any other artist would.

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Author Bio and Links:

Hugo Driscoll is a 25-year- old British journalist and content writer for an online publication in London.

When he's not working, you can usually find him writing in the basements of cafes or lamenting the unfair treatment of millennials in overcrowded London bars.

You can also find Hugo on Twitter, Facebook, and his personal blog, which he updates regularly.

Seven Days with You is his first novel.

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