Life After Publication with Nikki Vallance

Nikki Vallance, Local Author on

Life After Publication

In late 2019, I realised a long term dream of becoming a published author. It took me 9 years to write and three more to get published! (Pivotal went on to reach the 2020 fi nals of The People’s Book Prize and The Page Turner Awards). I was getting ready to attend book festivals and bookshop author events and reopen my creative writers coached membership group. Everything was looking great for 2020.

Then, just 6 weeks after the launch and just before Christmas I lost my mum, suddenly and unexpectedly. I am grateful Mum got to read my book, which was dedicated to her and my dad. I’m also grateful that we didn’t face any of the awful experiences of those who have lost loved ones during covid restrictions, to be able to visit hospital, hold her hand and tell her how much we loved her and were going to miss her. Essentially to say goodbye, even if she probably couldn’t hear us. I’m grateful for the chance to support my dad and be supported by the rest of my family through the funeral and those early days and weeks of our grief.

For all the months since then, going in and out of lockdown, with Dad isolated and grieving alone, shielding due to his age and health conditions, with my son not returning to university after struggling with his studies, my daughter missing her GCSE’s and all the rites of passage that go with completing year 11, there’s been a lot to deal with.

But being a glass is half full kind of gal, I knew we’d be Ok. We’d come through it. That there would be a time when I could focus on my books, my coaching business, my motivational speaking career.

Except I started to notice I wasn’t feeling my positive, optimistic self. That my joints were aching, that my brain felt fuzzy, that nothing seemed to be working, both physically and mentally, the way it should.

It was the menopause. For the fi rst three years I’d had virtually no symptoms. But then those other symptoms. The silent ones, the less obvious ones, the ones no-one had ever told me could happen, they kicked in BIG TIME, in 2020, when almost everything else was pretty rubbish too.

Thankfully I found the right support and things are much better. I am sleeping like a baby and the old (but feeling much younger) driven, positive, believeI-can-take-on-the-world me is back.

I’m speaking at two book events in the near future and have been invited to speak at two book clubs in the autumn. I’ve started my second novel and entered it into a competition, with a chance of winning agent representation. I will be launching a new coaching program or group or retreat in the autumn. (I’m taking my time to get it right and provide support in the best way for writers - to suit them!)

Having been there myself, I am on a mission to give a voice to midlifers who may be feeling stuck. Through both my novels, featuring women in their forties, and my coaching I hope to inspire the closet novelists amongst them to not settle for their lot, give themselves permission to follow a different path and write the stories they have always dreamt of writing.

And if you haven’t quite found your way through this murky bit in the middle, I hope my story resonates and helps you believe there is a life out there to be lived to the full and it’s never too late!

For information about my work helping closet novelists realise their dreams of writing a book please visit my website www.nikkivallance.com and for copies of Pivotal order through all the usual channels here.