My Writing Journey
- Rhian MacGillivray
- Feb 2
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 10
Hello, and welcome to my blog on my new author website! As this is my first post since I overhauled my site, I reckon I should introduce myself.
I’m Rhian. I’m a book-obsessed, writing-loving girl from Scotland who went seeking the sun more than a decade ago… And I’ve been living in Malaga on Spain’s Costa del Sol ever since. In my time here I’ve travelled, met many new people, and gained a husband and two daughters along the way – I love Spain and can’t see myself leaving anytime soon!
As a writer looking to self-publish my first book later this year, I’ve converted this website from my freelance business page to an author website (let me know what you think in the comments as it’s a work in progress).
In coming posts, I’ll be sharing my tips to writing a book, my best reads and book recommendations, insights into my writing process, my experience in the query trenches, my decision to self-publish, and maybe some sneak peeks or deep dives into my books.
But first: an overview of my writing journey and how I got here.
A lifelong love of books
As most writers will attest, a love of writing often stems from being a reader first and foremost, and I’m no different. Some of my favourite childhood memories are book-related. Trawling through my primary school library in search of more challenging books, trips to the local library and devouring book after book, receiving books on my birthday or at Christmas.
My parents were big readers, especially my mum. She always had a book on her bedside table and I’d frequently see her reading in the evenings, and this is an image I want my children to have of me too. I must be doing something right as whenever my birthday is coming up and my husband asks them what they want to buy me for my birthday, they always say BOOKS!
Always a writer
Even as a child I loved writing. I remember being enthralled when I found a tatty blank notebook at home once and I immediately decided it would be where I’d write my first book. Something about kids with magical powers, but I can’t remember much more. What I do remember is that it didn’t have much plot or planning and was simply me writing, and writing, and writing without really going anywhere, and I eventually ran out of steam.
It all helps though. For a while as an adult I kept a writing notebook where I’d give myself little writing challenges: write a piece about a sound you love, write a story where every sentence starts with a letter of the alphabet in order from A-Z… I still have that notebook somewhere.
Any form of writing flexes that creative muscle, and I’ve had plenty of practice over the years.
A career with words
At university, I studied French and Spanish – yet more words, and in pretty languages too! On my course a large chunk of my learning came from studying language through literature, so at times it was halfway to a creative writing degree. I studied novels from all directions: theme, character, plot, metaphorical devices and motifs… Little did I know that everything I absorbed then would one day be used not to study language, but to help write my own books.
After finishing my degree and jumping on the first flight to Spain, I worked as a translator for 11 years, first in a company and then self-employed. I remember around this time I started writing a novel about a mafia family where the daughter is wrongly imprisoned for murdering her father and brothers. In a repeat of my childhood novel, I ran out of steam (this time at around 35k words). Later I would realise it was because I’d done very little plotting, no character outlining. Nothing. Just writing. I’ve since learned I’m not a pantser!
Working as a translator, I spent 11 years taking someone else’s words and conveying them in another language. Eleven years working that writing muscle, sharpening my editing and proofreading skills. And fuelling my desire to see my own words out in the world.
I enjoyed translating immensely, and I’d have liked to have continued in that field, but the emergence of AI is killing the profession. I had been unable to raise my rates as a freelancer for years, and clients were finding cheaper options (possibly people running texts through Google Translate and polishing them). All while the cost of living has continued to surge. To top it all off, in the last couple of years I was being asked to revise what a machine had translated. So zero creativity.
Well, if you can’t beat ’em, you join them, right?! In November I switched back to the corporate world and joined a tech company in the linguistics and research department. And this company works with AI in one of its products for financial clients, so…!
From picture books to adult fiction
My creative writing really took off in the pandemic. Everyone seemed to be doing something creative back then! I got into blogging first, and then I started to wonder. My first daughter was born a couple of years before the pandemic and I’d had the idea that it would be nice to write stories for her as she grew up, starting with picture books and moving through the age categories.
I wrote some picture books, and I even queried three of the best ones, but querying picture books was tough. There’s a limited pool of literary agents who represent picture books, and some only seek author-illustrators. My drawing skills are passable, but definitely not good enough to illustrate a picture book!
In any case, I found it hard to keep the word count down in my picture books (something I’ve always struggled with in every school or university essay I ever wrote). Many people think it must be easy to write picture books, but I challenge anyone to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end in 500 words. An editor who gave me feedback on one story said it was a great idea for a middle grade book. It got me thinking. And writing. And that middle grade story emerged.
A few thousand words in and I felt like I’d finally been let loose. But that feeling quickly faded when I realised I would end up overshooting the acceptable word count for middle grade by some margin at the rate I was going.
And so I came to adult fiction. I’d had an idea bouncing around my head for years – and I mean, YEARS. I knew these characters inside out. I often dreamed about them, came up with new scenarios for them, dialogue, pictured them with this outcome or that one.
I looked into planning an adult fiction novel, because in my adult life I’ve become a planner and I LOVE it. I tapped into Twitter’s thriving Writing Community. I soaked up every piece of information I could find. I read blog posts. I listened to podcasts. I read articles. And when I stumbled upon Jodie Robins’ article on Jericho Writers about plot points, I sat and mapped my own book idea against it.
From idea to plot to story
I had the plot points.
They were all there, as they had been for years, sitting neatly in my mind and now on paper: they fitted the structure that was expect in a commercial novel. It was like the sign I’d been waiting for.
Throughout 2023 I plugged away at it. The best writing advice I read (I can’t even remember where because I did so much research) was get the words on the page then edit after; you can’t edit a blank page. This was somewhere that I’d fallen down with my previous attempt at a book: every time I opened up the document on my laptop, I’d reread everything I’d written and set about editing it. The first few chapters especially must have been edited something like fifty times.
This time I had a goal: I wanted to write “THE END” on my manuscript. Just for me. I didn’t have any publishing goals at that point. I simply wanted to write the book in my head and my heart, and prove to myself I could do it.
So I wrote. In stolen minutes here and there: waiting for my eldest daughter at gymnastics and piano; sitting in a café of a soft play; on the back of receipts while waiting for doctor’s appointments; and sometimes – when I was lucky – in longer stretches at my desk in the evening, or if I had a quieter day of freelance work and had a spare thirty minutes.
Eventually, I did it. January 2023 to November 2023 when I finally wrote “THE END”. And it felt AMAZING, yet a little bittersweet as I’d spent so much time with those characters and wasn’t ready to let go of them.
Which was just as well, because I had a lot of editing to do! That meant another dive into Twitter, articles, blogs, podcasts and craft books to absorb everything I could about editing your own novel, because I’m OCD like that. When I’m interested in a topic, I fully commit and need to know everything about it.
I edited. Several rounds. I chopped beloved sections. I moved things around. I sent my first three chapters to an editor who gave me actionable feedback. I rewrote those first three chapters several times.
And then when I’d edited it all and was happy with it, I thought: what now? My husband had been my biggest cheerleader throughout the writing process and had loved reading it as I wrote it, and he encouraged me to try and get it published.
So I thought why not? I set about investigating everything there is to know about literary agents (because that’s me!) and devised a list. I queried. And queried. And queried. I rewrote the query letter. Several times. I rewrote the opening chapters again. I queried some more. And nothing.
I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed, because I was, but maybe it didn’t hurt as much as it does some other writers since (thanks to my copious research beforehand) I was aware of the ridiculously small percentages of likelihood in publishing: the number of full requests you’ll get, the chances of an agent reading your work or offering feedback, the even smaller chances of an agent offering representation, then, if you do get an agent, the chance of landing an actual publishing deal. The Holy Grail. El Dorado.
I’d never set out to be published when I started writing. I write for myself, and that continues to be true to this day, but after finishing my novel I thought I might as well publish it. Several editors from contests have said they’re interested in the concept. People who have read it have loved it. And somebody else out there might love these characters as much as I do. Somebody might need this book. So that led me to today.
My new writing journey
Self-publishing. That’s the route I’ve decided to take. I can’t deal with publishing’s glacial pace, aside from the ghosting and form rejections from literary agents. I don’t want to see my novel remain in a desk drawer (or, nowadays, a file on my computer) until I get an agent or a publishing deal with a future novel. That seems like a waste to me.
So that means… more research! I’m currently immersed in podcasts and articles on self-publishing, and I’m drawing up my plan of attack: it started with my author website, and it will continue with blog posts, cover design, marketing and more.
I’m really excited about my decision to self-publish, and I wonder why I didn’t decide to do it sooner, but never mind. I’m at this point now, and I feel like I’m right where I’m meant to be, at exactly the right time.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey as I share my experience along the way. No doubt it will be bumpy, with lots to learn, but I’m sure it will be a ton of fun as well.
Check back in on my blog regularly, or sign up to my blog or newsletter and follow me on social media where you’ll find me (mostly) talking about books and writing. :)
I loved reading this! Super interesting to hear how your writing has evolved and I bet it was so satisfying to write "the end" finally! I can't wait to read the book when you're ready to publish it.