Just a quick share. I was invited to interview over on Masters of Horror U.K. by David Kempf. We chat about writing inspiration, the popularity of horror, publishing and current projects. You can check that out by clicking the link.
Apparently, I can be a bit of a blether! Much thanks to David Kempf, and those who take the time to check it out!
Updated cover for ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back‘— May 2021.
March 2018, working on and releasing this book was my first time venturing into publishing independently. Being so intimate, I didn’t consider sending proposals to publishers. It could be said that this was my baby for my babies. I’ve always been a writer, but publishing was a way for me to show an example of fearlessness and gratitude to my girls, a lesson that they have taught me, with so many others.
On this, I did everything solo; writing, editing, working with feedback from my very supportive pre-readers, formatting for digital and print, cover design, promotional material and publishing. It’s effortless for those who don’t understand the labour and learning that goes into self-publishing (let alone doing so with something so profoundly personal) to dismiss those who choose that route, like myself, as amateur or playing a vanity game. That could not be further from the truth for many writers who choose to self-publish or join forces with small press’. I touched on this a little recently; https://clanwitch.com/2021/04/06/publishing-which-way/
It’s been three years now since ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back’ was released, and there are a few niggles that I often think about changing.
The first is editing. This was my first time editing something at this length, a piece that was (is) as intimate as a diary, journeying through a very traumatic time when it hadn’t even resigned itself to the ‘past’ yet. My heart and head were still sore. On top of that, I can admit that my skills have developed since this publication — I would love to go back and improve. For now, though, with so many other commitments, the past will have to wait, maybe one day. Truthfully, it’s a place I’m not ready to re-visit.
The second is that I’ve never been fully happy with the cover, which I have re-worked and updated. The image of the dandelion, particularly when seeding, has always been one in nature that I find poignant and inspiring. This image, this flower commonly regarded as a weed, represents so many ideas; resilience, strength, perseverance, endurance, determination, life cycles, and innocence. Pairing this with the rainbow’s significance in parenthood (symbolic of a child born after loss; the joy after the storm).As simple as it may be, I love the intertwining of the seeding dandelion head and rainbow. The fit with ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back‘ feels right.
This picture doesn’t look real…
Like there’s a filter; to enhance, to hide, deceive the eye.
Shielding a painful reality; it was a painful reality.
The mind, like the camera, does this all on its own.
This picture doesn’t look real…
A reflection of how it felt; a blue hue, a hazy dream.
Everything thrown out of balance.
A reality that swallowed you up, yet one that could barely be touched.
Spinning lost through electrical sparks.
A new reality at the edge of everything.
At the edge of all the mattered and all that didn’t.
A steady calm or frozen panic; so close to the same.
Something else on the edge; the blurred borderline where the unreal is real.
© Natasha Sinclair
Read more about our experience through NICU in my deeply personal memoir, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: A story of love & survival through NICU.’
Clan Witch & Word Refinery 