On Saturday 24th June, we had the pleasure of Emma Wells, author of Unseen Victims, attending our community writing group, Writing Strong.
It was a brilliant session and Emma has inspired us all. Members have given really positive feedback about hearing Emma talk about her writing journey.
We thought it would be useful to include the questions that were asked during the session. Emma has kindly scribed the answers for this blog post.
And now, it’s over to Emma for our Q&A.
I was expelled from school aged 15. I have no G.C.S.E’s, I wasn’t allowed to take them. Was that a punishment? I’m not sure: but I undertook a degree in Environmental Management aged 30 and passed with a 2:2. At the time I had a truly horrible home life with a violent and abusive ex husband. I never gave up. I wanted to, often, but I had to prove every single person who mocked my ambition and scoffed at my intentions, wrong. The main focus for me taking the degree was to set my children on the path of education being a fundamental part of progress in life, regardless of their abilities but also aspire them to work toward achieving the very best of those abilities. My eldest 2 have a degree, my youngest is still studying. She finished secondary school with two of A*s and is expected to complete her degree with the same 1st class merits that her siblings did.
I’m so proud of my youngest for maintaining her academic grades because it was a pretty rough few years at such a critical point. Children suffer terribly when a parent is jailed. Robert isn’t her father but she witnessed the devastating effects caused by him being jailed.
I feel that no matter what a person’s capabilities are; that portraying positive and encouraging personal experiences are constructive for better mental wellbeing. Yes, the stories may be horrific, but we’re talking through them, let’s all crack on?
– Did you have a feeling that you would write about your experience one day whilst you were going through it?
I have been active in the falsely accused movement for over 7 years and supported thousands of loved ones on their journeys. I often used my personal experiences to assist their situations. My journey, at times, was extraordinary and as these challenges presented themselves to me I was constantly thinking … in the future this will assist others. Even from the very early days, just after conviction, I knew that putting these down in words would help others. I’d have given anything for a manual to reflect upon, even for the simplest of things like arranging visits or how long before I should expect my first call.
–How did you write Unseen Victims, what was your process?
I lost the plot, I ran away from my home and the responsibilities associated with maintaining a home and found myself in a campervan touring Scotland for 7 months. I bought a leatherbound journal which was always intended to be used to handwrite about my experiences whilst travelling. One night I began writing about my journey, I didn’t stop. I’d pull over often because something popped in my head and I had to get it down. It’s really weird because I’ve read it recently and it’s scrambled. It’s all relevant, but makes little sense. When I decided to grow up (a little) and return to civilization I spent 6 weeks typing up the full content.
–Did writing the book bring up any trauma for you, and do you have any tips for people as to how to cope with that?
The whole book is a trauma. The most difficult aspect was revisiting times that found me teetering on the edge of not wishing to exist anymore. Even writing this now is triggering. It is important that I express the awfulness of revisiting those places and times, but with each revist I am finding it easier to discuss. If that makes sense?
I will also never ever find forgiveness for the people who caused so much of the trauma that I suffered. I get very angry when I think of them and how unaffected their lives were around the time that the worst things in my life were happening to me. Christmas, Birthdays and anniversaries that found me so desperately depressed whilst they carry on oblivious to the harm that they have caused to an innocent bystander to another’s offending.
–How did you format Unseen Victims?
I wrote it in a word document but there is a tool that you can download from KDP that will assist you with editing and formatting. I couldn’t use it as I have a Chomebook. Consider this, if you have one, before trying to reformat your work to upload. It wasn’t easy and if my son wasn’t a computer wizz it would still be sitting in my files. You can pay for this to be done for you via a publisher but the cost is around £3000 even for the most basic package.
–What costs were involved in the creation of Unseen Victims?
It cost me nothing to publish the book. I have it retailed at £9.99. I make £3.33 for every sale but there are also royalties paid for every page read, in preview mode. It’s not a lot but has afforded me £221 so far. And that is even without a book being bought. Well as far as I can tell anyway.
–What publishing platform do you use? ie Amazon?
I used Amazon KDP
–Did you use any promotion on Amazon to assist with algorithms to make your work more visible?
I have been very fortunate in that I have a decent following on Twitter, I admin a number of groups on social media and I am affiliated with countless organisations and groups who are all promoting the book. I have been approached by a number of people who have written outstanding reviews and garnered interest from various media outlets. I very much doubt that I would utilise any promotional tools on Amazon. They are making enough from the book sales as it is tbh.
–Are you able to tell us about any projects that you have lined up next?
Book 2 … I am already 20,000 words in and it is stonker. But i’ll leave that there for today 😀
Unseen Victims is available on Amazon.
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