Behind the scenes with Love, Life & Dreams

Rebekah Louise
Sep 10, 2017
4 min read

I wanted to share with you why I wrote Love, Life & Dreams and tell you about each story.

Truth is, after reading so many good books, I wanted to have a go at writing a novel myself. However, 20,000 words in, I got stuck. I pressed on and I think I wrote around 40,000 (which I thought was amazing until I found out that a novel is a minimum of around 70,000 words). I couldn't see how I was going to get anywhere near that number, my plot was also unraveling and becoming messier the more I thought about it. Completely naive, I decided to send it off for a professional editor to read, comment on the story line, characters etc and to tidy it up. Well, I got a bit of a shock when they politely wrote back saying that there was A LOT wrong the story. Too much to even mention here. To put it simply, I didn't have a clue. I put all this down to experience and was determined to push through and achieve my ambition of writing a novel.

Initially I wanted to write a psychological thriller so I got out my huge sheet of paper and wrote down as many ideas as I could think of, researched how to write a thriller, however, my plots were just not coming together.

I resided myself to put writing a novel on hold and develop my writing by entering weekly competitions. I submitted short stories and through one particular website gained feedback from three other authors per story. This was invaluable and a great help to me to learn what was, and was not, working. I started to believe that I could write stories and that people were interested in my writing.

I decided to take some of my previous short stories and enhance them. I also wrote a couple of new stories and combining them, Love, Life & Dreams was published. One of other reasons I wanted to write short stories was due to the fact that a reader can start and finish a story in one or two sittings, making reading more accessible to busy people. I think it's great to enjoy a fantastic chick lit but not have to struggle to find the time. As women we can often struggle to juggle the family, work and our hobbies and interests. I wanted to create a book of stories for women to enjoy in-between the craziness of life. The hope is that they can enjoy chick lit but not feel guilty by taking out a chunk of their time and busy schedules. Love, Life & Dreams is a book that can be enjoyed over a cup of tea, on the train ride home, relaxing in the bath, snuggled in bed or sitting by the pool.

It has been a fantastic journey and one I am very glad of. I have had an amazing response that I am extremely grateful for. This has encouraged me to write another story which I hope to publish before the end of the year. This book will be a novella, which is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel.

Perhaps one day I will write a novel, but for now I am enjoying creating and sharing shorter stories. I love developing characters, scenarios and sharing them with my readers.

If you're reading this and you would like to give a short story a try, or you have room for another chick lit story in your life, it would be an honour if you gave Love, Life & Dreams a read (I also have a couple of free short stories on my website for you to enjoy).

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Book Blurb:

Cover & advertisment of Love, Life & Dreams

Love, Life & Dreams is a collection of five short stories. Each story is unique and is ideal for enjoying whilst on holiday or for escapism. 'Doctor's Orders' What do you do when you were planning a family with your husband, only to learn that he has been busy making a family with somebody else? Emma is in a bad place but someone is ready to swoop in and rescue her from herself. Just what the Doctor ordered. 'Julie' Tom meets Julie at work and quickly realises that she’s the woman he previously had a fling with. But surely everything will be okay if it’s just one run-in? It’s not as if Julie is going to pop up everywhere he looks – at his daughter’s school, at his wife’s tennis club… or is she? 'Live the Dream' Louis and Emma are happily married and travelling the world, ticking off the landmarks, enjoying every minute with each other. A reminder that it’s important to make the most of the time you have together… 'Off the Record' James is a DJ and a bit of a scoundrel. He only thinks of himself and can be rude about the women he’s been involved with. But he’s about to learn a big lesson when he accidentally leaves the radio microphone on and proceeds to talk about his latest fling… 'Suite 200' Ania has recently moved to the UK for a chance at a better life. She’s working hard in a hotel and is down on her luck. When a member of royalty arrives at the hotel, Ania gets to see first-hand that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.