Retiring was the best thing that I’ve ever done
Over60 community member Gayle Torrens, 64, recounts her recent journey as an author, a dream that has been bubbling away for a long time. While Gayle was initially worried about being bored when she retired, she’s found she’s never been happier or busier in undertaking this adventure in self-publishing her first children’s novel.
I've heard it said that everyone has a novel inside them just clamouring to get out. Well, I know that in my case, that was the absolute truth.
I started storytelling when I was quite young – around 12 years old. Dad had been out of work for a while and Christmas was looming so I got two grey blankets, some coloured squares of material and an old cloth nursery rhyme book off the Salvos. I cut the coloured squares into neat circles, squares, diamonds and triangles and stitched them to one blanket and made up two spinners, one showing colours and one showing body parts. I gave this to my oldest brother who was about six. Then I cut out all the figures from the cloth nursery rhyme book and sewed them onto the second blanket. I gave this to my younger brother who was about two. We used to all get under it and say, “Magic words of poof, poof, piffles; Take us to the Land of Sniffles.” The boys would shine the torch at one of the characters and I would make up fantastically complicated stories about that character.
When my grandchildren came along, I would make up stories for them, turning people and places they knew into the magical characters and mythical locations. They loved them but as time went on, and the stories continued, I would get the characters mixed up, much to my grandchildren's great frustration, so I started writing the stories down.
When I retired from teaching, I became “The Storyteller” and dressed in a range of lovely character costumes to visit schools and tell twisted tales. I started with the younger classes but then the older students wanted them so now I do pre-school to year six.
After a while, people began saying, “You should publish your stories so that all kids can enjoy them.” That thought appealed to me so I put all my tales into a novel and sent it off to several Australian publishers. Many publishers were not interested in first time authors. I didn't even get rejections – just a deadly silence. It was enough to kill any creativity.
Then I heard about CreateSpace. They will print your book for free and make it available for sale. I was so excited, I got onto it straight away! It was a bit daunting working my way through the site at first, but luckily, I had a friend who had just published his own novel this way so he was a marvellous help.
My book, “The Tralls of Nindarry” is now available on both Amazon US and Amazon UK and the sales are slowly trickling it. I'm not going to get rich from it but I'm not interested in that. My riches come from the thought that children around the world are reading my book.
What’s it about? Here’s the synopsis
“Germaine thinks that he is heading off for a fun filled holiday with his grandparents at Ninderry in Queensland, Australia but when he arrives, he finds his grandfather seriously ill. As his parents are committed to flying to Canberra to try to save Fraser Island from the ravages of sand mining, it is left to him to help his grandmother find the unusual cure - the only thing that will save his grandfather's life. The journey to find the cure sets Germaine and his grandmother on a fantastic journey into a parallel world that is amazingly beautiful but, at the same time incredibly dangerous. Along the way, Germaine uncovers a long held family secret. Will this secret bring his family even closer to each other or will it shatter his family forever?”
My son read it to his class and he said, “Mum the kids loved it.”
I just got this review from a friend who has read the book: “What an epic tale of adventure! You have used such powerful imagery to create a parallel Tralldom world contrasting between a magical wonderland of beauty and a land with monsters and dangerous animals. It has enough to stimulate the most lacking imagination and it's interspersed with a great story of hardship, friendship, loyalty and love.”
As far as I am concerned those words are worth more than money!
If you have a book inside you that is clamouring to get out, don't be put off by the brick walls around the Australian publishing scene. Do it yourself.
To learn more about Gayle’s book visit her Amazon page.
Photo is a stock image and not of Gayle Torrens.