Hello. I’m Rose Parry, and I’m a
mother, grandmother and full-time author, publisher and creative writing tutor.
G3A reflects my own journey into wellbeing through writing. I want to share the
best of it with you. For me, writing for wellbeing saved me from a world of overwhelm, and continues to be a mind-blowing journey which I will share in this blog. I can’t wait to meet you and share your stories as well!
After several decades working in the Arts, as a dancer and filmmaker, and then supporting and developing the creativity of professionals, children and communities, I decided that it was time for me to focus on my own creativity. By then, I had a good grasp of what creativity is, (and what it isn’t!) and how it sits inside us, nudging us to find fulfilment and purpose in our lives. To express ourselves.
I was a mum with two young children, commuting to a full-time, busy job in a London Arts Venue. My husband was intermittently ill and needed a great deal of support. I didn’t know that I had reached burn-out; it wasn’t something that was talked about or accepted at the time. But I kept ploughing on, ignoring the emotional and physical signs. Adding more and more weight to my to do list and feeling guilty about not being able to cope.
Then, following instinct alone, I picked up on an old habit: I kickstarted my writing; mostly short ideas and thoughts in notebooks. It became my solace when life was overwhelming. The blank page (or screen) was always there to listen. I wrote a lot of angst, alongside my thoughts, feelings and ideas regularly. One day, I realised that this was therapeutic and developmental for me, and it cost me nothing, but a bit of time each day. Meanwhile, the power of its ability to transform my life was proving to be awesome. I became more hopeful. I could identify the areas of my life which were problematic and look for solutions. It was step towards acceptance and healing.
An idea emerged from my pages. That I could be a writer! I loved learning new things, so, a bought a course – it was a correspondence course in those days, not online – and I had some success. I started with short fiction for the women’s magazine market. Several pieces were published and I won a competition! I was hooked on writing and soon produced my first novel. It bombed but I learnt a lot from the experience, and began to focus on my key interests: women’s lives, History and Secrets, which would become the main themes of my novels. This meant that my stories would be threaded through with rich seams of my own experiences – not so much events, but the emotional landscape I was living / had lived through.
In 2014, I published my first book – The Art Forger’s Daughter – which encompasses all of my themes as well as creating a character as a voice for my feelings. More books followed: The Traveller and the Rose grew out of my experience of living in Spain. Once Upon a Blue Moon is set in my flat in Camden Town, and relives the lives of young people in that exciting place. Divas, Dogs and Dreamers, drew on my experiences of working in theatre.
Writing helped, but so did the journey inside; I called it my inner work: the seeking fulfilment and completion which I could not reach with words alone. I found that I was digging deep to find my Why? And this led me down paths into coaching, psychology and a lot of self help books to explain Why my life was the way it was. What was the root cause of my problems? Why I was unfulfilled and where was MY calm confidence, which I witnessed in others?
I quit the day job and became a writer. This was, of course, Career suicide and led to penury for a few decades! But the journalling and the inner work grew deeper. I was learning a lot about myself and beginning to share it with others.
Becoming A WOW!
All of my early books have young, hopeful heroines, and mostly, they are love stories. Which is exactly where I was when I began to write. And they all reflect different aspects of my life. I wasn’t writing biographically, but using my life as a rich resource for material. By the time I published Ruby Sixpence Whistles up a Storm in 2020, I had changed. Ruby is the Wiser, Older Woman – A WOW! – the woman I hoped I was becoming. And she is empowered by magic. I realised that empowerment of women in their third age was my new theme. And G3A is the response.
In between the novels, I have written non-fiction books for authors, including:
Kickstart Your Writing. Write Your Life. A Roadtrip to Wellbeing Through Writing and A Month of Writing Adventure for Children. By this time, I had set up an online writing school and all of these books accompanied online courses. They mostly grew out of the real-life workshops I delivered in libraries, schools, festivals and even on a train and in the kitchen of Keats’ House, London. I have created writing groups and mentored many individual to write and publish their own books.
And during all of the writing, publishing, teaching and workshopping, I have continued to write my daily journal. It still provides a space for me to explore how I am and uncover any deeper wisdom within, which gets lost in the maelstrom of daily life. And then use it in a book!
(All of my fiction books are written as Anita Belli.)
G3A 