Today I’m all like this…
Because yesterday was release day for The Memory Game, and it was an incredible and enjoyable day, one of the best days I’ve had as a writer so far. I have so many wonderful people to thank for that, people who read the book at the beginning and offered their constructive opinions, people who read it again when I’d rewritten it, people who read it to offer insightful and intelligent reviews when it was finished, people who helped spread the word, people who downloaded it, of course, or people who simply told me they believed in the book. I was going to list you all individually, but the list is enormous and I’m certain I’ll forget somebody vital. I would hate to do that because you’re all so important and I wouldn’t want you to ever think otherwise. You people know who you are, and how much I love you for being the best and most supportive friends a writer could wish for. It’s down to you all that yesterday was such a success. An author can produce the work of the century, but if nobody knows about it, there’s almost no point. Everyone has their own motives for writing. It’s true that I write because I’m compelled to tell stories, but I also need my stories to be read by others, it’s what drives me. Without the help I have received, not just yesterday, but all along the publishing journey, that couldn’t happen. I can only hope that this is the start of a long and fun journey, and that I’ll have you all alongside, singing with me every step of the way.
Like many of the books I’ve released this year, The Memory Game started life while I was doing my creative writing degree between 2006 and 2009. I remember sitting in a class and being handed a photo. From that photo, I was told, I had to create a scenario. My photo was of an abandoned bicycle. It looked forlorn to me, as though something really bad had happened to the owner. I decided that the owner was a boy on his paper round. It wasn’t hard for me to make the next connection, that the boy had been knocked from his bike by a car, because, as a teenager myself, I had worked as a paper girl and one of the boys who worked alongside me was killed by a car while out on his round one night. It was one of those deeply affecting events, one moment that changes your outlook on life forever. It was the first time I had encountered such a tragedy first-hand involving someone my own age. Suddenly, I understood that we weren’t as invincible as I had always believed. That memory came to the fore of my mind while looking at the photo in my creative writing class that day. The next thing that happened in my story scenario was that the boy was telling us about the way he had died.
Sharon Sant 