TUESDAY! - 1st Blog Day!

THIS IS ME!

Basically, I'm no blogger! There I said it! I don't feel I have anything interesting enough to say about myself, but here I am writing my first blog on Blogger! Be kind.

As this is my first blog, I'll start by telling you a little about me. My name is Arden Jones and I'm a children's author. Hi! 👋

I've always loved writing, but I haven't always written children's books. As a teenager in love, I started writing poetry and song lyrics, which almost always were about heartbreak. Ah, those pesky first loves! Anyway, I also loved to read, and my head was always in a book. My favourites as a young child were The Wishing Chair and The Naughtiest Girl series by Enid Blyton. Then I moved onto adult novels from around 12 years old, reading mostly Virginia Andrews. At 13, I somehow signed up to a Mills and Boon subscription service and devoured hundreds of those short novellas! Not sure how the subscription worked, considering I was a child. Sorry Mum! Suffice to say, I grew up with unrealistic views of relationships! But we won't talk about that!

After the birth of my 2nd daughter, I fell in love with children's picture books. They brought back memories of me reading them with my first daughter 16 years previous, and some of my own childhood memories of reading books such as, Dear Zoo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar! By a stroke of luck, I found this beautiful book - The Girl and the Dinosaur, written by Hollie Hughes and illustrated by Sarah Massini in a local supermarket.

Copyright: Hollie Hughes and Sarah Massini

I fell in love with it instantly, as did my 1-year-old daughter. The story takes you on a lyrical, magical adventure with Marianne, a girl who discovers the 'stony' bones of a dinosaur that comes to life. The illustrations by Sarah Massini are breathtakingly beautiful throughout.

I knew I needed to read more of Hollie and Sarah's stories, and I researched where to find them. This took to me to Hollie's website, where I read she was an 'Essex girl' too! And she was first published at 41! It was as though an epiphany occurred!

"I can do this!"

Well, I could try anyway! But I was 40 years old, and with a, let's say 'difficult childhood' growing up with an abusive stepfather and often being homeless between the ages of 14-18, I didn't have any confidence that someone like me could ever have the chance to achieve something so amazing. My husband disagreed, though. He DID believe in me, and he held me up as I started on this journey, and he still does now. As a musician, he understands the need to be creative, to reach for those dreams, and he wants me to succeed.

This band pic was taken in the Noughties! They have toured with HUGE bands: Deep Purple, Bon Jovi, Nickelback, and so many more! He's so talented, not that he'll ever admit it! 💗

My rockstar hubby! (Centre)

So that was that! My writing career began. I'll not go into the journey to finding my agent here. I will write another blog about that another time though! But I feel incredibly lucky to have found my calling, even if it did take 40 years to find it.

Until next time...