Hi friends,

I felt really inspired this week when I read ’s latest newsletter ‘How to Become an Artist’. So much so, that I’ve decided to fully rip off her idea borrow her idea and make my own version.

How to Become a Writer

Learn to speak really early. Like, be a talking baby. Like something out of Pixar.

Put down the Barbie dolls and make words your obsession. Tell your mum off for skipping pages to your favourite book at bedtime (she wants to get back downstairs because she’s missing Corrie).

Come to a compromise and make your Barbie dolls act out scenes from Corrie.

Fall head over heels for the sound of words. Repeat them a lot. “Achtualee” “Tellyphown” “Duckkk”

Be an only child. Get all the attention or none at all, like an on/off switch. Put on ‘shows’ in front of a pair of heavy red curtains in the dining room. Learn that being a performing monkey makes other people feel better. Learn that you should try and make other people feel better at the expense of yourself.

Be fascinated by illustrations in children’s books and stare at them for a long time each day. Invent your own worlds in your head. Tell the nursery teacher you have a brother named Peter. He’s your imaginary friend. Your mum has to tell the teacher you don’t have a brother.

Have no friends your own age. Write your very first story about an alien who wants to make a friend. Figures.

Compulsively write out ‘menus’ to make-believe cafes you have invented. Combine your love of words with your love of lists. The cafes are homes to the blandest food on earth.

Read the sports pages of the newspaper when you visit your Nan. Get in trouble for asking what the word ‘pen-is’ means when you sneak a look at ‘Take a Break’ magazine.

Learn about stand-up comedy and be enamoured. Tell everyone you want to be a comedian. This is disconcerting as you are an extremely shy, extremely quiet little girl who has ambitions to be Joan Rivers.

Spend an inordinate amount of time in libraries. Find a peace there that is like nowhere else you know. See your life as a working class kid reflected in the books of Jacqueline Wilson. The photo of Jacqueline Wilson on the back of the books is so cool. She wears chunky silver rings and she has short hair! You now want to be Jacqueline Wilson (you are cognisant of the ‘successful author’ part, not yet of the ‘queer icon’ part).

Write weird scripts that make no sense because they comprise of references to American TV shows you have only heard as passing references in episodes of Whose Line is it Anyway? Become obsessed with Whose Line is it Anyway? and the magic of thinking on your feet to say funny words in a funny order. You find it difficult to answer questions in class.

Send one of your weird scripts to one of Britain’s greatest comedians, Victoria Wood, and receive a genuinely lovely response that says:

“I liked your script a lot. Keep at it.”

You don’t keep at it because you have ADHD and the novelty of writing scripts has worn off.

Be a goody two-shoes. Your English teacher tells your mum at parents evening that you could be ‘the next JK Rowling’. (In hindsight you are extremely glad this did not come true.)

Get top marks in GCSE English and the school prize of a new laptop. The only laptop you’ve ever owned is a shitty second-hand laptop as your family is skint so this is a massive upgrade. What luck! Get your use out of this laptop, tapping away at stories and jokes throughout sixth form college. You are known at college as the girl who writes. Being a writer is now an intrinsic part of your identity and it’s the only thing you really know how to do.

Keep a seriously unhinged diary that needs to be burned upon your death.

Lose your love of writing the moment you arrive at university. Develop an alcohol problem. Feel guilt around writing and join the student newspaper because you feel you ought to. Write a few columns that are plain awful. Stop doing it. Start a terrible blog. Don’t keep it up.

Get sick of people saying “So you’re going to be a politician then?” when they discover what you’re studying. Feel very nauseous at the thought. Decide to cling onto the hope of getting paid to write words after graduation and train to be a journalist. Try to battle through your social anxiety. Drink more.

Luckily, meet the love of your life.

Qualify as a journalist. Be unemployed and feel ashamed.

Try writing online again to nobody. Do a lot of work experience and write random articles for random websites. Start lots of creative projects and finish none of them.

Get a job! It’s not a writing job but it pays minimum wage! It drains you of everything you have and breaks you down psychologically over the next few years in a strange mix of fluorescent lights, corporate networking and deadlines. Do not write for pleasure at all throughout this time. Drive self mad.

Pandemic arrives. Furlough happens. A big chunk of time to rest. Feel better. Go back to work. Realise there must be more to life than this. Get new job that is miles away. Make vague plans to move there. Don’t.

Have a bit of a spiral. Burnout, burnout, burnout. Then, have a man give you a certificate telling you you’re autistic and have ADHD. Now you are certified neurodivergent and it explains a lot, little kid who liked to repeat words for pleasure.

Something breaks. Start to prioritise yourself on a scale unheard of before. Stop doing things you ‘ought’ to. Get a new job that fulfils you and makes you happy.

Start a weekly newsletter. Unmask slowly.

Keep at the newsletter. Build a small community of like-minded folks. Wow, is this consistency? Launch paid subscriptions and people pay for your work! Then, when Substack goes all weird, make a Patreon and people still pay for your work!

Write a big chunk of a collection of essays on autism and ADHD. Learn lots from writing it but also feel a bit intimidated. Put it away and forget about it.

Develop a love of art, which spurs on a wish to learn to draw. Learn to draw. Study art. Make your writing better through your newfound love of art.

Keep writing newsletter. Start writing poetry. Love it to death. Make two zines. Wow, you made something! Open an Etsy shop. Get the zines printed and put them up for sale. People actually buy them. You have sold your words again! Receive the loveliest feedback from people around the world.

I’ve still never written a book. I’m not Jacqueline Wilson. But I know who I am.

I’m a writer.

Bits and Bobs Before We Go

How to Buy My Work

I have written two poetry zines: ‘Your Flowers’ and ‘Through the Window’

You can buy them through my Etsy shop ‘Ren’s Wavy Store’.

How to Support My Work

You can support me as a writer by signing up to a tier on my Patreon, which is www.patreon.com/cw/RenRiley.

There are two tiers where you can support me regularly to keep this newsletter going, and another tier where you can receive benefits like free PDFs of my zines.

The PDF of my latest zine is available for anyone to purchase here.

Thank you to everyone for your support!