Author Q&A With Helen Aitchison 

Helen Aitchison is the author of six fiction books and several non-fiction books. Following a career in senior social care, she writes about community and experiences we can all have, as well as social issues – using her writing as a vehicle to raise awareness and bring comfort and connection to readers. 

Helen lives in North Tyneside and runs community interest company, Write on the Tyne, which aims to make creative writing inclusive, accessible, and therapeutic. She is on the charity board for Age UK, volunteers for the charity, Omega, and campaigns for rescue animals. Meet Helen:

You are an author, but is it your day job? If not, what fills your days? Alongside writing, I am the director of a community interest company called Write on the Tyne. The nonprofit aims to make creative writing and storytelling inclusive, accessible, and therapeutic. Within the organization, I work with individuals, community groups, and charities to share the voices, experiences, and imaginations of people through storytelling, with a focus on marginalized voices. This includes teaching, projects, and commissions.

Did you always want to be an author? No, I actually never thought about being a writer until my late thirties. I think it’s important to remember that we can have had a dream all our lives, or we can wake up one morning with a new goal – each path is valid.

How do you hope your book will uplift readers? I hope that it helps people to see that we can make friends with people who are different from us and that our own story is important, for our loved ones and us. That perhaps someone will think about their own life map and family, and explore connections, but ultimately, family isn’t always about blood.

What are you most excited about with this book? I’m excited for the characters to get out into the world. I loved writing from a male protagonist perspective in Harry Macbeth, and I completely felt he was part of me. It will be amazing to get readers’ perspectives on him and his journey.

How did writing a book help your career take off? I was so lucky to get a publishing deal with my publisher, Cahill Davis Publishing. It was a completely new and very different world to me, and I was clueless about the industry. The mentoring and support massively helped me in my writing and personal confidence. The overwhelming positivity around my first book, The Dinner Club, helped me realize that writing could be a possible career, and I never looked back. 

Now, I combine my love of writing in my fictional books with my business and the production of non-fiction anthologies.

What advice would you give someone wanting to succeed in your professional industry? There are lots of tips that have helped me. They include:

• Making time to write: prioritise writing in your busy schedule. Even thirty minutes a week is thirty minutes more than doing nothing. 
• Try writing short pieces (poetry and prose) and find your genre and style.
• Join a local writing group, or if not, become active in an online group.
• Find an accountability partner: someone you can share your writing with and also read and critique theirs. Set goals together and check in/support each other.
• Read, read, and read some more. It will undoubtedly make you a better writer.
• Develop a thick skin (where you can). Not everyone will love your work, and they will let you know!
• Realise the industry is tough to get into. Less than 1% of writers will be traditionally published. However, there are many routes to help everyone get there, and the only failing is never trying!
• Work with professionals, especially if you are going to self-publish. Editors exist for a reason, as do cover designers. And we ALL judge a novel by its cover. 

How do you handle setbacks and criticism? This is really important, and developing a thick skin is essential. It’s really challenging, and no one likes criticism. However, anyone who puts anything out into the world will receive negativity back. It may be on a social media post, or in a group, right through to an agent or publisher rejecting your manuscript, to bad reviews once your work is out into the world. The first rejections will hurt, but dwelling on them is pointless, and most of the time, it’s out of your control. When I got my first one-star review, I was gutted. Then I realised that it was either out of spite or because that person wasn’t my target audience. There was nothing I could do about it, so giving it extra energy was like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die! Now, I acknowledge that bad reviews can often say more about the person reviewing than the book/product, and I focus on the people who believe in me and support me.

Being an author today is like running a business. How do you manage your publicity and social media and maintain engagement with readers? Social media can be our best friend or our worst enemy. It’s an excellent way to connect with people, make friends, and get your work out into the world, but it can also be soul-destroying and unhealthy, given the unpleasantness it can entail. It therefore needs to be handled right and from a business perspective. Many of us have our own personal social media accounts and a busy life outside of them. Balance is key, and personally, I have been guilty of being consumed by social media to an unhealthy degree. 

Now, after much exploring, doom scrolling, and time-wasting, I know which platforms work for me and where to concentrate my precious time in a way that keeps me connected to readers and helps people to see me as a person as well as someone who writes. 

How do you hold yourself accountable and achieve the goals that you set forth? Once I decide I want to do something and I commit to it, I am highly focused (the positive side of ADHD!). However, I often set myself unachievable goals (such as writing a first draft of a novel in a month) and can be tough on myself. We are all a work in progress! I constantly strive for balance, and, like many of us, I am exceptional at helping others and offering advice, but I’m pretty rubbish at doing it myself. This approach definitely means I produce books, but it burns me out, so I keep reflecting and trying to adjust my mentality and behaviours.  

How do you structure your day and make time for writing? As I have my own business with Write on the Tyne, I don’t have a regular income, as my work is determined by grants, paying individuals, and commissions from organisations. Therefore, I don’t write daily. Instead, I have pockets of quieter periods at work where I may only have a few smaller commitments, and I binge-write. I am currently doing that now in the run to Christmas. 

When my business is busier, I write where I can, but I always try to make time for it in my week, as writing is ultimately part of my well-being. 

What do you find most fulfilling in the career that you’ve chosen? Being able to bring characters and storylines to readers. I write about social issues, influenced by my own life, the lives of people around me, and a lengthy career in social care. In my books, I talk about social injustice, struggles, and unmet needs we can all face, and I try to use writing as a vehicle to raise awareness and help people feel heard – even through fictional characters.

There is absolutely nothing better than meeting someone at an event or getting in touch online and hearing that a character could have been them or their loved ones. The number of people who have said, ‘Your book made me feel I wasn’t alone’, or ‘The character could have been me’, or ‘The character gave me hope’ has been incredible. People are so different, but they understood my message of universal emotions and circumstances. And that’s all any of us ever want: to feel understood.

What book uplifts you? Anything by Fredrik Backman. I adore him and think he knits the simplest words together to make an unforgettable emotional impact. He’s a beautiful writer. I also love anything by Mitch Albom and Matt Haig. My Friends by Backman is my favourite book of the year. 

You can connect with Helen and follow her author story through her website.