Guest blog post by a co-author of The Box Under The Bed, Juliet Nubel

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At exactly this time last year my daughter had just set up my very own WordPress blog: omgimfifty.com.

After months of jotting in a bedside journal and being unable to decipher the majority of my messy scribblings, I had begged her to help me turn my bedtime writing habit into an anytime, anywhere, legible online diary.

On October 2nd 2016 I shakily pushed the ‘publish’ button and my very first blog post became visible to the world (ie my parents and my sister).

October 1st 2017, one of my short stories was published in the scary anthology The Box Under the Bed

and hopefully many more people will be reading my words and enjoying them as much as my family do (well, they always say they do anyway).

From baby blogger to published author in one short year is a situation which I am finding exceedingly difficult to describe.

I haven’t really got my head around it yet.

All I can say is that I loved writing the piece which will appear in the anthology. It was originally a follow-up to a six word challenge set by J.A. Allen in her Sunday Scribble Challenge at jaallenauthor.com. I became addicted to those challenges, sending in texts every week, often only a couple of hours after the prompt appeared in my inbox. In fact I simply became addicted to writing and kept posting and posting for all I was worth.

Through J.A. Allen I met Dan and did a couple of guest posts for him before finally deciding to enter his Word Weaver Writing Contest in July.

It was during a tough time in our family and the piece was written straight from my guts,

passing through my heart and sticking in my throat before it actually ended up on the page. I think Dan felt all that raw grief and anger seeping out of the text and he awarded me fifth place in the contest.

Holy McZoly, that was a surprise.

However, I just couldn’t accept his offer to have that piece in the anthology. It was far too personal and vindictive. But he liked my story ‘Lovingly He Held Her Head Underwater’ and proposed to use that one instead.

I was delighted until I realised that I would never be able to promote or market the book as efficiently as the other authors

because I am so technologically and socially backward.  

I even suggested he take it out because I felt so bad about my lack of investment in the whole affair. He told me that he knew some authors wouldn’t have the same means to push sales but he wanted my story in there anyway.

Thank you Dan for persuading me to stay. I am happy and proud to be a part of this incredibly well-organised project. It has been undertaken quickly and very professionally. A lot of people have spent a lot of time and energy ensuring that the final result looks good and reads well. Thank you all for what you have done.

And the release of the anthology will also play an important role in allowing me to release the real writer within me.

She is there. I know she is there.

You have told me she’s there. You have told me she’s good. And I am finally going to start believing you. 

If a fortune-teller had told me last October that in one year’s time I would be able to pick up a paperback anthology, flip through the pages and see my name in black and white under one of the stories, I would have stomped out of her incense-infused room without paying. 

What a difference a year makes….

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Juliet, if I played a small role in helping you see what an amazing writer you are, then I will accept that praise. You do it; I just sit on the sidelines and cheer. The story was good, so it earned its way into the anthology.

Gang, it was a blast working with such amazing talents like Juliet Nubel on this scary anthology.

Check out Juliet’s other works HERE,

and check out the Box Under The Bed right now!