The Story Behind Me

The past three to four years have been among the most demanding periods of my creative life. Establishing myself as an independent author has involved an extraordinary amount of work, much of which I initially undertook without the knowledge, resources or guidance that experienced publishing professionals often take for granted.

I entered this industry with a collection of manuscripts, an enthusiasm for storytelling and very little understanding of the commercial responsibilities involved in bringing books to the public.

There were countless decisions to make, unfamiliar processes to navigate and lessons that could only be learned through experience. I also discovered that the independent publishing industry presents its own challenges, particularly when it comes to identifying reliable professional services and knowing whom to trust.

At times, the pressure became overwhelming. I found myself repeatedly revisiting earlier decisions, restructuring collections, reconsidering publication plans and attempting to develop a professional presence while still learning how the industry operated.

The experience was exhausting, and there were occasions when I genuinely questioned what I was doing.

To understand why I continued, however, it is necessary to understand something about the person behind the books.

A Storyteller Before an Author

I never set out with the ambition of becoming a publicly recognised author.

For most of my life, writing was something I did entirely for myself. I loved stories, particularly those exploring supernatural mysteries, witchcraft, magic, horror and the extraordinary possibilities hidden within seemingly ordinary lives.

I have always appreciated the creativity of other authors. Reading allowed me to experience worlds that fascinated me, although I frequently found myself imagining different possibilities, additional histories and characters whose experiences might unfold in entirely unexpected directions.

Eventually, those ideas developed into stories of my own.

My imagination has always worked in several directions simultaneously. Different concepts, characters, settings and narrative possibilities often occupy my thoughts at the same time.

A manuscript might begin with one particular idea before gradually revealing a much larger history that I had never consciously planned.

Over the years, this has resulted in numerous completed and unfinished works, many of which have undergone substantial revisions as my understanding of their characters and fictional worlds has developed.

I have returned to older manuscripts, expanded their histories, strengthened their themes and reconsidered the direction of entire narratives. Some stories have evolved so extensively that their present versions bear little resemblance to the earliest drafts.

This process has become an essential part of my development as a writer.

For a very long time, however, I had no intention of allowing anyone else to read them.

The Two Readers Who Changed Everything

My decision to share my fiction began with the encouragement of two particular friends who, rather remarkably, have almost identical names.

Both share my enthusiasm for many of the genres I enjoy writing, and their interest in my stories introduced me to the possibility that something I had created for my own enjoyment might also appeal to other readers.

One especially memorable moment occurred while I was sharing an apartment with one of these friends.

She began reading a manuscript I had finally completed, a Southern Gothic-inspired story titled Mysterious Violet.

When she finished reading, her immediate response was simple.

“That was blooming good.”

Those words have stayed with me.

Until then, I had never seriously considered publishing my fiction.

I had spent years creating characters, developing plots and constructing imaginary worlds without imagining that these private stories might eventually become published books.

The encouragement I received from those two readers helped change my perspective.

For the first time, I began considering what it might mean to share my work beyond the small circle of people who knew me personally.

A Different Beginning

My earliest experience of independent publishing came through creating my own oracle decks, an extension of my longstanding involvement in spiritual guidance and divination.

From approximately the age of fourteen, I devoted much of my life to working as a spiritual adviser and psychic reader, offering guidance to people seeking understanding, reassurance or direction.

This work became a significant part of my identity and continued throughout much of my adult life.

Creating oracle and tarot decks felt like a natural progression from that experience. Publishing novels, however, belonged to an entirely different world.

My original ambitions never included establishing myself as a fiction author. I was content to continue writing privately, developing stories whenever inspiration arrived.

That changed during an especially difficult period of my life.

Following years of personal trauma, I felt increasingly compelled to write a memoir documenting my experiences. It became an opportunity to tell my story in my own words, address the circumstances that had shaped my life and challenge the misconceptions and false accounts that had surrounded parts of my past.

Writing that memoir represented something profoundly personal.

It was an attempt to reclaim my own history after spending many years struggling to speak openly about it.

The experience also changed my relationship with publishing.

Once I had taken that first step towards sharing my life through the written word, the possibility of publishing my fiction began to feel more attainable.

The Life Behind the Imagination

Much of my creative work has been influenced by circumstances that I rarely discussed publicly.

My life has involved considerable hardship, including traumatic experiences, mistreatment, serious personal struggles and periods of profound isolation.

For many years, I kept those experiences largely to myself.

There were times when acknowledging certain events felt more difficult than attempting to put them out of my mind entirely. I became accustomed to carrying on with daily responsibilities while keeping much of my private life separate from the people around me.

Health difficulties also became part of my life from a relatively young age. Over time, chronic pain, physical limitations and the consequences of earlier experiences affected my ability to maintain the kind of independence and social life that many people might consider ordinary.

There were periods when leaving home became extremely difficult. At other times, I continued attempting to work despite considerable physical discomfort, determined to remain productive for as long as possible.

My experiences also included struggles with addiction, self-harm, anxiety and difficulties being in crowded or unfamiliar environments.

These are deeply personal subjects, and for many years I chose not to discuss them publicly.

Even when circumstances became particularly difficult, I continued creating. Writing, developing ideas, designing projects and exploring new creative possibilities gave me something meaningful to concentrate on during periods when much of the outside world felt increasingly inaccessible.

As my health and personal circumstances changed, so did the structure of my life.

Traditional employment became difficult to sustain, and my opportunities for social interaction became more limited. I spent substantial periods at home, often working independently on creative projects that few people knew existed.

Although those circumstances were challenging, they also gave my imagination an extraordinary amount of room to develop.

The characters and fictional worlds I created became familiar companions throughout many of those years.

Writing with Dyslexia

Another important part of my journey has been learning to work with dyslexia. Storytelling has always come naturally to me. I can develop characters, visualise settings and follow complicated narrative structures with considerable clarity.

The technical presentation of those stories has often required a different kind of effort. Spelling, punctuation and grammar can present difficulties, and my early manuscripts sometimes reflected the informal language and speech patterns of everyday conversation.

I have never regarded my background or the way I naturally speak as something that should prevent me from writing.

Nevertheless, I recognised that preparing a manuscript for publication would require careful editing, additional support and a willingness to develop the technical aspects of my work.

This was another challenge I had to navigate while learning about the publishing industry.

My approach has been to preserve the individuality of my storytelling while improving the clarity, consistency and professional presentation of each manuscript.

The process takes time, particularly when revisiting substantial collections of older work, but it is an important part of ensuring that readers receive the strongest possible version of each story.

When Stories Become Worlds

One of the most unusual aspects of my creative process is the way I experience stories before they appear on the page.

I often describe it as watching a film unfold inside my mind.

Characters have distinct personalities, settings possess their own atmosphere, and events seem to develop with an internal logic that I instinctively understand.

I can visualise entire scenes, including the smallest details of a room, the expressions of individual characters and the emotional circumstances surrounding a particular moment.

Sometimes, I feel as though I know the story long before I have written enough of it to understand precisely where it is going.

This has made storytelling an intensely immersive experience.

My imagination has also been shaped by decades of spiritual practice and my personal experiences with phenomena I interpret through a supernatural perspective.

Those experiences have influenced the subjects I explore, particularly in stories involving hauntings, psychic abilities, spiritual mysteries, witchcraft and the darker aspects of human existence.

There are occasions when inspiration arrives with such clarity that the process feels almost like receiving a story rather than consciously inventing one.

I understand that readers will interpret creativity and spiritual inspiration in different ways. For me, however, that connection has become a meaningful part of how I experience my work.

It is particularly evident in the characters who remain with me long after a manuscript has been completed.

Some feel remarkably familiar, possessing histories, motivations and personalities that continue developing in my imagination even when I am occupied with other projects.

These are the characters I return to, sometimes years later, because I feel there is still more of their story waiting to be told.

The Cost of Constant Creativity

My dedication to writing has occasionally made it difficult to maintain a conventional routine.

There have been long periods when I have worked late into the night, moving between manuscripts, developing new ideas and revisiting older projects.

Sleep has often been limited, sometimes to only a few hours, particularly when I have become absorbed in a story or determined to complete a particular stage of work.

Combined with ongoing health difficulties, this has made the demands of independent publishing especially challenging.

For several years, I attempted to manage almost every aspect of the process myself, including writing, editing, design, publishing decisions, promotional planning and the development of my author platform.

Looking back, I recognise that I was attempting to undertake an enormous amount of work without an established professional framework.

That experience explains many of the changes readers may have noticed across my collections and earlier publishing plans.

Projects were reconsidered, manuscripts were withdrawn for further development, and publication schedules changed as I gained a clearer understanding of what I wanted to achieve.

These decisions were part of a continuing effort to improve the work and establish a more sustainable direction for the future.

A New Chapter for My Books

Today, I am approaching my writing career with a clearer understanding of the responsibilities involved in publishing and a stronger sense of the kind of author I want to become.

Many of my earlier works are being revisited, revised and, where necessary, extensively rewritten.

Some have remained unpublished for years. Others were shared only privately with a very small number of readers before being returned to development.

My intention is to give these manuscripts the preparation and professional attention they did not originally receive.

The worlds, characters and stories that occupied so much of my private life are finally being prepared for a wider audience.

I remain the same storyteller who began writing for personal enjoyment, fascinated by the supernatural, drawn to unusual characters and endlessly interested in the mysteries that exist beyond familiar experience.

What has changed is my willingness to share those stories and my determination to present them with the care they deserve.

Becoming an independent author has been a demanding and often unpredictable journey.

It has required me to learn new skills, reconsider old assumptions and confront challenges I could never have anticipated when I first began writing.

There is still much I intend to accomplish.

For now, I am concentrating on the work itself, bringing older manuscripts into their strongest form, developing new stories and gradually introducing readers to the many fictional worlds I have spent years creating.

Rowan Milo

Author and Storyteller