How “Mary Mouse” Drove the Direction of my Life in Writing: Mary Jones
I went to school when I was four years old, and was so excited to be there, unlike my cousin Lydia, who cried for most of the first week and threw up in the sandpit. The reason for my excitement – books! They had so many. The teacher asked what my favourite was. My answer came immediately: “We All Love Mary Mouse” – the book in the picture above. She opened the book, ready to read it to me, when I began to “read” it myself and turn the pages as I went.
Her astonishment was clear. ‘You can read already?’ Actually, I couldn’t. The reason I knew what was on each page was down to my grandmother. This was my favourite book – along with two others in the series by Enid Blyton – and Nan read it to me every day, at least twice a day.
I loved it so much I had memorised it.
It didn’t take long for me to actually learn to read and from that time on, books were my life. They were a joy, an adventure, an escape.
I wrote my first story the following year, at age five. On the first day of term the teacher asked the class to write something about their summer holiday, then draw a picture. We were each given a sheet of A5 lined paper. I wrote on the whole page, a story about a sail boat I had seen from the caravan my parents had hired for the week. When I finished, I put up my hand. The teacher came over. ‘I haven’t any room for a picture,’ I said, thinking I would get more paper. I didn’t. I got a telling off. ‘You should have left more room.’ A writer’s life is often fraught with disappointment. And, I’m no artist, so the picture would have been rubbish.
My grandmother continued to read to me until I was too old to listen, preferring to choose my own books. But, stories proliferated in my head. I wrote them down, sometimes in secret, sometimes read out in class. When it came to senior school, English language was the only subject for which I received an “A” grade.
Sadly, the school I attended didn’t appreciate my writing skill, nor encourage opportunity in that direction. I ended up with a career of jobs for which I never managed to find a passion and one company I particularly hated. Yet, it’s that company I have to thank for giving me the idea to find a way to remove myself from its toxic culture.
On a journey home to South Wales from London, on an overcrowded train, squashed into a corner seat, I began to draft a story. At this time I had become a fanatic about family history and was, for the first time, learning about the trials and tribulations that were the stories of my ancestors’ lives. Through researching, I discovered one side of the family had lost a child at a young age. I thought, what if that child hadn’t died, but was actually lost, missing. How, in the 19th century, would they have gone about searching for her? Why did she disappear? Was she ever found?
The notes I made on that train journey formed the basis of the first book in my Maze Investigations series, called “Three Times Removed”. It took me several years to write, with a full-time job, bringing up children, and then finding a publisher. The book features a team of three professional genealogists, each with their own mystery to solve, as well as taking on cases for clients. It was eventually published in 2015. This year is the tenth anniversary, and I will never forget the feeling of the first time of holding a book that I had written. I had, at last, found my passion.
Fast forward ten years. There are now nine books in the Maze Investigations series, the latest one – “The Diamond Eaters” – published a month ago. I have a second series – The Curiosity Club of St Foy – a cosy mystery series set in Cornwall. I am currently writing book number four in that series, called The Cult of Flowers.
Last year, I teamed up with Cardiff writer John F Wake, premier South Wales expert on Victorian poverty, policing and notorious characters of that era, to produce a novel based on a worn-out news hack, called Trevor Gwyn Jones. That book, “Death on a Gravestone”, was published in October 2024 and we are now working on the high-level outline for the second in the series.
I can now produce two books a year and I’ll probably only stop writing when I can no longer rattle my fingers on a keyboard.
It hasn’t been an easy journey at times. Often, I’ve felt like giving up. Since parting company with the original publisher, I have been self-published. I struggle, as do many self-published authors, with the dreaded marketing and publicity. But I retain a love of learning, so I am currently planning a podcast and a YouTube channel and I’m trying to get to grips with AI.
What would I say to new authors, who are trying to self-publish in these difficult times? Just this: Don’t give up. Keep going, whatever the setbacks. You can overcome them, and there’s a lot of help out there. Develop and, most of all, enjoy your skill – because writing is a skill. Never stop learning. And never stop reading. Learn from other writers.
It’s a long time, a very long time, since I “read” Mary Mouse and wrote my first story. It’s in my DNA now. All of my books are on Amazon and are available as audiobooks on multiple platforms.
On a final note, my cousin Lydia learned to love school, thrived and became a doctor.
Good luck with your own stories!
Crime Cymru 