This is the story of Author Stewart Buxton’s writing journey in his own words…
I’ve been writing with the idea of someday seeking publication for 15 years. “Scotsfield Bay” was the first work I undertook as a serious work of poetry. I had little to do one evening and I began thinking about writing a book for young readers that would be entertaining and educational, something to sink their minds into as I had done with the great works like Treasure Island or Alice in Wonderland. I only wanted to tell an adventure story that also had a message. Be mindful. Relax. Learn. The first half of “Scotsfield Bay” was written in two sittings in 1996. Something gripped me in 2007, and I began to want to write more and more poetry. I had a manuscript for an autobiography in verse that came to an outright do or die crossroads and I finally self-published it in 2023.
It is only now, that I am salient enough to edit and format my own books. One of the great hurdles of my life and my work has been one variety of mental illness or another that have persisted for over thirty years. Despite this, I’ve managed to pull together here, with a lot of help from my friends and associates, what I hope will be a fun and informative book for young readers. If one of them finds themselves curled under a blanket in a cottage on a raining afternoon reading “Scotsfield Bay” (and, yes, if they must look up a word, they can, it’s not cheating), I will have succeeded because I will have gone back in time as the child I was, at the cottage on a rainy afternoon reading.
One of my favorite lines from the book describes one of the characters:
“He was wide at the waist and had a great beard,
To make up for the hair he’d lost through the years.”
Some of my other works include:
– Love Diaries and Other Poems
– Hearts of Fire: Two Continents, Two Poets (All available at Lulu.com)
Advice I would give to aspiring authors? If you want to be a writer, you will be. If you never thought you’d be a writer, you still might be.
It’s never too late but the time might come when you will have to write. To be an author, you must care about your work because you are the boss. If you aren’t willing to practice, write and seek publication, all of which require determination, persistence, a high tolerance for rejection, and good sense of humor, you won’t become a writer, even if you have talent. These admonitions are true of any vocation. Talent however is little understood: a little goes a long way if you exercise it. Whatever your talents, use them. Journalling is very useful to incorporate writing into your routine. Whatever you write one day may not sound right the next, while what you wrote a week ago now seems quite artful. Finally, read something everyday. Anything. The world of writers from what I can tell, and artists generally, is getting an enormous global boost in the development of STEAM careers. Young or older, if you want to be a writer, start today.
Bio:
Stewart Buxton lives in Nova Scotia and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Arts and Law from Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Read some of the poetry submissions we have receIved HERE.
