Emboldened Bonus

A section that was cut from the original manuscript!

May 10, 2023

Emboldened: On Finding the Fire to Keep Going When All Seems Lost was the hardest book I have ever had to write. When Kelly Doust, the fabulous publisher at Affirm Press approached me about writing a non-fiction book where I shared the stories of four real-life women who had inspired my fiction and demonstrated resilience, I was very excited – at first.

It sounded like the book I had always wanted to write and that my readers had always wanted to read!

When she suggested that I include my own story about a very difficult time in my life when I had to demonstrate resilience, I wasn’t so keen. Firstly, I am a very private person. Secondly, I didn’t think my own story was half as fascinating as any of the women I intended to include in the book. Kelly kept encouraging me that my story was worthy of telling and would help others, so I finally decided to share it fully with that in mind. But even that desire didn’t make it easy.

I am a person whose motto is ‘Keep it moving’ when difficult times hit. When people do something terrible to me my mantra is ‘Happiness is the best revenge’. I don’t keep looking in the rear-view mirror when I am driving forward, that sounds like a good way to crash the car. But sitting down and writing intensely about that period of my life made me revisit it and I realised that reliving trauma isn’t very good for you. I learned just how much fear and anxiety were still locked in my nervous system. Then, when the prognosis of the man who had been my greatest strength during that horrible time in my life (my beloved father) turned grim, and I suddenly became his full-time carer, everything became a struggle. I stayed sane by meditating and taking long walks in nature.

I think that pressure produced a better book

But then one month before the final deadline, a legal reading came back that, according to Australian law, saying anything at all about what had happened to me would put both myself and my publisher in a precarious situation. Having had my life destroyed once, and having taken every ounce of grit in my body to rebuild it, I wasn’t open to having it potentially destroyed again. I had four weeks to rewrite the entire manuscript with a new premise and approach.

Strangely, I think that pressure produced a better book than the original one. Because I had to then work within set limits and still produce the very best book I could for my readers. Instead of talking so much about my own story, I became more like a museum guide, taking my readers through a journey and illustrating how each of the women in the book demonstrated a quality that we can all adopt in our lives when faced with challenges of our own. It became much less of a book about me, and a lot more of a book about we.

And better than that, it became a book that was written with deep love – for life (and my second chance at it), for my ancestors, for my readers and most of all for my 92-year-old father, who after putting me through an extremely difficult year survived a heart operation and came out thriving!

The whole process has left me with another life motto: ‘Diamonds are formed under pressure’!

To celebrate a book that was written and then completely rewritten again, I thought I’d share a chapter from the original manuscript that was cut out. Not because of legal reasons, but because it was simply too long and not really necessary.

It was originally included in the section about Virginia Hall, where I share how her mission in France was brought undone when a narcissist infiltrated her Resistance circuit. Readers of The Divine Feline: A Chic Cat Lady’s Guide to Woman’s Best Friend, will recognise that the rescue cats in this story are Valentino and Versace (and Gucci, who was already living with me at the time, and watched the drama unfold from an upstairs window).

‘Belinda's Emboldened is a beacon for everyone who's ever been touched by the darkness life can sometimes serve up.

I found it a really heartrending read, but also so incredibly life-affirming. I finished those pages ready for anything!’

— Sue on Goodreads on Emboldened