Today it's my pleasure to welcome Karen Telling to the blog to talk about publishing her memoir Another Day in Paradise.
I started writing this book in around 2012. I’ve always enjoyed writing and came second in a short story competition around the same time. I didn’t know I would publish it, as self publishing wasn’t really an option then, but I wanted to record my experience of surgery in a foreign country, even just for myself. I then forgot about it until lockdown, when I found it again whilst sorting through papers in an old filing cabinet. I had retired from my holiday property rental business a couple of years earlier, mainly due to my disability, so I had the time to carry on and finish it.
My main reason for publishing was to tell our story, which wasn’t one of retiring abroad, or buying and renovating a ruin, but of moving to Portugal in our late 30s/early 40s, finding work and living in rentals until we found somewhere to buy. These are different challenges from those in similar memoirs that I have read. I also wanted to show how much kindness we have experienced. Strangers went out of their way to help us when I was extremely vulnerable in hospital, and I will always appreciate that. There are humorous moments too and I have been told the book provokes both laughter and tears. Finally, it’s the story of our beloved pets, the ones we took with us from the U.K. and those that adopted us in that first year. I am hoping to publish a sequel in the next few months with the stories of more of our animal rescue journey, but am currently bottle feeding two abandoned puppies so I don’t have as much free time as usual!
