Waterspryte's World

The writing and art of Celia Coulter

The Writing Bug

I can still remember one of the first stories I wrote when I was in primary school, called "The cat only strikes once!". It was a horror story about an oversized cat, which crept up behind my main character and killed them - only to disappear into the darkness of the night, never to be seen again. Because... you guessed it -- THE CAT ONLY STRIKES ONCE.

The story owed a lot to Joan Phipson's book "The Cats ", you might even say it "plagiarised" a lot from that selfsame book. Nevertheless, it so happened that the school principal was visiting the room when it was my turn to read the story out to the rest of the class. She was impressed by something in the story and I soon found myself roped into reading my "horror" story again to a roomful of year 2 students. All I can say is my "horror" story cannot really have been that scary!

In high school I continued to write short stories and began filling my notebooks with poetry. But somehow, after leaving school my dream of being a writer took second place to life. Nevertheless, the dream remained... and finally, after ten years had passed in which I wrote very little, I thought to myself it's now or never --and I decided to take action.


Now, I would be misleading you if I were to say that I was now a world famous author, but I have started to take some baby steps towards the dream I have always had inside. I began to seriously write again at the end of last year (2002), concentrating upon writing poetry which I then began submitting to the small press. I have had encouraging responses from some editors and a few small successes (which you can read about in My Writing). The majority of my work, however, is sitting in various editors slush piles at this very moment while I wait, with baited breath, to hear their response.

So... how does this justify a website about me?? Well, it doesn't really but what I wanted to share was my journey and some of the knowledge and tips that I have gleaned that may help other beginning writers who know nothing about the industry. There are some mistakes that I have made, which could have been avoided if I only had someone to tell me!!

My Art

Its funny, I never seriously considered myself an artist -- even though I tend to doodle over any spare scraps of paper and have always sketched. Somehow though, this area of my life is blossoming along with the writing side as it grows. Some of my artwork has now been published in the small press and (unless otherwise noted) any graphics you see on this site are my creations. Check out My Art for more information.

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Site content & graphics © 2004 Celia Coulter
Updated 27 Jan 2004