Introduction: The Story of R.M.Wheatley

Welcome to my little corner of the internet! Feel free to have a seat on the blue velvet lounge and I’ll go make you a cuppa. Tea? Coffee? Hot choccie? Or I can grab a cold one from the fridge if that’s more your jam? I also have a specialty cocktail called, “Dark Side of the Nerd” I can put together 😉 

Anyway, beverages aside, I’d like to thank all my supporters who have been part of my writing journey over the years! Family, school friends, previous coworkers and the like – I appreciate every single one of you for showing interest. And for those who are new here, I hope you find something that piques your interest in my backlog of story ideas I’ve accumulated. If you subscribe to the newsletter, that will be the first point of contact for updates on projects. I’m still navigating all this, so please bear with me while I iron out the kinks… cue whip cracking with a whimpering man on his knees in the middle of a forest

For this first blog post, I would like to focus primarily on my path of creativity and how I found my love of storytelling. As a kid I had an over-active imagination, and naturally I explored different hobbies growing up.  I loved to draw, write, play piano, take photos, and eventually in my teens I delved into videography as well – but with an interest in multiple hobbies, I never became especially talented in any one of them. I have never been diagnosed with ADHD, though with a family history of others being on the spectrum, I can only guess that I have some form of the 'tisms', and this may be linked to ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’.

My indecisiveness to stick to one thing and perfect it has, unfortunately, been my Achilles heel for progress during the course of my life thus far. Drawing was initially my main interest as a kid and through my teenage years, though I also wrote stories along with my drawings by stapling A4 pages together to create little books - mind you, there were no dialog tags a lot of the time so anyone who tried to read them would have a hard time following which character was speaking when! I had been told I'd do well with scripts.

A few times I had some fun with the disposable Kodak cameras around in the 90s and 00s, however at the time it wasn’t necessarily about getting into photography as a hobby and more about just being a curious kid who took photos from time to time.

I created character sheets, redesigns, and at one point I even made a booklet for a Nintendo 64 game idea I had (Wow, that memory has been tucked away for a long time!). From what I recall, it was heavily based on Banjo Kazooie (my all-time favourite game apart from Mario Kart) but who knows if I still have it floating around somewhere. It would be my luck that it’s become lost to time.

In my young teenage years, my focus eventually switched to writing, and I began the draft of my first true story, which would later become a duology with a partially written second book. I also got hold of my first point-and-shoot Canon camera at around 15 years old.

Though I loved Visual Arts as a subject, I gradually became aware that my drawing and painting skills were subpar (since I had discovered the world of digital art) and over the years in high school, my skills with traditional art deteriorated, so I leaned more into photography and filmmaking. In the meantime, my friends and I were writing fanfiction together, swapping notebooks to write our characters POV for the fic or—and this will trigger some nostalgia—type it out over MSN messenger.

By my early 20s I stopped drawing entirely when I became frustrated with myself – not only for my lack of progress, but I was also struggling to get my ideas to paper exactly how I pictured it in my mind. Eventually, the frustration of these two issues became too much, and I let it die completely. I am still sad about losing that skill, because I know it would come in handy to create my own art for my books, but I’ll leave it in the hands of those who have dedicated their time and energy into perfecting the craft.

At 35-years-old, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about being ‘behind’ in life as that’s exactly how I feel sometimes, and I think plenty of us have felt this way at one point or another (or several). Hell, I experienced a mid-life crisis spiral only a month ago. With just how expensive everything is, failed relationships and not prioritising my creative goals enough over the years, it definitely hit me like a gut-punch.

What really got me was not being prepared for the brutal reality of 'trad' publishing (getting a literary agent, being pitched to publishers etc) where the series I’ve been working on for many years now has such a miniscule chance of being picked up for a combination of reasons: debut author, 5-book series (trad publishers max limit for debuts is usually a trilogy) and my first book isn't structured to act as a standalone since each book has its own special arc for each main character, and thus I cannot feasibly pitch it as such. If I had known this even 2-3 years ago, I could’ve done one of two things: ferret my money away to self-publish, or work on a pure standalone. If it weren’t for professionals in the industry posting on TikTok, I would’ve kept going, focused solely on that series, and been totally clueless as to why I was repeatedly rejected (not accounting for any other factors, mind you).

Luckily, though, I’ve learned to pivot.

I had recently developed an idea for a pure standalone based on a scene from my prologue in Book 1, "Assembly of the Elements", and now I can confidently say that no matter what the outcome is for AOTE, I have something in the works I can pitch next which, theoretically, should have a higher chance of success being picked up. And if not, well ... I'm not waiting around to be 'chosen' by trad. Though it's not to say that self-publishing is a 'backup' by any means - it comes with its own challenges, hence why I haven't chosen that route just yet - but I can only be patient for so long before I say, "F*** it" and just go for it. In fact, this website is part of my "F*** it, PIVOT!" strategy. All the greats use this strategy cough cough and I'm trying to emulate greatness, mmk? "A great hot mess" someone whispers from the corner

But how did we get here? Well, if you haven't been paying attention, I literally JUST told you ... but, I get it, you wanna know more of how did I get to HERE here (I mean I sure hope you want to know since you've read this far).

Here's the thing. When you go through a bunch of crap, and life gets you down, and you were not coping AT ALL with it, you either try to find a way out ... or you fail, realise you're still here, and now you need a purpose - something to ANCHOR you to the FUTURE.

More importantly, a future with YOU IN IT.

It's not that I won the war, but I've certainly won all the battles that have led to right here, right now, where you're reading these digital letters which may have never existed if not for me failing in the best way possible. Maybe this is inspiring, or maybe it just comes across as a tangent I could've reduced to, like, a sentence or two: Breathe in strength, breathe out bullshit. Life will go on.

Now, here's hoping that by me persevering another day, another month, another year, I get one step closer to fulfilling my creative goals: writing, photography, videography (I'm still adamant on a trip around Australia plus one around the UK) and perhaps you'll find something compelling within these creative endeavours that makes you glad to experience life too - and if not, find comfort in the darkness ... for a girl has candles to light the way.