Hi, thanks for visiting my blog,
I’m Sam Quinton – aspiring writer, blogger, and very bad beekeeper. I live in the North West of England with my two dogs Roxy and Drew (*a pair of gorgeous old ladies), three hives of bees, an ever fluctuating number of rescued hens, *Hermione, a recently adopted 12 year old blind cat and finally, my husband.
Growing up I was an avid reader and it helped that my parents had a bookshop, ‘Bookmark’ in Spalding, Lincolnshire. My love of books started at a young age and I think my love of writing naturally stemmed from this. As a little girl I was writing “Once upon a time” stories full of elves and witches where the characters always “lived happily ever after”. Thanks to Enid Blyton, fairies and magical adventures were part of my daily life. When I was 15 I had a short story published in the teen magazine ‘Jackie’ and this just made me want to write more – my 15 year old self was desperate to be published again! I did send some more short stories to publishers but never managed to repeat this initial success.
My love of books, reading and writing stayed with me and a few years ago I was a contributing / feature writer for a lifestyle magazine. I wrote for VIVA Manchester on a voluntary basis and sitting at my laptop writing advertorials or reviews for print or online content reminded me of how much I loved writing.
It wasn’t long after this that a relative and I discussed the idea of writing a book, an idea which I absolutely loved. I’ll be the first to admit that this hasn’t got off the ground as well as I’d planned and I’ve found it hard to focus sometimes with work and life getting in the way. I wrote notes and started my research but I didn’t make or find the time I needed for this project. I haven’t given up hope that one day this will still be something I can do.
My husband gave me a blog site ‘My Chickens – Tatty Hen Tales’ as an anniversary gift in 2015, the year we weren’t doing gifts! If I’m honest, I think he was probably just bored of hearing, “You’ll never guess what (insert hen’s name) has just done!”. I have a sneaking suspicion that he thought if I could write it all down, he wouldn’t have to hear it every day. Just for the record, he was wrong!
Before I started writing on My Chickens – Tatty Hen Tales I’d never thought about having a blog site or blogging; samanthaquinton.co.uk had existed for a while but just as a domain name that I hadn’t done anything with. Perhaps it’s age related (I’m 21 again in case you’re wondering), but I decided it was the time to see where my writing could take me. Posting blogs about my tatty hens has reminded me (again!) of how much I love writing and how I want it to be an ongoing part of my life.
In October 2016 I signed up to do a National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) distance learning qualification which if I pass, will give me an accredited entry level Journalism qualification. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about failing it or fitting studying in but the old adage is true, ‘If you don’t try, you’ll never know’.
In between studying I’ll carry on blogging on both my sites and try to keep up with my associated Social Media accounts too. Sometimes I do forget who I’m Tweeting as or which Facebook or Instagram account I’m logged in to! I’m also going to re-visit the work I’ve done so far on the book and allocate time to it each week to progress it as it definitely isn’t going to write itself. I think I may need a very comprehensive plan of action!
So this is where Two Blogs and a Book has come from, I don’t know where it will take me but I’m going to enjoy the journey because somewhere, the 15 year old version of me is still hoping that there’s a chance, however slim, of seeing her name on the front cover of a book.
If you don’t want to miss any updates you can follow my blog and if you want to get in touch you can email me – just use the links in the side menu.
If you’re on Social Media then you can find me here:
Twitter: @2blogsandabook
Instagram: 2blogsandabook
Facebook: Samantha Quinton – Two Blogs and a Book
Sam Quinton
(* since I wrote this we’ve had to say goodbye to both our dogs, Roxy and Drew. We still miss them every day but were lucky enough to have had 15 years with them. We also had to say goodbye to Hermione our gorgeous old girl who was only with us for a short time but she was very loved and is always missed. Since then we’ve added two rescue cats to the family – Bobby, a very handsome boy & Jules, (@julesthunderpaws) a ginger polydactyl princess.