Self-publishing my poetry book 🎉

When I started writing poetry again after years of nothing, I never imagined it would end up with me self-publishing my own poetry book on Amazon… but well here we are !

I’m very happy to announce that my poetry book “Purple Sky Vol 1 : Talking to the moon” is now available worldwide on Amazon, both ebook and paperback versions. (Please check it on your country version of Amazon to avoid additional fees.)

What a journey it was.

I started writing young, and I started with poetry. I was trying to make a scrapbooking album of my sister’s wedding photos and even though I never completed it, it got me started on poetry. It became my only way to express all of my emotions, even the most negative ones. When I had no one to talk to, I would write it all down.

Poetry was put to the side when I started writing stories, and where I had been writing poems everyday as a teenager, by the time I started high school I was only writing a poem here and there, maybe a few poems a year.

During university, I gradually stopped writing, settling for only a few diary pages and random boots of creativity here and there but nothing serious. It came to that because of a comment from someone I trusted, on my writing. It’s silly when I think about it now, but at that time I was only 19 and what that person told me really broke me and haunted me for years. It made me feel like I was a monster, harming my loved ones with my writing. Now that I’m older I see that the problem was not on my side.

Things happened in my life, ups and downs, and without writing the downs were pretty harsh. I didn’t realize at that time that if I was not writing, I was not expressing all these negative feelings, all that pain building up inside of me.

After graduating from my Master’s degree, I moved to Amsterdam for my very first job. The opportunity was great, and I thought this was how life was supposed to be. But I was not happy. I didn’t have the mental strength to really try to adapt to the country and make new connections. I was working so hard I had no time or energy left in the evenings or during the weekends. Also life was so expensive there that I didn’t dare to do anything except watching Netflix and going grocery shopping on the weekends. I was only the shadow of myself, developing eating disorders, insomnia, and depression came back.

I came back home to France in February 2020, ready to build back a healthier life in the city of Lyon with my family and close friends nearby. But then the pandemic happened, I got stuck at my parents home. Slowly, it was getting too much, to be stuck with my thoughts all the time, plus having to learn how to live with my parents again (I left for a reason, multiple reasons actually). I tried to get a job but it wasn’t the right fit so it didn’t work for long, and I was back to square one. It felt like all the wounds from the past few years were bleeding once again, and all the ghosts were back, ready to haunt me.

I had trouble sleeping, I knew I was in a bad place mentally. I knew I had to do something to get it all out of my system, and this something… was writing. It started very slowly, only writing down a few words here and there. But then I realized that the more I was writing, the better I felt. So I kept going.

I had friends who had self-published their own book already, and it inspired me a lot. It allowed me to think that this was possible. After so many years denying my writing, it felt amazing to believe in myself for once.

So long story short, my book has been published, and I’m so very happy and proud. This book represents my journey through grief, heartbreak, but also growth. It represents the love I have for others and for myself, and the hope for a better future.

I made a video for the launch, I’m not sure if it’s more detailed or less detailed than this article (might be just complementary) so feel free to also check it out if you’re curious ! Will put the video below.

The conclusion of all this, is that we shouldn’t give up on our dreams. And more importantly we shouldn’t give up on ourselves. Keep fighting !

Thank you for reading, and see you in the next article ~

Marie.