Andrew Langley's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

I know there are many authors, like me, who live with a disability. Here in the UK, the MS Trust have a week every year to raise awareness of multiple sclerosis. Appropriately called MS Awareness Week, it runs from 25 April until 1 May in 2016. I've been trying to do my bit to support the MS Trust over the years and even did a charity trek on the Great Wall of China to raise funds before my mobility issues got the better of me.

I've cut and pasted below a press snippet about my writing and how my MS has affected me in the hope it may help others in a similar situation:

*****
AN AUTHOR’S LIFE, LIVING WITH MS … ANDREW LANGLEY

After living with multiple sclerosis for over twenty years, author Andrew Langley has turned to the supernatural for help. His debut novel, Mirror on the Soul, tells the story of a fake psychic medium that makes contact with the spirit world by mistake – a mistake that has humorous, and frightening, consequences.

Andrew now creates his new adventures on paper as his declining health prevents him doing his day job as a photojournalist. ‘I had to come up with a new way to make a living when my MS deteriorated,’ says Andrew. ‘I just couldn’t sit at home watching the world go by – so I sat and wrote a novel instead.’ The story starts in Las Vegas before moving to the suitably haunting setting of Whitby, both locations Andrew knows well from his earlier career.

According to the Multiple Sclerosis Trust, more than 100,000 people in the UK have MS. The disease is incurable and affects the central nervous system, creating a variety of symptoms including blindness, spasms, chronic fatigue and severe mobility issues. Andrew has faced all of these to varying degrees.

‘Back in 2007, I did a charity walk along the Great Wall of China for the MS Trust. I can’t do that type of thing any more due to the progress of my MS,’ comments Andrew. ‘But just because a part of your life is over, it doesn’t mean everything has to stop. You can, literally, write a new chapter for yourself.’

*****

Article out today about me and my writing – thanks to The Star and Mel Hewitt – helping to raise the profile of MS Awareness Week in the UK: View online here

For any new authors out there I was recently interviewed for The Proofreader's Parlour. We talked about writing, publishing and things I'd learnt along the way so far. For the full article click here. It is worth checking out just for the spooky gif in the header!