By Bernie Ni Fhlatharta

Many dream of writing a book; indeed many do write a book, but few get published. But Galway woman Michelle McDonagh achieved that dream last week with the publication of her novel, There’s Something I Have To Tell You, a story that starts with a gruesome discovery that eventually unravels some family secrets.

In the interests of transparency, Michelle is a former colleague, having worked together for twelve years in the Connacht Tribune and City Tribune, and in that time she had always talked about her dream.

In fact we joked that the weekly word counts in the contributions to the output of these newspapers year in, year out, would have surpassed the average word count of a book. In fairness, Michelle’s output was far greater than mine in the years she worked as a newspaper journalist and wrote the City Lives column, which saw her meet and interview the great and the good!

Her focus was legendary, as was her capacity to sit at the keyboard and bang out reams of copy, never missing a deadline.

The Knocknacarra woman left her native city when she met Greg O’Gorman, a Corkman whom she married shortly after moving to Cork. There she carved out a successful career as a freelance journalist, mostly focussing on health issues. She also became a mother to three children, but she never lost her dream of getting published.

As well as taking some writing courses and reading countless books on writing, she finally sat down and did what all the experts say one should do — she wrote the book.

“I did spend a hell of a lot more time talking about it than writing it for years. The deep compulsion to write wouldn’t leave me alone. While I started and abandoned a number of books over the years, I kept writing myself into a cul-de-sac and could never get beyond 30,000 words,” Michelle said.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.