Welcome!

I can hardly welcome you to my Substack without welcoming you to me, so here it is - the whistle-stop tour of my life, from wriggler to writer.

I’m not great at introductions, so I’ve enlisted the help of a little girl I once knew pretty well. We share the same parents, cheeky smile, and slightly dishevelled appearance.

This lovely video introduction comes from three-year-old me, circa 2007. Given the distinct lack of Substack eighteen years ago, you’ll have to forgive her calling this a ‘website’; even that was a bit much for her, considering it was almost time for Balamory, and she’s getting restless on the stairs.

While I appreciate the helping hand, if you’re going to get to know me as someone more than a toddler on the stairs, I’m going to have to fill in a few gaps.

I can hardly welcome you to my Substack without welcoming you to me, so here it is- the whistle-stop tour of my life, from wriggler to writer.

I’m a fan of a non-linear narrative, so I’m going to start right here — with me, circa 2025.

Hi! I’m Laura Beddow. I’m twenty-one years and three months old, and an MA Publishing and Creative Writing student at York St. John University.

I’m going to use My Paper Trail for the purpose the name implies — to document my Master’s degree. I’ll fill the pages with the things I learn, the things I write, and what it all teaches me about the painstaking process of completing a first draft. On my blog, Long Story Short, you’ll also find a new short story every week that my brain made.

Have I piqued your interest? Good. That’s what I’m here for.

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Let’s start here.

While I would like to keep the introduction in some way related to my journey as a writer, it’s tricky to do so in the years before I could hold a pen. Even I’ll admit that I wasn’t the most competent reader at this bright young age, although I had memorised almost all of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I’m choosing to see as a step in the right direction.

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Here’s where we kick things up a notch. While I was telling stories long before this stage in my life, this is where my journey as a writer truly progressed beyond kicking K’s. This is a photo of the very first book I ever wrote, when I was about six years old. There are a few spelling mistakes, some undoubtedly questionable illustrations, and over the years it’s got a bit sticky- but I wrote it.

This is an extremely compelling narrative with ‘darting wisps’, a fairy clown, and two girls who ‘apslotly adorded fairys’. Available in all good fictional retailers.

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And now, we say goodbye to the sweet innocence of childhood and enter the unparalleled awkwardness of the teenager. When I started high school, I decided that being a writer was not a stable career path, and I should swap the daydreaming for plain old realism. I stopped reading and writing and focused on searching for stability.

Despite my desperate attempts to avoid the receiving end of a camera, this photo was captured of a wild main character in her natural habitat. I was a class act for pretending to be a reader — carrying a book with me everywhere I went without actually opening it.

Here’s me, aged thirteen, doing a wonderful job of reading that book without ever actually turning the page.

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I’ll save us all some time now and bring you back to the present day without dwelling on the hormones and pessimism. Lockdown boredom brought me back to writing, and after dragging myself through GCSEs and A-Levels, I started university. This year, I graduated with a first-class degree in Creative Writing, and next week I’ll start my MA in Publishing and Creative Writing. I’ve been published in five anthologies, edited work in a sixth, and I am slowly becoming the person I wanted to be at four years old.

It is in equal parts unbelievably surreal and absolutely right.

Find out more here.

That’s about as much as I can tell you without giving it all away.

When this post is published, I’ll be unpacking and decorating the room in my third and final student home. As someone who has loved school since I started seventeen years ago, knowing this is probably the last year I will do in full-time education is as daunting as it is exciting. I’ve started this publication to help me make the most of my final year, to form a consistent writing routine, and, most importantly, to let my family know I’m still alive when I stop answering texts.

If you’re a fellow writer, reader, student, or general nosy parker, feel free to join me.