A GREAT Sankey mum has battled through the discomfort of chronic pain condition fibromyalgia to be shortlisted for the UK's biggest prize for unpublished novels.

Jacqueline Grima will head down to London next weekend to find out if she has won the Luke Bitmead Bursary title this year which was set up to support struggling unpublished novelists who may live in challenging circumstances in memory of a writer who committed suicide eight years ago.

The proud mum-of-three, who is also carer for her 18-year-old son Michael who has Asperger’s, added: "It was an amazing feeling seeing my name on the shortlist.

"I had always wondered what it would be like and it's made such a difference already to my profile with lots of other writers following me on Twitter.

"I've always written but life took over as a single parent with a son with special needs.

"But I thought I could sit here or I could push myself forward now no matter what nobody can ever take my shortlist nomination away from me."

The 45-year-old, who admits putting pen to paper often causes her quite a bit of pain and she has to pace herself, turned to writing after she was made redundant from her role as a primary school teaching assistant.

Her shortlisted novel Coming Second started life as an Open University assignment after starting a degree in literature.

The story follows a young man who proclaims to his girlfriend he is the new messiah and is about a community's attitude towards someone who is different.

Jacqueline, who hopes the nomination will get her writing career off the ground, added: "I've had so many rejections but I wasn't going to give up and my advice to anyone is to keep going."

Follow her @GrimaJgrima