In which we find the author in contemplative, nay, romantic mood by Sheena Wilkinson

Today I’m snowed in, which means I’ve had to cancel the five things I was meant to be doing. 

view from my desk today

It’s just me and the laptop, a good chance to catch up with admin. Top of the To-Do list was to send invitations to my forthcoming book launch. Hope against Hope is my first novel for two and a half years, which isn’t that long, but it’s the longest gap I’ve had between books. I’ve joked on Twitter about this:  

Of course I have been writing since Star by Star was published in October 2017. Apart from Hope against Hope, I’ve written an adult novel, which I promise (agent, if you’re reading!) to submit … soon. I’ve blogged here and elsewhere at least once a month and right now I’m writing articles and responding to interview questions to help promote Hope against Hope – and very glad of the opportunity to do so. I’ve got a tentative idea for a new teen historical novel, which I hope to discuss with my editor soon. I’ve also put a lot of words into some reports for writing-related, actual-money-earning activities for the Royal Literary Fund. 

proof that I have not been slacking this last decade

But honestly? Actual writing? Actual immersion in a fictional world so that you blink when you come back up to earth and can’t believe three hours have gone by writing? Actual dreaming up scenarios for your characters in the liminal time before sleep takes over writing? Actual having conversations with your characters as you drive home writing? Actual thinking, as you wait in the supermarket queue, Look, there’s [insert name of character in WIP] writing?

Not so much. Well, actually, just no. And I didn’t think this was possible for me. 

Like Keren David, who wrote about the tenth anniversary of her first novel, the superb When I Was Joe, last week, I’ve been published for around ten years. Hope against Hope is my eighth novel, and there have been several published short stories and a couple of novels that were abandoned, as well as a few that never sold. (I hate admitting the latter but I’m in a confessional mood, and I’ve just read Kelly McCaughrain’s post on the excellent podcast How to Fail.)

For nine of those ten years I was single and not only did I have a fair amount of time to write, but I also didn’t have many emotional outlets or indeed demands. I was free to give all the love to my characters and didn't care that they couldn't love back. I could write all day and nobody minded. There was nobody to mind.  Other writers commented on my work ethic and that pleased me because I've always been a swot.   

When writer friends talked about not writing for a time, because of the demands of family or partners, I would think how lucky I was only to have myself to answer to. I was a woman with, in Virginia Woolf’s words, five hundred pounds a year and a room of my own. (If I’d relied on only royalties, that five hundred pounds wouldn’t have been far off the mark.)

But you know what? I wasn’t that lucky.  I look back at my schedule over the last few years and I see so many weeks when I worked seven days. Some of those days were travelling; many of them were certainly spent in wonderful retreats with supportive and lovely fellow writers; most days involved restorative walks in beautiful places. But it was rare for me to take a day off writing. I didn’t want to; I didn’t feel I needed to. Often, when I was supposed to be taking a break, I’d find myself buying a notebook and filling it with ideas. I needed to write. Writing was what I did; writer was who I was. Without my words what was I? Yes, I had lovely friends and parents and a busy, fulfilled life, but I wasn’t that important to anyone. I didn’t even have a cat because I travelled so much. I wouldn't have said I was lonely but not being lonely had to be worked at. You can have too many days alone with your characters. 

And then it all changed because last year, aged 50, I fell in love for the first time in twenty years. Not with a book idea, with an actual person.  You know, a live human. Not a paper person, but a real, complex, loving, wonderful man. Who also, luckily, fell in love with me. And suddenly I got it. I got why you didn’t have to be writing every day. Why you might not want to. Why real people take precedence. 

I still work pretty hard. No self-employed person can stay solvent without it. But I don’t work weekends. And I take time  off during the week. I don’t always have that room of my own, sometimes I work at his house -- it helps that he's also writing a book -- but mostly I just  work smarter. I haven’t shirked. I have met all my deadlines; the novel coming out in a few weeks is – my editor thinks, and I hope – my best. (And yes, it does contain a love story, funnily enough.) And I’m eager to get that adult novel off to my agent and to clarify my thoughts about the new teen historical with my editor. I’m still, and I always will be, a writer. But days like today, when I’m completely alone with my words and my paper people, are the exception rather than the norm. And I have to say I like that.  

Soon I'll be writing again, in that immersive, intense way that only another writer can understand. Soon I'll have a new cast of characters to demand my attention and keep me awake. But they won't get all the love. 

Sending your baby to the house of tomorrow - Liz Kessler

I’ve ummed and ahhhed more than usual over what to write about this month. I’ve thought of and then rejected at least half a dozen ideas.

I was on the verge of asking if anyone wanted to do a guest post on my date – and then the advance copy of my new book turned up, and I realised that the joy of holding your new book in your hands for the first time never goes away.

You made this thing. It has so much of you poured into it. And yet, now that it exists in its own right, now that it is out there in the world – your role is done and you have to stand back and let it find its own way.

The letting go can be hard.

See, the thing is – I absolutely love this book. I love the characters, falling in love despite the biggest divide there is.

I loved writing it – each new scene unfolding virtually in front of my eyes as I walked along the wild coast path watching waves crashing on rocks, and listening to a playlist that brought me to tears more often than not.

I loved the process – the collaborating with the amazing poet, Ella Frears, who was so in tune with me that the poems she wrote felt as if they came from the pens of my actual characters. The songs she shared with me felt as if they came directly from the story I was weaving.

I loved all of it. And now that the book is going out there, it is taking a bit of my heart with it.

I am not a parent, so I don’t know if this analogy is as true as it feels, but producing a book does seem, to me, to be a bit like having a child. To be fair, probably not as painful as actual childbirth (although excruciatingly painful at times, in its own way!) Perhaps the process is more like the struggles, joys and extremes of bringing up a child from baby to adulthood.

I spent about eighteen months living with characters who had all sorts thrown at them. Bullying, panic attacks, life-threatening illnesses, drug overdoses, grief. Characters who somehow managed to choose love over all of these, again and again.

So yeah. It was an intense journey. And now, the book is out of my hands and – hopefully – into other people’s. It is finished, and I have to let go.

Luckily for me, I have an amazing editor, Helen Thomas, who helped break the intensity of the moment by sending me a text of the plotline - told in emojis! I love this as much as all the other things.

I have friends who are saying goodbye to their children as they go to university this month. I have witnessed their mixture of pride, fear, grief, loss, excitement and hope.

This is how it is with a book. I want the best for it. I want it to be liked – loved – thought well of.

If I had a child going to university right now, I don’t think I’d be rooting for them to come home with a first class degree and the highest praise for every piece of work they produced. Yes, of course, those things would be nice. But more than that, I believe the things that would make my heart swell would be to hear that they had made friends, they’d fallen in love, they were happy.

And so with the book – I don’t care about awards and shortlistings. Yes, they are nice (I haven’t had many in over a decade as a published author!) But I’d much rather my book found its way into the hands of young people who loved it, whose lives were enriched for having found it, who felt warm for reading it and wanted to share it with their friends.

I will do all I can to try to make this happen. In a few days, I’m off on a book tour where I will be meeting lots of young people all around the UK and sharing my book with them. Next week, I’m holding a book launch where I will celebrate its release. I'll accept every invitation I get to go and talk about it with young people.

I’ll give my baby the best upbringing I can, and send it off with a case full of clothes and books and a heart full of hope. Will people like it? I don't know. Will they criticise it, give it a rough time? They might. Once I've let it go, I have no control over what happens out there. And that’s how it should be. That’s part of the process. The letting go.

As Kahlil Gibran says, in The Prophet:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

I hope that Haunt Me has a great time, out there in the house of tomorrow.

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Crushing Those Feelings....Eve Ainsworth

Last week my second book, Crush, was published.

This was important for me for a few reasons:

1) It was my second book. I wanted to prove I could write something else; that my writing was still valid.

2) It was a difficult book. I had to write it during a period of grief and I went through a difficult period of not being able to write at all.

3) The theme of crush - toxic love - was something I wanted to write about for a very long time.

I guess we all have it in us, a story that we've always wanted to tell. The one that has bugged and bothered us for such a long time and for me it was this. Destructive and toxic love. Love gone wrong. A love that can crush you.

As a teen I saw two of my closest friends change overnight due to bad relationships. As an adult I've seen a male relation go through hell in a same sex relationship that controlled and isolated him. As an employee I saw my students swept up in bad kinds of love that they accepted as 'ok'.

Now I can tell Anna's story. A vulnerable, young girl who meets a charismatic older boy. At first things seem perfect. But then we see Will's true character emerge, his controlling and destructive ways. And through Will's short narrative, perhaps we can understand why these traits have developed.

Crush is important to me because it is telling a story that I've seen repeated so many times. It is showing how easy it is to fall under a toxic spell and then become trapped. I hope, through this novel, we can open up more discussions about what a healthy relationship actually is.

And more importantly, why the first person you need to love is yourself.