When is a writer not a writer?

Sometimes you need to break all the rules

Looking pensive in New York Public Library, circa 2015, by Rob Leggatt

I’ve been hanging onto loads of memorabilia from around the time I got my publishing deal: a name tag that had ushered me through my publisher’s security to their inner sanctum, proofs I was sent by debut authors when people wanted me to say nice things about their work, the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook 2011 (yes, it’s that long ago!) from when I first started taking my writing seriously, the pages folded and marked in anticipation of finding an agent. This hoarding is a habit I well recognise, mementos imbued with sentiment, gravity and perhaps even a little magic. But I’m trying to release some of the clutter that no longer serves me, so I boxed up the kindly gifted debut books, threw out those name badges, and shifted the lot from the house, after which I sat down, had a cup of tea and thought, Thank fuck for that.

In my teens, my first real love bought me a 12” of My baby just cares for me by Nina Simone. A slightly annoying track and not goddess Nina’s finest. When the boyfriend finished with me, he also became my first broken heart. For years I couldn’t listen to that song without the loss streaming back; it wasn’t him I remembered but the rejection. Then one day, the track came on the radio and I felt nothing. The charge was gone. And now too, the electricity around my writing identity is short-circuiting.

When people ask me what I do, I call myself a writer, although sometimes I blush, like when I was newly married and had to introduce my partner as my husband and felt I was pretending to be a grown-up. I co-run some workshops and one of the first things we tell our guests is, as they’ve made the commitment to turn up, they are in fact writers. The permission and importance of this proclamation is more powerful than you can imagine, so it’s not without irony that I find myself flagging, backsliding, unspooling my writing life.

My second book came out on New Year’s Eve 2020 as we were staring down the twin-headed ghoul of Covid and Brexit. I had no launch party, received one card of congratulations, and one tweet at about 11.15 pm – so different from the festival of my debut. With the little death of this book, I’d spent the day in tears, lurching from anxiety to sadness to shame.

So, writer’s shame… discuss. I’d received a more than generous two-book advance, plus the expertise, commitment and patience of editors who saw me through many drafts as I laboured to get the second novel right. My publishers had invested much, and I wanted to do them proud. So, there was the shame that I’d failed to provide a book that could muscle promotional space in a crowded lockdown-bonkers market. Added to this, the shame my social media following was too small to make any real impact on sales, and previously I’d missed opportunities to become a personality in the industry – those literary festivals were so overwhelming; I was an imposter, too gauche. I also hadn’t played the game and reviewed many of the advance copies I was sent, therefore other writers didn’t want to reciprocate and say nice things about mine. Then the shame my story failed to strike a chord with readers who just wanted UpLit and Cosy Crime, because why wouldn’t they, the world was ending? So… wrong book, wrong time. One particularly shitty review sat pinned to the top of my Amazon page, and I wondered how that person would feel if I went to her place of work, stood on a desk in the middle of the office and told everyone I thought she was crap at her job. I checked out her other reviewed items – a shower-head and electric heater – and the public value of a story I’d taken years to write and been fiercely proud of (still am actually), plummeted further. Getting published is a complete privilege, I get it, but lurching into this weighted space was a uniquely raw exposure, and such a cluster-fuck of shame is a troublesome state in which to be creative.

Recently, some friends were coming to stay with their daughter and the only room available for their little girl to sleep was on the pull-out bed in my office where my scene-cards, forest of stickies and gigantic plot-plan for book 3 were pinned to the walls. It wouldn’t do for a seven-year-old to try and sleep while staring at those weirdly disjointed, slightly violent ideas that had begun to mean less and less to me. I’d dithered for ages about taking them down, but when I did finally prepare the room for guests, dismantling this mirror-puzzle of my brain was the least ceremonious occasion ever, like cleaning fluff from the tumble dryer. And now those piles of paper containing the feathery hinterlands of my ideas are held down by a gonk. Most writing advice tells you to find routine and turn up at your desk every day but having chalked up 125K words on book 3 and still no clear path through the mud, I can attest it didn’t work for me this time. In fact, spaffing out words with such little joy, was the biggest creative turnoff. I still believe in the story, I’m just not sure I have the energy in this menopausal fuck-it zone to murder myself over another act of faith that might just fall off a cliff. 

A very muddy Rocky, bless :)

In recent years, walking has become my medicine. I used to borrow a friend’s dog so I wouldn’t be perceived as the weird woman out walking alone in the woods – ffs – but lockdown fixed all that as everyone else realised walking was the bomb. Sadly, my friend’s dog died – farewell little Rocky – but now that I feel less judged, it’s on some of these regular solo stomps round my local paths that something unexpected has begun. The machine of my limbs acts like a dynamo, sparking up sentences that land in my brain fully formed. I dictate these snippets into my phone and transcribe it all when I get home. I’ve also reverted to my old student behaviour, doing some of my best writing in the wee small hours when there are no demands on my time, when Instagram is boring, and the news doesn’t refresh. When my consciousness is porous to the edges of dreams. Or I’m half busy with washing-up, in the middle of dinner or glowing from that first glass of wine, a random golden image comes rushing in and I have to scurry off somewhere private to write it down.

When my attention is turned from pressure, need and ambition, when the most hectic self-criticism is blurred and my brain surrendered and open, creativity arrives in the softness.

There are five stages to grief, and I think perhaps I’ve mourned my second book now. And I have grieved the idea of the kind of writer it was going to make me, having shelved those awards speeches I’d rehearsed in my head and the validation I’d loved to have mainlined from all those five-star reviews. In the process of clearing my creative decks, of disengaging from the chatter and needing to be enough, I’ve become an island again, the person I was when I first started writing, with no publishing deal, no direction and total freedom. Embracing this vaguely shambolic, loosey-goosey regime (which sadly doesn’t pay the bills) I’m reminded of the joy in process and the beauty of flow; trusting the words to arrive, and given the chance they always do, because there is some incessant need in me to corral my thoughts into decent prose, the sum of them making me whole. I never feel more powerful than when I’ve written a really good sentence.

I’m a sucker for the old Phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes thing, the idea of rebirth so enticing. Perhaps deconstructing process and demolishing what’s gone before is all part of the writing-god’s plan. Creativity born out of the void or a flushing of something from my system so that another novel might appear. I hope one day soon to stumble across book 3 again and say, Oh hi, long time no see! Have you been waiting for me? I’m sorry I abandoned you. To be honest you really pissed me off and I didn’t know if we could be friends anymore. But I’d like to try something different. Will you let me?

Sending this into the world as a wish, like a seed on the wind.