Ambitions, setbacks, and distractions

The route to that very first novel

An English teacher once told my shy, beaten teenage self that I possessed an unusual ability to write dramatic, haunting words. I wanted to believe them, but what was the point? Writing was something people like me just didn’t do for fun. I had to get through school and find a way to support myself - writing fiction wasn’t going to help me with that.

Anyway, stuff happened, as they say, and I fell apart, left school, found love, and got married. Along the way, I somehow discovered a new part-time confidence so alien that, even now, I don’t recognise myself in that woman. But this new me had an idea for a book and, with a terrifying level of arrogance, I banged out the first few chapters. After giving them to a trusted friend for an opinion, I was devastated when he told me it was fundamentally unreadable.

I put those ideas away in a metaphorical drawer and resolved to do better.

In reality, I did nothing. No creative writing at all. In fact, I cast aside all thoughts of fiction while I indulged a newly discovered passion for, well, let’s just call it work - a world of evidence and analysis and problem-solving with which I quickly fell in love. As I parented my children, I fed my super-curious brain by reading, analysing, and writing works of non-fiction. It was bliss.

I guess I never quite abandoned the idea of a novel, though; when a series of life events fired up ideas for another plot, I broke out the laptop and spent a few days playing with the ideas. I say playing, but it was more like wading through the stickiest molasses. Words seemed to congeal into stilting sentences, and my overdeveloped critical thinking made the plot seem embarrassingly implausible. I concluded that all those years of uninterrupted fact had displaced my ability - if, indeed, that ability ever existed - to create anything that could not be scientifically proven, or to write in a more prosaic style.

The reborn creative confidence plummeted. I put those ideas away in the metaphorical drawer and resolved to do better.

Fast forward another few years. I suddenly acquired an unprecedented amount of spare time which, in turn, gave my overactive imagination the space to tinker with another book idea. This time, when I broke out the keyboard, my fingers flew. Within days (yes, days) I had written fifty thousand words. I was editing as I went and felt excited by the results. I could see this going somewhere, and began to allow myself hope that, one day, I might be published.

The plot hit a block. I had backed a key character into a corner and could not work out how to get them out of it without re-writing the entire work in progress.

I thought about putting my half-novel away in that metaphorical drawer. Maybe just ignore the manuscript, do something else for a bit, and try again. It wasn’t to be; life intervened, and I had to move house rather quickly. The move, alongside family stuff and general overwork, meant I forgot all about writing.

Until covid. During the pandemic, three things coalesced to get me writing again. I suddenly had far more spare time than I could cope with. I was terrified for family, friends, neighbours, and even for people I didn’t know. And I was scared for and of myself - this invisible, insidious virus made my brain spin with anxiety. I needed a project to distract me, so I dragged my abandoned half-novel from its digital slumber, and hit print.

Several days later, I had written my character back into their world, and, despite suddenly becoming busier than ever with the unavoidable bill-paying work, the book and I haven’t looked back. My first novel is - at last - ready to pitch. And I know that, even if I never manage to get it published, I have completed a novel and I will always love it because it distracted me from something very scary.

Is this a testament to persistence? Hardly. I took the easy route more than once. Is it a testament to the right time, right place? Maybe, although I had plenty of earlier (and, in some senses, easier) times in my life that could have been right.

No, if pressed, I would have to admit that the point of this tale is just this. When your subconscious (or fate, or your god, or whatever) keeps leading you back to your keyboard, give it a go. You never know what might happen.