Trying to remember how to write

And a promise to keep trying even when you have nothing to say

Hi friends,

I am in a coffee shop. Alone! During nap time.

The same coffee shop where huge great chunks of my last few novels have been written. The same coffee shop I brought my daughter to last week and let her cover me in jam before 8am.

Today, she is under the watchful eye of my husband who has taken a week of annual leave but really it is me who is on holiday.

It is so very exciting to be out alone. Yesterday, I started my day with a swim then lounged on some sunloungers and read a couple of chapters of my book. It was delicious.

Despite all of this, writing to you now from the side of the world I never thought I would be on - the side of the mothers - I must admit something that would have once torn me up from jealousy hearing it from someone else.

I love being a mum. Really, truly, properly love it.

Yes, some days I do cry because I simply cannot change another nappy, or spend any more time thinking about whether we have enough berries to last the day.

But, but…

I don’t know. What is there to say? To have a tiny perfect person who relies on you and loves you. I don’t think it gets better than this.

And yet…

I have found myself in the last couple of nights as I’m about to fall asleep gripped by a small, a tiny perhaps, panic. Because there will be a point in the not too distant future where my days of endless hours to fill with trips to the park and midday meet ups with friends and hanging out at my parents’ house will come to an end. I will go back to work - back to the job I love - and join normal life.

Now, I am lucky because I actually want to go back to my job. I still text my colleagues for work updates; I get excited when they tell me new things they are doing, hold my tongue when I don’t agree with every decision made in my absence. So, it’s not the day job I am worried about.

But the writing… How on earth do we manage all the writing?

The plan has always been to take a break this year. I have had five novels published in four years. That’s a lot! It has been a whirlwind of manic typing in coffee shops to meet endless wordcounts and in all honesty, it stopped being fun this past year. When I had my debut published, All My Lies, I knew it wasn’t going to ‘kickstart’ my career in any bolting-horse-out-of-the-gate way. I had a small deal with a big publisher who pretty quickly forgot about me and that was fine. I could be patient, I could write more books, build an audience. Maybe I would be someone who broke out after book two, book three…

But I haven’t, not really. I love my books. I love my readers. I love being published, and for one of these four years I started to see the kind of financial returns where it felt like the typing away was starting to pay off. And then, rather abruptly, those numbers started going down.

I know I am not the only author who is experiencing this and I know people will tell me that the future of publishing is bleak, that I should never expect to make money from it.

But people are still reading books. I have read an entire book since the day before yesterday (as I said, I am on holiday). Netflix is still turning books into TV shows. Films are still being made from words on paper. There is hope. I am sure, there is hope.

But in the meantime, how do we continue to write when life is so busy, so full of joy that I don’t want to hide away from while I make up imaginary worlds?

I don’t know the answer. And I don’t know if any of this was worth your time to read, but I recently attended the London Festival of Writing for my job and the one talk I managed to sit and listen to in its entirerety was the inspirational Aime McNee and her husband James. And Aime said something that really stuck with me.

If you want to write, you have to be okay with putting out some shitty writing*.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. No editing. No making my words wiser, more meaningful, better phrased. I have spent some time wondering what - if anything - I have to say anymore. I used to write on here about trying to have a baby. I now have a baby. I’m aware that this will mean some of you don’t want to read what I have to say anymore and I understand this, my God, I promise you - I understand.

What’s left, now that the trying is over? I’m not sure.. What is this piece about? What am I trying to say? That it’s hard to write when you have a child? That being a mum is nice? These two statements are not revolutionary - perhaps not even very interesting. But perhaps committing them to pretend-paper is all I need to do for now.

And so, here is some shitty writing brought to you from the side of the world I never thought I’d make it to. A letter from me to you, about how hard it is to write, even when you give yourself a break and a promise to myself to keep trying.

Speak soon.

Sophie x

*This is not a direct quote but rather paraphrased because even though I wanted to write down many of the golden nuggets Aime and James said, I didn’t want to break the spell by pulling out my phone

**As I finish writing this post, an email pings into my inbox. HMRC asking me if I want to file my self assessment form early (does anyone?) - reminding me that, despite how it may feel, I am a working writer and the tax man is coming for me, as he is coming for us all

***I actually had the time of my life at the London Festival of Writing, and given I have written some pretty sad posts about this in the past, I will, at some point, write an entire post about my lovely experience there this year

****God, I have actually had an entire book published since I last wrote to you and have failed to mention it at all (perhaps this is why those royalty cheques have been diminishing?) if you would like to read my latest book, which I really do rather quite like, you can get it here