How Not To Write A Book part 1

July 2004

Finishing this novel has ended up being like stopping smoking. I
have had to mentally prepare for it and then steel my nerve. I planned
to finish it when the kids went on their annual holiday with their dad.
It is the only week of the year when I don't have any kids and I
decided to earmark it for finishing the damn book.

I have been writing it for an embarrassingly long time. The idea was
conceived loads of years ago and a feeble abortive attempt made at
writing a few chapters. It was rubbish. Only more recently did I pick
it up and decide the story was worth telling and I would rewrite it. By
recently I mean the last two or three years or four. I am really unsure
of the actual dates. Four chapters were rewritten and several people
read them and said encouraging things. The book Mad Sally's Egg is
aimed at the top end of the primary age group. I decided to send it off
to an agent or something because I had no idea if it was working or
not. Instead I left it in an envelope, ready to go, for months. Finally
I was bullied into sending it.

I picked an agent from a list of them. I liked her address. I sent
it with a hand written covering note, no synopsis. I was breaking all
the rules. Off it went and I guessed I wouldn't hear a thing. A week or
so later the phone rang.

"Don't you read your email?" she said.

Apparently she had sent several emails but unfortunately due to
bills not being paid (ahem) my email account was not accessible. "Send
the rest at once." The agent was assertive.

I cleared my throat.

"I ?. err ?. I haven't actually written the rest."

"Finish it then," she said.

That was sometime in 2002.

I wrote a few more chapters but somehow didn't get round to the
rest. The agent didn't give up. Every now and then there would be a
phone call or a letter or an email asking ever so politely how I was
getting on. Each time I got a twang of guilt or shame. I was an idiot.
Everyone agreed which was kind of them.

I have always wanted to be a writer since I knew what writing was. I
threw a memorable tantrum at pre school when I realised they weren't
going to teach me to read and write. I refused to go any more.

I got my first typewriter when I was 8. A beige "Petite". I had no
other ambitions. The other kids at school wanted to be doctors and
spies and engine drivers and showjumpers. I could only see myself in
the future as a person with a typewriter on the kitchen table and happy
babies playing at my knee while I wrote.

Hah!

I got the happy babies, three of them, but they interfered with any
idea of writing or doing anything else.

So came the week in 2004 when the happy babies - now large teenagers
- were off with their dad and I came face to face with my plan. Finish
the book. I had made sure to tell everyone I would be doing it except
my agent. I had been to see her the August before and she had told me
to get it done and she would flog it. So I sat down at the kitchen
table with my laptop and began. It was difficult at first, my main
character Erin took a while to limber up. Then she got into her stride
and started talking for herself. Man, can she talk. On she went, on and
on. Each day I woke up and got up and let Erin have her head and tell
her story about school bullies and mad child eating neighbours and
making new friendships when you have just moved somewhere new. By
Thursday of the week Erin was already talking before I had properly
woken up and I was blearily switching on the laptop and letting
her.

By Saturday she had almost finished. Writing her story had made me
laugh and cry and finishing her story was the most euphoric feeling. I
was hysterically happy.

I had written 29,500 words in that week. I had fried my brain. I
couldn't think straight but I was delirious with joy. I had finished a
book! Immediately I phoned the agent and told her. "Send it!" she
said.

I didn't send it. I drove it over and put it into her hands.