A book and baby novice

Perhaps by the end of the pregnancy I will begin to feel that I am not quite such a novice, but at the moment that’s very much what I am. I went to a midwife’s appointment earlier in the week, my second after a bewildering ‘booking’ appointment eight weeks ago at the stage when we still couldn’t quite believe I was pregnant. I look and feel a lot more pregnant than I did then; I’ve purchased books, signed up to websites and almost been cast as Mary in a nativity play. So I went to this appointment feeling much more prepared.  

However, it is still very evident that this is my first pregnancy. I have been battling a stinking cold this week and when I mentioned it to the midwife she patiently reassured me, in her best ‘first time pregnancy’ voice, that it wouldn’t affect the baby in any way. Next, she asked if I had a urine sample with me and, turning her back to me, would I take my top off. She was a little surprised when she turned back with the testing kit to see that I’d taken my jumper off. ‘The top of the sample pot,’ she explained.

To a professional, having a baby is not new or unknown, as it is for me. The midwife had already listened to several other babies’ heartbeats that day (incidentally, she said mine was the best – it’s not too early for parental smugness.) I am learning the rules and practices of an entirely new world, which she inhabits every working day.

Writing a book has been a similar experience. When I first started writing in 2008, I knew very little about what it took to get a book published and I have had to ask some very obvious questions of patient professionals along the way. These days I am beginning to do things I know a little about: re-writes for A Good Death are a little easier having done them for Wild Rose, planning for A New World will be more effective having written two books already. However, while I have learnt a lot, I am still very much a novice. Going through the process of submission for Wild Rose is another experience I’m having for the first time and I’m very grateful for the guidance of my agent, who has done it all before.

As a book and baby novice, it’s great to know the professionals know what they’re doing.  

There's no re-writing a baby



After feedback from my agent, I’m starting re-writes for A Good Death. It’s a daunting task. I’m discarding some chapters completely and changing the focus of others to make the final section more effective. Getting rid of what is not working is a cathartic process and the changes are necessary to get it closer to being published. There is no guarantee of getting it completely right this time and my experience of re-writing and editing Wild Rose tells me that there will be more changes to make in the future. This is certainly not the easiest or most enjoyable aspects of the writing process, but it is one of the most satisfying.

The second half of A Good Death: one chapter per Post-it



The gradual development of the book could be compared to the slow formation of the baby, but this is one way the book and the baby differ. There are no re-writes with a baby. Our baby’s genetic material is fixed. In fact, the egg that led to our baby was made before I was even born. As much as I might hope that the baby inherits David’s strong teeth and my eyesight, we have no control over what the baby will be like. On the simplest level, it will still be weeks before we learn if it is a boy or a girl.

Not being able to re-write your baby is a good thing, of course. We will accept and love our baby for who they will be. But quite apart from that, if we could make changes to our baby before it was born, I couldn’t cope with the responsibility of deciding what they would be like. How could I know what they would need or what would make them happiest in life? And how could David and I, who can’t agree what colour of sofa covering would look best, agree what our child should be like?

While I do re-writes for the book, I’m glad that the baby is developing secretly and with minimal input from us.





Empty chapters waiting for a decision



Good news has to last

Wild Rose is out on submission, which means that editors at ten different publishers are reading it and deciding if it is something they would like to publish. A Good Death was also submitted to my agent last week, having just been completed. Reading manuscripts takes a long time and both publishers and agents have piles of them to get through. So, I was astonished and delighted to hear good news for both books after only a few days. Eve White emailed to tell me that she had bumped into someone at one of the publishing houses who had read Wild Rose and really enjoyed it. And Eve also told me that she had read A Good Death and loved it.

Having positive feedback and so quickly was very encouraging. But I have had to learn not to live by feedback alone. In my former life as a secondary school teacher, feedback was instant and almost constant. I taught around three hundred students each week and from their responses, body language and the looks on their faces I could judge how the lessons were going. Writing a book, on the other hand, involves long periods without any feedback: positive or negative. At times like this, I need to get on with the chapter I’m working on, or the research I’m doing and try not to check my emails obsessively.  

In a similar way, at this stage of pregnancy weeks go by without any sense of what is happening with the baby. At the moment, I can’t see it, hear it or feel it. Having felt sick for nine weeks, I’m feeling better; I can just about do my teeth, cook and smell our washing powder without becoming nauseous. Feeling better is great, but there’s less going on to tell me that I’m pregnant. In another two weeks my midwife might listen to the baby’s heartbeat and it will be another four weeks after that before we get to see the baby again in another scan. In the meantime, I have to be patient and trust that everything is going well.

Getting good news, as I did this week, is exciting, but I have to make it last.

More hen than human

One of the most reassuring things we were told at our twelve week scan was that there was only one baby. Twins are very special, but for my first go at motherhood I know one will be challenge enough.

In this way, trying to become a published author is more like being a hen than a human. Even if we were to be having twins, they would be born at the same time and be at the same stage of development. A hen, on the other hand, lays a clutch of eggs at intervals and works on keeping them all warm while she waits for them to hatch.

I have a clutch of three at the moment. I heard yesterday that my first novel for children, Wild Rose has been submitted to publishers by my agent, Eve White. Today, I finished proof-reading the first draft of my novel for adults, A Good Death, the story of the revenge a woman takes when her husband fakes his own death. And on Monday I will get to work on my second book for children, New World. All the while, new ideas are developing and join the list of books I want to write.

I’m looking forward to getting back to the beginning stages of the writing process with New World. Editing and proof-reading have a certain satisfaction. But for me there is nothing like writing the story for the first time. However, I know that there will be more work to do on Wild Rose and A Good Death in the future.

For now, I am grateful to be working on just one book and that there’ll only be one baby this time.