The story continues

Now that Meredith has been born, the story continues at The Book and the Buggy.

Belated good news

I'm delighted to announce that our daughter, Meredith, was born on 18th May 2012. The birth went well and she was a very healthy 7lbs 1oz. In the ten weeks since her birth, David and I have loved getting to know her and introducing her to our family and friends. More blogging may follow after the summer, once I get the hang of rocking the bouncer and typing at the same time.

How will it all end?

The hospital bags are packed, the Moses basket is ready and waiting, David is on standby at work. All we need now is for the baby to decide that she’s ready to arrive. The question of when she will arrive is constant background noise to our life at the moment. Friends, family and David’s colleagues are ready to swing into action when the time comes – and with the kindest of intentions they regularly remind us that it could be any time now.

The anticipation of others is nothing to the tense expectation in our house. While the main question for others is when, for David and me there are even more questions: where will we be when it begins, which of the many possible challenges will we face, who will be caring for us in hospital, how long will it take, how will we cope? We have worked our way through the long months of pregnancy and we are almost there, but what has always mattered most is what happens at the end.

This week the question of what will happen at the end of A New World has also been exercising my mind. The plot is sketched out with a degree of certainty and the characters are beginning to make themselves known. The landscapes of Cornwall and the sea are knitting themselves together into settings for the first two thirds of the story. But how it will all come to an end is unknown.

The book will have a happy ending, or at least a satisfying one. But how to achieve this is a challenge. The heroine of the story craves adventure and independence, but how much can I reasonably give to a fifteen year old girl in 1800? It is relatively straightforward to get my characters into exciting scenarios; it is harder to get them out of them in interesting and believable ways. I also have plans for my heroine after this novel is finished, so I am trying to come up with a way to conclude the book without finishing her story.

For both the book and the birth, the ending is important. For both, the ending will mark the start of the next big adventure.

Passive vs. Active

As I continue research and planning for A New World, I have been reacquainted with a familiar sensation – that I am a passive observer in the story’s creation. I like this feeling; it stops me from asking myself the question ‘what happens next?’ Instead, as I’ve mentioned before, it feels like the story is unfolding as I think about it. Planning and writing at this stage feels to me as though I’m telling a story that already exists.

William James, a sociologist of religion, characterised religious experiences as being ineffable, noetic, transient and passive. In other words, that they are hard for the subject to describe, some knowledge or understanding is communicated, they are fleeting and they happen without being prompted. I am not suggesting that writing is a religious experience. But I am often reminded of William James when I try to explain the way I experience the first creative stage of writing. Although it is me that is sitting down and doing the work, it does feel very much as though it’s happening to me.

If the writing process feels passive, carrying a baby is even more so. Clearly, just as with writing, David and I can’t separate ourselves entirely from the creation of a baby. But from the moment I discovered I was pregnant, it has felt as though I have done almost nothing to make that tiny bundle of DNA grow into the sizeable baby that is now trying to punch out a window between my ribs.  

Of course, the baby has grown inside my body; she has been nourished by the food I’ve eaten, kept safely in place by the hormones that I’ve produced and been formed, in part, by my own DNA. However, I have little conception of my body being in charge.

We have made it into the final month of my pregnancy. Our daughter could arrive at any point in the next four weeks. As we wait, we are even more convinced of our passive role. It will be her who decides that she is ready. The ability to choose to sit down and get on with work (between baby-enforced naps) makes the passive creativity of writing is a welcome distraction.  

A private enterprise

As promised by pregnancy books and websites, the baby is changing the way she moves. What were once random kicks are mow more coordinated movements. She moves now like someone trying to fight their way out of a jumper, which is both alarming and endearing. Her movements make her seem ever more like a little human and I have taken to asking her what she is up to. This development is making David even more impatient to meet her. If the roles were reversed, I would find it hard not to be jealous of the time he spent with her. It is hard for him that I have a constant physical dialogue with her, a private knowledge that it is difficult to share with him.

For all that the medical aspects of giving birth might feel far from private. Carrying a baby is a private enterprise. From the outside, all may seem quiet and calm, while on the inside the baby is often dancing a cancan with only me to feel her. I wonder if I will miss these private sensations when she is born, but I suspect that the reality of her arrival will eclipse any memory of this time.

Writing a book is a similarly private enterprise. Much of the creative work that is involved in the writing of a book goes on unseen in my head. This is particularly true of the stage I am at with the writing of A New World. As the plot and characters emerge in my imagination, I am also driving to see family, or washing my hair, or hoovering.  As the weather improves, just sitting in the garden is often very productive for the book. This is one reason why I find it hard to describe the process of writing, although there is a product eventually the process of creating it sometimes looks very much like doing nothing.

Although I enjoy feeling the baby moving and a career that involves sitting about thinking, these private enterprises are not meant to stay private. The purpose of me writing books is to have them published and sold. The purpose of me carrying a baby is for us to become parents. It will not be long now, before the baby arrives. I hope that the book follows suit.

Preparation vs Inspiration

Last week I began the marathon washing of the baby’s belongings. I am washing blankets, car seat covers, pram linings, a mosquito net, and bundles of clothes. She now has far more clothes than me or David and has gorgeous dresses handed down by her cousin to last her until she is at least two years old.

If all goes as it should, we still have weeks, possibly months, until she is here. We have time to decide where the cot should go in her room so that the light from the hall doesn’t wake her. We have time to discover the difference between vests, bodysuits, rompers and sleep suits and time to decide where to put the wipes and the nappies and the creams for smooth nappy changes.

However, there can be too much preparation. Soon, we will know what needs to be within easy reach and what can be forgotten in a drawer, but for the time being there’s only so far that preparation can take us.

In writing a book, there is a similar balance between preparation and inspiration. For my first book, Wild Rose, I came up with a story one evening and began writing the first chapter the next day. None of that first chapter ended up in the finished book. The whole method of narration changed as I wrote and by the end of the first hand written draft there were characters and events that had become redundant. What I learnt helped me to write a plan for my second book, A Good Death. I started writing with the middle chapters of the book, stuck to my plan and changed little as I went along.

As I approach my third book, A New World, I currently have a paragraph summary of a story and lots of ideas in my head. I don’t feel I can just start writing, as I did for Wild Rose, until I have done a bit more preparation. But whereas I knew chapter by chapter what would happen in A Good Death, I am prepared to let inspiration do more of the work this time.

The writing of this book will need to be approached differently to either of the others. As I’ll be writing and caring for a newborn at the same time, it will be important to learn to embrace sleep-deprived mind wandering and to ensure that there are notepads by the changing table, the nursing chair and the Moses basket.

Even planning how I’m going to write when the baby is born is a little futile. In finding a balance between preparation and inspiration, our daughter is yet to have her say.

Related posts: Putting the baby to bed 

Gestation of a kangaroo

The gestation of a Virginian opossum is just twenty days, while an Indian elephant is in the womb for about twenty two months. Forty weeks of waiting and preparation seems like a fair compromise for humans.

                                                                        

Now that I have reached thirty weeks, the arrival of the baby is beginning to feel imminent. Practical preparations have accelerated and I am taking a break from writing for a week or so to get the baby’s room finished, newborn clothes assembled and hospital bags packed. All these measures beg the inevitable question of when she will actually arrive. Being ready ahead of time might turn out to be fortuitous, or we might be walking backward and forward past the hospital bag for another twelve weeks.

At times it feels as though we are running out of time to prepare for the baby, at others it feels like an age before we get to meet her. But ultimately, she will arrive at some point within a long but fairly predictable period of time.

Books, on the other hand, have a long and unpredictable gestational period. Wild Rose, has been in gestation for more than three years already. There are many different reasons for this long period of development. I wrote and edited Wild Rose in my free time while working as a teacher. Submitting to agents and waiting for feedback is a time consuming process. Getting feedback on a manuscript, editing and proofreading are also lengthy operations.

The gestation of a book is also more like a kangaroo than a human. A kangaroo’s development can be stalled. If two embryos form, one will be frozen at a particular point in its development until the other leaves the womb and enters the pouch.

The manuscript for A Good Death has been stalled. I heard back from my agent this week that the changes I’ve made to the manuscript aren’t radical enough. There are really two books within it that need to be separated – a difficult and painful process. I will need to let the feedback sit in the back of my mind for some time, while I work on A New World. Hopefully, when I come back to it there will be creative space for it to grow.

So, while the gestational period of our baby is somewhat fixed, the gestational period of a book is long and unpredictable. Having said that, there comes a day when a book is published and placed on the shelf. When our baby is born she will have a long way to go. The end of gestation for her is the beginning of what will hopefully be a long life of development.

Cheerleaders

Our families are understandably excited about the arrival of the baby. Her grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, uncles and aunts ask after her regularly. There is little to tell them except for the direction and force of her kicks or squirms, but their interest seems only natural to us as her parents. Even her little cousins are somewhat aware of her impending arrival and Percy was suggested by one of them as an appropriate name by the other day.

Almost two thousand babies are born in the UK each day, but to our families and friends this baby will be special. The generously loaned (and happily offloaded) baby clothes and equipment are a small part of the support that they are to us. At the simplest level, their interest in our baby and their desire for her to be healthy and happy is a great encouragement to us.

Cheerleaders are similarly necessary for books. Each year hundreds of thousands of new books are published in the UK. My manuscripts are yet to even reach that stage. If and when they do, they will be one of thousands of others. Just as with our baby, the support and encouragement of my family and friends, partial though they might be, is incredibly important to me.

Some of the support they give is very practical. It would be one thing for my heroic husband to work to support me while I’m at home looking after our baby. It’s quite another for him to work to support me while I’m at home writing a book. If either Wild Rose or A Good Death is published, a good measure of that achievement will be his for giving me the time and mental energy to work on them.

Other support they give is motivational. My family and friends’ excitement and congratulations at each stage of the process so far has spurred me on. Though I may have moments of doubt about the future of my manuscripts, they are ever hopeful. When they read my manuscripts, their enjoyment of my writing, though it might be biased, gives me confidence as I write.  

I have written before of the value of an expert opinion. A professional opinion is ultimately of the most financial value. However, the excitement and appreciation of family and friends is invaluable.

Unravelling

My mum and one of my sisters have been proof-reading A Good Death this week and giving valuable encouragement. They asked me how I went about writing a book; they are lovingly incredulous. They could see where I had drawn on my own experiences: an incident involving binoculars on a family holiday in the Pyrenees for example. But where, they wanted to know, did the rest come from?

I found it very hard to explain where the story, the characters and the settings come from. The simplest explanation is that they are made up, like a story we might have been asked to write at school. They come from my imagination. But that doesn’t satisfy me. It may sound absurd, but very quickly in the process of writing a book, it doesn’t seem made up anymore.

A friend recently sent me a link to a lecture given by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love.  She talks about the need for a psychological device to distance a writer from the creative process, so that it doesn’t drive them mad. Gilbert suggests consideration of the Ancient Greek ‘daemons’ or Roman ‘genius’, spirits that communicate creativity. I can relate to this idea to an extent. There are times when I read my manuscript back and I’m surprised by what I’ve written. I wonder where it came from. But there are also times when I am painfully conscious of the process of making up the story.

Although there are parts of the process of writing a book that I can describe, I can no more explain how it happens that I can explain the making of our baby. I am aware of how her conception came about. But from that point on, my conscious involvement in her growth has been limited to trying to eat the right food, take appropriate vitamins and avoid harmful substances. I might be able to describe some of the biological and chemical processes involved, but as a whole her formation remains mysterious and wonderful.

In both cases, the best I can say is that they start from something very small. The baby started from a once-in-history combination of DNA. A Good Death started from a family looking glum in a burger restaurant. From each of those beginnings everything else has seemed to unravel of its own accord.

Some things you have to learn to love

I used to avoid reading through school and university essays before I handed them in. I’d worked hard on them and writing the final paragraph meant I could get on with something else. I also found it painful to read back through my own words – a bit like hearing my voice on a tape recorder. The experience of being a teacher changed that. I learnt the frustration of reading a badly proof-read essay. Spelling mistakes, missed words and awkward grammar are very distracting. I also learnt how simple it could be to improve the clarity of the ideas being expressed.

Last year, when studying for my Masters, I found that I was much more willing to see my first attempt as a draft. With my writing this has become an absolute necessity.

At the moment I am proof-reading A Good Death, having finished the re-writes. I find something to change on almost every page: typos, missed words, awkward phrasing that I don’t like any more, details that have become inaccurate as I’ve changed other parts of the manuscript. It can be an excruciating process, particularly when it comes to transferring the changes from paper to my laptop. However, I’ve also come to appreciate the opportunity to read through the whole manuscript and get a wider view. There is also less creative pressure when I’m working on text I’m otherwise basically happy with.

Coming to enjoy the different stages of pregnancy has been similarly challenging. As I’ve moved through the trimesters each has had its challenges. In the first, I felt almost constantly unwell and couldn’t tell anyone why. But I was very excited about being pregnant and it was a happy secret between me and David. In the second, there was little evidence of actually being pregnant and it felt very unreal, but I was beginning to feel better and we discovered that we were having a girl. Now, on the edge of the third trimester, I am beginning to feel sick again, I am very tired and I’m making the classic ‘oof’ noise when I try to get out of bed, or a car, or off the sofa. The next twelve to fourteen weeks stretch out endlessly ahead. However, it’s wonderful to feel our daughter wriggling around and to be getting her room ready.

I’d love to be at the stage of holding my completed book or baby in my hands, but can’t accelerate the process, I just have to learn to love the stage I’m at.

Related posts: Putting the baby to bed 

Strength in numbers

Something that appeals to me about making writing my career is working on my own. Though I have an agent and I have consulted others for their advice, it is a solitary occupation. I enjoy being able to work at my own pace, without distractions or demands. I am savouring this peace and quiet while it lasts. The arrival of our baby will change the environment I’m working in and the time that I find to write. But even then, when I open my notebook or sit down to type I will be working alone.

There are downsides, though, to working alone. I miss many of my colleagues from teaching, with whom I felt a great camaraderie. Those like minded people with whom I would share two minutes in the corridor on the way to another lesson were a great support. There were always people that I could call on for help, advice and encouragement. There were also moments of great fun and amusement that could be shared.

Writing a book does not just mean working alone, it means that I have to be my own colleagues. I have to make sure that I am at my desk and getting through the word count and that I stay motivated through weeks and weeks of working without feedback. There is some encouragement in the experiences of other writers – I was reading the other day that Malorie Blackman, a very successful children’s author, spent two years trying to get published, receiving eighty two rejection letters along the way. But ultimately, everyone’s experience is different and that she eventually got published is no guarantee that I will.

They say when you’re trying to become pregnant you see pregnant women everywhere. And since I’ve become pregnant, it seems that lots of my friends and family are also having babies this year. As well as my sister and a former colleague, I found out this week that an old school friend is also expecting. It’s great to be able to share being pregnant with others who are going through similar experiences. We also hope to meet other parents in our area when our baby arrives, seeing how supportive these friendships have been for others we know.

While I enjoy the time I spend alone writing, it is good to know that when it comes to having the baby we are certainly not alone.

Feelings of unreality

Feelings of unreality are a side effect of being pregnant, according to one of the guides to pregnancy I have been given. I can certainly relate to this. Although I know that I’m pregnant, I still find myself wondering why I’m feeling so tired, or sick, or why I’m finding it difficult to get up off the sofa. We are beginning to collect baby equipment and have just one adorable sun dress that our daughter won’t fit into until next summer. I look at the dress from time to time and I’m not sure what it’s doing in our house.

I suspect that part of the feeling of unreality is a deliberate caution on my part. I’m still aware that there are things that could go wrong. But mostly, I think the sense of unreality comes from the sheer improbability of conception and birth. It is extraordinary to think that a real person is growing inside me and that one day they will emerge into the world to live a life of their own. No matter how much she kicks or hiccoughs, I still find it hard to comprehend.

Having a book published seems equally implausible at the moment. Wild Rose is undergoing a second round of submissions to new set of publishers, which means that I’m trying not to check my emails obsessively for news on how it’s going. Despite the encouragement of my agent and the knowledge that most authors experience lengthy periods of uncertainty before someone finally makes them an offer, at times it feels it will never happen.

Despite these feelings of unreality, there is an impetus to keep going. We are picking up more baby equipment over the weekend. I continue to slowly clear the study to make room for a nursery. And I continue working on re-writes for A Good Death, hoping that before long I will be going through the same process of hope and doubt about its chances with the publishers.

Feeling that the baby will never come is irrational, while feeling that the book might not find a publisher is more reasonable. But in both cases the answer is to carry on regardless. Thinking about what could go wrong with the baby is unhelpful to my general sanity and wellbeing. Thinking about whether a publisher will like what I’m writing slows me down to an excruciating snail’s pace.

When the day comes that something extraordinary happens, whether it’s the birth of our baby or the publication of one of my manuscripts, I will try to remember how unlikely it seemed and therefore how much more miraculous.

Beware 'expert' opinions

For the past year I’ve subscribed to a writing magazine. The majority of its content is relevant to writers who hope to be published one day. There are stories about how established writers got their first breaks, advice on writing for particular genres and discussion of the hot drinks, clothing and ambience most favoured by writers. (Tea, something respectable, the hum of a coffee shop.) There are also numerous adverts offering training, consultancy, courses, retreats, stationary and qualifications all designed to help you get something published.

I’ve benefitted from the expert advice of both Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and Shelley Instone Literary Consultancy. They both came at the recommendation of my agent, who was in turn recommended by the agency that represents my uncle’s literary estate. Without these personal recommendations, I would have found it difficult to trust that the advice I was getting was worth the money.

In publishing, there are numerous ways to spend your money to receive ‘expert’ advice and help. How much of it makes you more likely to be published is another matter. I have learnt a great deal from the advice I have received, but I have also been careful not to seek too many ‘expert’ opinions. The fewer editing voices I hear in my head as I write the better, my own is loud enough.

Preparing for having a baby has inducted us into a world that is similarly saturated with ‘expert’ opinions, mostly in book form. There are even more numerous ways to spend your money to receive contradictory advice. We have been leant or recommended several books that line themselves up at various points on a let them cry – don’t let them cry spectrum: from ‘knitting yoghurt’ in my sister’s words to borstal for babies. The range and manner of advice is, frankly, alarming.

My favourite book so far is a Great Ormond Street Hospital book that deals from a medical point of view with mainly practical issues of birth and baby care. For the time being, this is expert opinion enough. When our daughter arrives I will have plenty of my own doubts without the editing voices of the ‘experts’ fighting for position.





Earlier this week we went for a third scan to check our baby’s heart, as I have a (completely benign) hole in mine. It was conducted by a doctor who specialises in foetal ultrasound and the baby was found to be just as she should be. For us, that was the ultimate expert opinion.



The baby strikes a gymnastic pose at the cardiac scan

Paraphernalia

A striking difference between writing a book and having a baby is the amount of specialised equipment needed.

Whilst it’s true that our baby could sleep in a cardboard box lined with something soft and have a bath in a bucket, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that she will need a great deal of kit in her first year. Guarding against gathering too much that we won’t ultimately use, I’ve paid attention to the lists of basics that our pregnancy book suggests and scanned online forums discussing the worst purchases parents have made for their babies. Despite this, there is world of new products that we will need to borrow, bid for and buy before she arrives.

The aim for January is to clear the study ready to be transformed into a nursery. We have moved from a stage of getting used to the idea of being pregnant to thinking seriously about having a baby in the house in a few months time. Earlier in the week, I began bidding for a buggy on EBay, which led to me wondering about car seats, which led to me wondering about a bigger car, which led to me thinking about our holiday in France, which led to me thinking about travel cots, which led me to wonder if the Moses basked attachment of the buggy I was bidding for would be suitable for sleeping in for a night, which led me back to EBay, which led me to a baby bath…





Wild Rose in notebook form and a complete first draft



Writing, on the other hand, is delightfully simple. When I first started writing Wild Rose I bought myself a notebook from ‘The Kite, Koop and Bookstore’ on Chincoteague Island and took it to the beach with a biro from my hand luggage. I found the same notebooks on my return and kept writing in coffee shops or in the garden. Writing in longhand meant that I could edit as I went along and I felt less committed to the text than when I was typing onto a laptop. Even when I printed off my first full draft, all I needed was paper and bulldog clips.

That is not to say that there isn’t a similar pleasure in buying stationary as there is in gathering cute baby kit. But while all I needed to write a book could fit in my satchel, it won’t be long before our baby has a whole roomful of paraphernalia waiting for her.



Happy New Year

The Book and the Baby is back after a Christmas holiday - Happy New Year!