My maternity nurse spent every night discussing her novel with me. When I handed over the (huge) cheque, I was thinking the payment should in fact be the other way around
An occupational hazard of being a novelist is fielding queries about how to get published. Now that writing is the new gold rush, seen as the route to instant millions, no week goes by without somebody wanting information, ranging from a mere couple of handy hints to demanding the full name, rank and serial number of my agent and asking me to read their full manuscript into the bargain. Feeling extremely fortunate and privileged to do what I do, I try my best to help. Frankly, though, whoever it was that said everyone has a novel in them had no idea of what they were starting. In recent weeks, I have been confronted with the novel in the son of the person whose house we were buying, the novel in the wife of a colleague of my husband's and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, the novel in the maternity nurse who came to help after the birth of my daughter three weeks ago. As I had by then most unexpectedly finished my own novel (a comic take on parenthood called The Wives of Bath), I felt I didn't actually need a maternity nurse all that much. So there we sat, she and I, night after night, debating the finer points of her plot. Of which the final twist came when I handed over the (huge) cheque while wondering whether payment should not in fact be the other way around.
Another occupational hazard - for the rural writer especially - is summertime. For any rustic scribe who manages to remain in print - let alone make appearances in the bestseller lists - this is the season of fetes, carnivals and "festivals" of every description. All needing someone (anyone) to open them (Liz Hurley, you may have seen, was roped in to opening the fair in her Cotswold village) and all with organisers who - even if they have never heard of you themselves - imagine that someone else probably has. Now wise to the game, rather than accept such requests out of vanity, I turn them down out of even greater vanity - to save myself the ignominy of investing hours and hours making jolly opening speeches to be delivered to a field of people who obviously have no idea who in the world I am. Occasionally, however, one of these offers slips through the net, and so last weekend I had to do the honours at the school some neighbours' children go to. The first downer was, as expected, my inaugural address, bawled from the centre of a windy pasture to a largely indifferent crowd. (People shuffled and cleared their throats and looked as if they had no interest whatsoever in hearing me out.) Piling on the misery was the abundance of skinny and glamorous mothers, not a sight to lift the ego of a woman shoehorned into a tight suit only three and a half weeks after giving birth. Then came the request to judge the fancy-dress competition which, while it meant the joy of awarding prizes to children who had made great efforts, meant also enduring the huge-eyed hurt of those whose efforts went unsung. My dreams that night were stalked by a prizeless little girl in a papier-mache witch's hat, whose mother had stood threateningly by throughout the judging. Had I ruined her life and, more to the point, would her mother find out where I lived? Setting the seal on the afternoon was a conversation with a teacher who within seconds had asked me who my agent was. He had written a novel and . . .
Another hazard of summertime is holidays. Having spent the year so far holed up in an ancient Derbyshire cottage, my contact with the outside world (except that part of it with novels in it) has been brief and infrequent. My time has been equally divided between writing and trying to train infants. The latter has been the more demanding, but has at least been conducted within the privacy and behind the thick, sound-absorbing walls of my own home. Now, however, the dread prospect beckons of travelling halfway across Europe (or at least across the Channel) with a tiny baby and an 18-month-old in tow. Yes, we are bound for the Riviera. John and I know the south of France - I made it the location of my latest paperback, a comic romance called Azur Like It- and are already entertaining fantasies of the children frolicking on the beach and developing a lifelong love of Mediterranean food in all our favourite restaurants. The reality, naturally, will be our staggering, sleep-starved and irritable, beneath the weight of infants, nappies, bottles and pushchairs through sweltering airports, planes and stations. Every minute on the beach will be spent worrying about sun protection factors and next door's Frisbee, while the educational dinners will doubtless be times for relationships with restaurateurs, built up over decades, to shatter under the strain of our rioting offspring.
We could, of course, stay at home, or go on holiday nearby. Take a leaf, perhaps, from the book of some Scottish friends who annually take their family to the Yorkshire Dales on the very sound grounds of the three Cs - it's cheap, it's close and the children like it. Yorkshire, besides being beautiful, is where I was born and I, too, would love my children to know it well. Were it not for the possibility that David Blunkett will any minute declare war on Humberside and invade Yorkshire en route, I'd be there like a shot, as it were. As it is, getting the hell out of the north may be safer.
Wendy Holden's novel Azur Like It is published in paperback by Headline (£6.99)
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
