My new novel is out so guess what I'm doing?

NOT checking the reviews. Okay, maybe just a peek when my eyes slide in that direction...

My new novel, The Full Nest, came out yesterday. People often say that your book being published is like giving birth. Sending your baby out in the world!

Is this true? Let’s think about it.

Well, yes, both take blinking AGES to ‘grow’

No one can deny that the writing part trundles on for a very long time. Longer than is strictly necessary, some would argue. Sometimes it’s fun but at other times, when I’m sitting there rubbing at my face (as if that’ll help anything) I think: really, do books need so many pages?

Remember when you had to write a school essay and your teacher said, ‘I want you to fill four pages’? And in a cunning ploy you tried to get away with

really massive writing

When I try to remember what pregnancy was like, back in the mists of time - Tony Blair, ‘things can only get better’ and all that - I do recall that it feels lengthier than you’d opt for ideally. While ‘carrying’ twins I was the size of an Amazon fulfilment centre and the 40 weeks arrangement seemed like a joke.

Three quarters of a year to grow a baby? Mother nature my arse. Bet it was a man who thought of that!

And both ‘processes’ lack glamour

Before I wrote books I imagined that authors were either: holed up in an ancient turret overlooking the stormy sea, drunk on whisky, clattering away on a typewriter into the night.

Or Barbara Cartland reclining on a chaise longue, dictating the book to a lackey.

Of course for most of us, neither is accurate, and the reality is just sitting down in a very ordinary room and writing. I write in what used to be my daughter’s bedroom before she moved away. On the shelf there are long abandoned cans of Batiste dry shampoo and a hairdryer that, whatever it’s switched on, emits a stench of burning dust. Through the window I see one of the students from the flat upstairs hanging out washing ineffectually in our shared back garden.

Next time I look, everything has blown off the line and is strewn all over the lawn. I catch myself wondering, Why didn’t he use pegs? Doesn’t he have any? Or are they not a thing any more? Then I realise I’m spending too much time ruminating on a young man’s underwear and need to get on with writing.

Obviously, pregnancy also lacks glamour. This hit home when a colleague came back to the office one lunchtime - I was still working on more! magazine at the time - to show off the new bra she’d bought at lunchtime.

Gorgeous sexy little lacy thing, it was.

I glared at it with no small degree of bitterness as I too had been bra shopping at lunchtime. Mine was constructed from two enormous beige barrage balloons and I kept it hidden away in its bag.

After birth/publication you have NO CONTROL over what happens next

Will your book sell lots of copies? Who knows! You can of course try to help things along by constantly shouting on social media. And yes, you could gallop naked on horseback through town centres while throwing out free copies in the hope of being featured in the Todderington Gazette. But really, beyond that, there’s a sort of acceptance that you’ve done your best and that’s oddly liberating.

Here I am announcing our baby news on Homerton Hospital’s telephonic apparatus with NO idea what was in store.

Hello hello I have just had a book! I mean babies!

Life with babies was, shall we say, ‘quite busy’ to the point that made pregnancy seem like a breeze.

But your book coming out is not like this. Because when it finally hits the shelves all the hard work is DONE.

It’s just out there in the world, doing its thing. You don’t have to buy special padded things to cover sharp table corners because your book is not going it injure itself on them.

You won’t need a playpen in which to imprison your book while you rush to the toilet.

No older relatives are going to descend, telling you the ‘right way’ to do it, because even if you’ve written your book in entirely the wrong way, it’s DONE.

And not one of those relatives is going to look quizzically at your choice of book name and say, ‘You didn’t think of Colin?’*

(*This actually happened when when our sons were born).

Once your book is out there you carry on with your life, like a normal person but with an added spring to your step, like you’ve just had some massive vitamin shot. Because you’re no longer fretting that your characters are constantly changing their eye colours and oh no Daniel shouldn’t be sitting there drinking coffee as he’s meant to be DEAD YOU FOOL!

So that’s one huge difference between babies and books. Because once a child is born - well then the real stuff begins.

However both books and babies will keep you up at night…

At least the reviews will, if you read them. Nowadays these are mostly online and happily most are lovely. But you get the odd one, you know? And these are the ones that stick in your mind.

There was the woman who, a few years ago now, complained that my novel was just one sentence after another.

What did she expect? A sudden fanfare of trumpets at chapter seven? A litter of dachshund puppies to tumble out at page 178?

A finished book has been checked numerous times. But somehow the odd typo still sneaks through and a sharp-eyed reviewer will not only spot it, but post a screenshot and say This completely ruined my reading pleasure!

Anyway, The Full Nest is out and I’m delighted to say that it has some lovely 5* reviews.

Not that I read them. They just fell in front of my eyes!

Love,

Fiona xx

PS If you’d like a copy you can order yours here!