Plus 12 things I learned writing my first book
A year ago today, Second Spring was pushed out into the world, blinking in the bright February light. Next to parenting and my relationship, the creation of this book has taught me more about myself than I thought possible and not all of it very comfortable.
There is a lot of mystique around writing a book, there’s perceived glamour and status and I would like to lift the veil on this one and share some of my process around Second Spring. If you are a writer or a dreamer, I hope reading this might save you some pain and some time.
For years I observed teachers and friends weighed down by the writing process. Abstracted and moaning, they found themselves too far in to escape the tide of misery. I concluded that this book business was too hard to be worth bothering with.
Despite all this, an internal pressure started to coagulate inside me through the winter of my menopause, an irrepressible creativity. I found that the more I turned my attention away from performing for outside world, the more the creativity grew. I knew I had something of great value to share: a down-to-earth, accessible view of the life seasons and how they made caring for ourselves through menopause simpler and more meaningful. I had lived my perimenopause through this seasonal lens and it had given both me and my clients liberating possibilities, in great contrast to the doom-laden contemporary narrative. Plus I could feel the timeliness of menopause zeitgeist thundering over the horizon.
I started writing in secret. It was even a secret to myself. A tender creative Spring where I pretended that it wasn’t a book, it was just a lot of blog articles all strung together. Once I had committed to starting each day by writing, the word count grew, the creative seasons turned and it turned into fully blown creative Summer of interviews, public declaration and later, self-validation. What if the transformative process I witnessed in my clients could reach more people? What about a world where perimenopause was held as an opportunity for growth, rather than a cause of shame? The possibilities grew in me and I eventually allowed them space to take root, and through a combination of confidence and Jack Russell-like determination, the book (at that point known as Menopause an Inside Job, Alexandra Pope’s genius phrase) became a priority in my life. It was clear that my path included getting a positive, cyclical viewpoint into the mainstream.
People ask me if I enjoyed it. Truthfully, mostly is was tough, my self-esteem constantly balanced on a thin layer of bubbles, beneath which my imposter syndrome lurked. Once the bubbles popped, I would inevitably be found out as a fraud and it would all disappear. I spent the following 18 months alternating wrestling eight feisty octopuses in my head and checking my emails 50 times a day. But sometimes it was peak-life-moment stuff, all singing-and-dancing fucking brilliant. When the words flowed easily, when I made myself laugh reading something back, when the ginormous word doc started to speak back to me in fully formed and thought through ideas, these moments made all the rejections worthwhile. They’ve lost their sting now, but yes there were many, many rejections. Friends of writers, just so you know, you must never try to consol your writer friends with the number of rejections JK Rowling had. It is not helpful.
Though I initially planned to self-publish, (I’m fast forwarding you through the rejections at this point to save on hadkies) I was fortunate enough to be hooked by a major publisher who had also spotted the appetite for positive information about menopause. I now felt like Cinderella about to depart for the ball; ALL the romantic fantasies at once with a book deal standing in for the Prince. HarperCollins and the team at HQ were amazing, devoting their passion and care to making Second Spring the gorgeous creation she is. The manuscript was de-woo-wooed to make it more accessible and perhaps my favourite aspect is that the quotes of peoples’ menopause experience was given space on the page and written in capitals; the validation of lived experience is rare these days. No cancel that. My actual favourite aspect is that the process of editing, both the structural edit and the copywriting edit make me look a much better writer than I am. Editing has gone from my least favourite to my most favourite process.
Second Spring was birthed into the world due to kindness of friends from life and online, my teachers, family and from strangers, bringing us to publication day, the Jo March moment. No one tells you this, but publication day, though utterly wonderful, is a bit like your new born leaving home on the day it is born. The book, so entwined with all kinds of self-worth and identity, becomes a separate entity that leads a life all of its very own, leaving only an eight octopus-shaped hole in your life. Second Spring goes to countries I’ve never been to and is variously adored and rejected by people I will never meet, for reasons I will never know.
Following publication there is a deep creative Winter, which, as the whole cycle was around three years in total, I estimate lasted about six to eight months. It was a profound and disturbing emptiness after such a long creative Summer and Autumn. Humans do not like psychic or emotional voids, so they tend to get filled by whatever is nearest to hand, in my case, climate anxiety, grief, terror at the approaching war, misery at the endless bollox of Tories (I am assured this is the correct collective noun). It took some conscious choices and psychological heft to shift my attention from despair towards what I could do. To stay as present as I am able as often as I can, and make the difference I am able to do with the skills and energy I have available.
Now, a year later, that hole has healed nicely and I can enjoy Second Spring’s adventures in the world with a little more detachment. I even have the bizarre experience of looking things up in my own book when I can’t remember them. And not every day, but usually more than once a week, I get a message from someone saying that even though the challenges they face are enormous, they found the book to offer reassurance, comfort and/or inspiration. They are reassured they are not broken and that the feeling of being lost, is in fact a sure sign of growth. Knowing that Second Spring is out there doing her work, in itself, is more than enough to compensate for the hours of octopus wrangling.
Every winter is of course followed by a spring, and just like human birth pains are forgotten so to are book birth pains and I am currently in the process of creating another book baby. Stay tuned. You’ll probably hear the cries from the labour ward over the coming year.
Here are 12 things I learned that I think writers might find helpful.
- You may not know what your writing will become, don’t try to force it onto a pre-determined shape, be kind and give it space and time to become itself
- It takes structure to move through the shit bits
- Lots of it feels like shit
- Find a community to writers who ‘get it’
- Read Bird By Bird, Ann Lammott says it all
- Creative summer i.e. the flow and the show and tell are only one small season
- All other seasons are equally valid and useful
- You are a writer even when you haven’t written a word… creative winter is a thing
- All routes of publishing are equally valid and suit different projects and times
- To get a little more objectivity, put your work away in hibernation for some time
- Lean into the editing process and find other people to help you with that
- Creative winter is where the spark of creativity lies
If you haven’t got a copy, may I recommend Second Spring as an excellent book on negotiating menopause? And if you have a copy, perhaps you know a friend who might like one. Here’s an excellent independent bookseller who can help you.
One last favour, could you please leave an amazon review if you have enjoyed Second Spring? It helps the book to be more visible in searches and ultimately puts a positive view of menopause in front of more eyes. Think of it as a public service. You can do that here.
As I’m about to hit publish on this blog piece, my heart is brim-full of writerly pleasedness and enormous gratitude to everyone who has bought a copy, shared it on socials, told a friend, all the colleagues, my agent Jane, the HQ team, my teachers and mates who have all been endlessly supportive.
It takes a village to raise a book, no question.
