The Quirks of Being a Writer, A Glimpse into my Everyday Life.

The glimpse of my everyday life whilst writing the The Highwaygirl would reveal two words; determination and honour. There are a lot of other words that come to mind like, multi-tasking, endurance, fun, fulfillment, resourcefulness, focus etc. My everyday life for three years (minus the school holidays) was a determined focus and dedication to write this book. There was literally no time to indulge in the doubts and the blocks. I had had this idea for my book and I had to start it and I had to finish it. I had to see it through.

The reason for my determination was two things. I had had a baby daughter and I had given up my job to be a full time mum which meant I had no income. No income to indulge in any indulgences. I consider this my work in lieu. There was no money coming in, only money going out, so the longer I took to write the book the more it cost me to do so and the money was running out. So 'time was money' as they say in the movie world.

My other word is 'honour'. I had to honour my second chance at becoming a mum. Meaning any time that I missed with my daughter because of the book had to be justified. In other words honouring the time not with her with getting my book finished.

I had to honour this opportunity I had given myself, I had to honour this idea for my book. I couldn't let it slip away into the nothingness and then later into regret. I had to honour this crazy endeavour of a rookie, left-school-at-sixteen-with-one-O'level writer writing her first novel.

But most of all I had to honour my parents who had left me some inheritance at exactly the same time as my book idea came to me. I couldn't waste that inheritance and their hard work on waffling, procrastination, fear etc. A beautifully timed coincidence I would say. The timing of writing this book came to me, I didn't come to it. And I had to honour this. Was serendipity playing its part here? Well that's for another blog.

So I went head first and non-stop into writing. My day went like this; Five am start writing, 8am get kids fed and ready for school, school run, 10am-2pm write, 2pm school pick-ups, lunch, kids after school activities/errands/life, dinner, bath, bed, then write until one am. I was a woman on a mission, relentless. I didn't want to miss out on any 'daughter' time, so I manoeuvred all my writing around her.

The flow of ideas came like a wonderful river so it was hard sometimes to cut that flow at 2pm and jump into mummy-land, chores and errands. So whether at the supermarket or the surf club, the flow continued to overflow into the afternoon and I'd be constantly jotting down ideas.

The book never left me from dawn to dusk, it even spilled over into my dreams. As time was such a precious commodity I found myself stealing any precious extra hour or thirty minutes I was thrown, I was constantly playing with it and juggling with it. But this is definitely nothing new. No sob story here, I loved every minute of it. And also definitely no medals to be awarded either, women all over the world do the same and a lot lot more under conditions a lot lot worse.