Arts Portfolio

We all have a book inside us waiting to come out, the question is when and where and whether we wish to embark on such a mammoth task.

Not easily daunted by adversity, I decided to give it a go. Friends have been pushing towards this goal for many years, even hinting that my life would make an ‘interesting read’. But one remark, ‘Just write you life in five chapters’ seemed achievable enough, even for someone like me. The five chapters should just be headlines of your life, and although I struggled with that for a while because I was someone who looked at stories as having a beginning, middle and an end, eventually, I produced one A4 sheet and presented it to this friend. Hmmm she said, ‘it would seem you have a very ordinary life’. “Yes, I have”, was my reply “the usual, childhood, education, marriage, having a baby and current situation.” She laughed, “now go away and expand on those chapters.”

I suppose curiosity got to me at this point and I went away wondering whether writing was for me. I started the task, looked at it, walked away, made endless amounts of tea, procrastinated, day dreamed of better times, and didn’t really know where it was going. If someone had asked me if I would ever write a book the answer would have been categorically no, you see only important people write books, people who have achieved amazing things in their life and as for me…………..

Well, I am a nobody who grew up in the suburbs of South London, so what possibly could I have to say. However, one winter evening, when there was nothing on TV and I had come home, feeling miserable after a difficult day at work; I turned on my laptop, and slowly began to expand those chapters, my laptop had become my conscience.

Before long, it was as if I was possessed, and a torrent of words flooded onto the screen, which flowed into pages, and then chapters. In the wee hours, I fell exhausted on the bed but strangely amazed that I had anything of any value to say. But say, I did at the following day I continued with my task. For me it became a cathartic exercise, parts of which I sobbed through uncontrollably but as the tears rolled down my face, I continued clattering at the keyboard. In many ways I couldn’t get things out quick enough, secretarial college had paid dividends with an ability to touch-type, making my exercise the more frustrating as I homed-in and focused at getting as much out as possible. One hundred and eighty-four pages later a book had emerged. So what was I to do with this manuscript? My first thoughts were to burn it, but having eaten all my energy, I put it somewhere safe instead and it was another two years before, I decided to publish.

And that’s another story……………………………………….

Janet Stead, Author of Just Another Day by Lucy Day and Beyond Reproach by Jenny Simpson and available on Amazon.co.uk or Waterstone’s bookstores.