Yesterday I turned thirty-eight

I think it apt I begin on the first day of a new year in my life. And, almost as if the universe is urging me to get on with it, I received the cancellation letter of my publishing contract in the post on the eve of my birthday. It sits on my desk waiting to be signed and returned to my agent in London – two copies, one for the publisher, one for me*. Since Gem Squash Tokoloshe was published in 2006 I have been driven by the terror that I will miss a deadline or worse, fail to write something worthwhile. Both have now happened, in the case of the deadline, several times over. At thirty-eight I am a little frayed, somewhat jaded and, for the first time in my life, at a loose end.

Andrew Miller** once said that what a writer needed more than anything else was sheer bloody mindedness. This is something I’m exceptionally blessed with, so, in spite of four years of hard knocks, I have embarked on some new projects.

1. A children’s book. I thought up the story while browsing through a junk shop in the Goldstone Road in London. It’s been stewing for six years, percolating at the back of my mind and, since moving to Cape Town, I’ve relocated the story to Woodstock. Candace di Talamo will illustrate the book. Her background as an animator (she designed, amongst other things, the chocolate Taj Mahal in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory while working for MPC) has expanded the project into the realm of film.

2. A novel gleaned from a back story of my second unpublished novel, henceforth referred to as S.U.N. Oddly, after struggling through part one of S.U.N, I began a completely different story that, in order to trick myself*** into believing that I was actually writing the novel I was being paid to, I called part two. I realise now that I had begun the novel I actually wanted to write but, since that wasn’t what my publisher had advanced me money for, I forced myself to abandon it after 45 000 words.  Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

3. The raising of one small, extremely willful red-haired girl. She too, is exceptionally blessed with sheer bloody-mindedness, but I only have myself to blame for that, I suppose.

It remains to be seen which challenge will test me the most.

* Incidentally, they spelled my name wrong. I once commented that I was impressed they always managed to get the spelling of my name correct, something not even inland revenue can manage. My editor (now ex) replied proudly, ‘We’re a publishing house, we always get names right.’

** Author of Ingenious Pain, winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

*** My work ethic is one part determination and three parts guilt, in case you’re wondering why I need to deceive myself.