Writing What You Know

Image from Pixabay

They say that everyone has a novel in them. As a factual freelance writer, I wasn’t sure that I did, but a couple of years ago, I had a strange experience.  Navigating the wiggly road from Worlingworth to Framlingham, a sentence dropped into my head. “I am a very lucky little girl.”

Sitting having a cuppa with my husband, I wondered aloud where this sentence came from and what it could mean. He’d been hearing about it all week, so he gave me a piece of excellent advice. “You’re a writer. Sit down and write.”

I sat down and turned on my laptop. I opened a new Word document and typed the sentence. I didn’t stop typing. I sat there writing and writing. I didn’t stop until I’d written 10 pages. I looked up. My husband was gazing at me. “What was that???” “Search me”, I replied, “but I’ve written something.” That night, I could hardly wait to get the children to bed so that I could write some more.

I sat down at about 9.00. I’d only meant to write a little more, but next time I looked at the clock, it was 3.00 in the morning. By Monday I’d written 10,000 words and by the following Friday, it was up to 50,000. I had the beginnings of a novel and I hadn’t thought about it, planned it or agonised over it. It had simply come tumbling out. I had to keep writing because I knew these people and what they were up to and I had to get it down quick.

About halfway through, I realised that I’d written what I know. For 13 years, I’ve been immersed in school life. Our eldest started nursery at our village primary school in April 2006. All three children have gone there. My youngest is in her final year. My life has revolved around the school run, the playground, homework, book bags, classroom dynamics, parents’ evening and all the stuff that goes on at the school gate. So naturally, my lucky little girl was at primary school, writing about her life.

My heroine, Kitty, is a 10-year old girl in Year 5. I’ve written exactly what I know, to the extent that my daughter reading over my shoulder recognised several of her classmates in Kitty’s year. I hadn’t realised that everything I’ve observed over the past few years had made it into the novel, as well as a good chunk of completely made-up stuff and some memories from my own time at primary school.

Kitty chats artlessly about what she sees. The point of the novel is that she’s a child and some of the things she’s describing should make the reader worried, or uncomfortable, as they see something she can’t.

My experiences of being on the PTA have made it into the book too. After an event, Kitty says: “There had been hundreds of people at the school fête, but when it was time to tidy up, they all remembered they had to go home.” Every PTA since time began has struggled to find volunteers, given untold hours for the good of the children, begged for cake donations and found themselves picking Haribos off the gym floor at 9 o’clock at night.

Nothing changes. There will always be the late mum rushing up the path (I’ve been her many times), the teacher marching across the playground eyeballing a quailing parent to talk about challenging behaviour, the cliques, the huddle of PTA members talking about how to get volunteers and who’s going to wear the elf costume at the Christmas Fair this year.

My book is about this life. It’s a world within a world. This very Saturday, our own PTA are putting on a Christmas Shopping event. I know, without knowing, that they’ll be up late compiling lists and working out who does what, lying awake worrying about whether the stall holders will turn up and if they do, if there will be anyone coming through the doors. It has always been so, and probably always will be.

I used to ask myself, “Why did I think that was a good idea?” as I looked back over my three years on the PTA. It was hard, and tiring and sometimes discouraging. But if nothing else (and there were good things too) it gave me a whole world of experience to draw on to write my own book.

So maybe it is true. A novel in all of us, even the tired, stressed, perennially late parents at the school gates. Life is copy, friends, whatever that life might be.

Image from Pixabay