I don’t know how many books I’ve read in my life, but I can tell you, it’s probably in the tens of thousands. Maybe more. At primary school, it quickly became clear to everyone that I would always be a stranger to the intricacies of maths, the last to be chosen for the netball team and not exactly the life and soul of the party either. I was a shy, unsure child, prone to gazing out of the window and missing the vital instructions issued by the teacher. One thing, though, was totally up my street. I remember sitting at home aged around four while my mother read me a story. It was a large print version of Little Red Riding Hood and I can still remember laughing uncontrollably at the picture of the wolf in retreat (why do children find bottoms so funny?) and then being surprised as the black squiggles on the page re-arranged themselves into words I recognised. There was no stopping me after that.
Sitting in Mrs Hubbard’s class at primary school with a huge number of other short people (we were the baby boomer year), I wrestled with sums and getting all the new rules of school right (no boots in the classroom, no crowding in the Wendy house) but felt right at home with the letters of the alphabet displayed on the wall. D was for duck and there was a cheerful looking mallard, like the ones on the duck pond on the village green, illustrating the fact. Books with lots of pictures and a few easy words were handed out and I raced through them.
From about this age, when a grown-up would bend down and ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would announce, “I am going to be a writer.” Since I was a complete bookworm, this was no surprise.
Primary school finished. I was overcome with emotion on that hot summer day in 1977 and sobbed all the way home. I didn’t stop crying until it was tea-time and cried myself to sleep that night. Something new and scary was coming and I didn’t fancy it much.
None of my friends went to my new school. Seven of us from our enormous class (forty-five sounds about right) had gone to this one, but everyone else had scattered to other high schools. Some of the boys went to Davenant, the faith school up the road, others to the boys’ grammar which was linked to my new school, yet others to West Hatch in Chigwell, a smattering to Epping and Ongar Comp and some to Lucton Boys and Lucton Girls. Back then, there was quite a choice.
School wasn’t great, but one saving grace was the library. Like a literature-hungry locust, I chomped my way through Junior Fiction and started wading through Senior Fiction aged around 12. I could escape from my feelings in there, from the ever-growing suspicion that I didn’t fit in, was no good at anything (apart from English) and was in fact a bit of a waste of space. I stocked my mind with humour, fiction, fact, history, and anything I could lay my hands on. Most lunchtimes, I could be found in the library devouring a book. Looking back, I can see that I was filling my mind with stories, writing techniques and narrative which would stand me in good stead in later life. At the time, reading was an escape from a life which was absolutely no fun at all.
I left Essex in November 1984. I ended up in Exeter, a place which I will always love. There I found people who I still count as dear and valued friends. I started to carve out a life, discover new things, explore. Reading was still my all-time favourite thing. I was always broke, but I’d amble round second-hand bookshops and come home with a carrier bag full of tatty paperbacks. Did I write? No. I had left that childish dream far behind.
In 1993, I got married to a Buckhurst Hill County High School boy and found myself back in Essex. My new job involved boarding a Central Line train every morning, walking through the streets and squares of Bloomsbury (including Gower Street, used as Baker Street in Sherlock – fun fact) until I reached the vast, brutalist concrete structure inhabited by the Department of Psychology at UCL. I loved that job. My boss had just become Head of Department. We hit it off at once and spending my days in a place which was dedicated to learning (plus plenty of recreation after hours, mostly in a pub with sticky carpets which served doubles for £1 on Friday nights), my writing mojo stuck its head back over the parapet.
One day, I was chewing the fat with one of the girls from Educational Psychology on the floor below us. She was doing a master’s degree. I expressed interest and mentioned that I had vaguely thought of doing an English degree myself. We were surrounded by places of learning. UCL covered a fair bit of ground in Bloomsbury, we had Senate House Library next door, Birkbeck a stone’s throw away plus various other establishments. If you really wanted to expand your horizons, this was the place to do it.
Sarah encouraged me to have a go. “Look, you’ve got a really supportive boss, loads of resources on your doorstep and nearly everyone in admin is studying something. Why don’t you give it a try?”
So, I did. I filled in a form with a pen (something we used to do in the olden days) and submitted it to the front office at Birkbeck. A letter arrived the next week inviting me to come and sit an exam. Three thousand other people had had the same idea as me and looking around the hall at everyone scribbling away, I asked myself, “What are you doing here?”
I looked down at the exam paper. Words I knew well leapt off the page. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 1984! Good old George Orwell and his dystopian view of the future. I was off, covering page after page with answers. In due course, another letter arrived telling me that I was through and inviting me to write a piece based on anything I chose. It could be journalism, fiction, sci-fi, romance, in fact any genre I fancied. I thought long and hard. It had to be something that not many people would think of. I plumped for a Martha Gellhorn short story called “Ruby.” I couldn’t read it now, having had the children. It’s probably one of the saddest things I’ve ever read, but on a hot summer’s day, with a notepad balanced on my knees, it seemed like just the job to get me in.
Which it did. Result! There were one hundred and twenty places available on the course and they’d whittled the original three thousand people down to three hundred or so. The next letter invited me to visit the English Department where I would be interviewed by two lecturers. This was getting serious. My boss was his usual chilled out self about the whole process. He wished me luck and told me to take as long as I liked. I turned on the answerphone and marched out on to Bedford Way to make the short trip to Birkbeck.
Arriving in the Department, I inhaled the smell of books and knew I was home. Suddenly, I realised that I wanted this more than I’d ever wanted anything. My name was called, and I found myself in something resembling a moderately spacious broom cupboard occupied by two women. One was clad in a flowing velvet outfit, had long blonde hair and a soulful face. She, it seemed, was a specialist in medieval literature, about which I knew virtually nothing. The other was wearing more modern clothes and was an expert in the field of Old English. I was stumped.
The whole thing was a blur. After fifteen minutes or so, I was ushered out of the cupboard and emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. Back in Psychology, my friends clustered round asking me how it had gone. I genuinely didn’t know, but when yet another letter arrived, I ripped it open to find that I’d been offered a place. I was ecstatic.
Birkbeck is part of the University of London but specialises in offering courses to people who work full-time. I’d do a day’s work in the Department then amble over to Birkbeck two nights a week and soak up lots of lovely, delicious, delightful learning. I loved every minute and made some wonderful friends. Some of the other people on the course were already published writers. I was in awe of them.
I graduated after four years, then left UCL to go to a job at a firm of patent attorneys on the edge of the City. Five years of hard work, a steep learning curve and some speedy character development followed. Again, I was fortunate to meet some lovely people. In the summer of 2003, I departed, expecting my first child. Still not a writer.
Years passed; stuff happened. We were expecting child number two and wanted to move. In the autumn of 2006, with a three-year-old and a six-month-old baby who had recently given up sleeping through the night, we moved into our new house. Looking back (and my apologies for the length of this blog – I may not be posting again for a little while, so look on it as buy one, get one free), I can see that all those millions of words I’d devoured over the years were sitting in the header tank at the back of my brain patiently waiting for a chance to come out.
Life in Wickham was, and is, a rich tapestry. I met people at the toddler groups, in the doctor’s, at preschool, in the park, in the nursery corridor. We nursery mums were pushing babies in prams, juggling recalcitrant toddlers, toting new pregnancy bumps, and carting bags full of nappies, wipes and biscuits around with us. Fourteen years spent at the primary school with three children, a stint running Thursday toddlers, various church activities and general socialising means that when I walk or drive into Wickham, I will absolutely one hundred percent run into someone I know.
In 2008, pregnant with child number three, I was sitting at Ipswich Hospital waiting for a scan when my phone rang. It was a friend from Essex who worked at a large Christian charity who were looking for a freelance, part-time writer to assist the editor of their magazine. “I kept reading the ad,” she said. “I knew it reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who. Then I read the phrase, ‘must be nice, but pushy’ and I realised it was you.”
Naturally, three months pregnant and with two little boys, no family near by and a long history of taking on too much, I jumped at the chance. I got the job and that was the beginning of my writing career. Aged forty-one. It had been a long time coming. I wrote for Stewardship and learned about turning in a certain number of words to a deadline, creating engaging content and coaxing good stories out of interviewees. Then I got another freelance job, then another and another. By the time lock down hit last year, I was in the best position I’d ever been since I went self-employed. It had always been hand to mouth, and sometimes not even that, but in March 2019, I was feeling confident that my freelancing career was really going places.
At the end of March, as lock down restrictions were announced, I watched as one by one, many of my clients shut their operations down and cut back on their spending. I still had some work, but not a huge amount. What I did have was lots and lots of time. I was writing a weekly blog which felt great. I was contributing to a monthly one for the Association of Christian Writers. I wrote and I wrote, and I wrote, and people said nice things.
One day in February last year, I was sitting with my laptop on my knees gazing out of the window (old habits die hard) and chuckling to myself as I formulated my April blog for ACW. I do like to write funny and I thought that the world could probably do with a few more laughs. What if I invented a person who made their living by posting aspirational content across social media platforms? Someone who was an expert at angles, lighting, content and strategy? Someone, in fact, who was the opposite of me. What would she be called?
I thought hard. She would be smug and therefore her name would have to reflect that. A rich, posh woman – Isabella. Yes, that was a good name and gave me the, “I” in “I Am Smug.” Middle name Mary. Last name Smug. “Isabella M Smug.” I pondered it. It didn’t look quite right. Suddenly, I typed two extra letters and suddenly, there she was. Isabella M Smugge, as in Bruges.
I entertained myself by writing the two opening paragraphs. I made them as far from my life as possible. My imaginary woman was musing on her perfect life, her weed-free garden, her gigantic Georgian house, her glittering writing career. I grinned as I posted it and thought no more of it.
I got some great comments. People seemed to like my monstrous creation. In May, I wrote a much more serious piece, but I put Isabella in again. I found that she had something to say. Still, she was two-dimensional, not a real person, simply a device.
That was on 7th May this year. Lots of people I liked and admired, all writers, said that they would like to know more about the world of Isabella M Smugge. A couple suggested she might make a good heroine for a novel. I was flattered but knew that I could never write a novel.
The message which changed the direction of my life came in at eleven minutes past two that day. I was on the veg patch with Mr Leigh, clad in ancient clothes with my hair in plaits, stumping around with a spade and smelling richly of compost. In my defence, we had just put up a poly tunnel and were composting anything we could lay our hands on. My phone pinged. After five minutes or so, I pulled it out of my pocket. Tony Collins, a fellow member of ACW had messaged me.
“Hi Ruth. If you want to work up a proposal for Isabella, I would be pleased to take it to some publishers for you. I am working as a freelance commissioning editor these days. Feel free to contact me.”
I forgot I was a respectable middle-aged matron of the parish and let out a shriek, dropping the spade and bounding over to Mr Leigh, engaged in watering in his seedlings. There was much excited yelping. I took some deep breaths and replied in an enthusiastic yet measured manner. It’s important to note that I had no idea what I was talking about. I hadn’t written fiction since my primary school days. Back came the reply. “Perhaps two sample chapters, given that the tone is of particular importance with humour. I look forward to hearing from you.”
Giddy with excitement, we bounded over to the house like a pair of spring lambs. Tea was made and I was encouraged to sit down, open my laptop and get writing. That was on the Tuesday. By Friday evening, the two chapters were written, and Isabella had turned into a real person with a life, ambitions, deeply buried sadness and a very bad hashtag habit. I hit send and waited to hear back.
I’m going to stop there, since most of you have probably nodded off by now. Isabella is out there. This week, she’s been delivered all round Wickham, Ufford, Melton, Hollesley, Kesgrave, Martlesham and Campsea Ashe. Packages containing her and her merch have gone all over the UK, to the USA, Australia, Norway and France. That little girl, bent over a book about a talking wolf, turned into a woman who has had the most exciting, joyous, thrilling and downright bonkers week of her life. And none of it would have happened without the journey I’ve just described to you.
Isabella was written in Suffolk and she’s of the place. From the minute she pranced into the playground in her designer clothing looking down on everyone, she burst into life. Words cannot express my gratitude to everyone who has taken the time to read her and tell me what they think.
I can now say, “I am a writer” and truly believe it. I wouldn’t be a proper one if I didn’t finish with a quote from someone else. Anton Chekhov in this case. I haven’t read much Russian literature[1] but I really liked this. “Don’t tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
It’s been six days since Isabella arrived. What a journey.
Images by Pixabay.
Ruth is a novelist and freelance writer. Her childhood dream of writing a real book came true and now she can hold that book in her hands.
[1] Hands up, I only read Dr Zhivago in my teens and it was really hard.
