On Becoming a Writer (in 953 words)

Lesley Walker (age 11)

Eight years old (or thereabouts)

I’m writing a story at school about a girl whose puppy escapes and runs off into the woods. I’m worried the story isn’t going to come together and that our designated writing time is running out, but somehow it does come together. The closing image is of the puppy sitting in a policeman’s upturned helmet. The girl and the puppy have, incredibly, managed to stop a thief escaping with someone’s jewels. Mrs Allen reads it out to the rest of the class a few days later and it’s so good, it sounds like someone else’s story. I feel quietly proud.

At secondary school, in Mrs Smellie’s Class (pronounced ‘Smiley’ and woe betide any girl who forgets this)

We’re asked to write about what we would do if we could have any wish come true. I’m astonished when Mrs Smellie reads my story out and tells the class it’s exactly the kind of story she was hoping someone would write. Mrs Smellie is Scottish and reminds me a little of Miss Jean Brodie, but none of my friends seem to know who Miss Jean Brodie is so we can’t have a proper discussion about this. My story is about a girl who suddenly finds that she can breathe underwater. She explores a submerged city with a couple of mermaids as companions. Sea anenomes are also involved, although I’m not sure if I’ve spelled them correctly. Everyone else has written about winning a lot of money and buying their mum and dad a big house. I still feel quietly proud, but am aware of some of the other girls rolling their eyes and sniggering.

The poetry years

I write poems that my mum says are very good. She insists on copying them out in her neat handwriting (was mine really so dreadful?) and showing them to people. I cringe and resolve to keep them private from now on. Some days I think I’m an exceptionally talented poet, but the rest of the time I’m not so sure. I manage to ‘lose’ most of them.

I don’t go to university

I leave school at sixteen because I don’t want to wear school uniform anymore and I’ve heard that in the local FE college, you can do your A’ Levels, wear what you want and smoke in the common room. I’m now writing poetry, having sex with unsuitable boys and smoking. It’s a great life. I even manage to pass my English and French A’ Levels with excellent grades, but this is 1981 and careers advice is patchy, so I end up becoming a nurse in London. I am a terrible nurse.

I stop being a nurse and become a secretary and then a wife and mother

At the age of 26, I join an evening class in creative writing. The tutor calls me aside after a few sessions and suggests I join her writing group as she thinks I’ll find it beneficial. I feel quietly proud and try to write a novel, but don’t get beyond the third chapter. I send stories to magazines and get very nice rejection letters telling me how well I write, but that my stories aren’t suitable. One is about a woman having some kind of breakdown after seeing a dead rat in the street. There’s a lot of subtext in it and her breakdown is, of course, nothing to do with seeing the rat. It’s not the kind of story women’s magazines want, apparently. I try to write the sort of story they do want, but my heart’s not in it. I try to write another novel. This time, I get all the way to chapter four.

Living the wrong sort of life 

I spend a long time living the wrong sort of life, although of course it’s not all bad and I do, eventually, go to university and become a teacher, and then a manager and then a director of an FE college. Students are no longer allowed to smoke in the common room, and quite right too - it’s a filthy habit.  I’m divorced now and living with a new partner. We have five boys between us. I get all the way to 44 and have a breakdown, although no rats are involved and my therapist assures me it’s a ‘breakthrough’. She is right.

The right life beckons

I get accepted at the Faber Academy and write a novel about a cynical FE lecturer railing against the managerialism of education. The other students seem to love it, but agents… not so much. I write another novel about a writing retreat. Agents tell me I write well, but that nobody wants to read about writers. Fair point. I write another novel and get very close, but still no cigar. I worry that this ambition of mine is never going to come together and that my designated writing time is running out. I write another one and enter a competition with it. I’m a runner-up and get an agent, a publishing deal, and suddenly my debut is an Amazon number one and Sunday Times bestselling novel. I’m so deliriously happy and excited, I think I’m going to have a heart attack. 

I calm down and write another one and amazingly, incredibly, it’s another Sunday Times bestseller. I write another one and then another (out this June) and am currently working on the fifth. Each one feels much harder to write than the last, but it doesn’t matter because now, finally, I’m living the right life and this is my full-time job. As with any job, there are good days and there are bad days, but the good outweigh the bad. Always. 

I am quietly proud.