Try January update

Never, EVER, ask a woman if she's pregnant

I heard this saying the other day, and I thought it really summed up what I’m trying, with no structure or plan, to do right now.

‘Try January’.

I like this. Because January is hard enough without giving up all the stuff that helps you get through the longest month of the year. I like the idea of thinking about what you can attempt to do that you have never done before, or know you’ll probably be bad at. I know I’m not the only one doing it; I’ve seen that kids (and anyone under 30 has somehow become a kid in my head) are doing this thing about trying to get 1000 rejections so that they build up their resilience. I think that’s a great idea, and I’m all for it, but I don’t need to do that as my resilience muscle is already pumped through repeated failure.

This week as part of Try January I attempted Pilates. It wasn’t strictly a ‘first’, but the last time I did it I was in my thirties, so technically still a young person. This class was led by a young Spanish man, who gave us instructions in both Spanish and English as the room was half and half of both, which was very impressive. He was a bit shy, and I think a little overwhelmed by the full room of women staring at him expectantly, so he didn’t say much, and fiddled with his phone a lot. It was all going well until we were doing some sit up type things, and he asked one of the class if she was pregnant “like that lady”, pointing to a woman with a beautiful round belly, who had already put her hand up and told him so. She was not. There was a collective grimace and intake of breath as the room clenched their teeth. After the class, her friends reassured her that she didn’t look pregnant at all, which she didn’t, but we all knew she’d be looking at her reflection when she got home and thinking otherwise. As I left the room, I saw every Spanish lady in the class surround him, and I didn’t need a translator to understand they were informing him, very loudly and with much arm waving, that he had made a BIG mistake. His first life lesson of the year, and it’s only January; never ask a woman if she’s pregnant, let her inform you if she is. I once had a very excited man, who I’d only met a couple of times and didn’t know that well, rush up to me at a party, clamp his hands onto my tummy and exclaim: “Oh my God! I’m so excited for you! When are you due?” I was not due. I don’t know who was more mortified.

The class had been hard, with lots of lunges and squatting and sideways plank-type things. It’s meant that for the rest of this week I haven’t been able to get on or off the toilet without hanging on to the sink because my thighs hurt so much. I’m hoping this is a good thing, and means I have broken my fitness seal, and nothing else. Can you ‘break’ thighs?

I have also been doing a lot of sitting down, something I am already very good at and need no training in. That’s because I have been doing an online course.

I started thinking about this last year, as I finished my latest book. It’s my fifth book, and continues the theme of my previous few, mainly writing about challenges we all experience in our lifetime, and ways to overcome them. I’ve written previously about overcoming burnout and trauma (This Girl Is On Fire), and how to become brave (You Just Need To Believe It – I know, awful title, but it’s a great book) and my latest is about building resilience through the shame of failure. It’s a cracker, and I’m very proud of it. It’ll be out in Spring, and I’ll tell you more about it nearer the time.

As I was going through the final edit, and taking out bits that didn’t quite work, I realised that I have so much lived experience through my many, many misadventures, that I would like to write a different kind of book, where I’m not bound by the same constraints of writing about me. I’ve had an idea that’s been percolating for about a year now, and I want to give it a go and put everything together into a punchy, twisty turny novel. But I don’t know how. I know how to write my type of books, but not fiction, and it feels different and daunting. What if I try and it’s awful?

But what if it’s not? What if it’s great? The only way I’ll know is to do it. So I’ve been doing an online course in creative writing, to understand structure and where to put plot twists and to be honest it’s been a lot to get my head around. Apparently I need to buy a lot of Post It notes and a white board to plot everything out like a detective, which I don’t mind because I love stationary, but it also scares me a little.

Then today I put on a podcast as I was doing some housework and getting ready to take to dog out. I’ve been listening to different authors talk about their process, to see if anything inspires. Today I listened to Lee Childs being interviewed on Desert Island Discs. Lee has written the Reacher series of books, which are now a hugely successful TV series. And something inside me went ‘ding’! He explained that he doesn’t like to forward plan too much, if at all, because he likes the excitement of sitting down to write and not knowing where his character is going to end up. He said he feels as excited as the reader, and I liked the sound of that. I think I’ll need a little more structure, like I’ve put a destination into my writing sat nav, otherwise who knows where I’ll go, but I like the idea of all the unexpected diversions that will occur along the way.

I have my characters, and I already love them so much. I have my beginning, my end, and a rough idea of my middle. I just need to bloody start. To try it anyway. And Try January seems like a good time to do it, don’t you think?

So, I’m off to buy a white board.