I have long thought there is no analogy quite so perfect for the process of writing a book as childbirth. There is the initial stage when it’s little more than a fond idea, until you sell it to the publisher. The months of research as the deadline marches inexorably nearer, the periodic panic during that process that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, then the labour — 12 hours a day at your computer, seven days a week for three months — OK, a little longer than the average baby takes, but you get the drift. Then that triumphant moment, that in the darkest hours you thought would never arrive, when you press Print, and finally produce something to show for all the months of backache and pain; the relief and exhaustion as you hold it lovingly and feel the weight of your creation warm against your breast.
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Having just put the finishing touches to Pattie Boyd’s autobiography, I still can’t improve on the analogy. It is just the most exciting thing — after actual childbirth — but this time I am giving my baby up for adoption. My name may be on the front cover, but when it hits the shelves in August, Wonderful Today will be Pattie’s book, and she is the one who will be fêted and congratulated. I will disappear like the Ghost of Christmas Past, and after 25 years of writing biography and nurturing my babies myself, I am not at all sure how I feel about it. Except to say that Pattie is divine and will do a brilliant job.
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The upside to this surrogacy business is that you get to know your subject almost as well as they know themselves.
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