Penny Junor

Less than a week after explaining in words of one syllable that we were broke, I saw my husband’s hand held high above his head at a charity auction. I assumed it was the gesture of a drowning man; but the auctioneer took it as a bid and the gavel fell. We, whose outgoings exceed our income, paid handsomely for a day’s labour from six young people from Youth Action Wiltshire — a charity that supports disadvantaged young people. A very good cause, I didn’t doubt, but was the man mad? The six kids arrived last Sunday, three girls and three boys, between 13 and 17, all responsible for a parent or a sibling with some kind of serious disability or addiction. Their task was to plant trees in the paddock, and not one of them looked fit for the purpose.

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.