Letting Creativity Run Riot—How My Mum Influenced My Latest Novel

When we were kids, my mum refused to buy us coloring books. Instead, she spoiled us with every colored pencil under the rainbow along with roll upon roll of blank paper to write and draw and follow wherever our imaginations took us.

But that was my mum, that was the artist in her, coloring outside the lines and giving her daughters the gift of creative spontaneity in the hopes that we’d express ourselves beyond perimeters and borders—to be our true artistic selves. On paper, chances were meant to be taken and rules broken.

All Mum asked was that we let our creativity run riot and have fun. And we did. While my sister mastered life-like sketches of people and places, I created a magical world of cartoon animals in their own comic books (my first foray into storytelling).

My mum enjoyed my stories and told me over and over, “You’re so creative. You should write a book, something entertaining and heartfelt.” The thought was both exciting and scary.

Writing a novel became something I really wanted to do, but try as I may, little kid me never made the leap to stories that didn’t lean heavily on illustrations or dive deep into a pool of emotions (laying my heart bare made me feel all sorts of anxiety and embarrassment).

By high school, my writing drifted away from illustration and fiction as I fell in love with hiding behind facts in the school newspaper, and eventually, I settled into careers in television broadcasting and later, freelance writing. It was there that my writing mojo returned but as much as I relished working with magazines and websites, Mum’s wishes and my dream of writing a novel continued to elbow me when I least expected it.

A year into my freelance life, Mum was reading my latest article (a fun Christmas gift guide for of all people, your mother) and said, “I love this, but I wish you’d write that book. You would be so good at it.” I blushed at her vote of confidence, but my own self-doubt compounded my fear of failure, keeping me from making an attempt—not that I would tell her that. “Oh, I will. One day,”

I replied with a smile, not realizing at the time we would never speak about it again. Soon after, Mum was diagnosed with a second bout of cancer. Life became all about the gut-punching challenges of the disease, the summer spent in hospital, the endless hope for good news, and the crushing despair when it was elusive.

As autumn drifted into the darkness of winter, all that mattered was how Mum was feeling and our time spent together, all of us hoping she’d live long enough to see the leaves waving from the trees and her garden in bloom again. But there would be no more Tom Jones dance parties in her kitchen, no more birthday meals of spring rolls and pad Thai. The love of my life, my biggest cheerleader, my beautiful, kind Mum was snatched away.

Coping the best I could with my grief, I dove into my freelance writing, barely coming up for air as I found refuge in the strict guidelines spelled out in my contracts. They gave me an excuse to play it safe, coloring within the lines of rules and facts while my shattered heart and frayed emotions struggled to heal.

I carried on for a few years, using my grief as fuel to make a difference, pitching helpful articles about health, family, and travel. I wrote hundreds of them. Some won national awards—Mum would’ve been thrilled.

But eventually the universe began sending me signs that my writing was needed elsewhere: my editors were being laid off, freelance work was drying up, and the promise to my mum—and myself—to write a novel got louder and louder.

It didn’t just tap me on the shoulder, it gave me a hard slap I couldn’t ignore. It was time to open the gates and let my creativity run riot again, just like I did as a kid. I had to see if a book was in me, so I packed away my fact-finding tools I relied on as a freelancer, and gave in, letting my emotions lead the way. In the process, I hoped I’d make my mum proud, even if she wasn’t alive to see me succeed. At least she wasn’t alive to see me fail.

Within a year my first book LONDON BELONGS TO ME, a heartfelt contemporary coming-of-age story about a young American playwright in England was born. Holding the first paperback, I sniffed through happy tears, “I did it, Mum.” The book was a joy to write. It celebrated my love for London, theatre, and friendship, but one topic it didn’t fete was a loving mother-daughter dynamic. Alex, the lead twentysomething character, has a tricky, dysfunctional relationship with her mom.

She even crosses an ocean to get away from her (so unlike me). But as much as I wanted to write a book from the heart about mothers and daughters, Mum’s loss still felt too raw. It was easier to skirt my bittersweet emotions, and offer more subtle, uplifting nods to her memory through other maternal figures like Alex’s motorcycle-riding grandmother Joan, a woman in the arts who put her family ahead of her career.

This coping mechanism also carried over to my second novel, LONDON, CAN YOU WAIT?, and Lucy’s deceased gran, a wonderful woman who encouraged her feisty granddaughter to skip colouring books and draw freehand—yep, part of Lucy’s story was borrowed from my own life, my own Mum. In these little ways, through character names, quirks, even holiday traditions, I found Mum could live on and be celebrated without spilling too much of my own personal heartache between the pages.

But years pass and people change. Grief changes. And with UNTIL THE LAST STAR FADES, I was finally ready to go there.

My third book would celebrate a child’s love for her mother (and vice versa) and would be the heart and soul of my story. The characters’ relationship would be honest, real, and in some scenes, pulled from my own experiences. If that meant tears rolling down my cheeks at ten at night as I finished a particularly emotional chapter, so be it.

I dug deep, relived life-changing memories, embraced a few twists, and along the way found this story to be so cathartic. The end result is something a little different from what’s on bookstore shelves—it’s a novel that blurs the line between contemporary romance and women’s fiction (definitely not the norm genre-wise and probably a nightmare for librarians to catalogue!).

UNTIL THE LAST STAR FADES is a slow-burn love story of American NYU student Riley and Scottish actor Ben, but it’s equally a poignant familial love story of Riley and her divorced mom, Maggie. Riley can’t envision a life without her dear mom and would do just about anything to keep her safe and close including forfeiting her future and happiness.

With Riley and Maggie as my guides, UNTIL THE LAST STAR FADES became a hopeful, inspiring, life-affirming novel with a heartwarming ending about the incomparable bonds we share with our mothers.

I wouldn’t have been able to write their book if it wasn’t for my mum. She filled my heart with love and encouragement, and always urged me to stretch beyond my comfort zone and do my own thing, to create what was important to me even if it was different and unexpected, and always—always—to scribble outside the lines because beauty, truth, and serendipity lie there. Somewhere, somehow, I hope I’ve made her proud.  

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Jacquelyn Middleton is the award-winning author of LONDON BELONGS TO ME, LONDON, CAN YOU WAIT? and UNTIL THE LAST STAR FADES. Her books have been featured by the Hollywood Reporter, NBC News, the Los Angeles Times, Redbook, and the Huffington Post.

Find out more about Jacquelyn:

Website: http://www.jacquelynmiddleton.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JacquelynMiddletonAuthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaxmiddleton_author/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaxMiddleton

UNTIL THE LAST STAR FADES, Jacquelyn Middleton

Touching, heartfelt, and passionate, ‘Until the Last Star Fades’ is a must-read for hopeful romantics, devoted daughters, and the moms they cherish.

COULD YOU BE THE ONE WHO CHANGES EVERYTHING?

In her senior year at NYU, Riley Hope appears to be on top of the world. With a loving mother who makes Lorelai Gilmore look like a parenting slacker, ride-or-die friends, and a long-time boyfriend destined for the National Hockey League, she puts on a smile for the world. But behind it, Riley’s drowning. Racked with fears for the future, she battles to stay afloat amid life in the shadows of a heartbreaking illness.

And then, Ben Fagan comes crashing into her life. Twenty-three-years-old, British, and alone in the Big Apple after a disastrous pilot season in LA, the struggling actor is looking for an escape: booze, mischief, sex—minimum commitment, maximum fun—anything to avoid returning across the pond.

As they form an unlikely bond, Riley keeps her reality from Ben so that he remains a happy refuge. But how long can she hold back the truth…and is Ben keeping his own secrets, too?

From the award-winning author of ‘London Belongs to Me’ and ‘London, Can You Wait?’, comes a bittersweet story about love, loss, sacrifice, and the life-changing decisions we make.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

 

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing