Writing HIM

HIM, my debut novel which published at the end of August took almost a decade to write. When I used to tell friends I was still writing the same book 5,6, 7 years later they’d look at me perplexed.

‘What on earth is it? The bible?’

In the end it seemed easier to keep my mouth shut and the act of writing became a bit like a dirty secret.

I often ask myself why it took so long. Three kids, a full time mother, a web business that sucked up every second of the school day, there are the usual excuses.

But the truth, I think, is that learning to craft the kind of novel I like to read took a long time and many, many rewrites.

I’ve always written, first endless stories as a child scribbling on scrap notepads my father brought back from the office (even then getting the thing finished was a problem, it was all about new beginnings for me). Then after university I worked on national newspapers, there was never any question of a career that didn’t involve writing.

At the age of thirty I decided it was time to stop messing around and start trying to write a novel, my lifelong dream. Now began a new habit of five am starts (well, sometimes) waking before work to hunch over my laptop in the kitchen. I loved it then and I still do.

For me there’s nothing better than waking when the rest of the house is asleep and creeping downstairs for a quiet hour or so of invention. Nothing better than the feeling of plunging into a new scene, not yet quite sure of its shape and feel, sometimes stunned by the direction you find yourself taking.

I still feel that child like excitement at the prospect of a day alone spent with my characters, just me and my computer, it can feel like the utmost indulgence.

Sometimes, on good days, you just know it’s right, the writing is strong, the prose will stay, making it all the way through the edits to come.
At its best writing for me is a journey of self discovery. Your characters begin to say things and act in ways which shed light on your innermost thoughts.

Having my first novel HIM in print is a bizarre, surreal feeling, not least because now it’s out there and being read by people I know, I’m realising as if for the first time how much of myself and my thoughts are in the book. That’s the exciting part too. Those thoughts and themes I struggled with, the ones where I had to delve right inside myself and look at things that were painful or ugly, are now the bits I’m proudest of, and having faced them, I don’t care too much what people think.

But this does not account for the dreadful days, the days that are pitted with self doubt.

First drafts, how I hate them.

You’re dreaming of this incredible, original, earth shattering story (just dreaming at this point, you’re allowed some vanity), you have the characters, the voices, the setting, you have a beginning, a middle and an end. You are ready to put this best selling idea into words.

Day one at the blank page or screen, perhaps a killer opening line. And then the slow, cold, seep of realisation that actually you’re going to have to clunk your way from one end to the other writing like a six year old. The writer Anne Lamott calls it the ‘shitty first draft’ and says someone reading it by accident is akin to getting run over with bad pants on. Yup, I so concur.

The only thing to do, and I’m very, very bad at this, is grab hold of your self-doubt and sling it out of the door, bolting yourself in with your computer and your clunky, six year old ways. A bit of internal hectoring, ‘for God’s sake, just write the thing,’, a bit of whinging and moaning and bashing your head against the wall (metaphorically or not) and with any luck the first draft turns into the second draft and you might even begin to fall in love with it.

There’s no question that this lifelong commitment to writing is a roller coaster, full of absorption, contentment, angst and depression. But would I live without it?

I asked myself this question, in the middle of the night, about six months before I got my book deal, as it turned out. I was feeling low about the fact that I’d spent so many weekends away from my family and all those 5 am starts and what was it all for? What if nothing came of it? I asked myself, could you not do it, and I thought about it long and hard and realised actually I couldn’t, I’d have to keep on writing even if it was just for myself.

It felt like a real turning point. Writing makes sense of my life. It’s my form of self expression and I’d be lost without it.

—

Clare Empson spent many years as a journalist on national newspapers covering everything from fashion to finance. Ten years ago she moved to the West Country and founded the arts and lifestyle blog www.countrycalling.co.uk. The idyllic setting inspired her first novel HIM which reveals the darker side of paradise. Clare lives on the Wiltshire/Dorset border with her husband and three children.

Find out more about Clare on her website https://www.clareempson.com/

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/ClareEmpson2

https://www.facebook.com/clare.empson

HIM

Gripping, involving, heartbreaking … really interesting and thought-provoking on the impact of shame and silence. (Laura Marshall, author of Friend Request)

What a wonderful debut! It was dark, addictive and ultimately heart breaking. (Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things)

Gripping and kept me guessing – and so emotionally true. (Sophie Kinsella)

It all started with … HIM. Catherine has become mute. She has witnessed something so disturbing that she simply can’t speak – not to her husband, her children, or her friends. The doctors say the only way forward is to look into her past. Catherine needs to start with Him. Lucian.

Catherine met the love of her life at university and was drawn into his elite circle of privileged, hedonistic friends.

But one night it all falls apart and she leaves him, shattering his life forever. Still, fifteen years later, Lucian haunts every one of Catherine’s quiet moments, and when they are unexpectedly reunited, their love reignites with explosive force. But they can’t move on from what happened all those years ago. In fact, uncovering the truth will cause their lives to implode once again. This time, with disastrous consequences.

Buy HIM here

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips