Chapter 2
It’s hard to see my name in print now. Not as fun as you might think.
Every time I see it, I find myself having to fight a very strong and visceral impulse to throw the book from the window, flush it away or – a more recent one – spit on it.
I avert my eyes from the gold lettering, moving them to the puff quote just to the left of the flame.
A painfully raw yet beautiful debut – a coming-of-age story to be read by everyone. Maddox has it all’
P.K. ANDERSON
I didn’t know who the hell P.K. Anderson was back when I wrote the thing, but by God did I find out.
I followed her on Twitter, DM’d gushing thanks, asked her to lunch, invited her to my book launch.
Some might say I was obsessive, but I think that would be a tad dramatic.
It was strategic. My publisher told me that I needed to surround myself with other up-and-coming authors, so I tried to take their advice.
We wrote in different genres. Me: intense realism.
P.K.: high fantasy. Paula Kate’s debut came out the year before mine.
Both our stories had a coming-of-age element to them that seemed to appeal to the same readership, Young Adults.
Hers was a trilogy about a bisexual teenage boy who develops the telepathic power of foresight that got a six-figure pre-empt and sold in over forty territories.
Mine got a ten-grand offer for world rights, but ended up doing well, thanks to some YouTuber called CreIsYourBae picking it for her book club (she loved the cover), and then it ‘exploded’ on Twitter.
I sold twelve thousand copies in one day.
I was twenty-nine.
Seven years ago.
That was seven years ago. And we never did meet, but I guess P.K. was busy.
Since then, she has left her husband, acquired over one million TikTok followers and a huge film deal from Lionsgate (another six figures for the option alone), and is still writing the series to this day: prequels, sequels, spin-offs, the lot – now from her beachfront house in Malibu.
She is an inspiration to so many, according to Cosmopolitan magazine.
I can’t remember the whole article (I got lost in its sea of hyperbole that made my brain want to implode), but in short it described her as ‘fierce, independent’ and, ‘not that it matters, strikingly beautiful’.
Seven years ago.
And for me, since then: nothing.
Well, not nothing. My agent dropped me and my publisher pulled my second book.
The TV adaptation fell out of contract. I came off Twitter for ‘creative reasons’: I got sick of blocking accounts that relentlessly asked me What’s the hold up?
Why won’t you write another? Maybe you can’t LOL because I myself have been blocked.
Writer’s Block.
At first, when I would hear that term, I didn’t fully believe in it.
It sounded like bullshit to me. But as time went on, and I couldn’t think of a new idea, I realised that it could become incredibly useful.
I used it to leverage an external narrative of creative brilliance: I was so spent emotionally from writing Shallow Embers that I needed to give myself a break.
To be nominated for the Waterstones Best Debut Fiction Award at twenty-nine takes a lot out of you – and I was the proof.
It worked. For a while. The pain I professed to have gone through was lapped up in the corners of the internet that cared. The struggle of being this brilliant.
But the truth is, I had no more.
No more ideas. No more space. Blocked.
Blocked by my stint in hospital. Blocked by what that meant for me, coming so out of the blue.
Blocked by the period of recovery time after it.
Blocked by the online counselling course I later enrolled in to pretend I was interested in the psychology of other people for my books.
(Not because Ronan told me to do something useful and I thought I was going to lose my mind being in the house all day running out of money.) Blocked by the clients I now have (three) who I see on a weekly basis, each telling me versions of the same story.
Blocked by feeling small next to my husband and his continued success, his rise, throughout the past seven years, to greatness.
All of this underscored by a shadowy, persisting darkness, only punctuated by such intense intrusive thoughts that I have wondered if I’m even real.
Blocked by his continued asking to have a child.
Maddox has it all.
I look to the other side of the flame, at the second quote.
‘A modern-day Virginia Woolf’
THE OBSERVER
More cheers from the other room.
More of Ronan’s muffled voice. ‘Thank you all for coming!’
I hate this. This life. The people in my kitchen.
The disappointment I can feel from each of them.
The constant glances of, Was it a fluke?
I hate the way I write. Or should I say, the way I don’t write.
I hate the way I speak. The way I look. Floating around with my hair in a messy bun, not because I’m messy, but because I care.
It takes twenty minutes for me to make it look like that. I hate how I have become meek.
Ronan says it occasionally. You’ve become meek, Mallory.
Meek Mal.
I can hear him now, his slurred, rehearsed speech beginning. ‘I didn’t prepare anything. But I’ll say a few words...’
The guests laughing. In love with him.
I slide the book – my book – back into its place, hidden between the others.
‘It is a pleasure to celebrate this with you. I can’t believe it, really...’
‘We can!’
‘I have been told Theo brought party poppers. Try not to aim for my head – however much you might want to – or you’ll have shit TV for the rest of your lives.’
Laughter.
The jealousy spikes and spurs me to grab the tumbler of whiskey he left on the sink, neck it in one, then pick up my phone. Before I can stop myself I am typing into Google.
How to write a bestseller again.
I stop, considering. Don’t be stupid, Mallory.
I delete the word again, and hit enter.
A few professional-looking websites. Some advertisements for writing courses. How To Write a Bestseller: 6 Easy Steps. I keep scrolling down until I see a Reddit blog.
The truth lies in Reddit.
I open it.
Hello! You’re probably here because you know you have the potential to write but you are stuck, sick of your current job and/or you want money.
See. Reddit knows. It always knows.
Well, fear not. Here is how to write the next big literary hit!!!!
Trends to follow:
· Underrepresented voices are very popular currently. So if you’ve had a shit life, you = winning!!!!!
· Crime is good but make it cosy. People want to read about murder next to their fire places drinking red wine.
· Fantasy is huge – throw a dragon or two in there BUT make it sexy. Better still, make the dragons sexy. It doesn’t even need to be well-written. Just make your lead character a bit weirdly into their fantasy pet that they ride (lol).
· Make people cry. People loooovveee to cry.
· Dark is good.
· Also – always remember: gay is in. Go gay. It’s cool now. It sells. However – here is the gold dust – the perfect blend is gay AND sad. You nail that, you’re minted. And probs an award winner.
Thank me later xxx mwah. Happy writing, bitches
The post has been liked over nine thousand times.
I think of Paula Kate and her bisexual boy, responsible for the Malibu house purchase.
And for her divorce. I suddenly think of all the other books that are being screamed about from every corner of the internet.
Lots of gay going on. Sorry, lots of LGBTQI+.
I love so many of those books, and I’ve actually read, not just googled, them.
A Little Life. Oh my God, I bawled and bawled, and it was so long.
Come to think of it, some of my favourite films, too.
A Single Man – so sad, and so chic. God’s Own Country.
So raw and so real. Milk. Sean Penn was breathtaking – he won all the awards.
Philadelphia, too. One of the greats. Tom Hanks lost so much weight for the role, he was remarkable.
The Hours. I loved that film. The scene where Ed Harris was so riddled with shame and HIV that he threw himself from the window. It made me cry.
Make people cry.
I’m not gay though.
Wait.
Am I?
I am drunk.
But... am I?
Clarissa Fucking Dalloway.
Clarissa Dalloway was a little bit gay. I swear Wikipedia said so. So was Virginia, as a matter of fact. Yes! She absolutely was. And I have been likened to her – on the cover of my book. By the fucking Observer.
Everyone was a little bit. Everyone is, a little bit, right?
Virginia Woolf was a little bit gay.
My hands are shaking.
I make my way out of the bathroom, down the corridor, towards the laughter at my husband’s pre-rehearsed speech, to see no one notice me enter.
I am actually shushed by the same woman who called me Clarissa Fucking Dalloway.
I stand at the back of the group, banging my hands together like a Good Wife does.
I hear myself saying things like ‘Darling! You’re so funny!
’ as Ronan makes his jokes, ignoring the thought that drops into my head from nowhere: to take the Sakuto knife sat atop the kitchen island and cause a domestic bloodbath.
She sliced like a knife through everything.
It was a wedding gift, from my mother.
‘Well done!’ people cheer around me, over and over, as Ronan bows his head, using a spatula as an ironic microphone, and time stops.
As quickly as Ed Harris plummeted from that window, something comes to me.
I feel an invigorating heat at the top of my spine, right beneath my skull.
And with it, I make a choice. One that will change me from this point forwards.
I will not explode.
I will not put stones in my pockets.
I will choose courage, and write.
It comes. Fleeting, yet momentous.
An idea.
An idea for a new book.
Born from the shallow embers of my soul.