Remy #2
Mum places a hand on my arm. “I understand the pressures of following up a show-stopping performance. For weeks I thought there was no topping my evocative and kinetic —Kevin May, reviewer of Next Door Magazine ’s words, not mine—performance of Fanny Brice.
” She squeezes my arm. “ TFF was just as big—are you nervous?”
“It wasn’t ‘big.’”
Mum leans back in mock shock. “Are you joking? Best book I’ve ever read; I do only read about three books a year, unless we’re counting scripts, but still. What did your agent say about the last idea you gave her?”
“Tara wasn’t keen,” I answer.
I’d tried writing something sadder, slower, more introspective and fictional, and Tara’s main notes had been along the lines of needing to stick closer to the TFF genre for at least one more book, to further establish my name, before exploring something else.
All my other ideas, I couldn’t finish. They turned into dead ends.
I didn’t give up on them—I just eventually realized that they were stories I couldn’t or didn’t know how to tell.
That was the biggest revelation I’d had since becoming a published author: that writing now was no easier than writing before.
“In your defense,” Mum says, “how can they expect you to write about friendship when you don’t have any friends left?”
I pinch her arm. “Ha. Ha.”
“I’m jesting, of course. Look, you don’t only have to write about what you know,” Mum says.
“Don’t authors make things up all the time?
Some write about the most fictitious of things: dragons, superpowers, democracy.
Some write about childbirth, murders, hard times, all without having experienced any of it.
Why don’t you give something like that a go? ”
I twirl my thumbs in a circular motion. “What if my imagination doesn’t stretch as widely as that? Besides, before TFF I tried writing other genres—YA fantasy, crime, dystopia… and those books all went nowhere. What if all I’m good at is writing what I know?”
“Well, we both know only thirty percent of TFF actually happened. Where’d the rest come from?” She gently taps an unknown tune on my temple with her red acrylics.
I nod. “Maybe you’re right.”
Mum leans back in her seat. “I’m not worried about you.
You’re a natural; I still have all the birthday and Mother’s Day cards you wrote essays in.
I know talent when I read it. You’ll get there, baby,” she says, buttering a slice of bread.
“You just take your time. Wait for inspiration to arrive and then strike when the iron is hot! Let the creative juices wash over you like the waves of an ocean…” She looks away from the sky and back to me.
“Or,” she says, “just do what you did last time. Write about one thing you do know and fill out the rest.”
I frown. “Like what a person with no friends does with their day?”
“Precisely!” Mum shouts. “How does someone such as yourself navigate this stage of their life? The stress.” She places the back of her hand to her forehead.
“The frustration.” She grits her teeth. “The loneliness .” She hugs herself before placing a hand on my shoulder. “You must have endless material.”
I do not have endless material. But I do have one surefire (and admittedly drawn-out) way to get through creative block, and that’s to ignore it.
Instead, I resolve to go back to basics and begin writing diary entries, returning to the simplicity of documenting my ordinary life in as entertaining and pacy a way as possible, indulging in creative license and embellishing the truth wherever it feels right.
It doesn’t matter if I mix reality with fiction because these anecdotes and ramblings won’t go anywhere but in a folder on my laptop, their sole purpose being to hopefully unlock something in my brain and unearth an idea.
It’s worked before.
The idea for These Four Friends sprouted from a diary entry I’d written the night Lin, Mel, Nova, and I had gone to Dishoom for the first time. A year later, it became the book’s opening chapter.
Whenever anyone asks me what TFF is about, I give them the same spiel: “The readers follow four women, each one with their own unique personality, who form a sisterhood, develop a deep-rooted love for one another, and risk it breaking. It’s about the ups and downs in a decade-long friendship, and the women involved have to make a choice—much like committed partners do—in the face of issues relating to careers, family, relocation, and other loved ones, whether to stay together and make it work, or part ways. ”
If I was giving spoilers, I’d add that the trials they go through involve N getting married, M moving away to start a family, and L getting promoted to a point where her job becomes her life.
I’d written TFF around the time Nova and David appeared serious, when Melissa was high with baby fever, and Lin was setting herself apart from her colleagues and becoming “one to watch.” By the end of the book, N is dating someone new (and significantly better), M is pregnant and babyproofing her flat in London, and L has been promoted.
I may not have written an ending where both L and M move out of London and N gets back together with her ex, but I can’t help but feel I’d jinxed my own future with their storylines. By putting pen to paper, I had caused the fracture of my friendship group.
Deep down I know it’s ridiculous to believe any of that… but just in case I am wielding a clairvoyant digital pen, I open a blank Word document and type:
R is suddenly handed three million pounds in cash from a generous stranger. Then I add an asterisk: tax free. Because sometimes God has an odd sense of humor.
I eventually delete all except the first word.
Instead, I create a protagonist, R, who is, of course, me, because they always start out as me.
I write a few sentences to establish her background.
R has a mum, but to create distance, I give her a different sort of mum—one more rigid and monotonous.
I continue deviating from the truth in minuscule steps to further pull myself out of the character.
I still give R three best friends who she is no longer close with for differing reasons; I write about Ishir, about how R meets a guy called Isaac to distract from her sudden loneliness and maybe even to mimic her friends’ life progression.
If they could move on with their lives without R, then so could R without them…
R is obsessed with her friends. Thankfully, I don’t have to decide whether that’s a good thing or not.
Over dinner, Isaac tells R that he’s looking for a long-term partner and R responds that she’s looking for a friend.
When they clink glasses, R mentally offers an exchange: she can be his partner, if he will be her friend.
I have R ask herself what this exchange says about her.
Unfortunately, the answers aren’t great.
The more I write about R and Isaac, this guy she met at work, the more I see how desperate I must have been when I met Ishir. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s now apparent that the sex had really only ever been about me not having to be alone.
There’s a reason why journaling is routinely recommended as a form of therapy.
Skeptics may scoff, but those of us who’ve tried it know that writing about yourself, even in the simplest of ways, can bring forth revelation.
In writing These Four Friends , I learned a lot about how I see myself and what I value.
Having to describe and flesh out how my character feels about certain scenes and interactions gives me a second chance to acknowledge and dissect what were once fleeting moments and quick words.
I can’t help but wonder what new things I’ll discover if I keep writing about R.