The view from the summit

(Or how being a writer is a bit like being an Olympic climber, but with less chalk and more tea and cake.)

Happy publication day to me! Today is the day that The Housekeeper’s Secret is finally released into the wild after almost five years (FIVE YEARS) of living mostly inside my head.

It seems incredible to write that. I had to check the timeline by looking back into my Drafts folder at the first tentative chapter I wrote in November 2019, probably at roughly the same time a handful of people were becoming ill with a nasty virus on the other side of the world. By the time the nasty virus had spread across the globe and brought my fledged chicks back to the nest I was about 25k in and the book, like the rest of life, stuttered to a halt. The house was full, my writing room lost, and the days given over to magicking meals for five from scant supplies (googling ‘is it safe to eat lentils with a use by date of 2014?’) and walking the high-stakes tightrope of looking after my mum without putting her in danger of infection. For a while the only thing I wrote was a journal of day-to-day life, which quickly became not just a record of events as they unfolded but an essential emotional outlet. (‘24/3/20. Awake at 5am. Sleep is as hard to come by as loo roll and pasta in these strange times.’) In July 2020, when lockdown was lifted enough to allow me to rent an office space outside the house, I resumed writing. Most of The Housekeeper’s Secret was written there, in a tiny room in the old maternity hospital where I was born, with paper-thin walls through which I could hear every word of the phone calls from the care agency on one side and the financial consultants on the other.

There were times when I didn’t think I would finish it. There were afternoons spent with my eyes and my laptop closed as I mentally walked through the historic houses that had inspired my fictional Coldwell Hall, or flicked through the camera roll on my phone, trying to conjure the details of a storeroom or servants’ staircase. There were nights (lots of nights) when I didn’t sleep and wrote instead, so normal routine felt like something that belonged to the past, like landlines and cassette tapes. I’d planned that the story would have a wider scope and the action would move to London and Scotland, but in the end, as a consequence of my own stuck-ness, the core of the book remains solely within the confines of that remote house on the moors, cut off from the rest of the world and the march of progress beyond the hills surrounding it.

Had it not been for the tireless support, encouragement and kindness of my agent and editor at St Martins Press I don’t think I could have got to the end, and I can’t sufficiently express my gratitude for that. There were other factors at play too. Lockdown was hugely challenging on several fronts, but it started a shift in my mindset that led me to explore and consciously embrace slow living, which has been a game-changer and a gift. I also realised that the journal I had started to document a bizarre period in history had become a lifeline, and I am now a passionate advocate of the practice of journalling. (Thanks in no small part to the amazing Sasha who can be found at A Life of Words. She saved my sanity.)

It's funny and strangely satisfying that the book that was written in solitude and stasis should be released in a week of excitement, celebration and togetherness, as I return from a family trip to Paris where we’ve been cheering on my nephew in the Olympics. He’s a climber, and watching him (mostly through a tiny gap in my fingers) I was newly aware of the parallels between climbing and writing a book. The importance of mindset. Believing in yourself, trusting the process, not looking up or down or giving into fear, but focusing on the next move, the next point to clip onto, and making it as strong and sure as possible. Planning your route. Knowing when to pause and rest. Listening to the support team shouting encouragement from below and remembering that they’ve got your rope. You might be clinging on by your fingertips but if you fall you won’t die. You’re safe.

And then, of course, there’s the feeling of reaching the top. The moment when you type ‘The End’ or stand on the mountain summit, chest heaving, drinking it in. In that moment, before you descend to rejoin those below, or pass your manuscript into the hands of others, it’s just you and your achievement, with the journey behind still fresh in your mind, so you think that, having safely reached its end, you may never want to do it again.

But there’s always another mountain to climb, another story to discover. And as I write this, on the day that The Housekeeper’s Secret is finally released to readers, trimmed and tidied (did I mention how fantastic the team at St Martins are?) and dressed in its elegant cover, I am two-thirds of the way through another book. The terrain has been gentler this time, the conditions easier, so it feels more like a stroll on a summer’s afternoon than ascending a rockface in frozen rain.

My nephew who (like all the best storybook heroes) is as wise as he is strong, has come to understand that the journey is every bit as important as the destination, and the knocks you acquire on the way become part of who you are. The Housekeeper’s Secret was a challenging book to write but I learned more from the process than I ever have before, and it will always have a very special place in my heart for that. I’m looking forward to sharing more about the book and its setting and story, but for now I’m just going to send it out into the world with love and gratitude. If it finds its way to you, I hope you enjoy exploring the lonely house on the moors and discovering the secrets inside.

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