Author Sylvia Leatham has just published her debut novel Chaos Theory, a literary rom-com for the AI generation; below she recounts the long road taken to her first book, and encourages others to take the leap!
I was born two weeks late, and since then my timing has generally been terrible. I’ve struggled to be on time for work every day of my adult life. I've wanted to write a book since the age of seven, yet I waited until 47 to really give it a go. So it’s delightfully surprising to find that, somehow, at age 52, I not only have a debut novel out, but it’s a book that readers are describing as "on trend", "very timely" and "so fresh".
I don’t feel old or older. I clearly remember being seven, and wanting to write. So what happened in those intervening 40 years to stop me from trying? Looking back now, I realize there were two big blockers preventing me from taking writing seriously. One was existential, the other practical. Taken together? Lethal. A jumble of misconceptions, fears and excuses. True, I had poor time management skills. But wrong ideas about time hampered me just as much, if not more.
Mistaken ideas about time
When I was younger, there was no urgency to start writing because there was always going to be a better, more convenient time in the future – one where I had the perfect home set-up and the perfect idea to work on.
Then of course, there was always the wonderful excuse of being "too busy" to write. When I became a parent – at age 42, a decade after most of my peers – this excuse bloomed like a cactus flower. I was legitimately too busy now. No one could say I wasn’t, especially not that inner voice nagging away in the back of my mind.
Through starting, and trying, and struggling, I gradually came to realize that writing is less of a 'god-given' talent and more of a craft to be honed and practised.
But as a parent, my days became highly structured. The same regime day in, day out – as predictable as a child’s bedtime story. I thrived in the routine. I discovered 'the dead hour’: In that 45 minutes after dinnertime, when the rest of the family was watching TV, I could slip away and turn on my laptop. Time was a precious resource in short supply. I felt like I was unearthing treasure – mining little pockets of time for myself, seizing upon them in delight, like Silas Marner with his gold coins.
Time myths
For decades I unquestioningly accepted the myth that you had to be an early riser to be a writer. I lost count of how many times I was advised to "just get up early".
Call it laziness if you like. I prefer to think of myself as "circadian rhythmically challenged". The idea of early mornings was abhorrent. But finding 'the dead hour' (see above) taught me that I didn’t need to be an early riser to get things done. My advice to others is to find the time that works for you.
Existential fears
On some level, all the practical considerations about time, or lack of it, were hiding a more fundamental obstacle: the subconscious fear of failure.
I now see this was why I never fully applied myself to writing until I was much older. If I never tried, I could never fail. When I was in my twenties, I (naively) believed that writing was an inherent talent: you just sat down one day and let it flow out of you. You were either a writer or you weren’t. And that voice in my head whispered: What if I wasn’t a writer? It was safer not to try.
Then one day I heard an interview with Marian Keyes on Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast. Marian said that anyone can get better at writing if they’re willing to work at it. It sounds so simple, but it was a gamechanger. Because at that point, I was willing to work at it.
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Through starting, and trying, and struggling, I gradually came to realize that writing is less of a ‘god-given’ talent and more of a craft to be honed and practised. Accepting that first drafts are bad, learning how to improve, seeing my writing evolve over time – it all taught me that books are made by craftspeople tirelessly honing their sentences, and not by wunderkinder dashing off words, guided by lightning bolts of genius.
Never too late
There are massive benefits to being an older debut author. I have more confidence to reach out and connect with people. I have more life experiences to draw on as writing fuel. I’m less self-obsessed and more outward-looking.
I was recently reminded that my mother’s aunt got married for the first time at age 86. Perhaps leaving things late runs in the family. Either way, lesson learned. It’s never too late.
Chaos Theory is out now via Storm Publishing
