I don't know anyone who has read Shauna Reid's memoir - The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl - and not loved it, so I was thrilled when she agreed to write a guest blog for us.
Sometimes it’s still hard to believe I’m a proper published author. There’s a dent in the living room ceiling from a champagne cork, popped on the day I signed the deal for The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, yet apart from that my life looks much the same. I get up, I go to work, I swear at the computer, I come home; I watch University Challenge.
But then I get to have all these delicious Author Moments. Like
skulking around doing interviews. I run home at lunchtime to chat to
Spanish radio stations; I yak to Australia in the dead of night. I
sneak into empty offices, hoping the boss doesn’t catch me as I tell
yet another journalist how I gained all that weight.
“Nutella!” I hiss down the line, “Yes. That's right. I used to eat it with a spoon. S-P-O-O-N!”
Then there’s all the book stalking. I remember the very first sighting – 23rd December, 1PM, face out and snuggled up to Gordon Ramsay’s bio at the local WH Smith. I took photos from five different angles then stood there poking the cover, making sure it wasn’t a mirage.
I’ve managed to curb the habit now, but for weeks I was drawn into every passing bookshop with the same irresistible lure I once felt for the dessert bar at Pizza Hut. My mood soared or slumped depending on whether or not the book was stocked, where it was placed and/or the number of copies. When my publisher told me that ASDA had taken it on, I dragged my husband Gareth around three different stores to witness this first hand. The first two stores didn’t have it, and the third had an empty space on the shelf with a plastic label beneath: Amazing Advents, Shauna Reid.
“They don’t have it!” I whimpered.
“They might have sold out!”
“Or maybe they changed their minds and never got it in the first place!”
“This is a very tumultuous time for you, isn’t it?” said Gareth. “And consequently, for me also.”
Best of all has been the lovely surprise of reader emails. Again, I’ll always remember the first, from Verity in Warwickshire. I nearly wrote back, Mum? Is that you? I couldn’t believe someone had read the book without being nagged by me to do so.
Since then I’ve had warm emails, funny emails and emails so heartbreaking that I drip snot and tears on the keyboard. I’ve even had a few confessions: “OMG, I thought I was the only one who ate Nutella with a spoon!” These are the moments when this Author thing feels so wonderfully real.
