Niamh Greene's new book, Confessions of a Demented Housewife, is out this month and so, to celebrate, she's written us a guest blog! Over to Niamh...
When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with Enid Blyton. I dreamt of going to a jolly hockey-sticks boarding school and having a tuck box. I longed to explore Kirrin Island and drink lashings of ginger beer. (I also made a friend pretend to be Timmy the dog – but that’s another story.) At night, I dug under the covers with my book and my torch (I could have just switched on my bedside lamp of course, but that wouldn’t have been a very Famous Five thing to do) and vowed that I was going to be an author when I grew up.
I was a very imaginative child and, cheered on by my encouraging
parents, I filled countless green copybooks with flowery short stories
of complicated capers a la Enid. My writing got deep and meaningful
when I was a hormonal teenager - I even wore a beret in what I thought
was a wildly creative way for a while (awful I know but, in my defence,
Prince’s Raspberry Beret was big at the time). Then, thrilled to learn
that an Arts degree meant I could legitimately lounge around reading
for a few years, I went on to study English in university. But after
graduation I wobbled. All my friends were pursuing business careers –
maybe fantasizing about being a writer was pointless. Maybe I’d be far
better off in an office doing spreadsheets – not that I knew what
spreadsheets were or what they were used for, of course.
And so I buried my dream and kept busy in a series of unsatisfactory jobs, hell-bent on ignoring the annoying little voice inside that was goading me to write. But no matter how much I distracted myself, some nights I’d wake up with a story fully evolved in my mind and bolt out of bed to scribble it down – just so I could get back to sleep.
It was only when I had children that I really came back to writing. I doubted I’d forget the time the potty got stuck on my son’s head or the special occasion when my daughter asked a pregnant friend if her baby was cooked yet, but then again the sleep deprivation was terrible – I’d already forgotten my own name more than once so anything was possible. So I began writing down the hilarious things they did and said so I could embarrass them both when they were teenagers. It was while I was doing this that a germ of an idea came to me for what would be my first book – Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife. I did nothing with it of course – old habits die hard and I was too busy telling myself I couldn’t possibly try writing for real to even explore the idea. But when the children were older and out of the house until midday, I began writing in earnest. It was either that or tackle the housework and frankly I would have done almost anything to avoid emptying the dishwasher or starting the mountain of ironing that mocked me from across the kitchen.
So I sat at the computer and a strange thing began to happen – I
remembered how much I loved to write. I found my voice and got carried
away with the story – so carried away that sometimes I had to remind
myself to pick up the kids at lunchtime. Now my second novel –
Confessions of a Demented Housewife: The Celebrity Year – is on the
shelves and I’m finally fulfilling my childhood dream. And yes, I’m
still ignoring all the housework!
Thanks, Niamh!
