Author Lynda Marron: How Writing and Publishing Novels is a Lot Like Motherhood . . .
Last night I dreamt I went to swimming lessons again.
What was my least favourite thing in twenty-six years of motherhood? I can tell you: it was swimming lessons. The clammy heat, the echoing noise, the smell of chlorine scorching my mucous membranes, and that ridiculous yet inescapable, stone-cold fear that my child might actually drown, the whole thing was a recipe for a minor nervous breakdown.
Clearly, this dream of mine was an expression of anxiety.
The thing is, I have three novels under my wing at the moment – three babies at the pool. I’m mostly in the baby pool with Book Two, The Bridge to Always. She’s at the most difficult stage, I think, having to plonk her face in the water for the first time. Proof copies are out with other authors for early reviews, hoping people will say nice things to go on the cover. Her feet are off the floor, and I’m standing by, terrified.
Book Three, an incomplete first draft, is nowhere near ready to get into the water. I haven’t even had time to name her. She’s sitting on the edge of the pool, feet dangling, dressed in armbands and training pants, under instruction to learn from the mistakes of her siblings. I can’t take my eye off her, though, for fear that she’ll walk away and disappear into the mist of lost ideas. She’s gone a bit quiet, probably feeling neglected, in the way third children so often do. What can I say? I wish there were more hours in the day.
Meanwhile, my firstling, Last Chance in Paris is off in the big pool, swimming lanes with the big kids. Just released as a paperback, her fate is out of my hands. Somehow, the small paperback feels more like a real book to me than the chunky trade paperback of the first edition. Also, there’s a new cover. Book One has been togged out to match the cover of forth-coming Book Two and looks, I think, extremely smart. I’d pick up this book if I saw it in a shop, and that is the most we authors can hope for. I feel proud, relieved, hopeful even, but still scared that something will go wrong.
The very worst part of swimming lesson was the debacle in the changing rooms afterwards: shampooing multiple heads in a communal shower, the battle to hoick tiny clothes onto damp, shivering bodies. My analogy doesn’t reach that far. Small mercies …
It is true that I love my first novel, maybe not in the same way that I love my children, but there are undeniable similarities. I brought it into the light. I’ve done my best with it. I can see its flaws, but I want it to continue to do well in the world.
I wrote Last Chance in Paris at a time when my real-life eldest child had just left home. The prospect of an empty nest was looming and the knell of perimenopause was ringing in my ears (literally, it’s a thing). I was afraid that my life would soon lack any real purpose. It was also a time of great sadness in my life. I’d lost one of my oldest friends to cancer, and I was heartbroken.
I began to write. Slowly, slowly, I filled the room around me with characters who expressed everything I was feeling, and more. There were days when they made me laugh, and there were plenty of days when I sat in my chair weeping hot tears onto my keyboard. In the writing, a weight of grief was unloaded. My days had new and exciting purpose. In truth, it was the book that buoyed me up and kept me afloat.
In one way, Last Chance in Paris belongs to me and always will. In another way, it’s independent of me, going places I’ll never know about, lying about in living rooms and on beaches I’ll never see.
My part is done; I threw her into the water.
Fingers crossed, she will swim.
(c) Lynda Marron
Instagram @sultanabun
About The Bridge to Always by Lynda Marron:
A story about identity and place, about finding out who you are, who your people are, and what it means to be a family.
Maeve Gaffney arrives in a small West Cork town in pursuit of a dream: to be reunited with Tim, the lad she fell for years ago and who, unbeknownst to him, fathered her daughter, Emer.
For Tim, now married and a pillar of the community, Emer’s existence is a shock – but the chance to rekindle an old flame with her mother is tempting.
For Agnes, a lonely landowner, Maeve and Emer’s arrival is an opportunity to make money – and maybe new friends.
For Malachi, a man of few words but deep emotions, it’s . . . complicated.
For Emer, it’s about growing up and finding her voice.
For all five, the arrival of this beautiful, wild mother and her silent, observant daughter sparks a devastating chain of events none of them could have predicted.
The Bridge to Always by Lynda Marron is published by Eriu 3rd April 2025. Order your copy of online here.
Last Chance in Paris, also published by Eriu, is out now in paperback.
Read more from Lynda on Writing,ie here.
