The one thing I have in common with a Women's Prize winner
Last Thursday I went to the Women’s Prize book awards. It was all very exciting, not least because it was held in a stunning private square garden in Bloomsbury and was absolutely packed with famous writers (Bernadine Evaristo in the most excellent trainers. Dawn O’Porter in a fabulous jacket. Elizabeth Day who is even taller than me and yes, very beautiful).
The winning book in the fiction category was VV Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night. I haven’t read it yet, but I was very taken with the author, particularly when she admitted that she started writing the novel in 2004. That’s twenty years ago! A few people in the crowd laughed or gasped at this confession, but most of us sighed with relief. What a joy to hear a super-successful person reveal that she had not sped headlong towards her goal, but rather plodded along for two decades to get there.
Instant success stories surround us. Here on Substack, the loudest voices are those who gained thousands of fully paid-up subscribers in a year, and are here to tell you that you can do the same too (LOL). In the media industry I work in, it’s all about ‘30 under 30’ and drooling over the talented few who became magazine editors by the time they were 25. And social media has perpetuated the idea that we should be achieving many wonderful things at pace - on Instagram, you’re much more likely to see a house renovated to show home-worthy standards within six months than someone saving up room by room over ten years. In our shiny, productivity-driven culture, slogging away is unglamorous. Procrastinating is shameful. And simply being a bit stop-start and dithery in life is far from aspirational.
I’ve often fallen foul of this obsession with instant success, especially at the beginning of my career when I knew where I wanted to be and was fed up at how long it was taking to get there. Rather than swaggering straight into an editorial assistant gig at Sunday Times Style, my early journalism jobs included writing finance guides for Studentbeans, working 6pm-11pm news shifts for Digital Spy and covering the latest in salon life for a trade magazine called Hairdressers Journal. At the time I panicked about how long it was taking for my career to take off, but when I look back I realise that I needed that slow grind to get where I am now (not a women’s prize winning novelist, sure, but happy with my job). The experience I gained through those frustrating years was actually invaluable, and without them I probably wouldn’t appreciate the upsides of my current gig so fully.
Another example - way back when I was working at the hair magazine in 2011, I started writing a beauty blog (remember them?). I gave up after about six months, mainly because the blog traffic was a bit meh, so I quickly chalked it up as a failure. A year later, I happened to open Wordpress and was gobsmacked to see the readership had rocketed thanks to search traffic - my little blog was actually a winner! Who knows how well it would’ve done if I’d actually bothered to stick with it, but that sense of “oh dear, because this isn’t a smash hit success it’s an embarrassing defeat” had quickly got in my way. It’s the same reason I gave up tennis, guitar-playing and sewing - I basically got fed up when I was not instantly brilliant at them.
As I’ve got older though, I’ve definitely become more comfortable with the slow burn. This is good news, because now I have kids I have hardly any time to invest in a project (except the laundry. My god I could win a prize in that). But it’s always nice to be reminded by someone super impressive - like VV Ganeshananthan - that it’s ok for your accomplishments to take decades rather than days. It makes you appreciate the end point that much more when you finally, finally get there.
Recommendation corner (probs need to think of a cooler name for this)
I can’t believe I’m saying this about a 25 quid plastic shoe but these gold Mary Janes are genuinely so comfortable and I’ve had tonnes of compliments for them.
The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore is one of those page-turning family sagas I love, made extra special thanks to its evocative Isle of Wight setting.
The second season of Tour de France: Unchained has hit Netflix and once again I am fully obsessed. The best sports documentary going.