On winning, womanhood and writing your own story
Last night I went to London for the RNA Romantic Novel Awards 2022, where I won The Katie Fforde Debut Romantic Novel Award. It was both a huge surprise and a massive honour, and I lugged my very heavy glass trophy back to Wiltshire feeling pretty bloody proud of myself, actually.
It’s the first time I’ve ever been to a RNA event, and one thing I couldn’t help but notice in a room packed full of romantic novelists is that pretty much all of us are women, and most of us are (how can I put this delicately) not in the first flush of youth. I absolutely include myself in this category – I’m going to be fifty next year, so I’m hardly a bright young thing.
I posted a picture of my award to my social media channels and just before I left I received a message from a friend and former colleague that read ‘Wow H that is amazing, not just some fancy work award, but a proper prize for your very own creative work!’
I thought about this message a lot on the way home. I’ve stood on stage and accepted awards before, but always for work, and as part of a team. It’s the first time I’ve ever been recognised for my own creative output, because it’s the first time I’ve ever done it entirely under my own name.
Anyway it was a two hour trip and I was alone and a bit emotional, so It got me pondering the language we hear as teenagers and young women. We learn that our twenties are the best years of our life, and that our thirties and forties are when we’ll achieve all the really good stuff – our limited window to pursue success and fulfilment. After that it’s all a bit vague - basically everything goes south for winter, then eventually we wash up on Menopause Island and dry out into feathery husks until we become entirely invisible. Literally nothing to see here.
And let’s be clear – most of us DO deliver a lot of good stuff in our twenties and thirties and forties. But also a lot of it is for… someone else. Our employers, our partners, our parents, our children. How often during this period do we truly say ‘this time is for ME’?
That’s not to say this period of our lives isn’t worthwhile – it absolutely is. It teaches us patience and resilience and empathy. It gifts us a backpack of emotional labour, yanks us through the wringer of love and loss, then reminds us of our privilege, in whatever form that may take. It shows us the true value of friendships and helps us reconnect with our mental and physical health. And most importantly, it encourages us to stop apologising for taking up space, and to learn the value of choosing ourselves a little more often.
The other day someone asked me how long I’d been a novelist, and I replied ‘it’s was my first book actually, even though I wrote it when I was 47.’ But now I’ve realised I wrote that first book BECAUSE I was 47. I didn’t come to writing late in life; I came to writing at exactly the right time. A time when I could feel confident about scribbling ‘Part 2’ at the top of a new page and deciding to make the story a bit more about me.
So on this International Women’s Day, I’d like to pay tribute to every sister who is, in the immortal words of Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin, doin’ it for themselves. Here’s to all of our Part 2s which, as it turns out, have plenty more chapters still to go. Who knew?
