LAVENDER POTS- a stowaway slug

The story behind the story

So Lavender Pots, my debut book, is on the cusp of publication and for the first time in my life I am holding a book that I wrote.

It’s a weird feeling, this little book has been over two decades in the making. Here’s the potted back story to these 32 pages of beautiful illustrations and (modesty forces me to quote others)– ‘adorable’, ‘charming’ and ‘fragrant’ text.

So, how did it come about?

Well, in brief, I had given up my lovely job (lawyer, diplomatic status) in Rome to follow my husband’s career move to North Korea (yes, I meant to write ‘North’) but less than a year after we were married, he left me for a Tapir nosed Canadian whom he shagged and made pregnant.

This left me shocked to the point of trauma, broken hearted, in poverty and back in England, a friendless stranger in a country I had left over a decade before. I had to return to England because, thank God, I had rented out and not sold my cottage. This put a roof over my head for me and our two tiny children, one still breastfeeding and in nappies the other slightly older.

Those were very difficult years. The world had ended for me. The suicidal episodes passed, the panic attacks took longer (the night terrors went on for years long after the world was back on an even keel.) It was my wonderful children who kept me breathing.

A recruitment agency told me I was unemployable as I was over qualified as a specialist lawyer. I couldn’t even get a job serving coffee as they preferred single women but not single mothers. Having a house meant I was refused benefits, except for the humiliation of milk tokens (for which I was very grateful) But out of the ashes arose a time of magic in those years of humiliation and desperation. I learnt to count my blessings not in terms of what piles of gold were in the bank, the things I could afford. I learnt to count my riches in time spent with my little ones in the fleeting years of their early childhood. Walks in the woods collecting stolen firewood and berries, walks on the beach collecting shells, art club on the kitchen table, creative cookery (I don’t recommend cheese sauce made with porridge), travelling to the coast for Sunday roasts with grandparents.

I was never impressed by flash possessions but those years heavily underlined that I value people not by what they have or what their title is, but who they are. Who they are stripped of possessions, stripped of title and status, what they stand for, where their integrity sits. Which is probably why those I have a wardrobe of posh dresses, I am likely to be the scruffiest person in the room.

In those years, I wrote little stories capturing the silly little things that happened in our everyday life. I wanted to publish then- they might have dug us out of poverty- but in those lonely years I couldn’t even afford a coffee out, so there was no way in a million years that I could have afforded an illustrator or the publishing costs. So they went into a drawer collecting dust for two decades. There are at least five still in that drawer. They are moments in time, held in the amber of memory.

I didn’t query agents or approach children’s publishers direct. There was no point. I had written a book which I hoped parents would enjoy reading too. I had heard that the word counts were rigorous as was the choice of vocabulary, and unless it had a woke message or ticked a minority interest they wouldn’t be interested. Lavender Pots is about a stowaway slug on a rocking chair.

Fast forward. Life got in the way. As the kiddies went to school I could find work albeit earning a fraction of what I had earnt before. I met Hugo, my funny, sexy rock, our blended family, all was good (although the night terrors a bit wearing)

Then during Covid he had a stroke and then got skin cancer, both of which he took in his stride and shook off because he’s that sort of a rock whilst I got breast cancer and totally fell apart.

I am absolutely fine apart from having a breast and lymph system like Emmental, but it did scare the bejesus out of me. (I used to work in war zones and refugee camps but it was cancer that blew my mind to the extent that oddly, at one point I was so stressed that I could no longer say or visualise the letter K. I have no idea why)

I guess surviving thus far had made me belief I was immortal and indestructible. Cancer changed that. It forced me into a hard review of my priorities (assuming I made it to Christmas, two weeks later, in the middle of Covid.)

I was at that time fulfilling an ancient dream to have old stones of my own in Italy. I was mid purchase of a ruin in a picturesque ancient village in the Italian alps. That went for a Burton when discovered that the anti-oestrogen meds were going to give me 15 hot flushes a night and going ahead was giving me panic attacks.

My new priorities were to live life to the full every time, spend as much time as I could with my loved ones, and finish my books.

When I say ‘finishing my books’ I have been writing since I could hold a pen, but my annual failed new year’s resolution has been - for years- ‘finish what you started’

I’ve held back publishing the memoirs because I don’t want my mum’s last dementia months to be overshadowed by a book which implicitly criticises the well-meant but damaging strictness of my childhood. Crushing Nettles is done, ShiksaI’m working on, the next three are in rough first draft until we get to a decade in Rome which is done. It’s like literary constipation that can only be resolved by the death of another, then the shit is going to hit the fan as it were.

The children’s books can be published without impunity but then I hadn’t been able to do the illustrations, the family artists understandably had studying to do.

So if this book was to become real, I needed to self-publish. Money is just another word for choice. I had recovered financially, plus I had an unexpected windfall from my pension, so I could now afford- well maybe- an illustrator. Finally I might have a book.

So, how to find an illustrator?

I joined various children’s illustrator groups but all that seemed to result in was pile ons on how little artists were paid by horrible authors and how rights should be defended and restricted and it was all just too much stress before I’d even found someone whose style I liked or could ask about cost.

I needed someone skilled and experienced, but kind and honest who could help a naive, debut author for a fair fee.

I’m claustrophobic so the periodic MRI scans which follow in the wake of cancer are very difficult. I shut my eyes and go rigid as the machine lifts and inserts me onto the tube. I cannot open my eyes or I will panic. I try to go to my happy place - Tellaro- and image myself floating in the sea, squinting at the moon in a blue sky. But MRI’s take a while. On this occasion after a few dips in the sea, my mind was flooded by other images. I had seen Chantal’s beautiful illustrations on instagram and as I lay there, eyes scrunched tight, not moving a muscle lest the terror of being stuck in a noisy tube continue a second more than necessary all I could think of were her whimsical drawings. They would be perfect.

chantalbourgonje.co.uk

flowerology.substack.com

It was the epiphany I needed. Hang the expense I was going to do it. You cannot let life get int the way- the time to realise your life’s ambitions is when you are alive.

Chantal was so lovely to work with. Skill, experience, kindness and endless patience. She is a seasoned award-winning author, for me it’s my debut work.

Next, to choose a self-publisher.

Troubador are self-publishers who also offer marketing services so they set a bar, but it’s not as whacky as agents. They approved my text, the first hurdle was overcome.

I probably wasn’t the easiest client. I am easily confused and everyone in Troubador seemed to be called Lauren, but I tried to be good and professional and they definitely were. I am so grateful for their support and guidance.

In my head, knowing that it is born out of the hard, magical years, knowing the work Chantal, Troubadour and I put into it- I wanted it to be a hardback with a gold embossed cover, a page marker ribbon and a free cuddly slug along with a packet of lavender seeds, something to get dog eared from frequent reading, something that the experts would get excited by on the Antiques Roadshow in years to come. But obviously trees are made of gold these days as the hardback quote was eyewatering and came with the warning that I could do whatever I liked but having a hardback would put it into the gift market whereas paperback would make it more sellable. Troubador firmly suggested going with paperback. I am paying them handsomely for their skills and expertise so I took their advice. And to be fair- I cannot tell you how excited I am to see that they have got advance sales!

So, now after a gestation of a couple of decades, finally my little book landed in my hands.

Finally, marketing and sales

On bended knee, feeling both coy and proud I offer up to you my baby ‘Lavender Pots’

It’s the story of a stowaway slug. I think you are going to love it.

https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/picture-books/lavender-pots’