• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • The Ship
  • Press & Reviews
  • Events
  • Contact

Antonia Honeywell

Writer

  • Blog
  • Publication & Beyond
    • Countdown To Publication
  • My Reading & Reviews
    • Baileys Prize 2015
    • Bailey’s Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2013
    • Other Reading
  • Any Other Business
    • Advent 2018
    • Advent 2016
You are here: Home / Blog / Six months till publication – July

Six months till publication – July

11th July 2014 By Antonia Honeywell 3 Comments

So first, a reality check. I am writing this in the café of a huge skating/climbing wall/caving/high ropes complex on an out-of-town industrial estate. Thirty four overexcited Cub Scouts are running around – one of them is mine, overtired at the end of term, running on fumes. The music is loud and piped; in a former life, it was by Oasis, before Oasis met Tony Blair. How things change.
But this is the time I have. It’s the only time I have. The evening I’d dedicated to writing this post was swallowed in preparations for a first ballet exam (not my own), a bumper spelling test (not my own), and two unsettled bedtimes (again, and sadly, not my own). James is already on our family holiday with his parents and our two youngest; the rest of us will join in as soon as the older two break up, which seemed like a good idea at the time. But we’re all missing each other. Plans have changed and shifted as plans involving children do, so the writing time, which was to be my compensation for the separation, has evaporated, leaving no trace.
This was my life before I got the book deal. It’s how The Ship was written in the first place. And as I snatched a few minutes here, a few minutes there, chipping away at the marble cliff of my idea, I consoled myself with visions of what my writing life would look like if I ever succeeded in getting published. Mummy’s writing would stop being code for Mummy’s doing her own thing and there would be no guilt surrounding writing time, because a deal would make my writing, my work.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the rest of the world to change its behaviour accordingly. I was writing isn’t accepted by a ballet examiner as a reason for presenting a candidate in leather ballet shoes instead of satin ones. A Cub Scout without a signed permission form isn’t allowed to go on the High Ropes, no matter how essential his mother’s storytelling might be to the smooth running of the universe. And a bumper spelling test is a bumper spelling test, and although I don’t give a stuff whether a seven year old can spell every word that’s been on the list this term, the seven year old does.
Meanwhile, my copy edits have landed, and my holiday task will be unravelling the residual snarls in the text. It turns out that my life before the deal was the blueprint for my life after the deal.
Except for one thing. I went to Orion’s offices yesterday to drop something off, and I had to take my eldest with me. He’s nine. We got to the lovely shiny offices, and went in the lovely shiny lift, and opposite the lovely shiny reception desk was a display of books. One of them was a Deadly 60 title. Eldest picked it up. ‘Are you being published by the same people as Steve Backshall?’ he said. And when I nodded, the most important part of my universe shifted its opinion just a little. Mummy’s pursuing her dreams has never meant much. But Mummy’s hanging out with Steve Backshall – now that’s cool.

Filed Under: Blog, Countdown To Publication, Publication & Beyond

Comments

  1. naomifrisby says

    11th July 2014 at 7:44 pm

    This is has made me sad {{{hugs}}}. Perhaps publication, when that book with your name on it is in book shops and available to buy on the internet, will be when the shift takes place. But at least you’ve got cool points to carry you a little further. Hope the editing goes well and you have some sort of holiday xxx

    Reply
    • antoniahoneywell says

      12th July 2014 at 9:01 am

      Thank you, Naomi! Hopefully the cool points will last a while – and the copy editing is turning out to be more fun than it sounds x

      Reply
  2. jacpye says

    11th July 2014 at 6:36 pm

    That’s lovely. Inspiring, too.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Antonia

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest Tweets

  • .@LostboxUK @tfl @tfllostproperty Left on a Santander bicycle, at the Chapel Street/Marylebone Lane station, near W… https://t.co/7QVJv93qkR 30th January 2023 10:01 am

Most Recent Posts

  • An invitation to my birthday 2nd May 2021
  • An alternative vigil for Sarah Everard 17th March 2021
  • Decompression Day 19th June 2019
  • Arriving in Entebbe 5th June 2019
  • Out of Office – Uganda 4th June 2019
  • Writing and failure 9th April 2019
  • Andy Murray Is Not Dead 11th January 2019
  • Day 24 24th December 2018
  • Day 23 23rd December 2018
  • Day 22 22nd December 2018

Categories

  • Blog
  • Publication & Beyond
    • Countdown To Publication
  • My Reading & Reviews
    • Baileys Prize 2015
    • Bailey’s Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2013
    • Other Reading
  • Any Other Business
    • Advent 2018
    • Advent 2016

Copyright © 2023 · Antonia Honeywell
Joanna Craig Website Design