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Rowan Coleman | Life in the Fast Lane

September 23, 2009

ROWAN COLEMANTHE ACCIDENTAL FAMILYSaturday 19th September 11.30 a.m

Shhhh….my month old baby boy, Freddie, is asleep. As blissful as it is to see him snoozing, content after a feed, this poses something of a problem for me.

All the experts agree that when your new baby sleeps you should sleep, but as delightful as the prospect of a few snatched minutes of dreamless oblivion seems, were I to doze off now then all the million things that need to be done – a mountain of baby clothes laundry, a month’s worth of house work, a guest blog for Fresh Fiction and not to mention the beginings of a new novel – will not get done. Again. And the sun will set on another day when I consider myself a high achiever for having got myself dressed in time to get my eight year old daughter to school and back again whilst remembering to brush my hair – a consideration that is probably not that accurate now that the world now seems to be entirely populated by women (Yummy Mummies, as they are known in the UK) who emerge half an hour after childbirth, with a washboard stomach, hair perfect, on trend outfit color co-ordinated and accessorised to within an inch of their life. What happened to the grace period of unwashed hair, elasticated waistbands and a little extra padding on the hips? Or maybe its just me, perhaps I am the only mother of an infant in the whole world who still blinks her way blearily through the daylight hours with her shirt on inside out.

The truth is, I need to take a well pressed leaf out of the books of these super efficient paragons of new motherhood and get my act together. I have a new book to write. My month off is nearly up, and its time to start forming the idea that I have had kicking around my head for the last few months into a proper structure, work on bringing the characters to life, outline the plot and get started writing. I need to find where ever it is I left my brain (ironically, I can’t remember…) pop it back in and start working at full speed again.

This is not the first time that I have written a book with a new baby. I wrote my second novel, After Ever After soon after the birth of my little girl, Lily. It’s a hazy period of my life, I don’t remember writing anything at all, but I must have done somehow because the evidence is there it is sitting on the shelf in my office, a solid 300 pages of words, bound together in a jacket. It is however, the only one of my books that I have never re-read since completing. I’m more than a little worried that it won’t make any sense at all.

So where to start….oh hang on. He’s woken up again. Back soon.

Sunday 20th September 9.41a.m

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