Helen Russell: You Have To Live It

I’m a journalist and an author.

I am a magnet for the ridiculous and have to be open to new experiences to do my job so I’m regularly surprising even myself. I’ve got twins; a four-year-old; a paddleboard; an interior design obsessed husband; a mother who used to take me to Notting Hill Carnival; plus a superpower of finding things (and finding things out). I recently appeared on Japanese TV with a seven foot high Lego Man; gave a talk on leadership to the Welsh government; learned authentic Viking boat building techniques and axe throwing while seven months pregnant, and sexted a personal trainer (by accident).

I’ve just been given a copy of The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin because someone thought I’d love it – so I’m interested to read and see why. There’s sometimes a reluctance to press books onto a writer but I have eclectic and wide-ranging tastes so I’m always happy to read and learn more.

I loved The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy. The allure of magic was everything my overly active imagination desired and growing up as the only child of a single mum, the idea of boarding school with a battalion of pseudo-siblings appealed enormously.

It all starts with big paper. I’ll use a roll of kids’ drawing paper for a few weeks, scribbling and doodling, before eventually coming up with a spider diagram and then hopefully a semi-legible synopsis I can knock into shape. For non-fiction, I’ll then divide the research up by topic and start a hit list of who I’d like to speak to and what areas I need to delve into further – though this will change and morph with every new thing I learn from the experts and interviewees I speak to. If there’s something I need to road test for myself, I’ll plan out how long I need to trial it thoroughly and make sure I can do this justice before I start writing (thus sexting a personal trainer for Leap Year). For fiction, I’ll sketch out a storyboard, then look at where there are gaps in my knowledge and work out who I need to speak to or what I need to do to fill these (thus Viking boat building and axe throwing for Gone Viking).

The Party by Elizabeth Day – she’s a fellow writer and author and I’ve always enjoyed her work and wit.

The most important thing is reading. Lots. Good and bad – so that you have something to aim for and so that you start to recognise where things can go wrong. The Writers and Artists Handbook is great for information on agents and publishers, but my other two recommendations would be essays. Politics and the English Language by George Orwell is essential for anyone keen to avoid the major pitfalls of writing and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf should be mandatory to help everyone check their privilege and learn a little more about the context within which we write and read.

It’s impossible to pinpoint just one, but I remember vividly that My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt made me feel as though it was okay to be me – that being sensitive and a daydreamer could be an asset. The best kind of writing makes you feel less alone and this one made me weep with recognition. I made my mum read it and she said something along the lines of: ‘Now, I get you.’

My toddlers regularly scale our bookcases and tear down choice volumes (I caught my one-year-old with The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie the other day) and a few gems I have rediscovered as a result include Sexual/Textual Politics by Toril Moi and a Penguin guide to the roads of the North of England from the 1950s. Both illuminating in very different ways.

LoveStar by Andri Magnason, a friend of a friend, blew my mind. I approached the book without any expectations but was inspired by his enormous imagination and the questions he poses and prompts for humanity at large.

Staying semi sane in the face of three children and three books in three years (often on three hours’ sleep) is definitely up there. Carving out a career from scratch in Denmark after I left my glossy magazine job and 12 years in London was tough, but I feel proud that I’ve made it work. I love what I do now – work is more fun than fun for me (and I really like ‘fun’). For years I was stressed, tired all the time and struggling to start a family – trying every fertility treatment under the sun. Something had to give, and it was scary to make a change – but it paid off. Now I have the family and career I wanted.

Start today.Don’t just think about it: do it. Because if you don’t like the doing part, you’re not going to get anywhere. I’m a firm believer in Malcolm Gladwell’s idea that you have to put in 10,000 hours to get really good at something when it comes to writing. So put in the hours – even if it means you don’t get published for a while. And only do it if you love it – because it isn’t an easy option. It’s an unusual lifestyle and a lot of work. I sweat when I write – it becomes a physical thing, acting out dialogue and blocking movement. You have to live it.

I’m so over impressing people. Our coffee table is currently buried under snacks, wet wipes, Paddington by Michael Bond and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, so they’re welcome to these.

Fiction deals with drama, where typically people aren’t behaving in the best possible way – and perhaps it’s the cynical Brit in me, but I’m not great on saccharine endings in my non-fiction either. If I had to pick (other than mine, of course…) I’d go for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. For any adolescent aliens, I’d prescribe His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman and for new alien readers, I’d bypass human protagonists altogether and offer them the beautiful and poignant allegory How to be a Lion by Ed Vere.

The Power by Naomi Alderman, The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett, Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan Novels have all stayed with me long after I read them in the past year.

Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff Allende. A friend heard him give a talk about how the innovative strategies of Golden Age pirates can be updated to form a clear set of solutions for the challenges of the 21st Century – and now I’m fascinated to find out more.

Image credit: Jonas Husballe Normann