PURE FICTION

Mollie Blake - 7 Apr 14

At forty I’m Finance Director for a privately owned UK company with subsidiaries in France and South Africa and chair of the Pension Trustees. I travel, go to Board Meetings and love my job.

At 42 I’m a mum. Not lost much of the three stone I gained. My baby is in nursery 7.30am until 6pm 5 days a week. I feel most of my brain came out when I had my baby. I don’t want to be in the office. I have no time or inclination for sex.

At 46, after long hours and very hard work, we sell the company and I can resign. My little boy is three. For the next three years I’m still chair of the pension trustees and juggle that role with motherhood, housework, improving my cooking skills and voluntary work at school and Church.

Now I’m a mum on the playground. I’m not a decision maker in the boardroom. I don’t make much money. I feel devalued. My confidence has disappeared. But I have a great circle of friends. We share ideas, problems and joys. We put the world and our children to rights. I don’t know where my time goes, but I have a happy son and husband to show for it. I try to make a little time for sex.

At 49 things have settled down. I have more time on my hands. I have time to read. I read Fifty Shades followed by more erotic fiction, some good and some not so. I want to write a book like these. Good, of course!

So I did and I love every minute of it. My confidence is back as I have a focus and sense of achievement outside family life. And it works well with still being able to care for my son and husband. I make a lot of time for sex.

I completed my first novel in 2013 and my second this year. Writing can be hard work, particularly the editing process. Writing erotic fiction with a young child can have its own challenges. I tend to write in a continuous flow – I don’t write in sections. So when I’m coming up to an erotic scene I just have to get it on to the screen. They are my favourite scenes to write! and I have to watch the clock very carefully, ready for the school run and make sure my son is not stranded in the playground because I can’t stop describing an explicit scene.

As I walk to school I will be going through the scenes and may think of a particularly graphic position, or line of speech, that I mustn’t forget. With said son by my side and chattering as we walk home I have to juggle responding to him asking which is my favourite part of the X Men film, whilst still remembering the phrase I need to add to my sex scene. Sometimes I let my guard slip and he knows I wasn’t listening!

And my husband can catch me out too, when he comes home for tea and the island is still covered with my MAC, note book, electronic thesaurus/dictionary and bits of paper. And no tea! I soon learned that I have to know when to stop, with my literate son peering over my shoulder asking ‘what are you writing, mum?’ and be careful to put everything away. You can only get away with so much and I do have to get my head out of my book and back into the real world.

We don’t keep secrets and my son knows mummy writes stories for grown ups! At the moment he seems quite proud of the fact. I hope it stays that way.

Writing is very enjoyable and you are in control, of your story and your timetable, so you can juggle children and housework.

My tips for mothers who want to write:

* Manage your time. I write when my son is at school, tearing myself away to put a load of washing on or make the beds. Chores around the kitchen I leave until he comes home, because I can be talking to him, helping with homework etc. whilst pottering around the kitchen.
* Make sure you love your writing. My writing is my work. It is also my ‘me’ time because I can’t have both.
* Your children and partner are number one. Don’t let your characters consume you. Easier said than done. Know when to stop for the day or night.
* Don’t take those around you for granted. There are times, particularly when reviewing edits with a deadline, when you just have to get the work done. Your family, who think you don’t really work, will realise that, actually you do – it is a job, and they will need to be patient. Be grateful and make it up to them when you’ve finished. Your biggest gift will be when you give them back your time and attention.

Mollie Blake

View profile for posts, events and more info