The magpie guide to not giving up

Today’s tale is for anyone who’s been working on a dream for a VERY LONG TIME.

Anyone who's been working on a dream for a very long time and yet NOTHING SEEMS TO BE HAPPENING!

As a writer of books I’m all too familiar with the loneliness of the long distance dream, and the frustrations that can come from working on something for months and months, or even years, with no promise of the desired outcome.

I recently landed in a place in the UK called Seven Dials and I’m staying in an apartment high in the rafters of a beautiful old building.

I’m so high up that I’m level with the treetops and my bed is right beneath a large window.

Every night I’ve been doing this thing I’ve called ‘bougie camping’ where I keep the blind up and fall asleep gazing at the moon and stars - but from the comfort of a bed that doesn’t just have a mattress but a mattress topper to boot, AND feather pillows and a quilt. No camping on the cold hard ground for me!

Last night I woke at 2am to find myself bathed in the silvery light of an almost full moon. It was so magical.

During the day my bedroom window turns from bougie camping experience to nature documentary as two magpies have started building a nest in the tree closest to me.

Because the tree is still bare of leaves I’m getting to see every stage of the nest-building process and it’s been absolutely fascinating.

Firstly, I had no idea it took so long for birds to build a nest. My magpie friends have been at it for two weeks now and it still isn’t complete.

But every morning they appear, like workers clocking on for a shift, and one of them flies into the nearby trees to fetch twigs with its beak and the other one stays at the site of the nest and fashions the twigs into shape.

twig incoming

It sounds pretty straightforward but one thing I hadn’t realised was how many failed attempts go into making a nest.

I would say that out of every 10 twigs the magpie attempts to carry to the nest, about 6 or 7 get dropped.

The steps beneath the tree are littered with twigs that have fallen. Littered with setbacks.

But the magpie doesn’t fall into a well of self pity or self doubt when the twig it was carrying falls. It doesn’t swoop off to do the magpie equivalent of comfort eating or binge-watching crap telly, drowning in self pity. It keeps on keeping on, keeping its beady eyes firmly on the goal.

And slowly but surely, that nest is being built.

Watching this unfold through my window has made me see parallels with dreams I’ve had. Dreams that have had many setbacks and taken years to reach fruition, and I have a perfect example to share with you today.

When I first started out as an author (back in 2000) I had four books for adults published.

Then I spent ten years writing for children and young adults.

During that time I was also a single mum and sole breadwinner, so I worked as an editorial consultant and celebrity ghostwriter as a way of supplementing my income.

All throughout those years I dreamed of writing my own books for adults again, but it was difficult to find the time due to all my other commitments.

Eventually, in 2017, I started carving out pieces of time here and there to devote to writing a novel for adults.

I’d had what I thought was a powerful chain of ‘what if’s - a series of intriguing questions that form the set up for the story. My what ifs went like this…

What if there was a celebrity ghostwriter who was feeling a little disillusioned - to the point where she’s thinking of quitting her career - but then she’s offered the job of a lifetime, ghostwriting the memoir for an iconic singer?

But what if that singer tragically died when she was young? (Think Janis Joplin or Amy Winehouse). Or at least that’s what the world has been led to believe.

But what if that singer had faked her death and now she wants our ghostwriter protagonist to help tell her true story and unravel the mystery of why she did what she did?

I felt pretty certain this was a strong concept, so I set about writing the novel - or attempting to.

The trouble was, real life kept getting in the way.

My workload felt way too heavy. A close family member got sick.

I kept popping back to my manuscript whenever I could, just like the magpie with a twig in its beak.

But I wasn’t able to get any real momentum going and I knew deep down that what I was writing wasn’t quite cutting it. The characters weren’t fully formed. The plot meandered and the mystery wasn’t mysterious enough.

Just like the magpie, I kept dropping the twigs.

But unlike the magpie, I didn’t have the energy or the focus to keep going, so I gave up on the idea.

Or rather, I shelved it.

Fast forward three years to 2020, when I finally got a book deal writing fiction for adults again - but set during World War 2 rather than contemporary.

I’ve now had eight WW2 novels published.

Last year, when my contract came up for renewal, my publisher asked me to send them a couple of new book ideas.

I’d just spent some time in Portugal and had fallen in love with the country and people. And when I discovered what a fascinating place Lisbon was during the war I really wanted to write a novel set there.

One day I went on a guided historical tour of the city and our guide told us that the American singer and dancer Josephine Baker had come to perform in Lisbon during the war and how she’d helped the Allies by passing coded messages from the Resistance in her sheet music.

Instantly, a what if came to me: What if I wrote a novel about a Portuguese singer who became famous during the war?

And what if, like Josephine Baker, she used her fame to help the Allies - passing coded messages in sheet music as she toured Europe to perform in morale boosting concerts.

And then another what if occurred to me.

WHAT IF I RESURRECTED MY GHOSTWRITING WHAT IF??

My brain began popping like corn with ideas.

What if this singer supposedly died during the war - in tragic and dramatic circumstances?

But what if she had faked her death?

And what if a ghostwriter in the year 2000 is offered the top-secret job of a lifetime, ghostwriting the singer’s memoir and unravelling the mystery of her supposed death?

I am very happy to report that that novel, The Lost Story of Sofia Castello, is being published next month - some SEVEN YEARS after I had the very first what if of the idea.

This time round it was a joy to write and, set during World War 2 and the year 2000, instead of the 1960s as the original idea had been, everything fell into place.

As I type this to you and look out of the window, the magpie has reappeared with another twig in its beak. This time the twig slotted into place with ease. I’m starting to see that, the bigger the nest gets, the easier it becomes to build.

I think the same can be true for our dreams.

If we can just keep going through that difficult initial stage - where there’s nothing tangible to see yet and we’re more likely to suffer setbacks - if we can just keep believing in our vision, we will eventually lay the foundations for our success. Twig by twig. Or in my case, word by word and page by page.

I’m so happy to share my completed ‘nest’ with you, seven years after placing my first twig.

The Lost Story of Sofia Castello is now available to pre-order on Amazon here (and HUGE thanks if you do, as pre-orders make such a positive difference).

Until next week, I hope this inspires you to keep working towards your dream, slowly but surely, twig by twig.

Siobhan