The Two Week Wait by Sarah Rayner

Can you tell our readers about your current novel?

The Two Week Wait is about the two women who are both very keen to start a family.

One is Lou, who readers of my bestselling novel, One Moment, One Morning, may recognise as she also appears in that, and another woman, Cath, who lives up in Yorkshire.

The two women are different – Lou is gay and in her 30s, she lives in Brighton, Cath is straight, and married and a bit older. Both women, for different health reasons, find themselves having to try for a child within a short time frame. So it’s about an issue that will resonate for many women and their partners – the biological ticking clock.

Though I’d also say that The Two Week Wait is as much about not having children as it is about having them. I don’t wish to give away the plot, but the journey Lou and Cath go through means they both have to look deep into themselves and discover what makes them who they are – not just as mothers but as women in the wider world.

I also wanted to show the impact of their circumstances on their loved ones, so I write from several perspectives in the novel – as well as Lou and Cath’s, we see things through their partners’ eyes, so there are men – dads – in it too.

Where did your inspiration come from for the novel?

The initial idea for the book came from my work an advertising copywriter. Before I was lucky enough to be able to pursue fiction writing full time, I worked writing copy for an ad agency. One day I was asked to write a website for a fertility clinic, and I found many of the case histories I read very moving.

I realised the subject threw up a lot of ethical questions, around whether or not everyone has the right to have a child regardless of their age, sexual preference or whether or not they are in a relationship – when I was working on the website we all ended up having quite heated debates in the agency.

So having decided it would be a nice meaty subject for a novel, I put a request on Facebook for anyone who’d been through IVF, or in some way had a child against the odds so to speak, because they were gay or whatever, to chat to me and tell me their story.

I went and interviewed a good many people, and listened to their experiences. Some had happy endings – and had resulted in a successful pregnancy, so I met a good many babies.

But some were not, because IVF does not always work by any means. I heard about miscarriages, and about people deciding to stop trying for a baby because they’d run out of money and emotional energy.

All this I added into my web of background material, and I drew on bits here and there. I feel very indebted to those people who shared their stories, and it is really important to me that my book does justice to the journeys they have been on.

What advice would you give a budding writer?

I could give so much advice, but I’ll give you my three favourite tips. Firstly, make sure you do not send anything, and I mean anything, to an agent, another author or even a friend with basic grammar and/or spelling mistakes. They will think you don’t know your onions and bin it before they’ve reached the end of the first page. Imagine they are in a shop buying an outfit – why would they bother buying something with a broken zip? They get so much sent through, don’t waste their time.

Secondly, learn to hone your writing. I’m sure a lot of people tell budding writers nice encouraging things like ‘try, try again’ and ‘it took so and so 30 rejections before their work was accepted and now she’s a best seller’. I’d argue that it’s more important to edit and re-edit your own work so you avoid repetition and clichés. I get asked to read a lot of stuff – I can’t imagine how much more agents and editors get – and a vast amount is lazily written. Would be novelists should learn to be tough on themselves before showing their writing to anyone. Keep your viewpoints consistent, check your tenses don’t jump about, and take a hatchet to superfluous passages when need be. Don’t overuse adverbs – ‘He said sullenly’; ‘She said grumpily’ etc. Instead let what your characters say communicate their mood.

Finally, plan your novel or story. Every writer does this differently but regardless of how you proceed, you need to know where you are headed. Make sure your story has a beginning, middle and end - otherwise you’ll get muddled and so will your readers. I speak here from experience – when I’ve not had a clear idea in my head of the plot and the themes, I have then ended up floundering and having to discard vast quantities of writing. Otherwise I see it like decorating a room without doing adequate prep work. In the long run it’s better to fill the holes and cracks and sand them down up front, boring though this may seem, as otherwise your bumpy walls will show through and your painting will look shoddy.

What is a day like in the life of a writer?

Wake-up time in our house is early as my partner, Tom, is a freelance chef and likes when possible to work the first shift of the day. I grumble and if it’s very early usually manage to go back to sleep, otherwise I lie in bed, thinking. It’s often when I have my best ideas - I ponder what should happen next in a novel, what’s missing from a character and incidents that might best illustrate what I’m trying to say. If I’m right in the thick of writing, I may get up and start typing while I’m still in my pyjamas.

Several times a week I go running. Sometimes I scoop up my friend, Jules, who lives in nearby Hove, in which case we also gossip, which is wonderful, as before we know it we’ve jogged a reasonably long way. Otherwise I go alone – I find running is perfect for letting ideas settle. It feels a bit like when you pour rice in a jar and then bang the bottom and the grains become more compact, neater.

If possible I like to experience first-hand the places I’m writing about. Recently I wrote a passage set on the beach in Brighton, so I sat on the shingle after a run to draft it. In addition, some of my new book is set in Yorkshire,, so I went and stayed up there to remind myself of the place.

Apparently Anthony Trollope used to write 1000 words a day, but I’m nowhere near that fast or disciplined. For a first draft, I set myself a target of 500 words a day, which makes it relatively easy to exceed it. If I’m on a roll I continue – the most I’ve ever accomplished is 3000 words in a day - but often I only manage the minimum. However, a lot of writing is about editing and re-editing, which involves working on my computer, often with one of our three cats on my knee, another on the manuscript and a third on mousemat, which can be hard to navigate.

Around one I break for a few minutes for lunch, and if he’s around and I’d like another opinion, I read Tom my latest draft.

If I’ve managed to write a lot, in the early evening I might head to my local beauty parlour, for a manicure. It’s teeny salon a stone’s throw from our house where beauticians and customers from all walks of life congregate – it’s inspirational for getting a sense of how different people talk.

Every few weeks I head up to Soho for my book group. Each session my friends and I read a different book. If it’s good we can spend an hour or two dissecting it: if not we can dismiss it in a matter of minutes and spend the evening catching up instead. If we’re not out, then Tom and I have dinner, and if Seb, his son, is with us – which he is every weekend – we’ll watch a DVD and eat chocolates. Bedtime varies; if I’m coming back from London it might be midnight, otherwise I try to make it earlier, as I wake easily and rarely sleep through the whole night.

What do you love to read?

There are many authors whose work I really admire – Patrick Gale, Maggie O’Farrell and Sally Vickers, for instance, and I do love reading them, but I have to be in the mood. Sometimes I want something more indulgent – and if I’m in that headspace it’s got to be Lisa Jewell. She tends to get pigeon holed as ‘chick lit’ whereas I think she’s easily on a par with the likes of Nick Hornby, though I’ve not read her latest.

All this said, can I confide a secret? I don’t read nearly as many novels as I feel I should – not least as when I am writing a novel myself, I don’t find it necessarily that easy to read other people’s – I worry I’ll adopt their tone of voice or be affected by their philosophy. So I also read memoirs – recently I devoured Jackie Kay’s Red Dust Road, which I liked very much. And I love magazines and browsing the internet – but I feel much guiltier about those!

Lucy Walton