Rose Diell

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
My debut novel, Fledging, has just been published. It’s about a woman obsessing over whether or not she wants to have children - obsessing so much she lays an egg. The novel follows her as she deals with both this egg and her question at the same time, drawing in other aspects of her life, such as her relationship with her partner (who wants children but says he doesn’t have to) and her terminally ill mother.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
Writing has always been my dream - it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve always known I wanted to do and I’ve wanted to be an author since I was a little girl. As I’ve grown up, this desire has also become part of my reason for not wanting to have children. It’s partly that it’s very hard nowadays to make a comfortable living, or even a living at all, off of writing - so you tend to need a ‘day job’, and all of that is a lot to fit in with children too! But also that for me, writing entails a lot of quiet time, thinking and the ability to set my own schedule.

Of course, there are plenty of women writers (I say women writers, because we all know that historically children have had less of an impact on men) who have children and make that work, or even find that having children enriches their writing (worth listening to the Maggie O’Farrell Bookshelfie episode on this). I just don’t think I’m one of those people. We all have different levels of energy, dedication to the task, ways of working (small bursts vs long chunks, for example). I just don’t see it working very well for me.

And, of course, in some ways being a full-time writer is quite compatible with having children: working from home, no set schedule. But I don’t have the privilege of being a full-time writer yet - and even if I were, there are so many other reasons for my childfree decision, in addition to the writing question, that I still don’t think I’d have them.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
There are lots of different sources. For Fledging, there were lots of long, deep conversations I had with friends that found their way into this book in numerous ways. Because I myself was obsessing over the baby question, I also spent many a night down internet rabbit holes, reading blogs and articles on the subject. And read a number of fiction and non-fiction works too, some of which are mentioned in my acknowledgments and listed on my website. But from a literary perspective I also took inspiration from other works - it was actually reading Han Kang’s The Vegetarian that set me off writing Fledging, because I loved this strange, quirky way she explored the issue of a woman’s lack of independence and I really wanted to attempt something similar.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
I don’t write without any plan at all, but I also can’t over-plan or I find I lose the joy of it. For Fledging, I ‘marinated’ the idea for a few months before I put pen to paper, just jotting down notes, ideas, themes and snippets that I wanted to include. I then wrote the opening and initial scenes to see if it was an idea worth exploring - I sent a very nervous, heavily caveated email to my writing circle asking them if they thought it was a good idea or just too plain weird. Thankfully, they loved it and told me to keep writing! After that I plotted out a general skeleton for the book - I had the idea for the three sections ('Brooding' - though it was originally called 'Laying'; 'Hatching'; and 'Fledging'), and a loose idea of the key scenes I wanted to include, in which order.

In terms of actually getting the words on paper, I’ve worked out over the years that I’m a morning person for writing, but not an early morning person (does that mean I’m a lazy morning person?). I’ve tried to get up early on weekdays to write, but I’m not very good at making myself get out of bed before I have to. But what I love is a weekend morning in my pyjamas, with a cup of coffee, writing while my head is clear of all the other noise of the week. So I try to keep weekend mornings free (I’ve had to give up the brunch habit of my 20s) and then write in large stretches of a few hours at a time. Sometimes, I’ll do snippets through the week - maybe writing something on my phone on the underground, or writing in the evening if my day hasn’t been too busy, or writing at 6am if I’m really disciplined. But weekends are when the real work gets done.

I don’t edit as I go along. I write first, then go back to edit later, usually once the whole thing is done.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
This sounds pretentious, but it really does feel like a form of magic. That sense of creating something from nothing. You’re creating a new world, new people at your fingertips. I love that. I love feeling the emotions of my characters. I love the focus writing gives me - it’s pure escapism. And now, being published and sharing my work more widely, I’ve been able to experience the pleasure of knowing that my work has touched others too. That’s amazing and something I’m still processing.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
Yes, to a degree. As much as I hate the idea that non-mothers have to do anything more exciting or special than mothers, to ‘justify’ their decision not to have children, I can’t help denying that I’ve fallen victim of it, and had moments where I’ve thought: "If part of why I’m doing this is for my writing, then I’d better get published, or I’m going to ask myself what it was for". But I don’t think that’s the right way of thinking. A better way of thinking about it is the deathbed exercise - what will you want to look back on? I think that’s where writing has helped clarify my thinking. I know that not being published is the thing I’d regret and that’s a very motivating thought. So maybe that’s a more positive way of looking at it.

I guess the other thing that’s tricky is I’ve now very publicly put myself out there as a non-mother, and as someone who supports the childfree debate and ‘agenda’, insofar as there is one. When my occasional doubts creep back in, that can make me nervous. "What if I change my mind?" Suddenly it would be a very public flip-flop. But I feel more and more confident that I won’t. And also that if I did, that’s okay. Fledging explores both sides of the question. It doesn’t give all the answers. Fundamentally, it says: there are tradeoffs. It’s up to you to decide which tradeoffs you want to make.

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
The wider reception has been amazing. I’ve been so humbled by some of the things people have said about Fledging, but also the specific themes and ideas they’ve picked up on, which are so satisfying as a writer because you really feel people have understood what you were trying to do. At the same time it’s been fascinating to hear how different people have responded to it, non-parents and parents alike. And how much it has resonated with some of those people, even though I didn’t necessarily expect it to.

In terms of how I’m viewed, my civil partner and I are fairly open about the fact that we don’t plan to have children, so that hasn’t come as a surprise to anyone. But I think some friends have found it interesting to understand better where people like me might be coming from, and in some senses that’s why I wrote it - I think on some level I also wanted to explain myself. I felt that people made certain assumptions about you if you said you didn’t want kids, but at the same time if they did ask "Why not?", it was hard to articulate - it felt like you needed three hours to properly explain all the ins and outs. So I allowed myself 48,000 words to explain it instead.
 

It’s worth saying that in the beginning I was really, really nervous to share the manuscript with anyone I didn’t know was in the same boat, of being childfree or a fencesitter. I think I was worried that they’d find it offensive, or a judgment on them, or put distance between us because I do talk
about how friendships change, and Lia does have a few sarcastic moments! I was also really nervous to share it with my Mum. I didn’t want her to think that I was ungrateful for everything she’s done for me, or that I think she’s wasted her life by being a mother (as well as having various other careers, I should say!) Thankfully a really close friend reassured me on this. She said that it’s not a combative book, it’s a book that builds bridges. I think there will still be people who don’t like what it says or will take offence. But thankfully the people closest to me are much more open-minded than that.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
I haven’t done any kind of statistical analysis (I’m sure someone has!) but I think there’s not enough of it. Certainly of people who are childfree by choice, or even childless and have come to terms with it. I also think where there are representations, they fall into the trap of showing an associated sadness and implying that that means the person’s life is empty. Whereas an idea I was really keen to explore in Fledging, which I’ve since learned is called ‘cold regret,’ is the idea that you can acknowledge what you’ve lost, and even mourn it, yet still recognise that you’ve made the right decision for you, or that the path you’ve taken has closed some opportunities and opened others. I think that’s a really important life lesson, because ultimately there are very few simple choices in life. All choices are tradeoffs.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
That we’re a huge audience. If you look at the stats, we’re a burgeoning demographic. And I’d hazard a guess that we have more time to read than those without children… So we’re worth catering to!

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I’m writing something new, it won’t be about the baby question, as I came to this first and foremost as a writer, and then chose the theme because it inspired me. However, something I’m interested in - and I think a lot of people without children are interested in - is re-looking at societal norms, some of the assumptions we make about how people should live their lives. For me a key area for that is friendship - the way it is deprioritised in our society compared to romantic love, and the way we don’t have clear expectations or tropes around it: for example, if you have a friendship breakup, people don’t always take it seriously as they would a romantic breakup. So that’s something I’d like my next novel to explore. A similar theme to books like Friendaholic and Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love. But a very different vehicle!