Authors Electric

I read an article online recently about the invisibility of the middle-aged woman. And to a certain extent it’s true. At 53 (ssh!), I no longer get wolf-whistled in public, although to be fair, I never really did attract huge amounts of attention in that way (although I had my moments as a student – a red leather mini skirt was a great way of getting a taxi in Liverpool in the mid 1980s). I have no interest in clubs, or staying out until the sun comes up and these days I’d often rather be at home with a good book or film, instead of in the pub. I’m never going to be an astronaut, or the prime minister either. Fortunately, I accepted both of these facts early on in life; I’m not clever enough for the former and having non-British recent ancestry (I'm part-Chinese) excludes me from the latter. I’m not bitter. But we all want to be noticed , don’t we? Just for the right reasons. Yet still we women of a certain age go out in our cloaks of invisibility, especially us writers....

We all have comfort zones and they expand and contract at different times in our lives. Way back in the when, I used to thrive on conflict and it was all part of the day job. If we didn’t have at least one letter of complaint each week, the boss would say we weren’t doing our jobs properly, and arresting people for drug-smuggling was never going to be a calm and peaceful day in the office. Those who know me may say I still love an argument and that’s probably true, but in reality I’m way more conservative than I used to be. I think as a writer, it’s necessary – indeed vital – to enjoy your own company, to wander off inside your head with an imaginary gang of friends. But in the increasingly-media-centric world, it’s also necessary – and quite possibly vital – to be able to step outside into the real world and engage with people. Even traditionally-published authors are expected to walk the media-walk these days. It was with this in mind that I answered a call on facebook a fe...