Dorothy Koomson's Blog, page 10

Why That Girl From Nowhere slept in a cardboard box

A couple of years ago, when I was starting to flesh out the story for my tenth novel, That Girl From Nowhere, my husband mentioned a story he had read on babies sleeping in cardboard boxes.

I’d being thinking a lot about babies being left in cardboard boxes on the steps of churches and hospitals from my search for the story which centred a lot around adoption and children’s homes. After talking at cross purposes for a while, my husband explained to me about the Finnish baby boxes, where the Finnish government provides every new mother-to-be with a box full of baby essentials (clothes, toys, books, nappies, etc). The box also comes with a mattress so that the baby can sleep in the box for the first few weeks of their life.

The practice for giving these baby boxes originated in the 1930s for low income households as a way for them to be able to provide everything they need for their children and in 1949 it was extended to all Finnish families. My husband had mentioned that young Finnish women who lived abroad were asking their mothers to send them similar boxes, and that this story was a popular read because then the Finnish government sent a baby box to the young royals Kate and William for their first child.

This story came at a perfect time for me because I’d been searching for a way to link the main character of That Girl From Nowhere, Clemency AKA Smitty, with her birth mother. I wanted an unusual way for someone who had no knowledge at all of their birth family to have an everyday connection with her birth mother. There was the option of the birth mother having left jewellery (Clemency is a jewellery maker) for her to be given on her 18th birthday, but I wanted something that was always there throughout Clemency’s life.

I’ve mentioned before that the original incarnation of That Girl From Nowhere was a book called Where I Found You. That story was centred a lot around Clemency’s obsession with butterflies – she had recurring dreams about them and was obsessed with pictures of them in every-day life. When I had the conversation with my husband about the Finnish baby boxes, another piece in the puzzle that was creating the character and background of Clemency fell into place: I decided that her birth mother had known a Finnish woman who told her about the baby box tradition and so she decided to create a box for her baby and decorate it in butterflies. This box is quite important to Clemency, who keeps her most precious photographs in the box throughout her life, and when she finally meets a Finnish person who seems as obsessed with butterflies as Clemency she realises she has accidentally stumbled across the person who knows all about the butterfly box she used to sleep in and what happened to her birth family.

 

I kept this butterfly box (above) around while I was writing the book as a reminder of the story. The butterfly box in the story looks nothing like this box, of course. As Clemency describes it in the book: ‘All the butterflies on the box are hand-drawn and hand-coloured. The largest is on the bottom – its wingspan covers the entire surface, and the wings are mirror images of each other. Each colour is perfectly twinned; each intricate vein etched in black and reflected on the other wing. It must have taken her hours to do each wing, let alone the rest of them, each a different size, everyon a unique, beautiful winged creature that looked fragile and lifelike.’

These boxes look nothing like Clemency’s box, but I saw it in a shop while I was looking for something else and I liked it so much I bought it. I then went back and bought another one when something else happened in the plot to necessitate another butterfly box. (You’ll see what I mean if you read the book.)

When I’m writing, I find it helps to have visual reminders around – what I’m writing about may not be exactly the same but it is a trigger of what I can see in my mind when I’m writing the book. I really loved writing That Girl From Nowhere, and finding out about the baby boxes was a huge part of that.

If you want to find out more about the Finnish baby boxes, have a read here.

If you want to read That Girl From Nowhere, you can read an extract, here and you can buy it here, here and hereonline.

February 2010

february 2010

it's  here, it's here !

Publication day, publication day, how I love thee so.

I'll be off out later to visit local bookshops and supermarkets to see if I can see The Ice Cream Girls on the shelves. On the one hand, I want to see them, on the other, I want there to be a space where my books should be because they've all flown off the shelves with people eagerly buying them.

January 2010

Slow starter for 10

Well, it's been a bit of a strange month so far, hasn't it? Someone recently described 2010 so far as a bit of a failure to launch, and I have to agree to a certain extent.

I started off the month - and year - catching the cold that had been circulating the Koomson household. I'm not good at being ill and felt very miserable with it. Had to do my very best to battle it off before the rest of the inhabitants of the house decided to put me out in the snow!

December 2009

December 2009

And now, the end of the year is near . . .

So, October and November disappeared in something not too dissimiliar to a puff of smoke. Seriously, what happened? Why is it December and why am I facing the end of another year with the distinct feeling that I am not prepared? Because I'm not, is the short answer.

August & September 2009

August & September 2009
Ice cream, ice cream!

If I were to count the number of different things I managed to do in August and September, I'd discover that numerically there aren't that many. I basically spent those two months finishing The Ice Cream Girls and . . .  yep, that's about it.

July 2009

July 2009
Home and away and home again!

And so to July. What did I do in the seventh month of the year 2009? I spent most of it away from home because my flat had 'issues'. Dangerous ones that meant moving in to a friend's place and minding my p's and q's for nearly a month. The experience helped to remind me that I am a writer.

April 2007

April 2007

Alright, I admit it, I've been less than up to date with this diary, BUT I have had a crazy few months. First I was finishing the book and then I was packing up to leave Australia. Now I'm back in England and looking for somewhere to live. That's not been as simple as I thought it would be. If I had more time, I'd explain the complications of my life, but I don't. And it's probably not that interesting to anyone except me, let's be honest.

May 2007

May 2007

Well, wasn't May a crazy busy month? Yes, it was. That was a rhetorical question but you might decide to reply or something. Marshmallows For Breakfast came out in May. Right at the very end and it was all very last minute, but it hit the shelves and I went into town with the lovely Rhian to see it. And see it we did. I had my picture taken beside the shelf it was on.

June 2007

6 June 2007

Hi there,
It's now June. The month that Marshmallows For Breakfast was
meant to come out. It did come out at the end of May in some places,
but official release date was moved to 4 June. I went into town again
to see it on the shelves and rather fabulously it looked like it had
sold in many, many places. Then Jo (My Gorgeous Editor) told me that it
had gone in at number 28 on the bestseller chart. I mean, WOW! Straight
in at number 28!! It's only been on sale a week. I was well...

July 2007

July 2007–9 August 2007

Oh my goodness, it's the first week of August already.

So, what happened in July? Well, Marshmallows For Breakfast was in the top ten for three weeks of July and in the top 15 for the other week. Bless Marshmallows For Breakfast as I keep saying.

I've had some lovely emails about my fourth novel from people saying amazing things that have really touched my heart. I'm still behind on replying to emails, but if you're one of the people who has emailed me, I do appreciate it...