The Cuckoo Complex

I love being a writer because I love being on my own, making up stories in my head. My earliest memory is playing with my farm set – fields and fields of animals across my bed and carpet – and my mum walking in to my room. I was horrified –  that someone could crash, without warning, into my fantasy world.

But writing is only a small part of ‘being a writer’. More and more, writers are expected to get out and sell books, and it’s this side I find the biggest challenge. If I lined up every job in the world in order of preference, sales & marketing would be last on my list, right after being a dentist or working in an abattoir.

Being asked to promote my books feels like being asked to place my hand in a fire.  I’d never been able to understand how for some writers, marketing seems to come easily. I’ve thought about why I hate it so much and I’ve realised it goes against everything I was brought up to be.

As a child, I remember my mum telling me the story of the cuckoo. I understood it was metaphor for something but didn’t know quite what. The cuckoo sneaks its egg into another bird’s nest – my biological father left home the day I was born, my mum remarried, had another child and I was left to fit into their nuclear family as best I could.

The cuckoo senses it’s an extra mouth to feed. I tried to blend into the background, not draw attention to myself, to the fact I didn’t belong. While the biological child has rights, a sense of entitlement, the cuckoo, unsure of its position, is taught to be grateful for crumbs.

FHB was another of my mother’s favourite expressions. Family Hold Back – meaning: don’t eat anything until the guests have finished as there might not be enough.

Bringing attention to myself – or my writing – challenges me so much I’ve contemplated giving up writing. But then, maybe, the process is good for me, might free me from my role. No one wants to be a cuckoo – it’s an ugly, overgrown bird.