Write What You Know by Laura Greaves
Write What You Know
By Laura Greaves
Inspiration is a funny thing. It tends to strike when you least expect it (and invariably when you don’t have a pen and paper to hand) and can come from the most surprising places. I never imagined, for example, that a friend’s unplanned pregnancy would lead me to write my first novel, Be My Baby
When I was 22 and living the Aussie-expat-in-London dream, a close friend back home in Australia suddenly found herself expecting a baby. At the time, this was truly shocking. It felt like we were barely out of nappies ourselves, and here was one of us making her own people! What was even more shocking was that my friend asked me to be her unborn daughter’s godmother.
And most astonishing of all was the fact that I said yes.
As an only child myself, I’d never had much to do with babies. And I’m not religious, so the ‘God’ part was a little concerning. I wasn’t sure I’d be any use to my soon-to-arrive godchild. Plus, I was living on the other side of the planet – temporarily, sure, but how much help could I realistically be from 15,000km away?
Authors are lucky in that we get to explore our ‘issues’ on paper. All my worries about my likely ineptitude as a godparent went into Be My Baby’s heroine, Anna, who suddenly finds herself having to care for her best friend Helena’s baby daughter. (Happily, my friend never needed me to look after her little girl; she nailed the whole parenting thing from day one.)
Anna is also wrestling with a Big Decision: does she want children of her own someday or not? This aspect of her character was inspired by my own struggle with the same question (spoiler: I now have a beautiful baby girl!)
My goddaughter is 11 now and about the most precocious, gorgeous and terrifyingly clever kid you could hope to meet. Her mum remains one of my best friends. We’ve never lived in the same state – although we’re at least in the same country now – but I would do anything for either of them in a heartbeat.
Be My Baby is not an autobiographical novel, but it is very personal; the story was definitely inspired by events in my life, and coloured by my own thoughts and feelings as I was writing it. And Anna’s sexy next-door neighbour, Luke, bears a rather uncanny resemblance to my husband…!
Visit Laura’s website at www.lauragreaves.com
Be My Baby is available as an e-book from:
iTunes Store: Search ‘Be My Baby’ in Books
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