Sue Townsend's cardboard box
The story behind 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and ¾' - and how a box can help you to keep going.
If you read this newsletter last Wednesday, you might spot a bit of theme evolving this month. That’s because we’re basing our posts around the conclusion of our book Written. This chapter has one central message about keeping going.
But what does that actually mean? It’s easy to say but far harder to achieve in practice. It risks sounding like an empty motivational slogan.
Take Sue Townsend. She was one of my favourite authors growing up. I loved The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and ¾. I’d never read anything like it and the book helped me through a few difficult patches as a kid. But did you know that it nearly never saw the light of day?1
The box
After writing three chapters, Townsend stuffed the manuscript in a cardboard box2 and shoved it down the cellar. She’d become disillusioned and reached that ‘what am I doing with my life?’ stage. Something you might be familiar with too. She said:
“It joined 20 years’ worth of bad poetry, unfinished short stories and song lyrics, mostly written in the small hours when the children were asleep.” Sue Townsend
Townsend was a busy working mum with three jobs. She was tired and exhausted most of the time – but she kept going. She joined a writing group for support, sent off hundreds of proposals to editors and received rejection after rejection - until one day, she won an award. It was only a small local prize but it opened a few doors and got her hired as a part-time writer for a local theatre.
What next?
This gave her some contacts and a network. People started to ask what she was working on next - one director asked her to submit a proposal. She didn’t have anything but then she remembered that Adrian Mole manuscript gathering dust somewhere at home.
She wasn’t happy with it and didn’t have time to tidy it up so she submitted the three chapters she had – probably thinking that was that. The manuscript got passed around and found its way to a publisher who saw her potential and commissioned her to write the book - which she did.
But even after writing it, Townsend still felt mortified by her work. So mortified that when she heard that the publisher was planning to print 5,000 copies she phoned them and begged them not to print so many.
Still in print 41 years later, The Secret Diary has sold over 20 million copies and is widely considered to be one of the best young adult novels ever written.
Ordinary success
It’s easy to look at the output of successful published writers and feel demoralised. It’s also easy to believe that they possess some some kind of unachievable innate talent or tenacity that we don’t have. But that’s not true.
Townsend wasn’t superhuman. Early successes were small. She was full of self doubt and kept her writing a secret for 20 years. She worried that she should just get a proper job, that she was being an irresponsible parent - she stopped and started writing a lot.
It takes time to develop as a writer and the outcome is uncertain, but the only way you'll know is if you keep writing - even if you put everything in a box in the cellar.
Keep going
Chris
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This insight into about Sue Townsend’s process is taken from a compendium of writer stories called Write, published in 2013 by Guardian Books.
Townsend says that she stuffed her unfinished poetry, stories and lyrics as well as her manuscript (then called The Secret Diary of Nigel Mole) in a cardboard box that her fridge had come in. This either indicates that she had an awful lot of abandoned work or that British fridges were significantly smaller in the 1970s.
That's so fascinating. I had no idea! Imagine the world with Adrian Mole in it. Unthinkable!