AWW Feature & Giveaway: Lauren Sams on Writing

 

 

Today I am pleased to introduce Lauren Sams and the release of her debut novel, She’s Having Her Baby. Lauren Sams began her career at Cosmopolitan, before moving to Girlfriend as Deputy Editor. She’s now back at Cosmo as Associate Editor. She writes for ELLE, marie claire, Sunday Style and Daily Life. She lives in Sydney with her husband, daughter and two dogs.

She’s Having Her Baby is published by Nero Books.

“Georgie Henderson doesn’t want to have kids, but her best friend, Nina Doherty, has wanted to have a baby for as long as she can remember. Sadly, Nina’s uterus refuses to cooperate. One drunken evening, Nina asks Georgie for the ultimate favour: would she carry a baby for her? Georgie says yes – and spends the next nine months wondering why!
With intense bacon-and-egg roll cravings and distant memories of what her feet look like, Georgie tries to keep it all together in her dream job as the editor of Jolie magazine. Her love life’s a mess – and sauvignon blanc’s off the menu – leaving Georgie to deal with twists in her life she never expected“

My review of She’s Having Her Baby can be read HERE,  but first please read on to learn more about the novel and how you could win one of five print editions…

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Writing: the best career ever except for CEO of Haigh’s and Amy Poehler’s Personal Assistant

People are always banging on about how hard it is to write a book. Or just, to write, in general. It’s lonely, they say. It’s exhausting, I hear. It’s hardly ever worth it, apparently. It’s enough to drive you to drink, says Ernest Hemingway and a bunch of his mates.

What utter rubbish (except the drinking part; I enjoy a dirty martini as much as the next scribe and possibly more).

The thing is, writing – if it’s your bag – is just about the most fun thing ever. It is also patently indulgent – perhaps even selfish. So when people – writers – complain about it, I want to stand up, reach across and gently slap them in the face. We’re not saving lives in Darfur, people. We’re writing. Get over it.

The process of writing my first novel, She’s Having Her Baby, was hard only because it was tiring. I had to fit writing into an already crammed life – I am the associate editor at Cosmopolitan, the acting managing editor at Cosmopolitan Bride and I freelance for a bunch of mags. Oh, and I have a husband and a two-year-old. So making sure all the balls were still in the air, inflated and bouncing happily was a challenge. But the writing itself? THAT was fun. I didn’t think of it as work.

And I didn’t think of it as lonely, either. I love my two main characters, Georgie and Nina. Georgie is a bit older than me, and though people may assume we are one and the same (first novels do have a tendency to be autobiographical, I know), we are not. Put simply, Georgie is kind of a flake. A lovable flake, sure, but nonetheless, a flake. She’s opinionated, likes a wine and doesn’t get why people would want to have kids. She’s fiercely loyal to and protective of her best friend, Nina. Nina, unlike Georgie, has her shit decidedly together and considers it her job to tell Georgie the cold hard truth once in a while. Nina wants to have a baby with a kind of desperation that I see in a lot of women – a quiet longing that gives way to outright anger at the injustice of infertility. So Nina asks Georgie the ultimate favour – would she be her surrogate?

I came to love my cast of characters (almost all of them female). Ellie, another of Georgie’s friends, was a bit of a surprise to me. Ellie is the mother of a toddler and in Georgie’s eyes, “gave up her licence to be an adult the day she got pregnant.” I was prepared to dislike Ellie from the start – she’s not the kind of mother I want to be and I had little sympathy for her. But as the writing process went on, I came to empathise with Ellie. She’s trying to be a great mum the best – and only – way she knows how, and while she knows her (childless) friends don’t approve, she doesn’t care. I kind of loved that about her. It was a joy getting to know Ellie (I know she’s not real; I am aware I’m sounding a little crazy).

I’ll concede that yes, it was exhausting trying to squeeze in writing and editing whenever I could, but again: this was a hugely indulgent exercise for me. Plus I have an excellent husband who makes fab coffee on demand (he is also available in Small and Large). I have a wife named Rochelle who is also my mother and says helpful things like, “How about I do a load of washing for you?” as I nod vigorously (then she folds it, in that way only mums know how).

And now, it’s out in the world and I’m ready to start work on book number two (the sequel!). So yep, it may be tiring. I may emerge, 90,000 words later, with bags under my eyes heavier than North West’s carry-on. But I will have had so much fun along the way, I won’t even mind.

Especially when I start drinking.

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GIVEAWAY

Courtesy of Nero Books

I have 5 print editions of

She’s Having Her Baby by Lauren Sams

to giveaway.

*Sorry,  only Australian residents may enter*

Please leave a comment on this post and then

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Entries close March 22nd 2015

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She’s Having Her Baby is available to purchase from

Nero Books I I Booktopia I Amazon AU I via Booko

 Amazon US I BookDepository

and all good bookstores.