Shall I write a book?

Here's a chapter

Hello! And thank you for reading The Honesty Box.

Last time I asked if you could share this newsletter with friends, and I’ve had quite a few new signups, so thank you soooo much for that. I’m not brilliant at shouting about The Honesty Box, so any sharing is super helpful.

This week I’m doing something completely different. I’ve been very slowly starting to write my first fiction book and I wanted to post one of the chapters here. The last time I wrote fiction, it was in a creative writing exam at school, and I remember absolutely loving making up characters and situations. It was fine for a two-hour exam, but it is a different kettle of fish when you have to plug on and on.

Writing can be boring, lonely, laborious and occasionally delightful, and much as I would love the words to just flow as I sit in some fabulous countryside bolthole sipping oat milk cappuccinos, the reality is I’m usually in my pyjamas at my desk overlooking the width restriction while accidentally slugging yesterday’s cup of cold tea.

Anyway, the book I’m writing is about a woman trying to find herself in the world (sound familiar?). She’s a middle manager in some kind of creative business and she’s treading the fine line between wanting to be hot and popular with being a ball breaker. It’s inspired by all the jobs I’ve ever had, and features unintentionally hilarious corporate BS, as well as great parties, office gossip and boorish bosses.

A while back I wrote about how I got fired from a job in an ad agency – and in the chapter below, the main character gets to have a go at firing people herself.

Here goes:

It’s 11.30 at night, and I’m talking to my reflection in my bedroom mirror, wearing a tight, black poloneck dress. I have thin, black, polka dot tights on one leg, rolled up to my knee, and skin-coloured fishnets on the other.

“Given the current environment, which as you know is difficult for all of this industry, we have to rightsize the business to protect our long-term future,” I say.

“So I’m afraid the role of incompetent middle manager that you barely did anyway and had to be handheld through all of the time has been placed at risk of redundancy.”

I wag my finger at the mirror, then peel off both pairs of tights, the dress and my underwear, adding them to the pile of clothes on the bed. Then I dump them all on my armchair and fall into bed.

…

When I got promoted, one of my first jobs was to let go of 20 percent of our staff, about 25 people in the London office. I left it to Dickhead Dave to manage those whose jobs were safe, and he took his immediate team to Starbucks while the rest were given time slots to see me in a glass-walled room on the second floor.

“We are offering all staff at risk six months’ pay tax free plus a month for every year of service,” I say to the first one who comes in to see me, repeating the script from HR, managing to trim a minute or so with each meeting.

I look up and see that he’s grinning widely.

“As you managed to eke out your position for six years without anyone noticing, you’ll be offered a year,” I say, and his smile fades slightly. I look down at my fishnets.

Next on the list is a woman I had dinner with the week before. I was assigned to be her mentor, as part of the Aiming Up scheme I started, and I hope we can stay in touch. A shadow appears on the floor. She’s here.

“Come in, I say,” smiling.

“Hello,” she says and sits down, her left hand fiddling with a hair tie on her right wrist.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and repeat the HR spiel. She’s been here less than a year so won’t get much.

“I get it. And I appreciate your generosity and mentoring. And I know it’s not personal. Thank you so much for the opportunity,” she says as she gets up.

“Can we stay in touch? I’d love to know how you’re doing?” I say.

“Definitely.”

She leaves and I lean back in my chair. I have five minutes until the next person is due. I head to the loo, and it looks like my period is starting. I fold up a few sheets of toilet paper and shove them into the gusset of my knickers.

The next one is a woman who has done our grad scheme, but I assigned her a different mentor. She’s wearing heels and jeans and a jacket and some of the men on the scheme called her “caterpillar brows.”

“I know what this is,” she says. “How much do I get?”

“Well, as you know, we have to rightsize the business…”

“‘Rightsize’ isn’t even a fucking word,” she says.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid by law I have to read out our reasoning and your rights in a certain way.”

I tell her she has the opportunity for outside legal counsel, and she nods.

“Can I say something?” she asks.

“Go for it.”

“You think you’re such a great boss but you’re a fucking coward.”

I feel my eyes prick with tears.

“Those assholes on the grad scheme called me caterpillar brows and you never helped me out. But everyone loves you because of all you ‘do for women’,” she makes air quotes with her forefingers. “Aiming Up your ass.”

“Thanks for that feedback,” I say, blinking, as she walks out of the room.

….

So that’s it. What do you think? Do you care about this woman so far? Is it too basic? Should there be more nuance?

I feel like I’m in year one at primary school with this when really I want to be the next Sally Rooney meets Helen Fielding and I’m miles away from that right now. But I shall crack on!

Things I like

Farrah Storr’s newsletter

Farrah Storr is the former editor of women’s magazines including Elle and Cosmopolitan, and she’s now head of writer partnerships at Substack, the platform I use to publish this newsletter. She writes Things Worth Knowing, a great newsletter in which she covers everything from her misadventures in beauty to how to be a better writer. I just signed up as a paid-for subscriber, but the free version is fab too.

Clear habits

I have finally got around to reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits, which is about how to make tiny changes to your life that gradually add up to something bigger. He talks about how some people appear to have overnight success, but that is usually down to doing small things every day.

It reminded me of what fitness campaigner Joe Wicks says about appearing to be a 10-year overnight success, and how he started his exercise business by turning up with equipment in Richmond Park to train people day after day, even though sometimes nobody showed. Maybe this newsletter is my version of that – showing up even if I don’t have a massive audience yet.

Thanks to Dollar Gill and Unsplash for the image that goes with this post on the archive page.