Awards Nominations, gratitude, perceived worthiness, and other Potato musings

In which Gemma takes a journey through her own complex feelings

Yesterday I learned that FULL IMMERSION, my highly autobiographical virtual reality horror novel about post-natal depression, has been nominated for a British Fantasy Award. I used the word ‘reeling’ to describe my reaction to this lovely recognition, because it felt the most accurate summation of my feelings. On scrolling back through various social media feeds of mine, its apparent that I ‘reel’ quite a lot, as if I can never quite believe I am experiencing the things I am. I have described life this year as something of a freight-train, barrelling along its tracks at hundreds of miles an hour. I am not a comfortable passenger on this train (I am rarely comfortable anywhere), more of a bemused soul who got snagged as the train rushed past, and am now clinging on for dear life onto the back with my fingernails, face all leery and smooshed with speed. So yes, I do reel, but this does not make me any less grateful or appreciative of any accolade I encounter. I may always feel a little undeserving, perhaps sceptical of my eligibility, but that is always the way with this creative gig life. Something good happens and imposter syndrome immediately strides on, stage-left, to tell you why you’re not worthy of it. I fear this pernicious reaction is a feature of most people’s lives whether we like it or not, and I have learned, with rather a lot of practice, how to ignore the creeping, insidious voice that insists I am not deserving of something good whenever it comes my way. Ignoring these thoughts is the kindest thing I can do for myself as both a human, and a writer. 

That being said, there are some complex feelings that arise in the wake of such a lovely (and welcome, and unexpected) nomination. I felt this way after Dear Laura was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, too.

The first sentiment that hits, is the notion that I should be wary of celebrating success because, as is often pointed out online after Awards shortlists and longlists and finalists are announced- having an award, or a nomination, (or indeed, not having either or any of those things) doesn’t make me any more or less of a ‘real’ writer. I see this opinion shared a lot, and of course, I understand where it’s coming from. It’s meant, I think, as a form of encouragement- if you don’t make certain lists, receive certain industry nods, etc, you aren’t any less of an author, which is absolutely correct. I was no less of an author before any nominations and I am no more of one now that I’m on the receiving end of two such affirmations. At the end of the day, (which I am overly fond of stating), we all just toss a bunch of words down on a bunch of pages, and that’s pretty much all there is to it. Some of those words are good, some are not. The more you write, the better you get, by and large. I hesitate to over-complicate the act of writing fiction beyond that, not least because I am far too lacking in the required intellectual stamina to do so, but also because I am wary of applying layers of perceived sophistication to a creative outlet that should be, and can, and is accessible to all. This is also why I shy away from exclusive terms like ‘literary horror’ and such- we honestly just need to keep calling a spade a spade, rather than applying more arbitrary descriptors and labels to a simple and straightforward act of creation. A book is a book, and whether or not one of those books is ‘better’ than another is purely a matter of objectivity. Personal taste. In that sense, yes, award nominations are no practical measure of a book’s worthiness. 

And yet, I feel it is important to point out how life-changing these things can be. Before Dear Laura made the Stoker shortlist in 2019, I was an unknown self-published author with a collection available on Amazon via a laptop warrior ‘indie’, a few stories out on a popular podcast and nothing much else on my writing CV of note. I wrote Dear Laura (now my second best selling book) in a bit of a frenzy, as is my way sometimes, in less than a month, and hand-painted the cover, teaching myself the basics of photoshop simultaneously and editing, formatting and uploading the manuscript in a sort of haze of desire to birth a book. When I hit ‘publish’ on Amazon, I had no idea how my life was about to change, for the book took on a life of its own. The nomination for superior achievement in the First Novel category was a complete shock, but what happened after that nomination was even more of a shock. 

Because the nomination opened doors I never dreamed of: studios began enquiring about rights. Publishers invited me to contribute to anthologies. A traditional publisher reached out to ask me to submit a novel-length project directly to them. This generated an offer of publication that subsequently secured me a literary agent, and a film agent. That offer of publication led to the eventual release of FULL IMMERSION, which now, in a rather circular fashion, has been nominated for a BFA. 

I say none of this to brag. Anyone who has met me for more than five minutes will understand how deeply, inherently uncomfortable I am tooting my own horn. I’ve had to train myself to do so, but struggle enormously. The toots ring hollow, and screechy. It’s a problem, always has been. I continue to work on it, with varying degrees of success. A month back, I had lunch with the (now multiple award winning) powerhouse human and book-writing behemoth Gabino Iglesias. I had never met him in person before, and instead of revelling in this fact and enjoying our face to face time over the mounds of pasta he sadistically ordered, I spent the entire lunch moaning about how shit I was. It’s a wonder he stuck it out, quite honestly. At one point, in a particular rush of nonsense, I described myself as a ‘potato in a dress,’ which might be the most absurd thing I’ve said to date, and now he won’t call me anything else but potato, which I deserve. Anyway, I digress. What I am trying to say, in a long-winded sort of way, is that I don’t actually like bragging, so I’m not. What I’m trying to communicate, rather, is that, although award nominations ostensibly ‘don’t matter’ when it comes to making you a ‘real’ creative, they do sometimes matter if you want to make this wonderful thing we do into a sustainable career. Nominations and accolades open doors, and I cannot express enough how important this is if you are from a disadvantaged background, for example, or an underrepresented demographic. Publishers notice award nominations. So do other industry folk. It’s perhaps easy to say these nods ‘don’t matter’ in the scheme of things when you have access to resources and opportunities others might not. I am not now, nor ever will I be, in a position where I would ever feel comfortable sneering at such nominations. I remain eternally grateful and humbled by any form of support I am fortunate enough to receive, and I think I’ll go to my grave feeling that way, many years down the line. For the record, I count myself neither disadvantaged or marginalised. I have been very lucky throughout my life, trauma notwithstanding, but I can recognize the power of nominations to transform people’s lives, and that power, I think, should not be underestimated. 

Anyway. Mixed feelings. Once I have worked through the uncomfortableness of whether or not its okay to publicly celebrate an achievement, I then load up the next item on the overthinking rosta, which is wondering whether or not I have done the right thing in ‘exploiting’ my own personal history, plundering my past in order to produce a novel. This one is harder to reconcile, this idea of mining my own trauma. Because Full Immersion is about as autobiographical as a book can get. I started writing it while I was desperately ill, and finished it during my slow and irregular recovery. It was a difficult story to tell, and an even more difficult story to package and sell, but I believed in it, and I still do, as much as anyone can believe in a book that is basically ‘why I didn’t kill myself’.

I believe in it for a few reasons, both of them intensely personal: one, I want my son (when he is grown) to understand me better, because I fear I will never be able to adequately apologise for the times, during his early years, when I couldn’t be what he needed as a mother.

Two, I wanted to tell this story so that other mothers, parents, families, might understand that what they are struggling with is more common than they realised, and in identifying that, might be encouraged to reach out for some help and support. Many women struggle with postnatal conditions that remain chronically undiagnosed and unrecognised (but women have been having babies for centuries! Everyone struggles! Stop complaining! Be grateful for what you have!), and this leads to lasting turmoil and trauma that could be mitigated with the right support structure in place. Medication, therapy, support groups, online communities…it’s all there once you know you need to look for it. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. I assumed I was just a shit parent, doomed to fail, and I lay under the rock of my own obsessive thoughts and shame and guilt for years before figuring out that it didn’t (and shouldn’t) have to be this way. There is so much stigma and misinformation still attached to an illness that is extremely wide-spread that I think, in writing my novel, I wanted to do my part in raising awareness of it. So many of us have had to fumble our way through our own recoveries, and I hate it. I hate it so much. So perhaps, in this context, plumbing my own depths was okay. Maybe it helped. I’ve been approached by multiple readers since, husbands, mothers, partners, all of whom have thanked me for describing their pain in a relatable, accessible way. This feedback meant so much to me, and is incredibly heartwarming to hear. Have I changed anyone's life or prospects for the better? I don’t know, I’m not sure I dare attach that much significance to myself, but I do hope I have made a struggling parent feel less lonely. I hope that from the bottom of my heart. Does that justify the fictionalisation of my own mental illness? I still haven’t figured that out. It’s all so complicated, isn’t it? 

But I do hope the nomination helps boost the subject matter a little publicly.

I confess I thought this book was done, when it came to awards season, and I was reconciled to that. But finding out that it wasn’t has been very gratifying. Not least because, as I pointed out to a friend yesterday, there was a time when I wasn’t sure I would make it to the end of the week, let alone several years and many books later. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, for instead of giving into the darkness and learning how to fly and fall from a bridge, I managed, somehow, barely, to keep my feet on the ground. And because of that, I have been fortunate enough to watch my son grow into the incredible human he is, and I’ve celebrated my wins with him by my side: he has been witness to me writing books, making lifelong friendships and connections, travelling the world, watching live productions in packed-out theatres of my scripts, co-creating podcasts and screenplays, painting art and watch it grace the covers of other writer’s amazing books, and more. He’s as proud of me as I am of him, and he has seen all of this, in part, because I was able to heal by writing the novel which is now a BFA finalist. It’s not the sole factor in my recovery, which was a result of dozens of different trial and error tactics to get me to stay, but it was a large and important part in me becoming who I am today. 

Which, I think, is the person I was always meant to be, potato notwithstanding. 

Anyway, that’s enough of this naval gazing. As you can probably tell, I am brimming with emotions (what’s new, tbh), so I appreciate your patience and indulgence. It remains for me to say, simply, thank you to everyone who has stuck with me on this journey so far. Readers, publishers, editors, reviewers, librarians, all. Thankyou to Angry Robot, too, for taking on this novel- in particular, Eleanor Teasdale, leader of the robot army, who is almost single handedly transforming genre fiction for the better in the traditional publishing world by a stint of sheer force of talent, vim, wit and personality (and excellent taste in commissioning books, fnar fnar). I am a big fan, unless you can’t tell, and always slightly in awe in her presence. We all need an Eleanor in our lives, I think.

Anyway I’ll fuck off now. I’ve got work to do, edits on my novella THE FOLLY, WHICH YOU CAN PREORDER NOW. I might have some exciting news to share about the audiobook version of it too, but first, I’d better finish the damn thing. Spit and polish, innit. 

Until next time xxx