‘A COLLECTION OF DAZZING, DIRTY VERVE AND DASH’
Rachel Johnson, The Lady

I am sitting at my laptop. One boy is staying over with a pal in Oxford, another man-child is in a boxing gym on the Harrow Road, and the daughter is in her room, surfing ASOS.com for the new season’s looks which all appear to involve expensive aviator jackets. My husband is watching a DVD called the Prophet. It is evening, ie it’s after the Archers. I am on my own. When you’re writing, that’s the only place to be.
“What’s the movie about?” I asked earlier, mulling over whether to join him with a glass of Pinot Grigio. I should add that we are officially “not drinking” after Tony Blair revealed in his monster memoir A Journey that a sharpener of a G&T followed by a half bottle of red constitutes “alcohol dependence.” This officially makes me, editor of The Lady, a binge drinker, a proud claim that I suspect  honourable members of the Contemporary Women Writers’ Club - whose stories you are about to plunge into with relish – might also make for themselves. Forget A Journey! When it comes to real life, to the pleasures and anxieties and right royal pains in the arse that constitute middle-aged romance, family, children, holidays, friends and so on, you can’t turn to the bloodless memoirs of a male politician. What you need is a woman, preferably a mother, who is desperate to restore her mojo through the magic formulas of fiction, and a generous pour of Cab Sav. And that is what we have here, times ten.
A helicopter has just buzzed overhead, and keeps on buzzing, so I looked at the clock in the corner of my screen – a habit, in case the police come round and ask exactly what time, madam, I heard the shot ring out? And it says 20:10. I promise I am not making this up. All these stories, in case you hadn’t realised, take place on the day of the World Cup final at Ten Past Eight, hence the title. The miracle of planning and plotting that this must have required from these writer – and mothers - makes me feel weak at the thought.
But not the members of the CWWC, who have produced a collection of dazzling, dirty verve and dash. Once you start reading the stories, it’s impossible to stop. It’s as if you already know the characters – or as we say know, we feel the connection - and it’s sad to say goodbye to them. I don’t often feel that about characters in 120,000 word novels.
  But it’s now 20:16, and although it’s not the day of the World Cup Final in my house, I have supper to cook, and you have to get on with these sizzling stories.

For more on Rachel Johnson click here. For information on The Lady, click here.

Copyright The Contemporary Women Writers' Club 2011