Her name is Diana, and I’m talking to her on Skype. She’s British, not American. I decided it was time to stop putting American life coaches on a pedestal and try one closer to home instead. I start our session by explaining why.
Me: I think I’m addicted to escaping. In all areas of my life. American life coaches feel so far away from my real life, and I have an innate bias that keeps whispering, ‘The further away from your reality, the better’. The fact that you’re English and I could get in my car if I wanted to and drive to where you are in two hours makes this feel so much more as if it’s actually happening, and less like I’m the screwed-up heroine of a Hollywood movie – not that they’d ever let someone who wears a shrunk-in-the-wash pink cashmere cardy over a blue Adidas T-shirt star in a Hollywood movie. Sorry about my appearance, by the way. I have no idea where all my proper clothes are. Soon as I finish the book I’m writing about happiness, I’m buying some new clothes.
Her: Tell me about your happiness book.
Me: It’s kind of interesting. I really wanted to write it at first, then when I started, I found I wasn’t enjoying it at all. I’d made life too difficult for myself by pitching it as a mystery. The publishers loved that idea, because I’m a crime writer so it seemed apt, but … I’m a traditional crime writer. I believe mysteries need to have proper solutions. And … what if the mystery of happiness can’t be solved decisively?
Her: I don’t think it can.
Me: Of course it can! Thank you, you’ve just strengthened my resolve. I’m very contrary. I sometimes think contrariness is my main characteristic.
Her: How do you know the mystery of happiness can be solved?
Me: It has to be if I’m not willing to consider any other possibility, which I’m not. I know there’s a solution to be had, and I know I’m not there yet, and that’s fine because … I can kind of feel myself getting closer. The 65 Days was a step in the right direction but it wasn’t it: the one true answer.
Her: What’s the 65 Days?
Me: It doesn’t matter. It’d take way too long to explain. I don’t want to waste any of this session. I decided in advance: this is my last session with a life coach – at least until the mystery’s solved. I’ve been procrastinating by talking to life coaches, and I’m not going to solve the mystery that way.
Her: Then why did you book this session at all?
Me: I have no idea! I just … I wanted to. I like life coaching. I’ve had therapy but I prefer coaching. But I’ve got an addictive personality, and I could so easily spend all day every day getting coached and then I’d get no work done. And now I have an added incentive to finish all my work – because I’ve resolved to do hardly any work for the rest of my life, as soon as I’ve done all the work I’ve already agreed to do. Apart from running my coaching programme – I’ll still do that, but that feels more like an amazing hobby than work. Though I guess that’s easy to say before I’ve actually started it.
Her: More escapism?
Me: I mean … in my defence, can I just say that I do actually get a hell of a lot done?
Her: Does that matter? Wouldn’t you be just as valuable as a person if you got nothing done?
Me: Yes. Obviously. Brewster, my dog, does nothing all day and he’s the most valuable person in the world. I’m much stricter on myself, though. I think most people are – we reserve our harshest criticisms for ourselves. It’s funny …
Her: What is?
Me: I’ve got a friend who’s a psychotherapist, and I was talking to her recently about my reluctance to tell anyone, ever, if they’ve upset or annoyed me. We were discussing how this tendency of mine is very likely to be a result of feeling mildly to moderately tyrannised when I was younger … and then, later, I thought of something really weird. For the last six years, I haven’t felt at all tyrannised by other human beings. Like, there’s no one on the planet from whom I fear oppression or bullying … and for the exact same length of time that that has been true, it has also been true that I’ve felt that my work is a kind of oppressive tyrant stalker figure. Those were the exact words I used the first time I spoke to a life coach about it.
Her: That is interesting.
Me: Yeah. Maybe – because the brain likes to stick to familiar habits and fears change, doesn’t it? – maybe I don’t feel comfortable unless there’s an oppressive tyrant in my life, and so, when I ran out of human contenders for the position, I made my work ‘It’.
Her: You do sound as if you’ve been talking to a psychotherapist!
Me: Hey, don’t diss therapy. I love therapy and coaching.
Her: I’m more interested in what you’re going to do in the future than what’s happened in the past.
Me: I’ve told you: hardly any work, as soon as possible. No more deadlines. That’s in the long term—
Her: So, not that soon, then!
Me: In the short term, I’m going to … You know what I’m going to do, actually? I’m going to set a denouement date.
Her: A what?
I explain to Diana that part of my crime-writing work involves writing new Poirot novels, and that Poirot, at the end of the adventures in which he stars, has a penchant for gathering the suspects together in the drawing room (or sometimes a different room) and presenting them with his brilliantly deduced solution to the mystery.
Her: And you’re going to do that with your happiness mystery?
Me: Yes. That’s what Poirot did in the third novel I wrote about him, The Mystery of Three Quarters. He was growing impatient with his inability to solve the mystery, so he invited all the suspects to Combingham Hall on a particular date at a particular time – then he knew he had no choice but to solve the mystery by that time.
Her: So you’re going to set yourself a deadline, effectively?
Me: Yes!
Her: When you talked about deadlines before in relation to your writing, you sounded resentful about them.
Me: Well, it’s obviously different if the deadline is mine rather than someone else’s. I’m a questioner, not an upholder or an obliger. Have you read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin?
Her: No.
Me: Have you heard of Brooke Castillo?
Her: No.
Bloody hell. Should I slam my laptop lid shut and pretend we got cut off? Has Diana even read Agatha Christie? I daren’t ask.
Me: Poirot set himself a deadline to sharpen his mind, and that’s what I’m going to do too. The more people I invite to my denouement scene, the more embarrassing it’ll be if I fail to come up with a solution in time. Do you mind if I ask you … what do you think happiness is? Do you feel as if you personally have solved the mystery of happiness? And is it too broad an idea? Like, I could easily advise someone on how to be happy in relation to parenting – there’s a brilliant book by Shefali Tsabary called The Conscious Parent – and in relation to writing, I know exactly how to be happy, which is why I’m creating my Dream Author programme—
Her: Really? What are you going to tell the people who join the programme about how to be happy as a writer?
Me: The first and most important thing I’m going to tell them is … Oh. My. God.
Her: What?
Me: Diana! I’m so glad I didn’t slam my laptop shut!
Her: I don’t understand.
Me: You’ve done it! You’ve done what I’ve consistently failed to do. God, I’ve been so stupid! How did I not see it? This is what happens just before a denouement, by the way. Always. Damn! Now I don’t need the threat of a well-attended Denouement Day to sharpen my mind because I’ve solved the mystery – thanks to you. And, fuck it, in the large majority of Poirot novels, he only gathers people for the denouement once he knows all the answers. I’m going to do it anyway.
Her: Do what?