I Saw My Book Being Born!

Come with me, inside the factory...

(My amazing editor Elizabeth is on the left. She looks so good in neon yellow!)

Hello Team CCC! First order of business - Pre-order party alert!

Book lovers and happiness lovers assemble! I’m holding a special pre order party and READ YOURSELF HAPPY workshop for you, where we’ll be talking about how to read in a way that brings you joy, what to do when you’re stuck in a bit of a book rut, and how to overcome any obstacles that are getting in your way and stopping you from being the reader you’d love to be. *looks sternly at smartphone*

It's happening at 8PM UK time on Tuesday 4^th March, and if you can’t make it, do not despair – it will be available on catch up! You’ll also be sent an exclusive digital journal filled with prompts that will help you to READ YOURSELF HAPPY and get excited about writing!

All you have to do is pre-order READ YOURSELF HAPPY in hardback/hardcover format (the paperback format won’t be available until 2026!) and send your proof of purchase to creativeconfidenceclinic@gmail.com. You’ll be sent a link to Zoom, and you’ll receive your digital journal after the workshop has taken place.

And if you’re especially keen to Read Yourself Happy, I’d love to invite you to the Read Yourself Happy Greek Island retreat I’m hosting with Aweventurer! You can find out more from me here - - and check it out on the Aweventurer site here.

But now – we’re going Inside The Factory!

Tabard Time - The Movie

Bungay feels bookish. Its Wikipedia entry reads like the first line of a novel. ‘It lies at the neck of a meander of the River Waveney.’ It’s the home of Clays, a commercial printing factory which has been there, I think, since the 1830s, and it really got going a hundred odd years later when Allen Lane published the first classic Penguin books. (Orange for fiction, blue for biography, green for crime, yours for sixpence.)

My publishers, DK, had promised me a trip to Clays to see the printing of Read Yourself Happy. I was very excited because I adore factory footage. I love the rhythm of it, the sense of literal production and function. It’s very soothing to watch anything arriving, at regular intervals, on a conveyor belt. I was also excited because my typical line of work (writing) offers little in the way of official gear. At Clays, I was given a tabard, sensible shoes and ear plugs.

Julia, our brilliant guide, pointed at various bits of machinery, and explained how they worked, and I did an awful lot of nodding and smiling, on account of the ear plugs. The strange soundlessness of the experience gave me the sense that the factory was its own universe – we were visiting a highly organised underwater kingdom. We got to see some stunning spredges – the very detailed ones are created using a repurposed t shirt printing machine, but the block colours are done by hand, the edges sanded, dusted down and then sprayed methodically. (This might be my dream job.)

Julia promised that I could dip my hand in a box of glue. Now, I was a little concerned that she’d said ‘box’ not ‘vat’. I was picturing myself armpit deep in a giant cauldron of PVA, which I’d be allowed to peel off slowly, as it dried. However, book glue comes in tiny pearls, which are sucked up by a big tube and heated on application. I still seized the opportunity to get stuck in (I’m so sorry) and felt very grateful that the glue is now made from a planet friendly plant derivative, and not animal fat. Apparently, this used to get quite unpleasant in the summer.

At one point, we entered a room containing a vast machine that had recently been acquired from Japan. My ears were too plugged to figure out its precise purpose, but whenever it finished doing what it was supposed to do, it played a long and squeaky version of Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. (This is the point when I started to think twice about asking whether Clays were hiring.)

But it all felt unexpectedly old fashioned and magical. If you go to a factory where they make sweets, or pasta, or paint, every human who goes on to use what has been made will have a broadly similar experience of the end product, whether it’s sweets, pasta or paint. But a book factory is where infinite adventures begin. It was deeply moving to consider that on the day I was there, I was witnessing the work of so many diverse imaginations being brought into physical being. And that work would go on to touch more imaginations than I could conceive of. It gave me a glorious feeling of creative vertigo. It made me hopeful.

And then we met my book. I watched the bare blocks of pages being lifted and stacked, the flimsy paper covers gaining thickness and heft. I saw people with hard hats and clipboards helping my little book on its journey, making everything run smoothly. I thought about where I had been exactly a year ago that day, sitting in a café, with my head in my hands, worrying and wondering whether the words in front of me were ever going to amount to anything worth reading.

Literally hot off the press - it was quite warm to the touch

I thought about the places my book would go, once it left the factory. I thought about all the books I’ve written about, and I saw a constellation of people, dreams and ideas lighting up and connecting – the writers who have inspired me, whose work made my work exist. The writers my readers will meet through my book. Where those books began their journeys. The many hands the books will pass through, your friend’s, her Mum’s, their neighbour’s. Who will read A Little Life because their friend recommended it to them, after reading about it in Read Yourself Happy and learning that it’s a book about hope, not despair? Which Very Serious Reader will impulsively pick up a copy of The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic, and fall in love? As my books moved along on the conveyor belt, I wondered whether one of the copies in the pile would be the one that inspired someone to give Middlemarch a try?

My factory visit reminded me of who I am and why I do this. I read and write because I’m a shy, awkward person who longs to connect. I’m buzzing with big ideas, but I can’t always get the words out. Books help. Reading has required a relatively small investment of time and attention, and it’s paid me the most enormous dividends, every day of my life. I feel a deep empathy and affinity with anyone who is brave enough to admit to feeling lonely and scared, sometimes. I’ve been so lonely, and I believe that reading is the closest thing we have to a cure – taking us outside our own minds for a moment, and then installing skylights, telescopes and lights within us. When we read, it’s safe to be ourselves. We can see that our feelings, problems, hopes and fears are never unique.

I hope you find joy in Read Yourself Happy. I hope it leads you into the arms of Sophie Kinsella, or George Eliot, or any author who is new to you and brings you hours of surprise and delight. And I hope that one day I get to stick my arm in an actual vat of glue. I’ll keep you posted!

Love

Daisy x