In Her Own Good Time
The Murphy household is a TV-free zone and has been for the last 10 years. No, we don’t watch TV on a big screen, a laptop, or a phone. Nothing. We just don’t. Don’t get me wrong, when I visit friends and family who have a TV on, sometimes I quite enjoy watching it. But mostly, I now find that there’s nothing really that holds my attention enough. And don’t get me started on how the world news makes me feel. Obviously, we see things on the computer that help keep us up to date with what’s going on in the big wide world.
Last week I enjoyed watching a clip of my friend Michael Heppell’s appearance on morning TV, where he talked about his 17-minute thing. You know, do something for 17 minutes, take a break, do another 17 minutes. By the end of the day, you’ll be surprised how much you’ve achieved.
In November 2022, I joined Michael’s Write That Book online group. Beatrix, our first Border Collie, was well into writing her own book, and we were getting to the final stages. Obviously, I was doing the typing for her, but it was her story, not mine. She just couldn’t decide how to end the book. So the two of us went to Coniston in the Lake District in Evie, the Campervan, to get some inspiration. I always feel inspired, surrounded by the fells in the Lakes and imagining that I might somehow be touched with some of Beatrix Potter’s brilliance.
The weekend I was there, I was supposed to be joining an accelerator weekend with WTB. I knew I wouldn’t be able to join the whole thing, but during one little boost in the campsite Wi-Fi, I did manage to connect. The question was where everyone was and what we were up to. I popped my answer into the chat, giving a hello from the chilly Lake District from my campervan. I think the words even made Michael shiver.
That weekend changed my life. One day, I was sitting in Evie chatting with Beatrix, asking her if she had any ideas how we would end her book. The next day, I was making a fast retreat back up to Scotland to get Beatrix to the vet in Scotland because I knew she was very poorly. The following day, Beatrix wrote the ending to her own book, leaving behind two distraught humans.
Beatrix was my first dog. Actually, before I got Beatrix, I was scared of dogs, and perhaps still am a little around large dogs. But Beatrix became my soulmate and life saver (literally) in more ways than I could ever have imagined. Beatrix died in November 2022, and sometimes the grief still feels as raw as it did then. Yes, grief for a dog is a real thing. That was something else I discovered.
So there I was, broken-hearted, with a book that was 90% written by my dog. For a while, I couldn’t imagine finishing the book and publishing it, feeling almost like it would be somehow cashing in on my grief. But over the next few weeks, I looked at photos of Beatrix, which reminded me of the privileged life she had given us for nearly 10 years, and decided that, yes, I could finish the book about this beautiful soul. And I did.
So how does this relate to Michael Heppell and his 17-minute accelerator? I decided that, as I’d missed the original one, I’d have my own at home. I picked a weekend when I knew I could work on a project for two full days. I chose to edit the book. The last chapter still hadn’t been written; it was still too hard to write at that time. I set myself the target of reading through the whole manuscript and getting it to its final proof-reading stage. 17 minutes editing, 3 minutes break, repeat. Sometimes it would be a 17-minute break, or a 30-minute dinner break (lunch if you’re not from Yorkshire).
My ever-supportive Mr M came back from the supermarket with a huge stash of snacks for me. “You’ll need something to keep you going,” he smiled. That was the first time I’d seen him smile for a while.
That weekend, I edited, took breaks, edited again, ate lots of snacks, of course, and by the end of the second day, I had indeed edited the whole manuscript. It was ready to be proof-read once I had written the final chapter.
In 2023, Beatrix the Time Travelling Collie was published. I had done it. I was proud of myself for keeping going. I knew that finishing her book had been a privilege for me and also very cathartic. What I didn’t realise was how much other people who feel that Beatrix’s book had helped them.
I was part of a network group in Alloa, and one of the lovely members had just opened her dog boutique in Bridge of Allan. I asked if she wanted to stock some of Beatrix’s book. By this time, we had the beautiful but timid Florence, the Border Collie, not as a replacement for Beatrix, but as another chance to fill the house with the unconditional love a dog gives you. Named Florence by Mr M, she would, he said, hopefully help heal our broken hearts. Yes, his heart was broken too.
Anyway, we took Florence and a handful of Beatrix’s books along to Kelso and Titch. By the time we got back home, Jill, the owner, had sent me a message saying she’d already sold one of the books. Then I received a random email from the person who’d bought the book. He told me he had recently lost his own Border Collie, which is why Jill had suggested he read Beatrix’s book.
The prologue of the book explains that before Beatrix became a human dog, she was actually born Beinn Fhada, on a farm in Dalguise, and her dog parents were The Piper Fae Dunkeld and Carlin Maggie Red Vixen. By some strange twist of fate, this man read all these details and realised that Beatrix and his dog were actually related. Who would have guessed it? He told me how much reading the book made him feel connected to Beatrix and to his own dog, and how it had helped him somewhat with his grief.
I realised then that all the anguish I’d put myself through about whether to publish Beatrix’s book was worth it. And it was absolutely the right thing to do. So many people since then have laughed and cried at Beatrix’s stories, and at my author talks, it has given them that opportunity and, dare I say, permission to talk about their grief for their dog in a way that sometimes is not possible if surrounded by people who have never had a pet. The grief is real.
But going back to the 17-minute stuff. Did I use it that weekend and never again? Absolutely not. I use it all the time. It might not be 17 minutes, but I set myself little targets. 10 minutes on this job. 15 minutes on this. 10 minutes on this before I have a tea break. 17 minutes on this before I have another piece of Cadbury Dairy Milk. And it works. I use this when I have tedious jobs to do because my mind drifts to other things, and I don’t do a proper job.
Breaking down tasks into bite-sized chunks helps. It’s a bit like trying to eat an elephant. You couldn’t eat it whole. Actually, that’s a really bad example because obviously you wouldn’t want to eat an elephant at all. Maybe think of a large bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk. Actually, that’s also a really bad example, because even an extra-large bar can be eaten whole without any difficulty. But you get the idea. If you break a massive task up, you will find it much easier to cope with. Like writing. You don’t write a book in one go. You do it in bits. Some large bits, some small. But when you put them all together, those little bits make a large whole.
Now I have a beautiful book about Beatrix that I can read and remember the good, the scary and the sad times. But I remember everything with love. And yes, I still spend hours looking at photos of Beatrix in the disguise of needing a particular one for a post or a story, but really, it’s just so that I can remember every single thing we did together. Maybe I should set myself a 17-minute time limit for Beatrix adoration sessions. But then again…
So there we have it. A TV-free household, a borrowed productivity method, a campervan in the Lake District, and a Border Collie who somehow managed to write her own ending. Beatrix gave me more than I could ever have imagined — including, it turns out, the belief that I could actually do this writing thing.
The 17-minute method got me through the hardest edit of my life. And it’s got me through plenty since. Because here’s the thing — once you start breaking the big things into small things, you realise that the big things were never as impossible as they looked. Books get written. Manuscripts get edited. Grief, slowly and in its own good time, becomes something you can carry rather than something that carries you.
Beatrix started it all. Florence carried it forward. And somewhere in between, I became a writer.
If you’d like to read Beatrix’s story for yourself, Beatrix The Time Travelling Collie is available in paperback, eBook, and audio. I think you’ll love her. Most people do.
Beatrix The Time Travelling Collie Paperback