Never one to miss an opportunity to make analogies, today – 5 May – is International Day of the Midwife. Whilst the medical world of baby sherpas have their awareness day in the sunshine – this year the emphasis is on defending women’s rights – here at Jolabokaflod Towers we can extend the metaphor to include authors giving birth to their work (all 2,200,000 per year around the world). Once you suspend disbelief to compare and contrast the process, there are similarities:

• The decision to write a book can be years in the making
• Aspiring authors can attend ante-natal classes to learn about the publishing process
• Research is a key factor in planning for a new arrival
• The act of consummation involves love, foreplay, mind games and active imagination
• The foetus moves through many evolutionary drafts
• Authors often don’t know how their work will turn out until it is completed
• Gestation of a manuscript in an author’s room often takes around nine months
• The birthing process is often painful and may need to be induced with coffee and/or alcohol, depending on the time of day and the severity of the discomfort
• There is often a room in the house that needs painting, even if this is only a displacement activity
• Delivery of a manuscript via an agent is usually a joyous occasion
• Finding a place for a moulding the future of a manuscript, taught by publishing tutors, can involve moving house
• Some authors prefer their offspring to be home-schooled
• The growth of a book is part nature, part nurture
• In the genetic make up of successful books, X marks the spot and Y gets an answer
• The First Day at School is celebrated in the company of friends and colleagues with free-flowing, warm white wine, liberal helpings of cake, copious tears of pride and a few congratulatory speeches

So, please be up-standing – and raise your glass of flat Prosecco with us – to toast the author-parents of the world and their publisher-midwives, as well as – obvs – the unsung heroines (and heroes) that help to bring our real-world babies into the universe.