The absolute joy of other women's solidarity, according to novelist Jojo Moyes, has most profoundly affected her since she turned 50.
The author of best-sellers like Me Before You said: "I've always been a woman's woman" while speaking at the Hay Festival on Friday.
"There is anxiety in your 20s. You're always comparing yourself to other women, she said.
"Aside from empathy and support, there is nothing left now. ".
Moyes also acknowledged fellow authors Sophie Kinsella and Jodie Picoult for giving her the motivation to continue writing when she felt like giving up.
Her parents were "penniless sculptors," so she was exposed to the arts at a young age. She was raised in London's Hackney, which at the time was "not overburdened with literary types.".
Moyes, 53, attributes her success to a Protestant work ethic that she displayed from a young age. At the age of 14, she worked odd jobs to save money for a stray horse named Bomber that was kept in stables behind Hackney Town Hall.
Following graduation from high school, she worked at a minicab office and a market stall before landing a job at a bank and being admitted to an Oxford University management course.
"The horizons of all of my schoolmates were very constrained. I didn't know what I wanted to do," she claims.
She was stunned by Oxford.
"It wasn't only the surroundings. Really aspirational young people were all around me. Everyone had an objective. They were also the first people I had ever encountered with goals, and by the end of that week, I was reluctant to return home. ".
She called off their engagement and applied to City University in London before beginning a career in journalism. She eventually worked at the Independent alongside people like Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding.
"I watched that become a column that spoke to so many women my age at the time - early 20s - and I suddenly had that feeling of "wow, if she can do it, so can I.". ".
But Moyes experienced rejection for her first three books, which she calls "crushing. Even though she wasn't going to give up, it was "like someone telling you your baby is ugly.".
"I can feel a girder of bloody-mindedness running down my spine. I do not understand why I am unable to act.
"My mother used to blame it on me being a very premature baby. I informed her that I would pass away. In advance by ten weeks. I have a part of me that simply says, "No, I'm going to do it!".
Her third book, which was about a theft of an artwork, was rejected because it was thought to be too political for the female market and too romantic for the male market at the time.
The next eight books by Moyes were published, but they did not exactly revolutionize the publishing industry.
By the time she began writing her best-selling 2012 book Me Before You, one publisher had declared her career "unrecoverable," and she had added a room to her home so she could let a lodger live there.
Me Before You, about a woman who cares for a man who is paralyzed and later falls in love with him, she claims, was able to surpass a few thousand words thanks to Sophie Kinsella, the best-selling author of the Shopaholic series.
"She took me out to lunch, and during the conversation I shared with her my book idea. I remarked that I was unsure of it. And I explained everything to her. You must write this book, she urged at the conclusion. '".
The same thing transpired with her most recent book, Someone Else's Shoes, which author Jodi Picoult urged her to press on with.
The book's two female protagonists come from radically different backgrounds, and author Jojo Moyes acknowledges that "social inequality, whether it be class or money. a significant element in many of my books.".
"But it's not about how much money you have; it's about how loved and connected you feel to other people," she continues. ".
After living in the Essex countryside for 22 years, Moyes moved back to London and is now enjoying rekindling her friendship with her best friend, who she has known since she was 16.
It comes after a difficult couple of years for the author, whose books have sold more than 38 million copies worldwide.
Writing screenplays on top of her prolific output had started to wear her down.
"For ten years, I overworked myself. I was exhausted. I decided that 2020 would be my year of rest and relaxation. I would visit friends and family and take a break. I chose to take a break and visit friends. and then we had a pandemic, my mother passed away from cancer, and I got divorced!
However, she has always found solace in writing.
"I often discover after finishing a book that it was actually therapy and that I wasn't processing something at the time until four or five years later.
And it's less expensive than therapy.
. "
