Wendyl Nissen: Blonde ambition all the way

Having written three books in three years, Wendyl Nissen considered a change in career from writer to businesswoman as an option to 'slow down'. Photo / Thinkstock

It's business as usual - fantasies are a bonus, says Wendyl Nissen.

"Next year I'm going to be a business woman," I announced to my family over dinner.

"What does that mean?" said my daughter.

"I have no idea but it will make a change from writing books."

I recently suffered a bout of fatigue which had me sighing at the very thought of moving from my bed across the hall to my office to work. I clutched my head in dismay at the prospect of walking the dog and wondered why someone hadn't invented a remote control for fires so I didn't have to get up to put another log on. Even the slightest movement was despised for the energy it would require.

I dosed myself with herbs, drank litres of vegetable juice, swallowed iron pills and waited for it to pass. It didn't.

"You need to slow down," said my husband.

"I am!" I replied dashing through the proofs of my latest book and hastily answering emails to women who needed to know where they could buy lanolin and what my opinion on whaling was.

"No, really slow down."

I have no idea what that means anymore. In the past three years I have written three books, started a new business and every week I write four columns, a newsletter and do a bit of radio.

For a while I thought I had found the answer by discovering historical romance books - I became engrossed in reading about a red-headed Scotsman, naked beneath his kilt, who frequently ravaged a time-travelling nurse in the heather. Thanks to Jamie the Scot, I had begun to slow down a bit and make time in my day to see what he had got up to with his dirk. It could be said I was relaxing.

"It's not really a romance book," I said to my husband, who reviews books for a living and to whom the thriller genre is about as populist as he'll go.

"The woman character is very strong-minded, highly educated and sticks up for herself. She's not some tragic victim waiting to be rescued by her knight in shining armour," I said, desperate to defend my new choice of genre. "It's really quite a feminist work."

"Really? Shame about the domestic violence then," he commented. His habit of reading over my shoulder is very annoying.

So then I had the idea of becoming a businesswoman because from where I sit being a businesswoman has a lot to offer.

I would start off by hiring a PA to answer my emails telling women where to buy lanolin and offer opinions on whaling. I would then Google "women's business network" and enroll for the many conferences available to help me network my way into a sense of belonging.

Next would be the travel. Miles and miles of it to Wellington, Sydney and sometimes Hong Kong where I would fly business class and read my historical romances uninterrupted.

My new lifestyle would mean hiring a staff of cleaners, nannies and dog walkers so that I never have to cook spaghetti bolognese or pick up dog poo again.

My office would come next. Something minimalist with flowers and scented candles, refreshed weekly by someone I never see. And then I would book a health spa six months out where I will go to lose a few kilos.

"What's not to like?" I said to my husband. "I have a business, I can be a businesswoman."

He replied: "You don't seem to have factored in the bit where you actually have to do some business." "Would I have to get out of bed to do that?"

"That's traditionally what happens."

"I've decided that I'll write another book next year instead of becoming a businesswoman," I announced to my family that night.

"Business as usual," said my delighted daughter.