Nicola Sturgeon: Writing memoir ‘harder than I thought it would be’

The former first minister said progress is slow but she wanted to do it justice

Nicola Sturgeon has said the process of writing her memoir is "harder than I thought it would be" and progress is slow.

However, the former first minister joked she is enjoying it "in a sort of perverse way" and said she wanted to do it justice.

She said a first draft is due to be completed by the end of March. Pan Macmillan previously purchased the rights to the book, which will be published in 2025, following a fierce bidding contest.

Nicola Sturgeon

Ms Sturgeon made the comments during an in-conversation event at The Queen's Hall in Edinburgh on Tuesday evening, which focused on her love of books and reading.

Prize-winning poet Michael Pedersen, the writer in residence at Edinburgh University, spoke to the former first minister about her literary highlights and habits.

Ms Sturgeon, who announced her resignation as Scotland’s longest-serving first minister in February, said she had always wanted to write a book. "But now that I've actually started writing a book, it's harder than I thought it would be," she said.

The Glasgow Southside MSP added: "It's going slowly. I think I'm approaching writing a book the way I would approach writing a speech, and it's completely different.

"You write a speech and it's relatively short form, usually you've got quite a short period of time in which to do it, so you have to kind of almost edit as you go and perfect it as you go, and I'm trying to do that with the book and I think it's taking too long.

"It's going, I'm making progress. I'm enjoying the process in a sort of perverse way."

Ms Sturgeon said she did not want to rush the book, adding: "It's a big thing to think that you can produce a book that other people want to read, and you want to do that justice.

"I would never contemplate having a ghost writer or even somebody who would help write it in that sense. It's something I want to do. It's about my life, I want to obviously do it justice from that perspective.

"But then yeah, you also realise that you're a politician. People think they want to read your book today, they might not want to read your book in six months or a year or two years' time, so finding that sweet spot I suppose is a bit of a challenge."

The former first minister said she served as a politician during the most momentous period in modern Scottish history.

She said: "For me, it's how does the wee girl who hid under the table reading a book at her fifth birthday party, growing up in a working class family, become the first minister of the country? There is a story in that.

"I'm somebody who is naturally quite introverted and shy, believe it or not. People laugh at that, but it's true. How does that person become first minister?"

She added: "My life ran parallel to – I think I can say this without hyperbole or fear of contradiction – the most momentous period in modern Scottish history. My political career spans the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, obviously the first SNP government, the independence referendum, a global pandemic and all of the stuff that happened along the way there.

"It's been such an incredible period. I've been a participant in that. I don't think I'm flattering myself too much to say that I've contributed to some of the historic nature of what's happened in recent times, but nevertheless I've been a participant, a front row observer of the stuff I wasn't participating in.

"So there's my perspective on that that I hope will be interesting for people to read as well, which is much more than about my life, it's actually about the life of the country over the past 30 years."

Ms Sturgeon was arrested earlier this year as part of the ongoing police investigation into the SNP's finances. She was later released without charge.