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Something Wonderful from Judith McNaught

© Megan Drummond

Judith McNaught is the acclaimed author of historical and contemporary romances. Some of her beautifully written romance novels have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Becoming a best-selling romance novelist was not included on the list of McNaught’s childhood ambitions. In fact, the talented Mrs. McNaught had only a handful of ambitions. One was to someday have a quiet, stable home life. This ambition stemmed from a childhood without roots. Because of her father’s business interests, the family was required to move to a different city each year. By the time Judith was fourteen years old, she had lived in fourteen different states.

The other ambition that she held was to have a serene job, with no traveling no adventure and no glamour. When McNaught graduated from college with a degree in business administration, she set out to find a job with this objective clear in her mind. She answered a blind ad for a position as a personnel interviewer. It seemed like a perfect job. The company that hired her, however, turned out to be a major airline and they soon decided that they needed additional stewardesses. The company recruited Judith but soon discovered that she was not stewardess material. In addition to a tendency to become airsick, McNaught was terrified of flying.

Two years later, at the age of 24, Judith met a tall, dark and handsome man. The two fell in love, married and had two children. In her own words, she “liked being a wife and a mother, and I definitely liked my children; unfortunately, I did not like my husband. I gave up my husband and kept the children.”

Once again, Judith was in need of a job. She answered another blind ad for an executive secretary, thinking it would be the serene and peaceful job she wanted. Judith was wrong again. The company that hired her this time was a CBS radio station. In a frighteningly short time, Judith was promoted to administrative assistant and, a year later, director of live programming. The slow-paced job of her dreams gave way to a reality of responsibilities and eighteen-hour workdays that left little time for her children. After three years, Judith resigned and began looking for a job that would not require so much of her.

She applied for and got the job of a personnel interviewer. She had finally found the job she had always wanted – serene, predictable, peaceful – and hated it within weeks.

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