Alison Bond

Han

2012-01-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

Han (Korean) - a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds. It connotes aspects of lament and unavenged injustice.

Han (Alison-ese) - Good time girl and long time besty.

Here she is in all her ice-cream eating glory. She lives in Spain you see, where they eat ice-cream all the time and generally laze about saying 'mañana' when you ask them to do something. I married a Spanish man. I know.

I totally ripped off how Hannah and I met for a short story I once wrote so stop me if you've heard this one before. We were both in the wrong place at the right time on the third day of university. A mistake brought us together. It would be two more years before we really got to know each other, before we became housemates and I learnt that she couldn't play minesweeper and talk at the same time, that she couldn't cook a crispy pancake without burning it, that she is a fantastic drunk and a terrible swot, that her favourite things are sex, the sunshine and books. I remember being amazed (and still am) at how many friends she had and how much energy she had for going out and making more.

I am proud of everything she has achieved - running the London marathon for example or setting up a writing group on the coast of Andalucia - but now I am positively glowing because at last her wonderful debut novel is being released into the wide world. Isn't it the most gorgeous cover?

I love this girl. I love this book. And if you like a bit of paranormal romance with your rites of passage then so will you.

My Day Out

2012-01-25T01:35:00.000-08:00

You will recognise this building if you've ever walked along the South Bank looking north across the Thames. It houses Penguin, still my publisher for another 22 days.

Penguin is such a big deal on The Strand that they have their own entrance hall now. I want to say lobby but my brother recently accused me of sounding too American. It hasn’t always been there, the lobby, you used to have to walk into the regular lobby with all the ordinary people, but now you are able to stride through the etched glass door to the right into this cool haven of books and people smiling because they get to work with books. There are books in frames under glass, books stacked in piles on the shelves that scale the walls, books everywhere. A copy of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes is on each coffee table. I know that they will let me take one if I ask, and they do. They being: Helen, who has read Sweet Little Lies and says she loves it, that it was satisfying to read a book where you could relate to both the main characters, and Ruth, who hasn’t read my book but as she has always been the nicest person I have come across in publishing (and there are loads) I will let this pass.

I am at Penguin to do some bits to camera about Sweet Little Lies for their friendly new hub, Book Boutique. It feels strange to talk about my book when it has been so long since I delivered the manuscript. The baby I delivered shortly afterwards is running and climbing and demanding complex things like ‘not this biscuit, the other biscuit’ and yet my book is still a few weeks from birth, gestating in their labyrinthine offices, and I am nobody, but here I am sitting in the media suite (oh yes) drinking great coffee with a plate heaped with biscuits, so many that I wish I had brought Tupperware. I swear it hasn’t been this much fun for years. A Reluctant Cinderella was published without so much as a glass of water, and because of all the back and forth on the cover and the title that book too was held up, so not since the heady days of 2006 and Ruby Valentine have I been given the movie star experience that is visiting Penguin.

I have only been on camera once before (not including the occasions I was spotted in the background during my stint in television production) When I was twenty-two I made an audition tape for a travel show but I never heard back. I’ve been on the radio though and it is a bit like that except that you will see my face. The cameraman is called Paul, he doesn’t say much. I gabber away like a prize galah and hope it isn’t too cringey when I get to see them back. I will probably post one of two of the videos here eventually but can I just add that it was raining outside and the media suite, though both flash and fattening, did not have a mirror and neither did I.

I talk about the Sweet Little Lies and the big stupid one that Anna tells at the heart of the story. I talk about my best friend Hannah, because the book is about best friends as much as it is about romance. And I talk about the character of Ben because of course it’s about romance too.

I read Me Before You all the way home on the train.

Goodbye Alison Bond

2012-01-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

In just under a month my fourth novel, Sweet Little Lies, will be published. A story of best friends: Chrissie, who will ruin a man's life just because she can, and Anna, who stands in her way. It is about love and about lies and the way they last forever.

This will be my final book with Penguin. In May I will become a brand new new woman, and hopefully a new woman's brand, when Canvas at Constable and Robinson publish Summer of Secrets.

I got married a couple of years ago but I never got round to changing my name because a) I would continue to write as Alison Bond and b) it seemed like a lot of paperwork, but still she is slipping away from me, one identifying document at a time. I am in the process of changing my Twitter account and it doesn't get more serious than that. It's been a while, Alison Bond and me. I live out in the wilds a few miles from the market town of my birth and at least once a month I drive past my old sixth form college, an inspirational fairytale gothic hall that has been boarded up and sold off for luxury retirement apartments. Things change.

I am dazzled by the good fortune I had to land seven years of advice and encourgement from the team at Penguin. They really did make my dreams come true.

At the heart of Sweet Little Lies is a search for identity, alongside the search for love, and so I have been thinking a lot about how to say goodbye to Alison Bond and it is like this: by standing proudly next to the things that she wrote, hopeful that she is loved beyond measure, and then facing the future as somebody new.

Click the book on the right to pre-order a discounted copy of Sweet Little Lies from the Book Depository.

Summer of Secrets

2011-08-24T02:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend I did something quite extraordinary. I let the launch shows of Big Brother and X Factor pass me by. Does this mean I am growing?

I am writing hard and there have been some developments but none that I can confirm quite yet. Sweet Little Lies was due to be out in October but that has been pushed back to February 2012. Sweet Little Lies is a love triangle story about an unexploded bomb lying in the past.

I look back on my oeuvre (yes, I said oeuvre) and realise how many twists there are in what I write. Is that why I sometimes find it exhausting? But how can I find it exhausting you might well ask, lying under my duvet making my fingers tap over a keyboard. And the truth is, I don't know. The whole truth is that some days, the best of days, it is not tiring at all and hours can race happily by until I emerge sweating and hungry and full of beans.

But there are always days when you feel tired, tired of ironing out the wrinkles in your plot and the unexpected difficulties around a certain chapter. People tackle this in different ways. I know a writer who breaks down his book before he starts into a series of incidents and chooses which one to write every day, only putting his book in chronological order when he has completed the bulk of the work. That would drive me INSANE, and I suspect I would be left with a bit of a mess when I was done. I know another who writes the emotion they are trying to convey on a index card and writes towards that emotion with every sentence, the index card pulling her forward. I tried that once but my books are quite dark and so I soon found myself utterly depressed because I was spending all day sitting at a desk littered with index cards labelled DISGRACE, SHAME, MISERY, HEARTBREAK and so on because the parts about LOVE, TRUST, JOY are the easy parts to write. And so for me that is the answer, to find the trust beneath the disgrace, the joy that follows the misery and the love in the heartbreak, to treat my characters with infinite compassion. I created them after all. Hubris, that's the answer. There is so much in life that we cannot control, wrestle with the thing that you are writing, word by word, bird by bird, and win.

Goodbye and good luck.

2011-05-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

I am usually lurking on Twitter and not blogging much here but my annual report on Cheryl Tweedy Cole is well timed as she leaves our shores for the golden lights of Hollywood. Admittedly, my annual reports have not shown much consistency or prescience. From the inaugural blog on why she was right to stay with Ashley and my polemic on why she's a wonderful role model I go back and forth. But I wish her well in America and I respect her for reaching for the stars. Not since Vivienne Leigh was cast as Scarlett O'Hara has a dimpled British girl been launched on the American public on quite the same scale.

The rise and rise of Cheryl Cole has to mean she is a nice person, otherwise the world is made wrong. She must be good to work with, reliable, fun. She doesn't come across like that because of the amount of hairspray she uses and some of the clothes she wears, but I am willing to bet that she's an absolute treat. Why else would Cowell be hitching his wagon to hers in such a public fashion? Apart from the fact that he's clearly in love with her of course. Or at least thinks he is. I suspect their chemistry is based on the fact that they are both smokers in a society that frowns upon the habit and so those illicit ciggies that they have together (which will become even more covert and frantic in Los Angeles) are intense moments of stolen pleasure. That kind of thing can mess with your head.

He has a fiancee. She has a special friend called Derek. So they are just buddies. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't look like a 27 year old version of every girlfriend he's ever had. The flirty banter between the pair of them makes me want to scratch out my own cheeks.

But here's to Cheryl Tweedy Cole
May she never draw the dole.

Authors For Japan

2011-03-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging. I'm always around on Twitter and I can only cope with so much social media at any given time. Twitter really does some amazing things. Check this out.

bondgirl x

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September

2010-10-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

I think that could be the first month I have missed blogging in almost three years. In my defence September is a very short month. So what have I been doing? I was in Spain for most of the month, staying in a very cool finca in the mountains north of Malaga for some peace and quiet. Nothing around for miles, we could only see one other house from our grapeviney terrace (that's the view from the hammock in the picture above). Sadly the distant house was home to the world's yappiest dog. I was tempted to buy a gun, drive down the valley and up the other side, and deal with it. The children got their revenge by getting up at five thirty every morning and tearing around by six. In southern Spain it is still properly dark at that time and it was clear and moonless so I was able to show them a real night sky. Little Claudia took a few steps outside, sang 'twinkle twinkle little star' tunelessly twice and then retreated back inside until the sun came up. I think she was a little scared of the enormity of the universe. Or chilly.

After Malaga we travelled to Valencia where my husband's family still keep the two-bedroomed, top floor apartment where his mother and her four siblings were born and raised. I love Valencia. It's a friendly city with a beach and a beautiful old town. There will always be a playground every couple of blocks where the parents sit around drinking wine while the children play until midnight.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the three major characters in my new novel, how they feel about the world, who they will fall in love with, what they will do when they find each other. I am in love with the title. Clue:

Now we are back in the village. October means birthdays, Jimmy is one next week and Claudia is three at the end of the month. I have a lot of work to do on the new book, as well as getting my head back into the old one as the cover and whatnot get discussed and decided. My editor has invited me to lunch. I have already googled the menu at Orso to decide what I'll be having.

And X-factor is well underway. Team Katie. There, I said it.

The Alphabet

2010-08-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

It has just come to my attention that due to the nature of my surname I am first in lovely and talented Keris Stainton's list of writer blogs. Which means I should update here as soon as I can. And I will, I will. But right now I am trying to negotiate a two year old who is trying to go out for a walk 'just to the jam man' with a fistful of coins and simultaneously restrain a ten month old eager to swallow the coins which escape the aforementioned fist.

And, you know, write a book. So those of you who are visiting because you like my books please browse the archive, there's some good stuff (somewhere, maybe) and for those of you who are procrastinating while you really should be working on that book of your own I can only repeat a piece of advice the great Jackie Collins once gave me:

Just get on with it.

Could Have Been So Beautiful

2010-06-08T06:58:00.001-07:00

Most writers have those moments when they don't know how to begin. I am having one of those right now as I try to think how to start this post. This last month has been one of the most confusing in my writing life. Actually, no, not my writing life, my professional life. The writing life plods on much the same from dazzle to doldrums and back again within a week, feeling virtuous on the days I write deep into 4 figure wordcounts and blue on the days that I don't. Most days I don't feel professional at all. But the days around publication, those are the ones that make me feel all writerly, as I dash from radio interview to review to cocktails and then to the bank to pay the cheque in. And this time I had the added complication of feeling, um, complicated about the cover and the title and the blurb and basically everything that fell out of my control over the last few years.

When my debut was published the first cover I was presented with made me cry with joy, it was as if my editor has crawled inside my head and then put all my intentions and ideas into one image. Then gradually that first cover was compromised and what was left looked similar but didn't thrill me at all. The title was not my first suggestion, but it was my best one, and I thought it was hilarious that the blurb was word for word a pitch document I had written for my agent several months before.

Still, all very exciting. Debut novel, woop woop. I can't explain just how heart-breakingly, tear-inducingly grateful I was when people liked it. I will never forget crossing the Thames on the top deck of a bus while my publicist (my publicist! Ha!) read out the review from the Daily Mirror which I forever after referred to as The Rave.

The second time around with The Truth About Ruby Valentine, I adored my cover, the final version, the one that was in the shops. Except once it was in the shops it started to look a bit grubby. It was white you see and the dirty fingers of my potential readers would leave marks. This bothered me. If I am going to spend money on a brand new book by an author I haven't read before then it damn well better be clean. But oh my, it was a beautiful cover and people still comment on just how beautiful it was. I like the title too.

Almost two weeks ago A Reluctant Cinderella went out into the world. It feels as if I am going to a party dressed by a very well-intentioned friend that I cannot offend by changing. It's not a bad cover, it's not a bad title, in fact they are both good. But it's not what I would have chosen to wear to the party. Not if I wanted people to like me, and to dance with me, not if this party would determine my popularity for the rest of time.

It's just not what the book is about, it's not what I am about. My personal style, in all senses of the word, is not pink princess carriages. Chloe at Chicklit Reviews sums up how I feel about it here, except that she's a bit harder on my publisher than I would be. I believe they had a plan and tried their best. I think by the time publication day rolled around they knew I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about the package but I tried to get behind it and even agreed not to talk about football.

Because my book is about football and if you've read this far into this post then you deserve the truth. No, in fact I think you deserve the truth from the beginning but maybe (sorry, gotta do it) you can't handle the truth. Football? Bleugh. Except you don't have to be into football to like my book any more than you have to be into polo to like Polo by Jilly Cooper or into prostitution to like the film Pretty Woman. It's about a woman who is scared to look down in case she falls, so she keeps going no matter what. It's about a sister and a brother. It's about having sex with a Russian billionaire and falling in love with your boss.

Bookalicious Ramblings got the idea with this cover, though I would have preferred a title like 'This Is A Man's World' with that art.

I have no way of knowing whether the book would have sold any more copies had it been packaged differently, but I know I would have felt better about it all. I originally wanted to call it Studs (football, studs, geddit?)and saw something more like this on the cover...

or this...

If I was technically minded I would have mocked up a cover properly for you, and maybe that's what I should have done months and months ago. I should have worked harder to come up with a better title too. I should have been sending them plenty of ideas instead of shrugging my shoulders after the first half a dozen rejected attempts and saying, 'okay, you choose, I don't care' because I do care. Very much. So why didn't I do these things? Because I didn't want to be difficult. I kept hearing scary stories about authors getting their deals cancelled over little things like attitude, I wanted to be published more than I wanted to be heard all the time. In other words, I wanted them to like me. And now I feel a bit dirty.

I think I'll post another picture of Freddie in case you feel that way too.

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It's all over now and I'm happy that it is. I am still very grateful for everyone and everything that allows my book to be on the shelves at all. Mostly I am frustrated that I lacked the courage of my convictions and regret that I did not try much harder to find a compromise I could be excited about. I am very proud of A Reluctant Cinderella, I just wish she was wearing something that didn't give a false impression of who she was really is.

The first chapter (sort of)...

2010-04-26T02:04:00.000-07:00

Her most vivid childhood memory was of being alone.
‘You’ll be all right,’ their mum had said as she piled more cheap clothes into her cheap weekend bag, already bulging at the seams. ‘You take care of each other, okay?’
Samantha looked at Liam, her big brother, and wondered what taking care of him meant.
Their mum had all her make-up on. A face which took so long that if Samantha watched her, lying on the big double bed while Mum sat in front of the mirror, she would fall asleep before the end, hypnotized by the endless brush strokes and swirling fingertips that went towards Mum’s going-out face, drugged by the tang of perfume and hairspray and nail polish. She would wake up and her mother would have disappeared, only the smell of her remaining to soothe Samantha to sleep. If she slept where she lay, in the big double bed, it would be hours later that she was lifted, with a murmur of protest, back to her own room, awake just long enough to sense the shifting figure of a stranger, always a new man, waiting to take her place.
‘There’s beans,’ said their mum, opening one of the top cupboards and then realizing her mistake and moving sixteen cans of baked beans down to a cupboard they could reach.
‘There’s beans,’ she repeated, ‘and bread and apples, and plenty of milk and juice in the fridge. And there’s chocolate.’
‘Chocolate?’ said Samantha hopefully.
‘Only if you’re a good girl,’ said her mum, unearthing a foil-wrapped bar of chocolate and waving it just out of reach. ‘Will you be a good girl for Mummy?
Samantha nodded.
Scared already, but not sure why.
‘It’s a secret. You understand?’ Mum put both hands on Samantha’s shoulders and dropped to her knees so that they were level. ‘You know what a secret is?’
‘Something you don’t tell,’ said Samantha.
‘Good girl.’
The brisk hug was almost an afterthought, but Samantha didn’t care – she cherished the feeling of arms around her more than anything, even more than chocolate.
She looked across at Liam. A whole head taller than her and always so serious. He made her feel silly sometimes. Like now. Silly for being scared. So she put on her best brave smile and told her mum to have a nice time.
‘Okay then.’ A final smile, her hand already on the front door handle, her heart and mind already in Ibiza and a week without her kids. ‘I’ll be back Tuesday morning. What do you do in an emergency?’
‘Dial 999,’ said Liam.
‘Good boy.’
And she was gone.

They both stood there and watched the door, in case it was just a joke. Then a little while later, when it became clear that she wasn’t coming back, Liam reached out his hand until it touched his sister’s. Then he held it and told her that everything would be okay.
‘It’ll be an adventure,’ he said. ‘We’re like castaways.’
‘Is that like pirates?’
‘A bit,’ he said.
That didn’t sound too bad. ‘Can I have some chocolate?’ she asked.
Liam picked up the bar of chocolate and solemnly snapped off two squares each. ‘We should make it last,’ he said.
Liam was nine years old and Samantha five. They were on their own.
‘What’ll we do now?’ she asked.
Liam looked up at the clock, his lips moving silently as he worked out the time. ‘I think we go to bed,’ he said.
‘But I haven’t had my bath.’ She chewed her lip doubtfully.
‘Some nights we don’t though, do we? When I’m in charge. So this is one of those nights. It’s not that different.’
But it was. To five-year-old Samantha this night felt very different indeed. Like the first time she’d slept without the light on, or the first day Liam went to school. Everything had changed and her world had gone sort of wobbly. She didn’t like it.
He found her favourite pyjamas. The pink ones with pictures of orange cats. They stood together on the step-up to the sink so that they could brush their teeth.
‘Do you need to do a wee?’ he said.
‘I don’t think so.’ Her face flushed warm as her eyes filled with tears.
‘What’s wrong?’
She fought off the scratchy tight feeling in her throat. Mummy didn’t like it when she got upset and that meant bed in the dark without any dinner or, if there wasn’t really any dinner, or she’d been really naughty, then locked in the bathroom so that she couldn’t run crying to her brother the way she always did.
But Mummy wasn’t here so she could tell the truth.
‘I’m frightened.’
‘Pah! What’s there to be frightened of, Sammy?’ He put his wiry little arm round her and led her across the landing.
‘This is still your house, isn’t it?’
She nodded.
‘And this is your bedroom? And this is your bed?’
He folded back her duvet and patted the bed. She climbed in.
‘And that’s your pillow? And this is your teddy?’
She held fast to his hand even as she curled herself into the tight knot she made to sleep.
‘See? Nothing to be frightened of.’
‘Tell me a story,’ she said.
‘I don’t know any stories.’
‘Sing me a song.’
So Liam sang the first song he could remember, about a place over the rainbow where happy bluebirds fly, and he stayed by her side until her scrappy breaths became long and smooth. Slowly and carefully he opened out her hand, finger by clinging finger, to free himself from his sister’s grip, then he crossed the room to his own bed and slept until morning.

They were discovered of course. A schoolteacher noticed that Samantha was wearing the same clothes three days running and watched to see who collected her from school. Seeing her leave hand in hand with her young brother, she chased after them.
‘Does Mummy know you’re walking home on your own?’ she asked.
‘Mummy’s in Beefa,’ said Samantha. She squealed in pain as Liam pinched the soft flesh on her inner arm. ‘But it’s a secret. I forgot. So don’t tell anyone.’

That night, instead of playing pirates with Liam, which meant an eye-patch and cold baked beans out of a can –pirate food, Captain – the children were placed in emergency foster care.
They had been unable to place them together on a few hours’ notice.
‘Say goodbye to your brother,’ said the social worker, and, her head addled from the events of the day, Samantha thought she meant forever.
No! Not Liam, they couldn’t take Liam. She looked wildly around for somebody to help her, but all she saw were two grown-ups that she didn’t know, both smiling, which made it worse. In the stories the baddies were always smiling. Where were they taking him? Why wasn’t she going? Had she been really naughty? So naughty that even the damp, dark bathroom wasn’t bad enough and Liam was going somewhere nice while she went . . . where? Her breath quickened as she conjured up nasty unformed thoughts one after another. Soon she was gasping for air.
She started to scream. She lashed out at well-meaning hands that tried to calm her. In the end one of the smiling strangers picked her up and hauled her away so that she didn’t get to say goodbye at all.
She screamed so hard that she fell into an exhausted sleep and when she woke up she was in a big house that smelt funny, on a sofa she had never seen before, and a fat woman who was not her mummy was pretending that she was, making sure that she washed her face and cleaned her teeth.
Robotically she brushed up and down with the brand new toothbrush and toothpaste that tasted of strawberry not mint.
Somehow her cat pyjamas had found their way to a pillow on a bed in a small room upstairs. But it was not her bed.
Even though she asked again and again, this fat notmummy couldn’t tell her if Liam would be here to sing her to her dreams. And so she cried herself to a fitful sleep, horribly confused and clutching her duvet around her to keep out the scary night.

She was five. She loved her errant mummy desperately. She didn’t know what a mother was supposed to do. She didn’t know she had a bad one. So when the police arrested her mother at the airport and allowed her only a brief visit with her children, Samantha kicked the social worker with her tiny feet and told her mum that they should try to escape.
‘We can run away! Let’s go, come on, while no one’s looking.’
‘Not this time, Sammy.’
‘I’m sorry I told the teacher about Beefa.’
‘Me too,’ said her mum.
Liam understood a little more. He refused to kiss his mother, told her that he hated her and so she lavished attention on him, ignoring the smiling Samantha who had more kisses inside her than she knew what to do with.
Then very soon it was time to say goodbye and go back to the foster family.
‘What about the chocolate?’ she asked, concerned about the six squares left at home that they had diligently denied themselves.
‘You should have thought about that before you told on me and spoilt it all,’ said her mum. ‘This is all your fault. You know that, don’t you? Your teachers tell me you’re so bloody clever but you’re stupid. Stupid.’
‘Leave her alone,’ said Liam.
‘Oh, Liam, I’m sorry. It’s such a mess.’
Liam wrapped his arm round his sister.
‘We’ll take care of each other,’ he said. ‘We don’t need you.’

Okay, so she's not exactly Emmeline Pankhurst...

2010-04-07T03:21:00.000-07:00

I can usually manage to go for days, weeks, even months if the X-factor is not a factor without thinking about Cheryl Cole, but I was prompted to consider her again today courtesy of this article by Charlotte Metcalf in the Daily Mail calling her a "pathetic excuse for a female role model". Let's jump over the fact that the survey in question - that named Cheryl the most Influential Woman of the Decade - was commissioned by a website called, wait for it, Good Surgery Guide, let's also jump right over my personal opinions of Cheryl's talents (I think she has lovely skin) and that the article somehow manages to blame the parents, the schools, Elizabeth Hurley and Big Brother for this travesty. I refuse to accept the entire premise. One, Cheryl is not such an awful role model and two, this is not a new problem.

When I was a little girl I pretended that I wanted to be Princess Diana just like everyone else my age (I didn't really want to be Princess Diana, I wanted to be Darrell Rivers but she was fictional) My mother in her turn wanted to be Grace Kelly. Thanks to the Cinderella story of moping around doing the housework until Prince Charming transforms our lives women have never had far to look for pathetic role models. Interestingly the article only manages to suggest one contempary alternative, Laura Tenison, a woman who has made a fortune selling baby products. Yawn.

Hundreds of people rely on Cheryl for their income, in this regard celebrity should be recognised as a perfectly respectable form of entrepreneurship. Cheryl was raised on a council estate, her parents split up when she was eleven. She made her first national commercial whe she was seven and was accepted into the Royal Ballet's summer school at the age of nine. She has been following her dreams for a long time and though I'm not sure who her role model was as a child, I'm willing to bet all the money in my pockets that it wasn't Indira Ghandi. Does that really make her pathetic?

What's pathetic is believing that because a young girl admires Kristin Stewart she can't also admire Anne Frank, that our schools should be able to convince our teens that Queen Victoria is as relevant as Victoria Beckham, and that because Ulrika Johnson's children have different fathers that somehow automatically makes her a bad mother. It's pathetic to demonise all the young girls who want to be pop stars whilst ignoring all those want to be vets, teachers, athletes or hairdressers.

Or fictional characters.

advice

2010-02-24T07:23:00.000-08:00

Critical - Writers shouldn't randomly blog but blog on material geared toward (book) target audience.

I'm taking this to heart,

Mulege, Baja California Sur

2010-02-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

The best place I know. On days like today just knowing that Mulege is there keeps me going. One day I will run a little bookshop from a store near the i griega and my husband will fix bikes out front. We will also sell maps and pistachio macaroons.

27 Days of Winter

2010-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

Celebrity Big Brother started this week. Among the housemates are Nicola T (who she?), Basshunter (who he?) and Stephanie Beacham, that's her above with Marlon Brando. I love Big Brother; Celebrity, USA or Classic, I don't care. If they subtitled the fifty-odd foreign versions I would watch those too. I get the same feeling watching it as I do overhearing conversations and it is the best way I know to observe character.

There's a little rapper in there by the name of Lady Sovereign. I've heard of her but I doubt everyone has. I think she is insecure. I could be wrong of course, but that's the impression I get. She hasn't stood up and shouted 'Like me, please, like me' but her actions and subtext have led me to this conclusion. And as we are told over and over again, character is action. Show, don't tell.

It's hard to get a handle on 'show, don't tell' until you see it done well, or better yet if you take note when you see it in real life. Big Brother is perhaps as close to real life as we can get as writers, while remaining an observer and not a participant. On Big Brother nobody stands around discussing what makes them tick but nevertheless we quickly make a first impression and gradually a fuller picture emerges of each character without anyone 'telling' us anything. Breaking down the reasons for those impressions helps us to create better characters of our own.

Right now on live-feed Alex Reid is man-crushing Vinnie Jones who has seen it all before, and Stephanie Beacham is wearing a scarf to cover her neck and a fringe to cover her forehead. No wonder she looks so good for her age.

Looking for Oscar

2009-12-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite daydreams is collecting an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (or Adaption actually, I'm not fussy). It could happen. When you look at the winners over the last decade there have been some small quirky films in there, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine and some Brits, Peter Morgan, Julian Fellowes. So it could happen.

Obviously I'd have to write a screenplay first, then get it made, then get nominated. I do realise that.

You may not know that I spent three years gaining a 'degree' in Scriptwriting for Film and Television, my major project being a London set romantic comedy so embarrassingly awful that I once decided to rewrite it and changed my mind once I reread it with a red pen in hand and found I was left with one good line and a decent sex scene. I also adapted Be Nice, a great young adult novel by Anabel Donald for a well respected film company but it never got out of development. Those are my two previous efforts and I'm currently getting serious about my third.

I am a novelist first and foremost, but a few weeks ago I watched Last Chance Harvey starring two of my absolute top tier movie stars, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman, and found it so mediocre it was actually inspiring. A real example of why aspiring writers should read (or watch) everything they can, good and bad. Seriously, by the end of it as I had to watch them walking along the South Bank chatting one more time I was moaning softly in boredom. I know I can do better than that.

Two years ago, after the birth of my first child I started making notes for a possible novel, I love the idea but something about it never felt quite right. Until I started thinking about it as a film and not a book. Then something clicked and I find myself thinking of scenes instead of chapters, thinking visually, thinking romantically and comically and thinking of films I love like Terms of Endearment, Pieces of April and Moonstruck.

I am excited. I haven't written a film for five years. Now, what shall I wear for the red carpet.....

A Reluctant Cinderella

2009-11-04T05:23:00.000-08:00

I've been watching a lot of America's Next Top Model recently and around the third week of every season (sorry, "cycle") the dozen or so wannabe models are all given a makeover. There's always one or two girls who totally freak out, usually about getting their hair cut drastically short, and find it nigh on impossible to adjust to their new look. But Tyra knows best, she's the expert, and so it is in this spirit I turn my books over to the good people of Penguin and let them package me as they see fit.

Deep breath.

It's a great title, and a cute cover (cute! oh my...) but it just doesn't seem particularly, well, me. I was crazy about my second incarnation (Buy now while stocks last!) but soon those covers will be no more, much like the long luscious locks of Jaeda, Catie, Fo and all the rest. Do I want to be the drama queen who bitches and complains about my new look? No, I do not. I am the cool cucumber who lets those that know best do their job while I go back to doing mine,

Or watching more daytime television.

Love it? Hate it? Don't give a flying.....?

Proof of Life

2009-10-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

I have pages of notes from my publisher on my manuscript. The one I just delivered? Noooo, that would be too soon, too easy and too perfect. Instead I have notes on the novel I delivered almost TWO YEARS AGO. And some of them read like advanced maths problems. Example:

"p. 67, line 8 up, ‘Minus fifteen’: According to p. 193, this is supposed to be September or the beginning of October (‘So until January. Three months, a little less’) – However, on p. 34 St Ashton are playing in the fourth round of the FA Cup, which takes place late January (see query to p. 91), when the temperature could be that low. (See also query to p. 82.) What time of year is it?"

Huh?

Given that I had a baby just two short weeks ago you can imagine my brain's porridge-like capacity for such questions. I'm going through the notes only tackling the easy ones, much like taking the soft centres from a box of chocolates. But sooner or later I'm going to have to address the mind-benders. I just hope I manage to get more than two consecutive hours sleep before then.

And I have a cold.

What I really want to do is snuggle up under a crocheted blanket with my delicious new baby and perhaps a little of the warm eggy tortilla made by my mother-in-law's Spanish hands. There should be some sort of 'leave' available to new mothers. Oh, wait, there is?

2009-10-14T02:48:00.000-07:00

Things that have happened since my last post:

1. My third novel has a new title and a new cover.
2. I became a full trained mentor for a charity called Kids Company.
3. I gave birth to a baby boy called Jimmy.

But what I really want to talk about is this year's X-factor.

I welcome X Factor. Watching a young woman from a small town hit the high note in a key change during a diva ballad never fails to bring forth abundant tears of joy. This year I have developed a girl crush on Dannii (the hair! the clothes! the smile!) but on Saturday she disappointed me. Not for the reasons that made the paper, but for her continued prejudice towards ex-stripper girlband, Kandy Rain. Perhaps they reminded her of a past indiscretion she'd much rather we all forgot. Similar to the way I cringe if anyone mentions Kennington Tube in the presence of my friend Sean who then unfailingly recounts the story of how I jumped down the stairs there on my twenty-first birthday, so drunk on champagne I momentarily thought I could fly.

Kandy Rain got judged horrifically on that show, fostering the unfair attitude that all strippers are sluts and that dancing for money is something to be terribly ashamed of. It forced them to renounce an entertainment that thousands of honest, sexy, tax-paying women provide. Yet at the same time, the truly awful prospect that was Project A (no link, wouldn't do that to anyone) were allowed to be proud of cheerleading. Both cheerleaders and strippers are employed to titillate their audience. If they're very good at heir job they work their audience up into a frenzy. At least entertainers like Kandy Rain have the decency to take their clothes off. Thankfully, Louis saw the light and chose the strippers over the cheerleaders. And I'd like to think that any female fancying mate of mine (including Sean of the Kennington flyby) would do the same.

So Dannii is on a warning with me. Otherwise I'll take my business across the street and go back to crushing on Simon.

The Note Not Taken

2009-09-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

It took me almost as long to update that little wordcount gizmo to the left as it did to write the thing. Okay, wild exaggeration aside, it sure was stressful. In the end I had messed it up so badly that I had to cut and paste the wordcount gizmo and start all over again. Thank God I didn't have to do that with the book. I think that's the big fear with edits, that you'll make some changes that go too far down a bad path and that you'll be unable to get back to where you started and end up lost, in the wilderness, staggering around looking for a break in the trees. I'm fairly certain this is why everyone hates rewrites. In my experience while I may often fear going too far in the wrong direction it never actually happens. As Robert Frost says on the theme: "Yet knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back."

I think I am gong to reinvent myself as the rewrite princess. Rewrites, edits, yummy, I love them. It's all in the attitude...and that has made all the difference.

My wedding day

2009-09-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

I have been absent from the blog and from life in general really as I have happily been finishing off Friendship Never Ends, my latest novel for the lovely people at Penguin. I did find the time to discover Twitter though, and that was a worthwhile enterprise. I thought I'd finally post a photograph to brighten up the place. This is me on the morning of my wedding.

As a little girl I can honestly say I never had wedding day fantasies, nor as a teenager, nor even when I fell in love. I only really felt the urge to marry after I had his children, I felt like our family was the bundle in a spotted handkerchief and that a knot needed to be tied. Getting married in New York was something we decided to do without much forethought. In retrospect it was perfect for us. In retrospect it was my dream wedding.

I would like to add to this blog more regularly from now on. I'm taking a short break from writing books to have another baby so blogging should be a good way to keep my brain limber.

"When you grow up, your heart dies..."

2009-08-07T07:19:00.001-07:00

RIP John Hughes

I remember the first time I watched Ferris Bueller and the second and the third and so on and so on. I remember liking Mia Sara's jacket and Cameron Fry's delivery. I remember going to the Art Institue of Chicago, years later, and feeling excited because it had been in that film. I will always think of Ferris when I hear Twist and Shout. One of my best friends named her second born child Ferris and I always thought that was very cool. And the Breakfast Club. 'Answer the question, Clare.' I wanted to dance like Molly Ringwald long before I realised she wasn't actually a very cool dancer. I modelled my look on Ally Sheedy (a character actually called Alison - double wow) And the lifelong crush that was born when I saw Eric Stolz in Some Kind of Wonderful. 'Then I'm 18, then I'm 19, when does my life belong to me?'

I feel stupid being so sad today. I feel beyond blue. I am sad that he died, but when I get right down to it, selfishly I think I am sad that I am no longer a teenager, that my heart is no longer open enough, or naive enough, to believe that a filmmaker is speaking directly to me. Because that's how it felt with John.

Fifteen Books In Fifteen Minutes

2009-07-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I've introduced a few new readers to my blog today. Hello if you are new. I've been writing this blog for a while (all good authors should have one I'm told) but struggling to find what I want to say. I thought this post would be as good a one as any to use as my first to a wider audience as it concerns books as opposed to pop culture, technological disasters or food.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I am not that savvy but I will try to get better.

Thanks very much for coming.

Alison xx

___________________________________

I can’t remember the exact rules for this (except I remember that were some) but I think the idea was to list 15 books that will always stick with you without thinking too hard about it:

(I cut and paste it afterwards into chronological order, does that count as thinking too hard?)

Five Go Adventuring Again – Enid Blyton

I was six years old and we’d just moved house. My dad wanted to get the kitchen done and so my mum, brother and I went off to Carlisle (on a train!) to visit her friend, Auntie Rita. Rita’s husband (a ringer for Uncle Quentin if ever there was one) gave each of us kids a book and this was mine. It is the second of the Famous Five books and was possibly the first ‘proper’ book I read all by myself. A childhood reader was born.

Lights, Camera, Love – Gailanne Maravel

When I was about eleven I saw two girls I was scared of sitting outside the library. They followed me in. I didn’t want to turn right and go into the children’s section (my natural habitat) and so I turned left into the adult section and, ignoring all assembled great literature, discovered the American teen section where I remained blissfully for the next four years or so. Is Lights, Camera, Love the best Sweet Dreams book I ever read? No. Do I actually prefer Francine Pascal: Sweet Valley High and specifically The Caitlin Trilogy? Undoubtedly. But this was my first.

Is This It? - Bob Geldof

I read this when I was about thirteen. It was a couple of years after Band Aid and Live Aid and I turned directly to the chapters concerning those things, at the end of the book. That was the Bob Geldof I knew, and the only one I thought I cared about. Very quickly I stopped reading and started the book properly. The phrase ‘searing honesty’ has become over-used, but this is it and it’s wonderful. The writing has the same raw, poetic quality as the Boomtown Rats lyrics and Geldof’s life is endlessly fascinating and intrinsically valuable. This book makes you want to be a better person.

The Long Walk – by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)

On holiday with my family I ran out of books to read and so I had to read this one belonging to my brother. I couldn’t put it down. It was the first book that grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let me go. It is part of a collection of four novellas, all excellent, but this one – concerning a televised contest in a Dystopian universe – details the darkness within the human condition and foresees reality television. One hundred teenage boys start walking. And do not stop.

Castaway – Lucy Irvine

A ravishing, sensual book about one woman’s love affair with an island. I could read it time and time again. Irvine writes beautifully – whether about vomiting during extreme malnutrition, catching a shark or allowing the sun to make love to her through her belly button. This book is responsible, more than any other, for the adventurer in me. I like stories about survival of any kind, and this is one of the very best. I admire much about Lucy Irvine but mostly the sense you get from this and her other two books that she is never half-hearted about anything.

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

A set text for my GCSE English Lit. In a characteristic display of laziness-slash-genius I also chose this as my wider reading essay for English Language GCSE and used it two years later for the basis of a 2000 word essay about Civil Rights during my General Studies A’ level exam (Great Art Can Change the World – Discuss). As I write this entry I remember that it also informed much of my dissertation (The Archetypal Role of the Young Girl as a Narrative Device) for my second-class degree in a Mickey Mouse subject.

Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

I was nineteen or so when I first read Gone with the Wind. I hadn’t seen the film properly (but I knew the gist) I had never spoken to anyone who’d read it, I think I had picked it up at least once before and failed to get into it. But this time I was hooked. It is one of my favourite historical novels and part of the reason I love America. It is a misunderstood book, I think. Either that or I am not as clever as I think I am.

Second half to come soon...

Where do we go from here?

2009-07-07T05:32:00.001-07:00

I am still searching for an identity. For this blog I mean, not for myself. Having found myself on twitter on more that one occasion I have discovered a whole community of writers out there with blogs that seem to tell me something about who they are, what they are about. I feel a little bit like I am back at school, wanting to be 'in' with the crowd but not feeling like sharing that much about myself. Why? A fear of judgement or a fear of rejection? Maybe. But I find that hard to believe, I think I am okay with judgement and rejection, I think as a writer you have to be. So I cast my mind back to being back at school and why I always felt that my perceived popularity was a sham. Because I kept secrets. Secrets about what I thought, how I was feeling, about who I was. And I know that I still do that now, I like to do that. My secrets are good company.

Is that not healthy? Isn't it the same for everyone?

Welcome back, Jordan!

2009-06-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

In the jungle Peter Andre told Katie Price to put Jordan back in the box. And she tried. She really did. Nobody can doubt that. For the last few years she has been Katie Price, devoted mother of three, all pony club and country pursuits, rarely seen on the club scene, and we all liked Katie just fine. But Jordan was never going to stay in that box forever. She is as much a part of Katie as her children, a creation that made her happy, that made her fortune and that she never fell out of love with. Let’s face it, Jordan has been in Katie’s life far longer than Peter.

Peter has frequently condemned Katie’s former partying lifestyle, saying in various interviews and in his autobiography - ‘I don’t trust her when she’s drinking. It makes our relationship vulnerable.’ – which says far less about her drinking habits than about his own insecurities. When they met she was in her twenties, now she has just recently entered her thirties and who could blame her if she felt old before her time? The pressures of being a hugely successful working mum surely must demand some me-time and if that includes unwinding over a few cocktails in a Brighton nightclub then it’s horrid to have the man who claims to love you telling you “no”. Defiance and alcohol are a potent combination.

The last week in Ibiza was about Katie reclaiming her youth, her friends, her love of life, perhaps trying to claw back those lost years of her twenties, precious years that she spent in love with Peter Andre. Reclaiming Jordan, gold lamé playsuit and all. I doubt very much that she was the most underdressed woman in BoHo that night. Or the most intoxicated. Was Katie right when she said of her hedonistic week that ‘loads’ of women would do the same thing after a split? Yes, going out with your mates in an effort to drown your heartbreak is one of the more predictable things Katie Price has done in her eventful life.

Katie and Jordan are inseparable. There’s a weepy scene in Dirty Dancing where Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman tells her father, ‘If you love me, you have to love all the things about me.’ Problem is, despite breathing new life into his utterly obsolete career, Peter Andre never did.

Stopping stopping

2009-05-26T03:45:00.000-07:00

I love writing. I really love it. When my fingers are flying over the keyboard and my characters are acting and speaking with their own hearts and minds, seemingly without my input, I am blissfully happy and at peace. When inspiration strikes part-way through a sentence and I recognise A Good Idea (as opposed to just an idea, of which I need a several a day) I light up inside. But I also perversely love the teeth-pulling grind of the wasteland, that stretch to be found in the middle of every book where you are far from the end but can no longer see the beginning when you turn back to shore. A sailor can turn upward to the stars to reassure himself that he is on the right track, a writer cannot. It's scary, but I love it. Even if I only manage a few hundred words, or a chapter rewritten, or a few facts checked, I feel blessed to be able to earn money this way. When I'm not writing, I am twitchy.

I had a busy holiday weekend, and apart from a stolen hour on Sunday afternoon, I was unable to make any progress on the novel (though the garden is looking tip-top) This morning I was hammering away at the keyboard at 7.30, eager to get started, to get on. Because I do love it. And yet...

I keep stopping.

The common paradox I find in the experience of my fellow writers is a kind of self-sabotaging tendency to procrastinate, to ponder, to edit and to waste countless hours on the internet in the name of 'research' or plain old avoidance, when what we all really love to do most of all is write. So why are we not all completing a novel a month and to hell with everything else? Why am I blogging now when all weekend I was itching to get back to the task at hand?

I think it is fear. If you are in the middle of the ocean and cannot see the shore there is a strong temptation to drop anchor and secure yourself, to batten down the hatches and wait to be saved. And the answer? Look up to the stars and trust that you are going in the right direction. If you keep going eventually land will come into sight. even if you find yourself somewhere entirely unexpected. If you stop then the sharks will get you.

And crash-bang-tinkle makes four

2009-05-15T02:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I didn't make the bed properly until ten to five (I spent most of the afternoon in it, writing). With ten minutes to go until I had to pick up C from playschool I straightened the sheets and gave the duvet a quick flick without realising that a CD of the nursery rhyme 'Ten Green Bottles' was hiding in its folds. Out it flew, and landed sharply (sharply? It's round! The damn CD is round!) on the screen of my laptop as it was shutting down.

Crack. A wave a nausea washed over me as I realised what that sound meant. It is possible a softly wailed 'nooooo' escaped my horrified lips.

That's four computers I've trashed during the writing of this one book. Four! 4! For....pity's sake. And I haven't backed up in while, natch. This book will undoubtedly be remembered as the one that destroyed four computers. If I had to recall the others in a similar way they would be as follows:

1. How to be Famous - Big Brother, East Dulwich and being on my own.
2. Ruby Valentine - Brixton days and late, late nights.
3. The Girl Who Had Everything - Poland and screenplays (is it any wonder that one was "the fluffed one"?)
4. Someone to Watch Over Me - Too pregnant to procrastinate.

and now:

5. Best Friends - Mummy is a clumsy idiot.

*adds Toshiba to growing pile of hardware scrap on top of wardrobe*
*sighs*

Moving on then, I have appropriated my sister-in-laws Mac (obviously I haven't told her of the laptop-bashing curse which seems to be upon me) and I will continue where I left off, ever hoping that one day I will work out how to extract what I need from my hard drive or, alternatively, that the computer will miraculously heal itself. Both of these currently feel about as likely as the other.

The plus side is that I will be unable to put off telling the end of my story by going back and editing the beginning. There's always a plus side, right?

40 secrets

2009-04-22T07:43:00.000-07:00

[1] Have you ever been asked out before?
Repeatedly.

[2] Where was your facebook profile picture taken?
On my sister-in-law's bed.

[3] What's your middle name?
Lucy.

[4] Your current relationship status?
Single...for two more weeks.

[5] Do you currently have feelings for someone?
I have feelings for everyone.

[6] What is your current mood?
Optimistic and relaxed.

[7] What colour underwear are you wearing?
Black and black.

[8] What colour shirt are you wearing?
Grey (sigh)

[9] Missing something?
My front door keys.

[10] When was the last time you shaved your legs?
It's been a while...

[11] If you must be an animal for one day, what would you be?
A butterfly and I'd spend most of the day on public transport to add a little magic to each and every journey.

[12] Ever had a near death experience?
I don't think so.

[13] Something you do a lot?
Climb stairs.

[14] The song stuck in your head?
Somewhere, from West Side Story because of the saxophonist on Britain's Got Talent.

[15] How many different drinks have you had today?
Water, tea, coffee and summer fruits squash.

[16] Name someone who has the same birthday as you.
Johnny Depp.

[17] When was the last time you cried?
Watching that saxophonist on BGT.

[18] Have you ever sang in front of a large audience?
Yes, it was the greatest fear I ever overcame.

[19] If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
The ability to talk to animals.

[20] What’s the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
Body.

[21] What do you usually order from Starbucks?
Caramel wafers.

[22] What's your biggest secret?
How I feel.

[23] Favorite colour?
Green.

[24] Do you still watch kiddie shows or tv shows?
Only with my kiddie.

[25] What is a line from one of your favorite songs?
You know I'm yours, for just the taking... - Body and Soul, Billie Holiday

[26] What are you?
Only human.

[27] Do you speak any other language?
A little french, a little spanish, a smattering of every country I've visited (my Nepalese is top notch).

[28] What's your favorite smell?
Thai basil.

[29] Describe your life in one word, what would it be?
Blessed.

[30] What is one thing you would like to learn to do?
Speak fluent Spanish.

[31] Have you ever kissed in the rain?
On occasion.

[32] What are you thinking about right now?
Kissing in the rain.

[33] What should you be doing?
Writing my 4th novel.

[34] Who was the last person to make you upset/angry?
Virgin Media.

[35] How often do you talk to God?
Not as often as God talks to me.

[36] Do you like working in the yard?
In theory.

[37] If you could have any name in the world, what would you want?
Mrs Bradley Whitford.

[38] Do you act differently around the person you like?
No. (Note to Lisa who sent me this questionnaire: This is really supposed to be for teenage girls isn't it?)

[39] What is your natural hair color?
Dark Brown.

[40] Who was the last person to make you cry?
See question 17

Green Eyed Monster

2009-04-08T04:34:00.000-07:00

As emotions go I've always felt jealousy was the biggest waste of time. Writing the newbie, Best Friends, has made me realise it is also a waste of time for creating narrative tension too. Until it manifests itself into an ugly revenge scene jealousy is internal and irrational and rather dull. Which is one of the reasons that my characters are not that jealous of one another. Another reason is that I am rarely jealous of my friends. It's not they too are internal and irrational and rather dull or anything like that, they are splendid, just that I know that I am the choices I make, if I wanted what they have then I would choose to follow. Hence jealousy = waste of time.

However! Two of my online friends are in the first flushes of their publishing deals Lola Jaye and Keris Stainton and their joy and enthusiasm makes me want to tear out my own eyes to see how green they are. I'm not sure if it's because it's been such a long time since I was last published, or because I know I'll never get to experience the magic of the first time again, but having been with them a while on their journeys from hardworking dreamers to bonafide authors it is really quite amazing to remember how it feels. Amazing and, you know, heartbreakingly invidious.

Trying to have a killer April in terms of wordcount and progress (not the same thing in my experience) but keep getting waylaid by the most irresitable diversions. Nothing was supposed to distract me this afternoon but the postman just arrived with MY WEDDING DRESS. Am I really supposed to write about somebody else's wedding rather than try on a frock for my own? No, I don't think so either.

Fifteen minutes later - colour: fabulous, cut: perfect, cloth:hmmmm. I will resist the urge to shop online for possible alternatives and/or shoes. I will. I will.

Let's review

2009-03-06T04:28:00.001-08:00

It's been a year since I started this blog so I thought it might be a useful time to take stock.

With some degree of horror, I notice that it's also almost a year since I sat down to begin the 4th book. What the hell have I been doing with my time? Well, let me tell you....

1) Facebook - I find myself logging onto here whenever I am on the internet. And here was me thinking I was too old for it. Though often it feels like a complete and utter waste of time I do enjoy having some rather wonderful writers as my 'friends' and Aaron Sorkin's amazing question and answer sessions are always a delight. You can become my friend here

2) Being a housewife - This is what they don't tell you about being a mum. You also become a housewife. Once upon a time I cooked, cleaned, washed and generally looked after just one person. Me. Co-habiting brought about another person to consider, but generally housewivery was still a minor part of my life. Then you are a mother and suddenly there is a new person, one who requires more food, more cleaning and more washing than you ever thought possible, one who often seems to leave a trail of crumbs or banana goo wherever she goes and is utterly incapable of doing anything for herself except fetching her own shoes (as long as they are within immediate sight) and sometimes taking washing out the machine (if micro-managed) Being a mum is not all toddler groups, nursery rhymes and crayons let me tell you. Mostly it's housework.

3) Researching book 5 - Very naughty, but lately my favourite form of procrastination (cos it still feels a bit like work, yeah?) is reading everything I can find about bereavement, post-traumatic stress and aid projects in Asia. I am VERY excited about Book 5. Currently my sole motivaion for finishing Book 4 is so that I can start Book 5.

A year on and I'm still not sure what this blog should really be about. I don't feel I do much of anything interesting enough to tell my boyf about when he gets home from the office let alone blog about, so this can't be one of those girl-around-town diaries that I once liked and now am far too jealous of to read. The world needs another yummy-mummy blog like a hole in the head. My interest in celebrity is waning (I know! WTF? Maybe it's the economic climate?) and I sense my writing leaning more towards the strong emotional stories that my agent has always insisted were hidden beneath the glitz of my tittle-tattle. So I am unlikely to be the next Perez Hilton. So what then?

Before this drifts into the kind of existential rant that I simply don't have time for (see above) I should sum up by looking back to my very first blog entry. I may be a housewife not a girl-around-town, I may not rub shoulders with celebrity quite as often as I used to, I may spend way to much time on facebook - but my god I am still zeitgeist enough to have picked Cheryl Tweedy Cole as the subject of my very first post, back when she was just the Geordie one from Girls Aloud. This really has been Cheryl's year and I am happy for her. Maybe all you really need to become a national superstar is a cheating twat of a husband to prove something to.

Not all flaws are fatal

2009-02-24T07:35:00.000-08:00

I always fall in love with the bad guys. Not in real life (my guy is a good soul) but with characters, mine and other people's. With Ruby Valentine I only truly got a handle on her personality after I'd written in an inappropriate tantrum that showed her off at her selfish, solipsitsic, bitchy best. It was one of the most satisfying scenes I ever wrote. From that point on her words and actions fell into place. And I liked her all the more for it. The temptation when creating characters is to heed the old writing tip of 'making a character sympathetic' too simplistically and forget that it is our flaws that make us human. We relate to characters through their imperfections.

When Harry Met Sally will always feature on my favourite films list, as I feel Harry Burns and Sally Albright are two of the best characters ever to grace the screen, but they are both frustrating, obtuse, neurotic and irritating. He burns, she's all bright. Yet compared to innumerable second-rate romantic comedies, where the characters are as blandly sweet as banana bread, Harry and Sally are beacons of hope and humour in a genre currently drifting at sea, tilting at mediocrity and weak-willed women. He's Just Not That Into You anyone? Similarly Becky Sharp, Emma Bovary, Lucky Santangelo and most every classic heroine that comes to mind is, if not a cast-iron bitch, then certainly rolling their almond shaped eyes in that direction.

Currently my bad guy (or gal) is unmistakably more interesting than my good girl. Which means it's time for my good girl to do something bad...

Just Jade

2009-02-04T05:28:00.000-08:00

Jade Goody is dying. She has chosen to share this, for money, with the readers of a national newspaper and viewers of Living TV. So what? She is dying. She can do what the hell she likes.

In 2002 I was working at Channel 4 when Jade Goody was unleashed on the nation as a contestant on the reality show Big Brother. Watching her was part of my job that summer. I took to Jade immediately, a young vivacious girl, often thoughtless, sometimes idiotic, but never scheming, never secretive. Jade is the opposite of an enigma, everything is out there on her sleeve, her heart, her opinions, and now - tragically - her cancer. Those that criticize her for making media deals would clearly prefer that she suffered in private. I can only assume that seeing the raw and brutal truth about this evil disease makes them uncomfortable. Oh dear, what a shame.

In today's newspaper Jade defends her decision to sell her story, acknowledging that she has a limited time to provide some security for her two young sons. I think Jade is a star, I can only hope and pray she continues to shine. I don't feel it is necessary for her to defend herself at all.

I don't do Anne Enright

2009-01-06T05:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. This is January 6th, my first day back at work proper. Anne Enright says that she doesn't do inspiration or blocks she just does work and hopes for the best Which was probably what I needed to hear after the holidays. It still scalds to hear the writing truth though, like when that new author went on Richard and Judy and said her book had only taken her five weeks to write. I wonder how many people were watching Richard and Judy right then instead of writing? There was also a survey saying that housewives spend half their time online, and I wonder how many housewives saw that on the web?

Most of the writers quotes that stay in my head are writers telling me to write harder, Jodi Picoult and her 'can't edit nothing' Stephen King and 'a writer writes' but most of all I remember a day back when I was writing without a deal, six months into How to Be Famous and I called that iconic daytime show This Morning with a question for Jackie Collins. It is really easy to call into a show. I've only done it twice* and got through both times. Anyway, I told Jackie my name was "Melanie" - ashamed enough to need an alibi, the character in H2BF being the name nearest to mind - and that I was halfway through my first novel, finding it hard to stay motivated. How do you do it Jackie? I asked.

And Jackie Collins, bless her, said just sit down and start. She said that in the morning before she has even washed her face she sits at her desk. Just start writing, she said.

Five minutes later I was still watching This Morning until I sternly told myself that asking and getting Jackie's advice on writing and then not following it would be like lighting up as soon as you left a stop-smoking workshop.

Eventually I finished How to be Famous sent it to Judith who said 'like it a lot, not sure about the volcano' and just three short years later it was published. Hmm, February 2010 suddenly seems closer than than I thought.

* Calling I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Now when bungalowed.

Someone to Watch Over Me

2008-11-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

I have a thing about Gershwin. I think it goes with having a thing about Woody Allen, which goes with having a thing about New York. So when new super-ed Lydia came up with Someone to Watch Over Me as my new title I was onboard sooner than a opening lyric. It's romantic, and I don't think the book titles thus far have been particularly romantic. It's also interesting because it was supposed to be a book about a strong woman in a man's world, but despite my best intentions everybody seems to read between the lines to the vulnerable little lamb beneath. My agent and my publisher both talk about this book in terms of emotional depth, placing me with tearjerkers. And I have a thing about tearjerkers. It goes with having a thing about Gershwin.

Here, for your sing-a-long pleasure:

There's a saying old
Says that love is blind -
Still we're often told,
"Seek and ye shalI find."
So I'm going to seek
A certain lad I've had in mind.

Looking everywhere,
Haven't found him yet;
He's the big affair I cannot forget.
Only man I ever
Think of with regret.

I'd like to add his initials to my monogram.
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb.
There's a somebody I'm longing to see
I hope that he
Turns out to be
Someone who'll watch over me.
I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood.
I know I could
Always be good
To one who'll watch over me.

Although he may not be the man some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key.
Won't you telI him please to put on some speed -
Follow my lead -
Oh! How I need
Someone to watch over me.

I wish...

2008-11-07T07:06:00.001-08:00

I wish I was American. I wish I was black. I wish I was Ann Nixon Cooper. I wish I was David Plouffe.

Here and now it is Friday afternoon, at the end of a week which has floated around that surreal moment on Tuesday night when America did the right thing. Since then I have mostly been tired. Now the election is over I feel starved of my fix. No more campaigns to obsess over, only the achingly slow appointment of the key players in a new White House to satisfy my Obama habit. Until January 20th and inauguration, a speech I salivate at the prospect of, when we get to see. Yes we can....what?

Every article I have read - and at this point I feel like I have read all of them - concludes that Obama will inevitably fail to meet the impossibly high expectations. This note of realism makes me sad. I believe in Thinking Big, I believe in making the impossible possible. One can only assume that the President Elect does too. So why not meet expectations? Why not surpass them? Why not at least believe that he can?

My dad's got the x factor

2008-10-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

Things, like a walk in the park/ Things, like a kiss in the dark/ Things, like a railway ride

My father was a wonderful singer. He’s not anymore, he’s dreadful. When I was very small, no more than three or four, we would sing Bobby Darin together, Dad taking the lead with the lyrics, me chiming in with the titular refrain when I got my cue. I thought we sounded beautiful. He was my pop star, my soulful hero, my Tom Jones and my Thom Yorke all rolled into one. Now I wince as I hear him murder Abba on long drives up the M40 to my childhood home, I hang my head in shame when I see video of him wailing Danny Boy in a cruise-ship karaoke bar, and I realise that he probably always sounded like this, like a strangled fox in pain. But then I close my eyes and think of Bobby Darin and I can still hear us perfectly, perfect.

How long is too long?

2008-10-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

I knew it had been a while since I wrote here, but I had no idea it had been quite as long as that. Hopefully by the time STUDS is published I'll have so many posts on here that you'll hardly notice. I must stop calling it STUDS. The title must die. The working title for the Frankfurt book fair is Dangerous Play, which belongs in italics if ever a title did. I have, somewhat predictably gone off it already. Still there's a new editor at Penguin who is going to come up with the perfect title. She's reading it now and I am putting all my chips on her.

Reasons for blog silence many and varied. Have been slow with writing which always makes me feel guilty for doing anything specific except writing. Non-specific displacement activity abounds. Which is ridiculous as a blog post or some admin would be a far better use of my time than cleaning the bathtub or buying vintage leather jackets online. That said, both jacket and bathroom look fabulous so I'll live with it. Reason number 2, was trying to think of a way to make this blog multi-task more efficiently by writing posts that could be published elsewhere. One idea was to post 'open letters' to people in the public eye, dear Jade, dear Sarah Palin, that kind of thing, but with a brief that narrow the incentive to write dried up and so I am back to this. Just me. Rambling.

Book 4 - Best Friends, did I say? - is slower than I would like (especially since we have decided to take December off and go down mexico way) but the story is getting interesting and the characters are getting richer and more complex, which I always like. I have been trying to think of the perfect criminal activity for one particular male character which is VERY BAD without being off the scale paedo-gunman-psycho. I'm thinking arms trade? Where do I start to research that baby? Google here I come...

The process

2008-08-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

Last week a neighbour asked me about my writing process and I stuttered out a poor excuse for an answer and since then I have been wondering whether or not I have one. When I look back over the four novels I have written I can see a clear pattern that goes a little something like this 1. Muse over idea for plot and characters for several weeks. 2. Write like crazy for a short while, about a month 3. Get stuck around the 25,000 word mark and step back for more musing 4. Write the rest of it word by slowly emerging word until I get close to the end then procrastinate in manner of someone who doesn't like things ending. 5. Finish and wonder why I procrastinated.

Then I have a first draft.

I am currently emerging from my favourite stage, stage 3, the one where I have made decent headway but need to distance myself to look again at my plot and characters, taking into account what the writing is turning up. During this period everything and nothing counts as work and I spend too much time on the internet 'researching'. But now, as I flex my brain to get into stage 4, the real graft of the novel, I am excited. For the last month I have been thinking, thinking, thinking and it will be a relief to get outside my head for a while, even if only onto the page. I am always pleasantly surprised when the gap between mind and matter seems minimal.

The search for a title for Studs continues. My editor and I have arranged to meet for cocktails to discuss. I just hope we don't get lost in the murky depths of some dirty martinis and forget to come up with one.

what is glamour?

2008-07-30T05:23:00.001-07:00

My agent says that she doesn't know if I'm glamorous enough. I asked her to consider that maybe I am bringing myself down to her level when we chat and when I put the phone down I replace my clip-on earrings, fix myself an apple martini and listen to old Ella Fitzgerald 78's. But she was unconvinced. What of my urban warrior lifestyle, I demanded, what of my massive carbon footprint and my hollywood husband? But no, apparently because I get my £400 handbags from friends instead of Selfridges I am "down-to-earth". This is quite possibly the worst thing anyone has said to me all week.

But I looked in the mirror and saw my denim cut offs and dayglo yellow vest (Mexico es Para Los Amores), my default wardrobe during these last few hot days and wondered if she has a point. Rita Hayworth was glamour and you'd never see her sporting such white trash apparel. Is Amy Whitehouse glamorous? Yes, in a Janis Joplin, Courtney Love kind of way. So if I just take shitloads of drugs I can keep wearing this scanty outfit but be glamorous nonetheless. Stars like Kate Winslet and Rachel Weisz are famously down to earth and congratulated as such, but they are indisputably glamorous too. That's the answer, I can be both!

I was on the phone within moments to rally the troops and have arranged brunch at The Wolseley and drinks in Soho over the next 24 hours. But maybe I'll change what I'm wearing first.

Help! I feel micro-managed...

2008-07-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Another day, another set of revisions from the lovely people at penguin (shh, don't tell but I had to type lovely through gritted teeth there.) They are small notes and, as ever, make sense, but this is the first book I have ever had to do such revisions on and I am starting to feel a bit, well, rubbish.

With How to be Famous and again with Ruby Valentine my publisher accepted my first manuscript, no rewrites (rewrites that they were involved in, I rewrote it myself with input from agent and loved ones natch) and now I find myself getting these very complimentary emails which say absurdly flattering things but at their heart are saying - no, not quite, not yet, try harder. Perhaps, thus far, I have not tried sufficiently hard. That is certainly an accusation that could be leveled at a writer who is also trying hard to be a good mother and, um, read the entire world wide web. But with every (perfectly reasonable) suggestion I die a little inside because I feel like I should have got it right first time. Or second. Or third, I mean for crying out loud.

The input is undoubtedly helping Studs be a better story, helping me to be a better writer, so what's my problem? I don't like to be any trouble. And with this book, this glorious almost finished thank g_d book, I feel like I have been a great deal of trouble indeed. What with The Fluffed One and the flit around the world (twice) and the unmarried pregnancy I have been one seriously high-maintenance employee. That the lovely freelance penguin ed has had to read and re-read my MS three times now and construct her coercing emails with thought and insight makes me feel guilty.

Then my agent suggested that perhaps freelance ed is billing Penguin by the hour. Unlikely though I know this is, I choose to believe it. Because it's a preferable alternative to feeling high-maintenance, guilty or - heaven forbid - rubbish.

If I wasn't me...

2008-07-15T05:03:00.001-07:00

I read an interview with a US agent recently about how the blog has become an invaluable tool for wannabe (or more politely want-to-be) writers. Looking back on my own time as an agent I can see why. It has always been standard practice to ask a writer to send a CV as well as those all important sample chapters and synopsis in order to learn something about the writer as well as the writing. Nowadays a blog says it all. It is a way of saying, this is me, this is how I write, this is what I think. Any prospective publisher can immediately grasp who you are and what you are about. An uber-CV if you like.

Woe betide the blogger who does not blog from the heart. I read a number of blogs by unpublished authors and the best are those with an authentic personality, utterly consistent with the kind of work they are producing. A funny comedy writer, or a soulful poet. I prefer blogs about readers and not cheques, passion and not prizes, when they enthuse about their writing instead of curse about the bastards 'out there' not recognising their genius. Although of course the inevitable muse about where to go from here, the rant over the unfinished project, is part of the writing life it is only a small part. We all know the biggest part don't we?*

I very much recommend the new element I have added in my blog up there on the top left hand side, a word count for the current novel so that all the world can see when I am writing and when I am just writing about writing. I lifted it from Keris Stainton's blog. And if I could figure out how to do that damn link thing I'd link to her here, as Keris has a fabulous blog that is saturated with her hopes, her humour, her family and her heart. It won't change the world but it is self-indulgent without being egocentric, sweet without being trite. It makes me want to read her. It makes me wish I was an agent still so that I could represent her. Even though I haven't read her book. Yet. I'm confident that one day I'll be able to buy Keris in all good bookstores.

And me? Well I don't need a deal. Thank god. But if I did then this blog would contain a lot more stories about sex.

*duh, writing

links

2008-07-04T02:52:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know how to incorporate a link into the body of your post? Do you just type it? Like this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/6-MT-Swim-Spa-Hot-Tub-Swimming-Pool-Swimspa_W0QQitemZ120278221521QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item120278221521&_trkparms=72%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C65%3A12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Or not.

Jennifer Weiner's blog is peppered with just enough fascinating links to occupy my morning coffee break. Reading her pick of the New York Times, or Bookseller or Television Without PIty is my favourite way to get the day going. I could do that. If only I could work out the link thing...

-

I worked it out all by myself! There's a little, um, clickable thingy up there next to the bold and italic clickable thingies.

no, wait, that doesn't seem to be it....hey, shouldn't I be writing a book or something???

-

At last! Cracked it. Wow, am genius, I should get a job in IT.

best bitch

2008-07-02T08:20:00.000-07:00

On June 18th the inaugural Melissa Nathan Awards were held in London. Melissa Nathan is the hugely talented author of romantic comedy (chicklit) novels such as The Nanny and The Waitress and more. Sadly she died aged 37 and these awards were set up in her memory. Now, if such a sad story of a talented writer taken before her time isn't inspirational enough, then a list of the award categories might be.

Best Bitch? Best Bastard? Best First Kiss?

It's like the MTV movie awards, I love it. I remember in 1993 when then unknown Alicia Silverstone won Best Villain for The Crush I was thrilled to be the only person in the world (or so it seemed) to have seen the film, mainly as I had a bit of a crush - ok, raving infatuation - on co-star Cary Elwes. But I digress.

I'm not sure that the books I write will ever be eligible for The Melissa Nathan awards - I think they veer too wildly away from the sassy chicklit scribes with their warm hearts and belief in soulmates, I doubt I am either funny or romantic enough to qualify - but writing the character of Chrissie Morton in Broadcast Whores is an exercise in aiming for Best Bitch. I love her. Or rather, I love to hate her, and that's got to be a good thing - right?

I love writing bitches. After all, they do say write what you know and I've 33 years of bitch experience under my skinny belt.

Lemonade into laptops doesn't go

2008-06-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

For the last few years I have noticed a pattern when it comes to my health and my writing. When I deliver a new manuscript I wake up the next day with a cold. I'm ridiculously predictable in this regard. I will type that final full stop and I can feel my throat tickling before the last page has rolled off the printer. It's clear to me that my body, mind and spirit are in cahoots and my body kindly wards off ailments until I have a convenient window in my schedule.

But something rather strange is occurring, while my body languishes with it's annual cold, my computer chooses this ideal opportunity to sicken too. True, both times have been 100% human error (aka my fault). A year ago I picked up my laptop by the screen and it cracked, and last week in a personal pinnacle of stupidity I sloshed a glass of ice cold lemon, lime and bitters over the keyboard.

When I get a cold I think it's my body's way of telling me to rest for a while. Is the "accidental" destruction of the tool of my trade in case I didn't get the memo?

Alas, the lemon, lime and bitters incident rendered my Toshiba Portege permanently obselete, but worry not as today the nice man from DHL delivered a replacement from the other nice man at ebay.

Wow. And again Wow. Computers sure have grown up since the last time I bought one. This one weighs about the same as a teabag for starters and is so sexy, skinny and shiny that at first I mistook it for Megan Fox.

So my cold has gone, I have a new laptop, and it's a monday. Looks like I need to get back to work. A few more notes have arrived from the Penguins on Book 3, nothing too onerous, while the search for an alternative title continues. Book 4 is shaping up nicely and the Primo-bitch character is fantastic fun to write.

Meanwhile the sun is shining and no beverage is more refreshing (or more efficient at destroying circuit boards) than the one detailed below:

1 large glass of lemonade
1 glug of lime cordial
A generous shake of angostura bitters
Ice

Mix and drink (carefully)

clever? moi?

2008-06-16T02:52:00.000-07:00

I suggested a new title for book 4 to my agent and editor. Agent 'rather liked it' which from my Cowell-esque agent is high praise. But editor is 'musing'. She said she wasn't sure if it was right for a book so, quote, 'clever and beautifully written'.

But...but...flattering though that is, clever and beautifully written is not who I am. Flimsy and fabulous perhaps. Or even smart and sexy. If they want clever and beautifully written then I can do that too, but that's not what this is! And anyone who picks up the book wanting it to be so is likely to be sorely disappointed. So I am confused. i am trying to crack on with the next book, working title Broadcast Whores (BW) but editors response has thrown me a bit. With each new sentence I'm thinking, is it clever? is it beautiful? Oh the pressure. It's like being a clever and beautiful fifteen year old all over again. I write what I write because it is FUN and I would hope that's why you read it.

Who am I?

A cab driver once asked me what I did and when I described my books to him he said - ooh, you're like a chavvy author - and I loved that description. I want glitter on my front covers and lots of !!!!! in my reviews. Hell, being clever and beautiful is just my day job.

return of the amazon

2008-06-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

I delivered the new draft of Book 4 on monday morning and all week I have been feeling a little adrift. Since the girl was born I have been running to the computer every time she sleeps and now, when she sleeps, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with myself. Book 5? No, not yet, I need a little breather. Daytime television? No, doesn't feel right and anyway Big Brother hasn't started yet so there's really nothing on. Surf the internet? No, surprisingly unpleasant when it's not procrastination. Housework? Well, no, because then what would I do as a spectatator sport for the girl later? Obviously, shopping, walking, exploring this city and her various cultural pursuits are all impossible because leaving the girl asleep in the cot and heading off out is not that done thing (though come on, she'd be fine) Hmmm, what on earth do I do? It is all odd and new to me, this dead time, and feels rather depressing. Until I remember something that I used to do, once, a long time ago. Read. In the middle of the day. Not just in bed at night. Read and read. So I've just had a big old amazon splurge, the likes of which I may not have again for some time, and now I'm sitting here wishing I'd gone for overnight delivery instead of supersaver because they might not come for three days. From David Foster Wallace to Marian Keyes, those books are coming. And I cannot wait.

Good ideas

2008-05-19T12:36:00.001-07:00

The problem with announcing that I have a good idea is that I risk feeling like a bonzo when my editors tell me that it's not. Nevertheless, this morning in bed one of my first fully formed thoughts was a new ending for book 4, something I have been flailing around for for a while. I knew it was a good one because it felt right. Neat. And I didn't need to think about it for very long. I thought I'd blog on this because often I think the best ideas are the ones that actually don't need too much thinking about at all. They pop into your mind ready to go. Tis, and I don't want to get too whimsical in case my cover as a cynical glam gal is blown, a little like love. When it's right there's really nothing to think about. You just recognise a good thing for what it is and get on with it.

Big Night Out

2008-05-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I was lucky enought to be invited to the premiere of the new Sex and the City film. The party after the Leicester Square screening was at Old Billingsgate Market, a venue on the banks of the Thames with spectacular views of Tower Bridge (party tip: these days smokers get all the best views). SJP was there, entertainment was provided by the Sugababes and there was an acrobat hanging upside down from the ceiling pouring glasses of champagne – no, seriously. Also the party was the best catered event I have ever been to.

Non-stop canapés, from tiny eggs benedict the size of pennies, to small dishes of risotto and cones of steak and chips. A heaving buffet, with oysters, langoustines, roast beef, pommes dauphinoise, artichoke salad, and much much more. Then the desserts, shot glasses of chocolate mousse, towers of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, fresh fruit with pecan nuts.

And let’s not forget this is the Sex and the City premiere, starring a woman whose waist is as thin as my ankle.

I walked around the room (I couldn’t help but wander) and my attention was grabbed by a group of twenty-somethings pushing two tables together and having a slap up meal for eight. They piled the food high onto plates and sat down properly with knives and forks, clearly unable to believe their luck. Meanwhile I’m standing chatting to an exhibitor balancing my silver clutch bag, a cosmopolitan and a cone of steak and chips, while wishing for a third hand.

Twelve years ago I ate my first oyster at the premiere for Batman Forever (the one with George Clooney) and my friends and I did the exact same thing as these twenty-somethings, ignored the room and concentrated on eating, drinking and being merry. Last night I met many interesting people but I would have much rather been with my friends, and when you are slaving in your twenties in a brand new city for no money and sexy perks like premieres your colleagues become your friends. So every party rocks.

I don’t know who those twenty-somethings were last night. But they looked like they were having the most fun of anyone there. And though I felt old and a bit dull, it was good to think back to parties past and appreciate the good times we had.

And the film? Well, I loved it. But I knew I would. It’s Sex and the City. It’s Carrie and Big, it’s Steve and Miranda, Charlotte and Harry, Samantha and Smith. It’s fashion and cocktails and friendship. It’s downtown, midtown and yellow cabs, Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge. What, and I mean WHAT, is not to love?

The ripple effect

2008-05-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

I am exactly halfway through the rewrite on Book 3. I enjoy rewrites, especially when I have other people's notes to act as my framework (in this case an insightful editor at Penguin) but I fear The Ripple Effect. The ripple effect is what happens when you change one thing - for example, I have shifted a major incident in my main character's past - and this action, this dropped stone, carries on across the manuscript right until the edges. Today, just now in fact, I got to the point in the novel where the incident originally was. But it's not there now, which would be fine except the incident (let's call it A) led to B and without A how do I now get to B? I can't cut B, but I can't move B either. So I'm stuck.

(Which is always the perfect time to check emails and see if they have that travel cot I want on ebay)

The ripple effect makes rewriting a manuscript or a screenplay a little like playing a game of chess, having to see the big picture and think several moves ahead. And I never was exceptionally good at chess. But the big changes, the paradigm shifts, are what make a rewrite more than a polish. You can polish as much as you like but if something is not working then all you have is a shiny but useless thing.

So though I fear it, I know it is worthwhile. Probably more worthwhile than coming on line to find out how old Mariah Carey is merely to satisfy an idle curiosity (38, is that all? feels like she's been around for as long as Madonna and Madonna is 50) And so now I shall go back to where A used to be and figure out what to do about B.

Once upon a time...

2008-04-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

..in days gone by I had all the time in the world to write and yet I still struggled with self-discipline. Now motherhood has placed unfathomable demands on my time and I have distinct and narrow windows where writing is possible, and yet in many ways it feels as if nothing has changed. The internet, the garden and the kettle still call to me with promises of productive procrastination. I know I am not alone, writer friends both real and virtual have the same....I was going to say 'problem' but in the grand scheme of life that word sounds very wrong...have the same bad habits.

Jodi Picoult, she of the prolific output of what I like to call legal heartwrenchers, says that she writes for several hours a day every day, after all you can edit crap but you can't edit nothing. Good advice Jodi, but how does she get herself to her desk without fail? Today I saw a picture of where she writes, a gorgeous attic with far reaching views, book lined walls and the perfect cherry wood desk. So I imagine that it's a pleasure for Jodi to sit down. Though I live in one the most cramped cities in the world and my home is small (but sweet) today I created a perfect writing space, a corner upstairs, with a plant for greenery, a shelf for reference, all within wailing distance of CJ, in the hope that self-discipline is more nurture that nature.

Today's writing advice: Love where you work.

Book 4

2008-04-14T04:41:00.000-07:00

As I wait for Penguin to get back to me with their thoughts on Book 3 I am trying to get a headstart on Book 4. It is the first time I have written without a looming deadline for a few years and it's liberating. When you have a deadline pressing down on you it is hard to feel anything but disappointment at the end of a day's (hour's) work. That depressing 'should have done more' shame. But now every word is a bonus I can feel proud of my above-and-beyond-the-call efforts even if it's just a thirty minute burst at naptime (claudia's naptime, not mine, motherhood has irritatingly robbed me of my ability to snooze during the day.)

Oftentimes I daydream of a life where can write when the mood takes me, and WHAT the mood takes me too. Starting a new book is a massive committment. There comes a point when you are past the point of no return, you can edit and rewrite later but essentially your story, your characters and particularly your world are your ball and chain. I think perhaps that was my mistake with book 3 and a half, the one that never was, which my mum calls (love this) The Fluffed One. I realised too late into The Fluffed One that the world - glamour models - had been demystified and was no longer (ironically) glamorous. I'm sure it was whan I started. Instead of bravely ditching the tale, no matter how far I had gone, I tried to bend it and shape it and make it better when I would have been far better off retracing my steps and starting again on an entirely different path. It was like staying with a bad boyfriend rather than admit that you'd wasted all that time.

Never mind. Lesson learnt and all that. Onward. Broadcast Whores. They're still glamorous right?

zeitghost

2008-04-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

I paused and rewound outside a bookshop yesterday when I noticed that Nick Hornby has a new book out (SLAM, probably very good but I'm devouring journalism memoirs right now as I prep for book 4) I was surprised because I didn't know that Hornby's book was coming. I was appalled when I realised that this is merely the paperback edition and that this book came out a year ago. A YEAR! And I didn't even notice. In a previous life I would have known about it first. Nick Hornby used to be my boss's top client. I once stayed up all night reading a draft manuscript of HOW TO BE GOOD (excellent) so that I could be one the very first people in the world to do so. And now he has had a book out there for a YEAR and the first I knew of it was a rain-splattered dash down Peckham High Street with my Pliko Pramette fore, racing to pick up the drycleaning before the shop closed.

Things have got to change.

I love being a yummy mummy but I miss being Little Miss Zeitgeist. I need to get my finger on the pulse once more, I need to be at the cutting edge, the forefront of media fashion, the dawn of the entertainment trend. The drycleaning can wait.

I Love Dustin Hoffman

2008-03-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

I just do.

One night a long time ago I was asked who I would want to be stranded with on a desert island. Dustin, no contest. Meanwhile my friend Simon spent twenty minutes agonising between two porn stars (before settling on Vanessa Blue). I admit that I didn't think of sex first (though Dustin, I would) and had I then maybe my answer would have drifted more toward the likes of Emmanuel Petit (1998 version) but I remain true to my first instinct. He just seems fun, funny. Engaging. Engaged.

Have you heard the story about Dustin cooking scrambled egg for six (including Kevin Spacey and Rupert Everett) in the Groucho Club kitchens at dawn following the Bafta awards? I choose to believe it. Because I love Dustin Hoffman.

I just saw him on TMZ being tailed by peristent paps. They kept asking him who he'd vote for Hillary or Obama, he kept schtum, then his mobile rang and he answered deadpan 'Hi Barack, what's up?'.

He is seventy years old. Seventy. But I still would.

bothered?

2008-03-17T03:31:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a few days in Spain and while there was reminded of a statistic I heard on a Woman’s Hour item a few weeks back. 60% of Spanish women are happy with the way they look, compared to just 3% of British women. As the item unfolded, asking how Brits could become more like their Spanish sisters, I found myself wondering why being unhappy with the way that you look is such a bad thing?

A general grumpiness with appearance is just another expression of the British predilection for complaint. To be clear, I’m not talking about complaining in a restaurant or a shop, the British are far too sheepish for that kind of thing, but rather a tendency to chat to friends and neighbours about what’s wrong in our world – the weather, the politicians, the latest failed diet or disastrous holiday, last night’s telly, the job, the commute, the kids, the missus. We are a nation of critics.

Do I have to be happy with everything about myself? Why can’t I dislike my emerging grey hairs and my post-baby body and my dark circles? Nobody’s perfect, but life is too short and I am too lazy for hair dye and stomach crunches and everyday make-up. Knowing that I could change things if I wanted to only compounds my misery. It’s not fate that makes me look the way I do, its slothfulness. It’s my own fault, fuck it, pour me another glass of red.

Why must I learn to be comfortable in my own body? Can’t I just bitch and spend a fortune on Spanx pants until I wake up in Jessica Biel’s? We are constantly bombarded by the media with the need for self-confidence, self-worth, self-love, self-reliance and I for one am tired of all this self-self-self. Maybe that 3% need to spend a little less time in front of the mirror.

Cheryl and Ashley

2008-03-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

Twas February 23rd that my third novel (technically 4th but more on that another time) was given the nod by Judith and so sent off to Penguin for their thoughts. It’s called Studs now. That might change. This blog is part displacement activity from the 4th novel (technically 5th, but I’ll stop doing that now) and the other part so that I have something to contribute to those lovely girls in publicity and marketing when in about a year from now Studs is published.

Jennifer Weiner wrote on her blog (the star turn of her excellent website) that any author who didn’t have a website these days was…well, I forget her exact adjective but it wasn’t one that I would want to be.

So here I am.

I had two blogs previously. One – Adventures of the Queen of Clubs, on which I was going to write a burlesque novel episodically while living in Krakow. That didn’t happen. And Waiting To Meet You, which was a short pregnancy blog. That did.

Writing a blog is like being a celebrity (bear with me) in that everything you say is there to haunt you and a few months - years, days? - down that line you feel like chewing your own mouth off to shut yourself up. Cheryl Cole once said on the record ‘if Ashley cheats I’ll kill him’ and so lately must be wishing that she hadn’t been quite so hyperbolic. Either that or her recent forgiveness is just a clever ploy to get back into the marital home so that she can slip some arsenic into his lucozade.

I thought he was an idiot for cheating (I went so far as to join the facebook group Ashley Cole, What A Wanker) and wanted Cheryl to do an Aleesha Dixon on his ass and be Cheryl Tweedy once more but without the toilet room assaults, but since her change of heart I have been thinking that perhaps Cheryl was right to do a Posh.

American divorce statistics are the highest in the world because they place a high importance on fidelity. Ooh la la, Cheryl Tweedy Cole is practically French.