Archive for December, 2008

More happy Christmas

December 27, 2008 | 6 Comments

It was the night after the night after Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

Mr Bennet was at the gym and Tescos and Ms Bennet had gone to the Bullring…meanwhile Mother had sneaked upstairs to try and finish the flipping book! I feel desperate to write after a week off. Is that sad or normal?

I’ve had a frankly, idle Christmas, forced upon me by two colds and a bug. Everyone seems to have had some lurgy or other and my resolution to visit the gym every day has gone down the pan. Despite all this, it was lovely sharing Christmas with mums and dads. I had tickets to see Russell Brand (I hope that doesn’t put you off buying my books.) I also had a gorgeous tapestry handbag, some bath delights and the Radio 4 Write Stuff quiz book. I even cooked a Nigella soup and made her Poinsettia cocktails

Festive blog

December 17, 2008 | 8 Comments

Thanks for the posts and messages via the contact form. If anyone is having trouble seeing an updated version of the blog can they let me know?

However you won’t see this post if you are having trouble …but you might just arrive here via another blog. I’m confused as usual…

Newsletter news

I’ve also decided to do what I vowed I would never do and set up a twice yearly newsletter after Christmas to let you know what I’m up to, writing wise. I don’t like bothering people, you see. I get really PO when I get spammed by authors on Facebook but if people have actually asked to be included, that’s okay. Sorry, but I’m British and I just hate the hard sell! A quick flash of firm bum, I feel, is always preferable to a full frontal.:)

So, if you want to be added, let me know or I might email and ask you politely. There will be more details in the New Year.

Nigella no news

I’ve bought the ingredients for two Nigella recipes – Cranberry and White Choc Cookies and Butternut Squash/Sweet Potato soup but not actually made anything yet. I still feel knackered after the lurgy to be honest. I really hope I don’t open the store cupboard this time next year to find an out-of-date bag of pecans, manky cranberries and a shrivelled up butternut squash. Somehow I don’t think the white choc chips will be wasted.

Book news

First draft done. Editing required. Thinking time needed. I won’t bore you with the angst.

Finally, if I don’t get back to the blog before, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Milton Keynes Today

December 16, 2008 | 4 Comments

I think the interview went well – even with me in jim jams. The presenter on Milton Keynes Today (Yes, an Alan partridge moment for me) was a lovely woman, great fun and the whole thing was light hearted. We talked about Mr Darcy and Mr Rochester and concluded there’s no harm in a bit of romantic escapism, I feel.

Apparently the female studio team has the hots for Matthew MacFadyen as Arthur Clennam and Mr Darcy.

Bleurghh

December 15, 2008 | 7 Comments

I’ve had the lurgy, with headaches and sickness, and been in bed over the weekend but I have got to be up bright and early tomorrow (Tuesday December 16th) to talk about romantic comedy (it gives you unrealistic expectations of love according to a recent university ’study.’)

BBC Three Counties Radio at 7.50 am. OMG. I have asked them to call me at 7.30 to wake me up.

Book at a standstill and Nigella Christmas untouched.

Crossed Wires – guest writer

December 12, 2008 | 7 Comments

Today, we have a guest blogger. It’s Rosy Thornton, author of three novels published by Headline Review – including her latest, Crossed Wires, which is out in hardback this week. I first met Rosy in November 2004 via the BBC Drama messageboard where we’d gathered to talk about North & South and John Thornton (Rosy’s dad is actually a real life John Thornton.) We both started writing fanfic and we both sold our novels to the same group with two weeks of each other in 2006.

So here is Rosy, as self deprecating as ever, to talk about Crossed Wires.

It is very kind of Phillipa to ask me to blog about my new novel, ‘Crossed Wires.’

The past week or so, since my advance copies arrived, has been very scary, as I’ve imagined the publisher’s review copies winging their way to strangers’ desks. But the scariest thing of all, in the event, was much close to home. My daughter decided to read the book.

I should explain, at this point, that the two protagonists in ‘Crossed Wires’ are both single parents. At the time I began to write the novel, in 2007, my own daughters were aged 11 and 8. It occurred to me that I had not yet tried writing a book where children were among the central characters, and with two examples at home to observe, it seemed like a challenge I might enjoy. Hence I endowed the male MC, Peter, with twin 9-year-old girls and the female MC, Mina, with a daughter of 10. As well as the interest of trying to depict the children themselves, I gave my characters children the age of my own two so that I could explore some of the anxieties and exasperations of parenthood, as well as the small daily joys.

All well and good, you might think – but children grow. My eldest is no longer that 11 year old: she is all of twelve-and-a-half and an avid reader of teen and YA chick lit. When the advance copies arrived this time she breezed into the kitchen and picked one up, eyes lighting on the pink, cartoon-style cover.

Daughter: Is this your new book?
Me (the proud but shy author): Yes.
Daughter: What’s it about?’
Me: It’s a love story.
Daughter’s eyes light up and she disappears up to her bedroom with the book.

Now, I fear she was always liable to be disappointed: the book contains no sex or even snogging. Her reaction, in fact, was fairly neutral. She enjoyed spotting one or two family in-jokes that I’d put in the book, and overall said it was ‘OK’.

My own reaction was much more complicated – and, frankly, alarmed. How did this happen? How did she move from being on a level with the children in the book – the objects of my authorial observation, to be clucked over by readers my own age, with children of their own – to being old enough to read the book herself, and possibly identify with the parents’ point of view? How did she become one of my readership?

It isn’t, I hasten to add, that I have written dark parental secrets into the book which I wouldn’t want her knowing. It might even be good for our relationship that she should see something of my side of the fence, of parenthood as I perceive it. I suppose if you’d asked me, I’d have said I would want my girls to read the book some day. Maybe when they were 18. Or 35, perhaps, with kids of their own. But now, already, when she still wants the Blue Peter annual for Christmas, and goes to sleep cuddling Winnie the Pooh?* It just all seems a bit… too soon.

Maybe my next novel will be about a nonplussed mother who is surprised to find her kids have turned into teenagers while she’s out getting a pint of milk.

*If she ever stumbles upon this blog, I am a dead woman!

Crossed Wires is available now from Amazon or from all good bookshops. Paperback out in April 2009 from Headline Review.