This week has been a fun week. On Monday I went to the Romantic Novelist Association Romantic Novel of The Year Award. Now as we all know by now, mainly because I have harped on about it at some length, I was longlisted but not shortlisted for this award. A fact which I am absolutely fine and not bitter about in the least little bit, in fact my support group leader (Longlisted But Not Shortlisted Romantic Novelists Annonymous) says I'll be over the rejection and dissapointment in plenty of time for next year. And actually when I got there I was partly glad that I wasn't shortlisted, because at least I didn't have the nerve wracking wait to find out who had won. It was a lovely event, Helen Lederer was head jusge and an extremely funny speaker and eventually the award went to Freya North, who is a very talented and deserving winner and donated her prize money to a cancer charity in memory of a friend, which was touching and admirable.
One thing you may not know about Romantic Novelists is that they party hard. In fact because I so rarely get to hang out with a group of them (Is there a collective noun for a group of Romantic Novelists? A small prize for anyone who can think of one.) I didn't know that they party hard. But no, the largely female company was very, very keen to get to the pub and I was sad that my commitment to the writing class I teach meant I could staying drinking long into the night with them. In fact one very famous and important RN left me a message the next day to say that her hangover was really, really awful. I shall not name names.
Later this week I went to Harper Collins to film an interview that will go on the new Ruby Parker website when it is launched. That was fun too, although the questions were hard and sometimes I had to think of interesting and child friendly answers rather than the flat out honest ones that first came to mind. If I'd have gone with my first impulse this is what the interview would have run like:
THEM 'What is your biggest regret?
ME 'My inability to wear a hipster jean.'
THEM 'What do you lay awake thinking about at night?'
ME 'Cheese'
THEM 'What is your idea of perfect happiness?'
ME 'Cheese on Toast'
THEM 'What was your most embarassing moment?'
ME 'Walking through Leicester Square in a wrap dress that had come undone and wondering why I was getting so many admiring glances (or looks of horror, depending on your POV)
THEM 'If you had a super power what would it be.'
ME 'Shopping. Oh no, wait - I have that super power already.'
If you want to see the answers I actually gave you will be able to see the interview on the new website up in March sometime I hope. I'll post a line when I have one. They don't involve cheese.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Monday, 14 January 2008
Crossed off the list!
Well friends, I did not make the shortlist for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year. The writers who did make are all excellent and very deserving and I was honestly so pleased to be on the long list in the first place.
I really feel it is an important award because it is the only one that recognises that writers of popular fiction and yes, even romantic fiction, put as much care and devotion into their work with just as much skill and talent as the far more widely critically recognised writers of literary fiction do. So Good luck to all on the shortlist from me.
I really feel it is an important award because it is the only one that recognises that writers of popular fiction and yes, even romantic fiction, put as much care and devotion into their work with just as much skill and talent as the far more widely critically recognised writers of literary fiction do. So Good luck to all on the shortlist from me.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Roll on Hot Cross Buns
Well another Christmas has been tidied away, a surplus of chocolates and mince pies have been hefted on to high shelf and I have solemnly promised that I will not be getting the step ladder out to reach them (starting tomorrow.....) I find it such an odd time of year, everyone determined to be jolly and love each other when really actually its perhaps the most fiercely difficult time.
Especially if one is allergic to Christmas Trees.
Anyway I'm looking forward to the Spring. I'm a Spring kind of person. I like days with blues skies but a chill in the air, that kind of crisp new day freshness that puts syncopation in your step and make you dream of the heat of the summer. Which is curious really because I don't like hot summers. I get terrible heat rash. Which is why I've always thought I'd like to live in Switzerland.
I have not made resolutions, except I have committed myself to running a half marathon. Me! Thirteen odd miles, the woman who gets puffed out climbing the step ladder to reach the chocs on the high shelf. OK I exaggerate a little. I do, or rather have run, quite regularly for the last year, but never further than six miles. Everyone assures me that running 13 of them will be like a piece of cake but I am fairly certain it won't be. I can probably say for sure right now that there will be no butter icing and liberal dollops of jam involved. I think there will be pain, probably, wobbly legs definitely and a great deal of coming last. But I don't mind if I come last as long as I finish it.
I don't really know why I want to do it, I'm not a sports kind of girl normally. Normally I'm a high heeled sequined detail kind of girl but I was once on the school cross country B team when I was about eleven and it wasn't my speed that won me the place nor even my stamina but simply my determination never to stop. And that is how I am going to attack the half marathon and indeed this year. I shall keep going and do my best.
After all, what else can anyone do?
Especially if one is allergic to Christmas Trees.
Anyway I'm looking forward to the Spring. I'm a Spring kind of person. I like days with blues skies but a chill in the air, that kind of crisp new day freshness that puts syncopation in your step and make you dream of the heat of the summer. Which is curious really because I don't like hot summers. I get terrible heat rash. Which is why I've always thought I'd like to live in Switzerland.
I have not made resolutions, except I have committed myself to running a half marathon. Me! Thirteen odd miles, the woman who gets puffed out climbing the step ladder to reach the chocs on the high shelf. OK I exaggerate a little. I do, or rather have run, quite regularly for the last year, but never further than six miles. Everyone assures me that running 13 of them will be like a piece of cake but I am fairly certain it won't be. I can probably say for sure right now that there will be no butter icing and liberal dollops of jam involved. I think there will be pain, probably, wobbly legs definitely and a great deal of coming last. But I don't mind if I come last as long as I finish it.
I don't really know why I want to do it, I'm not a sports kind of girl normally. Normally I'm a high heeled sequined detail kind of girl but I was once on the school cross country B team when I was about eleven and it wasn't my speed that won me the place nor even my stamina but simply my determination never to stop. And that is how I am going to attack the half marathon and indeed this year. I shall keep going and do my best.
After all, what else can anyone do?
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
The Magic of Lists
It seems to me that this Christmas is largely about lists. The first list was my six year old's Christmas list. She has recently become quite adept at reading and writing which has afforded her much greater opportunities when it comes to writing a wish list of presents for Father Christmas. Until this year she would dictate to me and we kept it fairly basic, short, to the point. Then we posted it up the chimney which as we all know is the most efficient way to reach Santa.
This year however she came upon me in the kitchen and hefted the most recent Argos catalogue onto the table, no mean feat considering it is almost her equal in weight.
'I'm writing my list, Mummy,' she informed me, running off to get her felt tips and some paper. 'It's going to be colour coded.'
'Marvelous,' I said. 'Good idea.'
Never one to pass an opportunity for fifteen minutes of peace and a cup of tea I left her to it. Then about an hour later I thought I'd see how she was doing because I have never yet known her to labour so long over anything. Her list was indeed colour coded arranged in neat columns and covered two sides of A4.
'Can I Look?' I asked her, awe struck.
'I'm not finished,' she said. 'I haven't done Elec-tric-al goods yet.'
I scanned the list, noticing it included not only the item, but the catalogue number and the page number too. It started with a 9ct gold teddy bear diamante pendant, moved on eventually to a garden set including chairs and a table and then one washer/dryer machine, a multifunctional kitchen chopping system and finally toys.
As I read it and looked down at her face, shining with so much pleasure and pride and I realised it wasn't the items on the list that drove her to make the list (Although she has been longing for some of the toys) but more the pleasure, freedom and power of being able to write it herself. The joy of creating words, of finding another way to communicate language had inspired her.
I tried to think back to that moment that I must of had, that almost all of us must have had when we have that first thrill and rush of realising what an incredible world the ability to read and write unlocks for us. It must have been a golden moment, even though as a dyslexic I struggled more than most to grasp those tools. And so for me those particular hard fought skills still bring me golden hours every day whether I'm reading a book or writing one and I think they are the greatest gifts that I have ever been given. My daughter felt free when she was writing her list, and I love that she felt that way.
Not sure she'll be getting a washer/drier in her stocking though.
'This is an excellent list,' I told her. 'I'm not sure that Father Christmas will be able to bring you everything, there are a lot of children in the world and he is working on a budget.'
'That's ok,' she told me taking the list back with infinite care. 'He knows what I want most is a trampoline anyway. Now I'm doing Elec-tic-al goods.'
The next list was my list, list of things to do for Christmas. Every year I wonder at the frenzy of activity building up to two or three days at most, every November I swear blind that I am not under any circumstances going to get involved in the melee, that I shall rise about it and every year on about December 15th I panic and make a list.
And then last of all there is the long list. Yesterday I discovered that I am on the longlist for the Romantic Novelists Association's Romantic Novel of the year with my book THE BABY GROUP. I have never been on a long list before, so it goes without saying that I have also never been on a shortlist.
I am very pleased and honoured to make the long list, populated as it is with twenty-one other really great talented writers. Will I make the short list? I don't know, I'd really like to - it would be an amazing thrill and a secret long held ambition of mine. But one thing I've discovered about long lists is that it is probably not the thing to get too excited at this stage. Perhaps simply better to to quietly be pleased that I'm on that list of 22 and try not to think about it any more. If by some miracle I do make the short list then watch this space where I will mostly be jumping around and shouting for joy. If not then let's just gloss over it and act cool like we're not even bothered.
But until we know either way keep your fingers crossed for me!
This year however she came upon me in the kitchen and hefted the most recent Argos catalogue onto the table, no mean feat considering it is almost her equal in weight.
'I'm writing my list, Mummy,' she informed me, running off to get her felt tips and some paper. 'It's going to be colour coded.'
'Marvelous,' I said. 'Good idea.'
Never one to pass an opportunity for fifteen minutes of peace and a cup of tea I left her to it. Then about an hour later I thought I'd see how she was doing because I have never yet known her to labour so long over anything. Her list was indeed colour coded arranged in neat columns and covered two sides of A4.
'Can I Look?' I asked her, awe struck.
'I'm not finished,' she said. 'I haven't done Elec-tric-al goods yet.'
I scanned the list, noticing it included not only the item, but the catalogue number and the page number too. It started with a 9ct gold teddy bear diamante pendant, moved on eventually to a garden set including chairs and a table and then one washer/dryer machine, a multifunctional kitchen chopping system and finally toys.
As I read it and looked down at her face, shining with so much pleasure and pride and I realised it wasn't the items on the list that drove her to make the list (Although she has been longing for some of the toys) but more the pleasure, freedom and power of being able to write it herself. The joy of creating words, of finding another way to communicate language had inspired her.
I tried to think back to that moment that I must of had, that almost all of us must have had when we have that first thrill and rush of realising what an incredible world the ability to read and write unlocks for us. It must have been a golden moment, even though as a dyslexic I struggled more than most to grasp those tools. And so for me those particular hard fought skills still bring me golden hours every day whether I'm reading a book or writing one and I think they are the greatest gifts that I have ever been given. My daughter felt free when she was writing her list, and I love that she felt that way.
Not sure she'll be getting a washer/drier in her stocking though.
'This is an excellent list,' I told her. 'I'm not sure that Father Christmas will be able to bring you everything, there are a lot of children in the world and he is working on a budget.'
'That's ok,' she told me taking the list back with infinite care. 'He knows what I want most is a trampoline anyway. Now I'm doing Elec-tic-al goods.'
The next list was my list, list of things to do for Christmas. Every year I wonder at the frenzy of activity building up to two or three days at most, every November I swear blind that I am not under any circumstances going to get involved in the melee, that I shall rise about it and every year on about December 15th I panic and make a list.
And then last of all there is the long list. Yesterday I discovered that I am on the longlist for the Romantic Novelists Association's Romantic Novel of the year with my book THE BABY GROUP. I have never been on a long list before, so it goes without saying that I have also never been on a shortlist.
I am very pleased and honoured to make the long list, populated as it is with twenty-one other really great talented writers. Will I make the short list? I don't know, I'd really like to - it would be an amazing thrill and a secret long held ambition of mine. But one thing I've discovered about long lists is that it is probably not the thing to get too excited at this stage. Perhaps simply better to to quietly be pleased that I'm on that list of 22 and try not to think about it any more. If by some miracle I do make the short list then watch this space where I will mostly be jumping around and shouting for joy. If not then let's just gloss over it and act cool like we're not even bothered.
But until we know either way keep your fingers crossed for me!
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
The Horror, the horror...
I went Christmas shopping yesterday. I can't talk about it. I'm not a a person who naturally enjoys Christmas.I have to go into training for weeks before hand to get in the mood. I have to listen to 'White Christmas' sung by Bing Crosby. I have to buy a chocolate Yule log as soon as they become available in Mid November and eat a slice every day. I have to watch 'Miracle on 34th Street' and that other one with James Stewart in when he thinks about topping himself and doesn't. And then by about December 24th I am just about ready. Bring it on, Santa.
Monday, 10 December 2007
Well here it is....
First of all I know I said I'd start a fictional serial here today but I am postponing that until I've worked out how to set up a new blog for it, so that I can have this space for general thoughts and another space for the serial. I expect its very easy to do but today I have been wrestling with an artificial Christmas tree so I haven't found out how to do it (I can't remember how I set this one up, it was so long ago!).
Why, I hear you ask, don't I just have a REAL Christmas tree like everyone else? Well, there are three reasons. First of all I'm allergic to trees and a real one sets off my asthma, second of all a fake one is actually more environmentally friendly if you use it over several years and we've now had ours for five years and third of all the last time we had a real tree is also came with a nest of ants that invaded our flat for the entire Christmas period. They were hardy little buggers who would not die no matter how hard we tried and that pretty much did it for me and real Christmas trees once and for all.
Besides as a general rule the part of Christmas that I really enjoy is the tacky and sparkly part, not for me those joyless Poe-faced hand made decorations fashioned out of wood and ribbon. I don't want to see a clove encrusted satsuma within a hundred yards of my house. I believe that everything that glistens SHOULD be gold, and if not gold then another metallic shade be it silver, red or even pink and all the better if its smothered in glitter. Bring on the tinsel, tons of it, and the fairy lights preferably flashing(the more environmentally friendly LCD ones of course) I want an angel in a trashy frock and the sort of chocolate tree decorations that rot your teeth. Power to the people who have six foot blow up Homer Simpsons dressed as Santa anchored to their roofs!
As soon as I've finished this I'm off to find my garland of fake pine cones and twinkling lights posing as berries to festoon my stair case with. Now that's what I call a Christmas decoration.
Why, I hear you ask, don't I just have a REAL Christmas tree like everyone else? Well, there are three reasons. First of all I'm allergic to trees and a real one sets off my asthma, second of all a fake one is actually more environmentally friendly if you use it over several years and we've now had ours for five years and third of all the last time we had a real tree is also came with a nest of ants that invaded our flat for the entire Christmas period. They were hardy little buggers who would not die no matter how hard we tried and that pretty much did it for me and real Christmas trees once and for all.
Besides as a general rule the part of Christmas that I really enjoy is the tacky and sparkly part, not for me those joyless Poe-faced hand made decorations fashioned out of wood and ribbon. I don't want to see a clove encrusted satsuma within a hundred yards of my house. I believe that everything that glistens SHOULD be gold, and if not gold then another metallic shade be it silver, red or even pink and all the better if its smothered in glitter. Bring on the tinsel, tons of it, and the fairy lights preferably flashing(the more environmentally friendly LCD ones of course) I want an angel in a trashy frock and the sort of chocolate tree decorations that rot your teeth. Power to the people who have six foot blow up Homer Simpsons dressed as Santa anchored to their roofs!
As soon as I've finished this I'm off to find my garland of fake pine cones and twinkling lights posing as berries to festoon my stair case with. Now that's what I call a Christmas decoration.
Saturday, 8 December 2007
SLOW, SLOW, quick, quick, SLOW
It's probably wrong to be as obsessed with a TV programme as I am with Strictly Come Dancing, but if it is then I don't want to be right.
I love that show. I have loved it since the very first programme and I love it still - I don't know why. I only know that the real reason I would ever aspire to celebrity would be so that I could go on that show and learn to dance with either Anton or Matt, I'm not fussed which.
Sometimes I find myself day dreaming about what it would take to become famous enough to be offered a slot on the show. I could make friends with Jordan, I muse, We could go out scantily clad and get photographed by the paparazzi getting into taxis at 3 a.m. Except that I've noticed recently that Jordan is a rather settled lady now, a happily married mother and all that - not to mention that I don't exactly have the physique to climb into taxis scantily clad since having a child. Plus the last time I was up at 3 a.m it was because my daughter had a tummy bug.
Also for this particular celebrity reality show you have to be a proper celebrity, one who has been on a soap or a breakfast TV sofa for quite some years, not just some upstart who took her bra off on Big Brother. So that rules out my plan to get 'lost' at sea in a canoe and then turn up five years later having forgotten everything but the fact that I love to cha-cha-cha. Not only would I not be the right kind of celebrity but I'd be arrested - and that is a fatal flaw in the plan because I am fairly sure you don't get out of jail early to to learn how to tango on the telly.
The lovely leggy and charming Penny Lancaster Stewart scored her spot by being a model/photographer/rock star's wife. I feel its probably going to be quite difficult for me to marry a rock star at this stage of my life. First off I am already married and whilst that wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker I don't know any rock stars who long for a thirty something writer on the comfortable side of slim, who regularly dyes out her greys. Besides I think I missed my chance to marry a pop star when in the 1990s I failed to get Gary Barlow to fall in love with me from the back of the Birmingham NEC (it was all the those screaming girls getting in the way that ruined it for me)
Is it possible that a writer can ever be famous enough to get on 'Strictly'? Well, the only reason I am bitterly jealous of the wonderful Marion Keyes is not because of her substantial talent or well deserved success - its because she gets to go on Strictly Come Dancing: It takes two. She gets to meet Claudia and go round the set and touch the dancers. On the one hand I commend her for her pioneering spirit going where writers of popular fiction have rarely been before and on the other hand, every time she is on, I inwardly cry 'IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!'
There's just about half an hour to go to the live Saturday show now. What's Aliesha thinking about, I wonder? How's Letitia this week? Which one of the boys will shine now, Gethin or Matt? I'll be nervous every single second that I am watching it and I'll hold my breath through out all of the dances. And then when its finished I'll sigh and try and think of another way to score an invite onto the show. If only Jim'll Fix it was still going.....
I love that show. I have loved it since the very first programme and I love it still - I don't know why. I only know that the real reason I would ever aspire to celebrity would be so that I could go on that show and learn to dance with either Anton or Matt, I'm not fussed which.
Sometimes I find myself day dreaming about what it would take to become famous enough to be offered a slot on the show. I could make friends with Jordan, I muse, We could go out scantily clad and get photographed by the paparazzi getting into taxis at 3 a.m. Except that I've noticed recently that Jordan is a rather settled lady now, a happily married mother and all that - not to mention that I don't exactly have the physique to climb into taxis scantily clad since having a child. Plus the last time I was up at 3 a.m it was because my daughter had a tummy bug.
Also for this particular celebrity reality show you have to be a proper celebrity, one who has been on a soap or a breakfast TV sofa for quite some years, not just some upstart who took her bra off on Big Brother. So that rules out my plan to get 'lost' at sea in a canoe and then turn up five years later having forgotten everything but the fact that I love to cha-cha-cha. Not only would I not be the right kind of celebrity but I'd be arrested - and that is a fatal flaw in the plan because I am fairly sure you don't get out of jail early to to learn how to tango on the telly.
The lovely leggy and charming Penny Lancaster Stewart scored her spot by being a model/photographer/rock star's wife. I feel its probably going to be quite difficult for me to marry a rock star at this stage of my life. First off I am already married and whilst that wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker I don't know any rock stars who long for a thirty something writer on the comfortable side of slim, who regularly dyes out her greys. Besides I think I missed my chance to marry a pop star when in the 1990s I failed to get Gary Barlow to fall in love with me from the back of the Birmingham NEC (it was all the those screaming girls getting in the way that ruined it for me)
Is it possible that a writer can ever be famous enough to get on 'Strictly'? Well, the only reason I am bitterly jealous of the wonderful Marion Keyes is not because of her substantial talent or well deserved success - its because she gets to go on Strictly Come Dancing: It takes two. She gets to meet Claudia and go round the set and touch the dancers. On the one hand I commend her for her pioneering spirit going where writers of popular fiction have rarely been before and on the other hand, every time she is on, I inwardly cry 'IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!'
There's just about half an hour to go to the live Saturday show now. What's Aliesha thinking about, I wonder? How's Letitia this week? Which one of the boys will shine now, Gethin or Matt? I'll be nervous every single second that I am watching it and I'll hold my breath through out all of the dances. And then when its finished I'll sigh and try and think of another way to score an invite onto the show. If only Jim'll Fix it was still going.....
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