My lurid past

I've taken a step back from my book recently and realised I need to change my heroine, particularly in the opening. It's hard.

I originally conceived of her as a slightly innocent character, very sweet-natured, but somewhat downtrodden and lacking in confidence - both in her professional and her personal life. When the story opens, she's just been semi-stood up by someone, and she's also been at her job for four years and worrying that she'll never be promoted. Worrying is also a key trait of hers; but she's also very determined, and as the story goes on becomes more feisty ... I didn't really give her much of a back story, except that she is a middle child, with a very successful (and opinionated) older sister, and a younger brother who's also successful in his own field, and nice but slightly distant parents. She was also teased at school for being too tall, and hated school generally.

I didn't want to do anything more elaborate/dramatic than that, partly because I do feel (maybe unfairly) that there are already an awful lot of romance/chick lit heroines with enormous drama/trauma in their past, like an alcoholic parent or a major bereavement or they've killed someone in a car crash. Obviously this can be very powerful, but ... this character's about 26 and I feel that lots of lucky people her age haven't that dramatic a back story. And this story isn't meant to be about facing demons in her past; it's meant to be about overcoming challenges in the here and now. Though I suppose those are always going to be affected by one's past. Hmmm. Maybe there's a middle ground between 'middle child' and 'killed her alcoholic mother in a car crash' (though boy, I'd like to read about that character).

Anyway, I'll have to do something, because it's not working. Instead of being innocent and slightly put-upon, I'm finding her childish and self-pitying. And I'm finding it hard to make her sufficiently downtrodden without giving her an evil boss, and I feel the evil boss has been done. I also had a scene with her and a far more confident and slightly bossy friend, to throw her into contrast, but now I think it's probably not a great introduction to show her secretly resenting her friend.

Argh. If I could manage to step back from it, that would help, but unfortunately that's really hard at the moment. Posts like this help, however.

The issue of characters' 'pasts' is interesting. I was just thinking I might watch a bit of the West Wing. If you take a character like Donna, we know very little about her past - other than that she's from Minnesota (I think?) and broke up with a boyfriend just as she left college, and decided on a total change of career as a result. I suppose that is quite a lot of info. A TV drama I guess is different, because obviously it takes place in the here and now, there's no internal dialogue, and you have, um, actors. Ah, if only we could have actors in books.

I do know who would play my heroine in the hypothetical film of the hypothetical book: Romola Garai (as shown below in, I think, Glorious '37). And my hypothetical /fantasy leading man is Marc Blucas. And in a strange and spooky cosmic coincidence, they appear together in the film of one of my favourite books: I Capture the Castle. I'm hoping this is a good omen.

Zen and the art of novel writing (and quilt making)

How is your bank holiday weekend going? Mine is nice and quiet. Was going to see the quilts exhibition at the V&A on Friday night, but ended up going for dinner in the Wine Factory instead. Yes, it's true, the white wine is warm, but the food was very good, I thought. The service isn't rude - just sweetly laid-back, and the waiters all look like Botticelli angels which doesn't hurt. Last night I had a little Eurovision soiree - I was quite shocked that Cyprus and Azerbaijan didn't do better. And why Germany? I don't get it.

So as you may or may not have noticed, posting here has been sporadic of late. The reason being that I've been working a lot on a novel. I finished it in February and have been rewriting it ever since. Last week I sent it out, or the first three chapters, to two agents I used to work with in my previous incarnation as an editor, and I was lucky enough to get pretty immediate and very sweet nos, saying they enjoyed the material but they didn't think it could work in a crowded market - exactly the kind of phrases I used to use - with some very useful constructive advice subtly thrown in. I feel incredibly grateful to have such feedback, because I know most aspiring writers don't. Of course, it would be great if got published, but if it isn't, that's ok.

I really mean that. The thing is that I had fun writing it - a lot of fun, as well as lots of angst - and I've given it to some friends who genuinely enjoyed it. (Or at least they said they did. Hello friends, I believed you!) And ... although this might sound hard to believe, I feel that's reward enough. If everyone who had read it hated it, or if I hadn't been able to finish it, that would be sad. But as it is, I think I wrote a story that hangs together, that has a life about it and that entertained the people who read it - and I'm happy about that.

I know, from working in publishing, that choosing what books to publish - especially in the genre I've chosen, commercial fiction/chick lit/rom coms - is a commercial decision (the clue's in the name) and one that's very difficult. A debut novel has to be the beginning of a brand that will repay the (massive) effort that you put into launching it. When things get published, it's because the creative decisions of the author have meshed with the commercial imperatives of the publisher.

Does that sound sad? It's not meant to. I've made a conscious decision not to be a miserable aspiring writer: not to stress about things not working out, but to have fun with it, working hard on what I do but letting go of the outcome. I feel like I've learned to make a quilt, and can make more, if I put the time and effort in. It would be great to be able to sell them in a shop, but even if I don't, I can still have fun making them. I also think that happiness is a decision. Why not decide to be deliriously happy, with summer (sort of) coming in, and new quilts to make?

In any case - I promise I'll post more regularly. So watch this space ...

Chick lit

I live in Queen's Park, in north-west London. It is a nice neighbourhood (or 'area' is probably a better word). It's full of affluent young families on their first or second kid, who can't afford Notting Hill but are damned if they're moving to Ealing or Acton. There is a park and a farmer's market on Sundays. There is a branch of the absurdly expensive Baker & Spice (actually, watch this space, it's being renovated/closing down, hurray). There is a gastropub and a very good bookshop, and a good curry takeaway and several great Lebanese grocers.

Queen's Park is also the spiritual home of chick lit - that is, the new, grown-up chick lit (hen lit?) The novels The Rise and Fall of a Slummy Mummy and Mrs Zhivago of Queen's Park are set here (neither of which I liked, but anyway). Chick lit is a genre that arouses a lot of ire among people, many of whom have never read any. Jackie Collins brilliantly dismissed the entire genre as 'some girl in a bedsit, moaning about some guy' and it must be said there is some truth in this description. They are quite different from Jackie C's novels, and it's interesting to examine why. Here's my theory:

The 1980s blockbusters - sex and shopping novels - were written at a time when people were, in general, less affluent, and certainly nobody was jetting off to St Kitts in a Katherine Hamnett dress to sleep with a cruel millionaire or whatever. So these novels were total escapism, allowing readers a glimpse into an undreamably glamorous lifestyle.

In contrast, chick lit happened in the 1990s, at a time when everybody had more money than during the 1980s heyday of the bonkbuster. With that increased affluence came a pressure to live up to a certain type of lifestyle. Chick lit was about the contrast between that ideal lifestyle (perfect flat, ideal career, great man and designer wardrobe) and most ordinary women's lives (queuing for cappucinos, getting squashed on the tube, buying the wrong dress and leaving it too late to take it back). The best chick lit, ie Bridget Jones, parodied the perfect lifestyle. So you have Bridget fantasising about 'mini breaks' spent 'maybe even in a small boat, with Daniel rowing and me in a long dress possibly from Ghost.'

It's the 'possibly from Ghost' that makes that line so funny - how Bridget can't quite separate her romantic dreams of Daniel and her consumer vision of herself in a Ghost dress. The fact that it's such a 90s label makes it all the more priceless, I think ... That's why it's annoying when people think chick lit is all about shopping, as Bridget never goes shopping except on a couple of disastrous occasions. I suppose I'm trying to say that Bridget Jones is as much a satire on consumer values as anything else. So is Confessions of a Shopaholic (the novel) but I know you won't believe me so I won't bother expanding on that.

Many people who disapprove of chick lit think that it's anti-feminist to have women reading novels that are all about romance/men. But chick lit novels aren't just about men - they're about careers (The Devil Wears Prada) addiction (Rachel's Holiday) music (The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets) and lots of other things besides. Chick lit is just commercial fiction aimed at women. Some of it is rubbish and some of it is very good. I see men reading thrillers about things exploding and people being shot, which are aimed squarely at men, but nobody worries about that.

One predicted outcome of the recession is that the big bonkbuster novel is back. I met someone recently who is having one published - I forget her name, but I think the novel is called Glamour or Glitter or Gilt or something similar. I'm sure it's very good, but I think I probably prefer the kitchen-sink realism (so to speak) of chick lit.