Paintings: All the Fun of the Fair

Happy March, everyone!  I hope my March reading is substantially more than my February reading...

I enjoyed and valued your responses to my post On Not Knowing Art last week, and stored away your suggestions happily.  I also fell more and more in love with two of the paintings I'd chosen - the Francis Cadell, which many of you seemed to know, and Korhinta (1931) by Vilmos Aba-Novak, which none of you did - or, if you did, you kept quiet!  Here it is again...

(image source)

I can't stop looking at it. The colours, the energy, the clever presentation of figures... and the funfair.  I've realised that I am fascinated by the ways in which funfairs are depicted. I don't know exactly what it is about them that appeals - again, the colours, the energy, and the sense of the insane and unusual brought into close connection with the everyday - but I can't get enough.  So I thought I'd explore some more depictions of funfairs in art. The only ones I knew before were the Stanley Spencer, who is one of my favourite artists, and the Mark Gertler.  I would include literary examples, but I can't think of any (can you?) - only the odd circus or two. (Click on the links to take you to image sources.)

Helter Skelter (1937) by Stanley Spencer

The Fairground, Sydney (1944) by Herbert Badham

The Fairground (1930s) by L.S. Lowry

Nottingham Goose Fair (c.1910) by Noel Denholm Davis

photograph for sale on Etsy

Merry-Go-Round (1916) by Mark Gertler

Well, that'll do for now, on my hunt through Google Images... let me know if you think of any artistic or literary fairgrounds and funfairs!

Miranda Hart - Is It Just Me?

Another quick this-book-has-been-on-my-To-Review-shelf-forever review, I'm afraid - my reading has been so shamefully little recently - but that means you get to hear about some fun books in short bursts.  And today's is Miranda Hart's bestselling book Is It Just Me?  Note that I don't say 'autobiography' - we'll come onto that later.

I suspect you know who Miranda Hart is, but indulge me for a moment.  She is a comedian (we're not saying 'comedienne' anymore, are we, please?) who sprung to fame in an eponymous sitcom where she falls over things, embraces middle-aged activities a little early, and generally makes fun of herself.  I'm always drawn to female-driven sitcoms, so I've been watching since day one - but the third series, which finished here about a month ago, was the one which really saw Miranda pull in enormous audiences of over 9 million.  One in seven people in the UK were watching, which is extraordinary.

The sitcom has the occasional dud episode, but generally I love, love, love it.  How can I not feel affinity with a woman who, aghast at the idea of going out clubbing, says: "It's 9 o'clock! Four words: Rush. Home. For. Poirot."  For those who don't 'get' it, Miranda is just childish and meandering - but I really admire how she has made slapstick amusing to those of us who normally don't care for it.  I adore her friend Tilly and her ridiculous expressions (I was saying 'McFact' before it appeared on Miranda: McFact.) Stevie (with her 'allure') and Miranda have a wonderful friendship, which is all too rarely shown in comedy.  And then there's her Mum.  It's all great fun, and very watchable.  And very British.

Which brings me onto Is It Just Me?  Although it is by Miranda Hart, about Miranda Hart, it's only really an autobiography to the extent that the sitcom is - it feels a lot like it's been written 'in character'.  Presumably all the events she described happened, at least in outline, but it's certainly selective.  Her tales of dating, office life, holidays, weddings... they're all written as though outlining  an idea for a sketch comedy.  Which is fine - it's more than fine, it's great - but it isn't really an autobiography.  She spends a lot of the time in faux-conversation with her 17-year-old self, disillusioning her of the idea that she'll grow up into a graceful gazelle-type.  (Since I talked to myself in my first Vulpes Libris column - see yesterday's post - I don't have a leg on which to stand.)

Of course, having languished on my To Review shelf for so long, I can't remember any examples to give you.  I chuckled my way through Is It Just Me? without making any notes on it, for reviewing purposes.  So I'll borrow this clip of Miranda reading an excerpt herself...



I haven't mentioned yet, but this was a gift from my lovely friend Lucy, whom I love even though she went and LEFT Oxford last year, to move to big old London town.

So, yes, a giggle of a book which does no more and no less than you'd expect.  Lots of amusing, light-hearted moments, and a surprisingly moving moment when she tells her younger self that her secret ambition to go into comedy has happened, and that she's even spoken to her heroines French & Saunders.  I guess it's the perfect Christmas book, but since that's been and gone... Mothering Sunday?

(By the by, if you have watched the sitcom, and enjoy Sally Phillips wonderful turn as Tilly, may I recommend you seek out her sitcom Parents...)

Older and Wiser--Reflections of a Birthday Girl

by Sophie Perinot

You are only young once.  And you are only a debut novelist once. Time passes—you can’t stop it. But if you are going to get older than you might as well work on the getting wiser thing. I mean wisdom is a MAJOR perk of experience.

I am just one day shy of another birthday and one week shy of my book-baby’s first birthday. So I am working hard to focus on wisdom—especially because it keeps me distracted from the appearance of new gray hairs.

Here are some of my new, wiser, attitudes towards being a published author—a state-of-being that I believe that I understand better today than I did one year ago:

It is NOT about the 2%.  When your book is published there will be some minority of people who just don’t get it. More than that, who just don’t like it. My sense, from scanning the goodreads ratings and reviews of my own book and the books of others, is that your anti-fans will be about 2% of your readers. Are you really going to let 2% make you feel bad about your book, your craft or yourself?  If you are, I can’t help you. Nobody can help you. Remember that old saying “you can’t please all of the people all of the time?” Well TRUE THAT! So focus on the 99% who think your work is solid, or better still on the sub-set at the top of the spectrum who give you great reviews and write you nice notes saying they can’t wait to read your next book. You will be saner.  You will be more productive.

It IS about the moment.  The older you get the more you realize moments are fleeting. The same is true for your book. In its first weeks everybody notices a debut novel. It’s a review here and interview there the attention is dizzying. Were you enjoying it, or were you worrying about your next appearance or deadline?  Don’t feel bad—me too. After nearly 12 months on the market, however, I’ve learned to savor a nice blog review when it comes in, ditto that hour with a book club on a Thursday evening. I’ve also learn to stop anticipating problems. The one’s you worry about in advance never seem to happen and the crises that do arise are going to gut kick you when they happen so why worry in advance?

Everybody feels competent to judge, but ONLY your judgment matters.  Everybody has an opinion on this writer-gig you’ve taken on. They feel entitled to judge whether it was a good idea, how you are handling it, and whether you are succeeding.  This is true in very few other professions. When I practiced law other lawyers might have an opinion on my professional competence, but the grocery checkout lady—not so much. The only thing I’ve ever done that has attracted more unsolicited opinions is parenting. But, like parenting, the bottom line here is that only YOU can know why you make the writing-related decisions you do. Every writer wants the good opinion of somebody, but not the same somebody. Every writer wants to sell books, but the number that feels like “enough” and the auspices under which we’d like those sales to be made (e.g. Tradtional, Indie etc.) vary. Based on what we want out of our book babies we will make different parenting decisions than other writers.  So what?  There is no “one right way.”  Let other’s “tsk tsk” you. You are the book parent here and you will be the one living with the results of your decisions.

Do not covet you neighbor’s ox—or your fellow author’s book tour.  Envy will eat the heart of out you. And to what purpose? Jealousy of a fellow author’s cover will not change the art on yours if you don’t like it. Hating on someone because his publisher sprang for six weeks of coop and yours only paid for two will not improve where your book is shelved. If you are busy thinking about the inequities of life and publishing you will miss the good stuff(see point two on enjoying the moment). It also has a tendency to seep out—leaving you looking bitter and unpleasant. Bitter and unpleasant never made a friend or sold a book.  Of course we are all human. If (or rather when) you must indulge in a moment of envy do it privately—that is what good friends are for. And speaking of friends. . .

You don’t have to have lunch with people you don’t like.  I stopped having lunch with people I didn’t like about a decade ago. I thought, “I am likely half-way through my life why the heck am I wasting time and calories in situations I don’t enjoy?” Book promotion is like that too. If you make yourself engage in promotional activities that you don’t enjoy it will only end in heartburn and disappointment, because if you don’t like to do something chances are it will show in the results. Don’t’ like blogging?  Don’t’ blog. Concentrate on doing those author-ly things you actually enjoy, and you will be making the most efficient use of your promotional time and money—at least that’s my opinion. Oh and ditto with the actual lunch thing. Networking is important in this profession but you don’t have to sit on every panel you are asked to sit on, or have coffee with every fellow writer who asks. You are looking to develop a support group of fellow writers and it is perfectly acceptable to have liking those writers as one of your criteria. Tomorrow on my birthday I will be lunching with two fellow historical fiction writers whose work I respect and who I adore and that is as it should be.

Never stop learning.  Learning is like breathing—if you stop, you die (or at least part of you does).  You can always be a better person and a better writer. Read with your “writer glasses” on. Keep up with the industry. Beg, steal or borrow promotional and motivational ideas from other writers you respect. Listen. Not only to other writing professionals but to readers. I ask every book club I visit where they think I fell down on the job. You don’t have to react to every bit of feedback you receive, it is within each author’s purview to access whether a critique resonates, but if you never entertain the possibility that there is room for improvement you will not improve.

Your whole goal is be wiser next birthday and next book-baby isn’t it?  That sure is my goal, and possibly an appropriate wish as I blow out this year’s candles. 

Sophie Perinot is the author of The Sister Queens (NAL/Penguin, March 2012) a novel of sisterhood set in the 13th century. Her debut was widely well-reviewed and made a number of “best of 2012” lists.

When Sophie is not chauffeuring one of her three kids or lint rolling the hair of one of her three cats she is currently working on a novel set in 16^thcentury France.

Yes, tomorrow really is her birthday but DO NOT ask her how old she is because she is not telling.

Over With The Foxes

(found on etsy)

I think Over With The Foxes would make a great book title... *jots down in notebook* but that's not why I've written it in my subject line.

I'm sure you all know the good people of Vulpes Libris - a collaborative blog, where the 'book foxes' (see what they did there? LATIN) write about all manner of things bookish, from classics to erotica and everything in between.

I was very flattered, of course, when they got in touch recently and asked if they could reblog some of my posts.  Well, said I, I'd rather write some for you - is that ok?  (You see, so often my posts bleed into one another, or rely on some sort of familiarity with other aspects of Stuck-in-a-Book - which would be an appalling marketing strategy, if I were doing this professionally - that I thought reblogs would feel quite strange.)  Luckily, they were more than happy for me to write just for them!

So, about once a month, that's what I'll be doing.  My first piece is up now, and it's about my favourite books.  It probably won't include any huge surprises for any of you...

Mrs. Harris Goes to New York - Paul Gallico

(image source)

I've finished so few books lately, and have been so dissatisfied with the number of reviews I've been able to post, that I have turned to the small pile of books I finished months and months ago, but never quite got around to reviewing.  So I'm looking back over the hazy mists of time, trying to remember not only what I thought about a book, but what on earth happened in it.

Lucky for me, Paul Gallico's 1960 novel Mrs. Harris Goes to New York has a little synopsis right there in the title.  The sequel to his charming novel Flowers For Mrs. Harris (published in America as Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, and republished together recently by Bloomsbury, with its aspirate in place), Mrs. Harris Goes to New York does, indeed, see Mrs. Harris travel off to see the Empire State.  This time, though, it's not with a dress in mind, though - she and her friend Violet Butterfield (familiarly Vi) are off to reunite a mistreated adopted boy with his long-lost American father.

In case you haven't encountered Mrs. Harris before, she is a no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth charlady, who (in the first book) unexpectedly develops an all-abiding passion to own a Christian Dior dress like the one she has seen in the wardrobe of one of the women for whom she works.  Mrs. Harris is a wonderful creation - speaking her mind, with its curious mixture of straight-talking and dewy-eyed romance.  Romance for adventure, that is, not for menfolk - Mr. Harris is good and buried before the series begins. 

I mentioned in the 'strange things that happened in books I read this year' section of my review of 2012 that I'd read one book where somebody went door-to-door searching for people called Mr. Black (that was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and one where somebody went door-to-door searching for people called Mr. Brown.  That was Mrs. Harris Goes to New York - since she did not know exactly who might Henry Brown's father, she needed to go and visit every Mr. Brown in New York...

Few native New Yorkers ever penetrated so deeply into their city as did Mrs. Harris, who ranged from the homes of the wealthy on the broad avenues neighbouring Central Park, where there was light and air and indefinable smell of the rich, to the crooked down-town streets and the slums of the Bowery and Lower East Side.

It's a fun conceit for a novel - I wonder if Jonathan Saffron Foer was deliberately mimicking it? - and Mrs. Harris is an excellent character to use repeatedly in first-encounters - it shows how Cockney and brazen she can be, as well as the endlessly charming effect she has on everybody she meets.

Paul Gallico's novels often hover on the edge of fairy-tale.  The first one I read, which remains easily my favourite (and is on my 50 Books list over in the right-hand column) was Love of Seven Dolls, which is very much the darkest of his books that I've read - but was still very certainly mixed with fairy-tale.  That was what saved it from being terrifyingly sinister.  The two Mrs. Harris novels I've read are much more lighthearted, and Mrs. Harris herself is very much a fairy-tale creation.  She enchants everyone she meets - and I mean that almost literally, in that she seems to be a fairy godmother, changing their lives for the better through Cockney wisdom and irrepressible optimism.  And perhaps a little bit of magic.

There are quite a few other Paul Gallico novels on my shelves, waiting to be read - including the next two in this series, Mrs. Harris, MP and Mrs. Harris Goes To Moscow, which Bloomsbury also publish and kindly sent me.  I'm also excited about reading The Foolish Immortals and The House That Wouldn't Go Away.  I'll report back on all of these as and when I manage to read them - but, for now, for when you want to be a little charmed yourself, you could do a heck of a lot worse than spending an hour or two in the delightful company of London's finest, Mrs. Harris.

My Baby Gets a New Face: From Hardcover to Paperback

by Melanie Thorne

This box of paperbacks showed up at my house the other day:

I don’t have human children, but I imagine it would be a shock to wake up one day and find that the face of your child had been replaced. Her personality, her insides, her soul all remained the same, but outside, she had a brand new look. It’d be pretty strange, right?

I suppose the comparison isn’t exactly the same, but getting a new paperback cover---quite literally a new face in this case---for my novel, Hand Me Down, took some getting used to.

Hardcover

I fell in love with my original hardcover image. It was the first one the publisher presented to me, and my agent and editor and I all loved it. And suddenly, it was like my book was real. This image was the first face of my faceless word document, the first visual representation of my labor of love, and very quickly, it was the image I pictured when I thought of my book. Especially after I held a physical copy with its bound pages and felt the thick matte texture of the jacket, the weight of it in my hands, it was hard to imagine a new face for my baby. But I knew it was coming.

I hated the first proposed paperback design. It felt so wrong for the book—pink and flowery and fluffy and so very, very wrong. Luckily my agent agreed and we asked to see another design. For a while nothing came, and I grew even more attached to the girls on my cover since we spent so much time on the road together, but after a few months I got a new design. It didn’t grab me right away, but I didn't hate it, and I was mulling over its pros and cons when another new design showed up with a note that encouraged me to decide between these two covers relatively quickly. I burst into tears. Neither seemed right, neither seemed like it held a candle to the original cover, and I wished we could just keep it. Why did my beautiful baby need a new look anyway? She looked great the way she was.

I felt pressured by time, was emotionally and physically drained from months of book tour traveling, and was so used to my hardcover that I’m not sure anything would have looked good enough to me in that moment and in that mind set, but my agent LOVED the last image. She thought it was perfect, and even through my pouting I had the good sense to listen to her advice. 

She said that this girl on the new cover was watching, just like Liz does, and then I noticed the moon in her eye, the dusting of downy blonde hair at the top, and I thought maybe my agent was right: that this could be the perfect cover for the book’s new form. And boy, was she right.

Paperback

I now think this close-up black and white face is a striking image that also really represents Liz’s story. The colors pop and the composition makes you want to pick it up and investigate. If Hand Me Down had to get a new face, this a pretty good replacement. And it’s not like the other image will disappear, at least not from my mind. It’s more like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, a metamorphosis, and the two images live together in my head, both faces equally special.

The hardcover image really focused on two girls: Liz and Jaime, the sisters in the book, who are definitely the core relationship of the story. But I have to admit how much I like that in the long term, in the life that she will live forever, Hand Me Down’s main image is a single girl, who is tough but vulnerable, watching, cautious, but still with the moon in her eyes.

___________________________________________________________________________

Melanie Thorne is the author of Hand Me Down, a debut novel in the tradition of Dorothy Allison and Janet Fitch. A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2012 and a 2013 YALSA Alex Award nominee, Hand Me Down has been widely praised by media, including the San Francisco Chronicle and Daily Candy, and received a “compelling” 3.5/4 stars from People. Melanie earned her MA in Creative Writing from the University of CA, Davis, where she was awarded the Alva Englund Fellowship and the Maurice Prize in Fiction. She lives in Northern California.

Find out more at www.melaniethorne.com, and connect with Melanie on Twitter and Facebook.

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Firstly - if you fancy a mosey around my bookshelves, Danielle has very kindly asked me to take part in her wonderful ongoing series of Lost in the Stacks: Home Edition.  It's a mix of my bookcases in Oxford and Somerset, and some fun questions to answer.

Happy weekend!  My brother will be here, which will make my weekend fun.  There might even be cake.  You'll just have to make do with a weekend miscellany...

1.) The blog post - is another great review of Guard Your Daughters, this time from Ali.  And she loved it!

2.) The book - I'm excited about A.L. Kennedy's On Writing, which Jonathan Cape sent me recently - it's going to be published on 7th March, so consider this early warning.  It's chiefly a collection of articles about writing that Kennedy wrote for the Guardian, but there are also lots of other essays about writing, character, voice, being a writer etc.  Which one of us isn't interested in this sort of thing, regardless of whether or not we intend to write ourselves?

3.) The link - I'm quite passionate about trying to get people (especially Americans) to watch the sitcom Happy Endings.  It's on in the UK at some odd hour in the morning, but it's on ABC in the US.  It looks like it might be cancelled after this third series.  But it's so, so good.  Quickfire wit, the right amount of silliness... just brilliant.  This link gives 36 Reasons Happy Endings Is The Best Show on Television.  I'm not sure how accurate a depiction it is of the show, but... well, have a gander.  And watch the show!  It's on a break (sigh) til Fri March 29, so watch it then, 8pm... and catch up on DVDs of earlier episodes!

4.) OxfordWords - whilst I'm working as the editor of Oxford Dictionaries' OxfordWords blog, I'll also post weekly highlights from it in my Weekend Miscellany.  I thought "hmm, will this get awkward, mixing my job with my personal blog", but then I thought no, you'll want to read some of the fantastic stuff that we publish there.  It's all fantastic, obvs, but my personal highlight this week is the post about words which have newly entered Oxford Dictionaries Online - more here.  And I wrote a couple of pieces this week, too - What the Nobel Laureates did for us, and a (hopefully witty) article about horses in expressions and idioms.  Oh, and I got drawing in Paint again...

Just Say No!

by Mindy McGinnis

From a young age we're taught a very simple phrase- Just Say No.

Don't be afraid to reject drugs. Stand up for yourself. Make it clear you're not interested. Walk away. But it seems that if you continue to apply this lesson to innocuous solicitations as you get older, you risk social alienation.

What am I talking about?

Random Kind Person: How would you like to be on The Something That Really Matters A Lot Committee this year?

Mindy: No.

Someone With No Time Constraints: We'd love to have you in the Collection of Various Sorts of Folks, we meet right after school, so surely you could come, right?

Mindy: No.

Really Cool Book-Type Person: I'm starting an adult book club, would you be interested?

Mindy: No

When you read the above statements, I kinda come off like a bitch, don't I? And while that's a debatable point, what it comes down to is that there are only so many minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in the week, weeks in the month, and months in the year. I've got time constraints like a sassy nun's got a chastity belt, and adding more shit to the shinola in order to make nice doesn't fit into my worldview.

I started out trying to say it nicely, and be polite, the way my German momma wants me to.

Mindy: Well, that doesn't really work for me. Wednesday nights I have a knitting class. 

Gleeful Response: Oh but that's OK! We can move to Tuesdays or, meet in the mornings even!

Mindy: I'm not sure. I'm awfully busy right now.

Cheery Smile: Oh it's not all that time consuming, half hour meetings at the most!

I've even tried honesty:

Mindy: I don't think I can. See, I'm a writer, and I need that time to write.

Oblivious: You can just bring your paper and pencil with you, and write during the presentations!

So, I let my Irish side have a go and I went with the concise, slightly rude, you-can't-explain-me-away answer that those anti-drug assemblies taught me years ago: No.

While our amazing e-friendships and networking reminds us that we are not alone in our journey towards authorship, the fact remains that the act of writing is a solitary endeavor. We need our time, we need our space, we need to get into the groove and hit our stride to make the words start flowing. 

So don't be afraid that you won't be invited to the next Nice People Gathering or Coalition of Really Useful People. Stick to your guns, write your books.
_________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 9, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

On 'The Brontës Went to Woolworths'

Here's the excerpt from Rachel Ferguson's We Were Amused about The Brontes Went to Woolworths:

The Brontës Went to Woolworths was published by Messrs Benn.  Before it was finished, I met an old school-friend in Barker's who asked how it was progressing.  I said, "It's getting so odd that I'm rather frightened of it."

Sir Ernest Benn was wonderfully considerate to me, and his death a real loss to Conservatism, for he could always be relied upon to be angry in the Press about all the right things; indeed, it almost seemed that, with him, ideas and idealism predominated, yet he was invariably balanced and realistic in his fulminations.

When the book came out, Mother and I had just taken a furnished house near Hythe for the summer, and I came down to breakfast to find a foot-high pile of letters, some of them from those who, until then, would none of me.  That book was published quite twenty-five years ago, and I still receive letters about it.  Whatever it had done for me, it indisputably put dog Crellie and doll Ironface on the map, and I often wonder what did happen to 'Ionie' when she made her final exit from the Westover toy-box.  She, or portions of her, must be somewhere, still, for her head and neck were of strong, painted metal...

The Carne family of The Brontës were to become curiously real to innumerable people, and when Mother died, in 1947, Reggie Temple wrote from Italy, saying that he couldn't understand why he was grieving so, until he realized that my family was more actual to him than was his own.

In a former book, I have alluded to the many family sagas that came to light, and which readers retailed to me.  It was as if some secret guilty had been exposed as innocent!  But - you must take the helm, firmly, lest you become like one reader, who, apparently, could no longer separate the illusory from the true.  For she wrote, telling me that, as with the governesses in my book, she, too, was one, and most unhappy in her situation in a Carne-like family.  I condoled, only to receive the confession that so strongly had the book dominated her thoughts that she had imagined herself into the role of governess.  Personally, I esteemed more that anonymous postcard which fairly spat venom at The Brontës, so much had the unknown writer hated it.

I made surprisingly little out of that book, in spite of reprints, Penguins and America, but, thanks to Mother, a long-dead dog and a long-lost doll, it had got me started.  A very odd coincidence in regard to it was that, having named my family 'Carne', I found out much later that the Brontë's grandmother had been a Miss Carne...

Book Pregnant Authors in the News

Book Pregnant is proud to announce that TWO of FIVE nominees for the The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (part of the 33^rd LA Times Book Prizes) are Book Pregnant members.

Congratulations David Abrams whose novel Fobbit  (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic,Inc.) was nominated and to Lydia Netzer nominated for her own debut Shine Shine Shine (St. Martin's Press) 

The winners of the L.A. Times book prizes will be announced at an awards ceremony April 19, 2013.  For more information about the awards and this year's prestigious list of nominees click here.

We Were Amused - Rachel Ferguson

Thanks so much for the wonderful suggestions on my art post the other day; I'll reply individually soon.  Some of you also liked the pictures I'd found, which was lovely - I really have fallen in love with Korhinta since I posted it, despite not much liking anything else I've turned up by Vilmos Aba-Novak.  Right, books.

Anyone who saw my Top Books list for 2012 will know that I love an autobiography, particularly if it's one by an author from the interwar period.  Rachel Ferguson seems such a complex, interesting novelist (and an actress to boot) that I was excited to read her autobiography We Were Amused (1958).  Well, it was definitely an interesting, involving read - and it's made Rachel Ferguson seem more eccentric and complex than I could ever have imagined!

I've only read a couple of her novels - The Brontes Went to Woolworths and Alas, Poor Lady - which could scarcely be more different.  The former is a madcap tangle about a family who have no boundary between fact and fantasy; the latter is a sombre examination of the fate for aging unmarried women in the period.  Both are excellent - you might all be more familiar with The Brontes Went to Woolworths, and tomorrow I'll be posting a longer excerpt from We Were Amused which relates to that novel.

Truth be told, I was a bit anxious after the first chunk of the book.  I often write here, when reviewing memoirs, that the author mentions miserable events without creating anything remotely like a misery memoir.  Well, Rachel Ferguson gets close... with her love for the dramatic and heightened, she describes her mother's childhood as utterly miserable, and her maternal grandmother as a tyrant.  Here's a typically bizarre Ferguson paragraph:

'Cumber', as our Greenwood cousins called her ('because she cumbers the earth'), was, as Annie Cave, a member of what Wells has termed that essential disaster of the nineteenth century, the large family.  Having married Dr. Cumberbatch, she herself produced five children who lived, a sixth who had the sense to die in infancy, plus at least two who never even succeeded to cradle status.  And all this without anaesthetics, in an era of tight lacing.

Details of Cumber's ogredom palled a little, and I confess that I couldn't wait for Ferguson to set aside childhoods - her mother's and her own - and get to the business of living.  More particularly, living as an aspiring dancer/actress and, later, writer.  These sections were rather wonderful.  Ferguson takes her haphazard life rather casually - all the opportunities and achievements which came her way are thrown in without much explanation, so she'll suddenly be working for Punch, or having her first novel published, or going on a theatrical tour, without much notice.  It's definitely better than labouring all these points, but it's a curious division of spoils considering how many pages she devotes to her experiences judging cat shows...

For most of us, I think it's this middle section of the autobiography which will most appeal.  It's so full of intriguing details and behind-the-scenes information (come back tomorrow for background info on The Brontes Went To Woolworths!) which is invariably interesting to those of us who have never published a novel or appeared on the stage.  She does expect a lot of knowledge of interwar actors, dancers, and journalists which I am (alas) unable to provide - but I need no prompting when she talks about E.F. Benson, E.M. Delafield, and Violet Hunt.

Even if Rachel Ferguson had no creative career upon which to reflect, We Were Amused would be special for her striking, surreal turn of phrase.  Here is a couple of examples:

Our hall wallpaper, which for some reason was not replaced when we moved in, was a real caution and an abomination in the sight of the Lord: it suggested fir-trees and pineapples in a very bad thunderstorm indeed.

and

Socially Teddington was still of the epoch which invited its doctors to dinner but seldom, if ever, its dentists.

Very amusing! But, if only one could believe that Rachel Ferguson were sufficiently detached!  Perhaps it is foolish to expect an author to be detached in their autobiography, but her moments of irony and satire are weighed down by her equally peculiar outlook on many topics.  Yes, she may have written that twist about dentists with a grin on her face, but she is deadly serious when she suggests the working class have got too big for their boots and are 'overpaid'.  Complaining about the lack of live-in servants feels madly outdated for 1958, she seems faintly insane when writing 'the only cathedral town that doesn't tire one out is York' (what can she mean?), and I lost the thread completely when it came to the chapter on ghosts.  Ferguson assumes a level of credulity (not to mention a familiarity with famous hauntings of the 1930s) which left me entirely cold towards her my-sister's-friend's-cousin-heard sort of anecdotes about poltergeists and phantom footsteps.

Even stranger, to me, is her total fixation upon London - well, Kensington.  She describes a period spent in a different area of London as though she'd been exploring a South American country, or taken a voyage to Moscow.  She has no time at all for any of Britain's other cities, towns, and villages.  Life begins and ends with Kensington for Ferguson - she'll often assert that somebody is a Kensingtonian, and consider it credentials enough to satisfy the reader.  I shall never understand the London-centric mind, and I should probably give up hoping I ever shall.

So, it's a curious mix.  It's almost all fun and interesting, but the selection and apportion of pages - not to mention the tone and turn of phrase - certainly mark out Rachel Ferguson as an eccentric.  If you'd wondered how much of a departure she found The Brontes Went To Woolworths, well... if anything, she seems to have toned things down for the novel.

101 Tips for Writers

We're celebrating our 101st post here on Book Pregnant with 101 tips for writers! Dive into our past posts for some great pointers, and look for more from all of us in the months to come.

1-9 Nine New Year's Not-Resolutions for Writers

• No one sticks to resolutions--but hopes for the new year? Sure. 

10 Stop Writing

• Sometimes the best way to move forward with your WIP is to walk away from the computer and stop writing. The best ideas and solutions may come when you're taking a drive or a walk, and you can listen to your imagination and not focus on your word count.

11 The Best Piece of Writing Advice-Thanks to My Mentor

• How to find your way back to the story in your novel.

12 The Next Big Thing

• Where do you find inspiration for your novel? Don't discount your own family history which can inspire your novel.

13 The Ghost of Novels Past

• Write What You Love! Love what you write, write what you love. 

14 What Cancer Has Taught Me About Writing And Living 

• Seize your passion and write your heart out. Laugh, love and live. Live deeply. Smell the salt air, caress the butterfly wing, stare into the October sky. The more you live, the more you will be able to write.

15 Write Naked

• The second book comes with a whole set of new pressures and it's hard to write from that gutted-open place once your first book is out in the world, but we have to figure out a way to write like no one's watching. 

16 Why Not All Books Should be 50 Shades of Grey 

• Although erotic fiction is, pardon the pun, hot right now, not all books should be titillating. Almost all people have sex, but that is not what every story is about. When writing you have to decide what is important to include and what is important to exclude. What would the point of view characters share? How would they experience that moment? Would they tell their secrets? 

17-20 Three Ways Non-Writer Job Skills Can Help as You Publish Your Novel 

• Did you have other jobs before you sold your book? So did most of us! Here are three ways you can apply the skills you learned in previous positions to your author career!

21 Getting Book Pregnant 

• Most writers don’t enjoy querying—but you can’t find an agent without this process and that means writing the dreaded query letter. REMEMBER a query letter is a tool and tools need to be USED to get a job done--so stop over working your letter and send it. 

22 So You Found An Agent? Yay! Welcome to Hell 

• Finding the agent is the least stressful part of the publishing process. 

23 Books, Blogs and BFFs: How One Thing Leads to Another 

• Once you have a concept for a book find a community of other "pregnant authors" to support you! 

24 Writers Write 

• When you're discouraged about rejection after rejection, remember why you're a writer! Writers write because they love to. So don't give up! 

25 Once You Sign With An Agent, The Wait Is Over (Oh, I Crack Myself Up!) 

• It may take a very long time, but the perfect agent for your book is the one who loves it and sees its potential as a saleable book in the current market. Keep trying, keep querying, and wait for that right agent. 

26 Being Unreasonable 

• It takes an unreasonable person to make the journey to publication. You must accept staggering odds, rejection, criticism, and bad reviews. And you must want it enough to persevere. As unlikely as it is, you must be unreasonable in order to succeed. 

27 Confessions of an Anxious Novelist 

• Anxieties on the eve of publication are normal.

28 The Importance of a Great Editor 

• A great editor can take your book and make it better in many ways. Trust her advice, but also trust yourself. 

29 Evolution Of A Book Cover 

• Get the Cover you want. Don't be afraid to push for the cover you like.

30-40 You’ve Sold Your Novel and Don’t Have ESP? Ten Things You Should Do ASAP

• A list of ten things you should do as soon as your novel is sold! 

41 Rabbit Test, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Me 

• Reasons why--or why not--to have a blog. 

42 Premature Delivery 

• Once a book is bought writers have less control than they think - make sure to find a community to support you! 

43 Setting Priorities on the Journey Towards Publication 

• You're finally published -- learn to put Amazon rankings, reviews and sales in perspective. 

44  Conquering My Fear of Book Presentations 

• Use your passion for your novel to get over your fear of public speaking. 

45-56 Writing Anxiety 

• Eleven tips for controlling your inner critic. 

57 DIY Promotion 

• How to promote your book without losing your mind. 

58 Book Baby Two 

• It’s very common for writers to have a weak second book; publishers refer to it as a ‘sophomore’ book. Some ideas for making that second, stressful pregnancy a success. 

59 The Waiting Game 

• Publication day will come and then you will have to find something else worth waiting for. 

60-70 Live Author Appearances 

• Ten Tips to Surviving A Book Signing 

70-73 And Now The Book Store Reading... 

• Three Ways to Survive A Book Store Reading

74-81 AUTHOR INTERVIEWS: Staple of the Blog Tour and Terror of the New-book Mother 

• Seven tips to help you through a blog tour.

82 A Debut Author Learns About Libraries 

• Don't forget the importance of libraries to your books success! Make sure to introduce yourself at your local libraries. 

83 On Being Nice 

• Be nice. Always good advice, but especially when your trying to spread the word about your book! 

84-89 How To Get The Crap Out of Your Book 

• 5 tips for editing the extraneous out of your WIP 

90 Why Does It Take So Long to Publish A Book Anyway? 

• Be realistic about the length of your journey. 

91 Blubs-What Are They Good For? 

• It's nice to have complimentary comments on the front of your book, but there's more to the picture than this. 

92 NEIBA and NAIBA & Independent Bookstores

• If you have an opportunity to go to one of the trade shows for booksellers, jump on it. This is an opportunity to meet the people who will sell your book. 

93-101 Writing The Reader's Guide 

• Eight tips to help you provide that extra-special something for your readers.

Thank you to everyone for following us through our birth pangs, we hope you'll continue on the journey with us as we learn more along the way - from second books to third books... and onward!

On Not Knowing Art

Berliner Straße im Sonnenschein (1920s) - Lesser Ury
(image source)

I wish I knew ways to find paintings and artists that I loved - other than looking around the same old art galleries in London.  Some bloggers (notably Mary and Jane) seem often to attend wonderful exhibitions or highlight the work of a great local artist.  I respond to paintings much more emotionally and vividly than I do to music, and yet my knowledge of art is so slight.  And it doesn't help that this strong response is really only for 19th and 20th century art, particularly interwar; I've yet to find anything older that which I really love.

Interior, The Orange Blind (c.1928) - Francis Cadell
(picture source)

I think one of the issues is that my deepest affinities, with paintings as with books, are for the middlebrow - the domestic and the rural.  And, as with literature, these are not fanfared as much as other varieties of art - and it's quite likely that I shall respond most strongly to artists who are not technically the most proficient or most significant.  It really is the same as my love for middlebrow literature - but with novels, I know what I'm doing and I know where to look.  With paintings, I just meander around a Google image search, filled with hope... it's taken me about half an hour to stumble upon these three paintings, all of which I really like.

Korhinta (1931) - Vilmos Aba-Novak
(image source)

So I'd love some suggestions of artists to investigate, galleries to visit, and exhibitions to attend.  I believe in you, my readers!  And let me know what you think of these paintings I've unearthed.  I have literally no idea whether they are world-famous or done in someone's loft.  Perhaps that is a nicely democratic way of enjoying paintings... but I've done it for long enough now.  Help!

The 36-Month Pregnancy

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By Julie Kibler

The average gestational period for a chipmunk is 21 days. No wonder they speak with such squeaky little voices.

For a kangaroo it's 42, though the joey moves into the mother's pouch for another two to three hundred days.

For a lion cub, it's 108.

For a woolly little lamb, it's 150.

Gorillas and hippos and moose (meese?) are close to human gestational periods at about 225 to 260 days.

Human babies? 266.

In all three of my human pregnancies, my average 255 or so days of lugging each little one around inside my uterus seemed like FOR. EH. VER.

Little did I know I would carry my unborn book around for much longer than that. For the length of FOUR human pregnancies.

I think I look pretty good for having just given birth to a book after a 36-month pregnancy.

Indeed, from the time I began my outline until Tuesday, February 12, when my book baby, Calling Me Home, popped, it was 36 months. Except, I had--more or less--two semesters, because I don't even want to count the trimesters if we're talking three-month intervals.

I outlined, wrote, and revised for 18 months. I sold the book, and performed my part of the tasks related to growing it from sold manuscript to real book baby in 18 months.

But I will tell you that all the backaches (revisions), the constant bladder pressure (copy edits), the heartburn (page proofs), the mistaken sonograms (changed covers), the swollen feet and ankles (checking amazon rank 432 times per day), and--most of all--the labor pains (writing about yourself in interviews and Q&As until you can't remember your own name, much less anything interesting you haven't already said four times) don't mean a thing when it comes down to one moment in time:

The moment you stand before your family and friends and see the joy and pride and LOVE in their eyes.

My book launch, last Tuesday evening at Barnes & Noble in Arlington, Texas, ranks right up there with the BEST days of my life.

I had an amazing labor nurse--I only met her shortly before Calling Me Home hit the nursery, but Jessica Prigg was the nicest, most gracious Community Relations Manager I could have worked with. She even provided a box of tissues to keep handy at the lectern.

My critique group looks on as I read
from Calling Me Home

Because I did cry. I think the only other time I've truly cried with joy during this long, long journey was when I called my oldest child to tell him I'd sold my book. I think that's significant, considering he was the first human baby who made me cry tears of joy.

Tuesday night, the tears started when one of my beloved critique partners from my group blog, What Women Write, asked if I was nervous shortly before the event began. When I nodded, she leaned in for a hug and whispered in my ear:

"You've got it. And if you fall, we'll catch you. We always do."

My best friend Gail and me, next to cake and flowers
from her and my critique group

What author could ask for more than that? I mean, besides well over a hundred friends, family members, former bosses and coworkers, church members, neighbors, book club members, people from my dentist office, and the list goes on ... there in the delivery room, simply to encourage and support and listen to me (ME!) talk about a story I wrote with no guarantee this day would ever happen.

I realized, as I stood before these people, that NOTHING else mattered when it comes to this book. Not the sales numbers, the Amazon ranks, the lists, the magazine or news coverage, the good or bad reviews--the good times and the bad times, whatever was and is to come for Calling Me Home.

All of that pales in comparison.

What mattered was right there in front of me.

Photo credits: Rick Mora

Return of Winnie-the-Pooh

When it was announced that there would be an authorised sequel to Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, I was rather sceptical.  It seemed doomed to failure from the outset, and previous attempts to cash in on Milne's talent (notably the horrendous Disney adaptation, and resultant filling of the world with the hideous illustrations that were mangled into being) weren't encouraging.  But I read the first story online and was pretty impressed; Verity gave me a copy of Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (thanks Verity!), and... 15 months later, quick as a snap, I read it.

I don't know why it took me so long, other than because it almost always takes me an age to read the books on my shelves, however much I've been looking forward to them.  But it seemed the perfect choice for my sickbed last week, undemanding and jolly, and so I took it down.

My thoughts could be summed up by saying: "It's pretty much as good as it could be."  We all knew it would never be as good as the original - how could it be? - but it could have been a lot, lot worse.

The right people wrote and illustrated it, for a start.  David Benedictus, the writer, had already dramatised the Winnie-the-Pooh books for the radio, and Mark Burgess (stepping into E.H. Shepard's shoes as illustrator) was the colourist for Shepard's illustrations in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.  These are clearly men who have a great awareness of, and fondness for, the genius of Milne and Shepard.  Whatever results they come up with, they have written and illustrated with respect and caution.  Not for them, the slap-dash "Wouldn't it be funny if Rabbit looked like he was off his head on drugs, and Eeyore were an alcoholic?" stylings of Disney.

The stories in the book take place during one of Christopher Robin's school holidays.  I'll write a little bit about the ending of The House at Pooh Corner in another post, soon, but it's clear that Christopher Robin hasn't forgotten his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.  He's changed a bit, but he's still delighted to see them - and they organise (or should that be organdise?) a speshul welcum home party for him, complete with speshul invitations.  Roo has his eye on a green jelly, and is trying to convince everyone else that the red and yellow ones look better.  Kanga successfully diverts Owl's story about Uncle Robert.  Pooh gets drowsy and dreams about honey.  "Jollifications and hey-diddle-diddle," comments Eeyore, and who are we to disagree with him?  Of course, Christopher Robin eventually turns up, and all is well.  It is a gentle, auspicious start to the collection.

Things continue pretty well.  As we go through the book, the events are chosen well.  Owl wants to write a book.  They start a school - Eeyore is headmaster.  Cricket is played.  Rabbit tries to take a Census...

"I thought I was a sensible animal," Rabbit said, shuddering. 

"Of course you are," said Pooh, "everybody knows that." 

"And it was such a sensible idea, the Census." 

"It's almost the same word," agreed Pooh.

It's all very much in keeping with the gang's original adventures, which is great.  Benedictus does, though, add another character.  A drought dries up the river, and there emerges (possibly indignant from years of having pooh-sticks dropped on her head), Lottie the Otter.  She wears pearls, says 'darling', and has gumption.  She certainly isn't a replication of any other characters - it's impressive the Benedictus has found a gap in the seemingly-comprehensive gallery of personality types invented by Milne - but, perhaps unsurprisingly, Lottie never quite works as a character.  Benedictus cannot rely on the charm that Milne has already built up in Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore et al - and there is a lot of looking-over-the-shoulder at events and expressions from previous books, which is better than if they'd been ignored altogether.

And there lies the problem, the inevitable problem, with Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.  The charm is missing.  Or, rather, it is less.  The same goes for Mark Burgess's illustrations - the spark of genius which characterised both Milne's writing and Shepard's drawing is absent from their imitators.  That indescribable something which brought Shepard's illustrations so charmingly alive, and gave Milne's prose a subtle undertone of wry wit and affectionate knowingness - it has not been bestowed upon Burgess and Benedictus, at least not in these guises.

The main emotion I have, when closing the very enjoyable but ultimately, of course, inferior tales of the Hundred Acre Wood?  To re-read the originals, naturally.  What fun!