Why Blogging isn't Remotely Like Riding a Bike

It’s funny, but when you don’t blog for a while you kind of forget how to. Lying in bed this morning, mentally running over the things I had to do today (buy hay for guinea pigs to insulate them against forecasted arctic weather, buy Galaxy Cookie Crumble chocolate for me for same purpose, work on outline for next book, hunt down missing mugs in daughters bedrooms) I realized with a tiny jolt of shock that I hadn’t blogged for ages - so long I'd kind of forgotten how to.

Usually the silence in the aftermath of a deadline means my brain has left the building along with the book and I've done nothing interesting enough to report to my own husband, never mind the blogosphere at large. However, on this occasion I don't even have that excuse, since last week I went down to London and spent a lovely afternoon drinking tea with my editor and talking books, projects, possibilities and Kiera Knightley (not sure how we got onto that subject) before going to gorgeous RNA Winter Party. Abby Green had found us a gem of a hotel in the shadow of Big Ben, a stone's throw away from the luscious library of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers where the party was held and Heidi Rice joined us for a drink and a plate of fish and chips (literally - one plate, 3 forks. Classy girls, us.) in the bar downstairs before we sashayed round there. Met up with Natalie Rivers, Fiona Harper, Sharon Kendrick as well as a handful of lovely M&B editors and numerous fantastically cool people (Hello Rachael! Hello Jude!) I had a long-awaited chance to catch up with Margaret James, whose delicious book The Silver Locket was responsible for making me so unsociable on holiday at half term. All in all it was a really good evening. (I'm choosing to blank out the painful five minutes when naughty Abby and I were completely incapacitated with giggles over some of the titles on the library shelves. Honestly. I'm 40 not 14. She is a Very Bad Influence. I'm going to get my mum to write a note saying I'm not allowed to be her partner again.)

Moving swiftly on (and assuming a serious, professional expression) I also have book news. Tristan and Lily’s story – Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride is coming out in the US in January 2011 under the far nicer title The Society Wife, and the other day the UPS man brought me a big box of author copies. So, if you’re in a part of the world where Tristan and Lily haven’t previously ventured drop me a line (including your postal address) via the website sometime this week and I’ll put your name into a draw for one of five books.

I should also mention that Her Last Night Of Innocence, which is a December release, is now available in the UK. You might recognize this as the work formerly known as The Book That Would Not Die, and if you’re a regular reader of this blog (or as regular as you can be when I only update it once every Preston Guild) you might remember how much fun I had writing it (clue: a bit less than being tied to a chair and forced to watch wall-to-wall Hollyoaks for seven months) By the time it was finished I’d lost all perspective on it and thought I might just quietly ignore its release date. However, I’m not sure that’s either very mature or, as a professional strategy, very impressive, so – heartened by the fact that it’s been in the no 1. Spot on the M&B website for the last couple of weeks I’m going to crack open the box of copies that’s lurking under the sofa in my office and a send few of those out too. Email me with your address if you’d like one.
(*Warning: Please don't be fooled by the cover. At no point do Cristiano and Kate while away the evening with a hand of cards, nor is Cristiano in the fourth form at school, despite appearing in his uniform on the front. )

My final piece of exciting news is that I have finally summoned the confidence to end a miserable two-year relationship with my last vacuum cleaner, and yesterday, after prolonged lobbying from the daughters, replaced it with one of these.

The theory was that even they might be moved to take an interest in dust-removal with a machine that’s pink and has eyelashes, but actually it’s so lovely I want to play with it all by myself. The guinea pigs will just have to shiver a while longer. I’m off to hoover under my bed.

And Now... Not Writing

Another reason why I don’t like to post about writing is because the moment I do you can guarantee that something will happen to disrupt it. In this case, it’s been daughter #2 coming down with a really horrible, full-on dose of flu. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is now, though for the first 24 hours I was on high-alert, checking her over for rashes and asking her to put her chin on her chest every five minutes (in the last book I had a child with meningitis and did far too much research into symptoms than is wise for a hypochondriac, over-anxious mother.) Anyway, she seems a little bit better this morning and is sitting up and watching In the Night Garden, half with a cynical, almost-teenage eye and half with the eye of a poorly girl who just needs comfort.

So, some of the things that occured to me as I lay on the fold-out bed in daughter #2’s room and didn't sleep last night were…

1. That I really should clean the children's rooms more often. Particularly the skirting board behind the dressing table.

2. That my hero probably should discover the truth about his father earlier in the book. I originally assumed he would find this out at the end, but maybe it might be better if he knew all along?

3. That I need to make a vet's appointment for Muffin the rabbit and the guinea pigs to have their nails clipped. Because I am NOT doing it myself with the nail clippers, ever again. (Who would have thought such a tiny foot would bleed so much?)

3. That there are only eight more writing days until the summer holidays. And that's not including Sports Day, Leaver's Assembly, daughter #3's End-of-Term Play, Sick-Child days or Small Animal Care appointments.

4. That my Balfour book (see gorgeous cover, below) is out in a couple of weeks and I haven't had any author copies yet. Which is a shame because I haven’t done a contest and giveaways for ages and I'm definitely going to with this one.


So, all in all not a wasted night then. I just wish I had the energy to put any of the above into action...

Now, where was I?

The honest answer to that is 'asleep on the sofa' for most of the day, although in the light of my recent working routine and the news that lack of sleep can kill you I think that definitely comes under the heading of Sensible Precautions rather than Outrageous Laziness. Am in a sort of post-book haze, which is a very nice place to be anyway, but which is further enhanced by slight champagne hangover from celebrating and a sort of cloud of soft-focus happiness brought on by a lovely weekend at my cousin's wedding.

Little did I suspect last October when my lovely cousin announced that she was marrying her gorgeous boyfriend on a beach on the West coast of Scotland (not just any beach, but more of that later...) in May that I'd still be writing The Book That Would Not Die. If I had I would have given some thought to my outfit well in advance instead of leaving it until the day before we left, when I'd been up for four nights in a row until 3am. This is not a good start to any shopping trip, much less one which involves searching for an outfit that combines wedding chic (silk, high heels) with Scottish beachwear practicality (goretex, polar fleece, wellies) In the end - having caught sight of my haggard reflection in the fitting room mirror in Jigsaw - I rushed to Boots to spend silly money on Chanel foundation before heading home to peer despondently into the depths of my wardrobe for something to go with my wellies and goretex.

Because of an unfortunate combination of school exams, Very Important Meetings at work and the grimness of an eight hour drive with children we'd decided a while ago that it was best to leave them and spouses at home, and for the brothers and I to do the trip Old Skool, squabbling on the back seat of my stepmother's car all the way up to Arisaig. This is where, every summer of my childhood, we met up with my cousins to go feral, sleep in a mildewed 1930s showman's caravan and wear the same clothes every day for two weeks. (Clothes which subsequently appeared on the next child down in the photographs the following year.) The beach my cousin walked along to marry her man was the one on which we used to dune surf, find exquisite shells brought in on the gulf stream and build sand boats, and even though it's been nearly 30 years since I was last there it's as beautiful as ever. And as empty. Apart from the farmer who used to drive his cows across the beach, I can't remember ever coming across another living soul for the entire time we were there, which is odd because I've since read that Ewan McGregor used to spend his summers there too. Humph. I never saw him. (Probably just as well, given the wearing-the-same-clothes-for-two-weeks thing.)

Anyway, after the past few frantic weeks it was pretty much the perfect place to be (total perfection would have been achieved with the addition of a couple of degrees on the temperature, and maybe Ewan McGregor striding over the dunes...) My cousin made a ravishing bride, wrapped in plaid with sprigs of gorse in her hair, and there was something timeless and deeply moving about the ceremony on the shore - Walter Scott meets Richard Curtis. Luckily there was a brisk wind, which meant that I could pretend that the tears streaming down my cheeks (the Chanel spray-paint durable foundation was a wise investment after all) were a result of extreme weather rather than extreme soppiness. Expect a wedding on a beach to appear in a book sometime soon.

I'd taken a print out of the book with me to read through while I was away, but needless to say it stayed in its envelope. However, I did do some significant Thinking about it, and finished it properly when I got back, amid much weeping and loud music. I've been writing this one for so long that the playlist has grown and grown, but the song I was playing most at the end was this one. Sniff.

I'm now looking forward to getting to know my children well enough to pick them out in a crowd again, and making inroads into the ironing pile while thinking about the next book. It's been in my head for most of the time I've been working on this one, and it's quite a departure from anything I've done before. Can't wait to get started. I'm sure it'll flow from my fingers and be finished in a month

(What??)

What would you do?

I know it’s been so long since I posted about writing that many people who drop by here will have forgotten that that is ostensibly why I keep this blog—because I'm supposed to be a writer. I haven’t been mentioning it much, not because I haven’t been doing it but because of late I seem to have been doing it very badly, which is all highly frustrating and depressing. The book that I’m working on has been started no less than 3 times now, and each time I’ve trashed ten thousand words or so and gone back to the start, convinced that this time I’ve nailed the small plot/character detail that holds the key to the conflict and all is going to go smoothly from now on.

Unfortunately it’s not really working out like that.

I’ve been stuck on a particular key scene for the last week now, and no matter how I approach it I don’t seem to be able to make it work. The characters don’t seem to be able to relax and talk naturally in the situation I’ve put them in—it’s a bit like working with actors (and Abby Green would know a lot more about this than I do) who are reading the script and rolling their eyes and saying ‘but what’s my motivation?’

I’ve tried to explain their motivation endlessly, but there comes a point where endless explanation becomes a problem in itself. I’ve tried to tell them that they have to do this scene one way or another, or else there’ll be no story and we’ll all be out of a job, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. So now I’m wondering, maybe it’s just because none of us know each other properly yet? Maybe I should pick up the story after the pivotal point and keep writing, and then go back at the end and fill in the blanks?

I find that idea logical but terrifying. Has anyone else ever done it? Does it work? Is it a direct route into another wasted week of sleepless nights and negative word count? And what would YOU do?