Gasp shock horror – was my last update really June 2009?? I hang my head in shame – but, truthfully, I simply had no option but to ruthlessly prioritize over the last 18 months.
Since I last wrote, I’ve had a really trying time of it, with challenges hurtling at every side of my life – personal and professional. It hasn’t been easy, but lordy I’m proud of where I am now.
In the Autumn of 2009 my life was turned upside down and wrung through a mangle. My brilliant mum was diagnosed with cancer at much the same time as I had to face life as a single parent and make the massive decision to move from town to country with my two incredible children.
As many of you will know, I do not have a good track record with my loved ones and cancer – having lost my beautiful friend Liz to the disease in 2005 at the age of 37 as well as my wonderful father-in-law just 6 months before that. Mum’s cancer came out of the blue and rocked my family to its core. She endured vigorous chemo throughout the autumn and winter and then, on New Years Eve 2009, she had life-saving surgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital. I am beyond happy to be able to tell you that, a year on, she is doing fantastically – she looks wonderful, feels great and all her test results are excellent. I am utterly in awe of her – her grace, deportment and good humour were never compromised by her incredible fighting spirit throughout her treatment and recovery.
Though born and bred a Londoner, to live rurally has been my ultimate dream since childhood. The same time as Mum was so poorly, I both lived that dream – and yet, ironically, also endured something of a personal nightmare. Being a single parent is an anathema to all I have ever held dear, but tragically I felt I had absolutely no option but to go it alone. So, the children and I prepared to move from London to a tiny winding lane in Hertfordshire. Mum was midway through her chemo. And then my house sale fell through. In a bit of a modern fairytale, the wonderful couple from whom I was buying told me I’d be in by that Christmas regardless – and that I could pay them once I sold my house. How wonderful was that? There are some truly good folk out there – and it’s so heartening. Pay it forward, I say. Believe in Karma.
Mum and Dad also moved house – two weeks before Mum’s op, they moved from our family home to an apartment two days before I moved from town to country. Christmas 2009 my family gathered at my new house – with half a roof still missing and no interior doors. Then came the snow and the lane was impassable. And then I ran out of fuel (I’m not on mains fuel, sewage or broadband!). The children and I had no heat or hot water for a week and the wood-burner wasn’t yet installed. Nothing huddling up in bed together, fully dressed, all three of you, and waking up with the tips of your noses numb! It was a good way to meet the neighbours, though, and offers of portable heaters, mugs of hot chocolate and general concern and sympathy were generously given and gratefully received. The snow was so bad that the children’s new school started over a week late. It was Felix and Georgia’s first experience of uniform and Georgia was so keen to go that she sat in the house, in full brown/gold regalia including felt hat, tie and blazer, every day.
A year on, Felix and Georgia are thriving at school – they were quite behind when they started but are now happy, stimulated and achieving great things. The school is wonderful – quite quirky and old fashioned and with a playground surrounded by woods and fields of cattle. At home, the children are absolutely in their element – with woods, streams and fields in which to romp and roam. They always come home ruddy-cheeked, proudly showing off some bump, bruise or scratch from some terrific adventure or other…and invariably they are soaking wet and mud-encrusted too. They now have a four-legged pal who joins them – Twig the dog. She’s an English Pointer and has just turned one. When I was little, I was terrified of dogs but a family friends’ English Pointer (RIP Cleo) changed all that for me. Felix, too, was very very wary of dogs – so I knew exactly which breed we’d be having. He and Twig are true pals and I love the way that the children treat her like a fellow sibling, even telling tales on her!
Our horse, Nathan, is here too – but thus far my children have expressed no interest whatsoever in riding and as I’ve sworn never to become pony-club-Mum I have had to take a back seat on that front. They love the horses to talk to – and remain fascinated by the fact that they eat the WHOLE APPLE INCLUDING THE PIPS AND STALK.
There’s so much that’s new to a child brought up in the city – for example, the first time Felix caught sight of a jet black night-sky bejewelled with a dazzle of stars, he gasped and was really quite overwhelmed. We three often go for ‘midnight walks’ in the woods (well, as soon as it’s dark) which freaked us out at first but is an incredible thing to do – especially if you switch off the torches and just trust your senses. The children can tell the difference between a bullfinch and a chaffinch and can recognize hornbeam, oak, ash, black pine and larch at fifty paces. No doubt they’ll have a right old moan and whinge at me when they’re teenagers stuck out in the sticks – but for now they are happy little souls and I am proud of the life they lead.
During this difficult period, somehow I managed to write another novel. I often proclaim how much I love writing but I have to tell you, I hated every second of writing Chances. To write 140,000 words of contemporary romantic fiction requires a substantial reserve of emotional energy – a commodity in short supply for me at that time. I was physically and emotionally exhausted before I’d written a word – and it took me 6 months to drag out the first 10,000 words. Then, over the summer, sitting with my back to the incredible view and ignoring the idyllic weather, I rattled off the next 130,000 words in three months – which has left me with tendonitis in both wrists. I am so proud of this book – and when I’ve been proof-reading it, I’ve given myself a hearty pat on the back. It’s bloody good – even if I say so myself. I really hope you’ll enjoy reading it.
Spring was dominated by the publication of Secrets in May. Leading up to a book’s launch, the author commits to all manner of publicity and marketing. This can range from writing articles commissioned by mags and papers in return for a plug (of the book, not of the bath…), to interviews across the media (tv, radio and press) to events up and down the country, plus signings in book shops and finally, undertaking daft things to secure any publicity going. In fact, all authors become a little shameless in giving their new books a leg-up! As you may remember from my blog, the leg-up for me came in the form of a ladder propped against a bus. It was fantastic to don a hi-viz jacket and physically fix one of the amazing posters to the side of a London double-decker!
The shenanigans that take place around publication can be as exhausting as they are fun – and the rewards are always well worth it. You must remember, we authors spend most our year in utter silence in the company of people who don’t actually exist – so I for one find it a real thrill to be out and about, meeting the people who really matter (you lot who buy my books, the staff who ensure the shelves are well stocked, the journalists who take shorthand while I gabble nineteen to the dozen, the producers who let me witter on and on, on radio and tv….) (more…)
Whitby Library 17th April 7 pm
Haringey Library (Crouch End) 29th April 7 pm
York Library 13th May 7 pm
Haringey Library (Alexandra Park) 26th May 7 pm
more dates soon…will keep you posted!
I can’t believe we’re a quarter way through the year. Gawd, what an old person’s thing to say that was! Needless to say, time has flown with my life peppered with highs and lows. Secrets was published in early February as a special edition for the UK airports – some of you loyal readers even made the trip to an airport just to grab a copy. I thank you from my heart.
I’m a perfectionist control-freak when it comes to my novels – some authors are quite content for editing work to be done on their behalf. I throw a hissy fit if anyone dares tinker with even a comma! Although I have done 10 novels in 12 years – an output many people marvel at – I do not ‘churn them out’. Each novel is carefully considered with in-depth research undertaken and by the time I submit it to my publisher, it’s in third draft. To arrive at those 130,000 words of original fiction, many thousands more words are written in the process! Then, after editing and copy-editing (which is to double check if the character’s eyes are blue in one chapter, they’re not suddenly brown in another!) the 5th and final draft of the novel is typeset and two rounds of proof-reading commence. Typesetting is bewildering. Somehow, entire sentences disappear! Elsewhere, paragraphs suddenly appear in italics. Invariably, words are split at the end of a line and look bad for it. Finally the work is ready to be sent to the printers – and I await my final copies.
The thrill of seeing my novels in book form has not diminished over the years. It’s the highlight of so much hard work, hope and energy. Imagine, therefore, how distressing it is when mistakes are made utterly beyond your control…. (more…)
Oops. Sorry to keep you waiting… The rest of the year galloped by and I’ve only just caught my breath. I assure you I wasn’t so much neglecting my website…as simply prioritizing my 10th novel, which I finally finished in late August. Now that my website-wizard (James Beechinor Collins Esq.) has taught me how to do my own updates, my intention is to do precisely that! I hope you’ve been enjoying the new-look website and my blog but I intend to keep the Journal section going too because it gives me the opportunity to blether on at length. JBC is very strict about keeping blogs pithy and short – but I’m having the final say on Journal length! So…here am I, in cold-snap January, thinking back on the last twelve months. Over the months, the Romantic Novel of the Year Award followed me like a dancing butterfly – with so many people continuing to congratulate me, even now! Each time someone says ‘well done’, I re-live the thrill all over again!
The Spring and Summer I devoted to Secrets. Do you like the title? I know it doesn’t have my usual quirkiness, but I think it’ll be a hard-working title. And it does what it says on the packet…because both hero (Joe the bridge-builder) and heroine (Tess the runaway) have more than a few secrets between them and the book charts their journey on whether to conceal…or reveal…! I hasten to add, it all ends happily ever after. Would you ever speak to me again if it didn’t?
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Well, the last thing I won was probably a gymkhana when I was eight – so to be awarded the Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 for Pillow Talk was an awesome moment in my life. It was going to be a lovely day, whatever the outcome, as it was Georgia’s 5 th birthday and also publication day for the paperback edition of Pillow Talk. I was still in my slummy-mummy uniform of old jeans and jumper half an hour before the taxi arrived but as my lovely friend Jeanette always says: “you do scrub up well, love.”! It was such a thrill being short-listed in January – the first time it has happened for me. I shared the short-list with fellow authors Jojo Moyes, Adele Parks, Catrin Collier, Catherine King and Maureen Lee.
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Well, I hope you like the sneak preview of the Pillow Talk jacket on my Home Page…what doesn’t come across is the wonderful vivid blue – just wait until you see it. I wanted a colour as close as possible to tanzanite – the precious gem stone that is a key theme in the book. Before I was a published writer, to help make ends meet, I worked as a picture researcher for a number of publishing companies, using my background in art to help source images and designs for book jackets – and what a fusspot it made me! I’m a perfectionist (though I’m sure the art dept would call me a pain in the proverbial…). For example, we tried out almost twenty different shades of cream before I gave the nod for the background colour of Love Rules, Home Truths and Pillow Talk. We use an artist from New York to do the illustrations – but then the designer and I spend hours tweaking the length of eyelashes, the redness of lips, the creases in clothing… So you can imagine how many blues I squinted over in search of The One. Think I’ve found it, though…
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It’s blowing a gale outside – a tree was uprooted right outside our house this lunchtime so Georgia and I went to ogle the twelve lovely firemen from three fire engines which hared down our street in two seconds flat. The tree had fallen right across the road, smashing a couple of cars in its wake. No one hurt. There’s something so sad about a fallen tree – all those decades, perhaps centuries, of standing so lofty and proud, ending with such an undignified disposal via chainsaw and council wood-chipper. Freya says: Go hug a tree!
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This time of year is usually Launch Party time – but this year, I just didn’t feel like having one. I’m ever so proud of Home Truths but it was written at a time when shitty things were happening and it felt inappropriate to have an unabashed knees-up. 2005 had it’s ups and downs for me. I lost two people very special to me, to cancer. My father-in-law, David Sutcliffe, died in May and my beautiful friend Liz Berney died on Christmas Eve. They both loved coming to my launch parties – Liz in particular had a very entertaining knack of upstaging me on my big night. I just don’t feel like partying at the mo’.
Liz was perhaps the most sociable – and widely loved – person I’ve ever met. She made friends with such ease and people gravitated to her because she was such fun, so energetic and daffy and sensitive and kind. She was a member of a reading group – though she was usually far too busy and scatty to ever actually read the book in discussion! One time, she picked my 5th book, Fen, as her choice for the group. Sure enough, an hour or so before the group was due to gather, Liz phoned me for the low-down on the plot, the characters…and the ending! (more…)
2004/2005
Blimey, a year’s worth of news to update you with… how on earth can I do this in less than the length of a novel? Well, I suppose I’m lucky that, because I’m now just a boring old frumpy mum, I have relatively little scandal and skulduggery to recount. Rather than give you a month by month breakdown, perhaps I’ll tell you about the key people in my life.
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