Progress report

It is becoming increasingly hard to break off from writing The Sequel in order to write to you, dear readers.  This is partly because I only have so much writing time and energy, but also because my head is stuffed full of the characters and plotlines of the new book, and it’s hard to get into another mindset.

The book is going well. Jane liked the first 12,000 words I sent her and the problems with the key scene have been easily rectified, and I can tell she is enjoying the book as much as I am. Yes, she had some criticisms (this is Jane we’re talking about – editor extraordinaire – Sue said politely ) and if she hadn’t emailed me back a list of detailed edits and broader long-haul points I would be thinking she wasn’t engaged. We do sometimes fight, but it is rare.

The main triumph is this: it’s been seven years since I wrote as Sally Howe, heroine and narrator of Plotting for Beginners, and Jane and I wondered how long it would take for me to recapture the voice of Sally. Well, I’ve done it.

Bodmyn Corner has not yet made an appearance in the text however, and I am wondering why. Has Sally outgrown her creative writing guru?  Will readers miss him?

The Big S, here, at last

Here in the Derbyshire Peak District, it is Spring – at last: at 6.15 this morning when I switched on the light and turned on my laptop to write, the birds were singing.

This last week I’ve been romping along with the sequel to Plotting for Beginners (still no title, as yet). I told Jane I’d have the first 12,000 words to her by Friday night, but I failed. There is a key scene I’d been looking forward to writing at the end of this section of the novel, but by the time I arrived there I was exhausted and also, not very well. But you have no idea how needy writers are, unless you are a writer yourself, and I was desperate for feedback on everything I had written thus far, so I wrote a bum key scene and emailed the whole lot off.

Bad mistake. Jane has zero tolerance for rubbish, so when I wake up tomorrow I shall get a no-nonsense email telling me precisely where I have gone wrong. She is an editor par excellence, as well as an overflowing fount of hilarious comic material. I am so lucky to have such a great co-writer. On with the show!

,,,when you have no stomach for it…

I try to remember not to have poems on my blog unless I have permission from the poet, or the poet is dead. I am not someone who subscribes to the current popular notion that everything should be free. Why should teachers and bakers and call-centre staff get paid for their work, and artists and writers and musicians give their labour for nothing? So I asked Ellen Bass, who wrote the following piece, for her permission to use it on my blog. I thought there might be one of you who finds it helpful today.

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

Ellen Bass

Let there be light

The fraternal family member who declines to be named asked how my new book was coming on (the sequel to Plotting for Beginners that I am writing with Jane Linfoot – and as yet without a title) and I said “Great! I’m loving it!” and he said “I don’t know how you can bear to come away and leave it.”

And it was a delight to come back to it. I started writing at 6 this morning with the SAD light on, and I was so engrossed that the next time I looked up it was light outside. Light at 7.15 am ! A miracle!

The spring cannot come quickly enough for me.

The trouble with blogging

Back home in the land of real tea, after a fab fab time away.

I went to see the Hockney exhibition with a bunch of my siblings, and then stayed with one of them for all kinds of fun.

But I don’t want to tell you any more, because

1. The two sibs I spent the weekend with are very private people and would hate to be mentioned here (one said he is another “family member who declines to be named”)
2. I made a lot of notes about the trip and I may want to use the material in my new book, so I don’t want to use it here on the blog.

All I will say is that the Hockney was FAB, and if you haven’t been, get your asses down there pronto.

OK, if you must know…

I did have a lovely day on Monday and I am going away on Thursday, but the reason I’m taking a break from the blog this week is because I am fed up with February, and I don’t want to go on and on about it here and bore you stupid.

But I have got to the middle of the month before I’ve been beaten by its grey, grey, gloom. One of my sisters – attempting to cheer me up, no doubt – asked me last week what flowers were out in my garden, and I said NONE. Now - at least - at last - the snowdrops are out.

Laughter is the best medicine

Even novelists have half term hols – well, the ones who live at Hepworth Towers do.
Yesterday I spent the day on the floor with my grandsons playing with Castle Lego. This involved a lot of laughs and imagination. Unlike me, Tate and Gil use Space Lego accessories when they’re building their castle so they had a laser system to scan the brain of approaching people (i.e. my people)  to see if they were goodies or baddies, a parrot (from Pirate Lego) who hypnotised opponents so they became friends,  and a shark (from Pirate Lego) as an aid in their jousting matches. Somehow or other my castle always gets plundered and I am bested in every way possible.
This is the high-tech control centre for their castle, below. Their castle is in another location – i.e. the floor. Me? I just had a castle. Is it any wonder they always get the better of me?

In the evening I had tea (supper to those of you who live in the south) with a group of friends I see once a month. This  involved a lot of laughs and a lot of talk. Topics covered included The Artist and whether it’s been over-hyped; why people love their children and their grandchildren, and if the feelings we have for them are different; whether the University of the Third Age (U3A) would be snooty about having an astrology group; Zen Buddhism; Coronation Street; primal painting; predicting the future; and whether it is true that you can’t help loving someone if you know their story. 
I’m working (if you can call writing a comic novel “working”) today and tomorrow, but on Thursday I am going to London to see Hockney with a  bunch of my siblings (woo-hoo!) so I am taking the rest of the week off from the blog. See you next week.

This is what Tiggers like

Don’t you think I’ve done really, really well?

It is 10 days into the most execrable month of the year (Happy Birthday Little Red Hen!) and the weather has been beyond crap, and I have not yet complained. Today it is grey, cold, misty and vile and even the gravel on our drive is iced over. And I have not complained.

Today is good. Dave is out, and I am sitting here in bed with the cat and my laptop, in two jumpers and my elephant trousers (fleecy grey jogging pants circa 1983) and I am writing. I adore the characters in Plotting for Beginners, and it is such wonderful fun to be working on the sequel…

The wonders of Google

I came across Kahlil Gibran’s piece On Friendship this week for the first time, and when I came to the last line it was oddly familiar. i read it several times trying to remember where I had heard it before, but I was stumped. For the next couple of days, every time i thought about it I heard a deep male voice, attractive, American, saying the words. Who on earth was it? The only American male voice I can hear in my head is Garrison Keillor’s, because i listen to him reading his Leaving Home stories in the car all the time. But this was not him. Who could it be? It was driving me crazy.
I turned to Google. i typed in the words and searched and got loads of links to Gibran, of course, but then there was a link to Friends, specifically the episode where Chandler proposes to Monica (oh how I hate the nauseating sickly sweetness of that scene) and immediately I realised who was saying the words that I liked so much – Richard, played by Tom Selleck.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

He still won’t admit he’s wrong

Did you know that I put a lot of what Dave says into the mouths of my fictional characters?

There is an exchange in BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU that comes straight from our sitting room:

They carried on watching Jessie Levine, and Jessie’s flatmate said to Jessie, “You make me a margarita, and I’ll make you a Sea Breeze.”

“What’s a Sea Breeze?” said Sol.

“A cocktail, of course.”

“Really? I thought it was a rissole.”

(Jessie Levine is a fictitious TV series, made up because David E Kelley Productions ignored my faxes asking for permission to quote from Ally McBeal, even though the scripts are freely available on the net.)

Well, last week when I  was cruising the drinks aisles in Sainsbury’s I noticed a bottle labelled Sea Breeze, so as soon as I got home I told Dave - “You see! I’m right! A Sea Breeze is a cocktail!”

“I refuse to be cowed. It is just as likely to be a product made by Captain Bird’s Eye.”

So I told him I’d put it on the blog and see if anyone agrees with him. I can tell you here – because Dave rarely reads my blog – that as well as being downright infuriating, there is something rather appealing about someone who sticks to their guns and won’t admit they’re wrong about something really, really trivial. But I am probably a bit weird (as well).

Mixed

It’s Friday morning, it’s 5.55. a.m. and I need to say hello to you, and then immediately start work on the sequel to Plotting for Beginners (known in emails between Jane and me as PfB2.)

The house has been quiet this week in a good way and a bad way, and we’ve caught up with our sleep after the lovely rigours of the visit from @JetLagToddler and her family.

Dave has had a flu-type virus since Sunday, and is still feeling awful. I have managed to keep from catching it – thus far - by dosing on aconite as a prophylactic, using a different hand towel from him and a different tube of toothpaste.

Wednesday was a good writing day. Yesterday was a bad one because I couldn’t concentrate.

On Tuesday I got a great statement of sales from the wholesaler which made me feel very optimistic about the success of BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU.

And then yesterday I got a bill from the printer’s warehouse for the storage and packing and transport of the book (to the wholesalers) and it made me think there is no way to make any money in this business.

And lastly, at teatime I went with my friend Mary to see Like Crazy, a bittersweet romantic drama, at the Sheffield Showroom. Mary always tells me how many stars the Guardian man has given a film, but she doesn’t read the review till after she’s seen it, because he once spoiled a film for her by giving away the plot. The man in the Guardian and I have very different tastes. He liked Greenberg, for example, (he gave it 4 stars) and I LOATHED it. So when Mary told me, as we sat down, that the Guardian man had given Like Crazy 4 stars, my heart sank. As I watched the film, my heart rose. At the end of the film, I didn’t know where my heart was. And it’s been that kind of a week.

My February header

For those of you who have never been to the Derbyshire Peak District, my February header shows the 14th Century bridge over the river Wye in Bakewell. The riverside walk on the left is where Fran and Chrissie ate their sandwiches together, in But I told you last year that I loved you.

Back to real life

She’s gone. They’ve gone. As I write this, they are flying Virgin Atlantic back to San Francisco. The last week was very special, even though Lux couldn’t settle into our UK time zone and was awake and playing for several hours in the middle of every night. We stumbled around in various states of sleeplessness and tiredness and (for my part) bliss, and even though she already has her own Twitter account - @thebeean – Isaac felt she needed another one for her alter ego - @jetlagtoddler – so she tweeted under that name, these last few days…

@jetlagtoddler

i am on my very own timezone, people.

@jetlagtoddler

I will sleep ONLY WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT

@jetlagtoddler

running round the house giggling at 2.24am is the best therapy.

and this is me…

@suehepworth

current status: have captured @jetlagtoddler and she's asleep in my bed. Greenwich Mean Time: 06.05. Jetlagtoddler Standard Time: who knows?

Now it’s back to real life: writing fiction.

And also an announcement about the planned publication next year of the sequel to Plotting for Beginners.

Speak up, speak out for Holocaust Memorial Day

Early this morning, I read a piece on Guardian Online about the way the Israelis treat Palestinian children whom they’ve arrested. I was shocked. 

Just now I’ve been on Twitter and saw this tweet:

Video shows Israeli interrogators breaking down arrested boy, whose coerced testimony was used against village leaders

There was a link to the video, but it was broken (I wonder how that happened?)

Then I saw a tweet saying it was Holocaust Memorial Day.

I visited the Holocaust Memorial Day website which said that this year’s theme is Speak up, Speak out.

First They Came - Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left

Join the dots, dear readers.

The good, the bad and the downright exhausted

Jet-lag and toddlers don’t mix.

Jet-lag and toddlers who are teething don’t mix.

Jet-lag and irrepressible, never-sit-still toddlers don’t mix – at least not for the parents.

The west coast Hepworths staying at Hepworth Towers are merely grazing on sleep, but…

this one is doing just fine.

Life with Lux

Is jet-lag infectious? Or is it just that I’ve forgotten that toddlers are exhausting, as well as fabulous fun?  …off to bed (while she is napping) to watch Neighbours and chill, and reculer pour mieux sauter.

Got the toys, the books, the cot and the trike

If you don’t hear from me this week, it’s because I’m busy with my American family:

flying in today from:

p.s. Isaac and Lux are in the Twitter office in the top picture.

News from over the ocean

Sometimes I mention “the Aging Hippie” to you, don’t I? I met her on a peace demo in San Francisco on my very first trip there, just like Fran Suskind (in BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU) made a friend on a peace demo.

The Aging Hippie lives in Redwood City and goes to a book group which has meetings on a Sunday. They have a shared lunch at someone’s house, and the food they take has to be mentioned in the book or it has to be from the culture in the book.

Several years ago they read Plotting for Beginners and I went along and talked about it and they all brought English food: the offering that amused me most was Heinz tinned spaghetti, because that is what Gus in PfB adores.

Yesterday they discussed BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, and the Aging Hippie, under strict instructions from me to remember and report EVERTHING, has emailed to say this…

“First, food: I made the potato leek soup, at your suggestion, and it was good, especially since it is a cold and rainy day. Mary said she was hoping someone would do that.

“Pam's addition was the best, of course, in terms of relating to the book. She brought

1 – Sol. i.e. dates that she stuffed with peanut butter. It was crusty and sweet on the outside and totally nuts on the inside. It was coated with sugar because Fran has to sugar coat much of her life in living with him. It is put on a plain white plate because who needs fancy chinaware?

2 – Fran. Sliced pink lady apples for socialist communist leanings. They were in a pretty bowl with decorations of lovely countryside on the rim.

Irene brought cooked carrots.

Jeanne brought cauliflower curry with lots of veggies from the back of the refrigerator.

The other foods were not related to the book but were equally delicious.

Second, the book: everyone liked it and enjoyed it. Discussion of the characters, especially Sol, led to a long discussion of Asperger's, the autism spectrum, and then, to what men are "normally" like anyway (much like Sol).”

AH wrote more, some of which I couldn’t report here without permission, so I’m going to leave it at that. There were some criticisms of the book, but as they relate to particular plot points, I can’t report them without spoiling it for someone who hasn’t yet read the book – and there may be one or two people reading my blog who haven’t read the book! (and I do still have hopes.)

Today I am preparing the house to receive important guests – my family from California – who arrive tomorrow. (Yipppeeee!) One urgent task is to make the sitting room 18-month-old–proof, so that this little person doesn’t have any unfortunate accidents.

Back-stories

Jane (Linfoot) and I are having huge fun working on the sequel to Plotting for Beginners. It’s such a delight to talk about the characters with her: to us they are real people. Working out back-stories for quirky bits of their behaviour is a delight, but then I do tend to work out back-stories all the time for people around Bakewell, whom I recognise by sight but don’t know.

I’ve even got a back-story for the cat, who was a stray. The cat rescue lady thought Chione was dumped at the age of 6 months when her owner did not want to pay to have her spayed. (the cat lady’s back-story for the cat.)

Chione isn’t interested in drinking from her bowl downstairs, she likes to drink from soapy containers she finds in the bathroom. Or she climbs in the bath after my shower and laps up the water from around the plughole. Easy-peasy: I’ve decided that when she was a kitten her owners must have kept her in the bathroom when they went to work, and she became hooked on water with a hint of soap in it.

Dave is not convinced by my back-stories, but then he’s a non-fiction man, so no surprise there.

I don’t ask you for much and I don’t ask you often

Here I am, writing my blog three times a week, and you can drop in any time you like. And if you stay away for months on end and then come back, there are no questions asked. (Although… I haven’t had a comment from Shafia for ages…I wonder if she still drops by.)  

Sometimes the blog is interesting, sometimes heart-searching, sometimes funny, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes inspirational. Sometimes it has stuff in about writing and editing. It’s always, always pretty.

OK. Here’s the thing.

You know that large order that the 55% discount wholesaler took from me?

They can return it if they don’t sell the books.

Soohh…  I need you to buy a book. If you haven’t already bought a copy of BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, then why not buy one and read it?

If you have already bought one, why not buy one for a friend or relation as a present?

Don’t give me the excuse that it looks like a woman’s book and you’re a man. There are plenty of men who have read it and liked it. The last one I met told me he thought the book was “Superb. Moving and compassionate.”

Some people see the serious side, as he did. Some readers take it more lightly, and view it as a holiday read. A reader will bring their own baggage and interpretation to any novel. I do think that if a book is accessible and easy to read, some people mistakenly assume it is not serious, or has nothing important to say.

It’s available as a paperback or an ebook.

You can buy a paperback postage free – wherever you live – at The Book Depository. It’s only £6.95.

You can buy it from Amazon for £6.95 for the paperback, and for £3.60 for an ebook.

You could even go wild and support your local bookshop and order it from them.

What did you say?  Will you enjoy it?

If you come back here time and again, then you’re bound to like it, because you like my view of the world.

If you’re new here, and you know nothing about me or my book, then here is what some people have said -

Judith Murray, top literary agent, said it’s "clever, funny, subtle, wry, sad and uplifting all at once...Sue Hepworth writes thoughtfully and insightfully, and with such tenderness and humour"

Professor Stuart Murray (no relation to Judith Murray)  said this.

So how’s about it, guys and gals? (yes, yes, I know full well that dates me.)

Odd and contentious trivia

My brother emailed yesterday to say that he likes my new blog header, but why had I changed it and not written a post?

It was because I was fed up. And I was fed up well before i knew it was Blue Monday, a concept which is bunkum anyway. Quite apart from anything else, if you were going to choose the bluest day of the year in the northern hemisphere it would have to be in February.

I feel slightly more cheerful this morning in spite of the fact that I dreamed Dave had let someone in the village use my beloved saxophone without asking me (and neither of them had screwed the neckpiece on properly, either.)  Dave is without remorse. He says he is not responsible for his behaviour in my dreams. I don’t altogether agree.

Day (off) in the life of a

publisher author…

• wake up and think about new comic novel in progress, switch on light and see Sebastian Barry’s On Canaan’s Side on the bedside table, waiting to be read, and realise shan’t be able to read it now have started writing a new book
• read emails from co-author of new comic novel and laugh at her suggestions
• read email from wholesaler requesting more copies of latest book and groan. Why have they sent three smallish orders in the last ten days, rather than sending one big order? Every time the printer/warehouse fulfils an order it costs you X, no matter how many books they send. This means you have paid 3X to the printer instead of X to the printer. As the wholesaler in question is already taking 55% discount on your book price you feel – in the words of Sally Howe, heroine of new comic novel - “well pissed off.”
• ring manager of friendly independent bookshop who also publishes and get some inside info on how wholesalers (and independent booksellers) think.
• ring wholesaler and suggest (as you already have the last two times) that they up their order this time to save you money, with persuasive argument that your book has been featured in Guardian Readers’ Books of the Year, that it was only published six months ago, and that it is a specialist title (give details) and will continue to sell. Wholesaler promises to talk to manager and email you response.
• practise two tunes on sax and then see that the gales have stopped and decide that as you only have an hour before going to Sheffield, you will walk round the village with husband instead.
• drive to Sheffield for lunch with friend. Talk about lots of things, including death, and how sometimes when you are sitting with a dying person, they choose the time when you pop out to the loo to die. Speculate on why this is: one theory being that your love is holding them back and only when you leave the room can they get on with what they know they have to do.
• arrive at daughter’s house early before she is there and sit in her kitchen with feet up, thinking how nicely she arranges her house.
• make cup of tea for tired daughter on her return and then drive to school together to pick up the boys.
• watch Shaun the Sheep on the telly (excellent) and The Ooglies (appalling). Childrens’ telly is fab, but that programme is not funny, has no plotline, no words, and has an obnoxious soundtrack. Wish with whole heart that younger grandson (5) still liked The Octonauts.
• play Smuggle with daughter and elder grandson (7). He wins. He plays Smuggle like a Las Vegas professional poker player and has you in stitches with his minimal facial expressions – the twitch of an eyebrow, the tiniest pucker at the corner of his mouth.
• come home and find email from wholesaler saying they would like a BIG order of your books. Yay!
• collapse in front of the fire, talk to husband about things that are bothering you, and then watch M*A*S*H together for prophylactic and life-affirming dose of humour.
• write blog and curse cos you can’t make the bullet points do what you want them to do. Realise it’s those damn OOglies queering the pitch.

Why Frances Suskind* and I like Jon Snow

Every night at tea-time I get an email from Channel 4 News telling me what’s coming up on the programme at 7 p.m. The email is called Snowmail. Sometimes Jon Snow writes it, sometimes he doesn’t.

Last night he had a para on the Republican candidates at the Iowa caucus. This is it (the italics are mine):

Mitt Romney ahead as New Hampshire votes

From the amazing events of the Iowa caucus in which one of the most extreme Republican candidates trying for the presidency came within a whisper of winning, Matt Frei tonight emerges in New Hampshire. The next, and some believe, the more real test of the primary season for the Republicans. Frontrunner Mitt Romney has dropped a few clangers. Will they matter? And who from the clutch of god-botherers, gay-haters, Iran-bombers and the rest will emerge as the tribune of the far right in the Republican party? Read more>

*Frances Suskind is one of the two main characters in But I told you last year that I loved you.

News for fans of Plotting for Beginners

Whenever I finish making a patchwork quilt I always swear I will never make another one. I begin the task enthused with the colours and the thrill of design, and I end the process in a filthy temper, hand-stitching the binding with bleeding fingers.  But it’s like the old cliche about having a baby – you forget the pain and as time passes, you yearn to make another.

And whenever I have a book published I tell my friends and family that I will never write another. This is for different reasons, though. I usually think that I don’t have another one in me…how could I possibly do it again? 

But on Christmas Day there wasn’t much happening here (as regular readers will already know) and I read Plotting for Beginners to cheer myself up. And it did cheer me up. I was reading the last hundred pages with a smile on my face. This may seem like an unseemly admission for an author – to read her own comic novel and be amused by it – but I try to be honest here.

Sure, there were things I noticed in the text that didn’t work. There were weak spots, and there were things I would do differently now. But I guess that’s the case with all writers. And it was our first published novel. We’ve both developed as writers since then. And Jane’s emails in the voice of Kate Wensley stand the test of time. They still make me chuckle. Her pared down writing is so very classy.

Anyway…I emailed Jane and asked how she felt about writing a sequel. Was she ready now?

Last week we had a meeting and agreed. We’re going to do it. Yay! We spent a lot of time laughing – as we did when we worked on Plotting before. It is so much fun writing a comic novel with someone who shares your sense of humour and who loves to live with fictional characters, just as you do.

So I have months of collaborative enjoyment and laughter ahead – what a cheerful prospect at the start of a new year.

Sitting here

I am sitting here in my study in my pyjamas because there is no point in having my morning shower until I have been on the exercise bike.

I’ve done all my emails, and now it’s time to think about the Christmas tree. Today is the day for taking it  out to the shed to acclimatise it, before I plant it out.

But I’m wondering whether Christmas trees kettled in someone’s study in a house where there’s been an OFF Christmas, whether they have to follow the same rules as ordinary Christmas trees. It’s been so sweet and so small and so quiet, and I’ve enjoyed it so much, I’m wondering whether to just to move it to the other corner of my study, where it isn’t visible from the hall…