The clinch

Can anyone tell me why at the end of romantic comedies of the fifties, when the hero and heroine end the film with a clinch, the heroine bends one of her knees and raises her leg behind her?

This is not a rhetorical question.

Zuzu's Petals is funny, too

I've just been interviewed by a talented young journalist called Diane Shipley, for a feature in The Big Issue (in the North) and she asked me - amongst a gazillion other questions - if my fiction was going to take a different direction now.

She pointed out that Zuzu's Petals - whilst being funny - has a serious theme, and it's dealt with realistically. Was my next book going to be serious? What kind of books did I want to write in the future?

Good question. I burbled about a bit and then said "Comic fiction with emotional depth."

But is that true?

I want to write about life, and life is all kinds of things - serious, funny, gruelling, heartbreaking, fun, boring, wonderful, ridiculous, exciting, and frequently stranger than fiction. Does fiction have to be categorised?

For humour try Plotting

"Tell me," said a Friend this morning at Quaker Meeting, "Do you have shares in IBRULEVE?"

"So" I said, "you've been reading my blog..." (see below)

"I never realised you had a sense of humour," he said. "Maybe I'll read your book."

"If you want humour, Ian, and nothing else, you'd better read Plotting."

"What's all this?" said another Friend.

"Ian said he didn't know I had a sense of humour."

"He's obviously not been listening to your ministry in Meeting."

Eavesdropping

Yesterday I worked hard and had a GOOD writing day. The house was empty of husband (which always helps me to concentrate) and I could begin to get inside my new narrator's head.

So in the afternoon I went with a clear conscience to my nearest cafe (at Chatsworth Farm Shop, above) with another writer - and we talked about writing and stories and moaned about things that writers moan about (lack of confidence, lack of reviews) and I told Chrissie about the stories I'd been making up for my grandsons about transporter drivers called Frank, and cats that need rescuing from the roof by firemen (i.e. 2 year olds dressed up in a fireman's hat) and she told me about the stories she tells to her daughter about King Arthur. See the difference? She's one classy lady.

Chrissie is a crime writer. She'd had an idea for a new short story: "Don't you think a hospital is a brilliant place for a murder?" she said, and I wondered if the woman on the next table heard, and thought we were planning the perfect crime.

Instant Fiction

My 4 year old grandson has started a new way of playing. He finds something in the toybox - a transporter lorry for example - and then says "Make a story about a car transporter," so he can act it out.

This is easy for me, and great fun, one of the reasons being that there is chance for a lot of dialogue e.g. "I'm sorry," says the the garage owner's wife, "My husband is in the loo with the crossword. You'll have to wait till he comes out."

There is also no wrestling with how to tell the story - first person or third person, and if the latter, having to decide on the pestilential point of view. Being an omniscient narrator is very restful.

The trouble comes when you send the transporter driver to Bridlington (in the bay window) and then the next time to London (in the hall) and the driver argues and says "No, London is in the bay window, too."

I am back to writing my new novel this morning, and there will be no barracking from any of the characters. They will do as they are told.

The London-centric Media

Hey, I was just Googling myself - oh, come on, it's not just me who does it, how do you think writers cheer themselves up? - and I found this article I wrote for The Times in 2005 about how the media think that London is the centre of the universe. Click here if you want to read it.

The photo shows another detail from The Midland Hotel, with the Lake District behind. If you read the Times article, you'll see the link with the photo. (Well, you might do at a pinch, as the link is admittedly rather slim, but it did give me a chance to show you more of the Midland.)

Ibuleve for every drop of rain that falls...

OK, you lot, Dave has just applied IBRULEVE (click here) to my bad back and it feels lovely now.

Overheard comments from the masseur, from the depths of my pillow ...

"You have an extremely mobile subcutaneous layer"

and

"Oooh, it's just like applying BRIWAX but without the resulting sheen."

Backache

I have backache, and when I have backache I get really depressed - way out of proportion to the pain or inconvenience.

I wish I was a stoic.

Last time I said to my daughter-in-law that I wished I was a stoic (like Dave) she said "If you were a stoic, you wouldn't be Sue," which I thought was a very sweet and wise way to look at it.

Here is a much better photo of the stairs at the Midland Hotel than the one I posted yesterday. Jen (one of my clever sisters) took it.

The Midland Hotel in Morecambe

This isn't a travel blog, so I won't bore you with where I have been for the last few days, except to say that in five days we managed just 2 hours of sunshine. The rest was rain.

In the spring, I was very excited to hear of the refurbishment and relaunch of the once fabulous 1930s art deco hotel in Morecambe - the Midland Hotel - which had been falling into disrepair for thirty years. We went for afternoon tea on Friday and had a guided tour. If you go, ask for Brian. He knows everything about the place and loves to show you round. And make sure you see the sculptures and relief work by Eric Gill.

Here is a film introduced by the heroic Jon Snow, if you are interested.

And here is an item on the same subject from the Culture Show.

This is me in a snazzy new metal chair that is impossible to get out of unaided... The view of the Lake District across Morecambe Bay...

Back in a few days

I saw this on holiday on a closed shop door.

Back soon.

Pond life

The pond is Dave's preserve. He dug it, he filled it, and he maintains it. Every Septemeber he clears it out. But this summer the pond has been sick for several months. It has been leaking. Only now has Dave found the leak and fixed it. The leak was caused by two holes which (according to him) are the precise size and distance apart as two prongs of a garden fork.

I am the chief suspect, but I deny going near the pond with the fork.

My theory is that a local heron has swooped on a frog in the pond and missed, and then pecked again.

Here is the wheelbarrow containing the detritus from the pond. Dave was using the fork. As I said, he is the only one who goes near the pond with a fork. I rest my case.

The woman who knew everything

I was showing a friend my newspaper cuttings from this summer - when I have been doing PR for the publication of Zuzu's Petals - including a crazy appearance in a glossy magazine where I was talking about quilting. (An author will do anything as long as the editor lets her mention her new book - yeah! - Zuzu's Petals!)

My friend said "Quilting? What next? You have a cat - they'll be asking your opinion on catfood!"

Two hours later I got a phone call from a researcher at BBC Radio Sheffield. I'd been a recent guest on the programme, talking about ZP, and now they were having a phone-in. They'd seen on their file that I used to be a psychologist, and wanted me on air in twenty minutes. Would I do it?

"What's the phone-in about?" I asked.

"Prayer," he said.

I spent the next twenty minutes dashing down notes on the psychological aspects of prayer.

Then the phone rang. "Now we have Sue Hepworth on the line. Sue is a writer - and a Quaker."

Forget the psychology - he wanted to know about my prayers as a Quaker. I think I managed to sound coherent.

This week prayer, next week catfood.

(The photo above is of our cat, Chione.)

Stars

I was just about to click on the buy now button, to acquire a webcam (the sole purpose of which was PR for my books) when I thought I'd check out what other authors are doing on YouTube.

There are repeats of TV book programmes and interviews, but there aren't many authors doing interesting things on their own. I watched a couple of talking heads reading their books and found it very boring. The ratings reflected my view. It seems that readers aren't much interested in watching writers read their books - not even famous ones. Even my hero Garrison Keillor didn't have many people (in internet terms) watching his stuff. So I've delayed the webcam purchase.

But YouTube has something that blogs don't have - the star rating. As so may of you are silent lurkers, who don't like to comment, how about if I had a facility for you to give each blog post a star rating ? Then I could see what kinds of posts you like to read, and which you find dull?

Image

Inspired by my editor Anna's blog, I took a tasteful photo of my breakfast table yesterday. Actually, this isn't true. I was inspired by the flowers I'd picked from the garden, which sadly you can't smell - maybe one day scents will be possible on the internet.

I cleared the table in the dining room ( I usually eat in the kitchen) and had the flowers and my porridge on the table and nothing else. Doesn't it look like one of those tasteful photographs you get in Country Living? When I see those photographs I always think - why can't I live like that?

Yesterday afternoon we were given some secondhand books by a friend. This is what my breakfast table looked like this morning, complete with the Saturday papers. This is my life.

The Lady Godiva approach

Did you know how hard authors have to work these days to publicise their books? I've done very well locally with Zuzu's Petals but Dave and I have been racking our brains for ways to reach a wider audience. Should I go on YouTube with it? And what about Plotting for Beginners?

"If I went on YouTube with Plotting for Beginners, would you read Gus's part?" I asked him.

"Anything," he said. "I'd parade through the streets of Bakewell wearing only a copy of Zuzu's Petals if it would help increase your sales."

I'll let you know if and when, you silent lurkers.

Dreaming

Last night I dreamed I was in the kitchen with Dave, and he was prodding my stomach with a fork. I said "Don't! That's not nice!" and he stopped, and went out of the room. Then he came back and did it again. Then I woke up with a horrendous stomach ache.

I could hear from Dave's breathing that he wasn't asleep, so I said "I have this awful pain," and he was full of sympathy, as he always is, and we discussed what might be the cause of the pain, and then I told him my dream.

"Was it a big fork?" he said.

I pictured a devil's fork and couldn't speak for the giggles. Then, when I calmed down, I said "It was a kitchen fork, fool. But you had a look of malice on your face when you were poking me."

"It's so unfair to hold me responsible for my behaviour in your dreams. And you know I'm not a malicious person. Scientific exploration is different. I could hold up my hand to prodding you with a fork to find out your core temperature."

Another thing about blogging...

...is that I write things here for your interest/delectation, and hardly ever get a response. Sometimes, you silent lurkers, it would be nice to hear from you. For example, why did no-one respond to my post about Bob - What's in a name? - below?

The trouble with blogging

The trouble with writing a regular blog - when you're a writer - is that when something funny happens, or something happens that makes you think, you're in danger of writing about it on your blog. What you should be doing is saving it in your writer's notebook for later use in a book, not 'wasting' it on your blog. Here's an example...

Last night, as I was dropping off to sleep I was running through the events of the day in my head, and there was something I regretted doing, and I said to Dave - who was dropping off to sleep beside me - "I'm sorry, Dave."

And he said to me "It's all right."

And we went to sleep.

This morning, I remembered apologising to him but I couldn't remember what for. And I thought - Hang on, he didn't ask me why I was saying sorry, he just said "It's all right."

Why didn't he say "What for?" or even better "There's nothing to be sorry for."

What's in a name?

I've been thinking a lot about names, lately, because I've been dreaming up new characters.

The guy came this morning to service the boiler. He's called Bob. I whispered to Dave: "Are you sure it's the same guy who came before? I don't remember him as tall and slender with glasses and grey hair." I was expecting him to look different.

"Of course he's the same guy."

And now I've remembered another Bob I know, who is tall and slender with grey hair and glasses. Maybe I need a new stereotype. I always think of Bobs as being short and squat, with dark hair, and possibly rather angry. But Bobs aren't at all the same as Roberts, or Robs. Why is that?

p.s. here are my two grandsons, who like a very different Bob (Bob the Builder.)

Toast

Finally, I got the chance to look at my new Toast catalogue - in bed this morning. I did have to put the light on, though, as the colours of the clothes are so DARK this season. I adore Toast clothes, but I can't afford them. Or rather, I could afford one a year, but - as Richard in Plotting for Beginners would say - "they don't know what to charge."

Unfortunately there are several items in the new catalogue that I love. I much prefer to flick through and find nothing, then I don't have to yearn.

Plain vs fancy

"Hey," Dave shouted from his computer, in the room across the landing, "have you seen these sticky notes you can put on your Google homepage? It's like a post-it to write reminders to yourself."

I went in to see. His homepage looks a jumbled mess to me - he has weather, quotes for the day, time and date in a huge block, and now he was cluttering it up even further with a virtual tacky post-it. I like my homepage plain and restful.

"Hmm," I said, unconvinced. "What have you got on there, then?"

"Stack the firewood, mend the fence panel, measure up for the bathroom extension...that kind of thing. You could have... ring the boiler man about a service, check the oil price, do the accounts."

"I see - another chance to nag, is it?"

"What I need," he said, "is the facility to write sticky note reminders on your homepage."

Silent mission

Yesterday, it was my turn at Quaker Meeting to take the childrens' Meeting. On the third Sunday of the month we have a shared lunch, and after a story and discussion, the children always cook something for that. I stashed my ingredients in my basket and before setting off, popped in the garden to pick some pot marigolds for the central table in Meeting. I also cut some parsley for the dish we were going to cook.

I arrived at the Meeting House late and rushed to the kitchen to put the marigolds in a jug of water, carried them through to the Meeting room where some Friends were already sitting in silent worship, placed them on the table, and left the room.

It was fun cooking with the children. We chopped onions, grated cheese, crumbled breadcrumbs, and boiled lentils, but then we needed the parsley. Where was it? Sudden realisation! With the marigolds.

I asked the children which of them would like to be a secret agent. All their hands shot up. I dipped, and picked one, and then explained the mission: creep into the silent, solemn Meeting and retrieve the parsley.

I worry about taking the children when it's my turn, because I am not a teacher, but we usually manage to have some fun.

Hard work

After spending two days agonising over the plotline of my new book, I showed my bare-bones plan to a writing friend. "Does it work?" I asked her. "Is this particular event near the beginning of the book sufficiently significant?"

"Yes," she said. "It is. However, you have two coincidences somewhere else that are unconvincing." Then she suggested a way to deal with the problem.

She was a huge help, and I agree with her misgivings about the plot, and I think her suggestions as to ways to get it right are good. The only problem now is that it's going to be sooooooh much harder to write, and I am a basically lazy person. Extra work is what you get when you ask a good writer for their opinion. Thanks, K.

Authors and narrators

I have a problem. I wrote Zuzu's Petals in the first person, which means that many people think the narrator of the story - Corinne - is really me. They think she speaks for me. They think that her opinions are mine. Yesterday a friend emailed and asked "WHAT is wrong with matching Marks and Spencer curtains and cushions? And magnolia walls?" and I emailed back - "It was Corinne describing Elspeth's decor and ending the paragraph "Very dull." It wasn't me!" (However, for the record, I have just checked the text, and Corinne is actually saying that it's dull to have a print of Monet's garden in Giverny on the wall.)

But I like to write in the first person. Jane and I decided to write Plotting for Beginners in the first person, too, and people assumed that everything that happened to Sally had happened to me.

Do I really have to write the next book in the third person to get away from this confusion? Oh Lord, I do hope not. I am still wrestling with how to tell the next story - point of view and voice - and it's giving me brain ache trying to decide how to do it. I don't want my options narrower than they are already.

It's a wonderful life

James Stewart - at the time he made the film It's a Wonderful Life - which Corinne watches in Zuzu's Petals.

If you'd like to see the end of the film It's a Wonderful Life again, then click here and see it on YouTube. Get your tissues ready, and if you haven't seen the film yet -

(a) - shame on you! - and

(b) - DON'T WATCH THE ENDING!