Nonie, Donatella and Miss Perry

Nonie has blogged today. Find her here.

Dear G

At some point last term, a lovely fan  whom we shall call ‘G’ wrote to me with a simple question for her book report: what was my aim in writing Sequins Stars & Spotlights – the last book in the Threads trilogy?

Dangerous question, G! Poor girl. I’m sure she wanted a couple of quotable sentences for her report, but I had quite a lot of aims in writing the book. Soon, it will be almost completely overtaken in my head by the book I’m writing at the moment and The Look, which comes out in seven weeks. Seven weeks, people! That’s nothing. But before I forget, I thought I’d share what was on my mind when I was writing Sequins Stars & Spotlights, and rounding off the stories of my favourite foursome.

So here, for the record (and for anyone else with a book report to write), is what I wrote back to G …

“I think it’s important to have lots of aims when writing a novel – or the story will quickly seem very thin. You were probably hoping for two sentences in reply, but you asked a really interesting question, so here goes … (If you need 2 sentences, skip to the last bit.)

First of all, the ‘Star’ of Sequins Stars & Spotlights is Jenny.  I wanted to show how she had a real talent for acting and singing, despite her horrible experience in the movies, and how she became a genuine musical sensation. However, I was also interested in exploring the sacrifices that big stars often make. Their lives aren’t simple and they have to give up so much to focus on their work. In Jenny’s case, she had to give up caring for her mother.

I’d assumed that I would write about another big issue of child exploitation, as I had in books 1 and 2, but Jenny’s mum’s story took over, and in the end I wrote about depression. It’s a huge issue, suffered by many children who live with a depressed family member, and hardly anyone talks about it. I wasn’t sure how that storyline would end when I started plotting the book, and I was so proud of Edie when she took over. The depth of Edie’s compassion really showed through. There were hints in the other books that Edie wouldn’t have been happy at Harvard – she hates travel – but I also wanted to show how people’s ambitions can change over time, and that’s OK.

This was really Jenny’s book, but I also wanted to explain some of Nonie’s lack of self-confidence. Nonie always seems so bright and breezy, but she’s often insecure. This book gave the details of her family background [...]. When Nonie discovers how much she was always loved, it transforms her. Nothing will stop her now. I also wanted to show that Nonie has to face up to the problems of not taking school seriously for a long time. It matters! Exams are stressful! Poor Nonie. But once she concentrates, she discovers new depths which make her very proud of herself.

Oh, and Edie [... PLOT SPOILER, which I've removed. You'll have to read the book!] … That was a fun ending to write.

Writing about Crow was the hardest of all in this book. My aim for her was to show that if you’re going to be a truly great artist (which she is), you need to grow roots, and not overstretch yourself while you’re growing up. If you spend your teens manically producing things on demand, not absorbing new influences, you risk running out of ideas later on. The big story for Crow is that she doesn’t give in to the demands of the fashion industry, but instead focuses on her friendships, her family, her studies and developing her ideas. It doesn’t make for such an exciting story, but it means that if I ever write about Crow when she’s older, she’ll be a deep, grounded and fascinating person, with a lot to give. She won’t be burnt out by the time she’s twenty. (I’ve read arguments that John Galliano’s big problem was that he was so overstretched by having to do a new collection every few weeks for Dior that it drove him to alcohol. I wonder if that’s true. I’m also interested that the young winners of things like the X Factor generally burn bright for a short time, but don’t go on to have long careers.)

I certainly didn’t want to tell my readers what to do with their own lives. But I wanted to describe lots of different ways that talented people can approach that complicated time of becoming an adult. I wanted to show the good bits and the bad bits, and let my readers decide what they would do in that situation.

Most of all, I wanted to write about the joy of making musicals, which I love, and of designing wedding dresses, which I also love, and New York, which is an inspirational city, and my characters, who were all growing up in interesting ways. It meant I ended up with four different plots, all going in different directions and intertwining at different points. It was a nightmare to write! Thank goodness for my editor. In my next book, I have 2 main characters, which is quite enough.

Er, that was it, I think! I hope that helps.

sophia xxx”

 

One of our dinosaurs isn’t missing*

I have one of the smallest kitchens in the world. You can stand in pretty much any part of it and touch pretty much any other part. Sometimes – like when you’re unloading the dishwasher – this is great: you only have to reach out an arm to find the appropriate cupboard and put things away. You don’t even have to move your feet, never mind actually walk anywhere. At others – like when two of you want to do anything in there at the same time, or you want to cook and chat to a child or a guest, or you want to find a place for a new mug, it’s impossible.

However, the minuteness of my kitchen is a small price to pay for living in London. Sometimes. And yesterday was one of those times.

The day dawns cold and frosty. Christmas is approaching. The children are on holiday; I need a dose of culture. I make a picnic, sling it in a backpack and we head for the bright lights. By which, of course, I mean the V&A. I want to see quilts (something to do with the new book) and I have promised the boys lots of lovely old weapons to keep them happy.

On the way, there is a slight misunderstanding. Tom hears ‘V&A’ as ‘DNA’, which reminds him of the bit in Jurassic Park when the canister of dino DNA is stolen by the sweaty baddie and ends up floating out to sea. Tom doesn’t have a problem AT ALL with the sweaty baddie being eaten alive by an angry dinosaur in the process: he’s just worried about that canister. I keep on having to reassure him that it’s OK.

So anyway, obviously by now Tom assumes we’re going to see not patchwork, but dinosaurs. But at this point we are in South Kensington and we can see the beautiful, multicoloured towers of the Natural History Museum across the road from the V&A. So I promise him both. I also remember reading recently that the Natural History Museum used to be so blackened and ugly from coal soot (it was like that when I first knew it as a schoolgirl) that the council wanted to pull it down and start again. Instead, there was a campaign to save it and for years it was under scaffolding, while they sandblasted off all the soot. Up until then, we had always associated Victorian architecture with dark, lumpen ugliness. But suddenly, when the museum was eventually revealed, we realised that after all, those Victorians were really REALLY good. The Natural History Museum is one of the most beautiful buildings in London, AND it’s got a skating rink outside at the moment AND it’s got dinosaurs inside. Moving ones. What’s not to love? As always, I mentally thanked Prince Albert – the Steve Jobs of his day – for having the idea and making it happen.

But first, the V&A. As usual, we fell in love with everything in the shop. Then we asked a nice man at the members’ desk where the quilts and weapons were. He tried very hard, he did, not to wrinkle his nose, but I was informed that they only had quilts for a one-off exhibition, last year, and there are none to see now. (How I wish I could just flit to the Met in New York, where quilting is taken seriously as national heritage, and there are apparently a lot of them, all the time.) Also, they don’t really ‘do’ weapons at the V&A, as it’s all about ‘the applied and decorative arts’ – not killing people. But I knew better. I took the boys to the Japanese section, because those eighteenth century Japanese artists knew a thing or two about applying the arts to Samurai slung swords, blades, daggers, armour and really scary helmets. There were two cases of them. Job done.

There was also, as it happened, a temporary exhibition called ‘The Power of Making‘, celebrating all sorts of crafts, from dry stone walling to saddle making, dress making, gun making (more guns – hah!), 3D-printers (the future), cabinets, bicycles, artificial eyes, shoes with guitars on … And yes, there was a quilt, with direction-sensing er … sensors on it, so it could map the shape of whatever it was thrown over. Also some needlework, done by British officers captured by the Nazis and containing a secret code. It was PERFECT. We could hardly drag ourselves away.

After some restorative cheese and peanut butter sandwiches (separate, not mixed – ew – and I’m sorry, cafe, but we were too skinflint to visit you this time), we headed off for those dinosaurs next door. We spent ages in the dinosaur section, watching the pretend moving ones, admiring the bones of the very dead real ones, learning far more about them and their times than we ever intended to. Tom bought a cuddly stegosaurus called Steggie and we were done.

Harrods was a bus ride away. We used to go there for the Krispy Kremes, but they don’t do them any more. Instead, we happily window-shopped, the boys posed beside a couple of teddy bears that were at least four times their size (and cost £2000 – go figure), and I managed to buy a secret Christmas present without incurring shipping charges, so I actually saved money.

All in all, we were out for most of the day, before driving home across my favourite bridge (Albert) – working again and lit like a Christmas tree. We learned loads. We saw lots of beautiful, beautiful things. The children were enchanted and so was I. Apart from shopping, the total cost was one bus fare.

As I say, a tiny kitchen is a small price to pay.

* And in case you don’t know the film already, do look out for ‘One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing’. It is mad, and funny, and features the star diplodocus of the Natural History Museum. Not many films can say that.

Everything on it …

The five year-old did most of the tree this year. This was because he did an awesome job on the bits he could reach last year, but they were only about the bottom two feet of it. This time, he did the whole bottom half and I mirrored the effect as best I could on the top half.

It involved every bauble we own, pretty much. He has an eye for these things, and I am very proud. Maybe he’ll end up doing the Ritz or Claridges one day …

My lovely editor, Imogen, has asked for a picture, so here we go.

Those winning entries …

I must remember never to run a competition. They are the icebergs of authorial websites.

The good bits – the bits I remember and that make me do it again, despite everything – are choosing the theme, getting the entries in, hearing from readers and new fans about what they’re up to, reading some truly great stories, admiring some great pictures (and now video too), and enjoying the countdown to the big announcement.

Actually, that adds up to a lot of good bits. Maybe I will run another competition. One day.

Anyway, they’re the pretty white tip of the iceberg sticking up above the water. What you don’t see – and I tend to forget – is the dirty great grey bit underneath. First of all, there’s whittling down my favourite entries (generally a dozen or so) to the few who will finally get a mention and win a prize. During this process, which lasts for days, I feel mean. Seriously. Mean. So many girls put in so much work – or just showed a natural talent, you can never always be sure – and some of them are going to be disappointed, thinking I didn’t like their entries when I did, I DID!

Then there’s the admin that goes with fighting with the back end of a website, trying to put up all the winning entries, so you can admire them. It takes ages! Anyway, it’s done now, so check out the Competition page of the Threads website, follow the links, and enjoy the 5 entries that made it to the top.

But if your picture or story didn’t make it this time, that doesn’t mean I didn’t think it was good. I almost certainly thought it had something really special about it. And there’s always next time …

… Which means I’m going to have to run another competition sometime, aren’t I?

I guess I suppose I am.

Competition winners

Well that was hard.

As one waiting period starts (I love Advent), another one finally ends.

I took a couple of days to judge the ‘The Girl in the Picture’ competition because all the entries were great (THANK YOU, guys!) and there were about 10 I really loved, and it was almost impossible to pick my winner and runners up from among them. But I’ve done it, and if you want to know who I chose, go to www.threadsthebook.com and check out the Competition page.

If you’re one of the winners, I’ll be contacting you soon to sort out getting your prize to you.

And don’t forget, if you didn’t win, but you’d still like to get the Threads series to give to a friend (or friends) for Christmas, you can get the set from The Book People here, for less than £5. What a bargain! Or – even better – you can go into your very fabulous local independent bookshop and get them to order them for you. They’ll arrive very fast – they have the most amazing ordering system – and you’ll make an independent bookseller very happy, which is a good thing to do at Christmas time.

Enough about buying books. Well done again to everyone who entered the competition. When I have a moment, I’ll put up the winning entries in a gallery on the threadsthebook site, so you can admire them all.

Happy Advent! xxx

Visiting the Chickens

In these times of gloom and doom, every now and again a day glows out like a warm ember, and it’s enough to keep you going through the cold.

Saturday was one of those days. I went to visit the lovely Chicken House, to make a couple of quick videos for the launch of The Look next year. Now, most authors have to travel from the country to the metropolis to see their publishers. For me, it’s the other way around. But I love visiting Frome in Somerset. It feels like the centre of the craft and vintage universe, and you can’t get much better than that for me. (And yes, despite all the gloom and doom I bought a pink silk vintage tea dress, a necklace, a few Christmas presents and an amazing arrangement of narcissi in an old chamber pot. I came home weighed down with bags, but not having spent very much money – the perfect combination.)

The Chicken House offices are one of my favourite places. They’re very arty and bohemian and as soon as you step through the door you just know you’re in good hands. I hope they don’t mind me showing you a few pictures – of some chickens (there are, as you can imagine, several); the window, which they dressed up for the day to look like my own personal book window (thank you!); the table where THEY DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO BUY THAT MANUSCRIPT YOU JUST SLAVED OVER; and Barry’s famous hat.

I was videoed by a promising young film maker called Gulliver Moore, who made the trailer for The Look (which you can see on YouTube), and who I hope did a brilliant job of disguising my many chins. For those of you who have read Threads, think slightly Harry, but wearing proper shoes, and you’ll know how happy I was to meet him.

I thought we’d be there for days, with me doing trillions of takes, because I find it really, really HARD to talk about the book, and what it means to me, and what I was trying to do in a short and pithy way. However, with the help of Tina, who’s a bit of a wizz as a director among her many other talents, we were out in time for lunch. And we got to eat the table decorations – which were a selection of extremely yummy cupcakes.

Some days just make you smile.

A few of my favourite things …

Today’s favourite things have come from recommendations on Twitter, Facebook and at the school gate. Let me share them with you.

The sweet ending to the new John Lewis ad (although I still can’t get my head around the idea of super-miserable and single-minded Morrissey from The Smiths letting a middle-class shop use his song for an advert. He must have agreed with a strong sense of irony, unless he’s finally going soft. And also, have you seen how many [SPOILER ALERT] presents Santa leaves by the bed? Way more than our kids get first thing in the morning, I can tell you. Maybe John Lewis wants Father Christmas to get more toys in their shop to distribute. That’s my theory, anyway.)

Another, simpler delight has been the truly fabulous imagery in the trailer of the new Snow White and the Huntsman movie that’s coming out next year with Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron. VERY VERY BEAUTIFUL. If you watch, I’m sure you’ll agree. (Excuse the link to the Daily Mail, but it’s got the best pictures I’ve seen.)

And finally, I heard about a new doll called Matilda (website here), who comes from Tudor times and who I would have killed for when I was ten. (Or, more accurately, begged one of my grannies for and then yearned for like the boy in the John Lewis ad and, in fact, probably not got even then because she’s really expensive and people were a bit more sensible with their cash in the 70s and even Father Christmas wasn’t that generous, but I would have imagined having).

She’s aimed at 8-12 year-olds, and comes with a book about her Tudor adventures, and lots of ideas for imaginative play. How many girls that age are there who like history and costume and adventure stories and things they can do with their friends? Oh yeah – LOADS. Despite her eye-watering price tag, I think she’s going to be a hit.

Where it all begins …

This has been a week of highs and lows.

The high was definitely Wednesday. It started with a big cappuccino (the size of a soup bowl, honestly) and a croissant in a cafe in Soho, talking about the launch of the new book next year. There were four of us round the table: me, Rachel, Mary and Tina, who are three of my most favourite people to work with. As business breakfasts go, you couldn’t get much better. They gave me lots of homework to do for the launch and I’m looking forward to all of it. Already, Rachel has turned my story into a very beautiful artifact that I can’t wait to share with everyone. The teamwork involved in publishing a book is one of my favourite things about it.

As it happened, we were just around the corner from where I set the opening scene of The Look, which is Carnaby Street. So afterwards, I took a picture to celebrate:

I used to work a street away from here, in my last job before I sat down to write Threads, and they were busy, happy times. It always gives me a bit of a thrill to come back. And it was extra lovely to do it with Tina, who’s the marketing lady for Chicken House and who, we then discovered, looks VERY GOOD INDEED in the posh new silk hairbands they’re selling in Liberty at the moment. I made her try several of them on, and they were all gorgeous. I really hope she gets one for Christmas.

Then it was on to lunch with my lovely publisher, Barry, and Elinor, who sells the foreign rights all over the world (Threads has lately gone to Spain, I discovered, and will be out in Japan quite soon – yay!). They were meeting two Dutch publishers and very kindly invited me along. As someone who writes about fashion, I was deeply impressed by the Chinese top and palazzo pants worn by the very elegant Heleen. We talked books for a couple of hours, and it was bliss.

So Wednesday was one of those pretty ideal days that don’t happen to a writer very often, and have to be tucked away and treasured so they can be appreciated later, when it’s all a lot more difficult and complicated.

Which is what the rest of the week has been like.

That lovely new story I was so looking forward to writing has hit a brick wall. It. Will. Not. Come. And now I’m thinking about another one, which originally occurred to me as a radio play, but might work as a book. But that’s no picnic either. I think I’m just going to have to read, and think, and wait until something clicks and a voice emerges and I can start again.

I love my job, but it’s not always easy. Actually, it’s not ever easy. If you’re reading this because you can’t decide what to write, I sympathise!

Girls Heart Books

Check out my new post today on www.girlsheartboooks.com. It’s all about the amazing exhibition I took the family to at the Tate Modern.

From now on I’ll be there on the 21st of every month. Look out for me! xxx