Going quiet
Going to spend the next week with the in-laws, which will be lovely but it’ll also mean sporadic internet access.
So I’ll talk to you on Thursday, peeps!
My To-Be-Read pile
Was reading Katie Ganshert’s blog, and she was asking about what our to-be-read (TBR) piles are, and what that says about us.
And I just had a good look at my TBR pile in Goodreads, and I’m hoping it just says, “Look! She wants to write romance novels! That’s why she’s bought all this stuff!”
To an extent, books do send a message about who I am. And at this stage, my list is saying, “I’m curious about how to write simple romances, and epic ones. Which is why they’re all women’s fiction”. I hope it doesn’t say, “Gee, she’s vacuous.”
And there are other books waiting in the wings that have not made the immediate list above. The Shack is one of them. Men In White is another. I also bought Pagan Christianity on Saturday – a book I’ve been eyeing for ages. And then there’s Anne of the Island that I want to re-read, and Mansfield Park waiting in the wings. But at this stage, I’m researching and trying to teach myself the story-telling process as fast as possible.
Chick lit: what it is, what it ain’t
Picked up “Will write for shoes: How to write a chick lit novel“, and it’s actually working out to be a good read.
It’s a no-holds barred look at this sub-genre of women’s fiction, often frowned upon for its seemingly vapid nature. Cathy writes with deftness on the subject, her insights often short, snappy and sometimes funny.
But what’s most awesome is how unapologetic this author is about what the end goal of chick lit novels really are.
Namely,
- Entertain
- MAYBE give some insight to the human condition, if you’re lucky.
It is not
- the next War and Peace
- positing the cure for cancer.
It can also
- address serious themes like adultery, disease, drug addiction, unemployment, without
- taking itself too seriously, and even occasionally delights in
- taking the piss out of those who do.
And on that point about taking it all too seriously,
For those writers who take offence at reviewers and critics who call Chick Lit “fluffy”, “frothy”, or “dumb” and who want to counter by making Chick Lit novels literary heavyweights, I have only one piece of advice: switch to decaf. Seriously. As Chick Lit authors, we’ll have messages, themes, and insights, of course. But our primary job is to entertain. We’re not finding the cure to cancer here.
I heart Cathy Yardley (so far).
Hidden story – another example for minor characters
Was day dreaming in the car this lazy Saturday afternoon, when I stumbled upon a hidden story in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Remember how FiFi (played by the very elegant and sylph-like Kristin Scott Thomas) always wore black to weddings? It was always there in the background. Fiona, smoking, always in black. She mumbles something about it to an old lady at a church once, but beyond that, we just think it’s her special thing. Her private diatribe against the entire enterprise, perhaps.
Until she owns up to Charles (Hugh Grant) that her love of her life is
You, Charlie.
It’s always been you.
Since first we met so many years ago.
I knew the first moment.
Across a crowded room. A lawn, in fact.
Doesn’t matter.
Nothing either of us can do
on this one. Such is life.Friends isn’t bad, you know.
Friends is quite something.
And then when he prepares to marry Duckface, Fifi is seen in the church to have broken her fast of wearing black, and the audience finally gets the Ah Hah!
Hidden story for minor characters. Doesn’t have to be huge. Just has to be effective and elegant.
The Last Days of a Rake
The Last Days of a Rake by Donna Lea Simpson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Or rather, the last night before he carks it.
Not quite the romance novel really, because it deals with the regrets of a reformed rake on his deathbed and how he was a rather scummy scoundrel. A little like Peter O’Toole’s Casanova in the Casanova miniseries, starring David Tennant.
The book itself was quite well written – almost lyrical in places, though short. In the end, I came away feeling quite sad for all the characters. I do like the idea of the book within the book, however. Rather like The Mysteries of Udolpho in Northanger Abbey. Hmm!
Try it out. It’s free after all, in Carina Press. And it only took me two 20-minute bus trips to finish it.
