Life in a Sweat Box

I think I’m having a strange summer. The weather was beautiful until July (yes, I know us Brits are obsessed with the weather) and then it clouded over, trapping all the heat beneath and turning my little corner of the world into a clammy sweat box. I’m terrible when the climate is like this: I’m constantly uncomfortable and my brain turns to mush. I’m sure that knitting like a mad woman for the last two weeks to prepare for the upcoming street market I’ve signed on to do hasn’t made matters any better. Perhaps sitting for hours with a rapidly growing length of knitted fabric pooling on my lap isn’t the best way to cool down. I’m really looking forward to this market though. It’s in a village outside Exeter called Silverton on Saturday August 7 – Gates open at 10am (more details can be found on their website). I’ve actually attended this market before with a poorly thought out jewelry venture (basically, it was boxes of cheaply made costume jewelry gleaned from Ebay), but that was another lifetime ago. There’s always a theme at the Silverton Streetmarket and the locals dress up and compete in a fancy dress competition. This year the theme is musicals, so I’m hoping to see some Phantoms! (though I suppose the black cape would be a tad heavy for August…)

At least all the knitting has made me eager to start writing something new. I finished the first draft of Jinn Nation about two months ago; and I felt so drained when it was done I’ve barely started to edit it. Now though, a delicious kernel of a new idea is slowly turning and brewing in my overheated mind… I’m also planning to do something exciting with my zombie novella, The Undead Alliance – More details soon! I think knitting and crafting is a good excuse to let my mind wander and refresh itself, returning with new story ideas. I’ve been talking to some really interesting people through my radio show, Write Around Devon (every Thursday from 2-3pm UK! – www.riviera.fm) and last week I interviewed Susan Young, author of The Ultimate Defiance and creator of the Two Stories photographic exhibition. She’s also a keen wildlife photographer and she was telling me how waiting for hours, camera poised, for the perfect animal shot gave her plenty of time to plan her writing. I think this ‘planning’ time is important. Other people take a walk every morning and think about what they’re going to write that day. It all seems like quality procrastination to me and that’s where I am right now, entrenched in some high quality procrastination

I already have more local writers lined up to interview on the radio show and even more in the pipeline. Here’s a rundown:

22 July – Patricia Oxley – Creator and editor of the Acumen Literary Journal and organiser of the annual Torbay Poetry Festival.
29 July – Zion Lights – Author of More Things Should Be Thought Out Thus.
12 August – Graham Sclater – Author of Hatred is the Key.

I’m still looking for guests to interview and books to review, so if you’re a writer of anything in the South Devon area – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, even blogs – or if you have a new book out that you’d like to promote, send me an email and I’ll get you on the air

And finally… An old irritant has reared its ugly, botoxed head. Back in October, I pondered the question of why people buy glamour model Katie Price’s fiction when she openly admits to hiring a ghost-writer for every turd of a novel that has ever had the misfortune of having her name splashed across the cover. I never did get an answer. Well, she’s about to unleash more literary nonsense upon the world, prompting these search terms to pop up in my incoming links doo-dah on WordPress – “when is katie price next novel out” and “katie price new novel”. People!! If you’re so enamoured by novels to which the only contribution the so-called author has made is her name (and her signature on the hefty contracts), at least put me out of my misery and tell me why you read them. Please? Anyway… If you have come here from Google after following my ‘Katie Price’ tags, at least click this turgid link and send some Amazon Associates pennies my way (does this make me a two-faced, bandwagon-humping fool? Quite possibly).

Paradise (Hardcover) by ‘Katie Price’ – released July 22, 2010 (available for pre-order).

Blurb
When vacuous model Angel was forced to make a life-changing decision and choose between Ethan, the rich and famous Californian baseball player, and giving her marriage to poor-as-dirt, failing football player Cal another go, many were stunned when she picked Ethan. But life in LA is good: Ethan uses her and Honey to get his mug in all the celebrity magazines, making huge sums of cash; and their life could not be more glamorous. But nothing is perfect, and after a year together problems are beginning to surface: a stalker seems to have singled out Angel, her silicone implants have begun to sag; and when Ethan faces financial ruin the couple are ‘forced’ to star in a reality TV show about their life together, sickening the country and causing thousands to turn off their TVs in disgust. Despite everything, though, Angel is convinced that Ethan is the man for her. So why does she always feel breathless when Cal is around? (especially once he signs a new football contract and is able to buy a pink-painted mansion with a paddock out the back?) And why can’t she stop thinking about him and his new younger, even larger breasted girlfriend? But as the tabloid headlines have always been quick to point out, the path of true love for our moronic celebrity has not always been smooth (nor have the huge offers from OK Magazine for the exclusive rights to print pictures of her emergency bowel investigation always been forthcoming).

Sounds like a page turner!

Why My Next Novel Will Be Called “The Girl In The Fabulous New Leather Coat”

The most horrifying thing I’ve ever read about Jordan’s (a.k.a. the delectable Ms Katie Price’s) literary career is the fact that she decides upon the titles of her novels with the eventual book launch in mind. The title of her latest offering, Sapphire, was chosen because she thought it would be fun to dress up in blue sparkly outfits while promoting it. Good gawd. She’s also not ashamed to admit that the title is about all she does come up with. The nuts and bolts of her trashy, chick-lit lite novels (i.e. the actual writing) are hammered together by ghost-writer, Rebecca Farnworth.

What I want to know is… who is buying this horse shit?! Somebody certainly is. Jordan’s books (which span two autobiographies and four ghost-written novels) have sold more than three million copies (yes, that was million). Her 2007 novel, Crystal, outsold the entire Booker shortlist and at the time of writing, Sapphire is number 408 on the Amazon.co.uk sales rank (just to give you an idea of what this means, Dunraven Road is currently riding high at number 383,300).

Glamour muppet Katie Price wows the literary world with the utter awesomeness of her book launch outfit

Obviously, publishers haven’t been slow to jump on this bandwagon of badly “written” fluff as pushed by gormless, Botox-loving media whores (or, celebrities to you and me). Jamie Oliver’s wife, Jools, has tried her hand at some ridiculously old-fashioned, hideously middle-class children’s books; while a long list of similarly misinformed morons including Martine McCutcheon and Coleen Nolan have signed on to produce novels that will soon be piled high in a Waterstones near you. Oh joy.

I’m well aware this all sounds like sour grapes on my part (especially when the huge advances these literary posers command literally take money from the mouths of real writers, although that’s a completely different blog post…), but I think this modern trend for ghost-written cack with a D-list name on the cover upsets me more as a reader than as a writer. I just can’t get my head around why people are reading these books in their millions. Why would you want to read second rate chick-lit with vacuous characters, knowing full well the celebrity whose name is on the cover didn’t even write it? Just what, exactly, is it that you’re buying into? Inquiring and bewildered minds really, really want to know!

Apparently, I’m not the only bewildered writer in town. I’m not even the angriest. While accepting an award at the recent Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, screenwriter and novelist Lynda La Plante took her stage time as an opportunity to mouth off about celebrity novels: “Publishers are spending millions on TV faces – these books are a phenomenon and they are awful.” All this while Martine McCutcheon (whose debut novel, The Mistress, has been trashed across the blogosphere since her publishers released the first rancid chapter online) sat looking on in the audience. If Nelson Munce had been in attendance (and if he was real, of course…), the room would almost certainly have echoed with the familiar strains of “ha, ha!”

Happy Halloween!