First (Fictional) Boyfriends

As my most recent novel was wending its way through the publishing process last winter, a few women working at Simon & Schuster in Canada grew rather fond of my modern-day hero, Rob. They even created this Tumblr post, which made me laugh. And the concept of having great taste in one's fictional men got me thinking of all of the heroes I'd fallen in love with myself in the books that I'd read. Far too many to count.

Then I started to wonder: Well, who was the first?

Because surely the first love, with fictional men as with real ones, would leave some discernible mark on the memory and be something special.

My first thought was that it would have to be someone from L.M. Montgomery's books: Kenneth Ford, from Rilla of Ingleside, always a favourite of mine; Barney Snaith from The Blue Castle, or the more obvious Gilbert Blythe. Gilbert, with his swoon-worthy good looks and good-natured charm. Gilbert, who says things like: "I have a dream. I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true..."

And yet...and yet, the more I sat and thought, the more I realized it was none of those, because before I'd met them in the pages of their books my heart had already been captured by a man who'd won me over by degrees as I had watched him grow from boyhood, from a farmer's stubborn son into a patient, quiet homesteader who always seemed to be there at the moment he was needed.

Almanzo Wilder

"Laura's dread of strangers came over her and the open door ahead seemed a refuge from their eyes.
      She did not notice a touch on her coat sleeve until she heard a voice saying, 'May I see you home?'
      It was Almanzo Wilder.
      Laura was so surprised that she could not say a word. She could not even nod or shake her head. She could not think. His hand stayed on her arm and he walked beside her through the door. He protected her from being jostled in the crowded entry."

Of course I'd noticed him before that, and it wasn't the first time that he had rescued her (nor would it be the last) but with that simple question, 'May I see you home?' towards the end of Laura Ingalls Wilder's book Little Town on the Prairie, Almanzo Wilder laid claim to my heart. He was my first.

I suppose you could argue that he's not entirely fictional, since he and Laura were actual people, but Laura took enough liberties in writing her Little House series of books that I feel like he counts. And he set the bar so high, in my view, for all of the heroes who tried to come after him that many never did make it. A fictional man might have all the right lines and a great set of abs, but if I couldn't picture him driving a small two-horse cutter twelve miles in a blizzard that froze the thermometer colder than forty below, just to bring me back home to my parents, then I wasn't interested.

Which helps, I suppose, to explain why I never had much time for Heathcliff, and why my own heroes all tend to be quiet, dependable men.

Who was your first great fictional love?

Book Covers

There was a summer fete in the church hall near us in London. It was a jolly affair with face painting for the kids and Pimms for the adults. As always I headed straight to book stall, forever looking for the lost gem. I struck gold with the cardboard box on the floor. On my hands and knees I fell into a time warp to my teens...

I prefer the older Le Carre covers...what about you?

The Pan covers of these DuMaurier title were rather buxom...but fun

Haven't read either of these two before...but couldn't resist them

Unfortunately they had none of the Victoria Holt novels that I remember were so much a part of my teenage years. What books were you reading in your teens and do their covers pull you into a time warp?

All Together, Now...

I've been Hopeless at remembering to post when it's my turn these past couple of months, mostly because I've been on tour for the publication of The Firebird and as a result I've been hopeless at remembering where I am and what day of the month it is at any given moment...

I was meant to post last Sunday, but I thought I'd sneak in now (with my apologies) to share this photographic piece of history snapped in London on May 16th of this year, when for the first time EVER, all of us were in the same spot at the same time, at the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual Summer Party.

A momentous occasion indeed, and luckily my son was on hand with a camera to capture it.

Left to right, that's Christina, Anna, Liz, Brigid, Me (Susanna), and Julie.

ALL IN THE SAME PLACE!

OK, maybe no one else is as excited about this as I am, but I'm sharing the photo with you anyway. And I promise I'll be here on schedule, next time.

Time Travel

McFly! McFly! McFly!

I’m currently sorting through the detritus of my life as I prepare to rent my flat out and it has been like travelling back in time. You see I’m a hoarder. I can’t let things go ‘just in case’. I’m also paranoid about throwing out bills and receipts in case the tax man will need them. As a result I am unearthing receipts from dinners and cinema trips from years ago with people I no longer see.

But the biggest time travel moment was finding notebooks with bits of stories, ideas from years ago (some back when I was a teenager). As I read those bits and pieces I am transported back to a different part of my life. Reminding me of what I’d been thinking then. Hazy memories sharpened by biro strokes. It also shocked me how much writing I was doing before I considered myself 'a writer'.

I found my teenage poetry and the beginning of my first novel in one notebook. The heartbreak of University in another. And then fast forwarding ten years to a miserable nine months I spent at the job from hell… I’d been obsessed with Buffy and was playing around with writing a book. There in the notebook was my idea for a book on witches. Charmed meets Sex and The City. I hadn’t realised how much I’d written of it.

And then there were the snippets of ideas, revisiting past characters and with it the past me. And in between all those writing notes there are also ‘to do’ lists, shopping lists and packing lists for holidays and trips. I looked down one list for my first trip to Nashville and suddenly I was there again. Happy, bouncing, agog with it all.

I have taken those notebooks and stored them in a plastic container to protect those nuggets, those parts of my past. I have set aside a small section of them that hold stories that I want to revisit so I can spend this summer working on them.

I might not have a DeLorean with a flux capacitor but I do have pen and paper. 

I'm Aliiiiiiive!!

That’s pretty obvious, you might say, since I’m writing this blog.  But it isn’t really – and there are times when that is really made clear to you.  Times when you feel so grateful to be alive.  Do you believe in Fate? Kismet? Destiny? Serendipity? Whatever you want to call it, that happy coincidence that makes all the difference to your life.  I do.

A couple of days ago I was travelling along a motorway and came upon the scene of an accident.  A lorry (truck if you’re in the US) had crashed through the middle barrier and lay sprawled across all three lanes, plus the emergency one, plus one lane on the other side.  When I and my family arrived, this must have just happened as we came to a stop less than 100 yards from the accident site.  So what if we’d arrived ten seconds earlier?

I wouldn’t be writing this now.

When we make up our stories, we decide on the characters’ fate and sometimes we can be accused of making it too unbelievable, too unreal.  But real life is like that too.  Things do happen, just like that, when you least expect them to, and they can change everything.  Those few vital seconds make such a difference.

Now I’m sitting here feeling very grateful to my guardian angel or whoever was looking after me that night.  And I’m also thinking about the awesome power I have over my characters.  A power that brings responsibility too.  Because if I make my characters suffer, it has to be for a reason.  If I have horrible things happen to them just for the hell of it, then that isn’t going to make for a very satisfying story.

I’m going to confess that I’m not a fan of Thomas Hardy’s stories.  Yes, I know they’re classics, I know he probably had good reasons and I know he was an infinitely better writer than I’ll ever be, but he was cruel to his characters – in my opinion unnecessarily.  Why, for example, having put poor Tess of the D’Urbervilles through so much pain and suffering, could he not have let her have her happy ending?  Why did she have to die?  I’ve never understood the point of that.

So when I write, I try to think really hard about the things I do to my characters because I wouldn’t want my readers to feel that way.  I wouldn’t want them to feel cheated somehow.

And in the meantime, I’m looking out at a beautiful sunny garden and I’m happy to just be here.

reading is the best medicine

I'm sorry to say I haven't been very well. Soon after meeting up with the gorgeous Heroine Addicts at the RNA Summer Party three weeks ago, I was taken ill and ended up spending nearly a week in hospital with pneumonia. (I hold the Heroine Addicts completely blameless for this fact, which is purely coincidence.)

Anyway, I'm home now and I'm recovering. Recovering mostly consists of drinking tea, eating healthy food, and sitting in the garden, reading.

I discovered fairly early on in my hospital stay that what you read when you're sick is very important. I'd been in the middle of one of Stephen King's Gunslinger series when I was taken ill, and so I brought that book with me into hospital. But I quickly realised that as enjoyable as these books are, they're completely unsuited for reading whilst ill. In fact, one night, when running a high fever, I hallucinated about vampires roaming the hallways of the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

The next day I rang my husband and asked him to bring me some more suitable reading. Thereafter, I read only The Princess Bride, Harry Potter, and Georgette Heyer, and I was much, much happier. The books probably helped as much as the IV antibiotics.

Since I've been home, I've been quickly and voraciously making my way through Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books. They're perfect feelgood, light, warm, easy reading and an enormous comfort. I'm reading them at a rate of 1.5 per day. (Though as I'm less delicate, I've returned to the Stephen King as well.) I've also got some more Heyer...and a long list for Husband to take to the library.

What are your favourite comfort reads when you're sick?

What to do, What to do...

I have an unexpected gift heading my way.

A free morning.

You see, while I'm being stay-at-home mum, Husband is working.  And while we're both home, the combination of my control-freakery and his real and reasonable need for rest from work tends to lead to us either doing things together as a family (yes, I still get a kick out of saying that.... *g*) or me doing stuff with Boy while he gets on with jobs.

But next Saturday - oh frabjous day! - Husband is taking Boy to meet with a bunch of mothers and toddlers he knows from work.  And possibly for another run around a castle afterwards.  I've even negotiated with him that he's going to do the pre-organising, packing the changes of clothes, the snacks, the juice....

*bliss*

This means I have a free morning.  At least.

I feel giddy.

(I must interrupt this post to explain that Husband just came in with two mugs of tea, one featuring cows and the other emblazoned with "Very Special Mummy", saying, "I got you this mug to remind you who you really are."  Then promptly set the cow mug down in front of me.... ROFL!)

But what shall I do with it?  I don't want to spend any money, as Husband's car has developed a suspicious leak, and I rather like spending any spare cash on Boy.  I have a list of jobs as long as my arm, but I don't really want to do paperwork or weeding or cleaning.  Do I go rush up a mountain without a dawdler, whiner, or someone on my shoulders, just because I can?

Visit a garden?  Go for a swim without my boobies being someone else's flotation device?  Lie in the sun and eat chocolates?  If it's a rainy day, lie in bed eating chocolates?

What would you do?