| I stole this pic off the internet. Sorry đ |
In our house we reserve our most arch and nasty sneers for writers who cite writer’s block. We are pragmatists! If either of us displays any preciousness about the process of writing (although not about what happens to our words afterwards) we leap on each other like Veloceraptors.
If I ever see Giles dare to make a few notes about a forthcoming piece I will shriek in high falsetto “Dear Diary, today was a really good day. Saw Polly in the coffee shop, I think she really likes me. Did 40 press-ups today. My arms look amazing!” Then I have to stop because I am falling about laughing and cannot speak and then have a coughing fit.
If I ever dare to mention this blog, or the e-book spin-offs, in anything except totally derogatory terms, I get a machine-gun ribbing complete with flopping hand-gestures, questions about how much my last royalty cheque was for (ÂŁ39.50) and so on.
It is not personal, we’re just not terribly nice people and both grew up in houses where mealtimes were a fight-to-the-death with put-downs and schools where everyone was foully mean to each other all the time. To be seen to be making an effort was the worst crime in the world. We’ve also both worked in newsrooms where you just sit down and write any old shit most days and just file it on time. In the end, when commissioning editors are casting around for writers, they mostly just want someone to file the fucking copy on time. When I started writing for magazines I could never get used to how long deadlines were. “Could you file it for⊠hmmmâŠ.” the comm ed would say “the end of next week?” and then pause, audibly grimacing at the short notice. I would shout with laughter, my pen still hovering over a piece of paper, poised to write “4 PM”.
So the idea that you don’t just sit down at a laptop and start writing, not stopping until you are finished is anathema to us. “Do you read each other’s stuff?” people say. Giles sends me his copy sometimes, just so that I know in advance what completely made-up things I will be appearing in The Times as saying. But I almost always only say “It’s brilliant! It’s the best thing I’ve ever read! They are so lucky to have it!” because if I don’t say that, he will snap “I don’t write by committee!!” and then throw a chair out of the window and burst into tears.
I never show Giles my copy, ever, because he prints it out, reads it line by line with a ruler and gives it back to me covered in red scribble. “Serious problem with tenses,” it will always be will have saying.
And yet⊠and yet⊠there are only so many words in the world, only so many things one has to say, only so many things one is inspired to cook.
This is a roundabout way of saying that I have an e-book deadline for the end of July, which I am finding time-consuming. The new book is called “The Bad Mother” and I haven’t especially mentioned it because I am so used to not really discussing ongoing projects, because in our house you are so busy writing and writing and writing that you never stop to mention what you are writing because you are writing it and not just fucking talking about it. My favourite thing ever is when Giles opens the paper and there’s me in it with a massive pic and a huge headline and he goes “Wow!” and I think “BOSH” because he never saw it coming. Plus, if I tell him that I am expecting something in the paper and they don’t run it and I look even a tiny bit disappointed, Giles drives at 400mph to the editor’s house, shoulder-barges the front door and throttles them – and that’s one hell of a responsibility I tell you.
Anyway although a lot of the posts here can be semi ripped-off for this “book” and are all very good memory-jogs, the fact is that I am having to write this “book” mostly from scratch. And I’ve never been ace at that – I’m brilliant at starting books, but not so terrific at finishing them. That’s why I’m a journalist – a sprinter – and not a novelist – a long-distance runner. But the plain fact is that I have to finish it and the only way to do it is to spend all spare writing time when I am not putting clean pants in the right place, making Kitty’s packed lunch, heaving Sam around the place or applying St Tropez Gradual Tan (Light/Medium), writing it and not, alas, this blog.
But I feel sorry for you, because that’s the kind of patronising person you have decided to hitch your cart to, and so here is a recipe for a new kind of summer slaw. I actually totally forgot to take a photo of it, so I’m sorry about that. But it looks like a slaw just with no revolting claggy mayo or yoghurt dressing on the top.
I gave this for dinner to my friend AC and her husband Matt, who doesn’t eat much and never says he likes something if he doesn’t – and he called it “noteworthily good”, so you may proceed with confidence.
New-style summer slaw
I have called this “new style” because I think it sounds very modern
for 4 as an accompaniment
1/2 red cabbage
1/2 white cabbage
1 tsp grated onion (if you’ve never grated onion before, it comes out as a kind of gloop)
4 radishes
1 small fennel bulb
a handful combined of chopped mint and coriander – these are quite important so do go to some effort to source them
for the dressing
Chinese vinegar
juice of one lime
1/2 tablespoon (ish) grated fresh ginger
fish sauce
toasted sesame oil
1/2 clove garlic grated
1 either slice with the grating attachment of your food processor or with a Japanese mandolin the cabbages, radishes and fennel bulb into a bowl. Add the grated onion and mix well.
2 Take a small bowl and put in the lime juice, fresh ginger. Now add about a teaspoon each of the fish sauce, toasted sesame oil and Chinese vinegar and taste. Now add more of these sauces judiciously until you have something you like the flavour of. This is not because I cannot remember how much I put in of each! This is just because not everyone likes a dressing like this the same way. (It is because I cannot remember.) Anyway look you can’t really go wrong so just go for it. Pour the resulting dressing over the slaw and mix well.
Now write your novel.