Does Size Matter?

Driving home to a half term sans pilot, (nine day US tour … I’m going to be a basket case by the end of it). On the radio they were savaging lovely Ewan McGregor’s latest film. (Being half Scottish I have a soft spot for him - we even have a family sporran fluffed and brushed for weddings, and as a christening gift to my baby son the clan brooch was passed on. Actually that doesn't sound very manly does it - brooch? Perhaps there's a technical name for the big silver clasp you use to hold the clan tartan over your shoulder?) Back to Ewan - the script came off the worst: ‘Who wrote this?’ the presenter laughed incredulously. ‘Who wrote lines like: ‘I miss the simple things in life, like fish fingers.’ I winced for the poor person who had sweated blood over the script, who thought they were onto something real, modern, touching. I winced for Ewan – whose ‘come-back’ this is meant to be (has he been away? He’s been buckling swash with lightsabres, doing dashing things for Davidoff and circumnavigating the globe hasn’t he?) The best they could say for it was that Mr McGregor gets his kit off again. From the excitement in the studio, evidently no need for a body double there. It’s just one hurdle after another with creative work isn’t it? Like the Grand National – you make it over all the jumps (the sheer physical, mental and emotional endurance of writing a book or script in the first place, finding an agent, a publisher, rewriting, publicising …) only to reach Beecher’s Brook: will it be liked and will anybody read it? All that effort for some wiseguy on the radio to give you a ‘Turkey’ rating. Ack.

Do you read ‘big’ books? I mean big as in heavyweight literature, or big as in doorstop. I came across The Atlantic’s new site today - beautifully designed and it poses some terrific questions including ‘Are Good Books Bad For You?’ Big books certainly are – one or two of our recent book club books have been humongous great hardbacks – as I regularly fall asleep reading I have woken myself up with a whack on the face several times. A writer friend told me the other day that size really does count, at least with fiction. Her agent had told her to aim for 100k words. Anything over this causes problems with printing. Uh oh. Do you think they told Tolstoy? Touch wood, size has never been a problem for me – if anything I start big, like building up a hunk of stone and then sculpt and polish back to the finished work. The second book is much shorter than the first and I think this troubles people – perhaps they want a similar sized book to the first. First book too big, second book too small ... maybe book three will be 'just right' as Goldilocks said, or perhaps it's time to take inspiration from Little Britain’s Dame Sally Markham, making up her count with sections of the Bible and ‘wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’.

If you say ‘woman writer’ to a normal person there are normally two knee jerk reactions: a) starving suicidal Plath inspired lunatic in a freezing cold garret or b) Dame Barbara Cartland/Daphne du Maurier in their beautiful old homes, knocking out phenomenally popular bestsellers. Which one are you aiming at? I was at a house party in Cornwall years ago, and was the first to wake up. I staggered bleary eyed into the kitchen to make coffee only to come face to face with two slumbering Rottweilers. As the low snarl started, I began to back away. ‘Oh don’t do that!’ a cheery voice called from the back doorstep. ‘It will only excite them.’ My friend’s mother popped her head round the corner. ‘Just off to the village. Fancy a ride?’ One look at the by now slathering Rottweilers and I was off. We careered round Fowey in a wood framed Mini, the lovely old woman pointing out landmarks. ‘That’s Daphne du Maurier’s house,’ she waved a hand gaily at a beautiful old mansion, it’s windows reflecting the sunrise as we hurtled past. ‘So that’s how writers live,’ I thought.

Du Maurier had been obsessed with Menabilly – a house she could never own. It became one of her characters – Manderley, and haunted her life and work. I also have a strong feel for place and architecture – the same wild and beautiful (but fictional) West Country landscape is the backdrop for the first two books. I also have a strong sense of our ‘forever family home’ as Kirsty Allsop so winningly puts it. It’s out there. I don’t know about a mansion, but right now more space, and peace would be wonderful. We’ve had a couple of funny moments with children visiting for tea recently. ‘So do you live in a £1m house, or one of those squished up houses they knock down?’ one asked during the drive home. When they saw the cottage: ‘Mmm. Is a bit squashed up isn’t it?’ Talk about being cut down to size by a six year old. I’m trying to teach ours that size doesn’t matter … but does it? To children it really does. You want to feel equal, if not the best. You don’t want to be the one whose Mum is always the last to pick you up, or who has to wear the ‘wrong’ uniform – you want to blend in. Children are very conformist, love boundaries – it’s only later on that they hit the rebel stage we talked about a couple of posts back. But teaching our children what really matters in life, and not to take themselves too seriously are great gifts. Even work as loved as Du Maurier's 'Frenchman's Creek' is open to comic interpretation. We could all do with a good laugh tonight. Recession? Pah - enjoy.

TODAY’S PROMPT: What do you enjoy reading – short stories, novellas, or great bricks of novels? Do you like to be swept away in sagas, series, sequels? Or do you prefer something closely framed, tight, a one-act play? Have you even thought about word count, or are you just writing until it feels right? Out of interest, why not take a book you've really enjoyed and roughly calculate the length by multiplying the words on one page by the page count - it can be surprising to find out the length of a piece. How does it compare to your own work? How do you think you would feel about people's reactions to your life's work? Do you even care? Or do you lie awake at night panicking about it? I was interested to read an interview with Robert Downey Jnr - another actor I like a great deal. He said he thought he never cared about all the people who had criticised and dismissed him until he found box office success recently (with Iron Man), and was finally in a position to say 'to hell with you'. Perhaps it comes back to the ability to 'see ourselves as others see us?' - if you can anticipate reactions, even play up - tongue in cheek - and laugh at yourself, who is in control? The artist or the critic?