Tag Archives: P G Wodehouse

Aunts, Godmothers and Other Interfering Females

“I have always maintained the importance of aunts.”

Jane Austen wrote that to her 10-year-old niece Caroline who had just become an aunt. In large families it was not unusual for children to become aunts and uncles.

I am an only child, as was my husband, so I never the privilege of being an aunt. Both my parents came from large families, however and I was blessed with an abundance of aunts (there were many more girls than boys in both families).

The oldest was a Victorian,  born in 1900 and several of them made it into their 90s and one received a telegram from the Queen on her 100th birthday,

They all had a lifetime of stories, some sad, some hilarious and, without exception, they had a big impact of my life. Continue reading →

That First Chapter

Sophie is editing… can you tell?

A_young_woman_is_sitting_in_a_chair_reading_a_storyThis week I have been thinking hard about what I need in that critical first chapter. To that end, I’ve broken off from my own novel every day and started reading other people’s first chapters.

Some have been old friends – in two cases very old friends. Indeed, two are even older than I am, by more than two centuries in one case.

Two others have been new to me. Of the new selection, one is a distinguished prize winner. I’d liked the sound of it, but I only picked it up this week because a friend is reading it for her book club. (Thank you for firing the starting gun, Rosemary.)

aerial vie of Hing Kong by night, with clouds over the horizon, and an confusion of skyscrapers below

Image by carloyuen from Pixabay

Another is a very successful children’s book. A reader of the target age lent me that one (thank you, Bella) with fantastic enthusiasm.

It’s been illuminating but also intriguing. I haven’t found one perfect example yet. Put them all together and you’re overwhelmed by a confusion of brilliance and obscurity.

But I one thing has become clear to me. In Chapter one the reader is all important. Continue reading →

Scents of Christmas : memories and stories

Sophie went to a party…

smell evokes memory with oranges and fireSo, after last week’s unavoidable delay, I’m offering some memories of scents of a Christmas or two amid general Solstice perturbations. But let’s start with a great big welcome to December, despite this week’s wild winds.

I’ve always liked wind. I find it exciting and yet strangely peaceful. For me nothing beats cuddling up indoors, in front of a good fire, while the wind turns the world outside upside down.

I even thought about that on Friday night, when Storm Darragh woke me up. Gusts shook my house and tore down a climbing rose on the patio. (The patio is a small city job, protected by 8 ft walls on three sides and backing onto a four storey house. It must have been a veritable tornado!)

Yesterday morning the air outside tingled – and smelled like the sea in a storm. And I immediately started writing a story. Continue reading →

Conversation on the Page

Man and woman sit cross legged on the ground in front of a body of water, and deep in conversation.

Image by pasja1000 from Pixabay

Conversation on the page fascinates me.

Even when I’m writing an email, describing a recent meeting to a mutual friend, for instance, I find myself overtaken by the desire to report the real words one or both of us spoke.

I hear it, of course, as I’m transposing it. Or at least, I am hearing what I remember. But does my reader hear it? And hear it in the same way?

Conversation off the Page

Apple orchard in sunlight

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

Unwritten conversation very often kicks off a story of mine. I will be elsewhere, not even be thinking about writing, and my imagination will pluck something out of the whirlwind and give it to me. And I know there is more —and the more is a story.

It’s almost like eavesdropping. Even a bit spooky sometimes.

For instance – I was once dozing gently in someone else’s garden. We’d had a good lunch and lot of laughter and she had gone inside to make tea. The other two were talking and I was looking at a couple of apple trees and not paying attention to anything much.

And a voice in my head said, “I can never forget it.” Continue reading →

Novelists, Reviews and a Competition

Announcing PG Wodehouse essay Prize 2022

This week I have been thinking about how I read and write reviews and, in particular, a very special competition. The latter invites you to try something similar but a bit more substantial for my dear P G  Wodehouse. See below for details.

Now, there are many ways of appreciating a novel.

You can study it, dream about it, carry on the characters in your own story (or several) and talk about it until your friends beg you to stop.

writing tipsTo share your enthusiasm with the whole world, all you have to do is write a review and post it on a bookseller’s website. Writers, desperate to let readers know that their work exists, are pathetically grateful for these reviews. I know. I am one of them. Continue reading →

Romantic Novelists in Wodehouse and Christie

resolution by letterA couple of weeks ago I gave a talk about romantic novelists in fiction and how they compared with the real thing. To be more precise, it was PG Wodehouse’s romantic novelists. Regular readers of this blog will remember that I have blogged about them before. (I am a huge fan of Rosie M Banks, before you ask.)

Two interesting things emerged from my researches. First, while PGW exaggerated some aspects for comic effect, in general he was pretty respectful of their work ethic – and success!

The second was – those exaggerations. I assumed they had sprung, new-minted, from the Master’s imagination. But just a bit of digging found that PGW had sources on which he might well have modelled even the most egregious. Glug. Continue reading →

Mousetrap, Superman and Posterity

This blog contains two main stories – what The Mousetrap did to Hamlet and how Superman distorted an Edwardian hero. For me, anyway.

For some weeks now I’ve been engaged in editing a book that I have re-visited over several years. It has made me think about references which may shift with time.

Something that seemed set in stone in 2008 may have become seriously misleading in 2021. Even downright counter-productive. As, I hope, my two stories will show.

Hamlet’s Dilemma

I love Shakespeare. I saw my first Hamlet when I was fourteen and I have seen it countless times since. There’s usually something new to discover and always special moments of power that stop me dead in my tracks. These depend on the production, of course. But generally one of them is the play within a play in Act 3 Scene 2.

Murdoch's Tower at Caerlaverock Castle ScotlandHamlet is obsessing about his mother’s remarriage. His father, the King, died only four months ago and Hamlet suspects his uncle of murdering him. Not only has the Queen married him, Uncle is now King. Hamlet started with a vague suspicion, but then he encounters his father’s ghost walking the battlements. He confirms it. Continue reading →

PGW’s Royal Romance

I have just read PGW’s royal romance, The Prince and Betty. When I first wrote about romantic novelists in Wodehouse World, I knew that the book existed but I had never read it. Now that I have, the story itself and, indeed, the history of its publication is a jigsaw puzzle.

However, I’ve also learned something about how it fitted into PGW’s life and other writing. And it has made me think again about Wodehouse’s place in romantic fiction.  And, indeed, of romantic fiction in his own life. So I thought I would share.

PGW’s Royal Romance – before the beginning

gold coinsWodehouse made his reputation initially with school stories. By 1909, however, he wanted to leave that behind and “butt into the big league,” as he told fellow free-lancer L H Bradshaw.

In New York, on leave of absence from his UK employer, The Globe, he found a literary agent who sold the two short stories PGW had brought with him for US$500. He was earning less that 10 guineas a pop from magazines in the UK. Continue reading →

What to choose for Reading in Lockdown?

Rather to my surprise, people have been asking me to recommend books for lockdown reading. Virtual strangers, some of them. I suppose they think a writer reads more than other people. Well, to keep abreast of the competition, if nothing else.

Now, I like talking about books. And I am congenitally incapable of ignoring a request for help.

But this particular question throws me into a quandary. I mean I can happily spout for hours on books I love. As you probably know. But…

Finding a story that somebody else might like, especially someone I barely know (not to mention that someone’s son, daughter or grandchild) is hard. To be honest, it has left me  with eyeballs swishing about, looking for the escape hatch.

So far I’ve blundered through, hauling up titles from the cellarage pretty much at random. Do people want books they can read together? Or are they trying to read to block out the effects of too much togetherness?

With a very uncertain Christmas coming, I thought I’d try to be a bit more disciplined.

New Lockdown Bookworms?

Continue reading →

Finding Your Voice

When two writer friends meet their first talk is of editorial revisions. You don’t risk a word on that unfinished book in case it stays that way. And you don’t talk about horrible reviews until you’re on at least your second glass.

But revisions are common to all writers and moaning about them – or sometimes sharing the joy – is a truly bonding experience.

This is the season when reports from the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers Scheme  start to come back. Many of them will contain suggested revisions. Welcome to the club, guys!

But sometimes the report (or a book doctor or even an experienced reader friend) may say: “I don’t think you’ve found your voice yet.” “Inauthentic” may even be murmured.

What does it MEAN? And what can you do about it? Continue reading →