GEMMA BURGESS

On.... Original Sprout Deep Conditioner

2012-02-10T00:11:00.001-08:00

I've been testing beauty products for an article I'm writing for Tatler's May issue.

And I have to give you guys the early heads-up: this Original Sprout Deep Conditioner is THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY HAIR IN like four years.

My hair is blonde and damaged and brittle and unreliable. It's kind of like a stripper, I guess. It may also have daddy issues and a boyfriend called Big Tony. But that's not the point right now.

The point is: if your hair is a needy victim like mine, try this. It's amazing. My hair feels and looks silky, smooth, supple and strong. (Allegedly it's for babies, but Errol is a baldy and, based on Fox and my early childhood, will probably be a baldy till he's about four. So I'm totally stealing it.)

You can buy it here with free international delivery.

On... guess where we're going....

2012-02-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

As you guys know, I’m writing Your Next Favourite Book Series. It’s set in New York, and pretty much the minute I got the deal with St Martins Press, I began the process of applying for a US visa.

Getting a US visa, as a writer, is tough. It’s called an O-1 visa, and you need to prove – and bear with me here, because it’s hard to say without an arched eyebrow at the very least – ‘extraordinary ability’. Proving extraordinary ability is, of course, recockulously hard and requires compiling everything you‘ve ever done in your life, for a start. The books themselves aren’t enough: I needed university transcripts, birth and marriage certificates, book reviews, sales figures, interviews, press, all of it, plus lengthy and detailed letters of recommendation from people I work with, and then – this was the kicker - reviews of the letters of recommendation of people I’ve worked with by independent-but-highly-esteemed-industry-experts. It took less time and effort to create and hatch a baby than it did to get my US visa. Seriously. Ask Errol.

But... drumroll... a few weeks ago, it was approved. (Thank to Mssrs Clark and Wang at Flynn & Clark! Woo! Round of applause for my lawyers, please!)

And so we’re moving to New York.

Naturally, it’s not totally uncomplicated (nothing worth doing in life, at least, not my life, ever is). Fox's career requires him to be in Europe/the Middle East/Asia a lot, which does - and will continue to - suck a fat one. Our friends are all over the place, my parents are in Hong Kong, his family is in Ireland. But we’re finally going to live in New York. Which has been our plan since... well, forever.

I'm so happy. I think it's my genetic make-up: my parents are big city people and terminal itinerants, and in my life I’ve moved countries six times and houses about, no exaggeration, 38 times (I just counted).

But moving to New York is The Big One.

Just saying the words ‘we're moving to New York’ gives me a face-acher of a smile. Thinking about it makes me want to yap and shriek and clap and woo like a drunk chick in a karaoke bar. I want to wriggle and jump and roll like a sheepdog on ecstasy. I want to pee. I want to shout ‘YEAH BITCHES’ and high-five myself. I want to pledge allegiance, hail a cab, down a martini and slam my face into a bagel with everything. In that order. So I hope this explains the lack of blog posts and Tweets and newsletter updates, dearest friends, but between New York, the baby, and writing Your Next Favourite Book Series and a couple of screenplays, I’m a busy little thing. Forgive me and I will make it up to you. I swear.

Now. Anyone want to rent us an apartment?

This is New York.

This is us getting married in New York.

On... Rules Of Civility

2012-01-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Rules Of Civility by Amor Towles.

I love this book.

Update: I wrote an email to Amor Towles telling him how much I loved his book, and he replied! I dont know why I am so surprised, since I always reply when you guys write to me, but I was. And it makes me like the book all the more. Try it, you'll love it.

On... things I like right now

2012-01-20T06:54:00.000-08:00

REN Glycolactic peel

Makes me look like I have my own personal lighting director. The blurb says it's for 'congested, mature or sun damaged skin', of which mine is (d) none of the above, actually it's rather pale and dry. But this stuff is magic nonetheless.

Sebastian Penetraitt Repair Masque.

My hair is like the feeble wheelchair-bound cousin in The Secret Garden. It doesn’t do what it’s meant to do, no-one likes it much and it whinges all the time. I think that’s the right personality for that kid, isn’t it? Ah, can’t be bothered to check. Sometimes I like having the internet right THERE and not using it to find out things like that. This way, I can just make shit up. ANYWAY, this hair mask (sorry, 'masque', clearly the Sebastian people are feeling all French as well as feeling like spelling perfctly good words however the hell they want to) is like the Secret Garden: it transforms my hair into a running, shouting, jumping boy! Okay, this whole analogy isn’t working. Let’s move on.

Chanel No.19.

A present from my lovely parents for Christmas and utterly divine. Tania Sanchez describes it as ‘Haughty and immune to sweetness... this extraordinary perfume appeals to any woman who has wished to know what it is to be heartless. [It] keeps you in the boardroom, in three-inch stilettos and a pencil skirt.’ (That’s from Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, an inspiring, hilarious, poetic encyclopaedia of perfume, by the way.) I want to be heartless! I want a boardroom! I love this scent. It's sort of sharp and green and musky, makes me feel all elegant and 70s and high-waisted-trouser-suity-ambitious, and whenever I wear it, Fox whispers ‘you break that glass ceiling, girl’ as I walk past. Inspired by the divine sighsandwhispers, here are some Chanel No.19 ads from the 70s. Love the straplines.

And lastly, vodka with ice cubes and cucumber slices.

Sometimes I go through a whiskey phase, sometimes I like beer, red wine is good (but tres drying for the skin), I usually get along quite well with champagne. But I always, always love vodka. Try it neat or, if you’re feeling wussy, with soda, and a slice of cucumber. It works. Trust me.

On... sighsandwhispers

2012-01-19T07:28:00.000-08:00

Most blogs – both mine and other people’s - are a deeply enjoyable waste of time (DEWOT).

This isn't derogatory: I’m a big fan of DEWOTs. When I’m DEWOTting – whether it’s blogsurfing or online shopping, or real world shopping or people-watching, or whatever – the front half of my brain goes ‘ooo looky shiny things!’ and the back half of my brain is free to wander around my subconscious and digest ideas and come up with solutions to my current projects. I find frequent DEWOTing essential to the writing process: I write in intense bursts, then go and look at something on the internet or stare out the window for awhile or kiss the baby or whatever, so the back of my brain can digest what I’ve just done and what I need to change or do next. As an old creative director of mine once said: "Just think about it deeply, then forget it... then an idea will jump up in your face."*

I don’t often go to other author / writing blogs much in my online DEWOTting. I can’t sort out what to do with a character when I’m reading about another author’s issues with his characters, or whatever. It’s just distracting, too much noise. So instead, I go to fashion or interior design or restaurant blogs, or to a couple of random little blogs that are just doing their own thang in the most awesome way, like that person at a party who's dancing alone in the corner and having the best time out of everyone.

Like sighsandwhispers.

Its raison d’etre is posting advertorials and fashion editorials from old fashion magazines. Most of them from the 70s, but sometimes they’re from other decades too. This women is passionate about her retro magazines - in fact, the word 'retro' is demeaning and gimmicky. It's more like she's unearthing little gems from the past. She's a fashion/media historian. I actually love sighsandwhispers so much that it’s one of the very few blogs that I subscribe to by email and open every day, rather than just skim on Flipboard**. Here are some of my favourite posts.

Apparently these were the sexiest men of 1979. Godammnit, I love me some Burt.

When this one arrived I smacked the desk, I was laughing so hard.

Is it just me, or is the mo-and-chest-hair combination DEEPLY sexually alluring? Just me? Just... okay then. (Cough.)

"What would you little maniacs like to do first?" I would like you to CONDITION YOUR GODDAMN HAIR KELLY. JEEZ.

*Okay, this was Don Draper. But you get my point.

**By the way, Flipboard has utterly transformed my blogtime, as rather than have to remember a blog or use stupid Google reader or whatever or bother to go to the site and scroll and click and blah blah blah, I can just flip back and forth, on my iPad, as though the blog were a magazine. SO much easier and more enjoyable. Best App ever. Now, Flipboard limits the number of sites you can read on it, which is annoying at first but actually brilliant as it helps you streamline. I regularly discard blogs when they start boring me or if they get the wrong its/it’s too often, or if they're not updating often enough to keep me interested... (The irony! From she who updates like once a fortnight... What can I say? I’m a Flippocrite. BOOM! Thank you! I'm here all week! Try the veal!) Anyway. My current favourites are: Something Navy, LeFashion, Habitually Chic, Chapman Interiors, Cup of Joe, My Baby Sleep Guide, IntoTheGloss and of course SighsAndWhispers. And the websites I have on Flipboard and also read like a magazine, just in case you’re wondering, are Fashionista, Refinery29, WhoWhatWear, The Hollywood Reporter, and New York Magazine. And a couple of others I am almost sure I’m going to discard today as they’re boring me. If anyone has any suggestions for blogs and sites I might like, by the way, bring it on. Ooo, and if you like all of those sites, get The Collection app from the NYTimes, too, just because it’s awesome. Hmm. Okay. That is all. Longest asterisked point ever.

On... The Heavy

2012-01-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

The Heavy - How You Like Me Now?

This is the song I listen to when I'm doing my Pram Powerwalk. (Yes, I am a cliché.)

I love it. I march and scowl-pout and do an angry duck-neck thing.

Sometimes I stop and do some angry thrusts at nothing in particular.

This is an improvement on singing 50 Cent's 'I'm a P.I.M.P.'.

Apparently, a new mother shouting 'You fuckin' with me, you fuckin' with a P.I.M.P.' as she cruises the streets is frowned upon by society. Man, people are so uptight.

On... happiness

2012-01-03T05:47:00.000-08:00

I don't believe in New Years Resolutions. I mean, I know they EXIST, I just don't bother with them. If I ever feel like I should do something or change something about my life, I usually just shut the hell up and try to do it.

But I do like thinking about happiness. I'm an annoyingly happy person. I wasn't always, of course (being a single twentysomething working in advertising and living in a shareflat in London would try the happiness powers of the Dalai goddamn Lama), but now that I am, I sort of want everyone else to be happy too. (Wow, that sounds retarded, huh? Pretend I said it with an ironic eyeroll and a flick of an imaginary cigarette, okay? And pretend I snarled a little bit. Yeah. Just like that.)

Anyway, I read this piece on happiness on Habitually Chic, who got it from Sophie Elgort, who probably got it from someone else. And I've thought about it ever since - just about every single point resonated with me (though obviously my bullshitometer went off at terms like 'flow experiences' and 'practice spirituality'). So, rather than resolutions, I vote we all just try to be happier. Or, we could just try to drink more. Whatever works.

12 Things Happy People Do Differently
Studies conducted by positivity psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky point to 12 things happy people do differently to increase their levels of happiness. These are things that we can start doing today to feel the effects of more happiness in our lives. (Check out her book The How of Happiness.)

1. Express gratitude. – When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value. Kinda cool right? So basically, being grateful for the goodness that is already evident in your life will bring you a deeper sense of happiness. And that’s without having to go out and buy anything. It makes sense. We’re gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren’t thankful for what we already have.

2. Cultivate optimism. – Winners have the ability to manufacture their own optimism. No matter what the situation, the successful diva is the chick who will always find a way to put an optimistic spin on it. She knows failure only as an opportunity to grow and learn a new lesson from life. People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.

3. Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. – Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous. If we’re somehow ‘better’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, it gives us an unhealthy sense of superiority. Our ego inflates – KABOOM – our inner Kanye West comes out! If we’re ‘worse’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, we usually discredit the hard work that we’ve done and dismiss all the progress that we’ve made. What I’ve found is that the majority of the time this type of social comparison doesn’t stem from a healthy place. If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an earlier version of yourself.

4. Practice acts of kindness. – Performing an act of kindness releases serotonin in your brain. (Serotonin is a substance that has TREMENDOUS health benefits, including making us feel more blissful.) Selflessly helping someone is a super powerful way to feel good inside. What’s even cooler about this kindness kick is that not only will you feel better, but so will people watching the act of kindness. How extraordinary is that? Bystanders will be blessed with a release of serotonin just by watching what’s going on. A side note is that the job of most anti-depressants is to release more serotonin. Move over Pfizer, kindness is kicking ass and taking names.

5. Nurture social relationships. – The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships. Did you know studies show that people’s mortality rates are DOUBLED when they’re lonely? WHOA! There’s a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from having an active circle of good friends who you can share your experiences with. We feel connected and a part of something more meaningful than our lonesome existence.

6. Develop strategies for coping. – How you respond to the ‘craptastic’ moments is what shapes your character. Sometimes crap happens – it’s inevitable. Forrest Gump knows the deal. It can be hard to come up with creative solutions in the moment when manure is making its way up toward the fan. It helps to have healthy strategies for coping pre-rehearsed, on-call, and in your arsenal at your disposal.

7. Learn to forgive. – Harboring feelings of hatred is horrible for your well-being. You see, your mind doesn’t know the difference between past and present emotion. When you ‘hate’ someone, and you’re continuously thinking about it, those negative emotions are eating away at your immune system. You put yourself in a state of suckerism (technical term) and it stays with you throughout your day.

8. Increase flow experiences. – Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still. It’s when you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you become one with the task. Action and awareness are merged. You’re not hungry, sleepy, or emotional. You’re just completely engaged in the activity that you’re doing. Nothing is distracting you or competing for your focus.

9. Savor life’s joys. – Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to enjoy the joy. It’s easy in a world of wild stimuli and omnipresent movement to forget to embrace life’s enjoyable experiences. When we neglect to appreciate, we rob the moment of its magic. It’s the simple things in life that can be the most rewarding if we remember to fully experience them.

10. Commit to your goals. – Being wholeheartedly dedicated to doing something comes fully-equipped with an ineffable force. Magical things start happening when we commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to get somewhere. When you’re fully committed to doing something, you have no choice but to do that thing. Counter-intuitively, having no option – where you can’t change your mind – subconsciously makes humans happier because they know part of their purpose.

11. Practice spirituality. – When we practice spirituality or religion, we recognize that life is bigger than us. We surrender the silly idea that we are the mightiest thing ever. It enables us to connect to the source of all creation and embrace a connectedness with everything that exists. Some of the most accomplished people I know feel that they’re here doing work they’re “called to do.”

12. Take care of your body. – Taking care of your body is crucial to being the happiest person you can be. If you don’t have your physical energy in good shape, then your mental energy (your focus), your emotional energy (your feelings), and your spiritual energy (your purpose) will all be negatively affected. Did you know that studies conducted on people who were clinically depressed showed that consistent exercise raises happiness levels just as much as Zoloft? Not only that, but here’s the double whammy… Six months later, the people who participated in exercise were less likely to relapse because they had a higher sense of self-accomplishment and self-worth.

PS Happy New Year!

On... a perfect t-shirt

2011-12-14T07:10:00.001-08:00

Love this.
Courtesy of righteous dudes @keris and @sarramanning on Twitter.

On... pregnancy obsessions

2011-12-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

Fact: Life milestones cluster.

First, everyone you know turns 21 and all you seem to do is go to 21st birthday parties every damn weekend. Then everyone moves into grubby-floored shared apartments with friends, and all you do is go to housewarming parties where someone ends up sleeping in the bathtub. Then everyone moves in with their significant other and you go to a lot of dinner parties (and eat either roast chicken or lasagne). Then everyone breaks up with said significant other, and decides they hate their career, and you all go out to bars in hope of widening the social gene pool and drinking away the worries about how much you hate your career. Then everyone gets engaged and married, all at once, so all of a sudden you spend every second of your life travelling to, shopping for and recovering from weddings.

And then everyone gets knocked up. And that’s where I am right now. It’s baby baby baby, plop plop plop. Everyone I know is clearly getting laid. A LOT. And high five to all of you for that. (You smutty little filthmongers.)

Now, some women waft through pregnancy, looking amazing and feeling fantastic, barely noticing any difference in their day to day lives. Others are slayed by nausea, exhaustion, and general aches and pains, and wake every morning wondering what fresh hell will arrive that day. I was firmly in the latter camp. And these are the items that helped me survive. So if you’re knocked up, or know someone who is, enjoy. If you’re not in this place at all, then this post will really bore you. But then again, my bourgeois analysis of the concerns of 20- to 30-something yuppies like moi was probably highly tedious too, and you clicked away on like, line three. So never mind.

ANYWAY.

If you’re plagued by nausea / vomiting / acid reflux / heartburn, nothing will taste very good for the entire nine months. On the plus side, you can impress your friends by burping like a trucker. And nothing says 'mother' like someone leaning over a toilet bowl for the sixteenth time that day, screaming 'THIS IS BULLSHIT' in between mouthfuls of [insert foodstuff here].

Super Lemons are a Japanese lemon-flavoured candy that are so sour they make you wince and drool and swear. They also may stop you feeling godawful for an hour or so. Apparently extra saliva helps create enzymes that relieve nausea. We ate a lot of these in Hong Kong when I was a kid (though we were not, I hasten to add, knocked up). And we liked another candy called, I think, Toxic Waste. No confirmation if Toxic Waste is good for pregnancy or not. You can usually find Super Lemon in Japanese food shops, or try Amazon or Ebay.

Next, Pink Lady Apples, cold from the fridge and sliced into 1cm rounds, also helped my nausea. I don't know why; I'm not a nutritionist. Warning: chew them VERY well. If they come back up, apple skin will slice the shit out of your throat.

Ditto cucumber. Sliced thin, on buttered toast, with cracked pepper. If you are great with child and feel meh, try it.

For the last trimester, heartburn can be a real bitch. Sometimes it gets so bad you'll throw up. At least, I did. Eating almonds will keep you going without feeling sick. Something to do with the alkaline/acid levels of your stomach, or some shit like that. (I’m not a doctor, either.) Man, I ate a lot of almonds. I also ate a steak sandwich cooked in butter every day for breakfast, as it was the only meal that was guaranteed not to give me heartburn. God, that was awesome. I’d love a steak sandwich right now. Let's put a photo of a steak sandwich in, just for fun.

Nice.

Of course, you can take drugs for nausea and heartburn... I tried Vitamin B6, Omeprazole, Zantac, Motilium, Gaviscon, and a bunch of other things. Tums were the most calming and the yummiest. Sometimes I’d fall asleep, sitting up (lying down makes heartburn a lot worse), with a Tums dissolving in my mouth. A few hours later, I’d wake up with heartburn again, pop another Tums, and drift back to sleep. I'd wake up with coloured spittle dried around the outside of my lips. Which means I was also probably drooling. Did I mention pregnancy was sexy? No? That’s good. Because I would have been lying.

I have a thumping great girl crush on this woman. Tara Lee. I did her pregnancy DVD every single morning from week 12 onwards, even when walking or sitting for longer than a few minutes was no longer an option (pesky back and hip problems). She's sort of gentle and calm and kind, and so pretty, and she has a nice voice, and um, oh, she has really great hair, and oh no, am I gushing? I feel like I'm gushing... The yoga moves are very easy, and really stretch out all the muscles that are working hard to carry that 30 pounds of babygut around. All in all, it was a lovely way to start the day. By week 37, I could recite the entire thing, word-for-word, with Tara’s calm-but-wise-inflexions, including lines like 'feel like you are doing an internal dance with your baby', WITHOUT IRONY. More worryingly, so could Fox.

You can’t sleep on your back during pregnancy for a number of boring-but-scary reasons. This pregnancy pillow is comfy as hell and doubles as a nursing pillow once your baby arrives. My sister asked if it was from Pacha in Ibiza, and I replied ‘no, Peter Jones in Chelsea’. That kind of highlights the different stages of life we’re at right now.

Support belt. It’s ridiculous, it’s unattractive, and it’s silly. But it really helps with aches and strains you might have if you are large of bump. No, of course this photo isn’t of moi.

Lastly, a reminder of why you are enduring the hell of pregnancy in the first place. Because babies are awesome.

Errol Fletcher Barry. This morning.

On.... a new blog for SheerLuxe

2011-12-07T01:43:00.001-08:00

As you may know, sometimes I write a blog for the luxenistas at SheerLuxe.

Here's the latest one.

On... The Afterparty

2011-12-02T07:15:00.001-08:00

I chose this book just for the cover.

The Afterparty by Leo Benedictus.

And then I read it.

It's brilliant.

I wish the cover for The Dating Detox looked like that, by the way. It would seem so much more appropriate, don't you think? Only with vodka instead of whiskey, and maybe a cigarette stubbed out in it instead of a floating dude (which, by the way, I only noticed after staring at it for a very long time).

People sometimes email me asking for recommendations for books like mine. My suggestions are usually pretty useless. For one thing, I don't read a hell of a lot of chicklit. And though I know there's some great chicklit out there (and, of course, a lot of fluffy shit), I don't know many chicklit books with heroines who drink and swear and screw and work hard and hope and fuck up and recover... and who are, most importantly, funny. And that's why I started trying to write in the first place: I felt like reading something comforting-yet-sharp and nothing satisfied me.

These are the dependably satisfying reads that I usually recommend: Talli Roland's The Hating Game, starring a hilariously strong and snarky heroine. Plum Skyes' Berdorf Blondes always cracks me up. Jennifer Weiner and Candace Bushnell are consistently excellent (they're bestsellers for a damn good reason...). I always enjoy Emily Giffin books, though they're sometimes a little heavy on the concept and light on the laughs. Jilly Cooper is laugh-out-loud funny, but she writes bonkbusters and that's not everyone's cup of hot cha. And Helen Fielding is of course the funniest of all... but don't we all know Bridget off by heart by now?

Anyway, read The Afterparty. It's smart, fast and very funny.

On... just for Dubliners

2011-11-25T03:20:00.000-08:00

Do you live in Dublin? Or know someone who does?

If so, I have ace news for you: just go to South Anne Street today, or on Saturday 26th or Sunday 27th, and visit the NOHO pop-up store, say ‘Conor sent me’ and get 20% off the cost of NOHO!

What the hell is NOHO, you ask?

Well, it’s the hangover defence to end all hangover defences.

Now, full caveat: I haven’t tried it myself (preggers + nursing = booze-free 2011 for Gemgem) but Fox has, and it really does work. Normally, his hangovers render him bedridden for at least a day, groaning piteously, begging me for toast / water / coffee / the laptop / the papers / some cola bottle candies / a head massage / anything else his poisoned liver demands. But the morning after he tried NOHO, he sprang out of bed, chipper and ready to face the day. And the man was drinking martinis, wine, and G&Ts the night before. He’d come home at 1am, serenaded me with ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ (yep, from Three Men And A Baby), and then snored like a dinosaur bear all night. He had no business being chipper. No business at all. When I am back in the drinking saddle again, I shall be on the NOHO bus faster than you can say ‘double vodka on the rocks’.

Anyway. Here’s the stuff you need to know: it’s a little shot bottle sold in packs of two, you take one before you go out, and one before you go to sleep. There’s no sugar, no caffeine, no crazy stimulants. Just the perfect combination of vitamins and nutrients (like Ginger Root Extract and Prickly Pear Extract) that help your body break down alcohol. And dudes, I’m pretty sure it’s the real deal. NOHO is the No.1 hangover solution in the US.

And now my brother-in-law Conor is bringing it to Ireland. For Conor, being hangover-free is every Irishman's God-given right.

For the next six weeks NOHO will be available from a pop-up store on South Anne Street, just off Grafton Street. So swing in and say hello. It’s normally €5 for two bottles, but you can get it for €4 for the next three days just by saying 'Conor sent me' at the check out. And €4 is, after all, less than the cost of a drink in Dublin these days. So please, check it out, and then let me know if it works for you.

Conor has a cameo in The Dating Detox, by the way, as the smart-mouthed Irishman at the country house party. When he found out I was writing a book, he asked if he could be in it, and I thought: why the devil not? (When I tell people that, they tend to ask ‘why isn’t Foxy in it?’ and Fox replies something like ‘because I am both JAKE AND ROBERT! Rolled into ONE PERFECT SPECIMAN OF MANLINESS!’ And then I reply 'sure you are dude, whatever gets you through the night'.)

On... outfits from the past

2011-11-23T11:03:00.000-08:00

Age four. Daisy bikini. Would totally still wear this.

Age eight. Pale pink pencil skirt, grey suede booties, hot pink sweater with a balloon appliqué. I would wear this outfit today, except for the sweater (I'm over 30; I can't do ironic appliques). Man, I loved that skirt. My mother told me I looked like I worked in a bank. I loved that even more.

Age 12. Black opaques, DM boots (only six hole, wasn’t allowed the eight hole), seriously frayed denim shorts, oversize burgundy cardigan. I may have hit my sartorial apex at the age of 12, as this look is still pretty much perfect.

Age 14. Pale blue Levi’s 501s, oversize black belt with daisy-shaped belt buckle, white tshirt, black blazer with the sleeves pushed up, silver peace sign pendant on silver chain. Totally Cindy Crawford ya know? Also, peace signs were really big in Hong Kong in the 90s. Ditto hypercolour tshirts, high top sneakers, and enormous carryall bags made of purple and orange wool that we bought from street vendors from, I think, Nepal. Holy shit, those bags were ugly.

Age 16. Secondhand flowery tea dress with the hem cut off far higher than it should have been and a pair of huge steelcapped (no, they really were steelcapped) brown farmers boots that were two sizes too big. I bought the boots from a secondhand shop in a small country town one summer vacation, somehow got them home though they added about 5kg to my luggage and my mother had threatened me with death if I overpacked again. I wore them constantly for years, even though they were so heavy I could hardly lift my feet. I was trying to do a grunge thing, I guess. What can I say.

Age 17-20. These were my university years. My friends and I were lucky if we got out of PJs. We often didn’t. We also wore a disturbing amount of extraordinarily unattractive rugby jerseys. If one of us actually wore jeans, or – gasp – a belt – we assumed that person’s parents were taking them out for dinner or something. When I look back, I am mildly surprised any of us ever got any action at all.

What about you?

On... sartorial outrage

2011-11-16T03:03:00.000-08:00

I really want these.

Unique Flare Jeans by Goldsign.

But US$278 on a pair of jeans is ricockulous. What are they made from? Unicorn sperm?

I am starting a new 99% movement for the 99% of people who think nearly US$300 for a pair of goddamn jeans is an outrage. Join me! (Fear not, we're not gonna do the whole sleeping-in-tents thing. I've never slept in a tent and I'm not about to start now.)

On... an email that I love

2011-11-14T21:25:00.001-08:00

I have an email to share with you.

I got it a few months ago, opened it by mistake, read the whole thing as it made me laugh so much, and every now and again I remember it and think 'I should so blog about that'.

Yeah, it's a phishing scam spam thing.

But it's strange and hilarious and kind of beguiling.

The first few paragraphs are, though lexically tickling for the copywriter, rather predictable. So if you're in a hurry, skip to the paragraph starting 'Yes it's true the world is a global place'.

FedEx UK Head Office
Parkhouse Industrial Estate
East Chesterton
Tel (+44) 7024018994
Date:17/09/2011

Attention: Dear Valued Beneficiary,

CLAIM NOTIFICATION.

This is to notify you that your parcel is still in our possession, this parcel contained an International Cashier Bank Draft/Cheque worth the sum of $1,500,000.00(One Million five hundred Thousand USA dollars)only and it is ready for delivery to your door step. Meanwhile, before the delivery or shipment will take place, you are advice to send to us the following data's

mention below:

1. Your full Name :
2. Residential Address:
3. Private Telephone:

The above requested information's will enable us deliver your parcel correctly without any mistake or delivering your parcel to a wrong person. Further more, you might be asking yourself how comes this email, cheque or draft, Anyway, your cheque was brought to this office by a Lottery Fiduciary Agent Or Claim Agent, signifying that you are a rightful winner to their Lottery Award selected randomly from 10 lucky email addresses which your email address is one of the lucky email address.

FedEx Courier Service mailing you as per your parcel that was brought to this company to be delivered to you by the lottery groups, along the delivery process that brought a misunderstanding between you and the lottery claim agent and in regards of their request as per their insurance certificate cost, tax fee and lots of other universal corps and drug searches which happened to be the course of your parcel being pending for the past months/year.

Meanwhile we are hereby happy to inform you that the FedEx Company has finalized and resolved the whole issued with the legal offices like the International Monetary of Funds(IMF),and the Internal Revenue Service(IRS) offices, the company organization has also listed 24 valuable parcel's to be intact in their office after the released of the parcel's from universal corps and drug searches.

We are happy to inform you once again that your parcel that contains the sum of $1,500,000.00 is among the 24 parcel's listed which is now in our office and also with your name as the receivers despise, that we lost your private residential address's, which is an indication that you can now re-send your residential address, telephone as stated above back to the FedEx Company where your parcel can be delivered to you without hesitation.

Meanwhile remember that the sender of this parcel to you that's the fiduciary agent still owes this company the sum of $121 usd before the incident occurs, Note that this fee is not just for delivery but with the immigration and customs stamp duty, this company has spend out of their incomes in the process by the recovering back your parcel? so dear customer we once again appreciate your patronage in our favour.

Without hesitations you are to pay for just the balance left by your sender since we have lost his contact. this payment have to be made via Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram with the below payment information so that your parcel can be delivered to your residential address before it accumulate a demurrage after one week, only,as you know your parcel is not just an ordinary parcel but with a huge amount and I think you understand what I mean by accumulating a demurrage?

Which you will not allow that to happen to your recovered parcel that almost gone if not for the love that God have for you by favoring you with his favor by now there could have been no hope at all.We assure you that your parcel will arrive at your home country in two days time and it will get to your door step the third day as soon as this company receive the balance payment of $121 usd the tracking number of your parcel will be sent to you via e-mail immediately so that you can track it yourself to see your parcel on the way and you will also know when it will arrive at your home country because we operate in trust and loyalty in your favor. And also the FedEx Courier Service hereby inform all their customers through this media by heradicating all their communication with the scam mails that are going all-over the world be careful with their e-mails so that your parcel will not be in danger with their evil planes.

FedEx provides access to a growing global market place through a network of supply chain, transportation, business and related information services.

Yes it's true that the world is a global place that people would easily go and scam people most especially on the net because the internet is the easiest way to reach to people and making them believe that the transaction they are offering is real. Therefore i must say that you deemed it fit and did right for explaining all to me in details so that you won't misunderstood the whole issue.

I need you to know that i'm a man of dignity and keeps to my word. It's therefore an insult on my face and on me as a person for you to have thought that i belong to those imposters, though i saw your reasons.By the virture of a man's word, you could tell who is geniue and not.Though have been involved in such like this does not mean that when you see a legit one you can't tell it's really. God our creator has different ways of restoring all our wasted years and this is the restoration that the lord has ordained for you.

Furthermore, i would want you to know that there is scam in the globe and i would advice you to be careful with the kind of emails you reply to so that you won't be a victim of circumstance anymore . it's my duty to protect your interest and also advice you on legal matters on how to go about it. I promise you will be revived and regain all that you've ever dreamt of at the end.You must also know that you will be surprised that the delivery will be made to you as soon as you make the payment and at that point and level of success, you will live to remain greatful to me, I want you to have your mind rest and make a delivery choice and your consignment will get to you safely with any more problem.

PAYMENT INFORMATION FOR THE IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS STAMP DUTY CHARGES BEFORE DELIVERY EFFECT, FIND BELOW the information for Western Union or Money Gram to enable you make the payment of $121 usd before the delivery commence:

Receivers Name: Diakunu Standwell
Receivers Address: Accra Ghana
Senders Name: ------------
senders Address:------------
Text Question: In God?
Answer: We Trust
MTCN or REF Number:--------------

Amount to be sent: $121 US Dollar

Please you have to send the full payment information including the MTCN Number to enable us fully proceed on your delivery FedEx is one of the world's greatest successful story, the start-up that revolutionized the delivery of packages and information. In the past 30 years, we've grown up and grown into a diverse family of companies as FedEx that's bigger, stronger, better than ever.

Mr.Steven Billias
email: stevbillias0@secretarias.com
WAITING TO READ YOUR E-MAIL.
YOURS AFFECTIONATLY.

FEDEX COURIER MANAGING DIRECTOR..
FEDEX BROCAST DESK
Agent Jan Ward

Don't you find the ranting-yet-patient tone of voice so charming? "I think you understand what I mean by a demurrage?"

From now on when I'm pissed off, I'm going to say "that is an insult to my face and me as a person".

I almost hope the dude got some money. I feel like he earned it.

On... a new lip balm

2011-11-14T00:43:00.000-08:00

Last night I was almost asleep when I realised I'd forgotten to apply lip balm. Dry lips are the bane of my life (uh, after my eyebrows... and the perma-hangnail on my thumb... and - oh, never mind, back to the point), so I drenched up the energy to reach into my nightstand and fumble around the mess for my trusty tube of Homeoplasmine .

It was not there.

Instead I pulled out a tube of Lanisoh nipple balm, the most useless item I bought when I was pregnant. I never needed it. My puppies adjusted to breastfeeding pretty effortlessly, bless their not-that-little souls.

So I gazed at the tube of Lanisoh sleepily through my lashes, thought 'fuck it, if babies are allowed to eat it it must be safe enough', and smeared some on my lips. It's very thick and clear, like a balmy-paste thing. It doesn't taste or smell of anything, either.

I woke up eight hours later with the stuff STILL ON, lips perfectly plump and moisturised, no cracks, not even a hint of dryness.

I thought you guys should know about it.

Best. Lipbalm. Ever.

On... getting dressed

2011-11-10T01:55:00.000-08:00

I've figured out the major flaw in the whole 'being a fulltime writer' thing.

Clothes.

Back when I was copywriting 9 to 5, I looked forward to getting dressed. I'm that kind of girl. I like clothes, I like looking good, I like makeup, I like all of it. I like putting on my iPod, striding to the tube, getting a takeaway coffee, and looking at people and shops and the morning unfolding around me, all with that happy little inner fizz that you feel when you're happy with what you're wearing.

Now, for most of this year, being pregnant made getting dressed a chore, and it coincided with, almost exactly, the moment I stopped copywriting. I felt like shit, I looked like shit. My boobs became crazy Jane Russell missiles seven months before their cue (by the way, I have no idea how anyone can dress if they have big boobs, they're honestly a living hell). My skin was dry, my lips were cracked, I kept breaking blood vessels in my face from throwing up. To sum up: I did not do the whole elegant glowing thing.

But now that I'm not pregnant anymore (yay!), and fitting back into my old clothes (double yay!), I've realised that I now wear about 2% of my wardrobe.

Fact: this is what I have worn for most of the past two weeks.

One of Fox's old jumpers that looks a bit like this.

Boyfriend jeans. (Actually, mine are from H&M and just huge, worn and ripped thanks to the natural wear and tear of time, but if I had money to burn, I'd get the Current Elliott ones too.)

Pink thermal socks (or army green thermal socks, depending on the day). I hate having cold feet.

Grey slippers.

My hair is always in messy bun thing, and despite owning more makeup than I'll ever actually admit to, I don't wear anything except La Roche-Posay Anthelios SPF50.

This is what I write in. I look, frankly, terrible. If I had to name it, it'd be something like Colourblind Sloth. I've contemplated getting properly dressed, just for the hell of it, but putting on a blazer and changing the socks and slippers for heels (which is pretty much all I would need to make the above outfit office-appropriate, in my eyes) to walk from the bedroom to my office is even stupider than being upset about the current lack of reasons to get dressed. N'est-ce pas?

PS Oh, I meant to say. One thing I do wear every day, without fail, is perfume. And, after months of nothing but L'Eau de Rien by Miller Harris, I have a new scent obsession.

Mure et Musc by L'Artisan Parfumeur. It. Is. Divine. 'Mure' is blackberry in French, 'musc' is - you guessed it, you clever thing, you - musk. It's not too sweet, not too fruity, not too anything... just gentle and sexy and yummy. Love it. If you're not near somewhere you can sniff it, you can buy a Mure et Musc sample for US$3 at LuckyScent. While you're at it, try L'Eau de Rien, too. It's sort of warm, salty and lickable. Goddamnit, I love being a girl.

On... The Nail Files

2011-11-06T06:48:00.000-08:00

Voila my story THE NAIL FILES for Tatler magazine! I hope it doesn't offend anyone. If you ask me to write 900 words about what I like and dislike about nails, you're gonna get some snark.

This story was in the October issue, which you can track down if you call the Conde Nast old issues office, or if your local newsagent is particularly lazy.

On... The Boytician

2011-11-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

Missed the September issue of Tatler magazine? (For shame!)

Here's The Boytician piece that I wrote. Hope you enjoy it...

I'll post The Nail Files piece from the October issue tomorrow. It's somewhere in my inbox, I just can't find it because, you know, I'm shit like that. My next Tatler piece isn't out till the New Year...

I highly recommend Tatler, by the way, my friends, and not just because I get to write silly little stories for them, but just because it's kind of ace. It's been totally transformed this year and is now the ONLY high-end glossy fashion magazine that is smart, sharp and - here's the kicker - funny. (Trust me. I read all of them. American, British and French. It's an expensive but highly enjoyable addiction.)

On... Fraggle Rock

2011-11-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

So, I was playing on YouTube the other morning, looking for old Sesame Street clips to play to Errol, and I found this.

Awesome. Song.
Also, reminded me how scary I found Fraggle Rock. Being stuck in the dark underground with giant monsters above and things living in the rocks all around you and constantly static hair? Petrifying.

On... a book print

2011-10-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

I love this print.

It's from 20x200.

I want to commission one with my favourite books.

But then I'd have to decide what my favourite books are and oh God, that would be a nightmare.

Because how on earth do you choose your favourite books?

Do you choose the books that stunned you and made you gaze at the world / yourself / writing in a different way? (For me, that'd be - off the top of my head - A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway, A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes, A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.)

Or books that you couldn't put down, that you kissed and stroked and nuzzled with delight as you were reading them? (For me: The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, Persuasion by Jane Austen, Tess Of The D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, Evelina by Fanny Burney, The Best Of Everything by Rona Jaffe - oh golly, this particular list would be very, very long, I love a LOT of books.)

Or books that you loved passionately in the past but have since moved on from? (Anne Of Green Gables, The Babysitter's Club, Pollyanna, Little Women, Wuthering Heights, anything by Judy Blume, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.)

Or, last but certainly not least, do you choose the books that you've read over and over and over again and know like old friends? (Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, Heartburn by nora Ephron, anything by Jilly Cooper or Nancy Mitford, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and of course dear ol' Bridget.)

The whole thing just stresses me out. What would you do?

On... Bombay Bicycle Club

2011-10-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

Gnarly band. Gnarly new album. Gnarly Sunday morning song.

On.... childhood movies

2011-10-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was watching Back To The Future with Fox the other day, and impressing / annoying him with my ability to say all the lines, verbatim, a split-second before they’re said on-screen (“Stella! Another one of these damn kids jumped in fronta my car!”).

I’ve seen it about 6,214 times, because I grew up in Hong Kong, where television was incredibly, astonishingly bad. So bad that there was only one kids’ TV show, a no-budget piece of trash called Megaquiz (Gemma trivia: I was on the first ever episode).

So if we had something on video, I watched it to death.

At school, we bartered tapes of TV shows sent by cousins living in normal countries like they were gold dust. Saved By The Bell, Saturday Night Live, Beverly Hills 90210, Blossom... I watched those tapes so often I knew how long to press fastforward on the remote to skip each individual commercial break perfectly.

My sister and I were allowed to rent one movie a week each. And then we'd watch it non-goddamn-stop. And because the choice at the video store was not only outdated but deeply limited, we borrowed the same movies. Again and again. And again. And again. And... well, you get it.

An aside (what, you thought I’d write a blog post without an aside? Have we just met, or what?): when I was about 10 my mother picked a video for us and accidentally came back with a lovely movie about a lady mechanic looking for love. TOMBOY. It was soft porn. I kid you not. My mother will want me to point out that she realised during the opening shower scene that it wasn't a jolly romcom and turned it off. (Between you and me, it was like 15 minutes after that that she realised.) This is the cover of Tomboy. In fairness, it was an easy mistake to make.

So, apart from Tomboy, these are the films that will always make me think of my childhood. And as a little killing-time-on-a-Friday present from me to you, all the original trailers.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

As mentioned, one of the most perfect films of all time. Can still quote every line. Will watch entire thing whenever it is on. Man, I love Michael J Fox, he’s so great.

My sister and her best friend Jackie really, really, really loved Michael J Fox. Not as much as they loved Val Kilmer, which brings me to -

TOP SECRET

This is an incredibly funny film, funnier than Airplane! (Or Flying High! Depending on where in the world you grew up. Note to branding people: STOP FUCKING DOING THAT. It makes life really hard for international kids when we don’t know which goddamn film we saw. Like Adventures In Babysitting: apparently in England it was called Night On The Town. I don’t know, because I wasn’t here. Night On The Town: Talk about a soft porn title. Actually, let’s add that to the list too, because it was awesome.)

ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING

This is a great goddamn film. If you haven’t seen it, find it and watch it. It’s hilarious.

Also known as Night On The Town. Check it out:

Lamest. Poster. Ever. And shit copywriting. 'After she finished with the crazy gangsters... cheating boyfriends... car chases... wild parties... climbing skyscrapers... staying alive was just part of the fun of... A Night On The Town'. Grow a brain, nameless copywriter from the past! The verb 'climbing' doesn't fit, in fact, the entire sentence sucks ass. Also: why is there a picture of Brenda with the rat / kitten with the line 'car chases'? So many things annoy me about this poster. And yes, I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to copywriting. I fight the urge to take out a red pen and correct bad copy everywhere I go.

CHARLOTTE’S WEB

Templeton the rat. Nuff said.

GREASE

Every girl I know would probably name Grease as their No.1 childhood movie. It's not our fault: it's the law. And it's in the Bible. (It is.) (Maybe.) It's just one of those girl things, like everyone wanting to be Claudia in the Babysitter’s Club and making up extended dance routines and one-act plays and forcing their mother and sister to watch them – oh wait, that one was just me? Okay. Anyway, I can still close my eyes and play Grease in my head, word-for-word. You probably can too. We all can. Like I said, it's the law.

GREASE 2

The slutty cousin of Grease. Still kind of ace. Michael Carrington is hot. I totally would.

As an extra present, because I can't resist: the Reproduction song...

...And the We're Gonna Score Tonight song. Because IT. IS. AWESOME.

CALAMITY JANE

Yeah, I don’t know why either, but this was a major Burgess childhood movie. Includes the song 'A Woman's Touch', with the immortal line: "A woman and a whiskbroom can accomplish so darn much!". We embraced it without irony. We were just nuts for Doris Day. Full admission: these days, I'm not Little Miss Musicals (My friends: Gemma! We're all seeing Rent / Joseph And His Technicolour Dreamcoat / Cabaret! Wanna come? Me: No freaking way. Friends: YOU HAVE NO SOUL). But when I was little, you could place me in front of anything with a long-dead MGM starlet and a jaunty dance routine and I was transfixed. I was basically a very short gay man with a blonde bowl cut.

THE COURT JESTER

I give you Danny Kaye: the Adam Sandler of his generation. And, allegedly, Laurence Olivier's luvah.

BYE BYE BIRDIE

This is such a great movie! You should totally find it and watch it. Like all musicals, it goes a bit nutso-slash-boring in the middle, with far too many long songs and dance routines instead of oh, I don't know, plot / character development, but the first hour rocks. Interesting fact: the man who voiced Templeton the rat in Charlotte's Web plays the father in this. (Okay, that wasn’t that interesting. Let’s move on.)

Also just for my sister: The Telephone Song. ("HUGO AND KIM?")

ANNIE

Unlike most little girls, I didn’t want to be Annie. I wanted to be one of the nameless blond girls with their hair in braids who can do handless cartwheels in the Hard Knock Life song. Yes, I aimed low. I was also such a scaredy-cat that I never watched the helicopter-bridge scene. I’d hide and read Anne Of Green Gables or Malory Towers or something till I was sure it was over. As a result I am still not sure what happens in that scene. I think it’s something to do with the Sikh dude’s turban.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

This movies pops into my head a lot, ie, when someone asks me 'Do you have change for a twenty?' and I say 'Gosh, I don't have anything smaller than a fifty!' and then they look at me like I'm an asshole.

Again, made me wish I could do cartwheels. It just looks like such a cool thing to do, ya know?

OVERBOARD

Fact: Overboard was created to make kids obsess about it. Four kids having a crazy childhood? A reverse Cinderella story: the princess gets saved by the pauper? Mini golf?! COME ON! It’s also goddamn hilarious, ie, ‘a falsetto child?’ And the fact that she keeps calling one of the kids Roy. And the video cover had some seriously awesome liquidy stuff in the plastic wrapper so that made it even cooler.

SUPERGIRL

Man, this is one cheap-ass looking film, it must have cost about a buck to make. I presume Faye Dunaway dumped her agent immediately after it came out. But anyway, I thought it was amazing. The chick went on to star in Secret of My Success with MJF and Ruthless People with Judge Reinhold, Bette Midler and Danny DeVito.

DIRTY DANCING

Like Grease, a sleepover classic. I distinctly remember being at a sleepover and when Johnny tells the old cougar lady that he can't teach her how to dance, a very precocious nine-year-old turned to the rest of us and said crisply: "That means he doesn't want to fuck her anymore."

BIG BUSINESS

I once won a pub quiz at university when the tiebeater question started 'born in Hawaii in 1947' and I screamed 'BETTE MIDLER!' My street cred was HIGH after that, my friends. HIGH. I only stopped loving Bette Midler when I saw Beaches, which, even as a child, I realised was fucking lame. Big Business features two sets of identical twins separated at birth and reunited in NYC as adults! The jinx are so high! But I can't find a trailer, dudes. Sorry.

HEATHERS

This movie made me feel far cooler than I was. Also set me up for a mini-Winona obsession with repeated watching of Mermaids, Reality Bites, etc. I adored Winona. Then I grew weary of her. As did everyone. I also loved Christian Slater so much that I spent a long time training myself to raise one eyebrow. I combed Tiger Beat and Teen Beat and every other teen rag I could get my hands on and cut out photos of him, no matter how small. There is a photo somewhere of me at 13 in front of my Homage To Christian Slater wall. No, I will not post it. (Okay, I will. But it's in Hong Kong. You wanna talk my folks through how to scan a photo, you go for it.)

The trailer is, frankly, shit. So let's watch this scene instead:

It's okay! It's okay. He's shooting blanks. (Titter.)

I’m sure I’m forgetting some absolute classics.

Even as I write this paragraph, I'm remembering She's Out Of Control, My Stepmother Is An Alien, Teen Witch, Mr Mom, Mask, Foreign Exchange, My Secret Admirer, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure... but seriously, I have to get back to the day job (writing your next favourite book, my friends). You would not believe how long I have spent on youtube cackling at these trailers and then clicking through to best-of clips... And in case you're wondering: I didn't really get into John Hughes films till I was well into my teens and they were already retro. But then I OBSESSED ABOUT THEM. TO THE POINT WHERE I SHOUT WHENEVER SOMEONE EVEN SAYS JOHN HUGHES. ARGH. SIXTEEN CANDLES. FERRIS BUELLER. SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. WEIRD SCIENCE. SO GOOD.

EDIT:

Trini reminded me about The Princess Bride.

YIKES! How could I have forgotten The Princess Bride? Such a classic that we watched over and over and over again. Have you seen it recently? The set looks like it's made of cardboard. It's also a gorgeous and hilarious book, written by William Goldman, who was also the screenwriter. In case you are interested. I hearted Cary Elwes, who recently surfaced with a beard and about two lines of dialogue in No Strings Attached. What the hell, Hollywood. That is WESTLEY. Aka THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS. Give the guy a decent part why doncha.

On... character-abuse

2011-10-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

The other night I read an interesting piece in the New Yorker about Anna Faris. (Read it here if you're on an iPad.)

I can't stop thinking about this excerpt:

‘To make a woman adorable, one successful female screenwriter says, “you have to defeat her in the beginning. It’s a conscious thing I do. Abuse and break her, strip her of her dignity, and then she gets to live out our fantasies and have fun.”… Relatability is based upon vulnerability, which creates likeability.’

Wow.

This is exactly - EXACTLY - what I do when I write. And yes, it's deliberate. But to see it put in terms like that is kind of depressing.

My name is Gemma Burgess and I am a character-abuser.

Let’s analyse:

THE DATING DETOX, my first book, starts with Sass being cheated on at a horrific house party, resulting in her swearing off men. So even though she's a flirty smart-arse with a lot of attitude, we know she's just like us.

A GIRL LIKE YOU, my second book, starts with Abigail on a disastrous, panic-stricken date, so we can see that though she’s an investment banker who just left her long-term boyfriend without a second glance, she’s also just like us.

I’m currently finishing my third novel – the first in the UNION STREET series for St Martins Press, about a group of post-college girls sharing a house in Brooklyn through their 20s – and yet again, the protagonist’s life pretty much collapses in chapter one. I’ve plotted the second and third: again, a disaster followed by trials and tribulations followed by victory.

I also write romantic comedy movies. (In fact, I deliberately structure my books to be like romantic comedy movies: I read romantic comedy scripts, and books about plots and screenwriting, when I’m planning outlines. I write to entertain: heavily on the dialogue, light on prose.) At the moment I have three movie scripts that are in decent shape. Each also features a female character whose life disintegrates in the first 15 minutes. In one script, it happens in about four minutes.

See? Character-abuser.

I feel like such a bitch.

So why do I do it? Firstly, because I feel that a disastrous event is the fastest way to jumpstart the story and make you wonder 'what next?'. (There are probably better ways, but I’m new at this, remember. I was an advertising copywriter for most of my 20s.)

Secondly, in a lot of chickflicks/chicklit books, it often seems like the main character is meant to be lovable because she's a clueless idiot and I'm meant to feel sorry for her. And I've always hated that.

I don’t want to write about (or read about, or watch) clueless idiots. I want characters who feel real to me, who are funny (without being neurotic or crazy or pratfall-y), smart (not ditzy or streetsmart or too-smart-for-her-own-good), have real jobs (I swore I'd never write about a florist), work hard (without being harridans that sacrifice a lovelife for their corner office), who genuinely like men and sex (without being crazy sluts or insecure pining-for-their-devilish-boss types), and who are doing their best to figure out where they're going in life. I want them to be funny, swear, drink, fuck, have real friendships, have a social life, make mistakes, dress the way real girls dress on a real girl's budget, be a bitch/stupid sometimes, have a normal amount of confidence that isn't lifted by a man alone, etc. A girl like you, in other words.

So when I first started writing, I quickly realised that if I wanted to keep my character as a non-loser, but make people like her whilst making her journey immediately compelling, I needed something bad-but-relatable to happen to her, fast, in order to establish a connection. And to keep her likeable, I needed it to be relayed in a first-person-present-tense, with a confiding, chatty tone of voice, so that the reactions and emotions feel immediate and real and personal.

And that's what I did.

The result is more than just feeling sorry for her. (I hope.) We immediately recognise the universality of her experience. (I hope.) We empathise with her reaction/decisions and feel like we understand her / want to protect her. (I hope.) And - ta-da! - we feel euphoric when she ultimately succeeds and finds an emotionally satisfying happiness. (I really, really hope.)

I wonder if that's emotionally manipulative character abuse? Or just an extension of how women make friends? We console each other - and ourselves - by sharing and empathising. If my friend has just been dumped/fired, I comfort her with similar stories so she knows she's not alone. I always feel better when I know that what I'm going through is something someone else has gone through, and survived. Misery shared = bonding. So a disastrous event makes me care what happens next.

By the by, I also bank heavily on the hope that the reader/viewer finds my stuff so hilarious that they can't stop reading/watching. But humour without plot and character is nothing. It has to all work together.

One day I might try to write, or plan, something that doesn’t involve an emotional Hiroshima before you know the character’s last name.

I wonder if it will work.

On... an awesome trailer parody

2011-09-17T03:34:00.001-07:00

I've been laughing so hard at this I have to share it.

First, in case you haven't seen this, enjoy. Zero coherency. Strangely exciting.

And now watch this.

I actually barked with laughter when 'Wocka' happened. (I rarely bark with laughter. I chortle and giggle and HA! a lot. But not bark. I barked constantly during Bridesmaids, particularly when she fights with the little tweenie in the jewellery store. I bark when I read David Sedaris or watch Arrested Development or Eastbound and Down. I actually choked during Eastbound and Down once. I was drinking water and chose the wrong moment. I could have, like, drowned. Okay, this aside has become totally unwieldly. I find it so hard to end asides, have you noticed? It's a real problem for me. Anyway, let me know what makes you bark with laughter.)

On... stuff I've been doing

2011-09-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

So, inspired by Cup of Joe, I’m going to post about things I’ve been enjoying in the past couple of weeks.

Now, I’ve mostly been feeding Errol and/or gazing at him in a nauseatingly adoringly way and/or catching up on sleep with coma-like cat naps. But the rest of the time I’ve been...

Writing my next feature for Tatler - follow them on Twitter at @tatleruk and, if you like, read my current story in the October issue (it’s a rather snarky piece called The Nail Files, but you try writing 900 funny words about nails, my friend - snark happens). Or, if you can, track down the September issue and read all about how Fox is my Boytician.

Craving returning to the edit of my next book, the first in the Union Street series. I’m starting on Monday and cannot wait. It’s the strangest feeling: I miss it, and the entire world within it, like a friend.

Feeling inspired by this post – again, by Cup Of Joe. (I like her.)

Thanking the Lord that these exist. They work. And they work FAST. And for this woman. Her book Baby Secrets is the shizzle. (I am so hip the lingo.)

Buying these, now that I know they're still a sartorial option and the bump did disappear (see above). God! I've missed high-waisted jeans! And by the way, the fashion wasteland of the last 10 months was bad. I mean, I like clothes. Clothes like me. We’ve always been friends. But pregnancy clothes... man, they suck. What’s that? I sound shallow? Dude, I AM shallow. Did you not realise this by now?

Having baths with this whilst doing this. I read about it in US Vogue, so it must work, right?

Forwarding this to Fox as it is really goddamn time he learned to cook. He’s 33 for Pete’s sake.

Making one of these out of the 2,503 photos we've taken of Errol in the past few weeks.

Thanking hell these exist as breastfeeding would be extremely boring without them.

Enjoying this site, this site, this site and this site, on the above.

More soon. Am writing a long Q&A blog in response to a bunch of email questions I’ve received over the past few months, so if you have any questions for me, bring it on.

On... reading

2011-09-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hello chaps.

Gosh, what an annoying start to a post. My apologies. I used to live with a couple of terribleh Sloaneh boys who used words like 'chaps' all the time. They called me 'Burgo' and had thousands and thousands of 'mates' called things like 'Rotter' and 'Poo'. And those were the girls. No one has as many mates as Sloanes. It's like they're born with an in-built Yellow Pages with the details of every other Sloane in existence. It must be marvellous to be that sure of exactly where you fit into the universe. (Actually, I think it would be incredibly stifling and dull. But I digress. As ever.)

For les Americains, by the way: Sloanes = WASPy preppies. I went to school with Americans called things like Chet and Sailor who are basically exactly the same. It's just that preppies have a lot more popped collars.

ANYWAY. This post isn't about Sloanes and preppies, it's about books.

I'm reading a lot right now in between being a 24-hour human snackbar for Errol and gazing at him in what is probably a nauseatingly adoring way, drinking as much water as I can without drowning, and sleeping. (The sleep deprivation with a newborn, by the way, is nowhere near as bad as everyone tells you. I slept far less when I was finishing THE DATING DETOX and then A GIRL LIKE YOU and working 9am to 6pm as a copywriter at the same time. Nor are the hormonal jags particularly severe. Okay: I cried when describing the plot of 'Waitress' to my mother, but it is a rilly rilly sweet film, dagnabbit. Anyone would cry. Yeah.)

This week I read:

BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey.

Delightful, very funny, and not long enough. More please.

THE WIFE by Meg Wolitzer.

Hmmm... an interesting one. Exquisitely well-written but ultimately, put me in a really bad and sad mood. Without giving too much away, I think that was the idea: to turn every reader into a feminist. (Too late, sister, I'm already there.) Oh, and I'm also not sure why 1. The quote from Allison Pearson says it's 'funny' - this is brilliant, sharp, smart book but not laugh-out-loud by a long shot or why 2. She's packaged as chicklit when her books have a thousand times more in common with the likes of Curtis Sittenfeld than Lauren Wiesberger. Come on, publishing industry. Just because the writer has a vagina doesn't make it chicklit.

BUSH FALLS by Jonathan Tropper.

LOVING THIS BOOK. I'm only 1/3 of the way through it so if it takes a nosedive then I'll come back and tell you, but so far, I love it. LUFF. LURVE. I found out about it because a lovely woman emailed me and said she thought I'd enjoy it. And I am. (If you have a book recommendation for me, by the way, bring it the hell on: gemma@gemmaburgess.com) I dropped it in the bath last night and screamed with such genuine anguish that Fox came running to see if I'd fallen over. We dried it out overnight and I'm pleased to report it's now a little weathered but still perfectly legible. (Yah. I bet you were worried about how that story was going to end.)

More next week when I've read more. How the devil are you?

EDIT: Update on Jonathan Tropper. Confirmed: he is awesome. Am currently knee-deep in This Is Where I Leave You and have all his other books lined up on my bedside table, waiting to take off, like little literary airplanes.

On... Errol

2011-08-31T02:19:00.000-07:00

So, I kind of had a baby last week.

His name is Errol.

And he is perfect.

SURPRISE!

Yeah, I didn’t really mention the whole being-knocked-up thing. For lots of reasons... it wasn't the best pregnany ever, but the details are not exactly lighthearted-blog-appropriate. Plus, pregnancy is really only interesting if you’re the one who’s knocked up, if you supplied the seed, or maybe if it’s one of your best friends or you’re knocked up at the exact same time. Otherwise, it’s boring. Talking about cravings / kicks / scans / pain / problems / excited impatience is boring. Trying to find a midwife when you're on holiday in a small French town at short notice is kind of exciting, but then again, it’s kind of not. (Midwife in French is ‘sage-femme’, by the way, which means ‘wise woman’... see? Boring.)

I feel the same way about weddings: I posted a few photos of mine here, but I wasn’t about to bore you with like, the menu plans and table centrepieces, you know? It’s just not my bag. I blog a bit about writing and a bit about reading and a bit about me and a bit about stuff I like and always, above all, I blog with the aim of entertaining you. So I’ll write a bit about Errol, but I promise this won’t become a blog dedicated to his bowel movements, or whatever.

Having said all that, I understand why people do blog about their babies, as the urge to hold him up for the world to admire is overwhelming.

Look at him! Isn’t he beautiful?

It’s hard to write about babies and baby love without sounding at bit pathetic and/or insane. We’ve all seen formerly normal friends become Facebook babytards. You may have seen those online baby forums where mental women bang on about ‘DH’ (which I thought stood for Dick Head, apparently it’s Darling Husband) and ‘DS’ (Darling Son) and ‘DD’ (you can probably guess). Come on. Did they hand out a lobotomy with the epidural, or what? I read something once where Julia Roberts wrote to Oprah, of all people, about her newborn twins, saying they woke up ‘smelling of promise’. Lame. I was like, gag me with a fricking spoon, Roberts. Stop gushing.

But I’ve tried for the last 20 minutes to write about how I feel without gushing. And if writing cliché-free, non-gag-me copy about happiness / love / joy is hard in books, then in real life, it’s nearly impossible. My apologies, Julia.

So I’ll just say it once, very quickly, in a low voice: I am so happy.

And my friends, you should see Fox. The man giggled yesterday. Irish men don’t usually giggle, unless the better part of a bottle of whiskey is involved.

In an attempt to avoid death-by-adjective, let’s just say Errol is perfect in every way, more than I could ever have imagined was possible. He's tiny and sweet and warm, with a habit of making happy little sighs when he’s sleeping and mewymoans when he’s feeding... My heart is full.

See? Cliche city. Sorry.

Oh, and by the way, I’m not taking a long maternity break or anything like that. I’m very fortunate to be able to have support, so I can be at home with Errol and still get time to write. In other words, I am still your homegirl. But I will be a bit awol for the next couple of weeks. So if you email me, I promise to respond - I just might be a bit late...

xx

EDIT: Okay! More photos. Now these are just a couple from the first few days - mostly in black and white as, well, we were feeling arty. Also I looked like shit. I will download more in the next few days and post them. I swear.

This is the full shot of the one above. Tiny and sweet.

Errol at one day old. He is nestled in a bonding band thingy that the hospital gave us. I am so in love with said thingy that I want to wear it everywhere and wrap my favourite people up in it. And I mean that in a totally non-kinky way. (This is taken with my crap phone, by the way, thus the graininess. My mother has already requested I sharpen it up with Photoshop. How do I tell her I just do words?)

Trying to be arty. Two days old. As soon as I fix said Photoshop skill deficiency, those pesky freckles and wrinkles will be gone and I'll sure as hell sort the eyebrows out. Mine not his. And maybe add a jaunty hat.

Witness the artiness.

Again, my crappy phone, but cool shot, huh? This is a tired, stubbled and unusually serene-looking Fox resting in his hospital-issue camp bed (6.3" man, 5.10" bed = fun fun fun) with three-day-old E-Dawg. I love this photo. I love that hospital. I love my doctor. I love Fox. I love Errol. I love you. I love everything.

More photos to come. Also, the books that are sustaining me through the feed-sleep-feed duskiness of this week.

EDIT! Okay! One month later and I have had requests for more photos of moi preggers and Errol. As ever I am happy to oblige. Now remember, if you are not baby-lovin', don't read on. I am probably about to be a babytard. What can I say. I love him.

Motherin' - so far, at least - is a hell of a lot easier than pregnancy. And babies are kind of easy, too. The past month has felt a bit like having a friend come to stay who keeps getting wasted. You just have to check on him regularly, make sure he eats when he's supposed to, hasn't soiled himself, do his washing, etc. One of my friends described her kids as 'really cool flatmates with attachment issues'. Seems pretty much on the money.

Okay, first: preggers.

This is me at 38 weeks. Thanks to some pesky hip problems, walking - and in fact sitting - wasn't really a thing for me by that stage. My ass was pretty much permanently attached to that sofa, laptop precariously perched on cushions so I could write. I am lucky I didn't end up looking like Jabba the Hut, now that I think about it. It's probably because I was very sick almost every day for about seven out of the nine months. Seriously, I don't know how bulimics do it. Throwing up is a NIGHTMARE. I threw up day and night, at home, in taxis, in supermarkets, doing yoga, on the street, in passport lines at the airport, in bed. I threw up when I ate and when I didn't eat. I threw up when I was reading and writing and sleeping. Basically, I threw up. Anyway, back to the photos.

Errol Fletcher (Errol after Errol Flynn and Fletcher after the Chevy Chase movie Fletch) (yep, seriously) is just the funniest, sweetest, calmest little dude.

We just realised, by the way, that in Fox's hometown of Cork in Ireland, people with a strong local accent pronounce it Earl. Pretty funny. (Fox dialled down his accent when he moved to London. Apparently the Euros in his office couldn't understand a word he said. The moment he touches home soil, however, he becomes as Cork as they come. Lots of 'how yas' and 'happy outs' and the odd 'feck'.)

Self-portrait of me with Errol last night.

I realise this photo looks like it was tinkered with because I'm so ghostly pale, but I swear it wasn't. iPads take weird photos - something to do with having the pixel-quality of a nokia phone from 2001 - and I'm kind of a pale person. (I stopped fake tanning at about 34 weeks when it took an entire Vichy tan tube just to cover me. No, really, it did.)

And a few new ones from this morning, when he was feeling very serious and thoughtful.

On... Kindle sales

2011-08-24T02:54:00.000-07:00

NEWSFLASH:

A GIRL LIKE YOU and THE DATING DETOX are both insaaaaanely cheap on Kindle (£1!) - but only for the rest of August!

They're currently in the Amazon Kindle bestseller lists (woo) at 14 (doublewoo) and 34 (triplewoo, but a smaller woo, like a woolet) respectively.

And if we can get them into the top 10 it would be really, really amazing and do wondrous things for my future career. Like, stupendously wondrous...

Now, you know I wouldn't normally ask you this, but if you can, please download one or both for your Kindle or Kindle for iPad or from the Apple Shop and I'll be your BFF. For serious. FOR EVER. I will hold your hair back when you are sick and lend you my favourite shoes and talk about your ex/boss/hair for as long as you like. Pinkyswear.

After August the prices will start going back up - so don't miss out...

Thank you and sorry for asking a favour. You know it's not really my style but it's just a teeny weeny one...

Click the links to download...

A GIRL LIKE YOU
THE DATING DETOX

EDIT: Good God. Have just found out that A GIRL LIKE YOU is no.2 on the UK Apple iStore - second only to ONE DAY by David Nicholls. I am not yanking your chain. Anyone can buy it - all you need is an iTunes account for your iPhone, iPod, whatever... The same deal goes for eternal BFFism if you do.

SECOND EDIT: Wow. It's now Thursday 25th, and A GIRL LIKE YOU is no 13 across the entire Paid Books Kindle UK store, no 12 in Fiction and no 8 in Contemporary Fiction. And THE DATING DETOX is no 31 in entire Paid Books Kindle store, 29 in fiction and 15 in Contemporary Fiction. Thank you everyone who bought one. You rock. x

THIRD EDIT: I promise not to update you every time they jump a notch on Amazon - I mean, seriously, no one cares that much, I know - but this seems blogworthy: A GIRL LIKE YOU and THE DATING DETOX are BOTH in the Apple iTunes Books TOP 10! xx And yeah, that's a double kiss for you. I'm a total slut like that.

On... Love & Sex

2011-08-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

Breaking up sucks a fat one.

And yet people always seem to forget how sad and hard it is. Especially people in long-term relationships. I could never understand that. I’m boringly stable and hitched, but I can remember exactly how hard it is to recover from a break-up. He was part of your life. You looked forward to his funny texts and you got to kiss him whenever you wanted, and sometimes kissing and funny texts are pretty much the stuff happiness is made of.

Now that’s gone and you have to mourn it. Not him, necessarily – just it. The relationship. Even if you know the dude was a cockmonkey par excellence (and you wouldn’t ever, ever go back there and the idea of him even having the right to look at you again makes you want to punch something really hard), you have to mourn the end of the life you led with him.

And it’s made worse by people expecting you to be over it in days, or even weeks. Because then you start worrying that you’re weird for still feeling shitty. Which you’re not. Obviouslah. They've just forgotten what it's like.

For some reason I have a crystal-clear memory of the horrors of breaking up – in fact (warning: I’m about to go into a Gemma Burgess digression-from-the-damn-point), I have kind of a good memory for everything that isn’t 1. A number or 2. Practical. Ie, emotions and places. Fox says driving around London with me is seriously annoying as I keep up a running social history commentary like ‘ooh dinner with Creative Director Cheapass there, he ordered wine by the glass, total dick’ and ‘dinner with Sandhurst boy there, not that bright but oh so pretty’ or ‘drank four bottles of white wine there with Bec and pretended to be Stockard Channing by putting olives in our cheeks then gave bartender my number written in eyeliner on a napkin but he didn't call’.

And that’s not to mention the (many) places my relationships ended. Which weren’t always bars and restaurants, of course. Once it was the hallway of a particularly grubby little shareflat, where I opened the door, he said ‘we’ve got to talk’ and I said ‘oh fuck no’ and slammed it in his face and ran to the kitchen to hide. (Yah. Because THAT’S gonna stop someone dumping you.) I don’t know if it’s healthy, being able to recall so perfectly how I felt at any given time in my life, but hopefully it helps with the whole writing stories thing. Anyway.

One of the main things about breaking up that sucks a fat one is that what do I do now? feeling.

Because what DO you do?

Literally, on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis, what do you DO when the future suddenly has a giant relationship-shaped hole in it? I didn’t want someone to tell me I’d be fine. I didn’t want to talk about my feelings. I wanted practical advice about what to goddamn do with myself and how to make time pass fast enough till my heart (or ego – sometimes, let's face it, interchangeable) was healed.

Eventually, I made a Break-Up To-Do list of my own, based on trial and many, many errors.

Gemma's Break-up To Do List:

1. Make immediate social plans to go out with your friends, and accept that your first few nights out will end in tears. It is the law.

2. Don’t speak to him. There is no point. You will not feel better after you speak to him, or maybe you’ll think you do, but then you’ll want to speak to him again in a few days to say things you forgot to say (or ask things you forgot to ask or get some unattainable feeling of closure or ego-gratification or that masochistic thrill that you get when you know you shouldn’t say things like ‘do you miss me?’ but you just can’t help yourself). Because then it’ll get messy. So you’ll feel much worse. Pretend he no longer exists and delete his number. (And don’t give me that shit about it not making any difference because you know it by heart: you’ll forget it eventually.)

3. Rearrange your wardrobe. Tidy clothes equals tidy emotions. And looking marvellous is the first step to feeling marvellous. Shuffle the clothes that remind you of him to the back, but don’t throw them out. Just because he was a dick doesn’t mean innocent clothes should be punished.

4. Read something comforting-yet-sharp. Nora Ephron’s Heartburn is an excellent choice. It’s a novel about a woman whose husband cheats on her when she’s pregnant with her second child. It’s hilarious and warm and smart and hugely reassuring. (Nora Ephron’s husband really did cheat on her when she was pregnant with their second child, by the way. He was Carl Bernstein – yep, as in, Watergate-Woodward-and-Bernstein. And she knew who Deep Throat was for years. Apparently whenever anyone asked her she’d say ‘It’s Mark Felt’, but no one ever listened. Anyway, I digress. Read the book. You’ll love it.)

5. Get fresh air every day, preferably listening to music in the sunshine whilst walking somewhere. Fact: breaking up is easier in summer and diafuckingbolical in winter. I gave one total idiot an extra chance when I really shouldn’t have simply because it was a very cold February and I was bored.

6. Figure out what you enjoy doing the most and do it. Now, I am very much a city cat. I like traffic and noise and beautiful buildings. I like walking aimlessly and talking endlessly. I like coffees and browsing for hours in tiny bookshops and clothes shops and art galleries. I like finding bijou little bars that I never even knew existed where I can order a really strong drink. All in all, I like the chaos and the unexpected of a big city, and I am happiest in a crowd. So even though I have to sequester myself away a bit, because I’m a writer and well, it’s kind of hard to write in a crowd, I know that to actually be happy, I also need that stimulus. Without it I wither and perish, and I certainly can't write. Now, other people like making four-course meals from scratch or gardening or long rambling weekends in the countryside or going to the theatre or, gosh, I don’t know, running around Hyde Park at dawn when there’s no one else around. Whatever fries your burger. The point is, make a point to remember and then do what you love doing. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget what makes you happy sometimes. Especially when some asshat has just blown you out of the water. And I don’t mean in a fun sexual way.

7. Never say things like ‘my life is over’ or even a Princess Buttercupesque ‘I will never love again’. Your life will be long and interesting, and this was just one more chapter. You will love again, and be loved back. Nothing is surer. It’s how we’re built.

8. Don’t say 'now I’ll be single forever’, either. Focusing on singledom as the enemy is not the answer. And, anyway, it's so not true. This point is particularly relevant for anyone feeling that ricockulous late-20s-find-a-mate-pressure that we’re all aware of, no matter how strong and smart and independent we are. Particularly when it seems like everyone you know is in an annoyingly happy couple. A lot of girls you probably know who might smugly think they’ve won some imaginary race and found the right guy haven’t. Remember, marriage is not the destination. And those annoyingly happy couples are probably not even having sex.

9. Have a date with someone else as soon as you can. Fact: there are other men out there. Hundreds of thousands of millions of them. And one is just the right combination of smart and interesting and handsome and laugh-out-loud funny and generous and kind for you. So don’t curl into a ball and cry for months. Cry for a while, of course, indulge your every whim, then batter up and play the game again, because someone perfect is out there waiting for you to turn the hell up. I always think of it this way: if you were looking for a cab, you wouldn’t just expect one to read your mind and brake next to you on the street. You’d put your hand out and hail one, right? Even if the first date after the break-up isn’t perfect – and odds are it won’t be – it creates a memory that’s newer than the break-up. And it’s more fun than staying at home. So go hail yourself a dude.

10. Watch Love & Sex.

Yes. That was where this entire blog post started, as I was talking to a friend about her break-up, and I remembered that the movie Love & Sex existed, and that whenever I broke up with someone I watched it, and forced my friends to watch it with me. It’s a criminally underrated romantic comedy written by Jon Favreau, and starring Jon Favreau and Famke Janssen. It starts with Famke trying to write a positive, perky article for a women’s magazine about love, and she starts remembering all her past boyfriends and break-ups... It’s very funny and smart and silly – some of my favourite things. And it makes you feel better about life. Which is my favourite thing of all.

Got any break-up survival tips to add? Put it in a comment. Or if you're feeling shy, email me. (I always get blog comments nerves, myself.) gemma@gemmaburgess.com

On... male starlets and Sex And The City

2011-08-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about Sarah Jessica Parker - and hell knows, after seeing Sex And The City 2, I said a lot to anyone who would listen, usually via shouty rants ending in 'FOR FUCK'S SAKE' and 'NEVER EVER AGAIN' - the woman has seriously good taste in men. Or her casting director does. Whatever. The point is, a lot of the guys she slept with in the TV series are now hugely successful actors.

So, in classically irritating Carrie Bradshaw-style, I'll put it as a question:

Was banging Carrie Bradshaw the secret to success for male starlets of the noughties?

I was never the world's biggest Sex And The City fan, but it was hard to be a twenty-something woman in the past decade and not sort of soak it up. And remember, when it was good, it was very very good. (Miranda's drunk "I'm no Mira Sorvino, but I'm a great lay" is funny no matter how many times I think about it. Ditto Samantha's "Gangbang? How Eighties.") I stopped watching it around the Berger time, when they all started to really annoy me, though thanks to endless repeats I think I've somehow seen the rest of the episodes, too. Similarly, I've somehow seen almost every Friends episode, and I know all the words to Britney Spears songs despite never buying an album. This shit just happens. The Zeitgeist has a way of getting to you.

Back to the dudes.

Now, the thin-lipped hunk of lard, I mean brawn, that was Aidan, isn't worth posting about, neither is Chris Noth, really. (Though he is really good in The Good Wife, admittedly not as good as Julianna Marguiles' eyebrows.) (Kidding. I love The Good Wife. Smart, strong and non-crazy female characters. Plus Alan Cumming and Michael J Fox. I mean come on.)

Roger Sterling in everyone's favourite show Mad Men is John Slattery. He also played some golden-shower-loving politician, of all things.

And here we have David Duchovny, before he went to Californication and began to look like he needs a good scrub with a broom and some disinfectant. I know, I know, he was in X Files before. He wasn't exactly a starlet. Hush.

Vince Vaughn. Yes, he wasn't undiscovered either, and I liked him more when he was young and hungry-looking in Swingers, too. Age catches up with all of us, my friends.

A very young Timothy Oliphant. Deadwood is amazing, by the way, in case you haven't seen it, though I really only loved the first season. The writing was mind-blowingly good. And then he was in Justified, which I tried really hard to love and couldn't. Sorry.

Bradley Cooper. Limitless was so great. I love a morally ambiguous character who gets away with it.

And Justin Theroux, who apparently played two different dudes in SATC. Nope, I wouldn't have remembered that either. I saw a picture of him in some gossip magazine recently and he had a truly exceptional beard. It takes a real man to grow a beard like that.

I'm not usually the kind of person who posts things about good-looking dudes, but, you know, fuck it. The world has gone a little crazy and we all need some light relief, oui?

On... Heaven Scent

2011-08-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

I have some good news for you.

Particularly if, like me, you have read Jilly Cooper so many times that you can recall entire passages verbatim.

I’m not alone in my Jilly obsession, of course. She and Helen Fielding are the ne-plus-ultras of British comic female-oriented fiction, the Top Guns, the best of the best.

And I’ve picked up many would-be hilarious rural romps over the years, sighed and discarded them within a hundred pages, as I recognised characters, plot turns and in one case a word-for-word character description lifted straight from Jilly. Lifting word-for-word from Jilly is veh cheeky and rather stupid, as that’s her MO: her copy is seriously crafted, fresh and effortless to read. Okay, back to the point.

So when I find a book that has all the delightful escapism I crave in a romp, then I have to share it.

It is called HEAVEN SCENT. By Sasha Wagstaff.

The setup: a gloriously wealthy and troubled French family own a huge-but-stagnating perfume house, and discover that their wayward cousin married an unknown English girl just before he died. Now she stands to inherit tens of millions and a stake in the family business – but who is she?

Can you imagine anything more delicious? I can’t. The South of France! Perfume! A family scandal! It's classic escapism, pure and simple.

Since we’re on the subject of books (yet again... at one point this blog nearly turned into a book blog, so I’ve had to stop myself from posting about everything I read) I also just read - and enjoyed about a thousand times more than I thought I would – LA Candy by Lauren Conrad.

Now, admittedly, I loved The Hills and The City more than any grown woman ought to admit to herself, let alone her blog, but I had simply dismissed the book as crap without even glancing at it. Then a very smart girl I know told me that she and her equally smart friends all passed it back and forth, slightly obsessively. Now I understand why. It’s ricockulously moreish. I’ve already ordered the sequel, Sugar & Spice.

EDIT: The sequel isn't as good. Shame.

On... The Boy'tician

2011-08-02T07:12:00.001-07:00

I wrote a feature called 'The Boy-tician' for the illustrious Tatler magazine. And it's out now, in the September issue.

Please check it out and let me know what you think... if you like it. Otherwise just don't say anything and we'll never have to discuss it again, hmm?

I'm currently writing another feature for their November issue.

Am just at that sticky point where I wonder:
1. If it's ever going to come together
2. If the things I think are funny are, in fact, funny, and
3. If I shouldn't just give up this writing thing and learn to knit instead.

And the answer to your next question is yes. Being a writer plagued by self-doubt and melodramatic tendencies is totally exhausting.

On... Pumped Up Kicks

2011-07-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

I am rather enjoying this song today.

Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks

I will now, almost certainly, listen to it 400 times before the end of the week and then never be able to tolerate it again. That's just how I roll, baby.

On... it's about time

2011-07-25T06:03:00.001-07:00

Excellent.

Via the ever-brilliant A Cup Of Jo.

On... a shiny new post for Sheer Luxe

2011-07-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

So, sometimes I write a blog for SheerLuxe. Here's the latest one. Enjoy, my little daisyfaces.

On... Footloose and angry dancing

2011-07-09T06:02:00.001-07:00

I just watched the trailer for the new Footloose movie. Dudes, it does not look good. I won't even bore you with a link to it, that's how not good it looks.

Instead, I shall provide you with the truly brilliant last scene of the original Footloose.

That movie taught me everything I know about dancing. Seriously. I pretty much do all those moves after a couple of drinks (except the robot because the robot is REALLY HARD). I hear the kids today have a new way of jiving, but if it ain't broke, right?

Now, because it really makes me laugh, may I offer you Kevin Bacon's Angry Dance scene from earlier in the film. Feel his anger! Feel it!

Lastly, not only because it is an homage to Footloose but because it is one of the funniest scenes from one of the funniest shows of the last few years: I give you Bret's Angry Dance from Flight of the Conchords.

On... secondhand books

2011-06-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

This bookshop changed my life.

I know, deeply unpromising exterior, right?

It’s in a stretch of the Kings Road in Chelsea in London that is a mix of the fabulous – the wonderful Eight Over Eight restaurant, The Organic Pharmacy, Rococo chocolates, French Sole, etc – and the frazzled – betting shops, no-name pharmacies, newsagents with magazines from 2005 etc.

Anyway, it’s called The World’s End Bookshop, and it’s a secondhand bookshop par excellence. (That’s French, baby.)

When I was in my early 20s and first in London, I earned a pittance as a copywriter. (Obviouslah. Any entry-level media or advertising job pays pittance. It’s criminal, really. If you are junior creative in media or advertising, keep the faith. Just hang on until you’re experienced enough to go freelance, and then you can - in the words of one of my mentors - ‘make them flinch’ with your day rate. Where was I? Oh yes: the bookshop.)

And I really wasn’t well-read. At all.

This is despite a degree in English, and a lifelong reading habit (I mean ‘habit’ in an junkie sense: when I was a child, we belonged to three libraries that permitted six books at a time each, so I could read 18 books a week in addition to rereading my favourite LM Montgomerys and Enid Blytons and Judy Blumes, and my mother would routinely drop me off at the neighbourhood bookshop on a Saturday mornings, knowing I wouldn’t stray while she went shopping). I was vaguely aware that I wasn’t that well-read, but I was also sick of reading lists, which is all English becomes at school and university: one long chore. I should add that I was a particularly lazy university student. I spent all my time having fun and honed the fine art of bullshitting in essays. It’s shameful but it’s true.

(On the flip side, being so good at bullshitting set me up for a seamless jump to a career in advertising, where my job was to bullshit about things I usually didn’t believe in, or in the case of technology and financial copy, understand.)

So I graduated. And, now they weren’t being forced upon me, books beckoned again. But they were expensive. Sometimes I borrowed books from friends (A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, of course – did anyone NOT read that in the year 2000? – and The Secret History, and predictable nonfiction like Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, plus all the Nick Hornbys and Sophie Kinsellas I could swallow), but I hankered for something else – what, I didn’t really know.

I guess I just wanted to lose and then discover myself in books again, the way I had as a teenager, with Nancy Mitford and Jane Austen and Stella Gibbons and Jilly Cooper. I wanted that feeling when you love a book to the point where you actually want to kiss and hug it. (I’m a big book-hugger. Fuck trees.)

Then, one day, I found the World’s End Bookshop. It’s tiny, musty, messy perfection, and most books back then were about £1.50 (with 20% off on Sundays). I was pretty damn excited: finally, books I could afford. The interior is such a dark, poky chaos that every discovery really is utter chance.

I’d pick up a book, read a page, and unless I hated it, I’d buy it. I'd take a tenner every Sunday and buy four or five books to last me the week (yep, I read fast) and get a glossy fashion magazine with the change. This is how I discovered books that filled up my long, long tube and bus rides into work – books that yes, I probably should have read but hadn’t, books that I would hug and weep and laugh and gasp over, books that comforted me when the world was going through one of its periodic stages of being a bit fucked (that’s a technical term, ie, when you’re broke, your flatmates are mental, work is shit and you’ve just been dumped again).

There are dozens of books that shaped those years, and A Farewell To Arms, Anna Karenina, The Count Of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Portrait Of A Lady, Mariana, Brideshead Revisited, The Rules Of Attraction, Catch 22, Evelina, Tender Is The Night, A History Of The World In 10½ Chapters, Lolita, Vanity Fair, The Priory and Lucky Jim particularly stand out.

I loved them: they lit up my soul.

(By the way, that list is classics-heavy simply because that’s the kind of bookshop it is, I still borrowed or, if budget allowed, bought all the chicklit, bestsellers and other light lit that I could eat, and the only authors that I can quote at length thanks to severe rereading abuse are Helen Fielding and Jilly Cooper. Anyway, those 'classic' books are so easy to read, I'm not sure why they are always treated like reading them requires a Mensa-level IQ... They don't, a good story well told is just that. But I digress. As usual.)

At one point during Tess Of The D’Urbervilles I wanted to shout at the world ‘do you KNOW how GOOD this is? How poignant and beautiful and real?’. (The answer is ‘of course the world knows it, Gemma, you dick, it’s famous for a reason’.)

Each book would lead me to read all the other books by the same author, then I’d find out who else wrote similar books or who influenced them and dive into them, too. Of course, I didn’t love all of the books I stumbled across – Dead Babies and American Psycho made me feel sick (no, really, I was honestly gagging), Heart Of Darkness and The Brother Karamazov were really tough to get into; Cranford was too menopause-lit. But on the whole, these books just made my life better. In every possible way.

I still read like that – I binge, is the best way of putting it. This year, I've binged on dozens and dozens of YA (Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by Emily Lockhart are the standouts - stupendous books, so smart and brilliant that I wanted to clap my hands throughout - also Della Says OMG by Keris Stainton and Paranormalcy by Keirsten White were unputdownable and hilarious). And hell yes, I think this intense reading habit has made me a better writer. I’m far more succinct in writing than I ever am in real life. In real life I just blather on, my brain foggily trying to get to the point. (Sometimes I'm like that in copy, too, let's be honest. Particularly in this blog.)

I guess it’s obvious to say, but all that reading – and the World’s End Bookshop - is one of the reasons I eventually felt confident enough as a writer to try writing a book...

Now, I try not to offer novel-writing advice on this blog, I just say what I do in the hope that you might find it interesting or a bit useful. Why? Well, for one thing, what the hell do I know about anything, all I know is what works for me. Secondly, if you want to be a writer, you’ll figure out how to make it happen for you in your own way, and you’ll be wonderful. And thirdly, and this is really just point one regurgitated: I’m too stymied by self-doubt. I’ve read enough breathtakingly brilliant books to know my huge weaknesses as a writer, so offering advice seems kind of delusional and arrogant. Sometimes even just writing this blog seems arrogant, as though I have a clue about anything at all. Seriously, dudes. I don't.

But the truth is that deep down, I think – no, I know - that the only way to be a good writer is to read.

Read until your eyes are bleeding and your wrists ache from holding the book. It doesn’t matter if you only want to write one genre: read all of them. I write chicklitesque stuff, after all (a term I embrace with an eyeroll and a sigh) because I like writing about what it's like to be a woman with honesty and humour, I like confiding in the reader and writing like a conversation - but I read everything: classics, modern literary fiction, chicklit, YA, paranormal, fantasy sci-fi, everything.

Do the same, and you’ll automatically develop an instinct for how you want to express yourself: the syntax, structure, style, tone and pace that suit you. Then write something, and edit it so many times you know it by heart. Then put it away for a bit. And then reread it and edit it again.

As long as what you’re writing about – in the case of a novel, your plot and characters - are in order, you’ll be aces. I promise.

(Now, plot and characters. That’s another post altogether...)

PS: These are the books I bought at World’s End Bookshop the other day. As a bonus, the covers of old books tend to be better than many modern covers.

Gore Vidal – Myra Breckinridge

Michael Frayn – Travels with a typewriter

PG Wodehouse – The Mating Season

Joan Didion – The White Album

Kingsley Amis – Difficulties With Girls

On... Autignac and French pharmacies

2011-06-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

I’m in Autignac, mes amies.

Yep, my folks really do have a house in the town in France where the protagonist from my second book A GIRL LIKE YOU’s parents have a house. (Uh, but the rest of it is totally fiction, dudes.) (No, I promise, it is.) (Actually, THE DATING DETOX is based much more closely on my life as far as details like job - copywriter - and things go. And my mother really does talk by cutting up. Her sentences. And she says shit like 'Kick him to the curb, honey! Kick him. To the. Curb.' Okay, back to the point.)

Autignac a tiny little place, the kind of village with one tabac/shop, one pharmacy, one boulangerie and one bar. It’s divine in summer, and a teeny bit bleak in winter. (One Christmas a few years ago, my sister and I had such bad cabin fever that we decided to stage a grainy B&W photograph shoot, starring ourselves, around the town. We posed like disaffected French youths on the cracked stoops and uneven doorways, and called ourselves Les Enfants du Autignac. Okay, back to the point again.)

My folks don’t live here much (they’re in Hong Kong most of the time, which is where I grew up), but it’s a lovely escape from reality. Especially when you can take the best parts of your reality with you, ie: writing. I edited THE DATING DETOX here, wrote the middle chapters to A GIRL LIKE YOU here, and now I’m here to write some of the second book in my brand spanking new book series, UNION STREET. (The first in the series will be out next year. Yay.)

Hot damn, I like the Frenchy Frenchness of it all. I like walking through Autignac every morning to get the bread and saying Bonjour to everyone. I like the frogs that sing at night and the birds that sing in the morning. I like the hypermarkets with 800 different kinds of cheeses and two kinds of toilet paper. I like the dogshit and I like exploring nearby towns. Around here – the Languedoc region – the towns all look like they sprouted from the earth, rather than were built.

And most of all I like the pharmacies.

Fox says he could measure out our trips around the world in the pharmacies he’s waited outside, like some kind of longsuffering Prufrock type. But what can I do? In every country you’ll find something crazy and amazing, and some time ago I decided that finding said crazy/amazing things was my second calling in life. (After writing’n’shit.) So, rather than just talk to you about my vacances, which is ultimately a shitty thing to do to anyone who isn’t on holiday at that exact moment too, I’d like to offer you something useful.

MY FRENCH PHARMACY FAVOURITES

Now, I won’t bore you with the usual stuff people talk about, as most of those brands are available in the UK and the US these days (La Roche Posay Anthelios IS the only SPF worth talking about but get the MILK otherwise you'll just paint yourself chalkwhite, Embryolisse will calm and nurture skin like Mary Poppins and might even sing to it if you ask nicely, Oscillococcinum will cure the flu and sometimes hangovers and probably broken bones, etc) and written about all the time. I’ll just talk about the good stuff. The stuff that’s hard to find. Even in France. You may have to hit up two or three pharmacies to get it all, but it's worth it.

HomeoplasmineCue: a choir of angels. If you buy one thing, buy this balm. It's made for cuts, from what I can tell, but I use it on eyes and cuticles, and it’s the only lipbalm in the world that works on me and I’ve tried them all. Yes, all of them. Yes even that one.

Biafine
This is supposed to be for scarring, but I use it as a facemask. Afterwards, my skin feels like it’s been frotted by the wings of angels.

Avibon
Anything anti-aging is about to become my best friend – I’m in my 30s now, dudes, time is marching the fuck on – and Avibon is pure Vitamin A, the same thing as Retinol, but it’s like, 7 euro for a huge tube. I just bought this yesterday on the recommendation of a friend, so I’ll report back. Okay, I probably won’t report back. But I thought you should know about it anyway. It sounds great.

Alphacid AHA
I’m still not exactly sure what the hell Alpha-Hydroxy Acid is, and to be honest I don’t care. All I know is that I put this on after cleansing, it tingles lightly, and the next day I look somehow better. And really, all I want in life is things that tingle and make me look better.

BioDerma Crealine H2O
They make this in a wipe, too, but it doesn’t really flip my pancake: the liquid is far superior. Gentle, effective make-up remover. One 500ml bottle lasts forever. Has caused me significant anguish in the past when I needed to stock up and then get a flight home with just carry-on luggage ie, nothing over 100ml. GOD. My life is HARD.

La Tissanerie Drainage et Elimination
There are drinks, pills, creams, unguents, wraps, in fact there are entire rooms in French pharmacies devoted to making your ventre more plat. The reason French women don’t get fat is that they think about it all the goddamn time, my friends. This tea has green coffee, chicory and cherry stems in (yes, stems). I don’t know if it works, but it’s yummy, and it makes a nice change from fennel and dandelion.

Lipikar from La Roche Posay
You can track this down in the UK and US, but it's worth mentioning anyway: the only body moisturiser I’ve ever known that really does soak in straight away and leave your skin supple and boingy for 24 hours. (Boingy is a technical term.)

I should mention that all of this stuff is also super cheap, like less then 10 euro, except maybe the Lipikar.

You can buy some of this stuff over at French pharmacy site www.laguidesante.com but beware: it’s a pretty badly designed website with a diabolically faulty search function, so you need to click and trawl to find things. But hey. It delivers internationally, and it’s better than flying to France just to go to a pharmacy. (Having said that: if you do, no judging here.)

If you know any other must-have French finds, please let me know, I'd be forever grateful. Oh, and if you know of anything I should get in Italy, please tell me, immediatement. We’re heading there next week for a wedding. And I cannot wait to browse the pharmacies.

EDIT:

I can answer my own question there. Something to get in an Italian pharmacy is MARVIS Strong Mint toothpaste. You can also buy it at places like CO Bigelow Pharmacy in NYC, which I think is where I first tried a travel size and realised that no other toothpaste would ever compare again. And you can order it online to just about anywhere, but it's three times as much. So if you're in Italy, pick some up. The mintiest mint toothpaste, ever.

And such a stylish tube, n'est-ce pas? Makes Colgate look tres uncool.

On... girl crushes

2011-05-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

I'm prone to girl crushes.

Not in the breathless-adoration way (and I would never call anyone a 'goddess', what is with people doing that lately? It's weird), but when I see a woman who seems to have it figured out, I frown thoughtfully and nod in her direction, maybe do an hour or two of background reading on things she's done in the past, and then keep my eye out to see what she does next.

This probably harks back to the mentor-stalking habits of my mid-20s. These days, I don't feel the need to tackle women to the ground and force them to tell me their secrets to happiness and success, but I still subconsciously seek them out.

Generally, my girl crushes are writers of some kind - authors, journalists, screenwriters. Sometimes they're well known, like Caitlin Moran and Kirsten Wiig. Sometimes they're literary or entertainment types - authors, agents, producers, managers - who have a low profile but are really fucking nailing it. One girlcrush is a friend of my sister; she writes such razor-sharp, hilarious emails that I am forever wondering why she doesn't give up this law malarkey and become the next, I don't know, Caitlin Moran.

And sometimes, I girlcrush (yuh, it's totally a verb) on stylish types. Like Chloe Sevigny (though one has to think 'Chloe, put the crack pipe down, honeybun' now and again), Caroline Bieber, Olivia Palermo. And Opening Ceremony designer Kate Foley.

I like the cut of her jib.

Now, I'm not into the Bearbricks that you can see when you click the link (I've moved 31 times in my life, my friends, I am ruthless with that sort of knick-kncack-trinkety shit). And I am SO not into the cat. But I would wear (and in several cases, have worn) pretty much anything and everything else in this feature.

In fact, it almost makes me want to dye my hair pale pink. (I won't. I have only just recovered, emotionally and physically, from going dark blonde at the end of last year. I went back to pale blonde faster than you could say 'Gem, your hair looks like a hangover'. Yep, pale blonde is expensive to maintain, and makes my hair follicles needier than a thrice-dumped girlfriend with daddy issues. But it's purdy.)

You can read the entire interview and photos on the brilliant website Refinery29. Check it out, you'll love it.

On.... Mannerfrei

2011-05-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

I have a copy of MANNERFREI, the German translation of The Dating Detox, in my hot little hands! (Actually, they're not hot, and they're manicured rather nicely with OPI Pinking Of You, but that's not the point right now.)

I thought I'd take a photo to share it with you. Cool, huh?

It's incredibly surreal seeing it in another language. Brilliant, I mean. But surreal.

And here's a photo of the book open to The Botanist chapter, with - just for the hell of it - a packet of matches from The Botanist, indeed. I was there on Sunday. The burger was absolutely exceptional and may have eclipsed Bar Boulud and Bumpkin in my Best Burger In London list. In case you were wondering.

If you have any German friends who are simply crying out for a bit of Die Dating Detox joy, you can order it here.

On.... shoes, shoes, shoes

2011-05-11T00:51:00.000-07:00

Every now and again I write a bloggy thing for the delightful fashionistics at SheerLuxe.

This is the new one.

On... my next book

2011-05-04T09:22:00.001-07:00

10 things I can tell you now about my next book.

1. It’s the first in a series of books called Union Street, about five twenty- something girls sharing a house in Brooklyn, that I’m writing for St Martins Press.

2. The protagonist is stylish, spoilt, sharp - and kind of awesome. I adore her. But I always adore the protagonist till I finish writing about her. Weird, huh?

3. I had the idea for the series as was ruminating on the fact that 21 to 30 is an extraordinarily tough, eventful and hilarious time for women, but I couldn’t think of any modern fiction that dealt with the entire period honestly and - most importantly - with humour.

4. The series was also inspired by The Group by Mary McCarthy, The Best Of Everything by Rona Jaffe and The Babysitters Club by Ann M Martin. (Trust me, it works.)

5. There will be more sex in it than there was my first two books. (Mother, don’t look at me like that.)

6. And wild partying and bad choices and drugs and drama and all kinds of good stuff. (Mutti. Seriously. You are really putting me off.)

7. I’ve just about finished writing it. Just icing the cake now.

8. Oh, the narrator of the first book is called Pia.

9. It’s about 120,000 words, which seems to be my magic number for some reason. (This is irrelevant but I needed it to get 10 facts.)

10.I really, really hope you like it.

PS Alas, I cannot tell you when it’s out just yet... but the moment I find out, you’ll be the first to know, kittenpants.

On... chicklit and humour

2011-05-01T03:08:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to write a feature for Novelicious for International Chicklit Month. And I’m having trouble getting started.

Why?

Because the topic is Humour And Chicklit.

What right do I have to write about humour and chicklit? Fuck all, honeynuts. I mean, I try to write humorous books, but everyone thinks they have a sense of humour, just like everyone thinks they have good dress sense. So the little voice in my head reminding me that everyone’s idea of humour is different and asking who the sweet hell I think I am to write about this subject is stymieing me, for a start.

Hmm.

For me, for any book – fiction or not - to be humorous, it has to be surprising. And original, smart, irreverent, sharp, confident, quick, honest, compelling, emotionally real, well-written and tightly edited, with characters that I care about and a storyline that has realistic-yet-unexpected twists... it all goes hand-in-hand, because humour needs structure and structure needs a point and that point needs to be emotionally resonant for me to care enough to keep reading. David Sedaris is deeply funny: I laughed so hard reading Me Talk Pretty One Day that I started hitting the seat next to me, and I was on the tube (underground, subway, metro, MTR) at the time. Kingsley Amis is also hilarious: Lucky Jim is one of my favourite books ever (Fox wooed me with a first edition, the smooth bastard). Wodehouse, Stella Gibbons, Nancy Mitford, Nora Ephron... all brilliant and funny. But they're not modern chicklit.

So what makes a book in the chicklit genre particularly funny? That’s what I’m asking myself. And I don’t know what the answer is. Not all my favourite chicklit books are particularly funny. Or they might make me smile but not chortle, grin but not guffaw. Doesn’t mean I don’t like them. Just means they’re not that funny. I also love Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Julian Barnes, Mary McCarthy, Bret Easton Ellis, Stephanie Meyer, yes I said Stephanie Meyer, and they don’t make me laugh out loud either.

Double hmmm.

Recently I read I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crossley, and The Heart Says Whatever by Emily Gould. Both are very well-written and very, very funny memoirs from quick, smart, perceptive twentysomething women, and I laughed out loud several times. When I finished, I wondered: why the hell didn’t they turn their razor-sharp gaze away from the mirror and write fiction? There’s something un peu self-absorbed about writing about yourself all the time, isn’t there? (I can’t even bear to write about myself on this terribly neglected blog, and shit, that’s the whole point of a blog, right?) Then I wondered if the reason they wrote memoirs was because any novel about being a female career-and-love-focused twentysomething, with bits about fashion and family and friends and flatmates, would be labelled chicklit and given a cover that looked like a Disney animator had thrown up on it. And Emily and Sloane are both, quite frankly, too cool to fall for that.

Hmm.

You can see how my brain is having trouble processing what should be a very enjoyable feature to write.

Twenty minutes ago I decided, fuck it, write about what makes the funniest chicklit books funny, and choose a book everyone will agree on. The answer is, of course, Bridget Jones’ Diary.

But I can’t just write that, can I? “Read Bridget Jones’ Diary. It is perfect.”

Bugger.

On... things that I find surprisingly difficult

2011-04-14T09:20:00.001-07:00

Writing addresses on envelopes. (It’s just so boring.)

Remembering numbers of more than one digit. (Ask me to remember anything over nine and I stare into space like an inbred lapdog, drooling and panting.)

Answering simple questions when I’m writing. (“What? I don’t... In the drawer. I mean... oh. The bus.”)

Choosing anything but pork belly when it is on the menu. (It’s just so good. So good.)

Selecting a cocktail that isn’t vodka-based. (Look, it gets the job done.)

Sleeping in past 6.30am. (I have the bodyclock of a baker.)

Understanding the charms of nature in any meaningful way. (“Oh, it’s leafy. Awesome.”)

Understanding the charms of organised sport in any meaningful way. (“Oh, it’s a ball. Awesome.”)

Wearing a colour that isn’t white, black, grey, navy or red. (Seriously, I’m like a small French child in a storybook.)

Letting go of my lucky yellow clutch*, both emotionally and sartorially. (Readers of The Dating Detox will understand.)

Knowing where my phone is at any given time. (Really. That thing is like Ferris Bueller. It just takes off whenever it feels like it. It is probably driving around Chicago right now in a red convertible with a hypochondriac and a chick called Sloane.)

* I will happily wear a hint of yellow. Ditto hot pink or electric blue. But only a hint.

On... Heartbreaker

2011-04-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

You know when you're in the mood for a romantic comedy but you've seen all the good ones and you'd stab yourself in the throat with your eyelash curler before wasting any time on a Katherine Heigl movie again?

Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

You want to be entertained (but not patronised with something predictable). You want attractive actors (particularly the dude), and characters that seem fresh and real (not annoying). You want romance (but not schmaltz). You want humour (but nothing predictable). And you want something clever (because sweet mother of fuckmonkeys, romance doesn't have to be stupid).

My friends, I have the answer.

HEARTBREAKER.

Skip to your laptop and download it from iTunes or Netflix right this second.(Or rent the DVD if you're feeling retro.) It is so brilliant and clever I kept punching the sofa with joy, thinking 'I have GOT to tell EVERYONE I know about this'. It's about a guy who is a professional heartbreaker, ie, breaks up relationships for a living. And it's awesome.

It's French, by the way. The French are so damn good at romantic comedies. One of the only other really excellent romantic comedies I've seen in the last year or so was PRICELESS, another nice little French number. It's deeply funny. GOING THE DISTANCE was hilarious too, by the way. Since we're on the subject of good romantic comedies. But it wasn't French. Okay I'll shut up now. Oh wait, I just found a photo of the dude from HEARTBREAKER without his shirt on. In case you're interested.

Okay I really will go now.

On... Sweet Valley Confidential

2011-04-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

Are you an Elizabeth or a Jessica?

I know a cultural phenomenon when I see one, particularly one that has lay dormant for a decade or two then come back, bigger and brighter than ever. And that phenomenon, my friends, is SWEET VALLEY HIGH.

Personally, I’m an Elizabeth, most of the time. I always wanted to be a Jessica, but I’m not, at least not until I’ve had a couple of martinis. My friend Amy and I once reminisced about Sweet Valley High over dinner and nearly got told off for shouting at each other and banging the table so excitedly. We tried to remember Bruce Patman’s Porsche’s numberplate (1BRUCE1), the name of the band (The Droids!), argued over which of Elizabeth’s boyfriends was the more bland (Todd, Todd, Todd) and reminisced about poor deaf Regina, who did DRUGS and nearly DIED. The characters were recognisable, the books were compellingly readable, and all in all, they were good clean fun. (I am sure I am not alone in wishing there was more sex in SVH - but then again, the continued undercurrent of unfulfilled sexual desire was pretty adroit for the average SVH reader. If I wanted to read about sex at that age, I'd read Forever by Judy Blume, and then would completely freak out and run back to SVH and - oh how I loved this series - The Babysitters Club, stat.)

EDIT: Apparently, according to the lovely PollyPopTart, Regina really did die. This is no longer funny. Sorry Regina. Drugs suck, kids.

Sweet Valley High was like a John Hughes movie, but even better, because it had a million plotlines and it never, ever ended. I missed it in its heyday, the 80s, but read it a lot from about 89 to about 93, I guess. The series petered out sometime in the 90s, I think. (I don’t know about you, but I blame Nirvana. Those grunge people. Sheesh. Talk about spoilsports.)

I just looked up SWEET VALLEY HIGH on Wikipedia, and saw a bunch of later titles that I never read. I need to fix this, immediatement. I particularly like the last one: #143 Party Weekend - Elizabeth and Jessica learn what it's like to be drunk. (I can answer this for them: it is awesome.)

ANYWAY. The reason for this long, characteristically pointless blog from lil’ Gemgem is that all your favourite characters from Sweet Valley High are back.

With SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL.

Here’s a good synopsis of SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL from chicklitclub.com: Sweet Valley High twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are back after a 10-year hiatus and suddenly the girls, who were always inseparable, are living on different coasts and not speaking to each other. Things are not so idyllic for the Wakefield twins and their friends from Sweet Valley High. Jessica committed the ultimate betrayal, which led Elizabeth to dash off to New York and cut off all communications with her sister. The once sweet and caring twin, Elizabeth now wants nothing more than to get revenge on Jessica, but what is the best way to go about punishing someone who ruined her life? On the other coast, Jessica is the talk of the town for what she did to her sister and she's not happy about it. Though she is doing well at work, she can't shake the need to be near her sister. However, that doesn't seem possible as Elizabeth is not even answering her phone. Will these two finally put their differences behind them and get on with life or is the rift between them too big to ever mend?

How awesome does that sound?

No fewer than seven girlfriends emailed me links to the news about SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL. And these girls don’t all know each other, and there’s no particular reason they were telling me – I was a fan, but no more than the average girl, I think. It’s just that everyone – everyone - is frothing at the mouth about it. I have never personally witnessed book buzz before (I worked as a copywriter in advertising before I was an author; people in advertising tend to think books are ‘a fantastic concept’) but man, this has got to be it. I mean, I’ve pre-ordered my copy already. Have you?

Now, a blatant boast, but please let me get away with it... The editor of my next book, the first of my brand-spanking-new UNION STREET series (currently doing the final polish on the last few chapters, by the way) is Dan Weiss. He’s Publisher At Large at St Martins Press. He’s also the man who started the Sweet Valley High series AND the man in charge of bringing it back. I figure this makes me practically a Wakefield. And if you tell me I’m an Enid I will not talk to you again.

On... Denim And Lace

2011-03-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of bad songs out there.

And this is one of my favourites. As a bonus, the dude in this video is one of the worst lipsyncs I've ever seen, and I saw Paula Abdul in concert in Hong Kong in 1992. (She danced on stage! With a TIGER!)(A pretend tiger. But, you know, still.)

Anyway. Denim and Lace. I like to sing it to myself when I'm getting ready to go out.

On... a new Sheer Luxe blog

2011-03-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

So now and again I write a blog for the uhmazing shopping mecca website, SheerLuxe.

This is the latest one.

On... my newsletter

2011-03-04T07:11:00.001-08:00

I send out a newsletter now and again about what I've been up to. Sorry, 'newsletter' sounds ridiculous; it's more like a long, chatty, mildly pointless email. But, you know, it's fun. And fun goes a long way.

If you'd like to get it direct to your inbox, just email me gemma@gemmaburgess.com and put 'Email me!' in the subject line. Or click below and read it. Totally up to you, sugarnuts.

Well, pass me a cigarette and pour me a martini, I’ve just finished the first draft of my next book.

It’s the first of the Union Street series. Each book in the series will be from the point of view of a different girl in a group of friends living together in their early 20s, trying to figure everything out.

I had the idea for it last May, when the illustrious people at St Martins Press asked what I wanted to write next. I wanted to do something more than a standalone chicklit book. I loved writing The Dating Detox and A Girl Like You, but I wanted to write about, not just one girl, but a group of them (I always wished I’d had more space for the friends’ stories in TDD and AGLY). I wanted to do something funny and fast that was about friendship and ambition and finding your way in the world – and of course, love and sex and dating, and all that good chicklit stuff. And I’d been thinking about how no one writes funny books about that exhilarating, difficult period right after university or college, when you’re trying to figure out a) what you want to do with your life and b) how the sweet hell you’re going to do it. And then, lastly, I’d been reading The Best Of Everything, by Rona Jaffe, and The Group, by Mary McCarthy (which are awesome, by the way, and about girls discovering life in the 50s and the 30s, respectively; if you’re into Mad Men and that sort of thing you’ll love them) and found them seriously inspiring. And anyway, all these thoughts came together, and I thought, hell yes. That is what I want to write.

Because being in your very early 20s is brilliant, but so hard and everyone always forgets that. It’s hard to get a job, to find a place to live, to meet nice guys, to survive on no money, to figure out how to make your life work for you and above all, to keep the faith (in a George Michael way, not a Jesus way).

Here’s my early 20s story (hah... now, I wasn’t sure whether to include this, it’s a boring life anecdote, so please feel free to skip to the end): I’d just finished a useless and difficult triple major Bachelor of Arts and a post-grad degree in journalism. As I’d decided I hated journalism, I was pretty much unemployable. I applied for every entry-level job with the title ‘marketing’ or ‘editorial’ that I could find, as I vaguely knew I wanted something word-related. Naturally no one would give me a job, because I had no experience, but I couldn’t get experience without a job. Eventually I got a miserable six-month contract job writing market research reports. Then I worked at a second-rate marketing agency for two long years, writing very dry technology copy. Man, that job sucked ass. I locked myself in the disabled toilet every day at 11am to cry (which, I admit, even then I found hilarious), partly because I didn’t understand most of what I was writing about (what the fk is a robust back end server?) and partly because I had realised that the agency was run by utter fools.* The pay was, obviously, appalling, so I was constantly worried – with that sour-stomach worried feeling, you know the one? – about money. And I lived in filthy little shareflats, except for an ill-judged couple of years living with a boyfriend (looking back, I wonder if I moved in with him because I was so tired of said filthy little shareflats). Eventually I got a proper advertising copywriting job in a sharp London agency. And life slowly improved. I started writing The Dating Detox while I was freelancing at an ad agency and living in a shareflat in Pimlico. I was dating Fox, the guy I’m now married to, by then, but we weren’t living together yet. Anyway. I digress. Again.

The point is that looking back over my early 20s, I realised that, difficult and disaster-filled as it truly was, and despite my regular angst-filled crying jags, I was a happy little bunny. Life was kind of awesome. I went out a lot, drank and smoked far too much, dated a lot of total schmucks, threw shapes in every embarrassingly bad club in London, made predictable wine-fuelled mistakes with my male best friends, spent my lunch hours shopping in Zara or reading in the sunshine in Golden Square, killed four to six hours every Saturday in coffee shops on the Kings Road in Chelsea gossiping with my girlfriends and, you know, had a seriously good time. It was tough, but exhilarating and hilarious and fun.

So that’s what I wanted to write about. And I just finished the first draft.

I hope it’s good.

I’ve been quizzing every woman I know about her early 20s, by the way, so if you’re feeling talkative, let me know how you survived (or, if you’re there now, how you’re surviving). And by the way, what the sweet hell else should I write about in this email I send to you, oh favourite lovely reading people? I never know, so I just end up having a chat.

Happy Friday. Go have a drink this weekend and enjoy yourself. You deserve it.

Gem x

* I should add that my direct boss in that job was lovely. He was patient when I’d come in crying about boys (which I often did... come to think of it, I cried a lot in that job) and more importantly he was an amazing mentor who truly taught me how to write. I was mentor-obsessed in my 20s. If I saw someone who looked like they had a clue about anything, I basically clung to their ankles till they gave me advice. And I had thought I knew how to write, after years of essays and letters and reading reading reading and all that damn education, but I didn’t. Once I learned, I could suddenly express myself far more clearly and succinctly in writing than speech. Which is lucky, since at some point in my late 20s, I decided I’d try being a real writer. So the next challenge (in fact the continuing challenge) is not the style, but content, ie, writing something that you guys think is worth reading. And here we are.

On... SheerLuxe

2011-02-26T03:03:00.000-08:00

Afraid this is just a little tiny wave hello, my friends, as I'm finishing a book and keep forgetting to find time to do things like, you know, breathe. But sometimes I write a fashion blog for the awestabulous site SheerLuxe. And I wrote a new one last week.

If you're interested, you can check it out here.

More soon. Promise. x

On... thank yous

2011-02-24T10:03:00.001-08:00

I have been a very poor blogger of late, my friends, as I am in the very last stretch of the first draft of my next book.

But I want to say thank you.

Because yesterday I found out that A Girl Like You sold over 10,000 copies in the first six weeks of publication in the UK alone.

This is, of course, small fry compared to the James Pattersons of the world, but for a girl who just wrote a couple of books because she was fed up with never finding the kind of comfort-read-with-balls she craved sometimes, it's just... amazing. Kind of mind-blowing, actually.

So, anyway. Thank you to all you lovely lovely people who bought a copy and especially thank you to everyone who has emailed to say that they enjoyed it. I love your emails. You are the most delightful, hilarious and talented readers a girl could ever wish for. And I like your hair. And your shoes.

x

On... Friday mornings

2011-02-17T23:55:00.000-08:00

Did you ever do that thing where you wake up and think, oooh, I’m going to go for a walk, and so you get up and you go for a walk and peoplewatch and eavesdrop for a while, and then you get a coffee, and then you walk home, and then you check your emails, and you email your mum back because you didn’t email her yesterday and you owe her like three emails, and you reply to a few emails from friends, then you check Twitter, and then you check Topshop out of habit even though you’re not shopping right now but just in case it has something you’ve wanted for years like the perfect flowery teadress or the hot pink Sakura heels you missed out on in 2009 though thank God you got them in electric blue because they honestly go with everything, and then think ‘ooo, haven’t looked at ASOS in a while’, so you look at that but you wonder if the ASOS materials will feel like the material that camping tents are made from because they often do, and then you think I wonder what I should wear this weekend so you check the weather, and then you think about how much happier you’ll be getting dressed when it’s warmer outside and you can wear bare legs because bare legs are really your thing, and then you think about all the weddings you have this summer and how you have nothing to wear to them so you look at NetAPorter for awhile and play Pretend Spend, and then you look at TheOutnet which is often really good like those J Brand skinny jeans that you got for like 65% off, then you think ‘should really check the news’ so you go to Huffingtonpost.com and then you go to NYMag.com just to round things out and then you think, hmmm, what a nice morning I’m having.

And then you remember that you have work to do - or, oh, I don't know, a book to write - and you have just wasted an hour and really should get a grip on reality?

Snap. Me too.

On... Junk Kouture

2011-02-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

On the weekend I caught up with my niece, Lisa, who is 15 and lives in Dublin. She showed me some photos of an awesome outfit she and a friend designed and made themselves. They came runner-ups in a design competition called 'Junk Kouture'.

The outfit is titled 'Party in the USA'.

How cool is it?! I would totally wear the shoes. The dress is made from woven, rolled and taped magazine pages. It's dramatic but totally intricate. The shoes have hundreds of thumb-tacks in them and those huge pompoms are rolled up rubber bands.

If I was the kind of smart person who analyzed art, I'd say this was a bold, witty statement about the impact of celebrity magazines on fashion and pop culture, and the disposable nature of tabloid journalism. Only I'd probably say it better than that. Because I'd be smart.

What do you think?

On... copywriting tips

2011-02-04T04:26:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it, most of my blog posts are the dillydallying type. I ponder, and
chat, and wander off point, and put in little asides. Then I have to use a lot of ‘So,’ or ‘Anyway,’ type words, to get back to the point. And then the point itself tends to drag on.

But that’s okay: it’s a blog. It’s not ad copy. Blogs are all about the dillydally.

Anyway (see?), I got an email from a would-be copywriter today, asking for copywriting tips. And so I thought perhaps I’d post them here. I wrote them like ad copy, so they’re nice and short. Enjoy.

HOW TO WRITE GOOD AD COPY

1. Get to the point. I probably won’t read more than the first line.

2. Use the shortest possible words and sentences. So I can skim it and still understand.

3. Don’t bore or confuse me. Use active words and straightforward syntax.

4. Tell me why I should care. How will it make a difference to my life?

5. Don’t overdo it. No exclamation marks, no hyperbole, no grand promises. Smart copy tells, not sells.

And yes, you can do all this and still keep within the brand guidelines and tone of voice. Whether you’re being formal or friendly, medical or mummyish, selling BMW or Bovril, good copy is good copy.

On... NorthWest Magazine

2011-02-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

Pretty cringe-making - I am NOT the world's most natural poser, despite being a total poseur in so many other ways - but check out who is 'the thinking girl's chick-lit author'.

Here are a few more photos from the shoot courtesy of Archant and photographer Kristian Hana. Memo to self to not give up the day job till learn to smile without looking like I am also in pain. Also, that cardigan wrap thing that I thought was so cosy-chic is in fact all cosy, no chic. But the jeans are good. They may remain.

I'll scan the whole feature, written by the lovely Tash Paulini, in as soon as I can.

On... true stories

2011-01-27T08:04:00.000-08:00

I keep being asked about this, and yes. Almost every single thing in my books is made up. The characters, the storylines, the events. The emotions and reactions are based on things I’ve felt, obviously – I’ve been cheated on, and fought with people, and worked with cockmonkeys, and fallen in love, and broken up with people, and had shit dates, and all the rest of it. But the events are made up.

Well, except one or two.

And I just remembered about a real event that ended up in The Dating Detox. I’d sort of forgotten it as I never reread The Dating Detox, obviouslah (I can’t think of a worse way to pass the time than to read my own work when I can't edit the meh bits), and it was a late addition to the book, as it only happened in March and I was handing in the final ms in like, May. But it was too funny and strange not to put in. I just got an email from a reader about it and thought I’d tell the real story, just for the record.

So Fox and I were in New York.

It was his birthday and well, we just like New York, we go there a lot. We got married there last year, in Tribeca. My next book series is set there. We have a lot of friends there. And we're currently waiting for the visa situation to work out so we can move there.

Anyway.

On our last night we went to go and see OK Go at The Bell House in Brooklyn, and then we went back to the hotel in the Meatpacking District. The Standard had just opened – in fact the Standard Grill wasn’t even open yet – and it’s right across the road from a little bar called Hogs & Heifers.

We had a beery gig buzz, decided we felt like one last drink, and walked in. Hogs & Heifers really is the Disneyland of dive bars. It’s dark, dirty, with a thousand revolting bras grotesquely strung up in a big bunch on the wall, it’s covered in graffiti and the clientele is mostly losers and tourists. It was only about a third full, being Sunday night.

“HEY SWEET VALLEY HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH!” screamed a voice from a megaphone.

Everyone in the bar looked around at me and then back to the girl standing on the bar wearing jeans, a hot pink bra and hair extensions.

“WHEN YOU’RE IN MY FUCKING BAR, TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING TRENCHCOAT, BITCH!”

I was wearing a trenchcoat. She was talking to me.

I realized instantly that I could either turn around and walk out and never come back, or walk up to the bar and look her straight in the eye and order a goddamn drink. It wouldn’t matter if I did walk out – I’d never be back there again, and losing face to a skanky little bar-ho isn’t exactly top of my Oh-No list – but I really felt like a goddamn drink and her arrogance was annoying me. So Fox and I just kept walking and sat down at the side of the bar. (Fox was still laughing at the Sweet Valley High line.)

“WHAT DO YOU WANT!?” she screamed at us, hopping down.

I considered saying I’d like the time machine in which she went back to 1999 to get the whiskered bootcut jeans she was wearing, but instead I read the name of the first bottle I could see on the bar.

“Two shots of Makers Mark.”

“THAT’S MY FUCKING DRINK, BITCH! I’LL HAVE ONE TOO!”

Anyway. So we had a shot, and we started talking about the bar and the hotel, and I don't know, just the usual chitchat I like to make with new people. Fox was bemused, as he usually is when I decide to befriend someone strange. (Another night out I started chatting to a very large, well-spoken, gentle man who gave me a light when I was having a cigarette outside some bar in the Village, and we talked about his journey in from Jersey, and his girlfriend and baby and his last holiday to Nantucket, and then when I said ‘so what brings you to the city tonight, John?’ he said ‘well Gemma, I deal MDMA.’ All I could think to say was ‘and how’s business going for you?’ as coolly as I could.) After another bourbon, the skanktender bored of us and started dancing on the bar and abusing some new guys. Fox and I decided to head back to the hotel, our appetite for a few drinks rather diminished by the weird faux-tough atmosphere.

Then, as I was leaving, she jumped down and said “Let’s go shopping next time you’re in town! My email is luckybra777@aol.com" and gave me her card.

True story.

On... interviews, reviews and thank yous

2011-01-17T11:51:00.001-08:00

Dearest everyone. Thank you so much for your support since dear ol' AGLY came out two weeks ago.

In case you missed it, A GIRL LIKE YOU was featured in The Sun newspaper and Heat and Closer magazines last week. (Everyone please throw a mental high five to the uhmazing Charlotte Allen at HarperCollins, that is all thanks to her.) I tried to post a link to the reviews, but I've only got the PDF and, um, I can't figure out how to do it.

I also did an interview with Lindsey Canant at luxury magazine Pink Memo, another one with my friend, the star author and blogstar Talli Roland and one with lovely Melissa at Chicklit Central.

Thank you also to all the wonderful sites and friends who have written reviews of A GIRL LIKE YOU - Chloe and Leah at Chicklit Reviews, One More Page, Dot Scribbles, High Heels and Book Deals and Ruth at Between The Pages.

New addition! Exceptionally lovely review from Judging Covers.

(If you wrote a review and I misesed you out, I'm sorry! I had them all saved and pfft they disappeared. Like magic. Please email me gemma@gemmaburgess.com and I'll amend that, stat - and by the way, Novelious and Chicklit Central reviews are, I think, coming soon, so check back for the links...)

And lastly, thank you so much to everyone who has posted a review on Amazon. I dont know about you, but I always read the reviews before buying the book, and sometimes buy a book I've never heard of on the reviews alone - so I think it really makes a difference, and I truly appreciate it.

Everytime someone says they loved A GIRL LIKE YOU, I glow and twinkle inside. It's the nicest feeling ever. x

On... 25,000 trailer hits

2011-01-14T04:46:00.000-08:00

As you might know, last year I made a trailer for my first book, THE DATING DETOX, with a cast of friends and a budget of pretty close to nil.

It's had almost 25,000 hits. Not bad, considering I employed the old 'If you build it, they will come' approach to marketing it. (Did I mentioned the budget was nil?)

Got a moment? Check it out. It's a tiny scene from the film, dramatised within an inch of its sassy little life. I'm in it. I'm the chick on the phone crying. I know, I know, it's a breathtaking performance. Why write when you can act like that, huh?

On... a new book series

2011-01-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I have some news. (Clears throat.) I’m writing a new book series for St Martins Press in NYC.

I’ve been dying to tell you guys about it for the longest time – since May, when I first began working on it with them – but then I didn’t want to jinx myself. (A watched proposal never sells.) But now I finally can.

It’s called UNION STREET. The official line is ‘the first in a series of novels about a group of young women living together in a brownstone in hip, downtown Brooklyn, and trying to figure out love, life, and adulthood.’

The longer story is that back in May, when my (amazing and awesome) US agent Jill Grinberg said St Martins Press wants to know what you want to do next, I said, I want to write a book or a series about that incredibly difficult and exhilarating period between graduating university and one’s late 20s. Because it is so fun, but so hard, and no one ever remembers that. It’s hard to get a place to live, and to survive on peanuts, and get the bus home in the rain when you can’t afford a cab. It's hard to get a job when you have no experience, and it's impossible to get experience without a job. It’s hard to figure out men, particularly when they’re seriously immature at 22, and to reacclimatize to the post-college dating rules.

In a nutshell: it's hard to figure out, not just what you want to do with your life, but how you’re going to get there.

I said that I thought of it as a cross between The Babysitters Club, The Group and The Best Of Everything. But, you know, seriously darn funny. It wouldn't be chicklit, and it wouldn't be YA - it'd be something different.

Little did I know that they are interested in exactly this new genre. They've even coined a term for it: New Adult.

So we started talking. I wrote a proposal. Then I wrote characters. And settings. And themes. We talked some more. I wrote plot outlines. We talked again. I wrote more plot outlines. I wrote three chapters. We talked again. Then I rewrote those three chapters. Then I updated the plot outlines.

And then it all came together in a lovely shiny new book series deal.

So now I’m writing my socks off. I’ve stopped freelance copywriting for the moment (that was my day job that kept me in lipstick and cigarettes – coming up with straplines and slogans, aka, fun with words, for ad agencies in London). Instead, I am spending a bit of time in distraction-free Zurich, where my husband Fox’s job is based right now, and of course I’ll be London and in Brooklyn a lot over the coming months too. All I do is write. And think. And write some more. And maybe go for a walk. And then write some more.

It’s wonderful.

Working on a great project like this is like being in love: it consumes your every waking thought and most of your sleeping ones.

I’ve alluded in the past to various other ‘projects’ but I’m tired of being all mysterious ‘n’ shit, so, they're just TV pilots and screenplays. And maybe nothing will happen with any of them, or maybe something will. Either way, I'm really enjoying myself. And that's the whole point or everything, isn't it?

I don’t know what happened when I turned 30, by the way. I was just enjoying myself, working in advertising and going out and being silly for years, and then suddenly I thought ‘I can do more than this’. So I am.

I’ve gotta write now, dudes. More later. x

On... a new newsletter

2011-01-05T08:31:00.001-08:00

I send out a newsletter every now and again, just to say hi to people who've emailed me in the past year. And this is the one I sent out today. Want to get the next one? Just email gemma@gemmaburgess.com with 'Email Me' in the subject line.

Why, happy new year, you funky funsters.

Hope you had a delightful Christmas.

The Fox and I went to Ireland to see his family, and then to Hong Kong to stay with my parents. I regressed into my usual Christmas childishness. I lay in bed and yelled for mum to come and talk to me. I ate chocolate before I cleaned my teeth. I refused to share the contents of my Christmas stocking. I forced Fox to watch Annie, Calamity Jane, and Grease 1 and 2. It was damn good fun. He is so glad he married me, I can't tell you.

I used to wonder if I'd ever stop acting like a nine-year-old at Christmas, and I have now decided that the answer is no. No I will not. And no one can make me. So there.

Anyway. So here's the big news of the week: A Girl Like You is finally out. Yippee! They tell me it's available in every Waterstones, WH Smith and Tesco and of course from lovely old Amazon. If you buy it, I'll be your BFF. Seriously. We will get one of those necklaces with the hearts, you know, and you'll keep one side and I'll keep the other, seriously, for realsies.

Wow I am really being immature. Sorry, ignore me. Oh, by the way. In case we're not blog fwiends (www.gemmaburgess.blogspot.com) or Facebook fwiends, by the way, come and find me. Please.

Word to your mother.

Gem x

PS I'm not having a launch party, by the way. I had one for The Dating Detox, but since it was my first book it was really just my usual friends, and instead of getting drunk in a bar, we got drunk in a bookshop. I don't really like being the centre of attention - yep, even though I am a show-off, it's one of the marvellous dichotomies of moi - so I decided not to have one for A Girl Like You. I always think having a party in January is a big ask, anyway: all anyone really wants to do is go home and curl oneself around a hot chocoalte / duvet / man. But I will be opening a bottle of champagne tomorrow and raising a toast to everyone who liked The Dating Detox enough to tell me, and hoping that they enjoy A Girl Like You just as much, too. And that's you.

PPS By the way, if you don't live in the UK, The Book Depository delivers free, worldwide. Pretty cool, huh? Even if you don't order A Girl Like You, please order something, if only to encourage the whole concept of free delivery. By the same token, I always order pork belly when it's on the menu, and I buy almost any underwired bras that aren't padded and pushed to the bewoopsit. Why do they think I want to rest my chin on my tits? Seriously.

On... John Hughes music

2011-01-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

I watched Easy A last night. Apart from being hilarious and smart, it had a kicking soundtrack of 80s songs, and footage from my favourite EVER film, Sixteen Candles.

Dang, I love that movie.

I love all John Hughes films, but Sixteen Candles is perfection. I mean, duh: I named the hero of The Dating Detox after Jake Ryan.

Jake Ryan!

I own Sixteen Candles in both DVD and VHS, even though I haven’t owned a VHS machine since 2002. I also have the CD soundtrack, though – and this is a key anorak moment - I couldn’t actually track it down so I put it together myself, in 2004, and made a proper cover to go with it. I use lines from the film in everyday life, as though everyone would know them. Like ‘no, he’s not retarded’ and ‘I loathe the bus’. Sure, most people probably think I am un peu strange, but just saying whatever you think is funny is like throwing an in-joke at the universe and waiting to see what it throws back. Once I was in a work meeting, and someone said ‘I’ve got déjà vu’ and I said ‘Have we not met before, monsieur?’ under my breath, and the guy across from me shouted ‘TOP SECRET! ARHHHH! BEST FILM EVER!’ He was so excited, I thought he might cry. Anyway. I digress.

I wonder if perhaps my books have an eerie amount in common with Sixteen Candles. There’s no real bad guy and the plot relies on a lot of silly dialogue and coincidence. There tends to be a crazy party or two and there’s some lying-in-bed-pining scenes. Hmm.

I even edited – probably about edit six, aka the 'sprinkles on the icing' edit - both the last scenes to my books listening to the last scene song from Sixteen Candles, which is the best last-scene song, ever, ever ever. I figure if that song works when the hero and heroine are finally getting their shit together, I’m hitting the right tone.

Let’s do a test: read the last few pages of either book while listening to this, and see if you think it works.

Hmm. Now I'm really in a John Hughes mood. So here, in no particular order, are some of my favourite songs from the John Hughes milieu.

Some Kind Of Wonderful. Eric Stoltz, you delicious man. Contains the immortal line ‘you mess with the bull, you get the horns’, which is appropriate in just about any situation where you don't know what else to say. And has the sexiest kiss in any John Hughes film, between Mary Stuart Masterson and Eric. When he kneads her denim bermuda shorts with his grease-stained fingers! Argh! I knew what moment to forward the video to in order to watch that scene. I was that kind of 13-year-old. (Okay 23-year-old, whatever.) Anyway, it's She Loves Me by Stephen Duffy.

I don't know why that clip has subtitles. Sorry. I can't find another decent one.

Pretty In Pink. If You Leave by OMD. Again, a last scene song. Again, perfection.

How adorable is Duckie?! And now he's in the worst TV show ever. With Charlie Sheen. Ew. I hope he uses a lot of hand sanitizer after a day on set.

Sixteen Candles, again. The Divynyls. Ring Me Up. When she ALMOST speaks to him in the gym locker room after the dance! And he opens his mouth to speak to her, but she turns away! The horror! The pining! Argh. Great for when you’re marching to the tube (bus/tram/subway/MTR/metro/free bike/public transport of choice) and in a ballsy mood. One of my all-time favourite songs.

Uncle Buck: the unappreciated fat kid in the John Hughes family. “Is it the hat? This hat angers a lot of people.” Tweedle Dee by LaVern Baker. It also, by the way, has Young MC’s Bust A Move during a teen party (which is a strange, dark, late-80s teen party, rather than one of the crazy pastel mid-80s teen parties of Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, etc). Bust A Move is one of those songs that I learned every word to by pausing the tape and writing them down in about 1990. (Geek alert.)

I can't find a decent clip of either of those songs in Uncle Buck, so instead I give you the song Wild Thing by Tone Loc (which is an AWESOME song that I play at every party I go to, sometimes even if they ask me not to) and the scene where he goes bananas at the principal. It's so awesome, I dare you to watch it without grinning...

Ferris Buellers Day Off. Danke Shoen by Wayne Newton. Now, another anecdote about me, because - hey! that's the beauty of a blog, sugarnuts - I wanted to find this song so much in 1997, when I was at university, that I wrote down the name of the song and entertainer from the credits at the end of the video, then went to several music shops till I found one that would order a Wayne Newton Best Of CD for me. God, life was harder before the internet.

I won’t go through all the John Hughes movies: these are just a few highlights. And I’d like to widen the post to include the best songs from other great 80s favourites, including St Elmo’s Fire, which I watched aboout a 150 times one university holidays, and Mannequin and Overboard, but we’d be here all day.

This is off-topic, but this John Hughes mashup goes so perfectly with Phoenix’s song that it has to be shared. Enjoy.

PS: Happy New Year.

On... my favourite books of 2010

2010-12-22T02:28:00.000-08:00

I love reading.

What a painfully obvious thing to say. Never mind, let us continue.

I average two or three books a week, and I’ll read just about anything. I’m anti-book snobbery. (Incidentally, I’m also anti-carb snobbery: I’ll happily eat Doritos or thrice-baked truffle-infused organic baby potatoes. It comes down to the same thing: a pleasure is a pleasure.)

Reading so much is an expensive habit, as I always buy them (I figure it’s author karma). I don’t have a favourite genre: classics, modern literary fiction, magical realism, chicklit (if it is funny; romance/issues alone do not float my boat), sagas, popular fiction (including my secret vice, young adult paranormal romance gothlit, but more about that in a moment)… I am quite the little book slut.

Actually, I don’t read scary books – not because I don’t like them, but because I am a chicken. During The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) I slept with the light on. This is not a lie. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t read misery lit or those crime books that are full of misogynistic sexual violence either, but that’s because they make me feel sick. You know the kind I mean. Oh, and I read things like Dan Brown if I find myself in someone’s house for the weekend and wake up early (I am forever waking up early, it’s so damn tedious) and I’ve forgotten or finished my book. Dan Browny-type books are interesting to read because you can sort of analyze why they’re sucking you in; I read 137 pages of one of his books one Sunday morning at a friend’s house in Dublin, and realized the plot was structured like this: mysterious event – travel – hint – travel – small reveal– travel – hint – travel – small reveal – travel. (I got bored the sixth time the main character travelled on a super-magic-fighter-jet across the world to get told something exciting but baffling by someone important. I skipped to the last page and thought ‘oh well big fucking deal, it’s alien ice’ and went downstairs and made pancakes.)

The only book I really didn’t like – and note, quite a few made me think ‘this isn’t very well-written/good’; I mean book I actively disliked - in the past year was Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Nevwhatevergefeffer. I LOVED The Time Traveller’s Wife, but HFS was just… cold. In every possible way. It made me want to slash my wrists; its view on humanity and its characters were all so lacking in empathy or love or warmth. Now, perhaps that was just my take on it. But there you have it.

Anyway, without further yapping, here are my favourite reads from 2010:

The Observations

This is a photo of me reading The Observations on a train from Dublin to Cork on the weekend. (We were in Ireland for pre-Christmas parties and – frozen airports permitting, oh please please - heading to Hong Kong on Thursday for Christmas with my parents. YAY.) It. Is. Divine. Here’s the cover again.

I bought this book on the recommendation of Anna, Daisy and Violet at Lutyens & Rubinstein (Best Bookshop Evah, TM). Those girls have impeccable taste. I fell in love with Bessy, the narrator. I find myself, even now that I’ve finished it, wanting to look after her and talk to her... She’s brilliant: funny, feisty, warm, caring, vulnerable, smart, strong... it’s perfect in so many ways: story, voice, characters… just great.

By the way, what is with all these books with ribbons around the cover at the moment? And have you counted how many chicklit book covers feature whimsical girls in red coats? It’s laughable. And I say that as someone whose first book cover has a whimsical girl with a red coat (and a spotted blue neckerchief, indeed). Before I start saying anything I shouldn't, back to the point: The Observations is wonderful.

Torment by Lauren Kate

Young Adult paranormal romance gothlit sometimes really hits the spot. Yes, I read the Twilight series last year, starting with the thought ‘what the hell is everyone on about?’ and then because I couldn’t put the fuckers down, even when I worried that the ‘imprinting’ thing was perhaps a strange Mormon childbride excuse, and when I cringed slightly at the endless love talk (as I said, romance doesn’t really do it for me… in fact, I cringe writing any romancey bits in my own books and always try to make them a bit sharp or surprising, I probably fail but I try). Something about that teenage alienation feeling is addictive, it was compelling and entertaining…. Anyway, back to Torment. It’s about eternal love and damnation, fallen angels and – but of course – a sulky teenage girl. You should probably start with Fallen, but I enjoyed the sequal, Torment, far more.

The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay by Michael Chabon

I wrote about this earlier in the year, and said it was the reason I learnt to read. It’s still true. If you’ve read it, by the way, and loved it, try The Wonder Boys. It, too, is wonderful.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Prep is a sort of coming-of-age story – dreadfully overused term, sorry - about a girl at a New England boarding school. Parts reminded me so much of my boarding school – the strangeness and loneliness of it – that I cried real tears, people. Real tears. American Wife, by the same author, is brilliant too, but Prep is just… phenomenal. I loved it so much that I wrote Curtis Sittenfeld an email saying so. (She didn’t reply.) (Hurrumph.) That is the UK cover, by the way, and I have to say, what the fuck? It looks like a photo you’d get free with a cheap photoframe. And what’s with the quote? “The OC?” “Clueless?” Are they seriously comparing a brilliant novel to a terrible TV show and a movie released in 1995 (yes Clueless was fab and the clothes were awesome, but apart from a teenage protagonist, Clueless has NOTHING in common with Prep, though it's got a lot in common with Emma by Jane Austen, of course). And why “The Secret History?” Because it’s also set in New England? The Secret History is by Donna Tartt, and it’s wonderful, but it’s about a group of college classics students who become obsessed with Baccanalian revelry and go on a excess-fuelled rampage, kill a farmer and then one of their friends, and then are destroyed by guilt. For Pete's sake.

The Best Of Everything by Rona Jaffe

Yes! God this is a fabulous book. Five young women working in Manhattan in the 50s: their careers, families, love lives and friendships… I loved it so much. If you enjoy this, try The Group by Mary McCarthy, which charts the lives of a group of Vassar graduates in New York in the 30s. It’s fantastic.

The Rich Are Different by Susan Howatch

I love a saga. I always forget I love a saga, as I look at them and think ‘man, that looks like such a commitment’. But then I start reading and think ‘amazing, amazing, amazing’. This book, and its sequel, Sins Of The Fathers, is about American and English families entwined by love and hate and money over a 50-year period. The books are narrated in chunks by different characters, and it’s an incredibly compelling storytelling technique – it’s seamless and each character is so damn believable. I’ve never read anything like it. By the way, if you like a good saga, try Elizabeth Jane Howard’s wartime saga (The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off). After that you’ll probably be in the mood for Mary Wesley’s Chamomile Lawn, which is delicious. Then you might go through a Persephone-ish betwixt-the-wars phase, so start with Mariana by Monica Dickens, read all the Nancy Mitfords if you haven’t already, and dive into Dorothy Whipple. Mmm. Yummy books.

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

Yep, it’s YA, yep, it’s the same character that made me want to throw knives at the screen during Sex And The City 2, yep, it’s awesome. Candace Bushnell is a fantastic writer: One Fifth Avenue and Lipstick Jungle are also excellent. Four Blondes I didn’t get along quite so well with and I can’t remember what I thought of Trading Up. Weirdly, I haven’t read the Sex And The City book. I should probably do that.

I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson

I don’t know how the hell I missed reading this book for so long: it’s great. You already know that, I expect. Everyone else seems to have read it. Perfect chicklit: smart, funny, fast, surprising and empathetic.

I’ve probably forgotten some other favourites, but shall come back to add them. A Girl Like You is coming out in 15 days, by the way, and my recent blog and Twitter silence is mostly a result of fretting about it. Thinking about other books simultaneously calms me down and makes me more nervous. Isn’t that weird? Hmm. Fret fret fret.

On... Mannerfrei

2010-12-16T06:25:00.000-08:00

The German cover for The Dating Detox just landed! I adore it. I am clapping my hands with glee.

It's called Mannerfrei: Roman in German (Man Free: A Novel) Which I kind of love. Claudia Geng translated it. I hope she enjoyed it... I wonder what 'cockmonkey' is in German?

By the way, this is how Google translates the German back blurb. It works for me:

Problems with men? The solution is men free!

Men are dangerous and have various side effects. After the sixth failed relationship Sass decides to start a romantic Lent: no men, no divisions, no disappointments. And what happened? Their lives - usually filled with joy-traumatic with dates, clothes, and the relationship of vodka after that - is suddenly released! Abstinence is cool, and suddenly you're flying to all, especially men, especially Jake: witty, intelligent and ever ... If Sass break the rules? Or is the carefree life too good to turn it to gamble?

About the Author
Gemma Burgess moved to London at age 22. She worked at an advertising agency and was looking for happiness. Eight years later she decided to process the most important findings of this beautiful and turbulent period in a novel. Men free is for all self-conscious, intelligent, witty women of style who have difficulties to recognize the love, even when it is standing before them.

On... what I wore

2010-12-14T23:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was the photoshoot and interview for North East magazine.

Absolutely delightful fun and in the most incredible venue: Lost In Beauty, a shrine to all that is girlie and great, in Primrose Hill. They sell handpicked hair and makeup brands (Chantecaille, Becca, RMK, etc) and have a boudoir downstairs dedicated to makeovers.

I just decided to try to make you one of those lookbook style compilations, you know, the kind that fashion bloggers make? Dudes! It took forever. Newfound respect. Anyway. Here it is:

I chose this outfit because:
1. The jeans make me feel very tall and thin. Which is the only job any pair of jeans ever has to do, really. They are from J Brand via TheOutnet. (They're on there right now! Run!)
2. The cardigan is cosy-snuggly, but looks kind of put together (unusual for a cardigan), and it's a nice pinky shade of nude. I look like vom in those camel-nudes. I like grey and nude together: those colours are friends, like grey and white. Actually grey is friends with every other colour, really.
3. The top is pretty and white, and any pretty, white top does it for me. Have you ever noticed that you buy multiple versions of your favourite things, even though you don't really need them? I have a friend who owns nine pairs of black trousers. Me, it's white tops. It's like I'm preparing for some kind of fashion war, where there might be a white top rationing law. I also have a thing for Victorian-governess-style lace tops, you know the kind? I once found a beyewtiful one at H&M that had about 50 tiny buttons on the back. Then I broke up with the guy I was living with and was like 'shit, I am never going to be able to do this up by myself'. Yah. Total nightmare guys.
4. The shoes are - okay, I didn't put much thought into the shoes, I just grabbed them on the way out the door in case I needed them. Good thing, too, as they ended up taking photos of me walking/strutting around Primrose Hill, laptop in hand. Because I totally walk around with my laptop in case inspiration strikes.
5. The earrings are little sparkly skulls. I am a bit jewelry-tarded, and rarely wear anything except the wedding/engagement rings. I bought those at Topshop years ago.

I've been a bit meh about posting about fashion up till now. I write about clothes a lot in THE DATING DETOX and A GIRL LIKE YOU, but I definitely don't want to pretend I'm a style maven. I'm just a fashion enthusiast, like most women I know... I sometimes look at photos and think 'Sheesh, I should really have put the crack pipe down that day.' Particular mistakes include the outfits titled Crushed Grape, 70s Babysitter and Drunk Headmistress. Not good. I hope this outfit stands the test of time. It's pretty innocuous - I can't even think of a name for it, in fact.

On... publication nerves

2010-12-12T23:28:00.000-08:00

So my second book, A GIRL LIKE YOU, is coming out in a few weeks.

Naturally I feel sick about it.

This time last year I was in exactly the same state with THE DATING DETOX, which came out exactly the same week.

My brain goes something like this: oo, book coming out soon. Goodygumdro…. Wait. (Brain-gasp.) What if everyone hates it? What if my friends hate it? What would they say? (Here I try to plan exactly what nice-but-untrue things my friends might say if they hate it.) What if everyone thinks it’s stupid? (Here I list all the things in the book that might be stupid.) What if they don’t think it’s funny? (Here I list all the things I think are funny that might not be.) What if it fails diabolically, and no-one buys it, and everyone laughs at me, and it ends up being pulped and never printed again? Then it would be like (brain-whisper) it never even existed.

It’s recockulous. I spiral myself into a negative, teary frenzy. Eventually, I put on my strictest Brown Owl voice and tell myself to Stop Being So Bloody Silly. Then I go and think about something else for as long as I can.

I wonder if the nerves go away with time. I’ve read that other authors feel proud or excited about publication. I wish I was like that. Instead, I want to press control-alt-delete on the whole thing and shout “Sorry! Sorry everyone. Dreadful mistake. Please put the pastel-coloured book DOWN and step away from the bookshelf.”

But I can’t. All I can do is sit here and think, fuck. I hope they like it.

On... cover shoot

2010-12-10T02:54:00.000-08:00

I have my first ever photoshoot on Tuesday.

What the sweet hell am I going to wear?

It's for the cover of North East magazine, a deliciously glossy London magazine for all the delightful people who live in Primrose Hill (where my soon-to-launch novel, A GIRL LIKE YOU, is set), Hampstead, Belsize Park, and so on.

Like most people, I'm pretty uncomfortable in front of the camera - unless, of course, I am three wheets to the shind, in which case I will either offer a Cheshire cat smile or break out my Paris Hilton pose (the perfect combination of flattering and ridiculous). My Twitter pic is from a wedding in the States last year, it was a Paris pose gone slightly wrong, so I just look tipsy and conniving. Anyway. I can't do much about my face. The delightful ladies at Lost In Beauty have earmarked two hours to improve it (I'm rather excited to see what they might do to my eyebrows, but that's a different post altogether) so that should get things in good shape.

The point is I don't know what to wear.

And you know how I feel about clothes (hint: I like them). I emailed the lovely editor, Tash, and she said 'not black' which wipes out half my wardrobe. Apart from black, I only have a lot of grey, white, a tiny bit of navy and red, and one neon yellow skinny belt that, surprisingly, gets a lot of play. In other words, I have nothing to wear. And three days to find something.

Any ideas?

EDIT:

Holly asked if I would do a book signing for A GIRL LIKE YOU. I haven't planned one yet, as one time I saw an author sitting at a desk in a bookshop, with a stack of books ready to be signed, and no one was talking to him and he looked like he wanted to cry. (I bought one and it was about sport, of all things.) The idea of being that author makes me shudder internally. Maybe I'm wrong, what do you think?

I don't know about a launch party, either - I had one for THE DATING DETOX but it was really just a party for my friends where there happened to be a stack of books in the corner. Hmm.

On.... my fauxmance

2010-12-08T23:38:00.000-08:00

I just found something that I wrote years ago. It was crumpled in the bottom of a box of keepsakes, old tickets, cards, letters and things.

It's a pretend page from a fauxmance - that's a parody of a Mills & Boon-style romance novel, of course - called Hot Nights And Cold Shoulders.

I thought I was so damn funny when I wrote it. You may not agree. Sometimes I do things that I think are hilarious and everyone else thinks are silly/pointless/unfunny. I am at peace with this. Anyway, this is the copy.

HOT NIGHTS AND COLD SHOULDERS

Hearing the noise, Chenille turned around.

It was him. Entering her chambers without so much as a by-your-leave.

She stood up angrily to go, but at once he was upon her, begging her with his deep brown eyes to listen, to let go of the past, to love.

'Please -' there was an urgency in his molten-honey voice. God, he was impenetrable.

'What do you want from me now, Boulder Bulwark?' she cried, throwing her lovely head back in passion. 'You've taken my plantation, my hopes for the future, even my house slaves! Enough is enough!'

Beads of sweat were beading on his brow. He grabbed her passionately, his manly arms encircling her girlish waist.

'There's one more thing I want to take.'

Before she knew it, his firm lips pressed down on her furiously clamped mouth. He was kissing her! Her small hands pummelled against his manly chest in protest. But to no avail.

She could feel the warmth of his boy pressed against hers and smell his tanned, work-roughened skin, that curious mix of cotton-rich earth, horse sweat and home-cooked grits that only true Southern gentlemen have. Quite a change from the Yankee-educated dandy who'd darkened her doorstep just three weeks ago.

Suddenly Chenille felt something she'd never felt before. Desire. And nature took over.

Without thinking she arched her back and began to kiss him back. She could feel his throbbing manhood pressed against her thigh as his tongue probed her mouth, his hands grazing he rosebud nipples of her firm but pendulous baps through the sheer muslin gown. An urgent ache started deep inside her virgin loins, and she remembered Momma's warnings.

But she didnt want to stop. Not now, not ever.

Chenille ran her hands through Boulder's thick chestnut hair. His turgid member thrust against her ever-questioningly. Her response needed no words as she undulated gently in that ancient rhythm. Her body was responding to his manliness in a way she couldn't deny.

'Oh, Boulder,' she sighed, as he began kissing her neck.

'Chenille, my darling Chenille,' he moaned. The sound of his voice brought her to her senses.

With all her strength she slapped him hard across the face.

'How dare you insult me like this?' she exclaimed, 'I may not be one of your sophisticated Yankee girls but that's just the way the Lord, my Momma and the Confederate Union made me. You take your filthy hands off me and leave my chambers this instant.'

'I will not,' Boulder replied, 'I've loved you since the moment you threw that damned jug of mint julep over me. You crazy, tempestuous, gorgeous Southern woman.'

He picked her up and carried her over to the bed. Like a branded filly, she was scared yet excited, and knew there was no use struggling. In the very depths of her soul she yearned for him to possess her. He placed her head tenderly on the pillow.

'Chenille Clemency Depoise, I want you to become my wife,' he murmured, his hands roaming and finding home in a place they'd never been before.

He caught his breath, watching, waiting for her response.

'Yes... yes my darling, yes!'

Yep. That's a fauxmance. I tried to twist all the classic Mills & Boon cliches, with stilted dialogue, awkwards sexual descriptions and - but of course! - adverbs a-go-go.

I found it yesterday and thought 'now, why the hell did I write that?'

I guess I liked (still like) writing things that made me laugh, even if there was no reason for doing it. I read a few very bad Mills & Boon-esque historical romances in my early teens and I thought it would be funny to take the piss. And more than anything I had oodles of creative energy that I wasn't using at work - I was writing a lot of financial copy at the time, ahem - so I channelled it into tiny pointless projects like this, instead.

What else did I do during that period? Well, I played silly games with friends, like making up names and straplines for pretend perfumes (Patriarchy! Daddy knows best...), I organised a series of Notting Hill-to-Chelsea pub crawls called Staggers (with their own advertising campaigns and straplines) that ended up with over 100 attendees, I made compilation CDs for friends and designed unique CD covers, I started a Cocktail Club (with Mad Men-style copy-heavy posters that changed weekly) at work, I offered free copywriting and marketing strategy to a local start up hair salon (yuh I bet they were thrilled).

I never tried to write a book. I didn't have the concentration. I was a scattergun of creative energy, unfocused and unsatisfied, gagging to just do something.

As it turned out my permanent niggling feeling of vague dissatisfaction was because I was - light bulb moment! - not satisfied with life. Once I sorted that out, everything got a lot easier.

On... overhighlighted hair

2010-12-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

My hair was overhighlighted by an overzealous hairdresser about six months ago, and promptly started to break off. I've been trying to protect and nourish it ever since - singing to it in the morning, taking it out for quiet dinners and spoonfeeding it organic risotto at night, etc.

(That's not what I mean, of course, I mean I'm not using hairdryers and tongs, but it seemed such an obvious thing to say that I thought I'd surprise you.)

Anyway.

I realised today that on a hangover, when my back hurts, I look exactly like this.

On... Joan Jett

2010-12-03T07:52:00.001-08:00

A little bit of angry guitar will cheer you up on this freezing Friday. I promise. Click here.

On... an ode to my glasses

2010-12-02T13:22:00.001-08:00

I am reclaiming my glasses.

This isn't the pair I'm talking about. Not exactly. Mine are more or less the same shape, but bigger and clunkier. I bought The Glasses about five years ago in a little old man's glasses shop in Hong Kong. The man got so excited that I liked such out-of-date frames that he promptly ran to the basement and fetched an box of ancient specs bearing 'Made in West Germany' tags. But I didn't want them, I wanted the big black clunky ones. I wanted The Glasses.

After he fitted the lenses, I went home and showed my parents. Their immediate reaction was "why do you want to look like a blonde, female Buddy Holly?" I don't know. I just did.

For months I'd been thinking 'I wish I could have glasses like Michael Caine in the Ipcress File, only bigger'. I searched and searched and searched, and then, like all truly blessed sartorial findings, they finally turned up. A gift from the gods. And I loved them.

They were comfortingly heavy and sat firmly on my face (lightweight ones fly off if you jerk your head around or guffaw with gusto, which I guess I do a lot). They didn't lose their shape, leave a mark on my nose or tangle in my hair when I put them on my head, like wireframes always do. And most of all, they went with everything. They looked amazing with old holey jeans and new tiny dresses, with a (fake) tan or red lipstick, hair up or down. I thought - probably mistakenly but I'm okay with that - that they gave a polished sheen to everything I wore: they were a look.

And then The Glasses became fashionable.

Really fashionable. People around Shoreditch and Bethnal Green started wearing them. Chloe goddamn Sevigny got a pair. Tom Ford designed a pair. I saw a cafe in Notting Hill with no fewer than nine people in it all wearing The Glasses. They were featured in a magazine as 'geek chic'. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutchter had matching pairs, for the love of betsy. The Glasses were absogoddamnlutely everywhere.

I was nonplussed, but tried to shrug it off. It wouldn't affect me. I wear what I wear. Who cares, right? I didn't buy them to be fashionable or unfashionable, I bought them because I loved them.

And then I met a girl wearing The Glasses, but without any prescription. Just plain plastic lenses. As an accessory, like earrings. To get the look. And I thought 'I can't handle this, I'm a clone'. So I put The Glasses away and switched to wearing contacts full time. (I'm shortsighted - not severely, just -2.00 in each eye.) No other glasses would ever take their place. I saw my sister mewing like a blind baby bunny after laser surgery and swore I'd never do it, so I decided that I'd just wear contacts forever.

I just found The Glasses in a drawer. It's been about 18 months since I wore them. They slide so nicely onto my face. They haven't changed a bit: they're still perfect. So I'm going to start wearing The Glasses again. I can't help it: I love them and I always will.

This is Buddy Holly wearing The Glasses. What a groovy hipster!

This is Michael Caine wearing The Glasses. Woofwoof.

On... Snow

2010-12-02T00:43:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of pictures of the snow around: it's -6 in London today. So I'm a-jumpin' on the frosty bandwagon. This is the view from my place.

Notting Hill is quite the winter goddess, n'est-ce pas? I just saw a little girl rugged up like a teeny Arctic explorer, doing a joyful skippy-hoppy-jump into the square.

Now what the sweet hell am I going to get Fox for Christmas?

On... writing tips

2010-12-01T07:55:00.000-08:00

The lovely @bookgal, @bookbuzzr and @marelisa just RTd this on Twitter, and it seems like the kind of thing you lot might be interested in.

54 Writing Tips For Writers, From Writers

Mwah. x

On... Judy Blume covers

2010-11-24T07:27:00.001-08:00

I just remembered Judy Blume.

'Good Lord!' I thought (I often start thoughts with little exclamations like that), 'How could I have not thought about her for so long? I was obsessed with her books...' And then I thought: 'why, I wonder how her covers have changed over the years?'

Man, did I find some doozies.

My two favourite Judy Blume books, by the way, were probably ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET and STARRING SALLY J FRIEDMAN AS HERSELF (yah I read FOREVER, but I couldn't really relate to the losing-one's-virginity thing on account of my being about nine at the time - I didn't get TIGER EYES as it was about a popular girl who had to wear a back brace, I think, and I was a geek so didn't really get it - and I hated BLUBBER as any stories about kids being mean made me feel sick, on a account of my also being a wimp). I think I read all the Judy Blume books aged between eight and ten, at the same time that I was deeply obsessed with Ramona Quimby, Little Women, Enid Blyton (Famous Five and Malory Towers particularly), LM Montgomery (I had all of her books, including the short story anthologies, and could quote chunks of my two favourites - Anne Of Avonlea and Emily of New Moon - off by heart - see? Told you I was a geek) and the What Katy Did books. Then I got into the Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High and Paula Danziger, and then one long, very hot summer in Hong Kong when I was 12, I was finally allowed access to my mother's club's no-kids-allowed library and got insanely into Mary Wesley, Georgette Heyer, Nancy Mitford, Jane Austen, the Brontes, etc, and grown-up life truly began.

ANYWAY.

I went back and read Little Women over the summer, and still loved it. What books did you love? I remember some other Alcott books, including one about a girl who obsessed about 'ear-rings' for chapter after chapter. I will Google the title later. Maybe it will come to me. (I'm scared Google is destroying my memory as I don't have to remember things anymore. Another sign, by the way, that one is over 30, similar to an obsession with Farrow & Ball and two-day hangovers.)

Some of these covers are early experiments in clipart, others are just HIL - wait for it - ARIOUS. Book covers from the mid-to-late 80s are my favourites, I think. One day, I want my books to have a cover that is a full painting of a girl looking pensive, probably in a bedroom (flowery duvet cover!), maybe talking with her best friend (sleepover!) and perhaps with a phone on the bed (a phone in her bedroom? she's obviously RAD).

Take a look. The French one is the coolest... Bien sur.

On... my little black book of London

2010-11-20T02:33:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up early, read some of the delicious THE HATING GAME by Talli Roland, then lost Stone-Paper-Scissors with Fox and was forced to tramp down to the Coffee Plant on Portobello. And now, as I am back in bed slurping in a deliberately-annoying-but-hopefully-endearing way, all I can think is ‘this is the best coffee in the world. I should blog about it’.

And then I thought, fuck it, what about my favourite, essential places in London?

COFFEE

There’s a lot of coffee in the world. And there’s a LOT of bad coffee. I don’t see the point in going to a CostaNeroBucks* when the result is bitter, watery and burnt. (Similarly I really, really don't see the point in going to a chain bar like All Bar Shit when there's probably something tiny and unique around the corner, and I'm confounded by the allure of Pizza Express.) I like my coffee rich and full and flavoursome, and those places just can’t offer that.

Anyway, the Coffee Plant is on Portobello Road, about 65 steps from our place, and the coffee is exceptional. The service is middling and the guy who owns it seems to have self-published a book about the 9/11 conspiracy, but it’s all part of the experience. And they sell very nice chocolate-covered cherries.

*Except in summer when it was veh hot and I discovered a love for Frappucinos: icy caffeinated goodness so sweet you can’t even tell how bad the coffee is! Then I discovered the amount of sugar in those fuckers and immediately stopped.

MEALS

The Grocer On Elgin. I could not have written A GIRL LIKE YOU without this place: I tripped down at about 6pm every night for one of their freshly-made meals (soups, salads, stews, curries...).

The Grocer On Elgin
6 Elgin Crescent
W11 2HX

It also sells very good coffee, but the cups are too small, so Coffee Plant wins.

FLOWERS

On the corner of Blenheim and Portobello, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, two delightful women sell flowers at astonishingly low prices.

Now, I never saw the point of buying flowers before, when there seemed no middle ground between a £3.99 bunch of date-raped carnations from Tesco or a £89.99 posy of hand-reared, Oxbridge-educated blooms from a shop called something like ‘Blooming Marvellous’ (sigh). But you can buy 20 huge fat roses, a big bunch of lilies and several hydrangeas from this stall, and still get change from £25, and they last at least a week.

I have no idea what I’m doing with the arranging but I love it.

BOOKS

Books! Those beautiful bastards. I love reading. When I was little, we belonged to three libraries, so I could get the 18 books out a week it took to occupy me. I wanted to be a librarian when I grew up. I think if I’d seen Lutyens & Rubinstein, I’d have wanted to work in it instead.

So, most of you probably buy on Amazon, and one has to admit that the prices are afuckingstonishingly cheap. But if you're after a good, soul-cheering book browse and genuinely personalised recommendations by people who truly love books – and who isn’t? – you can’t beat Lutyens & Rubinstein. Started by two literary agents about a year ago, I believe the intention was to stock the books they and their friends loved the most in the world... and wow, it works.

As I browse L&R, I tend to make little gasping sounds of joy when I find the books that have permanently invaded my brain and heart – from Jilly Cooper to Kingsley Amis to Stella Gibbons to Leo Tolstoy to Evelyn Waugh to Nora Ephron to Dodie Smith... all in one delightful, beautiful space. It’s a bit like going to a party with all your best friends from your entire life.

Lutyens & Rubinstein
21 Kensington Park Road
W11 2EU

Daunt is, of course, also a lovely independent bookshop, but they do seem to be dreadful book snobs. Terribly worthy, with less of the joy of reading than the joy of ‘yarse I DO prefer the xx translation, you know, when I went up to Cambridge -’ blahblahblahzzz.

MANICURES

Fine, laugh at me. Call me a princess. But I’m the one that has to look at my hands for about 15 hours a day as I type: I like having good nails. I can do my own, if I must, but for £10 one of the gifted and delightful Nail Spa ladies can do an absolutely amazing file-and-polish. Every now and again I get a manipedi for £40. They’re in Marylebone, Maida Vale and South Kensington, and it’s amazing how, once a week, I manage to have an errand near one of the three.

My colour de jour, and the one that is on the nails taptaptapping away to you right now, is Essie Velvet Voyeur. I also like Gladioli, Hot Coco, Lapis of Luxury, Chinchilly and Sugar Daddy. For my wedding I had Berry Hard on my hands and Mink Muffs on my toes. Yes. Aren’t my conversational skills fascinating? “Do go on,” I can hear you saying, head tilted thoughtfully to the side. “Tell me more about your fingernails.”

The point is: there are a lot of cheap-n-not-that-cheerful places popping up in London these days – Julie’s Nails, I’m talking to you – but they’re pretty dreadful. Nail Spa is dependably great.

Nail Spa

5 Paddington Street
London, W1U 5QF
020 7935 3322

7 Clifton Road
London, W9 1SZ
020 7266 5588

20 Bute Street
London, SW7 3EX
020 7225 2233

Hmm I have been typing for an hour. Let’s see: coffee, food, flowers, nails, books... what else is there that I can recommend?

Clothes? I shop on the high street (Topshop, Zara and ASOS almost entirely, though I do have a penchant for J Brand jeans and dresses from Carven, Maje and Paul & Joe Sister). I get a lot of things altered to fit better, and an old pencil dress can get a new lease of life if you cut six inches off it (I cut six inches off a lot of dresses, come to think of it, I’m quite slutty like that). The place I go for alterations is always, always, always First Tailored. They’re expensive, but worth it. From Zara trousers to my wedding dress to Paul’s wedding suit, the results are consistently exceptional.

They don’t have a website, but it’s
First Tailored Alterations
85 Lower Sloane Street,
SW1W 8DA (7730 1400).
Sloane Square tube. 9am-6pm Mon-Sat.

Enjoy.

On.... dialogue

2010-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking about dialogue. I really LOVE writing dialogue. If I ever feel stuck, I just start writing conversations between my characters. It’s like a creative enema: it unblocks everything. I love working out how characters speak; their attitude and humour and syntax and slang; how the structure of a sentence can change the entire meaning behind it… And so on.

In fact, when I’m writing – or, rather, when I’m writing easily – I can hear their voices in my head. Like a play.

Then the other day I couldn’t find my iPod. I hadn’t seen it in weeks. I think I had it on holiday, but now - vamoosed. ‘Oh, well,’ I thought. ‘C’est perdu. I guess I should get another one, though it’s funny how I never listen to it when I’m out and about anymore.’

And then I realised: it’s because I eavesdrop instead.

I do. All day. I’m a conversation scavenger, a tidbit collector, a little magpie for bon mots. I don’t know when I started, but it’s been at least a year. And in the past 12 months, I’ve hit a creative purple patch. (I’ll tell you more about all the things I’ve been growing in said purple patch if they ever flower.) And I think the two are directly related.

I think listening to an iPod essentially puts the pause button on my engagement with the outside world. No daydreaming, no idle observations and ponderings and wonderings… those are the times when I get ideas. And eavesdropping is part of that.
I listen to people on phones (“And then she said you obviously deserved it, and I said, that is completely unfair,”). I listen to conversations on buses (“I’m going to text him at like, 9 o’clock and say, hi, in case you lost my number, this is Janey from Saturday. Just casual, you know?” “Yeah… or, don’t”). I LOVE IT.

Eavesdropping gives tiny glimpses into people’s lives and relationships… it makes me think about human nature, and(apologies, cockeyed-optimist-type comment incoming) it really makes me love humanity. People are so funny and genuine and warm. Except, of course, those exceptionally annoying people who speak with the deliberate intention of being overheard (“We don’t talk with our mouth full, do we Andrew? Andrew! Listen to mummy, please! People will think we were dragged up!”).

Most of all, eavesdropping makes me think about how character can be revealed through dialogue.

One day last week, in the French Connection commission at Selfridges, I heard this very intense conversation take place between three girls, aged about 24.

Girl 1: The black dress. With the shoulders. But dressed up.
Girl 2: Really? Dressed up? With what?
Girl 1: You know… spangles.
Girl 2: Or the sequined skirt? Maybe?
Girl 1. Yeah, that would look amazing on you.
Girl 3: Sequins will cut your arse when you sit down.

And then they moved on and I snickered to myself, looking like quite the mad old bat. If I wrote that word-for-word, it’s funny. But if I was to transcribe it into a story, I might tweak it a bit to communicate character/intonation a bit more. I’d add ‘Trust me’ to Girl 3, as she really sounded experienced in the sequin-arse matter. And I might add ‘ooo yes’ to preface both of Girl 2’s lines, as it helps to establish how naive and excited she sounded (what event were they shopping for? Who knows. Hopefully something awesome).

Did you know that writing guides – for books and screenplays, ackshuary - say you should use adverbs (ie words that describe how people are saying what they’re saying - or doing, for that matter, but let's stick with saying for the time being) as rarely as possible? Interesting, huh. Apparently it’s amateurish. Every now and again it’s probably necessary, but when a character is described as, for example, saying something ‘goofily’ then ‘merrily’ then ‘jokingly’ then ‘impishly’ on the same page, it’s overegging the dialogue pudding.

I guess their point is that the content, ie WHAT they’re saying, should be goofy/merry/joking/impish. That’s also, when you think about it, a sign of strong characters and story (if you already know the person is merry and in a merry mood, which you should, they’ll obviously speak merrily). I’m not sure if it’s something one should never do, though. After all, Jilly Cooper does it now and again, and she is awesome.

I worry that I probably overegged the dialogue pudding in THE DATING DETOX, but I can’t bear to open the darn thing and check. The dialogue in A GIRL LIKE YOU (out in six weeks! woo) is better, I hope, or at least it should be: I was a bit obsessed with dialogue by then, and checked every line a thousand times.

Anyway, I must dash. I have eavesdropping to do.

EDIT: I started reading Stephen King's On Writing yesterday, which is brilliant, and this morning on the bus read the chapter where he talks about this very same issue. He says 'the road to hell is paved with adverbs'. Which is veh amusing.

On... getting away from it all

2010-11-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

I’m back from a break with Fox (aka my husband) in New York and Turks & Caicos. It was [insert your favourite positive superlative HERE], particularly since we haven’t spent more than three nights in a row together since we got married in April (he’s been working in Zurich from Monday to Friday, and I’m still in London. So it’s been fun, because every weekend I get really excited about seeing him. But it also sucks because, well, you know, it sucks). Anyway, rather than bore you senseless with a rundown of exactly what it was like (you’ve had holidays, you know they rock), here are the top ten best things about the last three weeks.

1. Swimming in the sea on Turks & Caicos. That isn’t exactly an original thing to say about a holiday, and I swear I don't mean to be one of those appalling holiday show-offs (I have zero interest in seeing someone else's holiday photos - show me a pic of your crap tube ride into work, and I'll take a look, you know?), but you need to see this beach to understand. It's the shit.

2. Beating Foxy at pool whilst drinking margaritas at a barefoot local bar called Sharkbite. (Every element of that sentence works for me.)

3. Sleeping. I am boringly ferocious about sleep, probably due to this pesky waking-early-to-write habit; I can get tearful if I'm up past 11 on a school night. I binged on sleep like a fat kid on Snickers at Hallowe'en.

4. Deadwood. Brilliant. Buy it, watch it, love it, fall seriously in lust for Timothy Olyphant. Next on my list of things to watch is In Treatment, and if you have any other recommendations, bring ‘em on. I also read a suitcaseload of books, and in fact was forced to visit the Unicorn Bookshop on Turks twice, but more about that in another post.

5. Browsing New York bookshops, especially McNally Jackson in Soho. US book covers are infinitely superior to UK covers: discuss. (I may do a compare and contrast blog in a few days to demonstrate my point.)

6. The Black Label burger at the Minetta Tavern in Manhattan. Perfect pattie, slightly sweet bun, crunchy-salty fries.

7. The martinis at Raouls. This French restaurant is deliciously, iconically New Yorkified, and the martinis were particularly good. That's why I decided to have three, with predictably disastrous results.

8. The entire meal at Locanda Verde, which started with crostini and sheep’s milk ricotta and ended with near-tears when I realised I had no room for dessert. (I ALWAYS regret not having room for dessert. I still regret not having room for peanut butter and jelly chocolate cake at DBGB last time we ate there. Even thinking about it makes me wince with sadness / greed.)

9. The wedding we attended last Saturday, at the very end of our holiday, when Fox – who never, ever dances - went bananas to a 90s tribute band. He put his tie around his head and jumped around ecstatically like a teen at a school dance, screamed ‘This is my SONG! I KNOW ALL THE WORDS!’ when House Of Pain came on and then – inspired by memories of the 90s, I assume, or confused by my encouraging cries of 'Nobody puts Foxy in the corner!' – sat on my lap pretending to be Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in Ghost, using an ice bucket in place of a clay urn. And yes, by the way, that was Fox as Demi and me as Patrick.

10. Being with the Fox. I really do like his company more than anyone in the whole entire world. Which is fortunate, given the whole till-death-do-us-part thing... And I don’t really talk about him on this blog much as, well you know, he probably doesn’t want the attention (admittedly, point 9 belies that statement) and it's pretty boring for you guys, but let me just say it once and for all: he rocks.

EDIT.
PS. It occured to me, with mild horror, that the last point might come across a bit, what's that phrase again? Oh yes. Smug bitch. I hope it doesn't. I wrote The Dating Detox from personal experience. I had my heart broken, mildly bruised, and thrown away like a worn-out shoe more often than you can say 'I don't think we should do this anymore'. And le Fox and I can fight with the best of them (you haven't had a shouting match till you've had it with an Irishman) and we're not lovey-dovey all the time. But hey, it was a dang nice holiday. And I was feeling very loving when I wrote it. Nuff said.

On... my newsletter

2010-10-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Seems silly to call it a 'newsletter' when I'm not a big company, I'm just me. But, whatever you want to call it: I send an email out about once a month, and here's the latest. Want to get the next email? Just email gemma@gemmaburgess.com and put 'Email me!' in the title.

Why, hello.

I think I’ll blame the cover of A GIRL LIKE YOU for the lateness of this email, as I kept thinking ‘I’ll wait till that puppy is ready to yap before I write a newsletter’.

Then the cover was seriously late. Like months overdue. I began to resent it the way you resent a friend who always breezily turns up an hour late for coffee. I got twitchy, couldn't sharpen my newsletter banter claws, pacing and fretting endlessly.

I shouldn’t have worried. (How many times have you said this in your life, seriously? I’m starting to think I should have the whole worry gland removed entirely as it’s such a waste of space.)

The A GIRL LIKE YOU cover rocks. I can say that without fear of sounding boastful as I had nothing to do with it. (Some authors have a say in their covers, but in chicklit, we take what we’re given.) I’ve attached it so you can check it out – the cover girl is clearly doing a Walk Of Shame, the naughty little scamp. She’s barefoot, drinking champagne from a bottle and what appears to be a pair of knickers are peeking out of her bag. Rock on, little cover girl. I like the cut of your jib.

Winning free stuff

A GIRL LIKE YOU launches at Christmas (woosquared) so I’ll be in touch with the chance to win free copies and vouchers for places like MAC and Reiss (I know the way to your hearts). More about this... soon. It's getting great feedback from people so far, although my mother is unimpressed that there's a bit more sex in it than THE DATING DETOX. "How can you write about one-night-stands when you've never had one?"... uh, yeah.

The A GIRL LIKE YOU trailer

I’m not sure if you’ve seen The Dating Detox trailer (it’s www.thedatingdetoxtrailer.com). I wrote and filmed it with a few friends for, more or less, the cost of a few bottles of wine, threw it out to the internet and it’s had over 20,000 views. Which isn’t bad.

Now it’s time to make the trailer for A GIRL LIKE YOU. I’ve had an idea. I’d love you to be involved. And any girls you know with a penchant for showing off and having fun. In my next email I’ll let you know all the gory details, but it’ll be pretty damn good. Everyone who participates in the trailer will get free advance copies of the book and, erm, anything else cool I can get my hands on.

Stay in touch

In case you don’t know, by the way, I write a blog at www.gemmaburgess.blogspot.com and I Tweet. Now now, don’t look at me like that. Twitter is not quite as dorky as everyone thinks. There are a lot of very funny people who aren’t saying things like ‘I’m eating porridge again! Totally love porridge!’ etc... I shimmy on bashfully, say a few things, immediately delete one or two of them in a fit of irritated self-editing, check out what everyone else talking about, reply to a couple of people and skip away. Twitter is fun. I’m @gkateb. If you come and play, I’ll introduce you to some funny people you may enjoy.

What are you reading?

I’m about to go on holiday, and would love your advice on what to read.

I’ve got the new Jilly Cooper JUMP! (gasp of excitement), AMERICAN WIFE (I heart Curtis Sittenfield), Last Night At Chateau Marmont (trashy fun), P.S. BAD MARIE (someone on Twitter said it was good), LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET (I love Victorian melodrama) and FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO BROUGHT YOU PEARL HARBOUR (it’s a Mad Men thing).

I eat books, so those’ll be done in about three days. Any recommendations? Will truly read everything from paranormal teenlit to Russian novels (Ruskylit?), so bring it on...

Gem x

On... magazine covers

2010-10-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

Via Coffee and Pyjamas... I think this is worth sharing.

On... perfumes. And blogging. And... oh, stuff.

2010-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

As mentioned umpteen times before, I often don't know what to write on this blog. I’m not going to bore you with stories from my day-to-day life (“And then i was like, I am SO not pleased with the standard of that drycleaner, and she was like, I KNOW!”). There's only so much one can say about writing ("Read, write, edit. Repeat"). And I’m not just going to talk about the career side of writing the whole time, either (“So, the German rights have sold, and I’m hoping for the Dutch soon clunkzzzzz”).

Actually, I think that author blogs are like a little pulse check. As in: yep, I’m still here.

And this is also a hello to anyone who just read The Dating Detox. Yep, I wrote that. Yep, it’s pretty much my 20s in 400 pages. I lived in Pimlico (though I’m now in Notting Hill). I was permanently dumped (now married but only very newly so it hardly counts). I was a copywriter (I still am, some of the time). I sometimes named my outfits (I’m pretty consistently French Schoolboy these days, I don’t know why but it seems to have stuck – a lot of little shorts and crisp white shirts, peacoats and brogues).

And yep, I have a second book coming out in December. It’s called A GIRL LIKE YOU. It, too, is another tale taken from my life, but more of a how-to-regain-single-confidence-after-a-long-time-in-a-relationship kind of thing. And lots of drunken mistakes and high jinks and crazy parties and you know, all that good stuff.

Sometimes I think writing novels is the most self-involved, solipsistic thing a person can do. It’s like ‘this is ME and here’s what I THINK and things I’ve OBSERVED and now let me ENTERTAIN YOU and make you LAUGH and/or CRY! TA-DA!’. I’m not really that showy at all in person. Whenever I meet people who’ve read the book before they actually meet me, they spend the first few hours watching me carefully, as though expecting me to keep up a running narrative commentary (I am doing that, of course, but only in my head) or jump on the table and start doing shots and air guitar (ditto) (okay it still happens but rarely).

So my blog, I think, is really just mostly news, and every now and again, a little chatty piece like this.

Yeah. So. Solipsism is an awesome word, n’est-ce pas? It means extreme self-obsession. My friend Sarah and I went through a phase of making up pretend perfume names and straplines. Like SOLIPSISM. Strapline: ‘It’s all about you’. PATRIARCHY. Strapline: ‘Daddy knows best’. And APATHY. Strapline – actually, there was no strapline, just a shrug and a sigh.

I love perfumes. I wrote a paragraph somewhere in The Dating Detox about the intense rush of memory a scent can provide, and I named a few that mark my progress through my teenage years and 20s... I think the list was pretty much the truth (which shows how lazy I am, as does the fact that I’m too lazy to actually check the book to see if it is or not.) My first scent was Miss Diorissimo, then Benetton Colors, then Anais Anais, LouLou, Jean Paul Gaultier, Chanel No.5, Gucci Envy, Gucci Rush, Sisley Eau de Soie, L'Eau de Guerlain, Shalimar, Balenciaga Le Dix... If I smell any of them now, I nearly pass out from the olofactory memories. My friend Alex freaks out when she smells LouLou as it reminds her so strongly of me and first year university. I’d like to go through and tell you the exact boyfriend or lifetime period that each perfume represents, but I feel kind of bad talking about ex-boyfriends in this blog. I respect their privacy. (The cockmonkeys. ) (Just kidding! Some of them were nice.)(Ahem.)

At the moment I have several favourites, I don’t know why. Perhaps because my taste is more complicated than it used to be. Or - and this is far more likely - because I'm more flighty. Also, I read this amazing book called PERFUMES, THE A-Z GUIDE by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. If you’re not a flighty perfume addict before you read it, you will be afterwards.

HABANITA

This is the newest addition to the Burgess scent family. I bought it rather cheaply after reading about it in the book PERFUMES. They describe it as a vanilla-vetiver hybrid “like Arthur Miller arm in arm with Marilyn Monroe”. I think it’s damn interesting and manly and spicy-lemon.

CHANEL BOIS DES ILES

Clean, green, sharp with that soft ambery woody drydown... Argh! I love this one. I don’t know why, but for the past three years I’ve worn this perfume constantly in April, May and June and then I stop. The Perfumes book calls it “sleek, dependable, perfectly proportioned... basically perfect”. But the bottle is the size of St fucking Pauls, which makes it hard to travel with.

L’EAU DE RIEN

That perfume book famously called this scent ‘dirty knickers’. When I wear it, I just want to feel myself up. Seriously. That’s how deliciously sexy it is. A Muji salesguy followed me around his shop the other week and said ‘I HAVE to tell you, you smell CAPTIVATING’ which has never, ever happened before and doubtless never will again. (Obviously he was gay; a straight man would never use the word captivating. More’s the pity.) It’s musky and salty and sweet and smoky, all at once. Amazing.

KIEHL’S MUSK

When I’m feeling clean and uncomplicated, I wear this. But, like plain white cotton knickers that I also put on when I’m feeling clean and uncomplicated, this perfume is surprisingly sexy. You can buy it in a little rollerball pen, which is ideal for nights out and travelling.

FRACAS

Like being slapped by a big fat man-eating flower. This smells so aggressive that I wear it very rarely, and only on a big-time night out, when I’m wearing the highest fuck-off heels I own, a very tight and/or short dress and feeling uber-confident. Seriously. It never wears off; one spritz lasts all night, and it never really softens and becomes that little skin-hug like most perfumes do. When I wear it, I think of Brigitte Nielson in Beverly Hills Cop II, when she’s at the rifle range. I also think of Jllly Cooper’s Rivals, because Cameron wears it. Yep, that’s how often I’ve read Rivals. Daisy in Polo wears Je Reviens, by the way, but I’ve never managed to smell that. Anyway. I’m digressing, as usual. In fact, this whole blog is one long digression.

I just smelled Serge Lutens Chergui today and now I cannot stop sniffing my wrists. And I think it might be the smell of Winter 2010. Argh! So good. Dark and spicy and honey-pipe-ish.

Anyway. The point, if there is one, is that I love discovering new perfumes. What are your favourites and why?

On... my new cover

2010-09-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

This is the cover for A GIRL LIKE YOU (coming out December 2010).

I am so happy with it, I want to clap my hands like the ex-Brownie geek I am.

The title really pops and the colours work, but above and beyond all that good stuff, the girl is clearly doing a walk of shame. She's barefoot. She's drinking champagne from a bottle. She has what appear to be knickers popping out of her 2.55.

Plus, I really like her jacket. Pale grey is awesome.

All in all, this is a girl I could hang out with.

What do you think?

On... failure

2010-09-14T11:39:00.001-07:00

My friend Sarah is a psychologist and journalist. She’s also impossibly beautiful and hilarious. I am friends with her despite these massive flaws.

She emailed last week saying she’d been tasked with writing about ‘famous failures’. People who overcome huge life-changing fuck-ups and go on to become bigger and better, like Nicole Kidman post-divorce and Al Gore post-election.

My first reaction (after ‘Nicole Kidman is ‘bigger and better’? When was the last time anyone watched a movie she was in? And anyway, is it called ‘failure’ when the marriage contract simply expired?’) was that there are a lot of them. In fact it’s hard to think of anyone successful who hasn’t overcome fuck-ups.

For example – and this is just the ones I thought of in a few minutes, so I know you can probably think of loads more – Hugh Grant got a blowie from a pro but used the incident to make him look less foppishly fey. Victoria Beckham was a singalong robot till she discovered her love of design (and Roland Mouret’s dressmakers, ahem).

Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks was cancelled and he went on to make Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, etc. (Freaks and Geeks being cancelled while shit like Two And A Half Men is still slopped out on our televisual plates like week-old spagbog is a travesty, by the way, a fucking travesty, and don’t even get me started on the utterly needless cancellation of Firefly and just-finding-its-feet Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and the best show of our time, Arrested Development. Amen. At least we have True Blood, MadMen and 30 Rock. And now we come to the end of my viewing favourites tour.)

Where was I? Yes. And then we have a long, long list of people who didn’t quite fail, but took a while to find their success boots, from Kevin Costner (cutting room floor of The Big Chill) to Dustin Hoffman (was a jobbing actor for as long as I’ve been wearing a bra). Or JK Rowling, whose Harry Potter manuscript was rejected, what, 22 thousand times? And so was John Grisham’s first manuscript. (I don't read John Grisham either, darling, but he has done rather well.)

And Marc Jacobs designed the infamous grunge collection for Perry Ellis in 91 or 92, I think it was, then he was fired, but then it went on to be like the biggest influence in fashion evah and he became his current, utterly amazing, ridiculously awesome self.

And so on.

As I was wittering thusly in my email reply to Sarah I began to think that no one’s trajectory to success is seamless. Success takes a shitload of work and luck and the ability to bounce back and keep trying when you fuck up.

I think that's why I hate the word ‘failure’. It’s deflated, bloodless little sigh of a word that implies ‘you may as well stop trying, there’s no point, you’ve hit rock-bottom and you’ll never succeed from here’. I would happily say I’ve fucked up in my life. Many, many times. But I’d never say I’d failed.

And sometimes, my fuck-ups result in a high-five.

I hope this doesn’t sound too Pollyannaish, but let’s take a look at a few examples of Gemma fuck-ups-turned-high-fives... (this is especially for you Andrea, who requested ‘more personal stuff in your blogs!’). I hated boarding school (and it hated me). But that made me more independent. I failed French at university. But I had to make up the extra points and graduated with a triple major in English, History and Theatre. I was cheated on by my first boyfriend and dumped by several shallow bastardos. But I can sniff out a cockmonkey at 20 yards and got a lot of good stories. In my first houseshare in London, my flatmates stole £600 from me and left the country. But I got wiser and tougher and lived in a series of far nicer places (with occasional nutjob flatmates who stressed me out but made for even better stories). I was made redundant. But my boss was a fuckwipe and I immediately found a far better job. I broke up with a guy I was living with after three years together, which was excruciatingly sad. But then I felt truly invincible, because I’d been (retch, apologies, cliché incoming) true to myself, and found someone who was (retch, again, apologies) really and truly perfect for me. I had a very painful back injury and was bedridden for a few weeks. But then I wrote the first few chapters of The Dating Detox and discovered the joy of Pilates. And so on.

As Mummy Burgess (yoga-teaching, cocktail-loving little hippie) always says: everything happens for a reason. No matter how unhappy or stressed I have felt in the past, everything has worked out fine... sometimes as a result of being unhappy and stressed.

I need to caveat here that I know my bad times really haven’t been that bad, and if I was talking about genuine tragedy or loss, I would never be so glib.

And – second caveat, as usual, I love a good caveat - not that I’m all happy-happy-joy-joy all the time these days either. I get insecure and weepy. I enjoy regular ‘I suck’ moments when I want to just lie down on the floor and wail, and/or burn everything I’ve ever written. I fight the eternal desperate need for reassurance that plagues every creative. I worry that everyone will hate A Girl Like You. I wonder if anyone will ever option The Dating Detox and think that dagnabbit, the script I wrote is really funny and it's just sitting there, and then wonder if any of the other projects I’m working on will ever work out. It’s all pretty damn pathetic, I can tell you. But then I tell myself to shut up and stop whinging. Because life is good. And most of the time, as long as I keep trying, I feel like I’m doing okay.

I say we should embrace our fuck-ups. If nothing ever happened to us, we’d be so boring... and so bored.

On... cows

2010-09-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

I love cows. Isn't she beautiful?

I've been in love with her for months. She's been hanging at the Whitewall Galleries on Westbourne Grove and I've been visiting her whenever I walk past. And now, she is mine.

It is perhaps odd that I love her so much, considering that I a) have zero affiliation with or affection for real cows, farms or the countryside b) grew up in Hong Kong and live in London and am avowedly the most city-loving person you could ever meet and c) get nervous in the country because of all the nature, which gives me asthma and makes my skin itch, and silence, which makes me feel alone. But I do.

I haven't named her yet - maybe Bessie? (Too cliche?) What do you think? She's definitely a girl; she has long eyelashes. Suggestions welcome...

On... Paris

2010-08-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday, and I'm in Paris. And almost everything is closed (bless you, European cities! Defying the modern-day 24-7 culture of ON!).

We could go to the Marais district, which is hopping on Sundays, but our hotel is in St Germain and we're lazy. So after sleeping in, we went for a walk, had some coffee, I smashed my face into a nutella crepe from the crepe street in the Latin Quarter (why are there 45 crepe places in a one-block radius? Is it where crepes ran to escape persecution hundreds of years ago?) and then it started to rain. So we came back to the hotel and started a French moofie marathon. C'est fantastique.

Now, I'm not going to try and be cool and pretend I know places no one else does, because I don't, and I won't tell you things that any guidebook could, because that would be silly. But here are the things I love the most about Paris.
1. Contrex water, yes, seriously. I love it.
2. French fashion magazines. Especially ELLE and L'OFFICIEL. You can buy them in London but it is way more fun to read them in Paris.
3. Carambars. It is impossible to be in a bad mood and chew a Carambar.
4. The bridges - the best bridges, with the best views, in the world (sorry, Albert Bridge in London, you know I love you very much, but as a group, Parisian bridges are the best).
5. Harry's Bar on Rue Daunou. I wish you could still smoke inside in Paris.
6. Pharmacies. I could, and do, spend hours in French pharmacies. (I always buy Crealine Bioderma Crealine, Embryolisse creme, Noxeme Alphacid lotion and Oscillococcinum homeopathic pills for colds and flu.)
7. Walking, walking, walking. All the best cities are made for walking and Paris is one of them.

On... A GIRL LIKE YOU

2010-08-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

Dudes, I just got the typeset proofs for A GIRL LIKE YOU. It's nearly cooked!

Nope, I STILL don't have a cover. I haven't an inkling of what it'll be like. As you know, I'm not a big fan of hearts-n-flowers-n-shoes-n-cartoons, but I don't like ponchos either. That's just my taste. In HarperCollins we trust. Anyway as soon as I see it, I'll post it here.

Now, I need your help. I'm choosing an excerpt from THE DATING DETOX to include at the end of A GIRL LIKE YOU. The publisher always includes an extra 'bit', and I wrote that silly little guide to dating at the end of THE DATING DETOX and I'm not sure if I like it, it's pretty much just me wittering on about things and I can't even bear to reread it as I'm sure I'll cringe, so I thought an excerpt might be better - anyway. So. Yeah. The excerpt. What do you think it should be? If you had to get a friend to read a bit of THE DATING DETOX that you thought would make her fall in love with it, which bit would it be?

I asked Twitter and the general consensus was Chapter 4 or 5. A lot of people liked the pantry scenes and the running in the rain scenes, too - I loved writing those bits, but they do give the game away un peu, non? What do you think? Let me know.

On... Hungover Owls

2010-08-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

This site is so funny that I started to cry and smack the desk.

http://hungoverowls.tumblr.com/

On... things I wish I'd known at 18.

2010-08-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

1. Don’t dye your hair. Seriously, GemGem, trust me on this one.

2. White wine is not for drinking without food.

3. Hummus is not food.

4. Stop fighting your parents about university. They are right. You need a real degree. And you’ll learn the important art of bullshitting when you're writing English and History essays. This will give you a huge advantage when you start working as a copywriter in advertising.

5. Read over everything you write four times, then read something else or sleep or walk to clear your mind. Then read it again.

6. Then read it again.

7. Sometimes formerly nice people become fuckwits. This isn’t your fault.

8. Every James that ever comes into your life will be a fuckwit from the start. This isn’t your fault either.

9. You are right: there is more to life than writing copy to sell people shit they don’t need. But it is fun. And fun goes a long way.

10. The answer to ‘how many sequins is too many?’ is ‘any’.

11. You will live with a succession of crazy people in various shareflats around South West London. This will be very stressful at the time but make for funny stories later on, so hang in there.

12. There is no such thing as witty jewellery.

13. Relax. Everything will turn out fine.

Any more to add, my people?

EDIT: By the way, this wasn't meant to be a Back To The Future 2 Sports Almanac 'Ooh La La!' post (um, if you've seen BTTF2 you'll know what I mean). I mean, that created Bad Biff. I wouldn't want to create Bad Gem, even if I did end up with my very own self-themed casino. But I do wish I hadn't fucked with my hair. It was a really nice dark honey blonde and I've spent the past decade trying to get it back. And I wish I hadn't underestimated myself as much as I did, as I worried about so many things that weren't worth worrying about... Though maybe I had to, in order to become moi. Gah! We could talk about this forever! You know, this is kind of a stupid post. Sorry.

On.... 13,000 trailer hits

2010-08-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

The Dating Detox trailer - made by me and a cast of friends over the Easter weekend for a budget of pretty close to nil - has reached 13,000 hits.

I hate to keep blowing the same mucky old trumpet, but just in case you're new here (sit down! can I get you a drink?), you might like to check it out.

www.thedatingdetoxtrailer.com

It's kind of like a (very, very, very) short film: a scene from the book that I hope is both amusing / compelling / a perfect sneak peek at a few of the characters. Let me know if you like it. (Not if you hate it. It's too late for me to change it now.) I'm in it, by the way. I'm the crying girl. We had to stick about a pound of tear gas, or whatever it was, in my eyes, before I looked even mildly upset. Apparently my tearducts are tough as nails.

Read more about the making of the trailer, and the answers to FAQs.

In other news, I sent the final copyedited version of A GIRL LIKE YOU to Harper Collins this week. I promptly collapsed with relief. (I didnt really: I've got a little freelance job writing about angels for an ad agency in Marylebone, which is pretty time-consuming, but at least I am very near the world's best Topshop. Angels are the new vampires by the way. Totally.)

On... The Dating Detox, The Musical

2010-08-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine if life was like Glee - not for the daily faux-climax (the club is threatened! Oh, the club's okay. The club is threatened AGAIN! Oh, what do you know, the club's okay. Scooby Doo plots had more dramatic variation. If it wasn't for those pesky kids, etc) but because of the spirit, humour and of course the songs.

These are the songs I'd put in The Dating Detox, The Musical.

Some are in this list because I listened to them a lot when I was writing it, and a few of them slipped in to the copy. Some, I just think are ace songs. And some are featured in the trailer. (Haven't seen the trailer? Dude! You are missing out. Click here.) I've had all of them in a special Detox playlist for awhile, and it's high time I shared them with you.

The Dating Detox Playlist

Lisztomania - Phoenix
Get Over It - Ok Go
Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
I Get Around - Dragonette
Dancing With Myself Nouvelle Vague (the Billy Idol version is great too)
Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake
That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings
99 Problems - Jay-Z
Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses
Bad Reputation - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
Don`t Ask Me - Ok Go
Only the Good Die Young - Billy Joel
Kung Fu Fighting - Carl Douglas
Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go-Go's
My Delirium - Ladyhawke
You're So Damn Hot - Ok Go
All Night Long - Lionel Richie
Love Is a Battlefield - Pat Benatar
If You Leave - OMD
Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies
Happy Together - The Turtles*

It's a pretty standard Gemma playlist: a bit of angry rock-pop, a bit of new wave and hair metal, a bit of OK Go. I am nothing if not predictable, as my mother always says.

By the way - whoever recommended The Like on the last iPod post, thank you very much. I The Love them. (Sigh.) So bring it on, my people. Any more Detox-y songs to recommend?

*By the way, this was one of my wedding songs in April. Everyone sang it during the ceremony. It is impossible to not feel joyful when singing this (admittedly mildly ridiculous) song at the top of your voice - try it.

On... my internet diet

2010-07-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

I've been going over my copyedits.

Copyediting is when a person with supposed eagle eyes goes over the manuscript and spots things like, oh, I don't know, someone getting a drink twice in a page, for example (my characters make that mistake a lot, the little boozehounds).

I'm not sure that the copyeditor really gets my writing, though. One character said 'ballache' and the comment said 'is this French?'

Recently I've been thinking about my internet diet and wondering what other people look at regularly. What blogs do you love? What sites can't you live without (or, let's be honest, you could live without but would much rather not)? For me, these sites are all creative diversions. I browse to clear my mind after or, actually, between writing. Kind of like recess at school.

www.topshop.com - amen

www.twitter.com - don't knock it till you've tried it

www.mrstrefusis.blogspot.com - lovely, warm, thoughtful (but not self-indulgent in the least, unlike so many) blog - and she loves Jilly Cooper so is clearly a kindred

www.refinery29.com - consistently awesome fashion styling

www.nymag.com - yes I live in London not New York but there's something delightfully inclusive and happy about this site, and I love their newsy bites in The Cut, Grub Street and Vulture

www.talliroland.blogspot.com - london debut chicklit author who blogs brilliantly

www.gofugyourself.com - funny as hell

www.chicklitreviews.com and www.novelicious.com - someone in publishing needs to employ these girls; their knowledge of the chicklit market is truly awesome and their reviews are ace (not just saying that cos they were nice about The Dating Detox, I pinkie-swear it)

www.adsoftheworld.com - stimulates the creative juices

www.thehuffingtonpost.com - smart, in-the-know news-n-diversions

www.sheerluxe.com - first port of call for any birthday / christening / christmas shopping

www.i-escape.com - for pretend boutique holiday planning

www.vanityfair.com - just a brilliant read, and the VF Daily blog featured moi so obviouslah is especially awesome

www.goop.com - I love her, so there

www.dailycandy.com - like having a clued-up (albeit obsessed-with-the-cool-kids) friend who tells you everything everyone else will be doing this weekend

www.thrillist.com - kind of a daily candy for boys

www.makeupalley.com - i never buy any makeup without checking the reviews here first

www.lettersofnote.com - interesting/odd/important/fascinating letters that always make me sigh and think, in a good way

What about you? What are your favourite sites for playtime?

On.... summer playlists

2010-07-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

Don’t you find that iPods are such needy things?

They need constant attention, especially if you’re like me, and replay songs over and over and over again and thus tire of them stupidly quickly. Then I have to wait to find a new song obsession and set aside an hour, usually on a Sunday, to make a themed playlist for said obsession. (Do you do this, too? How else does one keep one’s iPod fresh and juicy? I don’t know. I am probably going about it all wrong, I know.)

So. This is my new Hot And Sunny Summer playlist. Now, before the slating starts: I know my taste in music isn’t for everyone, in fact, one of the biggest fights Fox and I ever had was when he accused me of being an iPod Nazi at parties*. But these are my favourite songs.... for at least the next 10 days.

Shout It Out Loud – KISS
Here I Go Again – Whitesnake
The Boys Of Summer – Don Henley
Love Bites – Def Leppard
Tweedle Dee – LaVern Baker
Thunderbird – it says ‘Various Artists’ so who knows
Jukebox Baby – Perry Como
California Gurls – Katy Perry
Saturday In The Park – Chicago
Animal – Def Leppard
Jenny / 867 -5309 – Tommy Tutone
Oogum Boogum – Brenton Wood
Cruel Summer – Bananarama
Gimme Little Sign – Brenton Wood

Any ideas for more summery songs?

*I actually think people at parties welcome an iPod Nazi (though I’d call myself more of an iPod Enabler), as otherwise they might forget that gems like Express Yourself by NWA or Wild Thing by Tone Loc even exist, and that would be a tragedy, n’est-ce pas? Fox’s point was that sometimes people want to listen to their own iPods. My replying point was: but my iPod is better than theirs. He then said: see, that’s what I mean, you are an iPod Nazi.

On... Eastbound and Down

2010-07-12T11:22:00.001-07:00

Eastbound and Down is about an ex-baseball star called Kenny Powers forced to retire to small-town America. But God, that doesn't even begin to describe it. Think this might be the funniest show I've ever seen. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Check this out if you're interested www.kennypowers.com

On... shopping

2010-07-12T03:43:00.000-07:00

My new SheerLuxe blog is up! (Warning: The Maje Dress features... again. What can I say, I heart it.)

On... a new dress

2010-07-08T05:06:00.000-07:00

I think you should all know that I am in love.

You know when you find a dress you love? Like, really love? It happens rarely, for me. I very much like most of my clothes, only tolerate some of them, and outright hate a handful. But never mind all that, they are past flings, forgotten: I have found the one.

That's right: I love this Maje dress so much that I can't stop talking about it. It completes me. I am the man who will fight for its honour. Hold me closer, tiny Maje dress.

So I have to share it with you, even though it has nothing to do with writing or reading or uh, anything. I would write more but I have to go now and kiss it and see if it wants anything for lunch and then maybe wash its hem with my hair.

On THE BEST OF EVERYTHING

2010-07-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

I don't post about books that often, for many reasons. There are much better book reviewers than me in the blogiverse, I read purely for pleasure and it would feel like a job if I reviewed them, and um, I'm lazy.

But sometimes I read a book that makes me want to lie in bed and gaze into its eyes lovingly. A soulmate of a book. A kindred spirit, a bosom friend, Diana to my Anne of Green Gables. (Okay enough with the analogies.)

The Best Of Everything by Rona Jaffe.

The basic premise: five women working in publishing in the 50s in New York, trying to figure out who they are and where they're going. It's like Sex And The City meets Mad Men (I know, I hate those 'x' meets 'x' comparisons too, but they do save time). It was written in the late 50s, expressly to become a film, but as a book it's standalone awesome.

It was a bit like being in love. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it, and when I was reading it, nothing else mattered. I found myself underlining passages throughout, saying out loud 'I feel EXACTLY like that!'. Naturally, some bits are un peu outdated (I don't actually know any girls holding onto their virginity like some diamond-studded albatross, for example) but on the whole, sentence after sentence gave me chills. It's smart, observant and empathetic. I wish I could go back and read it again.