Frank

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

This is me and Frank Cottrell Boyce. That’s right. FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE. You know, who wrote Millions, and Cosmic, not to mention ‘24-Hour Party People’, ‘Brookside’ and oh, a little thing called the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. I look happy, and a little nervous, don’t I? Well, that’s because Frank is my hero. And has been ever since I first picked up a pen (Ball Pentel Fine Point R50 for pen geeks) in the summer of 2001 and decided to write a book.

Now that one (for reasons I cannot go into, involving chickens) didn’t get published, but my agent told me to chip, chop, go away and write another, and while I’m at it, do as much reading as I can possibly muster (very good tip for aspiring writers). So on the way back home from her rickety office in Charing Cross (designed, apparently by Dickens and Tim Burton) I went into my local Smiths in Peckham, and picked up the first book I saw. Well, the only book I saw, as they were not that big on books back then. It was Millions, I read the first page, and then and there I fell a little bit in love and awe.

And Frank has been with me every step of the way since. I have laughed until I cried at Framed, and just plain cried at the heartbreaking The Unforgotten Coat (anyone who doubts the power of good of social media should read this book). I have begged proof copies from editors, I have begged festival directors to let me be his chauffeur (yes, people, I have had Frank in the front of my fetid A2, and driven him around the suburbs of Bristol. I AM rock and roll). And then, a few days ago, I got to meet him again at the closing night of this year’s festival.

Now, I have met some spiffing people in my time, from Nelson Mandela to David Beckham to my own teen crush Nick Heyward (ask your mum. Or possibly Gran). As an earnest ten-year-old I got taken to the annual Puffin Club Convention where I got to speak to the fizzbanging, whizzpopping Roald Dahl. And yet none of them (not even Buffy in a hotel room) compares to talking to Frank for five precious minutes. Yes, I told him he was my hero. He told me he was excited to be on the same Funny Prize shortlist as I was last year (like, I KNOW). I said, “Do you remember the time when…” He said, “Your dress is fantastic”. He had to go back to Joe Berger’s house. We said goodbye. Then he kissed me ON BOTH CHEEKS! Which, like, OH MY GOD!

Yes, I sound like a crazed One Direction fan. But for good reason. This man is one of the reasons I write books, and the sole reason I wrote Spies, Dad, Big Lauren and Me, and The Money, Stan, Big Lauren and Me. The debt their own hero, Billy Grimshaw, owes to Frank is incalculable. And so yes, I look happy. I am still happy. Wouldn’t you be?

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Books are where the wild things are…

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

This week, or actually last two days as I have barely been able to put it down, I have been reading a story by a girl who was raised by an ogress in a house that contained only six books, most of which were about God. The ogress believed that books led to temptation, to danger, to wickedness, to lands where wild things festered and fought.

She was right about where books lead, but wrong that this is to be avoided, that the doors must be shut and bolted. We should all visit these lands, from the safety of our bedrooms or sofas, we should test temptation in its glittering, wondrous clothes, we should risk danger, fight wickedness, like the heroines on the pages, with our own internal good.

As the girl in the book says, reading is where the wild things are. And it is a place to which I want to travel daily.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the ogress, and whether she was slain, or vanished by magic: well, that only happens in fairytales, and this story, incredibly, was all true.

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Build it up, build it up, build it high…

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

Mankind is myriad in its forms. There are the bold, the brave, the meek, the mild, the lonely, the lost, the beloved, the boastful, the humble, the athletic, the academic. I could go on. But like some colossal, invisible Venn diagram, they fall, though inconveniently, into two circles: the Builders, and the Breakers.

To elaborate: there are those whose aim in life is to create, to conjure, or attempt to conjure, gold from base materials; whether that gold takes the form of ideas, food, music, grand architecture or just a home; whether it is modest, whispering in its size and sound, or vertiginous in its scope and achievement. Then there are those who scorn, scoff, belittle, berate, destroy others’ efforts, to justify their own misery, their own failure to either achieve or attempt to achieve. In that sliver between, there are those who want to build, who do build, but who seek to trample those around them as they go, to assure that their tower is the highest, or the only one standing.

This is not an author’s attempt to demonise critics – paid or unpaid – though I do find their occupation a sad and strange one. This goes farther than art, into the social, the political: those who endlessly moan “this country is going to the dogs” because the morning paper has told them so; those who refuse to vote because it “won’t change anything”; those who dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their narrow concept of cool as dire, dross, drivel; those who dismiss the hip as the same; those who demand excellence and then, when it is attained, say “they cannot be that good, they must have cheated”.

These are people who have given up on happiness. Yet they fail to see that happiness is not something that can be pursued and then held aloft like a prize, a gleaming, solid trophy in silver, to be sat on the mantelpiece until dust and death come creeping. It is fleeting, nothing more than Kodak moments – whether they last minutes or years – and sometimes it is the pursuit itself that is the pure joy. Nothing gets changed for the better by sitting, grim, on the sofa and shouting at the television or the paper or typing a self-satisfied, scathing comment into the convenient box on a website and hitting “send”.

We need to chase happiness, hold on to it for as long as we can before it flits from our net, butterfly-like into the distance. Then chase it again down the long, yellow road we have laid ourselves, brick by tricky brick.

We need to build. And let others do the same.

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That’s Not My Mother

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

Something odd happens in the summer. Something I feel uneasy about. Something that, come July, I am really not sure I can cope with, yet somehow, by around this time in August, I have managed to drag myself through (albeit kicking and screaming) to face another year.

The horror is called “holiday”.

Holidays used to be something I begged for, longed for, lied for (“oh I am so sorry I cannot come into work to restock the pick and mix today but I have definitely contracted some kind of evil flu / measles / ebola” *skips off to Glastonbury with tent and three days worth of Spicy Nik Naks for sustenance*). Yet now, now I am my own boss, now it is my time I am stealing to waste on trashy magazines and Nobbly Bobblies, now I actually like, no, LOVE what I do for a living, holiday is something to be avoided at all costs.

And so it takes me a while to settle. A while before I can swim in the river, or fly the kite, or watch hot air balloons ascend just for the joy of it without thinking about what happens on page 38 and if it wouldn’t be better if it happened on page 35 or if that character was actually a monkey.

But once I’m there, it is worth it. Once I’m getting up and switching on CBBC instead of the computer. Once I’m wondering what to pack for a picnic instead of making do with a bowl of porridge that inevitably drips inside the keyboard causing the “H” key to stick. Once my daughter says to me “you are weird, and not like normal mummy at all”.

Which immediately makes me think of those brilliant board books she used to read, like “That’s Not My Tractor” or “That’s Not My Dragon” or “That’s Not My State of the Art Bugaboo Pram”. I imagine spreads like “That’s not my mother, she has smiled for ten minutes continuously” or “That’s not my mother, she hasn’t freaked out about me rolling plasticine on the kitchen floor” or “That’s not my mother, she didn’t even threaten to send me to live at Hogwart’s when I accidentally squirted olive oil on the ceiling”.

In fact, maybe it’s time for a little bit of work. Just a few pages. Five minutes, honest. Then I’ll play Scrabble…

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Little White (Ham) Lies

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

Lying is an art. As a child, I had yet to perfect this. To learn to tread the fine line between screeching fib (“It wasn’t me, it was LARRY THE LAMB”) to potential truth (“It wasn’t me, it was JAMES.”) However, I think I have finally perfected it; a skill acquired not from my misspent youth as a wannabe actress, or the decade as a journalist, or the two parliaments toiling in the dens of spin that are Millbank Tower and the No 10 press office, but from several years as a mother to a small menace. For example:

 

 

 

MENACE: “What is this? Is it chicken? You know I do not like chicken.”

ME: “No. It is white ham.”

RESULT: Menace eats chicken and declares it is even nicerer than pink ham.

And this sleight-of-hand act (or eye? Or mouth?) is not limited to the under-10s.

ME: “I am making chocolate flapjack. Would you like some?”

MAN: “No. I have never been keen on flapjack.”

RESULT: Menace and I eat flapjack. Which is also declared nicerer than pink ham.

ME: (a couple of months later): “I am making chocolate oaty bars. Would you like some?”

MAN: “Oooh yes please.”

RESULT: Man eats flapjack. Comparison to ham (of any colour) irrelevant as he is vegetarian, but is generally declared delicious.

It is a skill I wish had been employed by own parents rather than the school of harsh realism that was 19 Harvey Way.

ME: “Is this fishfingers? I don’t like fishfingers.”

MRS NADIN SNR: “Yes it jolly well is, and you had better eat it ALL or you will get it cold for breakfast.”

Or:

ME (tooting recorder tunelessly): “Do I sound like a musician? Do I?”

MR NADIN: “No. And please cease and desist as I am watching the racing.”

Not that I am encouraging blatant telling of pork pies. Just that sometimes, just sometimes, a little white lie works like a spoonful of sugar, and helps the medicine (or white ham, or flapjack, or fishfingers) go down.

Oh, wait. Unless MAN was lying about the oaty chocolate bars…

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Bonnie Scotland

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

Remember when I said I was going to be at a famous book thing in Scotland a while back. Then I had to hastily retract that statement for fear of self-imploding by the end of the sentence etc? Well, now I can say, without fear of implosion / explosion / injury to whimsical kittens that I am actually definitely doing not one but TWO events at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival.

I’ll be talking about Penny’s dreadful deeds at 10.30 on Saturday 18th August at the RBS Corner Theatre. And then at 5.30 the same day I’ll be taking part in the Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers session at Peppers Theatre along with Oliver Balch and Holly Webb.

Although now am on verge of imploding with excitement as the last time I was in Edinburgh was in the early 1990s, in my mainly-blocked-out-due-to-bad-clothing-and-mental-hair days of being a drama student. And am now utterly grown up so have vowed that therefore, this time, I will not be doing any of the following:

  1. subsisting entirely on battered cauliflower
  2. pretending to be a fish
  3. dreadlocking my hair in the hope someone may think I am vaguely interesting
  4. sleeping in a cleaning cupboard
  5. reading Sartre
  6. pretending to like Sartre
  7. thinking climbing Arthur’s Seat at 3am is a genius idea
  8. partaking of experimental drugs
  9. partaking of experimental puppetry
  10. finding out how much single malt I can drink before I am sick
  11. finding out how much single malt I can drink before I think climbing Arthur’s seat at 3am is a genius idea
  12. nodding my head meaningfully while someone plays guitar on a roof on Royal Mile in the hope they will think I am vaguely interesting
  13. sleeping on the roof

And I could go on except that I think Mrs Nadin snr may well implode if she reads any more. Though at least she will not injure whimsical kittens as they are on the banned list.

Anyway, this time I will be being far too cultural and clever, plus I have much better hair. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

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The Greatest Show on Earth

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

When I was about eight, so Nadin legend has it, I turned to my father, whilst watching Derek Griffiths perform Fagin in the Plymouth Royal’s production of “Oliver!” that “that” was what I wanted to be when I grew up. My father assumed, rightly, that by “that” I meant acting (though a close call as impoverished orphan was also quite high on my list at the time).

And I tried. I adopted appalling wigs, make-up and accents in various Essex Amateur Operatic Society shows. I co-wrote angsty sixth form plays about how horrid men are. I pretended to be a toaster whilst doing a degree in drama.

Only there was one hitch in all of this. I didn’t like being watched while I did it. Which is kind of a make or break deal really. And so I gave it up and went into politics instead, which many would argue (rightly) involves far more make believe. And a lot of ridiculous make-up.

But I am struck as I sit, a *mumbles something* year-old woman, in an office in a slightly tired terrace overlooking the city, pretending to be a seventeen year old living in a manor house in Cornwall, that writing itself is the greatest act of “let’s pretend”.

I am not, and have never been, an eight-year-old Indian boy, or a teenager with multiple personality disorder, or the child of a single parent, or had a diamond thieving monkey as a pet. And, though Rachel Riley is me, she is a long gone version, in a town I have barely visited in the past twenty years.

So writing is a conjuring act – of people and places, of pretending to be someone you’re not for six or more hours a day. There’s no live audience, but the show had better be word-perfect convincing anyway as it will be preserved in black and white for all to read. It’s the perfect play for the camera-shy. An eternal game of pirates and princesses.

Because while my body may be sat at this computer in 2012, I am not really here. I’m at my own Manderley, deep in the woods, a teenage girl with a just-dead cousin, waiting to meet a boy who may not be who he claims…

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Here comes (more) trouble

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

No more sleeps! It’s publication day for Penny Dreadful! This time her BRILLIANT IDEAS™ include turning over a NEW LEAF i.e. sawing Bridget Grimes in half, making a cake that is cooked with LOVE (and organic things and a plastic one-eyed horse), and absolutely not even THINKING about touching the stuffed walrus in the museum.

And if you like Penny, or are just a fan of funny books, I’ll be at the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden on Wednesday 6th June talking about Penny, Cosmo, Mrs Butterworth and her beady eye and moustache, Roald Dahl, Great Grandpa Gaston, goats, and how I lost £100 of toiletries in a game involving Voldemort’s girlfriend. Plus you clever types can help me create a new character right there and then…

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‘Cheekbones like geometry…’

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

There are countless songs inspired by great works of literature. Pink Floyd’s ‘Animals’ (Animal Farm), and Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ (Frankenstein) for starters, while The Smiths’ ‘Cemetery Gates’ name checks a whole anthology of poets. But does it work the other way? In other words, how many books are inspired by great lyrics?

This isn’t a test. I don’t have the answer. I just ask because I’m curious. And because so much of what I write is dependent on music – for when I’m thinking, for when I’m tired of thinking, to define and describe characters, to naming them (Buttercup Jones in Buttercup Mash is stolen from the Foundations’ ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’).

And because I’m starting to wonder if pillaging the back catalogues of Morrissey, Floyd, Carter and the rest of the ‘poets’ who got me through the teen years (I didn’t do English A level, for many tedious reasons, partly to do with precociousness, partly to do with an evil beardy teacher, so only discovered Keats last month) might prove fertile ground.

I long to write the girl with ‘cheekbones like geometry’ (thank you, Lloyd Cole), The Stone Roses’ ‘Sally Cinnamon’, Billy Bragg’s ‘Cindy of 1,000 Lives’, or maybe just ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’. Don’t you? Don’t you wonder what happens to them after the three perfect pop minutes are up and all you can hear is static…?

 

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When John Hughes closes a door…

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Joanna Nadin

There’s a line in Paul Murray’s high school epic Skippy Dies that, on first reading, is less a lightbulb moment and more like being hit over the head with a giant hammer of the blindingly obvious, and, on subsequent examination, resonates with such sadness, and such truth, that it bears reproduction in full…

‘Now, with every day that passes, another door seems to close, the one marked PROFESSIONAL STUNTMAN, or FIGHT EVIL ROBOT, until as the weeks go by and the doors – GET BITTEN BY SNAKE, SAVE WORLD FROM ASTEROID, DISMANTLE BOMB WITH SECONDS TO SPARE – keep closing, you begin to hear the sound as a good thing, and start closing some yourself, even ones that didn’t necessarily need to be closed.’ (from Skippy Dies by Paul Murray)

As I walk down Walcot Street in the March sunshine, The Shins on loud on my iPod, I am struck again by that notion of opportunities lost or squandered as I am stopped in my tracks by the sudden, but unshakeable conviction that what I really, really should have been, is a drummer in an indie band. Never mind that I have just typed up 2,000 pleasingly amusing words for the latest in a bestselling series. Never mind that I have the kind of job that means I can be walking into town at two on a Wednesday afternoon to indulge in tea and bitching with other writers. No, because what I really should be doing right now is hammering out a four-four (no idea if this is even a term, that is how absurd this proposal is) like some middle-aged Meg White. And then of course, in my usual panicky but overly organized and alphabetised way, I wonder what else I should have been. Hence this: my top five missed careers…

  1. DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Sort of like Morse, but with better clothes, and a love interest.
  2. DRUMMER (seeabove)
  3. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPION Admittedly attempted at the age of 40, but the arthritis, and general “not really goodenoughness” have put paid to that one.
  4. JOCKEY Alas my prospects as a female Frankie Dettori were curtailed by the sudden discovery aged fifteen of Wagon Wheels and John Hughes films, which leads me to…
  5. MOLLY RINGWALD Not so much a job as a lifestyle. But, despite a wardrobe of kooky vintage tat, and one ill-advised experiment with Toners and Shaders I have never quite pulled off the Pretty in Pink look.

Yet, somehow, I continue to believe there is time. That there are still some doors I have yet to close, or have slammed in my face. Pole vaulter maybe. Or Zooey Deschanel…

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