Idea for a new Parisian novel

After sending my first novel, A Prawn’s Heart is in its Head, to a few publishers, I received the first (no doubt of many) rejection letters a few days ago. As a friend of mine says, “Oh, poos.” My thoughts exactly, only her expression is much more polite.

Strangely, I don’t feel too upset, because on the same day I had a fantastic idea for a new book. I’ve had it in my head for the last couple of years (even before I finished my novel) that my next novel was going to be about medieval torture. I adore all that lovely, bloody, gory stuff, and I wanted to explore the people behind the instruments — how does someone just wake up one day and invent a new form of torture? But when I went into the library recently to start my research, I couldn’t find any books to inspire me. I don’t know if the library just didn’t have the right books, or if maybe, without noticing it, I’ve gone off the whole medieval thing. So I decided to leave the ideas to ferment for a while and see what happened.

Yesterday I sat down before breakfast to note down a couple of ideas — and couldn’t stop writing! It was such a wonderful feeling; one I haven’t had very recently. I’ve already got one and a half first drafts of linked stories based on the imaginary erotic lives of famous women from 1900-1950 who lived in Paris. I’m thinking of the title “Nights in Paris”, or “My nights in Paris”; something like that. Feel free to send me any other suggestions!

I’m convinced that the sudden inspiration was partly due to my beautiful new writing book. I’ve been searching for one for ages, but I’m fussy when it comes to writing books: it has to be big enough, of course, not post-it sized. The pages must be blank, without lines, as lines make me feel constricted. And the ideal book has silver or gold coloured paint on the edges of the pages, just because I love books like that. Amazingly, I found just the thing a few months ago; it’s black velvet with silver beads. I found it in one of those swanky shops that sell lots of (mostly useless but) gorgeous things, and then a few weeks ago they had a sale, so I quickly nabbed two! What a fabulous bargain.

Waiting to hear from publishers

Wow, I haven’t written for ages, I am so sorry. Over the past couple of months we’ve had four sets of friends come over from England to visit, so it was hectic for a while, but it was lovely to see people we hadn’t seen for nearly two years, since we moved to NZ. We all went to the South Island to some beaches near Nelson, it was wonderfully sunny, it poured, and then it was sunny again.

JD and I did some sea-kayaking in a double kayak, where it is fairly necessary to co-ordinate steering and paddling. We didn’t get very far during the first hour: “What are you doing? I said left!” “What are you talking about, this IS left!” “You know I mean the other left!” We were panicking because we were trying to get to where the guide was talking to the rest of the group and giving advice, but we couldn’t get there because we kept going round in circles and couldn’t hear what the guide was saying.

We were alternately laughing hysterically and arguing, and even both at the same time, it was the most intense experience I’ve had for a long time. We found out later that these boats are commonly known as “divorce boats”. Kayaking is definitely worth doing again, but I’m going to stay away from the doubles!

Well, I’m still waiting to hear back from Penguin after sending them A Prawn’s Heart is in its Head, and I’m beginning to think that if I wait politely for each publisher to reject me before sending my novel to the next one, this is going to take years. So I’m going to send it to the next publisher on the list, as soon as we finish cleaning the house and doing a mountain of washing!

I would love some more comments, please please please!