A Café in Space

Paul posted this lovely comment recently. It’s in response to one of my posts about Anaïs Nin from last year. So that you can read it, here is Paul’s comment again:

From Paul: Hi Sarah, noticed your blog. I publish some of Nin’s work and have a Nin blog at http://www.skybluepress.com/blog.html. Come visit some time, and best of luck! Paul Herron – http://www.skybluepress.com

Hi Paul, thank you so much. I had a look at your website – it’s wonderful! I look forward to ordering a copy of A CAFÉ IN SPACE: THE ANAÏS NIN LITERARY JOURNAL very soon, and maybe, if I’m feeling brave, submitting my Anaïs story… we shall see! Thanks again for visiting. All the best, Sarah

A Café in Space is a wonderful site featuring six literary journals, all focusing on Anaïs Nin, available to order. There’s also an “Anaïs Nin Character Dictionary and Index to Diary Excerpts” by Benjamin Franklin V. When you think how prolific Anaïs Nin was, and how many versions of each volume of each diary she wrote, compiling an index and dictionary of her journals is an incredible feat. It’s a marathon achievement of pure scholarship (in the original, selfless meaning of the word) and poetic, heroic devotion.

Friends of Colette

I’ve discovered the most wonderful website! La société des Amis de Colette (The Society of Friends of Colette) has a gorgeous selection of photographs of Colette taken throughout her life: the young schoolgirl; the beautiful, adored lover and actress; the celebrated, legendary writer; and of course, La Chatte — a portrait of Colette would not be complete without including at least one of her many cats.

The Amis de Colette website also has a biography of Colette, illustrated with more photographs, and sections on each of the places she lived: her birthplace in La Puisaye, her summer houses in Provence and Bretagne, and her Parisian apartments in Le Palais-Royal (I’ve been there: what a magnificent place to live).

A museum dedicated to Colette has been set up in the house where she was born, in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. It was founded by her only child, her daughter Colette de Jouvenel. The museum is stunning: the rooms are painted in bright, colours of the summery sunshine that she loved: poppy red, daffodil yellow, sky blue.

Each wooden step of the curving staircase is embossed in gold with a title of one of her books: imagine the pleasure of walking up Claudine à Paris, Duo, La Chatte, and Le Pur et L’impur! I can’t wait to visit.

Visit the site here:
http://www.amisdecolette.fr/

Amis de Colette — ce site est un vrai plaisir, plein de portraits de Colette. J’adore les photographies du Château: maison natale et site de ce qui est à present le Musée Colette. J’ai hâte d’y rendre visite!

Finishing the script for the short film

The script for the short film adaptation of The Silver Stopper (the Colette story) is finished! Finishing a project I love leaves me a bit muddled — on one hand, there’s the exhilaration of success; on the other, there’s the blueness of it being all over. So, pulling myself together: finished! Bravos, self-applause, cheap champagne and a celebratory dinner at the appropriately Parisian Le Métropolitain. I reminisced with a diabolo, an old childhood favourite: lemonade mixed with a mint syrup so marvellously fresh that it’s like drinking a delicious toothpaste.

What a surreal feeling to have completed a project in only two or three months, which for me is such a short time, it’s positively supersonic — my Max and Lucia short story took perhaps six months to complete, and I’ve been writing the Nights in Paris novel for two years now. (But I can’t dwell on that thought, it’s too disheartening.) I’ve registered the script with the screenwriter’s guild, which felt awfully grown-up and professional. I’ve also given the script to a couple of friends who have worked in film and theatre; now I’m anxiously awaiting their comments. I haven’t experienced sending off your small, only child to a faraway boarding school, but I imagine that there are some similarities. Should I have kept her at home, all to myself? Will the teachers think she is as much of a genius as I do? Are the other children cleverer and more popular than she is? When she comes back, will she have been so influenced by other people that she’s unrecognisable? Will she turn into a brat?

Enough worrying: I’m old enough to know by now that criticism has to be considered carefully, but it doesn’t have to be acted on if it doesn’t feel right. At a university creative writing course, I took everyone’s criticisms to heart and rearranged my novel in progress until it was completely changed, only for the class to be horrified and say it had been much better before. “But it’s what you told me to do!” I wanted to yell. Arrgh. So now I know. If this child does turn into a brat, at least I can change her back.

J’ai fini, j’ai fini le scénario! Ca m’a pris seulement deux or trois mois pour l’écrire, c’est vraiment extraordinaire — ça fait déjà deux ans que j’écris mon roman… On a fété ça en dînant chez Le Métropolitain, et j’ai évoqué mon enfance avec un diabolo fraîchement pimenté de menthe, comme un boisson fait d’un dentifrice délicieux…

Colette’s Chéri

I’m re-reading Chéri, one of the most well-loved of Colette’s later novels. I’m reading it in two books at the same time: a beautiful, leather-bound French version from Editions de Crémille 1968, with a hand-painted illustration of a very innocent-looking house, and also a bright pink dual language version. The dual language version is great; it’s useful in that I can understand all those words here and there that I usually just skim over because I’m too comfortable to get up and get the dictionary. It also gives great entertainment value in that I can scoff at the translation, especially all the modernisms: the thought of Colette writing “gotten” is absurd. Tut tut.

On the other hand, the book has a good introduction — it actually mentions Missy, rather than ignoring this inconvenient six-year relationship, as most introductions do. And it also illustrates a fascinating difference in em dashes: the French side has a space on either side of it — as I do with mine — but the em dash on the English side has no spaces—which I’m told is correct—but somehow find odd. It does look elegant, but I suppose I’m so used to seeing them with spaces that it looks wrong without them.

I’ve had a temporary, involuntary break from writing: I’m hoping that I’m germinating. The break was due largely to The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Fantastic, brilliant, phenomenal. I loved it. This unfortunately meant that I couldn’t disengage myself from it: it went with me everywhere around the house from room to room, clasped to my bosom like a baby. I shall have to re-impose my previous ban on any book unrelated to Colette or Anaïs Nin… Chéri is a lovely beginning.

Ça fait trop longtemps que je n’ecris pas! (enfin, quelques semaines….) C’est la faute d’un livre merveilleux de Donna Tartt, je ne supportais pas la possibilité de passer d’une piece a l’autre sans prendre le bouquin avec moi. Maintenant je retourne au régime: Non à tout livre qui ne parle pas soit de Colette ou d’Anaïs Nin! Je comence avec Chéri…

The art of accepting rejection graciously

Why is rejection so painful? Goodness knows I should be well versed it by now. With each competition I enter, I am so hopeful, so sure that this time I will win! I am getting closer — runner-up isn’t bad — but it’s never good enough. When it was the Sunday Star Times short story prize-giving (a big event with champagne and media, even lovely Helen C) and I won third prize, the runners-up crowded around me with congratulations. I was determined to keep smiling graciously even if it killed me, but all I wanted to do was burst into noisy, heart-broken sobs. One nice lady exclaimed, ‘Oh, you must be delighted!’ It took a super-human effort to stop myself from snorting, ‘Delighted? I’m devastated!’

There’s a scene in Fame (remember that ’80s programme?!) where the beautiful swan-like dancing teacher throws a girl out of her class for not having passion. ‘But I only want to dance in the third chorus line!’ the poor girl pleads. ‘That’s the problem,’ the teacher says, ‘just to get to the back of the stage, you have to want to be the star.’

Four rejections in one week — it was rather harsh, and I was a bit blue for that week. But never mind, it just makes me even more determined for next time. As Liza Minelli sings, so earnestly hopeful, in Cabaret, ‘Maybe this time I’ll be lucky, maybe this time I’ll win’. It’s all about the taking part — what utter nonsense. Don’t be so soft. It’s all about the winning.

Pourquoi ça fait si mal d’être rejetée? Je devrais être habituée. A chaque fois, je suis absolument certaine de gagner. Cette fois-çi, ça va marcher, ça ne peux pas rater! Quatre concours ratés en huit jours: aïe! Mais il faut toujours re-essayer: il faut gagner.

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