Jane and Me

 
It is a fact universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is a genius in a bonnet. If you disagree or would like to start a fight (Austen-related only, if you’d be so kind), please indicate your intentions in the comments. Otherwise, let me take up my pen and a sheet of hot-pressed paper and commence. 

When I was fourteen and studying for English Literature O-level, our teacher handed out a stack of novels. “We’ll be doing Jane Austen this term, girls,” she informed us. I’d heard of her, obviously, but only through reading “What Katy Did Next” when the heroine went to Europe and there was a funny scene in Winchester Cathedral which seemed to imply that Miss Austen wasn’t properly appreciated in her home country. 

Anyway. We read it and I didn’t get it. I wrote a couple of essays on it and thought no more of it. Looking back, it was a bit strange as I was reading every minute of the day and ploughing through some books which were much harder and more abstruse than Pride and Prejudice. The next year, aged fifteen and with the O-level done, I picked it up again and started reading. I can still feel the sensation of the penny dropping as I realised that I was engaged in living the story of the Bennet sisters for the first time and loving it. Since then, I’ve read it hundreds of times. Literally. Hundreds. 

At this point, you might be asking yourself, “Has Ruth perhaps lost her mind? Does she not know that this is Day 11 of her blog tour? Why is she banging on about Jane Austen?” Bear with. 

As you know, my very own novel, the Diary of Isabella M Smugge comes out tomorrow and I’ve been clogging up your feeds about it for the last few weeks. One of my favourite things has been reading other people’s takes on my words. Imagine my joy when lovely Fran Hill (a brilliant writer, check her out if you haven’t already) kindly gave me an endorsement for the book which included the memorable words, “Reminds me of Austen.” Readers have also been leaving reviews on Waterstones and Goodreads, for which I am enormously grateful. 

One reviewer kicked off thus: “Imagine Emma Woodhouse as a lifestyle blogger.” Of course! A 21^st century Emma would be very like my own self-obsessed heroine, aspirational lifestyle blogger and influencer Isabella M Smugge. Lots of money, comfortable house, staff, and a burning desire to focus on other people and what they were up to rather than concentrating on what was going on closer to home. The reviewer put it like this: “Jane Austen said of her heroine Emma Woodhouse that 'I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like'. There is more than a touch of Emma about Isabella – had Emma lived in the early 21st century, she would no doubt have been a lifestyle blogger and expert on ‘relationship enrichment' – but, just like Emma, Isabella grows in self-awareness and maturity.” 

The really scary bit about writing a novel is when you hand it over and it’s no longer yours. I was concerned that no-one would like Isabella, who is snobbish, pretentious and can’t see past the end of her own elegant nose. And yet people seem to love her. Like Austen’s flawed heroines (Elizabeth Bennet with her prejudices, Catherine Morland and her obsession with trashy novels, Anne Elliot with her disastrous over-dependence on the advice of her friend), Isabella has faults, but is capable of redemption. 

There’s a reason why certain books are described as “classic novels.” We come back to them again and again because they satisfy a need in us to see the protagonist develop and evolve, often through difficulties and struggles, just like us. I’ve read so many of them over the years, and studied them, at school then at university, that I suppose the narrative structure and flow has soaked into my writer’s brain. 

Isabella has it all at the beginning of the novel. Rich, pretty, fit, successful with an apparently perfect home life. But who wants to read about someone like that? For a story to work, we must have an arc, a five-act structure, ups and downs. Without realising it, that’s what I wrote, which is why if anyone ever asked me to give them advice on being a writer, I’d say, “Read. A lot. All the time. Let the housework pile up – doing it only encourages it anyway.” 

So, thank you Jane. You’re a corker and I love your novels more than life itself. Thanks for influencing me, even though I didn’t realise you had until I started writing this blog. 

It seems appropriate to end with a quote. Writing to her beloved sister Cassandra in late January 1813, she shares the news that her copy of Pride and Prejudice has just arrived. “I have got my own darling Child from London.” Yes. That’s exactly it. Receiving my own box of copies from Bungay, on the other side of the county, it felt a bit like holding a long-awaited baby in my arms. 

No-one could ever be as great a fiction writer as Jane Austen, in my opinion. She is peerless and can be read again and again with joy. To have my own darling Child compared, even a little, to hers, is the greatest compliment I could ever receive.

Images from Unsplash

Ruth is a novelist and freelance writer. She is married with three children, one husband, three budgies, six quail, eight chickens and a kitten. Her first novel, “The Diary of Isabella M Smugge”, published by Instant Apostle, comes out on the 19^th of this month. She writes for a number of small businesses and charities and blogs at Big Words and Made Up Stories. She has abnormally narrow sinuses and a morbid fear of raw tomatoes, but has decided not to let this get in the way of a meaningful life. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at ruthleighwrites.

 

 

 

23.06 and all's well

For the first time since I started Big Words and Made Up Stories, I gave myself a day off last week. Sorry about that. I’ve been inundated with phone calls, texts, WhatsApps and hand-written notes shoved through the door pleading with me to fill in that missing week.[1]

I did have a very good reason. My first ever novel, the Diary of Isabella M Smugge, is being published by Instant Apostle next March. I started writing it just after 10.30 in the morning on 7^th May and my deadline was 30^th September. I took a fairly relaxed attitude throughout the sunny months of lock down. Some days, I’d write nearly a whole chapter, others, I’d allow my ideas to marinate before the next burst of activity. It was fun, making someone up. My heroine is a snob, quite selfish, looks down her nose at people and has little if no self-awareness. She and her family (banker husband, three children, Latvian au pair) have just moved from London to Suffolk, and she thinks that everyone will be delighted to see her. However, her perfect life is about to unravel.

Writing her story, I found that she’d had a pretty grim childhood, lots of abandonment issues and was a child of divorce. One of my favourite sayings is, “Everyone’s got a story” and Isabella certainly does. It was fun to write it, albeit a bit weird. Who was this woman? How come I was suddenly making up hashtags and writing authoritatively about Instagram? I found myself trawling through Pinterest for annoying quotes (I found plenty).

Along the way, I made up a whole cast of supporting characters. For some reason, I really enjoyed writing the horrible ones. I suppose because my entire writing career has been about interviewing people who are good, generous, philanthropic and compassionate, I never get to talk to the villains. Ex-cons, yes. Unreconstructed bad folk, no. So, it was fun to create a hideous agent called Mimi Stanhope, married four times, smokes like a chimney and is rumoured to sleep in a banana leaf coffin. She drinks coffee constantly, has blood-red nails and her third husband ran off with a traffic warden. She’s a great agent but not a very nice person.

Isabella’s mother is also a bit of a moo. We don’t find out about her background until the end of the novel and it goes some way towards explaining why she’s been such a hands-off mother. I wrote a fight scene which erupted over some value sausage rolls. Someone microwaved a Girls’ World head. I made up some imaginary bloggers.

As I may have mentioned on a number of occasions, all I’ve ever wanted to do is write. And now I am and it feels amazing. Writing fiction is a new departure for me, however, and I’m surprised how exhausting it can be. You wouldn’t think that tapping away on a laptop while sipping tea and gazing out of the window would be that onerous. But you’re going to have to take my word for it. It is.

Last Wednesday I should have written my blog. I spent the entire day writing the final chapter and sent it off to the publisher at 23.06 pm. I was drained, a limp rag, worn to a frazzle. I thought to myself, “Ruth, will the world stop spinning if you don’t write your blog tonight?” I decided it wouldn’t and fell into an exhausted slumber.

So, now, we’re at the editing stage. This is about as much fun as cutting your own toenails with a blunt pair of shears, but it must be done. I suspect that chocolate will help a lot. Also tea. The fun bits, like talking to the publisher about the cover design and writing the blurb are yet to come. 

Isabella and her world have become very real to me. I don’t want to leave her, so I have already written the first page of the sequel. The last four and a half months have been wonderful, a chance to do what I always dreamed of doing, creating a world and peopling it with characters. You could say I’ve come full circle since I created this blog. The novel has quite a few big words and it’s one giant made up story. I like it and I hope you will.

If you want to pre-order a signed copy, please let me know via Instagram or Twitter (ruththewriter1), in the comments on this blog or in any other way you can think of. Only another six months and my self-centred aspirational blogger will be launched upon the world. #livingmybestlife.

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[1] I haven’t. This is all made up.

Too Much of a Good Thing

 

July and August are the months of plenty in the gardening calendar. Tomatoes, beans, soft fruit and just about anything raised in the greenhouse bursts into life and keeps on doing so until the first joy of picking your own gives way to a desperate hunt through recipe books for something – anything – to use up all those courgettes. Did I mention we grow courgettes?

Every year, it’s the same in the Leigh household. My green-fingered husband gets out his tin of seeds and pores over them. He likes to get them in by mid-April and every year, the conversation goes something like this.

Me: “How many courgette plants are you putting in this year?”

Him: “I thought four or five.”

Me: “Four or five?? Remember last year? We were inundated and that was even after one of the plants died.”

Him: “I know, but I’ll put in five just in case.”

In case of what, he’s never explained. A national courgette shortage perhaps? Such a thing has never happened in all the years we’ve been growing them. As I shared earlier on in the year, we spent a good deal of time in early summer bending over the raised bed gazing fondly at the tiny plants and nurturing them with water and encouragement. Like new parents, we were ecstatic each time a new shoot appeared, delighted with each buttery yellow flower and over the moon with an actual fruit lying glossily on its loamy bed. The excitement lasted for about three weeks. Then my CAD kicked in.

I suffer quite badly from this condition, and I don’t think I’m alone. It’s a seasonal disorder, generally lasting from late May until early September. There should be a support group for those who grapple with it, but I can’t find one. To what am I alluding? Why, Courgette Anxiety Disorder, of course.

Those who are diagnosed with CAD have a number of distressing symptoms. They may begin to make odd dishes, adding a courgette where a courgette does not belong. For example, Eggs Benedict with a courgette foam, grated courgette on toast or even duck à la courgette. In extreme cases, a visitor to the home of a CAD sufferer may be offered a cup of tea or coffee garnished with courgette rosettes.

Courgette can be added to a perfectly nice dish to bulk it out. We tried making courgette and mint soup in the summer. Delicious, and it used up loads, but the children turned their noses up at it. We sneaked a whole one into the weekly leek and potato soup after that, and they never suspected a thing.

There are those who swear by courgette cake. I’ve never tried it and I probably never will. Call me old-fashioned, but a cake to me is composed of eggs, butter, sugar and flour with chocolate or coffee or fruit added.

In late July, even though one of the plants had passed over due to an unknown disease, the other four spread themselves seductively over the raised beds and got busy. One day, I picked ten. Ten! I ask you. We had courgettes with dinner every night, sometimes I made an omelette with sage and courgettes for lunch and one morning I presented my husband with a breakfast including courgettes fried in butter and sage and sprinkled with black pepper.

Something had to be done. My CAD generally manifests itself in a sudden outburst of alarming generosity. Unwary visitors are asked leading questions in a casual fashion. “Are you growing anything this year? Tomatoes? Oh lovely. Have you got any courgettes?”

CAD makes you cunning. I mentally file non-courgette growers’ names and addresses away and when driving through the village, engage in a spot of guerrilla courgetting. This is when you leave a selection on top of their wheelie bin or in their porch and then drive away.

At first, the recipients were delighted. They sent me pictures of courgette spaghetti and quiches. After a second visit, not so much, and following a particularly lavish guerrilla session one evening, they realised that they too were running out of ideas for interesting recipes.

Last week, I shared the exciting news that I’ve got a book deal and that my first novel, “The Diary of Isabella M Smugge” is going to be published after Christmas. Last week, some old friends came over and we had a wonderful evening together. One of them came up with a brilliant idea for book-related merch. She suggested I make sustainable bookmarks with dried courgette slices, then varnish them. The reader can simply chip away the varnish if they get peckish. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

My CAD is getting better. I no longer check the courgette bed every day in a fever of anticipation. I gave away a marrow this morning, but I asked first. There’s no effective treatment for the disorder, short of persuading Mr Leigh not to plant them next year, and that’s never going to happen. So, for now, I’ll enjoy my autumn and winter free of this distressing condition and do a bit of research into what I can use the glut for next year.

Courgette Caponata, anyone?

Images by Pixabay

Ruth is a freelance writer and novelist. She is married with three children, one husband, four budgies, six quail, eight chickens and a kitten. Her first novel, “The Diary of Isabella M Smugge” is coming out after Christmas and she has another work in process. She writes for a number of small businesses and charities. Ruth is a recovering over-achiever who is now able to do the school run in her onesie most days. She has abnormally narrow sinuses and a morbid fear of raw tomatoes, but has decided not to let this get in the way of a meaningful life.