Hi! I’m Keris. I’m an author writing about writing and books and music and life, and the last song I listened to was Carey by Joni Mitchell, because I keep forgetting to listen to albums so I’ve set one for every day this week. I was trying to listen to Blue while making dinner last night, but the 15yo came in to do the dishes and turned it off, so I’m already behind and it’s only Tuesday.
My planned week off did not go very well. I forgot that after I send a book in my brain takes a while to come back online, so rather than reading all the things, I “read” all of the internet and got increasingly irritated at myself. This week’s much better though, so I must try to remember that in future - two weeks off are required post-book.
I did manage to read A Season for Scandal by Laura Wood, which is, of course, utterly gorgeous. I’m now reading and loving Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell and Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, and More by James Burrows.
Book club was good and I was very entertained by the woman who came in and, when asked what she wanted to drink, said cheerfully “Ooh! Red wine!” and then was gutted and outraged when the only options were tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Must remember to actually read the book…
Talking of books… CHICK FLICK is going on sub this week. Can’t remember when I last had a book out on general sub, but it is a long time…
I just had a look (at my own Amazon page) and I think the last time was 2012 for Lily, the Pug and the Christmas Wish. Can that be right? That’s absolutely wild, if so.
I saw Robot Dreams at the cinema last night with the 19yo. I loved it. (He thought it was a bit too long.) It’s instantly clear that it’s set in the 80s, because it opens with Dog playing Pong and he carries a bag featuring this little fella I’d completely forgotten about.
I looked it up and it was set in 1984, so it makes sense I loved it cos that is one of my very best years. But it was all just lovely. Gentle and funny, moving and sad, and beautifully animated.
Paid subscriptions help support me and my writing, plus you get to read extracts from my various works-in-progress.
(If you’d like to upgrade, but can’t pay right now, email me and I will add you, no questions asked.)
If you’d prefer not to commit to a regular payment, you can buy me a coffee. Thanks!
An interview with Holly Gramazio
Holly Gramazio’s debut novel, The Husbands, is one of my favourite books of the year so far - so original and funny and clever. So I slid into her DMs and asked her to answer my not very probing questions.
Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your book?
I grew up in Australia, and nowadays I live in London. I'm a game designer, writer, and curator, and The Husbands is my first novel. It's a comedy about a woman named Lauren whose attic starts creating an infinite supply of husbands.
What does your writing day look like?
I do my best writing first thing in the morning, ideally before I look at the internet at all. If I can leave the house and settle down in a café around the corner, even better. Then I stop after an hour or two - about a thousand words - I find it much easier to keep momentum up if I do a little each day rather than a bunch of writing all at once.
Editing, on the other hand, works best for me as an absolutely all-consuming nightmare: start in the morning, keep going, stop to sleep, begin again next morning. Just fill your entire brain with the book so there's no room for anything else.
How do you write? Are you a plotter or a panster? Do you write in silence or in front of the TV? Do you have special writing pants?
Well, I've only written one novel so far! But what I did for The Husbands wasn't quite plotting or pantsing... maybe more like patchwork? For about a year, I wrote most mornings, without any real idea of where the book was going, and not in order at all - a scene here, a scene there, just seeing what I felt like doing. And then I had this huge pile of fragments, and the work began in earnest: piecing them together and seeing where they went and filling in all the gaps.
I definitely hoped that I would be more methodical with my second novel, but I'm in the early stages and I'm sorry to say I'm back to just writing a bunch of disconnected scenes and seeing how they feel...
What’s the last book that made you cry? And the funniest book you’ve ever read?
The last book that made me cry was, I think, Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits.
Funniest book I've ever read is a tricky one! Let's just say the funniest book I've read this year, which is Rebecca K Reilly's Greta & Valdin.
Which book do you wish you’d written?
Hmmm, the book I've most recently been furiously jealous of is Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot - it's an incredible concept, following the eight best teenage girl boxers in the United States over the course of a tournament; you meet each girl in their quarter-final match, find out about them, why they care, why they're there, what it would mean to them to win. And then one of them loses. And then it happens again and again, and then four of them return for the semi-finals, winnowing in towards the final.1
The writing is phenomenal - so situated in the bodies of the girls, and so different from anything I'd do that I didn't really feel jealous, but it absolutely fulfils the promise of the concept. That structure, though - I love, love a formal constraint when I'm writing and this one just made me bubble up instantly with envy.
What one book would you take with you to a desert island?
You'd want something really dense, wouldn't you? Something where you can really wring meaning out of every line. I think a big thonking poetry anthology would be the way to go. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry maybe - just skimming the list of poets included, there are some old favourites in there but also a lot of writers who are new to me. Plus, it's two thousand pages long! Something for every desert island mood: despondent, despairing, sleepy, hungry, bored, frightened, angry.
I mean, I'm assuming I'm trapped on the island. If it's just a holiday then I reckon I'd go with Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries, which I'm so sure I'd love but it's 850 pages long and I can never quite work up the momentum to actually start it. A pleasant voluntary desert island seems like a good time to finally give it a go!
Thanks for the link, Keris! Delighted to see another Headshot fan here. X
Oh, I think you've just helped me pick a book for my hols. Looking forward to reading The husband's!