THOMPSON
Probably the first web-linked novel ever published!
EXTRACT
Jane Gray was in a tizzy. She was due to see Lorraine Lavelle, to seek
advice on her attempt at a novel. She’d made sure to arrive early, and now
she was standing outside Lorraine’s charming mews house, clutching a big
bunch of Vendella roses and hoping she didn’t look like a stalker. She
didn’t want to ring the doorbell until exactly half-past four, which was the
time they’d agreed upon. Lorraine hadn’t entered into discussion on the
phone. She’d just told Jane to come to her house, so that she could return
the manuscript that had been posted to her.
The second hand of her watch hit twelve, and Jane pressed the doorbell.
Nothing happened. Should she knock? Maybe the bell wasn’t working? Or had
Lorraine forgotten that she was coming? She was just about to try the
knocker, when the door opened, and Lorraine Lavelle said: ‘You’re bang on
time!’
Pixie thrust the roses at her, and Lorraine accepted them with a gracious
‘How kind!’
The author was wearing a loose cotton frock with a pretty cardigan over it.
She had embroidered slippers on her feet. Her abundant dark hair was piled
up on top of her head and held in place with a tortoiseshell jaws. She had a
pen hooked onto the neckline of her dress, she had reading glasses perched
on the end of her nose. She looked exactly the way Jane thought a
best-selling novelist ought to look. ‘Come in!’ she said.
Pixie followed her down a white-washed hallway, the walls of which were
covered in original paintings. Classical music was playing somewhere. As
they passed the door to the kitchen (there was a gorgeous aroma of something
spicy cooking), Lorraine poked her head through and said: ‘Tea would be
lovely when you’ve got a minute, Maggie! And could you put these beautiful
roses in water for me?’ She passed the roses through the kitchen door, and
they carried on down the hall to what was clearly Lorraine’s study.
‘Oh! What a wonderful room!’ said Jane.
The room had floor to ceiling shelves, all crammed higgledy-piggledy with
books. There was a notice board bristling with Post-Its and post cards, an
enormous desk covered in reference books, and a gleaming laptop resplendent
on a Turkish prayer mat. There was a couch piled with squishy cushions, a
comfy chair with a cat curled up on it, and a vase of delphiniums perched on
a plinth. Light cascaded into the room through french windows, beyond which
was a small garden, gaudy with geraniums in pots.
‘Is this where you work?’ Jane asked.
‘Yes. I love it. Sit down – I’ll shift the cat.’ Lorraine picked up the
unresisting cat and set it on the floor where it sat blinking sleepily. ‘Did
you have trouble finding the place?’ she asked. ‘I’m afraid my directions
aren’t the best, and there are no obvious landmarks.’
‘No.’ Jane didn’t say that she’d actually recce-ed Lorraine’s house the
previous day because she was anxious that she might indeed have difficulty
finding it. She was glad she had. It was in an out-of-the-way corner of
Islington.
‘Maggie – my housekeeper – will bring us tea shortly. But while we’re
waiting, I might as well tell you that I thought your novel – Oh. Excuse
me.’ The phone was ringing. ‘I’ll have to take that. It’s my husband.’
She picked up the phone and spoke into it. ‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘Yes,
I booked tickets. Will you phone Jocelyn? Make sure we get a window table?
The place is sure to be crowded after the show. Mm hm. Mm hm.’
And as Lorraine talked on the phone, Jane looked about her and thought being
a writer was very probably the best job in the world. How perfect Lorraine
had made her workspace! How fantastic to be able to come downstairs in the
mornings in your own home and fix yourself coffee before embarking on your
novel! How wonderful to sit in front of a computer and let stories and
characters flow out of your head onto the screen!
A woman came in with a tray of tea things and set them down on a side table.
Lorraine mouthed ‘Thanks!’ at her, and the woman smiled at Jane on her way
out of the room. How wonderful to have a housekeeper bring you tea and smile
at you!
‘I’ll meet you in the foyer. Quarter past seven. Bye, darling,’ Lorraine was
saying now, and Jane thought: How wonderful to have a husband whom you
called darling! How wonderful to go to the theatre together and have dinner
afterwards at a window table! How wonderful to be Lorraine Lavelle!
‘Sorry about that,’ said Lorraine, putting down the phone. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, please.’
Lorraine sat down on the couch beside the tea table, and started to pour.
Jane noticed a pile of pages on the couch, the topmost page bearing the
legend ‘Miching Mallecho – a Novel by Jane Gray.’ Her stomach lurched.
‘Milk? Sugar?’ said Lorraine, pouring tea into cups. They were the prettiest
china cups imaginable, with a pattern of roses clambering over them.
‘Just milk, please,’ said Pixie.
‘It’s China.’
‘Oh. Then I’ll pass on the milk, thanks very much.’
Lorraine finished pouring and handed her the cup.
‘Thank-you so much for agreeing to see me,’ said Pixie. ‘I can’t believe you
can be so generous with your time.’
‘I’m not going to be that generous. I’m going to the theatre this evening
and I’ll have to chase you off in an hour so that I can tart myself up. Now.
Brass tacks. Your novel’s a mess.’
‘But – and it’s a big but – it has potential. So I’m going to tell you how you can make it right. The first thing you’re going to have to do is decide whether you want to write something literary or something commercial –’
‘Oh, commercial, please! I don’t want to starve in a garret!’
‘Good. Now you’ve a better idea of who you’re writing for. That’s a start. Where did you get your title, incidentally?’
‘It’s from “Hamlet”.’
‘It’s the reason I agreed to read your book. I found the title intriguing, but it’s wrong. You need something with more instant appeal.’ Lorraine started to leaf through the pile of A4 pages. ‘You have some good ideas, Jane, and a lot of the incidents are very funny, but you compromise yourself by the kind of language you use. Look at this! “A venerable cedar tree”! When was the last time you were walking down the road and found yourself thinking “Oh – look at that venerable cedar tree!”?’
‘Um. Never.’
‘I thought not. You’ve got to write the way you talk. You may love big recondite words, but your reader’s not going to thank you for using them. Never use the word “recondite” in a book, incidentally. And I noticed you’re a little over-fond of adjectives. A good rule of thumb is to go through your book striking a red pen through any adjectives or adverbs you find.’
‘All of them?’
‘Not all. But most. Look at all these! “She stated matter-of-factly”, “He informed her knowingly”, “She smiled kindly”. You don’t need them! They’re extraneous! Take a knife to your baby!’
‘Oh!’
‘That’s the best advice you’ll ever get. Now, see here? You’re telling, not showing…’
And Lorraine sat there on her gorgeous cushiony couch and gave Jane Grey a masterclass in the art of writing popular fiction.
After an hour, she looked at her watch and said: ‘Time’s up.’
‘You’ve been so kind! Thank-you so much, Lorraine, I can’t tell you –’
Nor could she tell her, because Jane was quite inarticulate with gratitude as she made her way to the front door, carrying her precious manuscript. She wished there were more variations of the words ‘thank-you’ so that she could stop sounding like a parrot as she dallied on the threshold of Lorraine Lavelle’s house, hanging on her every last syllable.
‘You’ll want to know what the next step is?’ asked Lorraine.
‘Yes, please!’
‘Polish it, polish it, and polish it some more. And when you think it’s in good enough nick to show to an editor, put it away in a drawer for at least a week without sneaking looks at it, and then take it out and don’t send it. Polish it even more, instead.’
Jane was nodding earnestly. ‘Which publisher should I approach?’ she asked.
Lorraine took the pen that was hooked onto the neckline of her frock and said: ‘You don’t mind if I scribble it on your manuscript?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Deborah Millen,’ wrote Lorraine in block capitals, followed by a phone number.
‘Deborah’s my editor,’ she said. ‘You can mention my name. Bye, now. I’ve really got to dash.’ She made to move back indoors.
‘Goodbye, Lorraine. And tha –’
‘Just one more thing, Jane.’ Lorraine paused before shutting the door to her fabulous mews house.
‘Yes?’
‘You might want to think about changing your name.’
***
And that was how plain Jane Grey had become Pixie Pirelli, writer of glittering chick lit. It had taken six months of hard, hard graft, and she often despaired when she thought that she might never get there. Because every spare moment of Pixie’s life was now spent working at the coal face of her novel. She sacrificed evenings out with friends for it, she sacrificed holidays, she even sacrificed watching ‘Friends’ on telly.
She remembered how she’d looked around Lorraine Lavelle’s study, picturing the writer sitting serenely at her desk with a china cup of China tea, words tripping out through her fingers onto the screen, and realised now how wrong she’d got it. Writing was – that great word! – gruellingly hard work, both physically and mentally. And emotionally, too. Some days she closed down her laptop feeling as though she’d been put through a mangle.
And then had come the day when she’d wrapped her baby up in brown paper and sent it adrift via Fed-ex, wondering if it would ever come back to her, and feeling like Moses’s mother.
The waiting game had been the most painful one of her life. Weeks went by before she picked up the phone and heard the words: ‘Hello! Is that Pixie Pirelli?’
And she was just about to say: ‘Sorry, wrong number. It’s Jane Gray,’ and put the phone down, when she heard the voice say: ‘It’s Deborah Millen here, from Princessa Publishing. I’m interested in meeting you with a view to publishing your novel.’
And Pixie Pirelli had burst into tears.
© 2005 Kate Thompson
