august, september, october 2023
in which she slinks back in with a shit-eating grin, hoping you'll forgive her
Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. You leave the door open just a fraction while you put the bin out and when you come back in, there I am, sitting by my food bowl with an injured look on my face, as if it hasn’t been three months since you last saw me.
Look, it could be worse. I could have brought a headless mouse back in with me. Instead I’m just flogging this metaphor to death right before your eyes.
I am sorry. For the overwrought allegory and for ghosting you.
The thing is, it has been a really challenging three months in terms of writing, and all the energy I had for writing got sucked up by a project. As regular readers will know, I had structural edits to do on a manuscript. Well, they ended up being an almost-total rewrite, because I just couldn’t get the first draft to work in the way I wanted it to. So, after asking for an extension, I scrapped the old draft and rewrote it, frantically, over the course of six weeks.
The kicker is, it’s still not right. I handed it in because I was sick of the sight of it, but the reality is it still isn’t the story I want to tell. And for a while there because of that I really fell out of love with writing. I’m still not really back in love with it, either, but we’re doing mediation and I think we’ll come through this.
I plan on talking about this much more in my next paid subscriber post on Sunday, because it’s pretty deep and also the world, for the most part, has a really, really, low tolerance for when people who do arts jobs talk about any difficulties they face. When we complain that our books get pirated we’re told it’s actually a good thing and wanting to be paid for our work makes us elitist capitalists who hate the people who can’t afford books. Or we’re told if our books were really good we wouldn’t have to worry about being pirated, as we’d still make enough money from non-stolen books.
Another example. There was an article not so long ago about the impact that a perceived lack of support from publishers had on some debut authors mental health and it was eviscerated online – by other authors, as well as the general public. There was a whole bunch of people making ‘diamond shoes are too tight’ comments and saying their mental health would be robust enough to handle their dream coming true. Completely missing the point that it wasn’t the act of writing a book or even being published that was messing people up, but the lack of communication from their publishers and that the authors were often treated as surplus to requirements once they’d handed the final draft in.
So you see, this is not the kind of job where putting your head above the parapet to have a moan is likely to end well for you. Arguably, that is the very natural result of putting your head above the parapet. But I am going to stick my head up and go into a little more detail on my personal situation, but only for the people who are paying to shoot at me.
However let me clear that my problem does not come from an unsupportive publisher (my publisher is INCREDIBLY supportive and I suspect if they knew I’d been feeling like this they’d have had me in triage weeks ago), or piracy. It’s all down to an eel draft I can’t keep hold of, and even though right now I’m finding it tough, I do love writing. When the magic is there, there is nothing else like it.
Besides, I jury-rigged a way to save my writing.
I’m cheating on it with another story (or stories…).
Projects I’ve been working on: Well, I handed in the Problem Book, and also two other books, which you might know by now were for Barrington Stoke! I’m working on the third one currently. As well as those, I have been editing a ghost story I started in late 2021 but put down for a while. I’ve come back to it renewed. I’m also editing another YA that’s a little bit Dark Academia, a little bit thriller-y. But none of these books are the ones I’ve been cheating on Problem Book with.
No, no.
If you remember, back in August I told you how I went out for drinks with a friend and she asked if I’d ever write a second world fantasy again and I said I didn’t think so. AND THEN not two days later did I have an idea for one. Well, this is the book I’m cheating on Problem Book with. Whenever Problem Book made me want to put my face in a blender, I’d sneak off and write a few hundred words of Secret Book. And I’ve decided this year to do NaNoWriMo and use it to get a first draft of Secret Book done by the end of the year. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with it, like most secrets it might lose its power if I share it, and right now I need it to be a dirty little secret.
News:
The announcement of my three-book deal with Barrington Stoke happened last month! They were the books I kept alluding to in other newsletters. I’m writing three teen, tech thrillers for them. The three books are set in the same world, and begin to overlap, but they’re all standalones, kind of Black Mirror meets Point Horror in terms of tone and scope. They’re aimed at 12-15 year olds, and like all Barrington Stoke books they’ll be edited and formatted to be as appealing and accessible as possible to readers with Dyslexia, and reluctant readers. I’ve wanted to work with Barrington Stoke for years and I was so pleased when they liked my pitch - I was actually in Gatwick Airport last December, flying home for Christmas, when I got the news and shrieked very loudly.
Pro-tip. Don’t shriek in an airport. It does not go down well.
Also, the anthology I’m part of was published in September. A TASTE OF DARKNESS is out now in all good bookshops, and my story, SAINT CLOVER, is about hunger and sainthood and chain letters. I’m very pleased with it.
In Personal News, I have continued to keep my promise to myself to do things! I have seen plays and exhibitions and lots of films – I started going to a monthly film club that plays proper B-Movies from the fifties and sixties and it is the most joyful way to spend an evening. I have taken up crocheting and am 42 granny squares into a blanket I’m seriously hoping to finish before the end of the year.
Probably the biggest news is I bought a pair of jeans. I haven’t worn jeans since 2013 – in fact the last time I wore them was to do an archaeological dig in Surrey at Woking Palace. I took them off that night and that was me done, apparently. But then I was walking through town two weeks ago and I saw a jumper I liked in a window and went inside… And came out with jeans (and the jumper). I’m wearing them right now. I got new glasses too. They’re cat eye ones. They go with the jeans. Also I need them to see.
And tonight I start cooking school! I told you in my last newsletter that I’d signed up, and it’s tonight! I’ll be taking my cool box over to East Sussex Uni and cooking! With instructions! Under the eyes of a professional! (assuming Storm Ciarán doesn’t banjax the trains).
I have read a lot of Books, but I think I’m only going to talk about my favourites. Firstly, Kelly Link’s THE BOOK OF LOVE, which is coming out in February. It’s a vast, sweeping, all-encompassing story about three teenagers who come back from the dead a year after they’ve died in order to solve the mystery of how they died, except there are gods at play, and magic afoot, and doors and destinies and kissing and music and pizza. It’s so hard to talk about because everything I say about it really undersells the magnificence of it. Just read it. I also really, really loved Eliza Clark’s PENANCE. I started reading it on audio, but even speeded up I couldn’t get the story in me fast enough – my walks were starting to last literal hours as I tried to cram it in – so in the end I went and bought a physical copy and read it over three dizzy nights. It’s about three girls who murder a schoolmate, told by an author who is hoping writing about this case will be his big comeback. It’s seedy and gritty and brilliant. Deirdre Sullivan’s WISE CREATURES is as impeccable as all her work – this one is about hauntings, and people, and secrets. I don’t want to spoil it, so just take my word for it that you are an idiot if you don’t read it. Finally, THE THINGS WE DO TO OUR FRIENDS, by Heather Darwent, which is a horrible little book about toxic friendships and obsession.
On to recipes! I have actually been cooking a lot, but it’s mostly been roasted chickpeas in various guises and with various things, and egg drop soup, because it’s fast and a bit sexy.
But I did make some really nice, small batch shortbread at the weekend to take to a friend who was cooking me dinner, so I’ll give you the recipe for that.
This makes around nine biscuits, and obviously you can swap out the strawberries and peppercorns for other flavours – I’m going to try a stem ginger version next week. You could try candied lemon peel and sage, or chocolate chip – whatever you like!
You will need:
85g softened salted butter
50g caster sugar
90g plain flour
25g rice flour (you can just use plain, but the rice flour helps make it really crumbly!)
½ teaspoon very well crushed pink peppercorns
1 tbsp freeze dried strawberries
A little water to bind it (I use a water/lemon juice mix to add a little sharpness)
Demerara sugar to roll it in
In a mixing bowl mix the butter and sugar together until creamed, then add the flour, peppercorns, and freeze dried strawberries. Mix, and add water half teaspoon by half teaspoon if needed until the mixture forms a cohesive dough.
Remove from bowl and roll into a thick sausage shape, around 15cm long. Roll the sausage in the demerara sugar, wrap it in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
When chilled and firm, preheat the oven to 160C/140C with fan/GM 3. The slice the dough sausage into rounds around 15mm thick, Place them spaced out on a lined or greased baking tray and cook in the middle of the oven for 15-20 mins (check after 15). If they are light gold around the edges they’re done! Let them cool on a rack and then eat them up, as fast as you can, before anyone else gets a go, unless you’re making them for someone else in which case make two batches, why should you miss out?
AND… A bonus recipe.
So, while I was “away,” I fell in love with a local restaurant called Wavey Bar, and in particular their chicken piccata. I’d looked it up after seeing it in The Bear but then forgotten about it until I saw it on the menu in Wavey and ordered it. And I ordered it the next time I went. And the next time. And then I tried to make it at home but it was a disaster. So the next time I went, I ordered it, and mentioned to the chef I’d tried and failed to make it at home…
Only for him to invite me into the kitchen TO SHOW ME. And so he did, and when I went to Scotland last month I made me it for a friend there and now I am sharing it with you, which I think is OK as it’s not on the menu at Wavey anymore, I went last week and they have an amazing autumnal menu going on, with aubergine caponata and squash with labneh and pierogi, so I don’t feel like I’m stealing from them by sharing.
This is Kacper Laskiewicz’s Chicken Piccata.
1 good sized, organic and free range chicken thigh, skinless and boneless
A plate of flour/ground fennel seed/parmesan cheese for coating the chicken
2tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp capers, plus 1 tsp caper brine
100-150ml chicken stock
Fresh dill and parsley, chopped, as garnish.
Put the chicken thigh in a Ziploc bag or in a clingfilm wrap and pound it until it’s thin. Not quite schnitzel thin, but certainly flatter. Press one side and then the other in the flour/fennel seed/parmesan mix.
Heat the olive oil in pan, and when hot, add the chicken. Cook on side until nicely browned (do NOT keep flipping it, let it cook) then turn over and cook on the other side – this takes around 5-6 minutes per side for me, ymmv.
When it’s browned, add the butter and allow to melt. Then add the caper brine and the capers. IT WILL SPIT. Wear an apron and protect your eyes.
Then add the stock and put a lid on the pan for 3-4 minutes. After that, remove the lid and the sauce reduce a little, before placing the chicken on a plate and pouring the sauce over.
I like to eat this with crusty bread, and roasted chickpeas on Greek yoghurt on the side. I also do not add salt as I feel like the capers and the stock are enough, but you should taste as you cook and decide if you think it needs more salt.
And finally… Magic.
Actually, I sneaked the magic in already. It’s above, in the chicken piccata recipe, and it’s the magic of sharing. The magic in the act of giving something to someone, whether that’s a tangible gift, or a meal, or something like time and knowledge and how much life can be improved by someone offering you something, seemingly apropos of nothing. I didn’t tell Kacper I wanted him to teach me how to cook, in fact I was trying to offer a kind of compliment “I loved this so much I tried to copy you!”. And he could have so easily laughed it off and let it be. But he didn’t. He shared, even though there was a risk (I mean, there wasn’t, but there was, you know?) that they never saw me again, that I hightailed it out of there and never returned. It was unfathomably generous of him to let me into his kitchen and show me, step by step, how to do it, and it put a golden glow over the whole day. Now every time I make it, the glow comes back because of think about how it was I learned this.
So I want you, this month, to share something with someone else. I want you to consciously and knowingly share something that someone else needs, or wants, or doesn’t even know they need or want, before they ask. And then you get to be part of the glow too.
It grows because you tend it. I have been very bad at tending it lately. I will try harder x
Welcome back! I loved every bit of this. Must make chicken piccata.