I wonder how Marian is doing...

I wonder about Marian Keyes a lot - not just because she remains a real inspiration to me and I feel like I know her even though we've never met - but also because this year she has been battling the horrors.

I know what the horrors feel like. They are like my long lost friends - and every now again they pop up, as if on Facebook - and poke me as if to say "we haven't gone away you know".

Lately I've been feeling a bit 'horrific' again. Some keens observers may have noticed - indeed some have contacted me to ask why this blog has been so quiet. Yes, I have been launching a book, and trying to write another book, looking after kids and taking very funny turns with the old dizzy spells and the like but I've also been feeling mired in, well, crap.

I cannot concentrate. I cannot have conversations - although I do feel as if I'm having a constant conversation over and over in my head with myself.

I feel raw and exposed as if everyone is looking at me and pointing and laughing.

I googled Marian this morning to see if there had been an update and I found her newsletter from May.

In it she wrote

I’ve heard people describe depression as feeling like they’re living behind glass, of being numb and unable to experience anything, but for me, it has been totally different. It has been like being poisoned, it’s felt like my brain is squirting out terrible, black, toxic chemicals that poison any good thoughts

I hear you Marian... I am trying, I swear. I am trying my positive affirmations but the nasty voice is louder.

She also wrote that there are days when her ambition is just to make it through til night time. Thankfully those days are few and far between for me but I do feel as if, well, could it just stop for a while? The routine? The monotony? The pressure?

Generally people have been very lovely indeed and I have some very lovely and supportive friends who have picked me up and dusted me off more times than I deserve, but I feel lost all the same - as if who I am is a mystery and who I might become is a scary prospect. I just want to be me.

The hardest thing is that writing has become a chore - one which I enjoy when I'm in the middle of it but one which fills me with a sense of dread at times. When it doesn't work, immediately, I panic. I panic that I'm broken and four books in, I'm done and that the well has run dry and that I'm done.

Of course all this is a bit self absorbed and waffly, but all in all I wonder how Marian is doing and I hope that she is clawing back from the brink because if she can, I can.

The most battered book on my shelf

Anyone want to share their most battered book?

There it is, my 1997 copy of Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes which I bought in Eason, Belfast - which was at that time based in the Castlecourt Centre.
I still remember the day I bought it and I still remember laughing out loud while reading it.
As you can see it has been well read - many times in fact - not only my be but most of my family circle and even my former editor at the Derry Journal Pat McArt (big burly Donegal man) who declared that Marian "writes sex scenes the way men think about them".
I also started seeing my hubby in 1997 - so I informed him last night the book was as old as our relationship... I don't think I've aged well either, to be honest.
But there is something really refreshing about thumbing through my well worn copy, the pages yellowed, my maiden name scrawled inside the front cover and thinking how this book most likely shaped my life just a little bit.
For the record, I've not read the Isabel Wolff which is sat beside it, but Kate Long's Queen Mum is another of my absolute favourites.

Go on now, share the most battered book on your shelf!

Depression - vile, vile thing...

Regular readers of this blog will know about my ongoing battle with depression. They may well even know that just over a year ago I had a complete hissy fit meltdown which resulted in weeks (yes weeks) of squealing, crying, not eating. not sleeping, just staring while waves of utter desolation washed over me.
It was the worst it has ever been and I was lucky - that particularly low phase, while it felt never ending at the time, lasted only a month or two and then tailed off until it was less bad and less scary and now it's only a couple of days of month and not so much about the screaming and the staring.

I read Marian Keyes' newsletter this month and it echoed how I felt back then and it saddened me because this is how Marian is feeling right now. She has laid her soul bare so many times and I applaud it for doing it again now and I hope, REALLY hope that is passes soon.

Her words, which I have pasted below, made me cry, because I know what she means. And I know that no one can help her but herself and that is what is such a bastard about this illness called depression.

This is much much worse. I know I’m leaving myself open to stinky journalists saying ‘What has she got to be depressed about, the self-indulgent whiner, when there are people out there with real troubles?’ so I won’t go on about it.
All I will say is that I’m aware that these are terrible times and that there are people out there who have been so ruined by the current economic climate that they’ve lost the roof over their heads and every day is a battle for basic survival and I wish I could make their pain go away.
But although I’m blessed enough to have a roof over my head, I still feel like I’m living in hell. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t write, I can’t read, I can’t talk to people. The worst thing is that I feel it will never end. I know lots of people don’t believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike say, a broken leg, you don’t know when it’ll get better.

It's trite of me to say 'It will get better' but believe me, from painful horrendous experience - experience when I would hit myself around the head to try and stop the inner pain - it does pass.
For now I'll leave you with a quote she has posted... which truly is inspirational...

Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.
Bill Wilson, in a letter 1950 in How Bill Sees It

Dear Marian.... (a review)

The residents of 66 Star Street in Dublin are all being watched… but by what? Maeve and Matt seem happy enough to anybody looking in, but behind the facade is a truth that neither of them wants to be made public. Katie and Conall have a love/hate relationship, but how will the arrival of TVgardener Fionn affect their relationship? Lydia lives with Polish men Andrei and Jan, but can’t stand either of them… not to mention the problems Lydia is having with her own mother as well. And Jemima lives with her lovely dog Gurudge, but is sure she feels the presence of something hanging around the house of 66 Star Street. Just what, or who, is watching these people? And will the secrets that bind them ever come out?



Dear Queen Marian of Keyes,
I write this with blood shot eyes and a thumping headache. I didn't get to sleep until very, very late last night you see. Because I was reading your book - that one, there in the picture.
I had bought it as soon as it was released, just as I have done every time one of your books has been published since I discovered you when Rachel's Holiday was out. That was a long time ago Marian. A lot has happened since then. I've grown up into proper adulthood reading your books. I have been inspired by you. I even started to write books myself because of you.
And now well, I have my very own publishing deal and books of my own. In a completely non-stalkerish way, I feel like I know you.
So I feel we can sit down and talk - woman to woman, author to author.
The thing that I loved so much about your books in the past is that they could make me laugh out loud and not give a damn. Sitting on a ferry to Holyhead? Didn't care. It was too funny to hold in.
Sitting in a room at a party where I was being very unsociable? Didn't care. Needed to find out what happened next.
I loved your books. When I grew up I wanted to write like you. I almost wet my knickers with excitement when it was rumoured Rachel's Holiday was going to be made into a film. Jimmy Nesbitt, for the record, would make an excellent Luke.
But you see, a couple of books back you changed. And it kind of threw me. How could you change Marian? After all we had been through? How you start writing about more serious things (not that addiction and depression and all aren't serious but you wrote about them in a way that didn't feel serious... Brilliant, educational but not dark..)
I devoured This Charming Man - loved it. (Had a few reservations about the diary style writing) but declared it your best book ever. And then I sat back and it troubled me a little because it didn't feel like it was a Marian book. Yes - it was perceptive as always. Yes - it was witty and near the knuckle and not afraid to  deal with dodgy subjects.
I liked that. (Although, between us, there was a fair amount of gnashing of teeth because I was just putting the finishing touches to a book that had a domestic violence storyline weaved into it and well, ya know people will insist on trying to say I'm the new you and accuse me of being a copycat and all. For the record I'm not. I'm the first me. You are the only you.)
But it was definitely grittier, and that damn serious word.
So anyway, I waited with baited breath for 'The Brightest Star in the Sky' - and it intrigued me. From the outset I wondered who these people were and was I supposed to care for them? I liked Maeve and Matt - just so as you know. And Katie too. Lydia I liked, but she would scare the shite out of me if I ever met her in real life.
By about page 200 I was hooked (sorry to say it did take me a while) but I had a sinking feeling, Marian because I knew something big and, well, serious, was going to happen.
And it did.
And it was perhaps the most powerful piece of writing I have ever read.
I felt physically sick. I felt shocked me to my core. I felt I wanted to make it better. I felt I wanted a glimmer of hope and then, you see, you did it. It gave us that hope - that new beginning.
And this is perhaps the crux of the matter. Your writing, the last few books, have been a sort of new beginning - an evolvement of your writing. You grew up - as did I and it was unfair of me to expect otherwise.
I'm glad you did. I loved the book - and it's one that will stay with me for a very, very long time.
My verdict to any of your readers who just aren't sure about whether or not to read this? Go for it. Just expect more than you have before and open your eyes to the power of a story which will touch your heart beyond words.
Marian, I am sorry I ever doubted you.

5/5
Claire

OOOOH, OOOH, OOOH

Look what's now available for pre-order on Amazon! (Apart from the paperback of Rainy Days and Tuesdays that is)
All 704 pages! (704! Wow!)

Roll on May!

Reason 1245 why Marian Keyes makes me laugh

It's always a happy day in the Allan household when the monthly email pings into my mailbox letting me know that Marian Keyes' latest newsletter is up.
It always has at least one thing which makes me laugh til my pelvic floor screams for mercy. This month the newsletter imparted not only the fabulous news that "This Charming Man" is finally complete, but also this keenly observed description of audiences from 'The Late Late Show'.
I have been known to clap along (I think they give you an extra dose of clapping gene when you give birth)... but still it made me snort.

(Quick note: The Late Late Show is an Irish chatshow and they seem to bus their studio audiences in from the 1950s. They always seem to be peopled by biddable eejits who will clap along like wind-up toys to anything - all they need to hear is the opening three notes of My Lovely Horse or indeed even the sound of a clock ticking and the next thing, there they all are, happy shiny-eyed gobshites, clapping obediently along, like time-warp automatons. Sometimes Himself makes me to go music things and even when the music is infectiously rhythmic, I resist the urge to get into it, just in case I start clapping like – exactly! – a member of The Late Late Show audience. It is one of my biggest fears.)

To read more, please visit MK's website!

Leave the Mum Lit writers alone please...

My friend and colleague Erin recently showed me an article from a national paper complaining about the current glut of ‘Mum Lit’ hitting the shelves in Ireland.
Being part of that glut I felt somewhat personally aggrieved. It seems the writer in question thinks it’s all a bit too formulaic and boring.
And it doesn’t really offer women any real sustenance in terms of good reading.
And besides, it’s all done before. Sure in Marian Keyes’ first novel ‘Watermelon’ the main character has a baby and sure isn’t that book just gas... (And it is, in case you wondered... I admit it's bloody brilliant).
But the fact is that there are very few original stories still out there - but there are original ways to tell them. That’s what every writer, from Queen Marian to yours truly tries to achieve each time we sit down and batter out something on our laptops.
And what we are all (well perhaps not Marian as she is at the tippity top of her game) trying to do is be accepted as writers, as valid contributors to society. We are trying to get a foothold in a competitive and harsh business. I think that is pretty damn admirable.
What said writer was doing was throwing the same old well rehearsed criticisms at Mum Lit as have been traditionally and predictably thrown at Chick Lit and the most frustrating thing about the whole damned thing is that said writer is a woman (and, I believe, a mother to boot).
I could wax lyrical about why this makes me angry, but since this writer clearly thinks Marian Keyes is the better woman (and hell, so do I), I’ll leave it to her to make my point.

“I feel a rant coming on. Just sick – BORED, BORED, BORED – mes amies, of being attacked for being a pink fluffy writer by a load of fuckheads with a misogynistic agenda, who have never read my books or the great reviews they get. ... I have nothing but contempt for those men and sometimes women (I call them collaborators) who write articles undermining what women like and enjoy, intending to unsettle women enough that they won’t ask for things. Like equal pay. And decent child-care. And money for refuges for victims of domestic violence. And an end to joke sentences for convicted rapists. I could go on… but mes amies, I’m so tremendously bored of it.
(And can I also say, because if I don’t, the fuckheads will, that I don’t expect everyone to like my books. I am simply asking for 2 things. 1) Don’t judge my books if you haven’t read them. 2) Leave women alone. We don’t try to make you feel ashamed for the things you like, like Kate Moss’s arse and expensive hifi’s. Please return the favour.)”

"I passed on an email address"

Forget all that fuss I made about "I carried a watermelon"
Last month Keris Stainton and Diane Shipley from website Trashionista (where I guest blog once a month) asked did I have an email address of Queen Marian of Keyes...
"No," said I, "but I know a man who does"... or in fairness, I have an email address which reaches the lovely Tony (aka Mr. Marian Keyes).
So I passed it on and they achieved what I could not- an interview with the indisputed queen of Chick Lit.
Read it, as Mazza would say herself "it's gas". (But she would say it funnier and all, cos she is so wonderful)

Go on ya girl ye!

Marian Keyes, this is why I love you.
After having similar discussions lately with family and associates, here is Ms. Keyes speaking for all us 'fluffy' writers everywhere.

I feel a rant coming on. Just sick – BORED, BORED, BORED – mes amies, of being attacked for being a pink fluffy writer by a load of fuckheads with a misogynistic agenda, who have never read my books or the great reviews they get. There’s been a lot of it lately and although it doesn’t upset me the way it would have 10 years ago – because I have nothing but contempt for those men and sometimes women (I call them collaborators) who write articles undermining what women like and enjoy, intending to unsettle women enough that they won’t ask for things. Like equal pay. And decent child-care. And money for refuges for victims of domestic violence. And an end to joke sentences for convicted rapists. I could go on… Right yes, like I said they don’t upset me the way it would have before I understood what they were up to, but mes amies, I’m so tremendously bored of it.
(And can I also say, because if I don’t, the fuckheads will, that I don’t expect everyone to like my books. I am simply asking for 2 things. 1) Don’t judge my books if you haven’t read them. 2) Leave women alone. We don’t try to make you feel ashamed for the things you like, like Kate Moss’s arse and expensive hifi’s. Please return the favour.)

Thirty and bricking it

IT WAS payday today so I treated myself to a couple of new books- among them the short story collection published by Poolbeg to celebrate ther 30th anniversary.

I figured that since I am now an official member of the Poolbeg stable it was worth my while to get a complete overview of the competition in terms of my stable mates. (Not that any of us look like horses, mind.)

Anyway, the whole buying the book process has set me into a bit of a flurry of panic. These women are great- they are at the top of their game and then there is me, with my wee book trying to look and sound like a confident woman of the noughties.

I have to say though I've already started to get a taste of the support network that exists among the Irish authors contigent. I have received lovely supportive emails from Sarah Webb and a couple of lovely kind words from Himself. Along with my Write Words chicks, they are offering buckets of support which is lovely and I'm also spending loads of time at Write On- a site for Irish writers.

Hopefully this is stagefright and it will all ease in time and I can go back to being 30 and fabulous.

Quality TV from Queen Marian of Keyes

This is well worth it, for her reaction to meeting Lilia Kopylova alone...
You've just got to love Marian Keyes and this is why. The woman is the undisputed Queen of Chick Lit!



There now seems to be a problem with this link, so try this for size...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-pYoQTJCEs