Holly Willoughby's Legs

Like a *few* other people around the country, I have found myself watching I’m A Celebrity these past few weeks. Random celebrities thrust together in a make believe jungle with no phones, no make up and no PR people on hand to stop them from telling all and/or being an arsehole – what’s not to love? (Though, to be fair, this year the only aresholes have been the pig anuses they’ve been made to eat).

But the biggest surprise for me this series, apart from the fleeting fanny-flutter crush I developed out of the blue for Nick Knowles (its okay, I’ve recovered my senses) – the biggest surprise has been Holly Willoughby’s legs.

What wonderful things they are. I’ve become quite obsessed with them. 

Long and lean and tanned and even-toned - legs that manage to look amazing even in durable, hard-arse boots. They’re not too skinny, they’re not too muscular try-hard gym-like - they are, like Goldilocks's eventual porridge, just right.

I went through some kind of seven stages of leg admiration – starting off with surprise (Wow, I never realised she had such good legs!), then appreciation (What fine legs they are!) and then I got to envy and it all turned sour. I WISH I had legs like that. What can I do to get legs like that? Go to the gym? Get a tan? I want to rock a mini-skirt and chunky boot combo! I NEED LEGS LIKE THOSE!

Truth is, after much cog-turning, I realised I can never have legs like those.

I am 5 foot 1 ½ (the half is V important when you’re working on this level), I am covered in moles and I have knock knees. So unless I want to Kardashian the shit out of my legs and spend a serious amount of time on a stretching rack of some kind, they will never look like that. I started resenting the legs - they were taunting me, in all their perfectness through the screen. Damn legs. How can some people have legs like that and some of us so not. Where’s the fair in that?

Finally though, I have reached acceptance, cos, you know, what else can you do? I will never have legs like that, fact. BUT I have pretty decent ears and my feet are nice and small and I make a mean beef casserole. And, let’s be honest, making a good casserole is way more helpful than having good legs. 

You never know, Holly might look at some part of someone else and admire/appreciate/envy it, wish that that part of her body was more like that – (though maybe not with quite as much vigour as I have done here).  Maybe she loves her legs but wishes her casserole skills were better?

Any way, my point is, we all have bits about ourselves that are not quite as we wish they would be, but we all have other bits of ourselves that are pretty bloody awesome to make up for it.

So me and my short, knock-kneed legs and decent ears are off to make an amazing casserole to eat while watching I’m A Celeb tonight.

I Hate Editing

I hate editing.

I hated editing essays at university, I hated editing VT segments working in TV, and I red-hot-with-a-passion hate editing my manuscripts. Going in to the process feels like stripping naked and diving into a vat of treacle. Then having a swarm of wasps launched at you. And then walking over hot coals.

My first manuscript got drawered mid-edit as I had lost all sense of any of the words that floated in front of me on the page. And my head was close to exploding.

I know many people who feel exactly the opposite – who see editing as where the magic happens, where you get to mould and shape your original, newborn thoughts, to gather the random ideas and thread them together into Something Special. I envy those people, God I envy those people. Every time I talk to one of those people I consider asking them to crack open a fortune cookie with me in the hope that we might do some kind of Freaky Friday-esque mind swap.

So anyway, I have recently come to the end of a big edit. And after a few weeks of rocking in the corner in the foetal position, I’m now ready to talk about Things I Did Better This Time Round which meant that my manuscript didn’t end up sent to the drawer colonies with its sad, incomplete older sibling.

1. I took a decent amount of time away from my manuscript once I finished the first draft.

Everyone tells you to do this. I thought I had done this with my previous MS, but looking back I think my ‘decent’ amount of time then was approx. 3 days (it’s just TOO exciting when you’ve finished your first book). This time round I left it for a month – and took that time to put my mind to something completely different – mostly watching crap reality TV and napping, whatever took my mind off it. It helped SO much. By the time I got back to it, I really did feel like I had had a proper break, like I was ready to dive back in to it and like I was coming to it with the ever-illusive ‘fresh eyes’.

2. I read through the whole manuscript as little as possible.

With now-drawered MS, I felt like whenever I’d made any remotely big changes, I needed to read it through from the beginning – to get the ‘feel’ of it, to try and read it as a reader, to get a sense of the impact the changes had made.

NO. There is no need for this. This is not a thing.

This is probably what caused me the biggest head-bends. By the time I got to editing three quarters of the way through I was sick to death of the beginning and was skim reading it anyway, therefore getting no value from the process whatsoever.

With the latest one, I only read through the whole MS twice – once when I came back to it after my initial month away, and once when I thought (ha!) I had finished a full edit, and it worked so much better for me.

 3. I was systematic about my edits.

This time round, I made myself take a much more systematic and disciplined approach to editing. First off, I effectively took a very large step back from it and viewed it as a piece of work rather than my beloved, much angsted-over, heart-poured-into baby. I marked the document with little things as I went along – typos, scenes that weren’t quite working, bits that felt boring etc. and I made a note of bigger, whole book things that needed looking at. I wrote the big changes on a piece of flipchart paper that I stuck on the wall and I worked my way through them one by one. There ended up being 5 main areas that needed a significant amount of work – and it was a significant amount – but when there were just 5 one sentence headlines for those areas on the wall it felt much more manageable. I worked my through, not letting myself stress about the next thing, only concentrating on one at a time. Baby steps, keep on swimming etc etc. Chipping away at it bit by bit and not letting myself think bigger picture worked. I left the smaller manuscript changes until the end, when my brain was too tired from the deeper thinking, but I had a sense of achievement at completing the big edits – I powered through these notes as they felt so gloriously easy to fix.

 4. I used index cards (finally)!

I have, over-enthusiastically, had a few packs of multi-coloured index cards in my drawer since about the time I first started writing seriously. I’d never used them. I wanted to, how I wanted to, but I could never work out what I would need them for. Until this edit.

On each card I wrote the chapter number, the location, the characters featured and the main action. I know other people would include other aspects like emotional impact but I didn’t feel I needed that. I was working with a split time frame so I colour coded them according to if they were in the present or the future, organised them into 5 acts and stuck those suckers on my wall. I found this so useful for lots of reasons – it helped me to see if acts were too short or long, to see if there were too many chapters set in the present/future in a row, to see if characters didn’t get a look in for a while and to see the arc of the action. It helped me to realise that the shape of the story needed to change, that there needed to be more build up in a certain section, that my second act was flat as a pancake. And, as stupid as it sounds, the physical act of writing out the cards, sticking them on the wall and re-organising where needed helped me to feel like I was actually DOING something. In the general fug of editing it sometimes feels like all you do is stare at a screen and silently scream, so the actual doing was amazingly motivational.

 5. I used my utterly wonderful crit group - sparingly.

A good crit group is a thing of beauty and probably the single best thing you can do to improve your writing – and keep you writing in the first place. I met mine at a SCBWI retreat and completely lucked out. They motivate me, inspire me, support me and are extremely patient with me. Last time round, I sent them about 52 drafts of my MS. Uncomplaining, they read the 52 drafts and gave me brilliant notes, but ultimately, as I did, they reached their saturation point. It was hard for anyone to remember which thread I’d kept in/taken out, which character I’d changed in which draft and generally what any of the words meant anymore.

This time round, I waited until I’d done my first edit of the whole MS before I sent it to them and then only sent it to them one other time (twice more to one of them, but she’s an actual editor so she’s well able to handle it). It meant they really were coming to it as a reader and were able to pick up on things I no longer could and, perhaps more importantly, could tell whether or not the changes I’d made had improved it.

So that’s that. An edit complete, the first of many more to come, I’m sure. Luckily, I’ll feel more prepared for the next one and less like I want to lock myself in dark cupboard and poke darts in my eyes rather than get on with it.

Why Bridget Jones is Dead to Me

Why Bridget Jones is Dead to Me

*Why Bridget Jones Can go Fuck Herself*

Let me start by saying I am not a Bridget Jones snob (I’m talking about the films here). I don’t have a problem with a well made rom-com. In fact, I bloody love them. I was surprised by how many of my friends had no interest in going to see the latest film when it came out. I don’t remember people being so stuck up about the first one – maybe they were and I just didn’t notice or maybe we were just all younger and not so discerning in our film choices (Muppets Treasure Island anyone?). I thought the first films were pretty alright – good for a mild laugh and good to watch someone on screen who seemed as much as a fuck up as we all felt. And so, when the latest instalment, Bridget Jones’s Baby (spoiler alert) was released, I was looking forward to seeing it. Partly for the sake of nostalgia, partly to meet up with an old friend again (to be clear, I mean Bridget).

            I left the cinema feeling thoroughly, punched-in-the-gut depressed, like everything I believed had been blown up, like the oh-so-comfy slightly kooky colourful rug I loved had been pulled from under me in one fell cinema swoop. It’s taken me a while to get my thoughts together and to work out exactly what it is about the whole sorry affair that has pushed my buttons so. I’m still not clear, but here are some thoughts…

First off, lets address the big, botoxed elephant in the room – Renee Can-you-tell-who-I-am-yet Zellweger. She wasn’t the most popular choice to begin with – and rightly so I think. I know, I know, the whole point of being an actor or a writer is that you can re-imagine yourself and put yourself, convincingly, in other people’s shoes. I get that – but come on now, within reason please! I was pleasantly surprised by her in the first films. I semi-admired that she put on weight for the role, while at the same time despising that it was such a hardship for her to come off whatever the latest kale and urine type Hollywood diet she was on to do so. Anyway, she did it, and we related to her – what 30 something woman hasn’t had weight woes, after all (and if you haven’t then you should probably stop reading – this isn’t the article for you – lucky bitch). She smoked, she drank too much, she lived alone, she had solid, slightly weird friends, she was trying to forge some kind of a career and she repeatedly made a twat out of herself. It was relatable and it was funny, if a little cheddar-laden.

            Fast forward 12 years and Bridget is a completely different beast. She’s now reached her ‘ideal’ weight of a size 8 – YES, OF COURSE SHE FUCKING HAS, because it’s quite common for women to squeeze into a size 8 in their 40s as their metabolism is completely giving up on them, THAT ALWAYS HAPPENS. It’s not even the unrealistic slant of this, it’s the way that it’s just randomly dropped into the start of the film that that’s what’s happened and then never referred to again. I imagine it’s because this time around Zellweger couldn’t be arsed to go through the harsh regime of eating bacon sandwiches and other such food of the Devil to make herself look ‘normal’ – maybe because she realises, as a 40 something woman, how much harder it is to get the weight off again (see earlier point re: metabolism). So, there’s that, which is irksome, but more than that is the face. I mean, I know she’s had a hard time in the press over it but rightly so, I say. She is almost unrecognisable. This might wash with an American audience (and let’s face it, that’s who these films have been made for ultimately), where cosmetic surgery is common place and they’re used to people morphing into other-wordly, scraped back versions of their former selves that are unable to form an expression. But it doesn’t work here. And that’s the point – Bridget is British. In the original columns of her conception, her very essence is British, she is the embodiment of very British womanisms – drinking too much, smoking too much, worrying about weight, generally being a bit of a twat. Without wishing to sound like a member of the BNP, Bridget is British and should’ve been played by someone British who understands her. I spent the whole movie watching this strange-faced, elasticated, skinny version of someone who I knew would be running back to her trailer to recover by inhaling some imported oxygen or eating a baby’s foreskin. The whole point of the cinema is to suspend your disbelief and I simply couldn’t do that with her in this film.

            So she’s my main problem, but there are others – for example, we see far less of the friends in this film. Maybe that’s a reflection of life in your 40s compared to your 30s, maybe a lot of stuff was cut – either way, they were an essential part of Bridget’s story and now they’re just an aside and the film is less funny for it.

The swoon-worthy American – OF COURSE there’s a swoon-worthy American. Really? REALLY? In all my time in London, I have never met an American who looks even remotely like Patrick Dempsey and if I did, I would bloody well end up with him instead of an uptight lawyer (except I wouldn’t because he would have some stunning, American 20 something, tight-arsed, perky-breasted wife on his arm). I know, if films were completely realistic they’d be bloody boring – but really?

And, of course, the ending. I got the same sense of being let down that I did from Sex and the City (I was never team Big – why would you be – he was an arrogant, misogynistic, old wanker).

            So basically, taking all that into consideration, I feel like the problem is that Bridget has been utterly Americanised and it has taken all of her appeal away. If I wanted to see a saccharine, unbelievable rom-com filled with demi-god males and plastic females I’d stick with the back catalogue thanks – Maid in Manhattan, The Bounty-Hunter, Wanderlust, Made of Honour, Failure to Launch…The list goes on. And on. And on.

Bridget was always something a bit different. And now she’s not. You can’t really blame Zellweger – she doesn’t know any better – but Helen Fielding, Sharon Maguire and Emma Thompson – Emma bloody Thompson – you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

            I have a single friend who, when I asked if she wanted to go and see the film with me, replied ‘I don’t really want to see a Richard Curtis version of singledom in 40s’. I tried to tempt her with wine, on me – ‘it would still make me hurl’ was her response. In hindsight, I think she made the right choice.

Guilty as Charged

Mother’s Guilt – it’s a bitch.

And quite honestly, I don’t think there’s anything like it. It starts from before they’re even born – from the minute you find out you’ve conceived. The awful moment, that hits you shortly after the (sometime) excitement and happiness at finding out you’re pregnant, when your brain flicks back over the past 4-6 weeks and every drink, cigarette, bender and recreational drug flickers before your eyes, projected in multi-colour, cinema-sized, infomercial glory. What have you done? You're such a bad mother, already – your baby will surely be too small, or too big, or without an essential limb, or stupid. ALL BECAUSE OF YOU AND THOSE 30 VODKA AND TONICS.

And that’s just the start. Pregnancy is a long, hard, guilt-ridden journey – am I eating well enough? Is it okay that I’ve had 3 sips of wine my entire pregnancy? Have I had my five-a-day? Am I having enough calcium for its bones to grow? Am I too stressed? Should I be doing pre-natal yoga? Should I be playing classical music to my bump? If I don’t, will my baby grow up needing therapy? God help you if you stumble across an article raving about the mystical benefits of some new super-gross, superfood – wheatgrass anyone? I wallowed in the guilt, making sure I always had a packet or five of nuts/seeds/dried fruit with me. Packets that remained in the bottom of my bag, unopened and usually smudged in the remnants of a chocolate bar. I craved salty, savoury, greasy food and got round the guilt by telling myself that, if my body was craving it, it meant that my body needed it – for whatever reason. I read that in one of the 100s of annoying, patronising, contradictory pregnancy books I had rushed out to buy at the first sighting of the blue line. So, that was my story and I was sticking to it. I envied pregnant people around me who craved fresh fruit and veg – really?! I had to force feed myself a sugar snap pea every other day to make myself feel slightly better about the daily portions of chips.

And then the baby years – triple the guilt. With No. 1, I was the full-on, wannabe-earth mother – taking him to baby swimming lessons, baby-sensory classes (which can easily be achieved at home by shining some torches in their face and giving them some tinfoil to play with), baby-music classes and baby-massage (where he inevitably either slept through the class or did a massive, up-the-back shit that meant I spent the whole session changing him). I breastfed until he was about eight months, and felt enormously guilty even stopping then. I did the whole organic, Annabel Whats-Her-Face mushed up ice cube food – after pretty unsuccessfully trying Baby-Led Weaning which, the books assured me, makes your babies grow up to be better eaters and, by extension, better, fully-adjusted, responsible human beings.

Of course we do all that – at that stage, those little bundles of ‘joy’ are the centre of our world. We want only the best for them and we have the time, willingness and dregs of energy left to try and give it them. By No. 2, it was an entirely different story. I was back at work, with a toddler at home, so in terms of what I put into my body while I was pregnant and exercising and playing Mozart to the damn bump – that was all out of the picture. Before, and after, he was born, I did whatever I needed to get through the day in one piece. I stopped breastfeeding much earlier – and felt great for it. I’m not sure I took him to one single baby class other than ones he was dragged along to that were necessary to keep his big brother occupied. And weaning? Annabel Schnannabel – packet food all the way (although, to be fair, I felt I still had to stick to the ridiculously over-priced organic stuff that has done very well indeed from all the guilt floating round).

I felt guilty for going back to work, so eventually I gave it up and stayed at home. At home, I felt guilty for not doing the all-singing, all-dancing stay-at-home-Mum routine. Every now and then, I would enthusiastically get the paints or craft out but, after the half an hour of setting up, the boys normally lasted a grand total of about 7 minutes at any one activity and then I was left with an almighty mess to clear up. I would get to the end of the day and realise Cbeebies had been on so long we had ended up watching the afternoon repeats of the morning shows. I shouldn’t let them watch so much TV – but then how would I ever get any housework done? I should take them out more, do some trips. Does going to Sainsburys count as an outing? I should arrange play dates with their friends. Does going to see my friend, who happens to have a child, count as a play date?

When we first moved down to the Island, I was introduced to some of the local mums who all happened to have little ones the same age as my littlest. Upon asking if their child was at the pre-school, their response was uniformly horrified – no way, they said, they wanted to get as much time at home with them as possible. REALLY?! The guilt hit me then – am I a bad mother for sending my child to pre-school? Am I an even worse mother because I cherish those times? Because those times are the only times I can get things done, relax, breathe…

Recently, someone was telling of how, when they went back to work teaching, they would see other mothers at the school gates with their little ones, and it would rip her heart out to think of her 18 month old that she had to put in nursery. Again, I felt the guilt – I remember the same situation, but I would look at those mothers and feel sorry for them having to spend the day battling toddler issues as I walked into the staff room, managed a whole cup of tea without having to microwave it and then went about my day using my mind, being creative and interacting with adults without being interrupted every 30 seconds.

I have been having to get used to the new waves of guilt that come with the starting of school. There’s the obvious stuff like ‘am I spending enough time on their homework/reading?’ but there’s also ones I hadn’t expected – like when it’s a mufti day for cakes and you pass other mothers on the school run carrying wonderful, well-decorated, fully-fluffy homemade creations as I shuffle past with a pack of shop-bought plain cupcakes that I’ve only just remembered to get. I feel guilty for not going in to read with the class like other mothers. I feel guilty if they’re not doing enough after school activities – surely they should be going to cubs? Or Beavers or Badgers or whatever it is? Surely you can’t have a proper childhood without being a Badger? I feel guilty every time I miss taking them to a swimming lesson – a swimming lesson that involves me driving half an hour, getting them changed in over-crowded, sauna-like changing rooms and then repeating in reverse after half an hour. But sometimes I just can’t face it.

Not too long ago, after being at home for a few years, I was driving over to my mother-in-laws with my two boys. It was an inset day, I think. I explained that their cousin, let’s call her Ella, would be there.

“Oh, and will Auntie Jane be there too?” my eldest asked.

“No, not today, she’s working,” I said.

“What?!” he replied, shocked, “I did not know that ladies worked too.”

Great! So now I had guilt for not working, in place of my guilt for working and in addition to my guilt for being a less-than-perfect stay-at-home mum.

I’ve been told that this guilt – this endless, all-encompassing, multi-faceted guilt - never goes away. In one form or another, you will always feel guilty about something to do with your children, even when they’re all grown up – I guess that’s when you can look back and wonder if the therapy they’re now having really is because you never played them classical music when they were in utero. I’m going back to work again soon, and despite my eldest’s concern about who will look after him, I feel pretty good about the decision. If I don’t go back to work, although they’d have a mother who is at home, she may well end up an alcoholic, depressive one and I’m pretty sure that would be a worse experience than having to go to after-school club for an hour two days a week.

I know I’ve got a lot worse to come – I can’t even imagine when exams and grades and actual important decisions, other than to go to Beavers or not, come into play. I’m trying to prepare. I’m learning to take things as they come, to fight the natural inclination to compare myself to other mothers and to congratulate myself, every now and then, on having come this far with all of us in one piece.  Turns out not going to every faddy baby-class going and not being fed organic, home-mashed mush doesn’t have a life-altering impact on your children after all. At least it hasn’t yet…