promo poster for privilege
trippy finale of a freaky film
the mini mod-movies film festival continues, this time with the 1967 movie, privilege. i wasn’t sure what to expect from this cult film that is best known in fashion circles as sixties’ mega-model jean shrimpton’s one-and-only film role. naturally, shrimpton looks fabulous as vanessa, an aloof artist with an equally fabulous wardrobe of mini-dresses and gowns, and it’s not hard to believe her as the girlfriend of steven shorter, a british pop star played by paul jones.
a manufactured star with an image completely calculated by his handlers, steven shorter represents rebellion and individuality, and has legions of young female fans. but when his record label and manager hatch a devious plan to swap that image for one of conformity and christianity, steven truly rebels.
sound weird? it is.
director peter watkins pulls out all the trippy tricks so popular in sixties’ art cinema in this (very) dark comedy that is clearly intended as a comment of the culture of fame. for the most part, watkins succeeds. of particular note are the scenes where steven shorter films a commercial promoting apples, complete with extras dressed in fruit costumes, and the meetings his handlers take with clergy leaders to plan shorter’s promotion of christianity to british youth. but perhaps the most poignant aspect of privilege is the fact that not much has changed in the culture that it sends up: pop stars are still manufactured, models want to act and jean shrimpton (with her bangs and lean mini-skirted style) looks as though she just stepped out of the pages of the current issue of vogue and that alone makes it worth renting.
poster for smashing time
lynn redgrave & rita tushingham
so, my family finally signed up for a subscription to zip.ca, which is the canadian equivalent of netflix and the timing couldn’t have been better. last week, our long-time local video store closed with no warning and i’d rather not use blockbuster. in any case, zip.ca is wonderful and now i have the opportunity to watch all the mod films that were proving impossible to find locally. first up, of course, was smashing time (dir. desmond davis, 1967), the kooky mod movie known for its accurate depiction of london’s most fashionable streets in the mid-sixties. but this is no documentary — far from it. smashing time follows two young women, brenda and yvonne, who have come to london to seek fame and fortune. ditsy yvonne (played be the late lynn-redgrave) is the more ambitious of the two and will do almost anything to get ahead. rita tushingham’s brenda is the straight-girl, smart and looking out for her friend.
redgrave and tushingham are hilarious and delightful to watch as they send up the fashion and pop music world of the time. and michael york’s tabloid photographer character, tom wabe, shows us that the paparazzi then are just as nasty as they are now. a mix between satire and silly british farce, smashing time, is a mod must-see (if you can find it). now i want to get my hands on a copy of the soundtrack, featuring tushingham and redgrave warbling awesome songs like “new clothes” and “waiting for my friend.” i’m on the hunt for a copy of the lp to play at parties this summer. it’s definitely an album that will have a crowd asking, “what the hell?”
so much for the self-publishing thing. after much thought, i decided this: the mod girls will be a trilogy (with certain houses, this actually makes it easier to sell, believe it or not, though with others it can be a disadvantage) and i’m going to go the conventional publishing route. i’ve also written synopses of two potential sequels and a market viability brief that will accompany the manuscript, which is basically a run-down of the whole rise of diy culture, though if an editor doesn’t already know that exists, it’s a pretty clear sign — to me at least — that they aren’t the best match for me or the book, i mean, series.
it’s so strange, this idea of writing the same character over three novels, and it’s something i didn’t think i’d ever do, but it’s sort of exciting because i get to follow the lovely penny into her early-twenties and chronicle all the things that go with that time in life. i’ve also discovered an unexpected and unintentional through-line that i’ll stick with for all three books: it’s all about first times. in the mod girls, penny is not a virgin, but she does have sex with her first “real” boyfriend, she has serious conflict with a friend she thought she’d be close with forever, she also visits manhattan for the first time, and she meets someone who has a parent who’s dying. there are more firsts, but that would give too much away….
cover mock-up designed by travis reynolds
this is what i know about writing a blog about writing: if i am actually really in the writing, i can’t write the blog — all my focus has to be on the book. so there you go —lesson learned. i finished the first draft of the book two days ago and now, after the initial relief and celebration followed by the requisite 14-hour sleep, i can get back to writing about the writing.
the mod girls was a different experience, process-wise, than my previous books. i wrote my first two novels at a very fast pace, the first in six weeks, the second in four. the third, on the other hand, took forever, and the mod girls is somewhere in between. i think because the characters are so young and far less mentally tortured than those i wrote beforehand, i wasn’t so quick to banish them from my head. writing first-person and putting myself in the mindset of a character who is having a breakdown, struggling with mental illness or facing an unexpected pregnancy and an equally uncertain future is not the most pleasant experience and i’m often eager to push them out of my head, and therefore write very fast. the mod girls was started during the writing of my third novel last year, when i was struggling with the central character and on the verge of losing my enthusiasm for writing altogether (i did, however, get that enthusiasm back!). penny, although her problems are taken very seriously by her, is eighteen and void of cynicism. she’s not toting around a lot of baggage and her life is full of opportunity and promise. i surprised myself by falling right into the character with no hesitation and proved that i could not only write material that was lighter, nostalgic and almost PG, but that i could like it.
in fact, i miss her already, which has brought up another question i didn’t think i’d ever face: do i want to write another? the book ends with a new beginning, something my financé recently pointed out is a common thread in all of the fiction i write. i’d love to pick up where the mod girls leaves off, maybe drop them off in the uk in the summer of 1985 and let them discover for themselves that england is not the mod fantasy playground they imagined. towards the end of the first draft of the mod girls, i started to keep notes about what might happen after that last word was written, what could be in store for the characters — something i’ve never done before.
i’m hardly saying i’m going to stop writing my darker, more adult fiction — not at all: i have a new novel i’m planning to start this fall. i could, however, write a mod girls book and another one in a year. being prolific is great in a way, but doesn’t fit into the model the publishing industry has set up, genre fiction excepted. no one is going to publish two novels by the same writer in a single year, unless the books fall into very different categories. for example, i could write an adult novel and a non-fiction book and that would be fine. or i could write an adult novel and a young adult one, which may be the direction to take the mod girls, though it was written as a story for myself and people like me, who were teenagers in the 1980s and loved vintage and sewing and poking around thrift shops. if the mod girls was placed with a YA publisher then i could still write another filthy, angst-ridden “grown-up” book in the same year.we’ll see. there’s a lot to think about at the end of a book, and this time i’m not even sure i want to go through the conventional publishing system. it takes so long and with the rise of the diy/etsy.com/crafting culture, the mod girls is quite timely. even if the manuscript was sold today, the book probably wouldn’t hit shelves until 2012 at the earliest. so i’m thinking of self-publishing, something so many writers are turning to today as the resources at publishing houses continue to shrivel, stretching editors and marketing teams everywhere way too thin. i think the mod girls would be a wonderful book to market online and through the vintage community, something a big house would not likely do. out of curiosity, i got a quote from one of the big print-on-demand publishers (which happens to be in the city where i live so there’s no customs brokerage fees, duties or shipping charges, which is where you get killed ordering from lulu.com or other similar american services). i was shocked at how little it would cost, and that i’d only have to sell 1,500 to 2,000 copies to make a similar amount i would likely receive as an advance from a publishing house. it’s all very tempting, and after discussing it with a graphic designer friend, we came up with a cover concept: the cover(s) would look like old sewing pattern envelopes. i think this would be awesome and perfect for a series if there were to be more than one book. it’s distinct and conveys a lot of information about the book with one image. what i’ve posted here is just a mock-up, but the general idea is there.
like i said, there’s a lot to think about. i have a rewrite on another novel to finish up in the next month. after that, i’ll have plenty of time to ponder, as i’m taking the summer and early fall to concentrate on two new photographic series (a second installment of my bestia parvulus animal child images shot in and around the alberta badlands and a photo-adaptation of little red riding hood) and create a commercial campaign for a fabulous high-end children’s wear label in new york.
i’ll surely continue to miss penny and jen and even though i won’t likely be writing, it couldn’t hurt to dig around and do some more research in case a second installment is something i decide to do. to that end, i’ll continue to post. there is a tonne of research material i used that i haven’t had the chance to post about, so i’ll start with that, though today i’m going to stay in my pajamas and avoid the freakishly miserable weather outside. maybe i’ll even read someone else’s book, something i haven’t done for pleasure in ages.
flower power cotton
vintage fabrics purchased at charleston outlet thrift shop in las vegas, nv
though we’ve had an unusually warm winter here, it was a treat to have a little burst of summer on a trip to nevada. it was supposed to be a vacation, but as any writer will tell you, there are no real breaks from the job. in las vegas, we met up with shahab zargari of gc records to talk writing, and one day when walking through the enormous mgm grand, i was struck with an idea that will work wonderfully for invisible, the novel i’ll write this fall. i am, in fact, going to set it in las vegas, city of extremes, which makes perfect sense for the characters and plot.
these little breakthrough moments are what often give me the motivation to move forward, and to stoke my love for the job and the process (and spending time in the nevada’s stunning valley of fire state park doesn’t hurt either).
but back to the mod girls — literally. i’m back at the manuscript again and gearing up for a writing blitz over the next couple of weeks while my boyfriend attends a conference in lisbon, portugal. with the two of us in one house writing (me on my novels, he on his phd thesis), we have to negotiate time and space. all writers have their rituals and somehow we have to make ours mesh. it works well most of the time, but i still get more words written when i’m completely alone: no child, no boyfriend, the phone unplugged and no tv.
i’m into the second act now, and to refresh myself with the tone, yesterday i re-read what i’d already written. i was struck as to how different it is from my other work, a fact that both excites and terrifies me. the story is so gentle, in a way, with very little profanity, sex, or cynicism. the pace isn’t manic like my previous work, and so much of the story is told through the making of clothes and the evolution of the characters’ personal style.
with the rise of sites like etsy (and dawanda in europe), films and books like handmade nation, i think there is room for a novel that captures the diy spirit and the rush of pride felt when you make something yourself, whether you wear it, sell it or give it as a gift. the mod girls is also about process, and process is something writers know well and often like to talk about.
to that end, i had a great chat the other day with the charming austin, tx designer and writer, sunny haralson (check out her rubypearl clothing line and excerpts from her memoir, beauty tips for the bereaved). we talked a lot about getting stuck (not blocked, just stuck) and losing perspective on your own work. it happens to everyone, with every project. it’s the point where you’re paralyzed and can’t seem to move forward, unsure of what’s best for the story, the characters and yourself as the writer. i find this usually comes when i start thinking about markets and readers and what the cover might look like, what the reviews might say. we all have different ways of jolting ourselves out of this state, refocusing and seeing the work in a fresh way, and we tend to swap tips like other people swap recipes.
the desert heat, a heavy dose of vegas retro kitsch, and talking shop with like-minded writers will do wonders for a girl on the verge of a writing blitz.