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To make a long story short

23rd June 2009 by Helena 8 Comments  

One of the things I did when I was in England recently was visit the home-shopping channel QVC. Their American office contacted me a while ago and asked me to take part in a promotion for lipsticks and glosses, because the marketing director had read and really liked Two Lipsticks and a Lover.
The plan is that I will write a short story and it will be sold as part of a special promotional package containing lipsticks and glosses. This is very exciting. The idea that I am going to be paid to write a short story makes me feel like I a really grown-up writer. The title I have been given is Two Lipsticks and a Lovely Gloss. Now I just have to work out what to write.

The film maker Jean-Luc Godard said that “a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” I have been reading short stories for inspiration. F Scott Fitzgerald is a master. His story A Diamond as big as the Ritz is just brilliant. Then there is Chekov of course. But neither of them are big on lipglossses. Actually my favourite short story of all time is by Edith Wharton. It is called Roman Fever. If you haven’t read it then do.

roman-fever.jpg

But as I keep quoting (from the iconic film Muriel’s Wedding) “you’ve got to find your level”. I am not up to the level of those three. But I can at least have a beginning, a middle and an end. And if the readers don’t like the order, they can console themselves with the lip glosses.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: blog -->, writing Tagged With: short, story

8 thoughts on To make a long story short

  • snusmormor says:
    23rd June 2009 at 10:10 am

    Another great short story writer who just might at least have written about lips, is Dorothy Parker.

  • Elisabeth Loesch says:
    23rd June 2009 at 12:45 pm

    And loved to be paid for it too. “The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.” is one of the many quips from Dorothy Parker.

  • helena says:
    23rd June 2009 at 6:34 pm

    Thanks for reminding me you two, she is one of my all-time favourites.
    Hx

  • Jo says:
    28th June 2009 at 7:02 pm

    Perfect way to merge art and commerce. Fay Weldon also did a wonderful job with The Bulgari Connection, a funny and glamourous novel which had a commercial tie-in with Bulgari jewellers.

    (I once heard Fay Weldon speak and she told how her young children would run in and interrupt her while she was working. She would send them away and as they went out complaining she would scold them saying “I gave you life. What more do you want?”)

  • helena says:
    29th June 2009 at 6:55 am

    I LOVE this quote – am going to use it from now on….very funny x

  • Chloe says:
    29th June 2009 at 12:17 pm

    Helena; I love that you are a Brit, living in France and that you have quoted Muriel’s Wedding! Doesn’t get more Aussie than that…

  • mimi says:
    6th July 2009 at 11:58 pm

    Congrats on the short story deal, I look forward to reading it , I must make a note of that shopping channel.
    Your blog writing is so good to read that I’m sure you’ll come up with the perfect story, just give it time. (I know nothing about writing, have only ever tried those “morning pages” recommended by Julia Cameron in “The Artist’s Way”)
    It must be exciting for you!

  • guess says:
    17th November 2017 at 1:32 am

    I cօuld not refrain from cօmmentіng. Very well written!

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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