What next?

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Helena

I know I only just finished the latest novel, but I am thinking about the next one. There are a few options I would love your thoughts on.
Option One: Ciao Bella in novel form, modelled on Bonjour Tristesse, obviously not the same as Ciao Bella, but with similar themes and of course the central character of my Dante-reading, opera-obsessed and womanising father.
Option Two: Another chick-lit, this time with a strong tennis theme. Central characters include Rafa and Roger types but they hate each other, think Jake the gypsy and Rupert Campbell-Black in Riders.
Option Three: A novel based here called The end of Mahara, which is a comment Olivia came up with while describing the coming-of-age of a friend of hers, meaning that for Mahara her carefree childhood days are over now she has to cover herself. Three central characters; one expat wife, one housemaid, and one Emirati whose lives somehow intertwine. Will probably also end up being chick-lit as any fiction I try to write tends to turn into chick-lit.
Or none of the above, suggestions welcome….

The Viva Mayr Diet Part II

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Helena

Here is part two, linked to the publication of the book in Germany. A condensed and easy way to follow the Viva Mayr Diet. Happy chewing!

Viva Mayr Day 8

Eat early: Sometimes it’s really difficult not to eat late but today we are about to discover why it’s much healthier to eat early in the evening. If you cannot avoid a late dinner invitation the trick is to try to concentrate on eating a little and CHEWING. The wonderful side effect is that breakfast will taste even more delicious the next morning.

Viva Mayr Day 9
Why it is so important to drink a lot of water – just not during meals. The good news is that Dr. Stossier does allow you a glass of beer or wine with your meal…

Viva Mayr Day 10
We are to discover how wonderful and helpful it is to massage your stomach yourself. It seems a bit strange in the beginning but after a couple of days you will feel and notice the wonderful benefits…

Viva Mayr Day 11

Stress free eating – eating stress-free can help you to remain healthy and slim. I feel really stressed I eat nothing or try to wait until everything around me has calmed down and I can have a quiet meal. Much better then to wolf down your lunch at your desk while under pressure.

Viva Mayr Day 12

Hello alkaline, goodbye bloating – the importance of maintaining a healthy acid – alkaline balance.In general I eat a more alkaline diet, concentrating on fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and try to avoid chemically processed food such as ready-made meals. Once a month I have a complete alkalizing day. Only drinking broth, herbal teas still water, eating ripe fruits before lunch followed by steamed vegetables. Very important to use only organic veggies and fruit.

Viva Mayr Day 13

Looking and feeling younger (looking after your skin) – there is a lot we can do, for example avoiding smoking and that evil stuff sugar. Antioxidants are very important to protect your cells, I love almonds, avocados, porridge, sunflower seeds, pumpkinseed oil and so on…

Viva Mayr Day 14

The Viva Mayr way and you. How to assess your health and well being from top to toe. Make sure you stay on the Viva track. Viva changed my life – even though I don’t always follow all the guidelines religiously, I never eat anything raw after 4pm, I drink gallons of water and always use cold pressed omega 3 oil such as hempseed, linseed or olive oil. And of course I CHEW…..good luck!

The Viva Mayr Diet

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Helena

I am here in Munich to promote the publication in German of the Viva Mayr Diet book. But for you lucky followers here (!) they have a condensed English version you can follow day by day, for 14 days, starting tomorrow. Go for it…

Are you ready to change your life and how you eat and approach your cooking?
Tomorrow we will begin with the 14 day Viva Programme. Please join us! We are going to explain one Mayr principle a day and we are really curious to find out what you think and hear your comments and experiences.

Tell us what you would like to achieve your dreams your goals …..

18th 1st VIVA DAY

Today we start with the new Viva regime! Get ready for the 14 day Programme – get into the right mindset or mood. Perhaps you would like to write down what you wish to achieve, for example…..

Lose weight
Have a flatter stomach
Improve sleep
Perhaps you would like to tell us more about the goals you want to achieve.
Perhaps you would like to start to bake the spelt bread – so that you can start with tone of the most important rules of the Modern Mayr Philosophy chew, chew, chew……

… at the end of the 14 sections you will feel slimmer, healthier, look and feel better than ever before…………

19th 2nd VIVA DAY

Good health starts with good shopping – today we go food shopping
Concentrate on buying good quality organic products – essential from now on, tell us about your favourite new food and tell us which food might make you weak, or is difficult to avoid!
Say goodbye to doughnuts, biscuits, chocolate and cocktails – no more sugar that evil stuff

20th 3rd VIVA DAY

You will discover how important it is to chew every bite between 30 – 50 times!!
Do you have your spelt bread ready?
It is difficult in the beginning, the bread is not very tasty – but you get so used to it and even enjoy the taste of the spelt bread as well as enjoying the benefits of feeling fuller much quicker…Other wheat free bread options are allowed. Or look up a spelt bread recipe online.

21th 4th VIVA DAY

Be more active – move more ………have more fun … enjoy being active… start exercising every second or third day….
Exercise is essential for your mood digestion health weight and general health.

22th 5th VIVA DAY

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a prince
And dine like a pauper

I used to make the mistake to skip breakfast – aiming to lose weight, never worked. Even though I have three children and mornings can be very hectic I always make space for myself and the family to concentrate on a good healthy filling breakfast…..

23rd 6th VIVA DAY

Nothing raw after 4pm.
It is very difficult to skip the healthy salad habit in the evening but it all makes so much sense…..your body is just too tired to digest raw food after 4pm.

24th 7th VIVA DAY

When was the last time you have been really hungry? We all eat to much. Try to stop eating BEFORE you feel full
I love pasta – and loved to have three extra helping although I was already full… today I eat much smaller portions and can function much better…

Viva Half Time. The first week is behind you! More next week….

What should I write?

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Helena

Two bits of news before I get on to the main topic of the day. One everyone in my book club HATED the AS Byatt book and no one had read it, bar one poor newbie who felt compelled to plough through it because it was her first time. The next book is one I have picked called Before I Go To Sleep. It is the debut novel of a man called SJ Watson, and a thriller (something I usually would never read) but really extremely original and clever. My only worry is that the other ladies will slate it, they are a tough crowd. Lucky for the woman who picked the Byatt book she’s already left the country to move back to the UK, I’m not sue she would have got out of there unscathed.

Some very good news now. I spoke to my father, who sounded so much better. It was so great to hear his old self (almost), his wit and intelligence coming through for the first time in months, it’s a minor miracle really, to have recovered to some extent at the age of 87 (it was his birthday last week). It was really lovely to talk to him and I hope to be able to see him in January, once ticket prices are sensible again.

The main topic of the day is writing. I found the AS Byatt unreadable, and wonder how she was able to keep going while writing it. I am at a bit of a standstill on my novel, I wouldn’t call it writer’s block, but for some reason, the final 20,000 words just aren’t flowing as easily as the first 60,000. I have always really enjoyed the process of writing, and I think that is the key to writing something someone wants to read. You need to be having fun, or it won’t be fun to read. I can’t imagine Ms Byatt was having fun when she wrote all those historical facts that she thought we needed for some reason, and they certainly weren’t fun to read.

At the moment, it doesn’t feel like fun. But I am hoping that this setback is in the main because I have had no time to get a rhythm going. I think writing is a bit like tennis. If you are playing against someone who stops you settling into your rhythm, you lose. I have had about three hours free in the past two weeks to write, so maybe it’s not surprising that I am find myself lacking in inspiration.

Soon I will be on holiday, which means I can be more focused. Having said that, the children will be on holiday too….But I will remember the two best bits of writing advice I was ever given. One by a friend called Jonathan Miller, who used to be Media Editor at the Sunday Times and (more significantly) is Olivia’s Godfather: “If it doesn’t write itself, it’s not worth writing.”

The second piece of advice is of course from my mentor, my dear father. I remember when he first told me to write a short story. I was about 13 years old.

“What should I write?” I asked him.

“Write the most extravagant thing that comes into your head,” he told me.

Which is what I will do….as soon as I have some time.

What makes a good book?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Helena

I have now been a member of a book club for a few months. Not just the one I set up on my own, which has floundered slightly as we are all so busy, but one run by a Sheikha here in Abu Dhabi. We meet every month or so to discuss books at her palace. We sit in an elaborately decorated room while uniformed women bring us tea and chocolates.
The latest book is by AS Byatt and is called The Children’s Book. I am on page 110 and cannot really face going any further. The only reason I have got this far is that a great friend, whose opinion I respect, told me she loved it and I just had to be patient and I would get into it.

I know as the writer of frivolous books (my husband doesn’t call me Helena Froth Powell for nothing) I am bound to say this, but what is the point of a book that you have to struggle to get into? Some might argue that the reward is a deeper novel, one with more insight. Does anyone struggle to get into The Great Gatsby? Or Jane Eyre? I don’t think so.
At the same time as the Byatt book I have been reading Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia. The difference could not be more obvious. While Byatt’s prose is turgid, faux-brow and laborious, Chatwin excells in the art of the simple, incisive sentence.

I can see what Byatt is trying to achieve with her convoluted layered sentences, evoking the mines beneath the core of the story and the dank atmosphere of Edwardian England, but do they make for good reading? No. Here is the opening line: “The boys stood in the Prince Consort Gallery and looked down on a third. It was June 19th 1895. The Prince had died in 1861, and had seen only the beginnings of his ambitious project for a gathering of museums in which British craftsmen could study the best examples of design.” Make you want to read on? Me neither.
Chatwin on the other hand begins In Patagonia like this: “In my grandmother’s dining room there was a glass-fronted cabinet and in the cabinet a piece of skin. It was a small piece only, but thick and leathery, with strands of coarse, reddish hair.” Immediately we want to know what this rather disgusting object is, and why it is interesting enough to open a book with. My favourite sentence so far is this one, which I think is one of the most perfect things I have ever read:
“The day before I had met the nuns of the Santa Maria Auxiliadora Convent on their Saturday coach outing to the penguin colony on Cabo Virgenes. A bus-load of virgins. Eleven thousand virgins. About a million penguins. Black and white. Black and white. Black and white.”

Sublime. In other news, my father has been awarded a literary prize for a play he wrote. I have not been able to speak to him yet, but am sure the news has cheered him up immensely. And I assume, knowing him as I do, that the writing was more like Chatwin than Byatt. At least I hope it was, or I may not be able to read it…In fact as it’s in Italian, I may not be able to read it anyway.

A good book

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Helena

I am almost at the end of the most brilliant book called Persepolis by an Iranian woman called Marjane Satrapi.I know it’s not new and everyone else has probably already read it, but it has really brought home to me several things.
First, the joy of a good book. I woke up at 5.30 this morning and very quietly reached for it, there was just enough light to make out the words and the droll pictures (it is a comic book).

Second, it is the first time I have really understood what it must be like to live under an oppressive and hideous regime. Even though the Arab Spring is going on all around me, I have never really imagined what it means to families like ours, never been able to relate to it on a personal level. These are things that happen to other people. But Satrapi is so easy to relate to and so similar to people I know on so many levels that you feel the sheer injustice, stupidity and hypocrisy of the events around her almost as if they are happening to you. She writes and draws with such humour that you are totally captivated, as well as being shocked and disturbed by the story.
The other day I tried to explain to Olivia what the Arab Spring is. As someone who never does what she’s told, she found it inconceivable that whole nations live doing just that, with little or no personal freedom. It was tough to get through to her. “Why do they put up with it?” she asked. “Why don’t they just tell them to shut up.”
I think I will give her Persepolis to read, and I hope she relates to it as much as I have. Not just because I want her to understand oppression and injustice and political freedom and human rights. But because I want her to know what it feels like to really enjoy a good book.

A review in today’s Daily Mail

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Helena

Here it is, my first review in a national newspaper, under the heading Chick-Lit.

Some may not like being labelled a chick-lit author, but for me, it is actually a bit of a dream come true. A few days ago I got an email from someone who has known me since I was a teenager saying he had read the book and liked it, and was proud that I had achieved what I told him I wanted to do many years ago while sitting on a hill somewhere in Yorkshire. “You won’t remember it, but I do,” he wrote. “You told me you wanted to write romantic novels.”
I do remember, I also remember telling anyone who would listen that I wanted to be the new Jilly Cooper. There’s still a long way to go but this is a good start.

I’m especially thrilled as my agent sacked me for my fiction work, saying she didn’t think I would ever be good enough at it. To hear that character, setting and dialogue are all “spot on” from someone who reviews books for a living has meant a lot. I still like my agent, mind you, even though she clearly has no taste! And I do have her to thank for the plot idea.

I was so nervous when I saw it was in I made Rupert and Leo come and read it with me. Just as there is nothing as soul destroying as a bad review, there is nothing as uplifting as a good one. “I’m so proud of you mummy,” said Leo, bless him. But makes a change that it’s that way round. I am posting it here so that next time I get a nasty Amazon review I can just come back and read this one to console myself.

CHICK LIT

By Sara Lawrence

LOVE IN A WARM CLIMATE BY HELENA FRITH-POWELL (Gibson Square £7.99)

Not long after she’s uprooted her family from England to France to start a new life making wine, married mother-of-three Sophie Reed is horrified to find a bra in her husband’s weekend bag.

It’s not his and it’s definitely not hers: it’s far too small and lacy for that.

Nope, the bra belongs to a French woman called Cecile, the new object of her betrothed’s affection, and Sophie must decide whether to abandon her vines and move back home or stay put and give her dreams of becoming a wine maker a chance.

In the ensuing struggle to make things work she embraces yoga, her inner French woman and two exciting new love interests. Thoughtful observations about the differences between the French and English approach to relationships pepper the narrative, providing an interesting backdrop to the various choices Sophie must make.

I loved all the yoga bits, too, and can personally vouch for Sophie’s praise regarding its toning abilities. Helpfully, there’s a handy guide at the end if you’re keen to try out a few sun salutations of your own.

Sophie is an engaging protagonist, the characterisation, dialogue and setting spot on and there are a lot of funny bits. I enjoyed it.

The future of journalism?

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Helena

I think I might be in the wrong business.

Last week I was approached by a charming young lady from the Guardian, asking me to write an article about the Languedoc (the region where our house is in the south of France). “We can’t pay you,” she explained. “But we can plug your blog or book or whatever.”

This is not some student rag we’re talking about, or a charity magazine or even a little-known website. This is one of the UK’s leading daily newspapers. And a broadsheet at that. What is going on?And where does it end? What happens if you don’t happen to be a desperate novelist with a book to plug? Do you just write the article anyway for the thrill of seeing your name in print? And where does it end? Are we soon going to have to pay newspapers to print our stories? Are we going to have to pay publishers to publish our books? And reluctant readers to buy them?

Is this the future of journalism? Oh, well, if I can get my blog plugged I might at least stand a chance of making some money…..

I’m in the money

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Helena

Well, not really, but for the first time since I started this blog in November 2006 someone has paid to advertise on it. And I still have to set up the PayPal account to actually get the money, but I feel this is a bit of a breakthrough.

Rupes will be most impressed. he has been complaining that the books and the blog are a “luxury”, because they don’t really make any money. The other day he showed me a brilliant cartoon from the New Yorker with a man telling his agent he wants to write a book.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says the agent. “If you really want $800 that badly, I’ll just give it to you.”

I think though that for books (and the blog) money is not really the point. I am already thinking about the next novel, in fact I have started it, and I am thinking about characters, plot-lines, themes, names and so on. The one thing I am not thinking about is money. Or lack of it.

I have also been given a bit of a helping hand with the new novel as my first love showed up in Abu Dhabi this week. Regular blog readers will know him as Heathcliff. I first met him when I was a teenager and was madly in love with him (unrequited, nach) for too many years. Obviously this theme has been done before, look at the hugely successful novel One Day, for example or Turgenev’s novella First Love. But as my father says: “There is nothing original since God said ‘let there be light’”. So watch this space.

Am looking for a good title if anyone has any ideas, just don’t expect to be paid….

Book Club Abu Dhabi style

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Helena

I flew back here yesterday and almost immediately had to go to a meeting of my book club, not the one I created, but one I was asked to join just a week ago.

The book under discussion was We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. This is a book that had sold over one million copies, been translated into just about every language you’ve ever heard of and is about to become a film starring Tilda Swinton.

There were two key differences between this meeting and most other book club meetings; one it was at a palace and two, the author was there. Lionel Shriver herself showed up and talked to us about her life, her books, the writing process and much more for over an hour. Amazing.

She seemed really nice; very expressive and fun, and clever (as you would expect). I was longing to ask her all kinds of detailed questions about writing, plotting, character and so forth. I remember being in such awe when I read ‘Kevin’ and thinking I will never be able to write a book like that. She did say she had the whole plot worked out before she began. I was still deciding the ending of my book when I wrote it.

London was great; I was on TV (The Vanessa Show, March 11th, if anyone can be bothered to do so, please upload it to Youtube so my poor deprived children can watch it, we can’t access it from here), lots of radio shows and today there was a gossip piece in the Independent on Sunday today. The book had sold out at Waterstone’s on the King’s Road the second day I was there which was very exciting. We will know latest sales figures tomorrow.

It was great to see everyone and London was sunny – which is probably even more unusual than a best-selling author showing up at your book club.