Nicky Pellegrino's Blog
November 25, 2015
Clutter
Life is so cluttered isn't it? As an author I'm meant to be promoting myself on Facebook, Instagram and twitter etc, keeping my website up-to-date, blogging here, there and everywhere....oh and also write a book.
Well I may not have been that great at the self-promotion of late but I have written something. My new novel Under Italian Skies is out in April. It's about a woman who gets completely involved in someone else's life. Oh yes and it's about food, friendship, happiness, change and all the other themes I find myself returning to.
People often tell me I'm prolific but the truth is I spend a lot of time in my writing hut and there are days when I write and delete the same paragraph for hours. In fact during the creation of Under Italian Skies the delete key fell off my laptop!
And I have to shut out the clutter, ban myself from Facebook, not answer my phone, and submerge myself in the world of my story or else it doesn't work. I used to turn off my Internet connection and leave my phones in the house but then one day a cyclone passed by really close and I didn't notice until I looked up and saw bits of people's roof insulation all over my lawn so now I stay loosely connected to the world just in case!
But the clutter; it hurts my head and it exhausts me. And it only seems to be increasing. To sit down in a peaceful place with a really good book and plenty of time to enjoy it seems such a luxury.
Well I may not have been that great at the self-promotion of late but I have written something. My new novel Under Italian Skies is out in April. It's about a woman who gets completely involved in someone else's life. Oh yes and it's about food, friendship, happiness, change and all the other themes I find myself returning to.
People often tell me I'm prolific but the truth is I spend a lot of time in my writing hut and there are days when I write and delete the same paragraph for hours. In fact during the creation of Under Italian Skies the delete key fell off my laptop!
And I have to shut out the clutter, ban myself from Facebook, not answer my phone, and submerge myself in the world of my story or else it doesn't work. I used to turn off my Internet connection and leave my phones in the house but then one day a cyclone passed by really close and I didn't notice until I looked up and saw bits of people's roof insulation all over my lawn so now I stay loosely connected to the world just in case!
But the clutter; it hurts my head and it exhausts me. And it only seems to be increasing. To sit down in a peaceful place with a really good book and plenty of time to enjoy it seems such a luxury.
January 15, 2015
goodbye & hello
It's a bittersweet feeling finishing a novel. In one way it's a relief to have every last comma inserted in the correct place and every sentence polished to as high a shine as I can manage. But it's sad to say goodbye to the characters I've spent so much time with. After a year of thinking about them pretty much obsessively they always seem real to me.
In my new novel, One Summer In Venice (coming April/May), there's a character I'm struggling to let go. Her name is Coco and she's fabulous. In fact, I wouldn't mind being her when I grow up. She dresses beautifully and behaves badly and gets away with it. Oh and she's quite old - because why should young people have all the fun?
Sometimes my characters force their way back into future books. That's happened with this one. If you've The Villa Girls or The Italian Wedding you'll recognise Addolorata. She's a colourful, spiky sort of person and I've always thought she deserved a book of her own.
Of course you don't have to have read those other novels to enjoy this one. It's not a sequel at all. But I always used to like the way the late Maeve Binchy had characters who cropped up again and again in her stories. If you remembered them then it was like meeting old friends. If you had forgotten them, it didn't matter.
One Summer In Venice is out of my grasp now. It isn't really my novel anymore. It's heading out into the world, with Coco and Addolorata at its helm, and will become different things for different people. All I can hope is that they enjoy reading it as much as I (mostly) did writing it.
In my new novel, One Summer In Venice (coming April/May), there's a character I'm struggling to let go. Her name is Coco and she's fabulous. In fact, I wouldn't mind being her when I grow up. She dresses beautifully and behaves badly and gets away with it. Oh and she's quite old - because why should young people have all the fun?
Sometimes my characters force their way back into future books. That's happened with this one. If you've The Villa Girls or The Italian Wedding you'll recognise Addolorata. She's a colourful, spiky sort of person and I've always thought she deserved a book of her own.
Of course you don't have to have read those other novels to enjoy this one. It's not a sequel at all. But I always used to like the way the late Maeve Binchy had characters who cropped up again and again in her stories. If you remembered them then it was like meeting old friends. If you had forgotten them, it didn't matter.
One Summer In Venice is out of my grasp now. It isn't really my novel anymore. It's heading out into the world, with Coco and Addolorata at its helm, and will become different things for different people. All I can hope is that they enjoy reading it as much as I (mostly) did writing it.
July 27, 2014
Why I'm scared right now
A couple of weeks ago I hit the send button and the manuscript of my latest book went winging its way electronically from me in Auckland, New Zealand to my editor in London, England. Since then I've been living with a constant low hum of fear. You see I'm not one of those novelists who shows their work in progress to other people. I don't belong to a writer's group and read passages aloud. I certainly don't let my husband read it (the man's favourite book is the Highway Code which he often quotes from at length usually when I'm driving).
Nope I spend about a year working in total isolation. My characters and the plot follow me everywhere I go and I think about them whatever I'm doing (hence the issue with my driving). And while I'd like to think I write books that are pleasurable to read they're not always pleasurable to write. I get stuck a lot.
With my last novel The Food Of Love Cookery School I put my characters in a cafe then couldn't seem to make them leave. With the new one I had three entirely different endings in my head and didn't decide on one until the morning I woke up to write it.
And here's the thing, I have no idea if the result of all that mental tussling and frantic typing is any good. I mean really, no idea at all. All I can do is wait for my editor's verdict. This may be my eighth novel but I feel just as freaked out as I did with my first....well wouldn't you be?
Nope I spend about a year working in total isolation. My characters and the plot follow me everywhere I go and I think about them whatever I'm doing (hence the issue with my driving). And while I'd like to think I write books that are pleasurable to read they're not always pleasurable to write. I get stuck a lot.
With my last novel The Food Of Love Cookery School I put my characters in a cafe then couldn't seem to make them leave. With the new one I had three entirely different endings in my head and didn't decide on one until the morning I woke up to write it.
And here's the thing, I have no idea if the result of all that mental tussling and frantic typing is any good. I mean really, no idea at all. All I can do is wait for my editor's verdict. This may be my eighth novel but I feel just as freaked out as I did with my first....well wouldn't you be?
June 5, 2014
hellooooo
I haven't posted anything on Good Reads for a while because I'm trying to finish a novel and I got a bit stuck there for a while because there were three possible endings and I couldn't decide which one to go with.
Sometimes reviewers complain a book is predictable. Well all I can say is they are never predictable when I'm writing them!
Anyway I'm a bit less stuck now and I'm hoping to finish it by the end of June as that's my deadline. And then I'm going to have a massage, and a lot of lunches, and catch up with the friends I haven't seen for ages and ride my horses and possibly even clean my house....although at this stage it may be the dirt that's holding it together so I may rethink that last one.
Sometimes reviewers complain a book is predictable. Well all I can say is they are never predictable when I'm writing them!
Anyway I'm a bit less stuck now and I'm hoping to finish it by the end of June as that's my deadline. And then I'm going to have a massage, and a lot of lunches, and catch up with the friends I haven't seen for ages and ride my horses and possibly even clean my house....although at this stage it may be the dirt that's holding it together so I may rethink that last one.
March 18, 2014
Eating & writing
I love writing and I love eating so over on Facebook I've started a very casual blog called A Hungry Woman where I review food places I've been to lately. Actually the main reason I've done this is that I need to get out more! I'm absorbed in working on my latest novel but I have to escape the laptop to refresh and reboot occasionally. Mostly I'll be writing about Auckland eating spots as that's where I live...but I'm off to Sydney next month with plans to devour a great deal at Neil Perry's Spice Temple and a new hotspot called the Chiswick. So come over to www.facebook.com/ahungrywoman and like me or love me or whatever....
March 11, 2014
Life speeding by...
So this week I went to the dental hygienist. She asked if I had any idea how long it had been since my last visit. Now I knew I'd been on the lam for a while; ignoring appointment cards and phone messages, pretending to be out of the country. But I thought a year, maybe 18 months tops.
Alas no, it turns out 2011 was the last time my teeth had been scraped and polished. 'This may be uncomfortable,' the hygienist warned. All I can say is that her interpretation of the word is quite different to mine. As I lay there, y'know in agony, my mind turned to how fast life seems to be speeding by. And I wondered, is there any way to slow it down?
Actually I can't understand why it's happening. I had thought it was because I've written and published five novels in five years whilst also keeping up a career as a freelance journalist. Sheer routine and hard work has each day slipping seamlessly into the next. I decided to give myself longer to work on my current book. But that hasn't slowed the breakneck speed time seems to be flashing by. If anything the opposite is true. I feel like I'm sprinting just to keep up with myself.
Perhaps people who have lives with constant change, with new people and new places, don't feel this way. Maybe its the sameness of my everyday that's to blame. But since that's not likely to change any time soon there's no way to find out.
So is it possible to slow down time; to make days and weeks last longer? Or is this only get worse?
I'd really love to know!
Alas no, it turns out 2011 was the last time my teeth had been scraped and polished. 'This may be uncomfortable,' the hygienist warned. All I can say is that her interpretation of the word is quite different to mine. As I lay there, y'know in agony, my mind turned to how fast life seems to be speeding by. And I wondered, is there any way to slow it down?
Actually I can't understand why it's happening. I had thought it was because I've written and published five novels in five years whilst also keeping up a career as a freelance journalist. Sheer routine and hard work has each day slipping seamlessly into the next. I decided to give myself longer to work on my current book. But that hasn't slowed the breakneck speed time seems to be flashing by. If anything the opposite is true. I feel like I'm sprinting just to keep up with myself.
Perhaps people who have lives with constant change, with new people and new places, don't feel this way. Maybe its the sameness of my everyday that's to blame. But since that's not likely to change any time soon there's no way to find out.
So is it possible to slow down time; to make days and weeks last longer? Or is this only get worse?
I'd really love to know!
February 25, 2014
No time to read?
I've got no time to read a book people often tell me. And I can see they have a point. What with jobs, family, housework, commitments to friends, exercise schedules....it's all very frazzling and doesn't leave much time to enjoy fiction. Which is exactly why we should.
The other day I got an email via my website from a woman who was in hospital with pregnancy complications. It was a worrying time but she said her husband had bought her one of my novels and it had absorbed her so completely it helped her forget her anxieties for a while (the nice man went and got her two more).
It's not the first a message like that I've received. People have told me my books have helped them through periods of illness, stress at work, emotionally difficult times. They say while reading them they forget about their own lives and feel as if they're there in Italy amongst the characters.
This pleases me because it's exactly what I'm hoping to achieve. But it also proves my point. Nothing is more relaxing or rewarding than reading a good book.
So if you yearn for more time to read here's my advice. First get your hands on the kind of novel you completely, madly love (not a duty read or something dense and challenging if that's not what you feel like). Now let standards slip a bit. Leave those dishes in the sink, let the fly poo stay on the ceilings, hide from your phone, television and computer, pour a glass of something yummy and find a quiet place. And suddenly there it is...time to read.
The other day I got an email via my website from a woman who was in hospital with pregnancy complications. It was a worrying time but she said her husband had bought her one of my novels and it had absorbed her so completely it helped her forget her anxieties for a while (the nice man went and got her two more).
It's not the first a message like that I've received. People have told me my books have helped them through periods of illness, stress at work, emotionally difficult times. They say while reading them they forget about their own lives and feel as if they're there in Italy amongst the characters.
This pleases me because it's exactly what I'm hoping to achieve. But it also proves my point. Nothing is more relaxing or rewarding than reading a good book.
So if you yearn for more time to read here's my advice. First get your hands on the kind of novel you completely, madly love (not a duty read or something dense and challenging if that's not what you feel like). Now let standards slip a bit. Leave those dishes in the sink, let the fly poo stay on the ceilings, hide from your phone, television and computer, pour a glass of something yummy and find a quiet place. And suddenly there it is...time to read.
February 16, 2014
To read or not to read
So last week I interviewed Man Booker prize-winning, super-clever & very lovely author Eleanor Catton for New Zealand Woman's Weekly magazine. One of the things she told me is that she never stops reading a book just because it's bad; only if it's boring. Her reason is that you can still learn stuff from badly written books. While I suspect she's right I have absolutely no tolerance for fiction I don't like. Often I can tell within a few paragraphs whether I'm going to continue. Sometimes it's the style of the prose - I can't be doing with Lionel Shriver's work for instance because she uses too many words (yes that sounds odd but I can't think of another way to describe it). There have been novels I've made it halfway through only to come across a plot twist so unlikely that I've thrown the book across the room in disgust.
The other thing is that I review books for a newspaper called the Herald On Sunday and only have a page a week so I see it as an opportunity to highlight stuff that's worth reading rather than be mean about books that aren't. In my opinion there's too much brilliant literature around to be wasting time and attention on anything that's not.
What do you reckon? Team Eleanor or Team Nicky?
The other thing is that I review books for a newspaper called the Herald On Sunday and only have a page a week so I see it as an opportunity to highlight stuff that's worth reading rather than be mean about books that aren't. In my opinion there's too much brilliant literature around to be wasting time and attention on anything that's not.
What do you reckon? Team Eleanor or Team Nicky?
February 6, 2014
Chick lit?
I ticked the chick lit box when I was asked to name my genre on goodreads but only because I couldn't see any other options. The thing is I'm not sure about the term "chick lit". Not at all. When I interviewed the fabulous Marian Keyes she said she dislikes it because often it's used in sneering way to describe books written by women for women. Jodi Picoult isn't especially keen on it either.
One of my issues is that I'm not a chick myself these days - more of an old boiling fowl. And I don't write "sex & shopping" novels but stories about food, friendship, happiness, family and love. So is it misleading to describe them as chick lit? Is there a better way? Am I over-thinking the whole thing? Whaddaya reckon?
One of my issues is that I'm not a chick myself these days - more of an old boiling fowl. And I don't write "sex & shopping" novels but stories about food, friendship, happiness, family and love. So is it misleading to describe them as chick lit? Is there a better way? Am I over-thinking the whole thing? Whaddaya reckon?
February 4, 2014
Hello!
At long last I've got round to sorting my goodreads page. I can't promise I'll be blogging every five minutes because I'm only a third of the way through the first draft of a novel I'm meant to deliver to my publishers Orion by June (gulp). It's called The Secret Of Happiness Summer and it's set in Venice and is about happiness and the redemptive powers of great clothes and tango....at least I think that's what it's about. You may have noticed that I've only managed to post one book I'm reading so far. I have actually read a few more than that! In fact, I edit the book page of the Herald On Sunday newspaper and often post my reviews over on my other blog at www.nickypellegrino.com so check that out if you're interested. Now and then I also post recipes and info on food adventures I've had. But here I'm just going to say whatever I like. Brace yourselves!
