Category Archives: Inspirations

Go on, judge a book by its cover

11 Monday Dec 2017

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We all do it. I’ve bought books on the strength of a good title and gorgeous cover alone – of course I have. But the content has to deliver on its promise as well.

I have an idea of how I want my books to look when I’m writing them because I’m quite visual. I was dreaming about this new one long before I finished it. So when HarperCollins asked me to come up with a few suggestions, I jumped at the opportunity.

You might remember I wrote a post about the mood board and process I went through for Precious Things here. This book has a completely different vibe. It’s lighter and less anxious (as I was saying here). It’s very girly and gossipy and younger in feel (not just the characters, but the subject matter as well – less about a mid-life course correction and more about a mid-to-late twenties meltdown (which is kind of hilarious and a rite of passage… I’ve been there).

I loved the look HCP came up with for Precious Things; the title and the font and (ego speaking here) my name glowing in large gold font… But I’m not sure it’s right for novel two. Here’s how I briefed the cover concept for my new book:

“Catherine,” I said to my publisher, “can we make it more frothy, please… Can it be pink? Or baby blue?”

You might think I’m being horribly reductive here, but here’s some of my favourite books. Take a look at the covers. I’d be honoured to be considered in the same league with any of these authors. So I’m pushing for pink, I’m pushing for illustrations, and I’m pushing for whimsical font and a picture of a dress or a handbag or a couple of champagne flutes.

I’ll let you know how I go, but fingers crossed I haven’t completely missed the mark.

Because I wrote this book to provide comfort. It’s not literary with a capital ‘L’. It’s not going to win any awards and it’s not going to change the world, but it might just give someone a pleasant afternoon or two, and a place to escape to when life seems a bit ‘meh’. Pink says that in spades. And I love those reads myself. Books about friendship and fashion and worrying you’re a bit of a lightweight. This next novel, in particular, is about coming home with your tail between your legs, licking your wounds and then brushing yourself off to start again. My heroine – Sylvie, her name is – is the poster child for that.

So, Sylvie, here’s to you. I hope you end up pretty in pink.

*Artist Jeff Delgado created this magnificent artwork exclusively for Fandango capturing Andie and Duckie in their triumphant moment at the prom.

 

 

 

Tackling that second novel

27 Monday Nov 2017

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cecil-beaton-miss-nancy-beaton_0

Famous photograph of Nancy Beaton, taken by Cecil Beaton in 1929

Sigh. Of. Relief. The second novel’s been handed in – about a month ago, actually – and I feel lighter already. Not quite, but almost, ready to consider writing another one(!)

A while back I wrote about the pathway to publication for my first novel, Precious Things, which appeared in The Collective Hub’s online magazine here. You’d be forgiven for asking why I’d ever want to go through that again. But the truth is, I’ve felt fairly relaxed throughout the process of writing this second book. It’s been easier from the start, and I really let myself enjoy the journey for a change, despite all the false beginnings, re-working of the plot (essential) and the moments of self-doubt (unavoidable).

The thing is, writing fiction for the first time can be such a fearful process. With Precious Things, I had such big hopes for bringing that story into being because I felt like I’d been dreaming it for so long. But a niggling voice kept on inside my head throughout those years, telling me I was wasting my time. That my book might never make it into print. And what was the point, if it wouldn’t ever be read? I was petrified of people laughing at me. I almost had to grit my teeth to get through it. In a lot of ways, I think I embedded all that fear and anxiety into the writing of Precious Things.

But something’s shifted with book two. I knew that I could do it again because of the simple fact that I already did it once. And I genuinely stopped caring about how it would be received. I had so much fun working on novel two (which I’ll share the title of soon), and it’s with the editor now after a massive structural edit.

This is what I did differently:
One thing I decided early on was that I wasn’t going to waste as much time as I did with Precious Things. I sat down with my writing partner (we bounce ideas off each other and share our work) and told her my idea first. I’d seen a TV series in the UK about a crumbling old manor and the penniless aristocrats who lived there – cobbled together in two rooms of a hundred-room mansion to save cash on the heating bills – and I wondered, what would it be like to inherit a place like that? And what if, over the centuries, your ancestors and relatives had built really famous reputations for themselves by being fabulous and glamorous and generally a hundred times more successful than you in the current day? That was the seed of my idea.

Belton House, England, post-restoration

Together we bashed out the rough plotline, starring someone who found herself in this predicament. We mapped out a chapter-by-chapter story following her journey from angsty young woman into something else, and quite clinically placed a number of obstacles in her way, giving the plot its fair share of ups and downs and inserting a mystery to drive the reader through.

In those early days, I wrote in a really paint-by-numbers way, starting at page one (rather than bouncing around to whichever part of the book took my fancy, like I had before) and thought of it like getting in the car to drive the shortest distance I could from A to B. I didn’t feel much love for the characters, but the real thing spurring me on was the confidence that I could get through to the end if I just put one word in front of the other. I remembered that moment in the writing of Precious Things – the one where I really started to believe in my characters. When they were no longer just something I’d made up but people who felt alive inside my head, clamouring to deliver dialogue and do all those clever things you just don’t expect… I had faith the love would come.

Life got in the way for a bit. We started renovations on our house and moved into a friends’ while the back part of our home was demolished to make way for a new kitchen, bathroom, living area and courtyard. Project managing the build every day, I stopped writing for six months. But when I finally got back to the manuscript, it was quite clear what was working and what wasn’t. I had the bare bones of my manuscript, and when I finally sat down to write again, it felt a little like re-reading someone else’s work (which is always easier than reading your own).

There’s been a few periods like this throughout the writing of book two. I took a maternity leave cover position at an audiobook company, acquiring print titles to turn into audio. We went overseas for the English summer. We had some ups and downs on the home front. But each time I returned to the manuscript fresh, with a clear idea of how to make improvements.

This novel is still very much in the works – it won’t be out until sometime in mid-2018. I have another big edit coming my way, I know, but I can honestly say I feel good about how it’s tracking, and I never really had that conviction during the writing of Precious Things.

If you’re feeling the way I did during Precious Things, stay strong. You can do it. One word in front of the other, remember. I’m cheering you on – it gets easier from here!

More to follow soon.

xx

Poem

19 Monday Dec 2016

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Dawn on the bay

Can you remember the last time you read a poem? When I heard this I realised it’s been too long. My yoga teacher shared this during savasana (corpse pose; the relax-at-the-end-bit of yoga practice) today and it so moved me:

In the end
you won’t be known
for the things you did,
or what you built,
or what you said.
 
You won’t even be known
for the love given
or the hearts saved,
 
because in the end you won’t be known.
 
You won’t be asked, by a vast creator full of light:
What did you do to be known?
 
You will be asked: Did you know it,
this place, this journey?
 
What there is to know can’t be written.
Something between the crispness of air
and the glint in her eye
and the texture of the orange peel.
 
What you’ll want a thousand years from now is this:
a memory that beats like a heart–
a travel memory, of what it was to walk here,
alive and warm and textured within.
 
Sweet brightness, aliveness, take-me-now-ness that is life.
 
You are here to pay attention. That is enough.

– Tara Sophia Mohr

You can read more about Tara and her work here.

Fairfax interview for SMH, The Age & Canberra Times

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Books & films, Fashion, Fashion, markets & shopping, Inspirations, Publicity & events, Writing

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A few weeks ago I had a lovely chat with Canberra Times journalist Karen Hardy about writing Precious Things. Here’s the resulting article, which was syndicated across Fairfax newspapers last weekend:

Kelly Doust’s love of fashion finds its way
into her novel Precious Things

Photo by Amanda Prior on location at Ruby Star Traders, Glebe

Photo by Amanda Prior shot on location at Ruby Star Traders, Glebe

By Karen HARDY
2 April 2016

Kelly Doust is the first to admit she has a weakness for vintage clothes.

She has always been intrigued by the history of a piece, who wore it, their story, and what first drew them to that dress or jacket.

“Ever since I was about 12 years old, I’ve been collecting old frocks,” says Doust. “I’d take whatever fashion magazine I could find to Vinnies and try and recreate certain looks.

“I’d find these amazing dresses which looked like they’d never even been worn and I’d wonder who the women were who owned them.”

But with the collecting comes the editing process – wardrobes “bursting at the seams” takes on a different meaning when it comes to fashion – and one day she was selling some pieces at a flea market and she found herself wondering about the new lives her old clothes might lead.

“One day I’ll write a book just like Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, or the film The Red Violin, about a cheeky little frock who gets about and lives in more cities than I ever will. Wouldn’t that be fun?” she wrote on her blog later than afternoon.

A few weeks later, she received an email from a publisher friend asking her if she’d really be interested in such a project. And the seed for the novel Precious Things was planted.

As the author of several non-fiction books about vintage clothes, craft and recycling, including the best-selling A Life in Frocks: A memoir and The Crafty Minx: Creative recycling and handmade treasures, Doust had always dreamed of writing fiction.

“But I’m enough of a realist to know that fiction is a totally different process to non-fiction. I had all these lovely ideas and stories, but I didn’t have a solid plot, or any real idea of how to get from A to B.”

But then she stumbled across her hero piece. She was visiting her friend, artist Jessica Guthrie, who used to own a vintage clothing store, Coco Repose, and saw a beaded headpiece.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, it enchanted and inspired me,” Doust says.

“How many different adventures had it seen in its lifetime? It might have originally been a collar on a wedding gown, but then refashioned into a crown or a choker. It could have been worn as a bracelet wrapped around a girl’s wrist or added as a bodice detail to a latter-day dress. Or displayed as art upon the wall.”

In Precious Things, it becomes a collar, and we follow its journey from Normandy in 1891, as a young girl sews her wedding dress; to Shanghai, in the 1920s, where it belongs to a flamboyant circus performer; in the 1950s it belongs to an artist’s muse.

At the centre of the story, however is a totally modern woman, Maggie, an auctioneer, juggling marriage, children and a demanding job, who finds the crumpled, neglected collar in a box of junk and sets out to discover more about its past.

Doust loved researching the historical aspects of the novel, indeed is fascinated by how fashion reflects the changing lives of women through the ages.

“Through research I’d done for a previous book, Minxy Vintage, I’d already learned how intrinsic the link is between fashion and social change, and wanted to explore this further,” she says.

“It’s far more than just hemlines lowering or raising with the economy – the women of the 1920s chose to cast off the restrictive, corseted styles of the Belle Epoque in favour of a sportier aesthetic.

“This was championed by Coco Chanel in Paris fashion, but only occurred in the mainstream because women were finally entering the workplace and taking on men’s work.”

Doust is already working on a second novel which has many similar themes: family; women looking for love, direction and purpose; history and fashion.

“I think I’ll always weave my books around these themes to a lesser or greater degree because that’s what I love, and because the question of, ‘What am I going to wear today?’, is such an enduring, constant preoccupation for many of us.”

 

Culture Street article

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Art, theatre & culture, Books & films, Fashion, Inspirations, Writing

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spanish-diamond-coronetDo you follow Culture Street? It’s a great site featuring reviews of the latest films and books, recipes, giveaways and interviews. I’m thrilled to be featured as their April Author of the Month, and wrote a short article recently about a few of the inspirations behind Precious Things which I thought I’d share with you here:

Desire, marriage and writing fiction

Clothes – particularly vintage and antique ones – are my weakness. I’ve always been intrigued by their history and am constantly fascinated by what we wear and why. That’s why I decided to write a novel about an antique French collar. Precious Things tells the story of the women who wore this special piece; those who created it, loved it and lost it over the course of more than a hundred years, and the crucial events it witnessed in their lives. There’s also a modern-day heroine who, like me, finds herself intrigued by the beaded collar’s mysterious past.

Let me explain: an antique travel trunk covered in peeling labels looking worn and scuffed around the edges isn’t just a rusty, damaged item that’s seen better days. To me it brings to mind tumultuous sea journeys, the smell of salt and gulls cawing, as well as the image of a fetching skirt suit worn to stroll a cruise ship’s upper decks. Or a stiff snakeskin purse with a long-ago tram ticket tucked inside its inner pocket – where was the woman who owned it going that day? Did she meet her lover for lunch, visit a gallery, or find herself fidgeting nervously in a job interview? This is what I mean; I love how old things give us a tantalising glimpse into other people’s lives – lives we can only dream of.

As I started to think about it more carefully, I realised I wanted to write a sweeping, romantic story that took in many generations of women and covered the significant eras of the twentieth century. I started envisaging how the collar – which is later transformed into a headpiece or a ‘coronet’, as I like to think of it – might have come into the various women’s lives.

A Francis Bacon portrait of Henrietta Moraes

A Francis Bacon portrait of Henrietta Moraes

My favourite part was researching the historical sections. I chose some of my favourite times and places, and my imagination was sparked by long-held passions and what I was seeing or reading at the time. For example, Bella – my 1950s goddess and artist’s muse – came from my love of Fellini’s 1960 film, La Dolce Vita, and the film’s star, Anita Ekberg who was famously pictured gambolling in the Trevi Fountain. Bella’s character was fleshed out for me when I saw an exhibition of Francis Bacon’s artworks. I wanted to feature an artist of some sort in the book, but when I read about Bacon’s muse, Henrietta Moraes, it got me thinking about what kind of world Bella might operate in. Henrietta worked as an artist’s model and became the inspiration for many artists of the Soho scene in the 1950s and 1960s. She was also known for her marriages, love affairs and hedonistic lifestyle, which saw her ending up in Holloway Prison after a failed burglary attempt.

There are other instances in the book where I wove in real-life events and embellished them to enrich the narrative. They say you should write what you love and that’s exactly what I did. I’ve visited each of the cities described – Istanbul, New York, Rome and Shanghai – and used to live in London, so there was also a huge element of nostalgia at play as I slipped into those different places in history and imagined the drama of what my characters were experiencing. Unfortunately my current home (Sydney) doesn’t get a mention, but I’m thinking of remedying that in novel two!

Happy International Women’s Day

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Art, Books & films, Inspirations

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I write about women for women. Marriage, motherhood and career, as well as art and fashion; these are the themes that most intrigue me and are what I want to read about myself. Let’s face it, the only men likely to read Precious Things are either in my group of friends or immediate family so I thought – given that it’s International Women’s Day – I’d share with you some of the women who most inspire me and why:

01-big-magic-book-review

Elizabeth Gilbert
I went to see Ms Gilbert at the Seymour Centre for Sydney Writer’s Festival on Friday night, and she was just as warm, engaging and intelligent in person as I expected her to be after reading her work. The Signature of All Things was one of my favourite novels of recent years, but it’s her writing on writing in Big Magic that blows me away. It’s made me look at creativity in a whole new light and inspired me to change my own writing practice.

EBEIl2ol

Adele
I think this British singer is the most talented woman in music today. She’s also willing to be raw but with real dignity – something we’re crying out for. The new album, 25, is all kinds of awesome. I heart it.

frida-one

Frida Kahlo
What a life this woman had. Whenever I’m feeling weak or in pain I think of what she went through with her health and tumultuous marriage, and how she transformed it into thought-provoking and powerful art. Her work is rich, colourful and an enduring symbol of Mexico. Frida was the bomb.

download

Tamara de Lempicka
The original glamour woman of the art world, de Limpicka’s works are sumptuous and sensual and, for my money, the best examples of the cubism movement. The most fashionable portrait painter of her generation, she was feted at salons across Europe and didn’t give a fig what people thought about her fluid sexuality. All power to living such a fearless and adventurous existence.

'In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different' - illustration of Coco Chanel by Zoe Sadokierski for my book, A Life in Frocks

‘In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different’ – illustration of Coco Chanel by Zoe Sadokierski for my book, A Life in Frocks

Coco Chanel
Because she emancipated women through the power of fashion. Because she was unapologetic and impeccably stylish. Because she was, no doubt about it, a glorious broad.

Some other women I’m going to fangirl in the name of IWD: Cheryl Strayed, Isabel Allende, Joanne Harris, Kate Morton, Nigella Lawson, Cate Blanchett, the sass & bide duo, Helen Mirren, Sarah Jane Adams and the rest of Ari Seth Cohen’s Advanced Style mob. There are many more examples in books, politics, charity and my own life (of course of course) but these very public women provide a blueprint for creativity, style and chutzpah.

Who are the women who most inspire you, either alive or from history?

Writing groups and getting into character

11 Sunday Oct 2015

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An image to work from - my 1900s character, Rose

An image to work from: my late 1800s, early 1900s character

So I’ve joined a writing group. Our plan is to share a piece of writing – possibly a chapter, possibly a short passage – in the interim since we’ve last met, and we’ll reconvene each month. It’s not such a lot to achieve, but knowing that I’ll have to prepare something for the next meeting should keep me on track. Novel two is due on 1 May next year, and it’s already feeling a lot closer than it seems.

If you write, have you ever thought about joining a group? I’ve always been a bit nervous about it (the exposure!) but of course groups are fantastic for keeping you motivated. And we’ve set a strict rule of confidentiality – no sharing plots with friends or family, which have a way of turning up everywhere once you decide to write something.

We had our first meeting last Thursday. Although it’s early days, I’m feeling quite excited. There’ll be five of us – a big group – and I’m genuinely intrigued by the book ideas the other members shared. I think it’s going to be quite inspiring. Each of us is at a different stage with our novels and we’re all working on something completely different. Just to begin with, they suggested some ideas about how I might unfold my central mystery. I don’t think I would have hit upon this myself – five heads are definitely better than one.

For years I’ve been meaning to answer the famous Proust questionnaire for each of my characters, so we’ve decided to do this for our next meeting as well – at least with our main protagonists. It’s always illuminating reading the celebrity responses to these questions in the back of Vanity Fair, but I found this particularly fun when thinking about how my key characters would answer (read David Bowie’s answers here if you have a moment “What is your favorite journey? The road of artistic excess”).

If you’d like to give it a go yourself, here’s a (slightly amended) version from The Write Practice. One of my characters has answered the top ten:

  1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Being adored
  2. What is your greatest fear? Not making an impact
  3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Submission
  4. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Artifice
  5. Which living person do you most admire? Emily Pankhurst
  6. What is your greatest extravagance? Fashion
  7. What is your current state of mind? Confident
  8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Temperance
  9. On what occasion do you lie? When I feel cornered, to impress
  10. What do you most dislike about your appearance? My feet (do you remember when Naomi Campbell said this? It’s always made me laugh…)
  11. Which living person do you most despise?
  12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
  13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
  14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
  15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
  16. When and where were you happiest?
  17. Which talent would you most like to have?
  18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
  19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
  20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
  21. Where would you most like to live?
  22. What is your most treasured possession?
  23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
  24. What is your favorite occupation?
  25. What is your most marked characteristic?
  26. What do you most value in your friends?
  27. Who are your favorite writers?
  28. Who is your hero of fiction?
  29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
  30. Who are your heroes in real life?
  31. What are your favorite names?
  32. What is it that you most dislike?
  33. What is your greatest regret?
  34. How would you like to die?
  35. What is your motto?
Evening dress of the 1800s

Evening dress of the 1800s

Another practice I’ve found helpful is finding likely pictures of my characters and what they were wearing on the interwebz. It helps clarify them in my mind and can also be nifty when it comes time to describe them. Descriptions change a lot throughout the course of a book, so clear images are a great grounder.

What are some of your best tips for characterization, and do you have any ideas for what we should do next? Please share!

Putting imagination into (cover) images

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Mood board for Precious Things

Mood board for Precious Things

HarperCollins is in the process of designing the cover for my first novel, Precious Things. I’m so excited to see it – it should be ready in the next few weeks, and hopefully in time to grace the cover of the reading copies, which they’re working on at the moment.

My publisher Catherine and I have been going back and forth for some time on ideas about how it will look. Firstly, I was asked to send through some book covers I liked with suggestions as to what I thought worked or didn’t work about them for Precious Things. I sent through about fifteen covers, some with heavily stylised photographs and others with illustrations. Then I was asked to put together a mood board about my main character, so that Catherine could brief the designer on what the book’s about.

Maggie vintage shambolic_Precious Things

This is what I came up with. The images aren’t meant to be taken literally. My protagonist – a warm, sensitive woman called Maggie – isn’t a model, after all, but she is gorgeous in her way and these are meant to give a sense of how I see her. I compiled the mood board with tear sheets taken from fashion magazines laid out on my kitchen bench and overlaid with some of the beaded, richly embroidered and quirky vintage pieces Maggie collects. There’s also a postcard painting in there of a circus setting, which reflects her fascination with costumes and unusual or special pieces.

Maggie going out_Precious Things

I loved doing this – it’s quite fun to be asked to contribute to the design of your book and I realised I had all the images I needed, already collected in a folder which accompanied me throughout the writing process. Whenever I saw an appropriate image, I put it in there just for my own reference, along with articles that seemed to evoke the mood or setting I was looking for.

The funny part about the cover process is that you can provide all sorts of background ideas and images to designers, but it often happens that inspiration strikes them, and they come up with something so unexpected, extraordinary and right – but completely different to what was envisaged. That’s the magic of what they do.

Stay tuned for news on the reading copies. I’m hoping to be given some extra to hand out to those of you in book groups, so you can spread the word in advance x

Maggie work_Precious Things