Writing: What I Learned from Jilly Cooper

I've started slowwwly working on things that need doing before my mother's house can be listed for sale. I'm still having trouble getting my get up to get up and go. But the writing side of my life is going well, thanks mostly to JJJ's fabulous Chocolate Bootcamp for Writers*. Every day I walk the dogs for about 45 minutes while I listen to old Storywonk podcasts--that really keeps me in the writing mood. Then around 3 in the morning, after my mother's gone to bed and all is still I attack the keyboard. Usually go to bed around 6 AM, and I don't let myself go until I've done 2000 words.

I'm climbing the ranks! This week I was #1, and overall #2. But in all fairness I must remind the good reader that, other than helping my post-operation mother out, I'm not employed right now. But I'm hoping it will instill future good habits in me. My butt-in-chair problem is that I usually get going and can't stop, and then I go to bed too late for work. Which makes me reluctant to write on work nights. I need to learn how to start at the right time and then END after 2-3 hours.

AUTHOR I LEARNED FROM: Let's try to make this a mini-series, shall we?


Jilly Cooper
Learned: Advanced Show-Don't-Tell

She writes funny novels about rich English people falling in love, back stabbing and bonking. There's usually one damned good love story tucked into those 600 pages and they're fabulous. (If you like romance between two sweet, beta, beaten down people, then The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous is lovely. If you like to see the charming rake fall head over heels for nice girl, then try Rivals.)

Often in movies etc. when the viewer is shown a mean character it's done through big gestures. She/he walks in and finds her boyfriend/his girlfriend in bed with ___ (Love Actually, Sliding Doors, etc). Or heroine sleeps with a guy but then runs off in the morning cause she can't handle nice men (Bridesmaids.) There's almost one event that shows their jerkiness.

Cooper likes to deliver cruelty in a thousand cuts. She'll take a whole chapter to show you all the wee assholeries a guy delivers to his wife every day (The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous.) Or during the car ride the bitchy chicks will deliver a series of tiny rudenesses to the heroine. So that when someone comes into her life and runs wee rivulets of kindness through it, you understand how much it means. It's subtle, convincing, and moving. Yes, even amidst the bonking and bitching, it's moving.

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* You compete against other writers the have the highest word count by the end of the month, and Judy, Judy, Judy will buy chocolate for the winner. :-)