Bronte vs Austen – no contest

With nothing much to report on my own writing front except that I’ve almost finished Mrs Osbourne Regrets and I’m pissed off with youwriteon. I’ve been given a good deal of four and five stars for my reviews of Two Become One and yet they’re coming up with an average of 3 stars, thus putting me at number 33 in their chart, I thought I would give my opinion on a literary argument that I’m sure burns on even today. Who is better – Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte?

I absolutely adore Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, both in the book and TV form. I’m watching the 1983 version with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke for the 100th time and I’m still enthralled. To me, the Bronte sisters wiped the floor with Jane Austen. That woman is to blame for the utter influx of shit chick lit we have littering our bookshops, all her books are about social manners and finding Mr Right, which is all very nice but I’m sorry Mr Darcy (yes, even Colin Firth in that wet shirt) cannot compare to the sheer brooding and Byronesqe majesty of Edward Fairfax Rochester.

Both Eyre and Rochester are flawed characters who, through finding each other, discover things about themselves. I have a feeling that should Jane Eyre had found herself in an Austen novel, she would have found her match in Mr Whoever and would have become somehow tamed by him. With Bronte, she allows the wilful Jane to meet a man who is her equal. They are as wild as each other and you can imagine that they probably have really great sex!

To me it is quite telling of the times that Jane Austen books are so popular in an age where the majority of young women aspire to nothing more than marrying well. If Austen wrote today, Darcy would probably play for Chelsea. Jane Eyre is an independent woman and by the end of the book, it is she who is the stronger one in the relationship, the crippled and broken Rochester relying upon her for physical and emotional support.

Jane Austen is to blame for Mills and Boon and all that rubbishy chick lit. Her books fill young women’s heads with dreams of unrealistic romance and I find anything that just centres around the upper classes quite nauseating. Why do you think there are no soap operas centred around posh people? It’s because more often than not their lives are so boring. If you’re going to do class you should at least have some sort of contrast, some commentary on the differences between people.

Anything to do with Jane Austen triggers the same response in me as the words Sex and the City – I want to stick pins in my eyes. There is more to being a woman than your relationships with men and how other women see you. Maybe this is more about me; perhaps I’m too masculine in my approach to life but anyone who reads my novels will see I’m not afraid to explore the darker elements of life. If I want escapism I’ll watch a sci-fi film.

If they were musicians today, Austen would be Dido; the Brontes would be Radiohead. Nuff said.

Ciao for now.

Telstar!

I just wanted to add that I am soooo excited about the up and coming Nick Moran film, Telstar. It tells the story of Joe Meek, the tragic record producer who ended up killing his landlady then himself. I absolutely love anything about tragic characters (hence my obsession with the film Control) but added to this Joe Meek was gay and associated with loads of dodgy people and it’s just the most exciting thing. If you’ve never heard of Joe Meek, wiki him and it’ll tell you everything. To any Muse fans out there, I’m curious to see who plays Matt Bellamy’s dad!

The New Books Store

In my quest to turn around the fates of self published authors like myself I have come up with a new idea. I have this fantasy of opening up a bookshop for just self-published authors but unfortunately this is unlikely to happen as I just don’t have the capital. So I’ve come to the conclusion that my second best option is to create a website where self-published authors can sell their work.

I’m not even sure if this will work but there must be people out there who are bored with the same old same old books they get in regular book shops and are looking for something different. So I’ve set up this website which just sells self-published and independent authors and I’ll be interested in what people think. So if you get a chance, take a look and leave a comment here.

http://sites.google.com/site/newbooksstore/

On another front, I’ve almost finished Mrs Osbourne Regrets so that’ll be put into its final stages before I published. So curious to see if this new way of marketing my work is effective. Once it is done, I might put some of it onto my website for people to read, but it’s far too raw at the moment.

Ciao for now x

Mad About the Boy

Is now on Amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/202-5348328-7691855?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mad+about+the+boy+karen+mason

It'll soon be available worldwide.

ciao for now x

Role Models

This was a really funny film and I recommend people go to see it. It's the usual sort of humour a la Dodgeball, Blades of Glory etc but it was hilarious in parts. Best to avoid if you don't like swearing and nudity but for me it was really enjoyable. And Paul Rudd - oh my God, he is soooooo hot!

I Confess

I was going to keep this a secret but I feel the need to offload. I’ve found a very novel (excuse the pun) way of marketing my books. Advertising is all well and good, but how many thousands of adverts are we bombarded with day in day out and 99% of the time we either take no notice, or don’t buy the stuff. What I need to do is target my audience. Book shops are utter C U Next Tuesdays and won’t stock self-published stuff, libraries are equally tight and ridiculously bad at replying to emails even when I’m offering a freebee. So I then thought about doing an abridged version of Summerset or Mad About the Boy, about 100 pages, which would then cost about £3.80 from Lulu. I could spend £50 getting a decent amount printed then distribute them around second hand shops. My reasoning being there have been countless times in my life where I’ve bought a book costing 50p from a second hand shop, thought it was so brilliant I’ve then gone on to buy every book from that author.

But, to be honest, I haven’t the foggiest idea how one goes about creating an abridged version, I’d feel as though I was compromising my novels and I couldn’t face doing it. So, me being me, I thought to myself ‘why don’t you just write a short novella and sell that in second hand shops’. I decided to write a 95-100 page novel with adverts for the other two books at the back, I’m going to print it off and distribute around said second hand shops. Hopefully people will like what they read and come back for more. I can only try. At least if someone picks up the book, reads the synopsis and buys, well they’re already interested in my kind of work. I could spend thousands on advertising and no one would bother even looking any further because it’s not of interest to them.

I also thank the Lord I chose to self-pub rather than falling into the trap of vanity publishing. With all these shenanigans that have been going on with name calling (certain friends will know what I mean) I got into looking at publishers sites and found there are still hundreds of vanity publishers in operation. I worked for one of these when I left university and every day I would leave the office feeling sick to my stomach after they’d fleeced some poor old person out of their life savings with the promise they’d publish their magnum opus and turn it into some sort of best-seller before they died. When in reality they printed a few shoddy copies of the book and just left them to rot. It was horrible. Strangely enough in the publishing world, self-pub books are looked on more favourably than vanity press, which is weird because you may have a book without editing or proof reading.

Still no word from Lorella Belli.

I’m off to see a free screening of a film tonight. Role Models is by the same people who did Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin, and for some reason they’re trying it out before they release it. That makes me feel better because it’s made me realise that no matter how famous or successful you are, you’ve got to give away a few freebies to get your audience. Will let you know what I thought with my next entry.

Ciao for now x

The British media sucks sometimes

In continuation of my occasional non-book blogs, I thought would write about something that has astounded me in recent weeks. I never thought I would write a blog defending Jade Goody. The whole ‘woe is me, I’ve done a fart’ publicity seeking is quite annoying and people like her have brought the cult of celebrity to a whole new low. But since she has been diagnosed with cancer, the sheer hypocrisy of the British media has just knocked me for sideways.

Last year when the whole Shilpa Shetty thing blew up, all the celebrity rags turned against Jade in such a venomous way. I think the only one that dared let her state her point was Heat, I can remember her giving an interview with them. All the others treated her as though she was daughter of Hitler or something. IMHO I don’t think Jade’s comments were particularly racist, just ignorant. And I’m sorry, when Shilpa accused her of being common and she instructed her to go and visit the slums of India to see the ‘common’ people who had put her where she was now, she had a point. Anyway, Shilpa was a stuck up madam and while Danielle, Jo and Jade did act like bullies, I think even someone more articulate may well have got fed up with Shilpa’s Miss Perfect veneer.

Anyway, back to the point Now! Magazine in particular just rendered me speechless (there goes any chance of my book being reviewed by them). Jade used to have a page in the magazine where she gave her opinions on things. It was obvious that it was ghost written, we all know Jade is not exactly the brightest button in the box. Then when it happened, suddenly Now! Turned on her, severed all ties with her and wrote horrible stories about her.

Now Jade is ill, suddenly their writing stories about how they wish her well and her brave struggle etc etc. Now! Isn’t alone, all the gutter girl’s rags are doing it. Putting her on the cover, knowing that it will sell copies. Fair enough, they’re in it to make money. But the hypocrisy is just amazing. They either hate her or they don’t. Last year they despised her, so why not ignore her now? No, because she guarantees sales. It all stinks.