August 26, 2006
FRIGHTFEST
Alan Jones, the veteran horror film critic invited me along to the annual FrightFest, 'the best genre festival in the UK' at the Odeon West End this afternoon. Alan, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of horror, has been the prime mover and shaker behind FrightFest since its conception in the Eighties.
I arranged to meet the suave film director Clive Ashenden at the festival - his short, Snatching Time, made and distributed by Sick Puppy Films is being screened tomorrow. He was one of the few normal looking people at the festival. Everyone else looked like extras from a Dario Argento movie, with the exception of Alan Jones who looked and behaved like a regal auteur. He was in his element on stage, interviewing pretty boy Canadian director, Jordan Barker, after the screening of his traditional horror film, The Marsh, a slightly stodgy paranormal suspense thriller.
I used to be a film critic and had to view all the new releases. I used to love '70's horror, but now I can't bear to watch the explicit bloodfest gore that contemporary horror directors have a lusty appetite for. There were a few nasty horror shorts before the feature, but I shut my eyes and thought of beautiful things while they were being screened. The packed 600 seater auditorium, filled with horror-freaks in their communal uniform of film logo T-shirts and jeans howled with laughter at the gory special effects. I used to be like them, I thought nostalgically. I used to sometimes sit next to 90 year old Dilys Powell, the legendary film critic for The Sunday Times in preview theatres. Once, we were viewing a really violent film, and I noticed she flinched, while I was able to view the film dispassionately, but I don't possess that clinical detachment any more.
Posted by frances on August 26, 2006
August 1, 2006
PUBLICATION
My two novels, "Frantic" and "Crushed" were published by Eiworth Publishing today.
I finished "Crushed", a teen fiction book fairly recently, but wrote the first draft of "Frantic" in the early Seventies. If I had foreseen, the book wouldn't be published until the twenty first century, I would have thrown the manuscript out of the window.
My then boyfriend lived in the basement of David Hockney's old house in Powis Terrace, Notting Hill Gate. It was the best nightclub in town.
Each time I returned home, I'd obsessively write about the interesting personalities I'd met that evening, but with fictitious names. If my first draft had been published at the time, it would surely have been regarded as libellous. A lot of first time authors tend to write thinly disguised autobiographical novels, and I was no exception.
During the next three decades, I periodically wrote new drafts of "Frantic". Although, they were inspired by my original concept, the book was no longer a blatant observation of the post Haight-Asbury scene in San Francisco and the London Art World. My book had metamorphosed into a fictitious story set in the nostalgic, early Seventies.
The novel improved each time I wrote a new draft, but although an enthusiastic literary agent represented me on my second to last version, he was unable to sell it.
I was resigned to shoving "Frantic" in my chest of drawers for the rest of its shelf life, when Curt Eiworth, a Swedish, international book publisher offered to publish it, along with "Crushed", my second novel. He thought "Frantic" was a 'good read', and loved "Crushed" so much, he even offered to translate it into Swedish!
Curt started Eiworth Publishing, his international bookstore site in April this year, and it has taken him only four months to publish my books.
Curt initially wanted one of my artist friends to illustrate "Crushed", but I offered to do it myself (I had intended to become a graphic artist before deciding to become a journalist). Luckily, Curt thought my drawings were individual.
Curt Eiworth is not only a hands on publisher, but he's also a perceptive editor, a rare breed.
Posted by frances on August 1, 2006
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© Frances Lynn 2006
