Open letter to my hero

Dear Tom,

We both know that's not your name, but I don't want to get sued, so let's call you Tom, in memory of my last doomed love affair. Although, since you're American, let's pronounce it Tahm.

I am not asking you to marry me. I think the M word probably sends shivers up your spine these days. So let's start with a coffee, take it from there.

Because, here's the thing. I think you might find me valuable.

The more I read about you, the more I think it unfair, tragically unfortunate even, that you were born 20 years before me into a nation separated from mine by hundreds of miles, an ocean, and a common language, and into a destiny that will no doubt keep us apart.

You are passionate, articulate, intelligent, talented, generous. You love words. You make time for people.

You understand the importance of coffee.

You are a devoted father. I'm guessing the last thing you want is more kids, and that's fine. The whole pregnancy and birth thing freaks me out anyway. Let your children be the recipients of the reserves of love that I long to give.

You read a book a week. You write a thousand words a day.

Imagine the Scrabble games we could have.

I am not, or no longer, the kind of woman who needs constant entertainment, and so imagine rainy Sunday afternoons curled up together with our novels, interrupted only by coffee, fresh juice and perhaps some physical exercise. Imagine, too, the conversations: inspiring and energising as they so often are between bookworms.

We could take turns reading out our writing and help each other to find synonyms and new ways to convey old truths. We could work on a screenplay together, cast all our best friends in the movie, give Josh Malina the role of a lifetime. You could make me laugh with your witty one-liners and I could correct your spelling mistakes. Except that I have the feeling that you don't make any, apart from the usual American ones.

And when we're not doing any of that and you're not working - and I love your work, you know that - maybe we could run a political consultancy. Or campaign together to get Obama re-elected. You could teach me all there is to know about American politics. I think you would secretly quite enjoy that.

Can you honestly tell me that does not sound like fun?

Buy me that coffee and convince me.

Keywords, blogs, and yes, Bradley Whitford...

Time was 90% of people found my blog through two keywords, "Bradley Whitford" and "Janel Moloney". Shocking, I know. I don't know what happened there.

I'm happy to report that my readers have now diversified. Not only do I get references to, respectively, moustaches and pregnancies, I also get wider references to the West Wing and even, occasionally, to entirely different things.

On the moustache (and for the person who asked "why does Bradley Whitford look different"), briefly: yes, he has one, no, I don't like it, but yes, I understand his artistic choice of the accessory. I just hope he was joking in a recent interview when he said he was going to keep it.

On the pregnancy: Janel and her film composer husband now have a beautiful baby boy. This makes me smile for several reasons.

One, that I'm sure she is happy, and that's only fair after she spent so many years of my life bringing me joy. Although, I don't think she did it just for me, but when I eventually meet her I will verify that. Meeting a certain Other Famous Actress recently has made me realise I don't want to meet Janel unless she's going to be nice to me and allow me to gush at least a little about how much I love her, but that's another story.

Two, we have even more in common than I thought. "Is that possible?" I hear you cry, what with my blondeness, slimness, legginess and incredible talent for the perfoming arts. Ahem.

Aside from all those things which we do not share, there is one thing: when asked what she hoped for in season 5 of the West Wing: "Any chance to make out with Brad Whitford, that would be great". Incidentally, she reports that he is a great kisser. Well, yes.

Anyway, I digress. But we do have this in common: I once almost-dated a wannabe film composer. Okay, so I didn't marry him, and I think he's ended up working for a bank, but when I say almost-dated I mean that I was madly in love with him (I think it was mutual) and probably would have married him had circumstances been right, and he is a gifted musician who may still make it one day.

The other is that had I been a boy, I would have had the same name as Janel's son. Well, my mum told me that once, but then she's also told me I narrowly avoided being called Scarlet, and it turns out it wasn't really that narrow after all. Still, I'm sticking to my story, though I don't really see where the conversation could go after "I was nearly called that".

So, there you go. That's that story. You heard it here first, except probably not.

Sticking with the Brad theme for now, I think my favourite recent keyword was "Is Bradley Whitfield a Democrat?" I assume they mean him, and since they don't really know his name all that well, they can be forgiven for not knowing that the question is actually a far classier and more original version of "Is the sky blue?" or "Is the Pope a Catholic?". One which I may, in fact, start using, if nothing else because the sky is hardly ever blue where I live.

It also makes my little heart glad that people are typing in "Josh Malina Bradley Whitford" and, most excitingly, "Brad Whitford Josh Malina twitter comments", because I invented that particular genre of tweeting. Yes, the first time I ever had a tweet from Josh Malina (which had my jumping up and down with glee) was in response to one of mine. "Bradley Whitford," he said, "Is a hateful man whose career is receding faster than his hairline." Ouch, but very funny. People have been baiting him no end since, and I think it's distressing in the extreme that Brad is not on twitter to defend himself and fight back.

Anyway. There's plenty more where all that came from - like "email address for Janel Moloney" - oh, to have that information, which I would most certainly not broadcast. But I feel flattered that my blog was where Google thought people should come for that information.

It's late, though, so you'll have to wait - on the edge of your seats, no doubt.

Alphabet tweets

How, I wonder, does a Twitter trending topic start?

I loved last week's #lesserbooks thread, where people suggested titles like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce, The Prunes of Irritation, or Modesty and Open-mindedness. It was a great Friday afternoon chuckle until the spammers got hold of it and clogged the thread. Grrr.

Anyway, who started it? Does anyone know?

And does anyone know how I can start my own? Because here is a game I think we can all play. Today, in the middle of Gent, I mentally updated my Facebook status to "Claire is aching for American adventure". Then I thought - wow, look at that alliteration. Maybe I should go through the alphabet. Creative writing prompt, or something. Mostly, just a bit of fun.

So, if you want to join in, add a comment to this post, or perhaps tweet with the hashtag #alphabettweet... How are you feeling? Your aim is to tell us with at least three words that all start with the same letter, and you're allowed an extra one in there for good measure.

Aching for American Adventure

Buzzing with Belgian Battiness

Crazy about Colin's Co-star

Dreaming of Dating a Dude

Eternally, endlessly elegant (okay, a little poetic licence there...)

Fearful of foreseen failure

Garrulously Googling the Gorgeous Good Guys

Healthily Hopeful about Her Holidays

Inquistive about Important Issues

And all the way to Zzzzzzz .... I'm too tired for this right now. Will finish another day though. Night all.

Want to help with my book?

Dear readers of my blog,

I wondered if you'd be able to help me out with something. As you can't fail to have noticed, I'm writing a novel. I'd love to exchange emails or have coffee with any of the following people:

- a Brit in a relationship with an American

- someone who has worked or is working at an American Embassy (if it could be the one in Brussels, that would be fantastic), or really any Embassy; don't worry, I'm not going to ask you for state secrets!

- a jazz pianist

- someone who has sacrificed themselves in some way for love

- Brits who live in Brussels

- Americans who live in Brussels

- People who have a different nationality to their parents', and feel fine about that

- Belgians who have lived in the UK all their life (that may be like finding that proverbial needle, but anyway...)

- non-Americans who feel drawn to live in the US (though, I can probably just talk to myself on that one!)

Thank you!

Claire :)

Dilemmas of a writer: pen names

I have a dilemma.

I'm soon to start entering short stories for competitions. I already have a writer's blog, and a Facebook page. This is not because I am spending more time thinking about being published than I am about working on my novel. No. Because that would be disobeying the wisdom of Bradley Whitford:

Want to write more than you want to be a writer. Life is too challenging for external rewards to sustain us. The joy is in the journey.

And also because, I do actually love writing. I don't always love it when I sit down. There are moments when I fling my pen down in frustration; sentences I start over and over again; things I just can't work out how to describe so they come alive; characters who refuse to be distinctive; emotions that are hard to put into words.

But usually about thirty minutes in, sometimes a lot more, and sometimes never, there comes that moment: the writer' high. It stays with me all day. Runners are probably best placed to understand what it is. It makes me want to continue writing, and it inspires me to come back again and again.

So mostly I think about writing. But at some point, I'm going to have to settle the issue of my pen name. (I've never been that happy with my own surname, not least because it's difficult to spell correctly.) I currently have one that consists of my own first name and a borrowed surname. I'm happy with it. But recently I've been pondering using a different first name - something that might flow better. Something like Anna or Melissa. (Donna may be taking certain obsessions a little far.)

Here's the thing, though. If people know me as, say, Amy Scott (which was my pen name in my teens, but I'm ditching that one, or at least for now), then Amy is the name that I'll have to respond to, assuming there are things like interviews and book signings,, and that would feel odd, because I'm not used to doing that. I would feel a fraud. Just changing my surname wouldn't do that; I've spent half my life imagining myself with different ones anyway. But somehow changing my first name feels like changing the essence of me, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.

Although, in a way, it's no different from acting, is it? I can re-invent myself, slip into a new persona, which could be fun. Oddly, I would have no qualms whatsoever about replying to an email under a different name. But face to face? I don't know.

Any writers out there? What do you do about this?

Reality check

Back in the eighties, yes, the eighties, a little TV programme called Neighbours arrived on the BBC.

My life would never be the same again.

For the non-Brits and the desperately young, let me explain: it was (and, unbelievably, still is) an Australian soap opera based on one street, Ramsay Street, in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough. And back then, it was incredibly tame, discounting the haircuts, which were horrendous. It starred the then-unknown Kylie Minogue and her on-screen boyfriend, Jason Donovan.

Except, oh happy day! My ever-knowledgeable friend Philippa came to stay with me and told me "they're married in real life, you know". The fairy tale was coming true! The on-off romance was permanently on, off screen. So exciting.

I was ten. It was forgivable.

Also forgivable was the fact that Philippa had got a little confused and Jason and Kylie never were actually married as such. But they were together - or at least, according to Between the Lines, Jason's recentish autobiography whose terrible ghostwriter has a predilection for the word "for". "Because" will do fine most of the time! Anyway, that's beside the point.

I owed it to myself to read it, you see. Because twelve-year-old me (yes, this obsession lasted a while) was in love with Jason. I even prayed semi-regularly for him to become a Christian so that I could marry him. (Since there was obviously nothing else standing in the way.)

Luckily for my mental health and my mother's phone bill, there was no twitter or facebook or livejournal, there were no yahoo groups, not even any internet to speak of.

Twelve-year-old me spent several years desperate to visit Australia and learning everything she could about Jason and Kylie and Melbourne and Neighbours. She may even have dreamed of living there herself, being on the show, who knows what went on in her head.

Ahem. Of course since I am now all grown up I do not indulge in any such behaviour.

Okay. Some of it I do. But I do not expect, say, Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney to be together in real life just because they had amazing chemistry on the West Wing. Had I known that Janel was married (and few people did until recently; she's got to be one of the most elusive famous people in the world), I would certainly not have entertained the thought for even a hundredth of a second, despite the photos of them together as real people and the quotes that are still kicking around the internet suggesting that they were never exactly repulsed by the idea of having to kiss each other. I'm glad that Janel is seemingly so happy and I really do hope that Brad will be again one day, too. Heck, I'd even be willing to help him out with that one. Even despite the moustache.

(On a serious note, this interview of his now ex-wife Jane Kaczmarek made me sincerely wish they could work things out. I was so impressed with her - such dignity, grace and kindness.)

I am not confused. Well, not about this: Bradley Whitford is not Josh Lyman. But I will admit that this piece comparing the two may have been the initial trigger to the transfer of my affections from Josh, who is a fictional character, to Brad, who may as well be, because let's face it, I don't know what he's really like.

Or do I? If sites like eHarmony insist you can get to know people through reading profiles and exchanging emails, then surely reading interview after interview, and speaking to people who have met him, gives me some idea of the kind of person he is. Don't they? Who knows? I feel I know him a little. I feel I certainly know him enough to accept the offer of coffee should it ever be forthcoming.

So when I talk about Brad, I'm not talking about Josh. (Nor, incidentally, am I being disrespectful or implying close personal friendship by using his first name. It seems kinder and warmer to me, and when people use just my surname, it makes me want to smack them; I'm not sure why.) I'm talking about the Bradley Whitford I feel I know something about. When I say I want to marry him, it's shorthand for I'd like to meet him, I'd like us to become friends, I'd like us to fall in love, then, if all of those things work out and he shaves off his moustache, I'd like to marry him. What can I say, I love fairy stories. You know, ordinary girl marries handsome actor and lives happily ever after. Writes a book about it called "Find Me Valuable".

But of course that's all it is. A fairy story.

It's just that I'm not ten anymore, so perhaps it's less forgivable.

The moustache, part 2 of no-doubt-many

It's time I was honest with myself.


This moustache thing. You know, the thing that people can't help asking Bradley Whitford about. The thing that even he is starting to sound perhaps a little bored of, unless I've misread it.


The thing with the moustache is this: it makes him look old. Not like, old old, but too old to be my future husband. Too old to be Josh Lyman. Definitely too old to be the hero in my novel. It makes him look like other people with moustaches who remind me of dad figures rather than boyfriend figures.


If you listen very carefully you can hear the sound of a bubble popping.