The Newsroom: ten initial thoughts

1. Bradley Whitford would have made a great Will McAvoy. The initial scene seemed to have been written for him. Sigh.

2. Aaron Sorkin has the courage to tell the truth about America. And about the fact that it's not the only country with freedom, thereby elliciting whoops from those of us who nod furiously when played the clip where Obama says he believes in American exceptionalism the way, for example, Brits believe in British exceptionalism. It's the kind of thing that may have riled some Americans, but won hearts in other countries. Because it's true! and refreshing to hear!

3. Aaron Sorkin has a thing about Belgium. I've always suspected this, but to get a mention within five minutes of the pilot episode is quite something. Well done him.

4. Also, he called the UK the UK, and not England. This is unusual for an American, and to be applauded.

5. MacKenzie did not need to be British. But if she was going to be British, she should have been called Fleur, or Sophie, or Fiona. British parents do not name their little girls Mackenzie, especially posh diplomat types. This unnecessary plot complication and unnecessary accent and ridiculously chosen name is likely to irritate me throughout.

5. Until the last scene, I worried that Mackenzie/Will had as much chemistry as Josh/Mandy. Which isn't a problem, except we are clearly meant to be shipping them. Oh well - maybe another meant-to-be-minor character will steal one of their hearts. The best ships are organic anyway. But then, oddly, I found myself welling up at the end. So who knows?

6. But Aaron Sorkin is clearly a romantic. More than that, he believes romantic love to be the motivation behind excellence, the thing that causes us to rise higher than we thought possible. Viz Studio 60 and the Social Network, though not the West Wing in quite the same way.

7. He's chosen to set this show not in a parallel universe, but in our real world - maybe the real world of a couple of years ago, complete with Barack Obama and BP oil spills. Interesting concept. And one which I think I Iike - it should make for some interesting social commentary, and means his creative energy will be devoted to characters and internal plot, rather than coming up with external plot.

8. That episode was really long. Are they all going to be this long?

9. Recognisable Sorkin characters all over the place - most notably Maggie (whose name Mackenzie pronounces with an American accent for no discernible reason). She reminded me of Matt's assistant in Studio 60. In fact, she's basically the same character. Or am I wrong?

10. Aesthetically speaking (and in many other ways), it's no West Wing. And it is certainly no Studio 60. (I doubt the Bradley Whitford/Matt Perry combination can be equalled or surpassed by anything other than Bradley Whitford/Rob Lowe). But John Gallagher, Jr, has grown into a hottie since he was last seen dropping Josh, Donna and Toby off at a station so they could get a train going the wrong way. Maybe it's time I crushed on someone more age-appropriate. Think I can charm him with my British accent (and my genuine British name)?

All because of Aaron Sorkin: how the West Wing changed me

The internet is aflutter with excitement about Aaron Sorkin’s new television show, The Newsroom. All kinds of questions are being asked: how will Sorkin write a Republican protagonist? Where’s Bradley Whitford? Will The Newsroom air anywhere besides the US?

Here’s what I’m asking: will it change lives?

Because The West Wing changed mine.

For a long time, my friends in London had been telling me I should watch it. “It’s all about politics,” they’d say. “You like politics.” They were right. Once I gave in, the show took over my life. And something surprising happened in me as I watched: I fell in love with the English language.

As a child and teenager, I wrote prolifically -- in French, which is my mother tongue. When we moved back to the UK, and English became my dominant language, I did not feel so inspired. French, I was convinced, was superior. It was beautiful. English was not.

But that was before Aaron Sorkin convinced me otherwise. His mastery of the language awoke something in me that had been dormant for years. “Oratory should raise your heart rate,” says one of his characters, and that is exactly what his words did for me.  I began to devour novels. I began to itch to write again.

Sorkin assumes an intelligent viewer, and yet still teaches them a multitude of things. He doesn’t shy away from difficult or controversial issues. And in the language itself there is poetry, too, and rhythm:

“Nice job on the speech,” says one character to another, Sam Seaborn, in the third season.

“How did you know I wrote it?” he asks her.

She quotes some of its phrases. “We did not seek, nor did we provoke… We did not expect, nor did we invite…”

“A little thing called cadence,” Sam replies, and you get the sense that Aaron Sorkin is winking at his viewers through those lines.

Sorkin is also skilled at developing complex and memorable characters, avoiding, for example, the liberal temptation to paint all Republicans as evil.  Life is not black and white, and nor should fiction be if it is to be believable.

Josh Lyman – deftly played by Bradley Whitford - is one such character: arrogant, brilliant, and deeply wounded. He is also at the center of a will-they-won’t-they storyline which kept many viewers hooked; I wanted my writing to do that, too. The restraint which Aaron Sorkin showed in not getting Josh and his assistant Donna together too soon – and the resulting tension - is one of the defining features of the show. I wanted to create characters as compelling as Josh and Donna; I wanted my stories, like Sorkin’s, to reflect the complexities of life in general and romance in particular.

So it was that walking home one summer Saturday after a morning of French teaching, an unexpected thought occurred to me: wouldn’t it be fun to tutor Bradley Whitford?  And that was the start of my first novel, in which someone very much like me teaches French to someone a little like him, who inspires her to move to Washington DC and (many years later) become a Senator.

Given the source of my inspiration, it was perhaps inevitable that politics would provide the backdrop to the story. My friends in London had been right: this wasn’t a new interest. I chose Sociology in my last two years of high school and almost studied Social and Political Science at University. I was once passionate about that stuff. And The West Wing prodded at that, too. Prodded and poked and awoke the beast.

And of course, I had to visit Washington, and the city stole my heart. Maybe it was the majesty of the monuments or the colors of autumn: we don’t have the deep, deep red of the maple tree in Europe. Maybe it was the surreal sense of stepping into a fictional world that had seemed only to exist on screens and in my imagination. Maybe it was eavesdropping on high-level conversations in classy restaurants. Maybe it was the abundance of literary events and of bookshops with names like Politics and Prose. Maybe – most likely of all – it was the fact that my writing feels intricately bound up with DC and the corridors of political power. Hard to tell. But I knew I wanted to live there.

Writing, by then, had become a serious passion; I began to dream about studying it full-time. And when I dream, I reach for Google. I typed in “MFA” and “DC”, omitting “two birds”, “one stone”. And it came up with American University, a place which not only offered exactly what I needed in terms of the course but which also –  oh, happy day! -- was rated number one nationally for its political involvement.

I applied but wasn’t accepted. Would Donna Moss have let that deter her? No, she would not. I worked on my admissions essay and sent in a better writing sample the following year, and this time it was a yes.

I’ll be moving to DC in August. Perhaps to embark on a whole new chapter of my life complete with best-selling novels, a part-time voluntary job at the Democratic Party, and my very own Josh Lyman. Or perhaps just for a two-year adventure. But either way, it’s because of Aaron Sorkin. It’s because of The West Wing.

The Newsroom: a confession

I have a confession to make. 

I am a little bit afraid about The Newsroom. 

Let's face it, Studio 60 was no West Wing. Not even close. It was enjoyable, I will grant you that; I would happily have watched another couple of seasons of it. After all, not only was it written by Aaron Sorkin, not only was there much Bradley Whitford goodness, there was the very handsome Matthew Perry too, and the two of them had great chemistry. And the Christian-girl-falls-for-Jewish-guy plotline will always have a place in my heart, for reasons which should be obvious to anyone who knows me. 

But The Newsroom will have none of those things. 

Granted, I liked The Social Network, which had none of those things either. But would I have wanted to sit through episode after episode of it? No. 

I really wish I could believe that Aaron Sorkin's bright future is not, in the oft-repeated words of Bradley Whitford, behind him. But, alas - and it isn't often you get to use the word alas in a blogpost - I fear that nothing will ever compare to The West Wing. 

I long for more Sorkin brilliance in my life. I am afraid that The Newsroom will merely deliver Aaron Sorkin greatness. 

Book Review: Come to the Edge, by Christina Haag

Every once in a while, a book casts a spell on me. In 2010, it was The Song Is You, and you know that, because I still talk about it, I still recommend it, I still insist that it deserves to be better known. In 2012  - is it too soon to say? - it will be Come To The Edge. 

The elegance of the writing, the beauty of the story: "haunting" is how I have seen it described, and that was the word I would have used too. I don't remember the last time a book kept me awake and away from even Twitter for two hours at a stretch.

Christina reminds me - perhaps inevitably - of Kate, the heroine in my first novel. "I did not know," she says, "how long it took to get over such a love, and that even when you did, when you loved again, you would always carry a sliver of it in your stitched-together heart". 

I want this quote at the front of my book. I want to show it to people who read a chapter of Inevitable and say, "yeah, see, I just don't buy that after all these years she would still be thinking of him". I knew it! I knew that it happened like that sometimes. Because I am a hopeless romantic too. Maybe that’s why I was tempted (but only tempted) to rush past the background, the childhood, the descriptions, to get to the wooing, to get to the romance. And maybe that's why I felt something like a twinge of pain in my belly on so many pages: yes, my heart broke for Bradley Whitford when they split up. But it broke for Christina then too, and then time and time again afterwards. (And I want to call her by her first name. Although I know it’s an illusion, I feel, after she has shared her soul with me, that we are friends.)

Come To The Edge is a book full of emotion, not in a trite, schmaltzy way, but the way it's supposed to be, the way that people tell you to do it at writing workshops: show, don't tell. Christina takes us by the hand and she shows us what it means to be her, what it means to be John, what it means to be with John, what it means to no longer be with him. She makes me want to travel to places in America that I've never heard of. Her writing is quite simply superb, her vocabulary varied - it sounds like a small thing, but it's one of the small things that makes a book worth staying up until two a.m. to finish: when was the last time you came across the word "epiphyte"? On almost every page there was a turn of phrase I wish I could have written.

So, her writing: study it, aspiring authors. Particularly aspiring memoirists. Study it for colour and depth and how to bring the past back to life and how to convey the magic of childhood and of love. Study it to learn description and how to draw out character. Study it for the poetry of the language.

If you follow this blog, chances are you’ll know what led me to this book: it wasn’t the main story. It was a subplot about a man Christina dated for three years. You know the one. But I’m glad my endless fascination with him led me there. I’m glad that, after telling myself that it was a ridiculous reason to buy an overpriced hardback book and that it was probably really badly written anyway, I travelled to America when Amazon had it on special offer and I read some reviews that praised the prose. I thought, you know what, beautifully written tragic love stories set against a political backdrop are my thing. They’re what I write. I should read it for research.

But the stories I write are made up. This one, this heartbreaking one, is real. It can't have been easy to reach into the past for these memories, to draw them out and have the emotions rush back. But if I ever get to meet Christina Haag, I will thank her, because this is a story that needed to be told, and that it’s told so deftly means that it will reach the kind of people who don’t read celebrity biography. Literary snobs, if you will. People like me.

And then I will ask her to please keep writing. I’ll tell her that I go to a Monday Night Writers’ Group too. I don’t know why I’ll tell her that. Probably because I babble when I meet people I admire.

On the birthday of a talented actor

I don't know if Bradley Whitford seeks the limelight. If having legions of twitter followers is any indication of such desires, it would appear he does not.

But, you say. Hang on. Who chooses to be an actor if they don't have, somewhere inside them, this desire to be looked at, respected, recognised, admired, worshipped? Well, leaving aside the question of whether we all, to some extent, want those things, perhaps there are some who love acting for its own sake, for the sake of the art; perhaps all the baggage and the glitz that come with Hollywood is, to those people, incidental.

Those are the people with talent, or perhaps these are the people who, because of their devotion to their art, have studied and practised and read and observed: perhaps they are skilled, rather than talented. It is not the accident of birth that has made them what the are, but rather discipline, hard work, and determination.

The concept of talent is comforting to the rest of us: if some people have it, and I don't, well that's that, my bad luck. This mindset does not demand of me that I work hard, sacrifice sleep and time and money and sometimes relationships. I can leave that to the talented people. Who probably don't need to do that anyway, since they have it naturally. Right?

And so talent becomes revered, because it is almost magical. It is mysterious, after all: no one knows why some people have it and some don't.

Bradley Whitford may or may not be talented. What? I can hear the outcry from here. How could he not be talented? Have you not seen The West Wing? Do you not know that he won an Emmy or a stunning performance of a PTSD-afflicted Josh Lyman? Of course I know. And - unlike some Emmys, which are motivated by plenty of other factors beside the quality of acting, viz Best Supporting Actress, 2004) - his was wholly merited.

But here's what I also know: he studied for four years at Juilliard, where the hours are incredibly demanding - 8 am to 11 pm most days - and where they don't let even let you perform in public until your fourth year. You are not, in that time, seeking acclaim or pursuing celebrity. You are honing your art for the love of it. You are, often unglamorously, often exhaustedly, putting in a substantial proportion of those 10,000 hours widely believed to be required for becoming an expert at something.

Ah, you say. But 750 to 1,000 people apply to Juilliard each year, and they only take twenty. So there must have been something about Bradley. And you'd be right.  But he had, importantly, already fallen in love with his art. He wanted to act more than he wanted to be an actor. He had fallen in love with the process, and the results would follow. He had found joy in the journey itself. Perhaps that's why he does not appear to be lured by the trappings of fame.

Is he talented? Probably. I want to say, definitely. Because I too am wowed by talent. But I'm also wowed by his devotion to his art. And I think you should be, too.






Fall in love with the process and the results will follow. You’ve got to want to act more than you want to be an actor. You’ve got to want to do whatever you want to do more than you want to be whatever you want to be, want to write more than you want to be a writer, want to heal more than you want to be a doctor, want to teach more than you want to be a teacher, want to serve more than you want to be a politician. Life is too challenging for external rewards to sustain us. The joy is in the journey.


- Bradley Whitford

Watching Castle

I've finished Gilmore Girls, I'm in danger of overdosing on Friends, and I am, as always, rewatching The West Wing but only at weekends and on writing days.

So I've given in. After months of being told I really ought to watch Castle, I tried the pilot tonight.

Here's why I liked it:

The undeniable attractiveness of Nathan Fillion. (Although, I can't help thinking, perhaps predictably, that Bradley Whitford would have made a great Castle.)
The feistiness and intelligence of Kate Beckett.
The quirkiness of the secondary characters - I liked that there is a mum, and a daughter. It makes characters more rounded, somehow, when you see them interact with other people in their lives, in particular people of different generations.
The New York setting, because, you know, I can say "I've been there" every few minutes.

And, of course, the premise of the whole thing: he's a writer. He says things I want to quote, like "there's always a story" or "I never did much like reality". His motivation for doing almost everything is finding a new plot. He has writer friends who help him deepen his storyline. He gives a fan a signed advance copy of his next book. He looks right into people because he wants to find the story.

These are all things to which I can relate. Well, not the advance copy. Not yet. But I made a note to self: I can send Brad and Janel copies of Inevitable before it hits the shops, thus gaining valuable months.

Anyway, back to Richard Castle. I like him. A lot. Despite his arrogance. Or maybe because of it, a little bit. Maybe it's (still) the Josh Lyman thing.

3BT: work, a review, and my favourite actor

1. I have not one but two emails from people enquiring about lessons. I can't remember the last time this happened.

2. A twitter friend of mine whose blog has a large following agrees to review my book, Conquering Babel.

3. I watch Bradley Whitford give an interview about his forthcoming event, fundraising for a cancer charity that sounds like it's doing fantastic work. It makes me smile when celebs I love use their fame for good.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

On Bradley and Twitter, for possibly not the last time

So, there we have it. Thanks to Jenny Wade, straight from the man himself:

How can you miss me if I don't go away?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Bradley Whitford is not on twitter. He wants us to long for him from a wistful distance. You know, I think even if he were on twitter, I may be able to manage that.

Bradley Whitford live chat - sniff.

I just missed, by minutes, Bradley Whitford doing a live chat on the Washington Post website.

"Distraught" does not even begin to cover it.

I am, however, happy to report that as I suspected, the guy can spell. Only one mistake was spotted by my keen eye, and I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a typo. Also one tiny punctuation issue. This reassures me, on the whole: he is human. Therefore he is real.

So, Brad, if you're out there, these are the questions I would have asked you. Apart from all the obvious ones, and all that.

- How can we convince you to join twitter?

- Which book are you currently reading, do you read several at a time, and which five books would you take with you to a desert island?

- Please will you write the screenplay for the book I am writing?

- You have a bunch of very devoted fans. Do you ever get freaked out by their adulation of you?

- How about coming to Europe to do a play?

- What is the one question you wish people asked you on these kinds of occasions?

- Do you ever Google yourself or do a Twitter search and find out what people are saying?

- When are you going to write a movie and give Josh Malina a really bad part?

- When can we have coffee?

And also, please, oh please, can you let me know when you next do one of these? Thank you.

Favourite things that begin with B...

Dear Bradley Whitford,

So you get through a book a week? This, this, is why I think you should be on Twitter. I would like to know what's on your bookshelf right now; what your favourite novels are; whether you ever well up when you read Barack Obama.

I'd like to know if you've read Let the Great World Spin and, like me, paused on page two, and then many, many more times, to think that if your writing ever gets sent out there into the great spinning world, this is what you would like it to sound like.

Come and join us.

Or you can write to me. That would be fine too.

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.

What would you ask for? (aside from world peace...)

After computer-related time wasting, which for once was not the fault of twitter, it's now late. I'm tired, and I'm grumpy. And my wife's in Argentina. No, wait, that's something else.

Anyway, what I am gearing up for here is my excuse for using another prompt. This time I am going to type it up myself, since my formatting was completely messed up last time I copied and pasted. Oh good, more computer-related time wasting. Weren't these things supposed to make our lives easier?

(I've chosen a nice, cheerful topic for today so I'll soon be much more fun. Hang in there.)

If someone, anyone, could give you a gift right now that would truly make you happy, what would it be? Would a single rose make your day or would you need something like a new car?

It can be anything, so do not worry what other people will think of your choice. What do you want most right now, in this moment?

I'm assuming you, whoever you are, are looking for something more sophisticated than, bed with a cup of tea and a West Wing episode, followed by a lie in tomorrow.

It's a lovely sentiment, isn't it, not to worry what other people will think of my choice, but I'm putting it online for everyone to read. And I now know that everyone includes some people I actually am friends with in real life. It would take extraordinary reserves of self-confidence to blog the same way as I write in my journal. Wouldn't it? But I'll give it my best shot.

First question is, who is the anyone who is giving me a gift? Because, frankly, if Bradley Whitford were to turn up on my doorstep clean-shaven and bearing said red rose, that is my day pretty much made. (Man, I sound American these days. But that's a topic for another day.) Actually, he could turn up with not so much as a wilted daisy and still be very welcome.

Or, if Janel Moloney or Melissa Fitzgerald or Lauren Graham wanted to buy me a coffee, that would be fine too. Especially if it was one of those nice latté things I've heard you can get in other countries.

Second question - can I really have anything? Like, for example, a first-class plane ticket to DC for after that pesky ash cloud has cleared? An apartment within walking distance of the White House and a Starbucks - or, better still, in Georgetown - where I could sit and write my book (yes, I really am going to finish it one day), gather inspiration for my next one, and, assuming the absence of Bradley Whitford from my life after all, meet my own Josh Lyman? (Yes, there's a theme here. I'm sorry, but surely by now you can't still be surprised.)

I don't even need to have the apartment forever. (Erm, didn't I used to call that a flat? I rest my earlier case.) Just a few months. See how undemanding I am.

I'm not sure what any of this says about me, but I'm thinking it's probably nothing you or I hadn't already figured out. (Just to throw in another Americanism.)

But see, I'm not yet ready to go to bed. There must be other options that would work. A very large Amazon gift voucher, for instance. A couple of weeks on a Californian beach. (There's that theme again.)

Oh, I know. I know what I really want. An iPhone. I want an iPhone. I've wanted one for a long, long time and now that you can get them free on Orange back in the UK, that the adverts for applications are everywhere, I want one even more. So close, yet...

That said, if we're wishing for things, I want Belgium to repeal its ridiculous law which forbids phone companies from giving out free mobiles. Then I could have an iPhone, everyone I know could have an iPhone, Belgium could start tweeting and I'd have some online friends in my time zone and not feel like I live in a country that is somehow lacking in something vital. Which is spectacularly unfair, because we have amazing chocolate and beer and waffles and chips here, many great people, and enough quirkiness to fill a lifetime of novels.

Novels. To be honest, a few months off work so I could write mine would be amazing - even if I can't do it in Georgetown or New York City or Cambridge or a village in the South of France. Also, for an expert in the publishing industry to move in with me and be my writing coach for a few weeks.

Wow. Better go to bed before I start asking for, ahem, the impossible.

I love Bradley Whitford because...

- Most obviously, he's an amazing actor (and if you don't believe me, please immediately go and watch the West Wing episode from series 2 called Noel)

- He's a brilliant writer (more West Wing based evidence: Internal Displacement and Faith-Based Initiative - in the latter I particularly loved the CJ/Danny scenes). (I've since found out he writes 1,000 words a day. This has done nothing to cure me of my crush.)

- He's a passionate, reasoned, active Democrat. (That's a lefty, for those unfamiliar with US politics and/or my views on such matters.)

- Everyone who has ever met him says he is an all round nice guy, and their stories corroborate that: that he has managed to stay that all around nice guy in the corrosive Hollywood atmosphere is doubly impressive.

- He's articulate: eminently quotable, and often inspiring and funny with it. Still hoping for the day when the guys at Quotable Cards put him on a stamp - I mean, a notepad. (See his commencement speech from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for just a tiny tip of that particular iceberg.)

- He engages with his fans, signs autographs, hugs them even. Hugs them! When does it get to be my turn?

- He's a devoted father, and although it went wrong and all, seems like he has it in him to be a devoted husband. "My heart is so full of you..."

- He reads a book a week. How can he not be my soulmate? Plus, people who read a lot always have lots of interesting things to say, and are usually great Scrabble players.

- He's, let's face it, not bad looking. Dimples, fluffy hair, and all.

And,of course, I get him mixed up with Josh Lyman, and with the Brad in the novel I'm working on, with whom I am supposed to be in love when I'm writing in character.

There you are. Lamest topic for a blogpost in days, but the combined power of twitter, the upcoming UK election and chatting till too late with some lovely new friends tonight mean I am far too tired to contemplate writing anything too deep. Yet nablopomo demands that I nevertheless come up with something... so I thought I'd return to my tried and tested subject. It had, after all, been a while.

NaBloPoMo or the art of drivel

I've just signed up to NaBloPoMo - which is not, as you might think, a hitherto-undiscovered strain of swine flu (or 'flu - hands up if you still write that, and 'cello, and 'phone). It's National Blog Post Month. Or something like that, anyway. And since I've recently decided I need to up my word count if I'm going to stand a chance of ever being able to write this novel anything like as well as I would like to, I've decided to give it a go.

Much like practising the oboe, which seems to bascially consist of making the same mistakes and then some new ones day after day until it all magically falls into place (apparently), if I churn out enough drivel, one day I will write something good.

Lucky you, you get to read the drivel.

I have to admit, I was hoping NaBloPoMo would come up with some kind of Daily Prompter, but all it has is a theme.

This month, the theme is "Big".

Which is lucky, because something "big" happened to me today. Well, it's actually something very tiny, but I am bouncing up and down and unable to concentrate on anything else so well, what better topic for this, my first of this month's thirty blogposts.

Rob Lowe tweeted me!

Rob Lowe!

You know, Sam Seaborn. From the West Wing. That programme I go on about endlessly and have probably mentioned or alluded to in every blogpost since time immemorial.

Sorry, Janel Moloney, but even getting a signed picture of you in the post this week does not trump this. (Though, to clarify: I bounced a little then, too.)

I have to say, I have not been this excited since I got my first tweet from Josh Malina - and then - even more excitingly -a DM from him - then a retweet - and then, oh miracle, he started following me. Goodness knows why - I doubt he enjoys my daily adulation of Bradley Whitford. (They have some kind of rivalry going: it amused me greatly when I spotted a line that Brad made Josh say in a West Wing episode he wrote - "I can't act; I'm a terrible actor." Josh deserves it though - he does things like tear out the last page of books before the person has read them. Ouch.)

And he still hasn't unfollowed me - I know this, thanks to Qwitter, which I don't suggest you sign up for if you have any issues with self-confidence. And who doesn't.

Quite why any of this should be so exciting eludes me. Somewhere in my list of blog posts to be written is the title "fame - the illusion of greatness". There's one to ponder. But first, sleep.

Reasons I should move to America...

1. I am fascinated by the US, its culture, its history, its people. So much to learn.

2. More sleep. Staying up to tweet people about Healthcare Reform and the like is playing havoc with my body clock.

3. Starbucks! (though if I refer you to the previous point, which may render this one irrelevant.)

4. To help Obama keep fighting the good fight and get him re-elected. (I'm almost certain he can do it without me, though.)

5. To live in a country whose politics I have some kind of grasp on, however shaky

6. (The alternative is the UK, and I'm not going back till the nation sees sense sometime in 2014.)

7. Sleepovers with two of my childhood friends. I bet it's still fun.

8. Not to have to worry about whether I will get to see the Good Guys when it comes out, and various other TV related things

9. To get a job in publishing in New York City, which is apparently the literary capital of the world

10. Which would also make it a great place to publicise my novels from

11. Unless of course I go and study political science at Harvard or Yale, and/or creative writing at American or Columbia. (Thinking big is quite the thing over there.)

12. My chances of meeting and marrying Bradley Whitford would be greatly increased.

12. As would my chances of becoming best friends with Janel Moloney. (Ditto Alexis Bledel, Lauren Graham, and Melissa Fitzgerald.)

Books that I would like to write...

... or co-write. Or ghost write. Or adapt. Or translate. The list is endless...

Obviously, there is Inevitable, then the Muffin House and then the novel that will be loosely based on my time (hopefully) working for the Obama campaign in 2012.

But non-fiction-wise, I wouldn't mind working on the following (and leaving aside every variation on Inside the West Wing you can imagine)...

... Janel Moloney's biography

... the translation into French of Marlee Matlin's autobiography, "I'll scream later" (Marlee, if you're reading - you can check out my credentials on LinkedIn)

... So you're British and you think you can spell? - An adaptation of this great book of "Killer Quizzes for the Incurably Competitive and Overly Confident"

... Bradley Whitford's autobiography, which he really should write himself* , if the episodes of West Wing he did are anything to go by - but maybe I can proofread it for him, and advise him on which pictures to put in. You know, that kind of thing.

... Being Donna Moss: Adventures on the Campaign Trail

to be continued as inspiration strikes...

*For you clever clogs out there, I realise that an autobiography is by definition written by the person concerned. Is it, though? Jason Donovan's wasn't. Not that I am putting Jason Donovan in the same league as Bradley Whitford, although one thing they do have in common: my devotion to them. (In my defence, I was 10 when Jason was in his heyday and I was in love with him. There is no defence for my Brad devotion. I like to think that none is needed....)

Searched for recently...

... One of my all-time favourite keyword searches this week:

"Books for people who love the West Wing"

Well, there are plenty of books around along the lines of "behind the scenes of the West Wing" (frustratingly they only tend to cover the early seasons) and Amazon, in its usual helpful manner, will happily point you to them.

But no fiction. Until now.

Much as I would love to publish Donna Moss' diary and/or some quality Josh and Donna fan fiction, I think there may be some kind of copyright laws about that.

Next best thing, though: a book whose characters are fans, and occasionally quote lines, and talk about politics. And may even use the world's best chat-up line, from Scent of a Woman, "we should get together and talk politics sometime".

A book, which, in my head, has a film version in which the leads are played by Melissa Fitzgerald and (of course) Bradley Whitford, with cameos by Janel Moloney, Joshua Malina, and Allison Janney.

So look out for inevitable by Claire Lyman, coming in - maybe late 2011? In which case I really ought to get off this blog so I can wake up bright and early tomorrow (well, before 2 pm - it is Saturday after all) and ready to write the next few scenes...

Vent, vent, vent

I know, I know. There are more important things to get all heated up about.

Like, for instance, the actual debate over healthcare reform, rather than Bradley Whitford's take on it, which he delivered live on CNN while I was in my house, three metres from my television, having been ruthlessly up to date with everything about him including some nasty and patently false rumours about him doing the rounds today. Not tweeting, not channel surfing, because I was watching a film of his, which I was only watching because he was in it.

There is some irony here if I just look hard enough..

Bradley Whitford films: a shamelessly subjective viewpoint

I'm not sure how, but word has somehow got around that I am something of a Bradley Whitford fan.

Having decided that since, sniff, the West Wing only continues to exist in the hearts and minds of fan fic writers... (I plead guilty), I should get my Brad/Aaron fix from Studio 60, I thought I would try and wean myself onto the idea of watching Brad on other things with Little Manhattan. Since that was such a thoroughly positive experience, I shall now be regularly indulging in the Friday-night treat that is watching a film I would never have heard about were it not for him.

Him, and my fellow tweeters, that is, who have been a very useful source of information for such things. And today "Laura in Washington" asked me to rank BW movies by amount of screen time that he gets, so she knows what to watch first.

So in the spirit of world-wide friendship, altruism, and self sacrifice (ahem), here goes. Though I don't fancy getting the stopwatch out so I'm going to use a throughly subjective complex mathematical equation along the lines of:

wonderfulness of Brad's character x screen time x greatness of film in general x enjoyment of said film by a girl whose favourite genre (apart from political dramas by Aaron Sorkin) is the (intelligent) chick-flick

Number One - and this should, by now, come as no surprise: the West Wing. The West Wing. The West Wing. (I get so excited that I have to say it multiple times.)

- well, what can I say? If you really (really?) want to hear me enthuse more about this, check out this blogpost, or this one, or this one.

To be absolutely fair, I will let Aaron Sorkin take some of the credit for Josh Lyman's attractiveness, and also Rahm Emanuel for being his inspiration. (Funny, though - I've felt a little cheated since realising Josh is not 100% creation... I knew no good could come out of leaving the world of fiction to find out about reality.) Oh, and because I have to mention her in every post, also Janel Moloney. I think that Brad once said that so much of who he was on the West Wing was a product of his interaction with her. Or maybe it was the other way round. But either way...

It's a no-brainer, though, really: who doesn't love a vulnerable, impossibly bright, world-changing hero? With those dimples and those eyes? Come on.

Number Two: Inevitable

Yet to be made, this one, but essentially a film version of the novel I am currently working on. Oh, and he and I are going to write the screenplay together. (He just doesn't know it yet.)

He finally gets a lead role, as a frustrated musician masquerading as a diplomat in Brussels, (assuming we can make him look thirty-five) and both he and his character are thoroughly lovable. Also, Janel Moloney gets a cameo. A must-see. Now if I could just get the flippin' thing written...

For more on my delusions of grandeur, click here...

Number Three: Little Manhattan

Funny, sweet, endearing. Hats off to Josh Hutcherson who I think has a great future ahead of him, though I've heard something about vampires and the like... (Not really down with the kids these days, not that I ever was...) Lots of New York City in it. These are all good things, aside from the vampires part.

Brad's character, a fab dad, needs a hug throughout the film, and that certainly works on me.

It makes me sad, though, that he is playing a character going through a divorce... A little too close to real life.

Screen time is substantial for a non-lead character, and in any case it is a film I would have loved even without Brad. Perfect for a girls' night in. Go out and buy it. Now.

Eight out of ten (I rarely give 9s, and 10s are reserved for the West Wing).

Number Four: Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip

Well, how could I not like this? It's not just Brad, but Matt Perry as well - and he is fantastic (and not entirely unattractive) in this. It's also Aaron Sorkin's writing, plenty of romantic tension, and a lot of depth to a series that could essentially have been about unimportant fluff. Still, it's no West Wing. Maybe because there was no Janel. Or maybe because it was only allowed to last one season - it may well have needed longer to come into its own, or allow some of the storylines to benefit from the kind of Josh/Donna tension that only comes with long, long waits.

Eight out of ten as well.

Number Five: Burn Up

Can I give this one eight of ten too?

This did not sound like the kind of thing I would enjoy, and yet I'm very glad following the Brad trail led me to this. It's a two-part TV drama, three hours in total, that charts the run up to a Kyoto 2/Copenhagen conference. If global warming sounds like a dull premise, then think again - passions and self-interest run very deep in a such a powerful place as the oil industry, and there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns that will have you gasping, and wondering throughout where exactly your sympathies are supposed to lie. Brad's hair is way too short, but that's perhaps the only criticism I could level at him, or Burn Up in general. Really worth the watch. Neve Campbell and Rupert Penley-Jones are great too, and it's always fun for me to watch Brit/American dynamics play out against this kind of backdrop.

Number Six: Scent of a Woman

Thanks must once again go to Brad for introducing me to many films I would otherwise not have touched, or, to my shame, even been aware of. Among many great things about this film, which other people have no doubt reviewed and discussed much more eloquently and intelligently that I can in the context of this blog, is possibly the world's greatest chat-up line: "want to get together and talk politics sometime?".

I don't feel I can do the intelligence or subtlety or fantastic acting of this film justice here. (I will, however, be checking out more of Chris O'Donnell.) The sweet ending I wasn't sure quite fitted with the rest of the plot, but hey, it did fulfill the major criterion of a Bradley Whitford film, which appears to be making me cry.

Brad's role (let's face it, that's why you've read this far) is in a relatively short scene, quite near the beginning. He's great, though, and you get to see him speaking his mind and pinned against a wall. The Brits among you will also chuckle with me when I tell you his character's name is Randy.

6.5/10, according once again to my subjective equation, not to any objective Great Movies Of All Time league: Al Pacino got his first Best Actor Oscar for this.

As it says on the DVD, heart-wrenching, and heart-warming.

Number Seven: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 1

I've blogged about this elsewhere, but essentially, it's another great girlie film, though be warned that if you have any painful issues in your past or even just a modicum of sensitivity, you will be getting through a lot of tissues.

Screen time, though, is minimal, and painful - his character is an idiot through most of it and does not do what he really should have done in the scene where he vaguely redeems himself (bending over backwards not to spoil the plot here). But heck, he is still very attractive.

Six out of ten, but could've been more if I hadn't spent so much of it crying and therefore unable to see him properly.

Number Eight: Kate and Leopold

At sixteen, I would probably have loved this, but at - oh my goodness, I hadn't quite done the maths before - very nearly twice that, I kept myself sane by tweeting throughout (sorry, tweeps) and reminding myself that this was a Brad film. I would have stopped watching after twenty minutes were it not for him.

Remember that ridiculous drama on BBC last year about a girl who finds herself trapped in Jane Austen's times? Cross that with Bridget Jones. Don't think it would quite work? My point, exactly.

Also, I have a philosophical problem with films where Brad is not the one I am meant to be in love with. He is the baddie a la Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones, though one with a heart. (I remember having similar issues with not being allowed to fall for Hugh Grant, but that was then.)

And oh, the cheese.

Four out of ten. Even though this is Brad at his physically most attractive - 2001, so season 2/3 of WW.

Number Nine: the Client

Now before you all start attacking me for my lack of taste, I refer you to the aforementioned equation. This is absolutely not my kind of film. There is a lot, however, that is great about it, including Mary Louise Parker - amazing. Also, suspense and plot twists and even sweet moments that - damn it - made me well up. More crying! Bradley Whitford, please stop it!

Also, Brad is one of many "supporting" characters (not quite minor, he has a couple of moments of glory), so screen time is limited - and who knew that he would not be sexy in glasses. I mean, not sexy for Brad. And it's kind of weird, but even though this film is way old, he looks older than Josh Lyman did. Maybe it's those glasses Or the haircut. Or the braces. (Suspenders, to you Americans.) As a Brit, I'm not really qualified to comment on his Southern accent but it seemed to me that it wasn't the best (which is just as well, because, I'm sorry to say, I don't find that very attractive either). But let's face it, he still has the dimples. And the man can most definitely act.

So don't rush out and buy this if, like me, you like sweet, romantic Little Manhattan type films. But if you like thrillers and John Grishams, then it's a good one. And if you're a fan of Susan Sarandon and/or Brad Renfro and/or Mary Louise Parker (which you can't fail to be if you've seen the West Wing, and I'm guessing the West Wing is the reason most of you are on this website in the first place) - definitely one for the collection.

Enjoyment factor: three and a half out of ten.

So that's that for now. Watch this space for the next installment... Recommendations welcome. More than welcome, in fact. Actively encouraged, you could say.