To start a new term at the Chalet School?

[Vintagejazz]

Happy for this to be moved to Chat if posters agree but thought I'd start it here as this is where we've all been loitering without permission when we should be doing our housework homework.

So welcome to a new term everyone. Cases upstairs to the dormitories, form lists on the notice board. And you'll all be pleased to hear that even though we've moved to a different location, Joey has tracked us - -down moved in next door, so we'll still be seeing too much-- plenty of her

SGB might have been expected to recognise her. But back in those days I'm not sure her face would have been well known, there's no record of her taking TV interviews etc. and no internet, and photos much less commonly taken. With her ear phones I imagine she would be fairly recognisable, but recognising from only a photo is not easy.

The whole idea of her being guardian was ridiculous. I think I'll appoint HRH Prince William as guardian for mine and hope dd2 doesn't start bumping us off
Does come across as her parents were slightly um... keen on the look perhaps.

I'd like to nominate Joey for I'm a celebrity get me out of here.

I'd like to see her in the BB house; running around giving her helpful advice and insights and then wondering why she's first to be voted out

Yes, all we see of Joey as a writer is writing the first book. Matey is obviously a secret book critic!
Then occasionall correcting proof when there's jobs to be done.
And people going "Wow! Josephine Bettany!". I don't even think you see her signing books or doing any publicity etc. You don't even hear a lot about a book being accepted after the first few.
Gwensie and Robin have a chat about them and who they're dedicated to, but I'm not sure we get any titles after that.

Hakluyt did your mother also preserve eggs in water glass - and you be the person detailed to delve up to the elbow in this thick cold alien liquid in order to extract the number required?

She did actually try to preserve eggs once- but only because she read about it in Mrs Beeton and liked a challenge. I still remember the smell of the ghastly results........

I have petrol now Now cross fingers that it does start and isn't something else wrong with the old banger.

I agree DeWee. You'll sometimes get a throwaway line about her getting a book finished because the weather was so bad she couldn't go out or somesuch; but being a writer doesn't seem to be a salient feature of Jo or something that takes up much of her time or drives her in anyway. She seems to produce books as casually and easily as she produces babies

ps hope the car started. Do you need blankets, hot milk and someone to sing to you in sweet golden tones?
Or would you prefer a large

I wish Joey's writerliness was a bit more properly ingrained in her. I think it's a really significant and nice thing, that EBD technically portrays her as having a career and a family - it just feels a bit haphazardly done, at times. Like, it sometimes says how very writerly she is and how of course she was always going to be a writer, blah blah, but it never seems to actually show that, for me anyway.

You'd think being the author of a long series of school stories would be the one thing EBD really could be authoritative on!

I have just ploughed, caught like a rabbit in the headlights, through five parts of the Joey gets TB series in the Sally Denny Library. I hope the author doesn't read this as it's clearly a labour of love, but by hell it's turgid. All Joey does for years is sleep, get breathless, go in and out of the San, cry, have the same anguished conversations with Jack, Jem and Madge, and get treated like a five year old. Every spark of her personality disappears. It made me actually miss the real thing!

'Nancy Meets a Nazi' (as referenced in The CS Goes To It) has always struck me as one of the worst book titles of all time.

I'll definitely keep away from Joey Gets TB after your comments, TooSpotty! IME a failing in much of fanfic is too much tedious emotional chat and analysis. The writers get too absorbed in their adopted characters and forget to give them any interesting plots (which is in any case much harder, and requires genuine creativity).

Can anyone post on Sally Denny or do you have to be accepted as a writer.

Oh I don't know, there are lots of references to her books (and how absolutely everyone she meets has read at least one of them) - and in Mary-Lou and at least one subsequent book she talks about having been commissioned to edit an anthology of poetry and how it means an awful lot of research.

So glad you got your petrol DeWee .

I was just reading one where Joey is frustrated as for the first time the characters in her book won't do what she wants - one of the early ones, Rivals I think. I think she talks a bit more about it in the earlier novels but then it slips like everything else.

Joey gets TB sounds appalling. There is a whole series on there about Joey's depression too, which didn't really appeal.

It's interesting reading the war ones to think EBD was writing them when they were set. There is so much second WW lit that was written after the war that it is quite refreshing to read someone who didn't know what was going to happen. I feel quite sorry for her realising what a mistake she'd made moving the school to Guernsey, and having to move it again.

I'm sorry to be a pest, especially as I haven't had time to read the whole thread (and I'm sure the answer is in there) but could someone tell me where to get the ebooks. I loved these when i was little.

Thanks

:)

The trouble with a lot of fanfic is that it is just shit. I try not to be too snobby about it, having once been bollocked all the way round the block and back by a friend and fanfic writer who was actually right in a lot of what she said - nearly every good writer starts out writing fanfic. Even though it might not have been called fanfic when they were writing it - pretty much everyone who wants to write stories and does it. Your earliest works are very heavily influenced by whatever was your favourite book/film/TV show at the time. But, for people who like to write and have an aptitude for it, you progress to finding a universe and a voice of your own to write in. An awful lot of fanfic is produced by people who are at beginning-writer stage, even if they are adults, so it's either atrociously written or completely pointless. Or it's basically mary-sue wishfulfilment which can be very dull to read.

The good stuff appears when someone is about halfway through the writing progression - or is a good writer without either the time or the confidence to tackle the creation of a whole set of characters and a world for them to perform in.

Some of the stuff I've read has been pretty pointless. I like the humourous pieces or the ones that take a new and innovative approach to familiar storylines and characters.

I think some of the stuff on the last thread was actually better than a lot of the pieces on Sally Denny.

Glad you got your petrol DeWee

Joey is alleged to have written hundreds of books but only 4 do get mentioned. She probably wrote a song book for golden and silvery voices too. In between dropping sprogs like chewing gum wrappers and terrorising new girls with English Tea.

I seem to be a bit out of sorts. I must need to see Matron for something to put me back in good humour! :)

I say my lovelies

AIBU to worry my husband can't stand our third son and rarely says anything nice to him or about him? He seems to quite like our second son and to at least not be permanently looking with frank disgust at him. At one point he refused to talk to the poor boy for two days because he went birds nesting and got stuck on a cliff, and I was a total drip and fainted.

He adores his daughters and he *is a solid lump of comfort. Shall I just send son 3 away for a month or so or stuff him in the Navy or something?

I read the Joey gets TB story too and it depressed me. Not as much as the chalet girls grow up though that was horrific. I was in bits

I loved peace by Catherine Bruce. It's a lovely read.

Got to say the coincidences of Robin being Adrienne's cousin and Melanie being Jeannie's neice are annoying too.

I thought joey gets tb was appallingly dreary too. I did like the series where she doesnt marry Jack but goes to america instead. That one had some interesting storylines.

rumble yes I remember the occasion when this happened. Your solid lump didn't dare thrash him then for disobedience as he couldn't trust himself to stop. I believe you enquirer why your bil didn't step up to the plate too.

My lamb you are spoiling him. Put him into Dartmouth now.

By the way I hate to mention such a delicate subject but do you think your second son might be a bit of a sissy?

Jack should beat all of that noticing nature nonsense out of him sooner than later. It's not manly.

THough I did like the one someone linked to a while back which features the Von Trapp family and fills in a few gaps around Exile. That was well written and sort of plausible too (even with the Von Trapps - mind you, wasn't The Sound Of Music based on a true story?)

Yes, the Trapp Family Singers really existed, though in reality Maria married the Captain in the mid-1930s and they had two or three children of their own plus the older ones before they had to flee the Nazis.

SGB yes liked that one too. It was sweet and unexpected.