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Webchat with Helen Fielding - RESCHEDULED! Come and chat to Bridget Jones author TOMORROW, (Weds 14 December), 9-10pm

158 replies

SorchaMumsnet · 24/10/2016 10:39

Calling all Bridget Jones fans! We’re giving you the chance to put your questions to Helen Fielding who is joining us for a webchat on Thursday 27 October between 9 and 10pm.
Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries is the latest installment charting the life of this literary phenomenon. Everyone who joins the webchat will be entered into a draw to win one of two SIGNED copies of Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries.

Helen is one of the country’s greatest comic writers. Bridget Jones’s Baby is her sixth book and she is part of the screenwriting team on the three films. We're really honoured that she's agreed to give us her time on Thursday from her home in Los Angeles, so please do come along and join the chat. If you’re unable to make that time, feel free to post up a question in advance to this thread.

please note the webchat has been postponed. We're hoping it will take place next Wednesday (3 November) between 9 and 10pm. We have posted up a statement from Helen's team in the thread below.

Webchat with Helen Fielding - RESCHEDULED! Come and chat to Bridget Jones author TOMORROW, (Weds 14 December), 9-10pm
Webchat with Helen Fielding - RESCHEDULED! Come and chat to Bridget Jones author TOMORROW, (Weds 14 December), 9-10pm
OP posts:
HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:11

@worriedbigsis

It's breakfast time in Sydney. Now I'might tempted to have chocolate (and wine).

Go for it, worriedbigsis

VanillaSugarAndChristmasSpice · 14/12/2016 21:15

Bridget Jones has been listed as one of the most influential women in Woman's Hour's Power List from the last 70 years. Please give us Bridget's acceptance speech...... pours wine and settled in Wine

WhatsGoingOnEh · 14/12/2016 21:15

Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists?

Sorry to be so blatantly grabby and self-centred. But do you?

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:15

@BeautifulMaudOHara

Hi Helen, I love your books - I WAS Bridget, back in the 90s in London.

How do you feel about the "Bridget doesn't do feminism any favours" comments? (I don't agree with these btw, I think you can love Bridge and be a feminist, I am both)

If we women aren't allowed to laugh at ourselves we haven't got very far at being equal, have we?

The way people respond to Bridget seems to be the way women respond to each other when we're in private with our friends.

We don't go "oh, oh look at me I'm so successful and marvellous." We share our problems and worries and embarrassing moments, laugh about them, and are kind and support each other in the knowledge that we're all human and vulnerable. That's not anti-feminist. It's mutual support and strength.

KimmySchmidtsSmile · 14/12/2016 21:15

So... shall we ask our questions again or are you going from page one? Smile

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:16

@KimmySchmidtsSmile

So... shall we ask our questions again or are you going from page one? Smile

Ask away. I think I'm getting the hang of this now. I love Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt by the way!

LineyReborn · 14/12/2016 21:19

Good evening, Helen Wine

How do you deal with criticism? Are you robust?

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:21

@Yakitori

I haven't got a question but just wanted to say how BJ has brought great joy to my life over the last 20 years and to thank you in person. I read the first book when I was 20/21 years old and am 41 now. In particular my friends and I laughed our arses off at the latest film- I think this is possibly my favourite instalment in BJ's life. I recently rewatched the first film with my mum as well and we still love it. I cant wait to read the 'new' book. Thank you so much, Helen!

Thank you! I think the early books were about the gap between how you feel you're supposed to be and how you actually are. And the Bridget Jones' Baby novel is about the gap between how you feel your life is supposed to turn out and how it actually does.

Bridget always thought when she found out she was pregnant with the pregnancy test it would be with the square jawed love of her house in the tastefully renovated kitchen of a Cotswold Farmhouse.
Instead she finds herself with her longtime and still slightly drunk friends, staring at the pregnancy test and saying "But who is the father?'

But as her Dad says, nobody's life turns out perfectly, and the trick is to play with the cards you are dealt.

MrsNutella · 14/12/2016 21:21

I'm also in Germany

I would love to know how you feel about younger women coming to Bridget Jones' Diary and discovering it for themselves.

I remember first reading it and being able to relate to it all so easily. I wonder if the next generation will be able to relate to Bridget.

Bijouxxx · 14/12/2016 21:22

Hi Helen!
Is there anything you have written that you regret/wish you gave a different outcome? Possibly due to the way it was received by readers e.g. Killing off mark darcy?

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:23

@WhatsGoingOnEh

Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists?

Sorry to be so blatantly grabby and self-centred. But do you?

The best advice I ever had about writing was "Write as if you're writing a letter to a friend."

When I was writing the Bridget Jones' Baby novel I wrote it like the columns and other books, in an armchair, in a feral frenzy not telling anyone I was doing it , so i could just think about Bridget and what was going on in her head, and writing as if she was writing to me.

KimmySchmidtsSmile · 14/12/2016 21:26

Sorry. Child mithering when should be asleep by now. Wink
I chose the name as she is my polar opposite (relentlessly cheerful) which I would love to be, rather than the jaded, cynical pessimist I am.
My questions were:

  1. How far does the new book use the old baby columns?
  2. Any update on Bridget Jones the musical?
  3. How frustrating was the production process of the BJB movie? (or did.you have no part in that?)
  4. Would you ever consider a 4th novel about Bridget's earlier married years?
  5. Did you ever consider having hwr end up with Daniel.in novel form?

Thanks Flowers

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:26

@MrsNutella

I'm also in Germany

I would love to know how you feel about younger women coming to Bridget Jones' Diary and discovering it for themselves.

I remember first reading it and being able to relate to it all so easily. I wonder if the next generation will be able to relate to Bridget.

There seems to be a new generation of readers for Bridget - some as young as 13. The issue of feeling you're supposed to be thinner, more beautiful, more successful than you really are has got much bigger for the new generation with the advent of social media, Face Book and Instagram where everyone posts their prettiest picture, and people rarely give honest emotion. I think it's good to realize that it's more important to be kind, warm and fun than have an enormous handbag or a bottom like two snooker balls.

Stillnoidea · 14/12/2016 21:26

What's your favourite ever bit of the Bridget Jones' books? There's so many but for me singing like a virgin in the Thai jail always sticks in my mind...

MNHQ
RachelMumsnet · 14/12/2016 21:27

Can I ask you our standard Mumsnet questions that we ask all authors?

Which childhood book most inspired you?

What was the last book you gave someone as a gift?

Which book are you hoping to get this Christmas?

And finally (v excited to hear this) can you describe the room where you wrote Bridget Jones's Baby?

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:29

@LineyReborn

Good evening, Helen Wine

How do you deal with criticism? Are you robust?

I always intend to be very buddhist and stand like a great tree in the midst of criticism - but then end up sobbing in my PJs. But I have got a bit better.

I think I'm starting to realize that it all settles down in the fullness of time. Bridget Jones' Diary, The Edge of Reason, Bridget Jones' Baby, Mad About the Boy - all tell different stages of her story and I'm happy that they're all there for people to read.

VanillaSugarAndChristmasSpice · 14/12/2016 21:30

And the obligatory question. ..
What is Bridget's favourite biscuit? !!

KimmySchmidtsSmile · 14/12/2016 21:31

Waves back to Mrs Nutella
How are you vanilla? Brew

MinesAGin · 14/12/2016 21:31

Were you involved in the casting at all, or do you just have to let it go? And once the films were made, did that affect the way you wrote the last book? Which Bridget were you writing for?

I love your books and don't know a woman who doesn't! (And far prefer them to the films.)

KimmySchmidtsSmile · 14/12/2016 21:34

Damn.I can't count. 5th novel not 4th ^ Blush

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:34

@noeuf

The only question - snog, marry, avoid?

Mark Darcy
Daniel Cleaver
Jack

??

Mark Darcy - snog and marry.
Daniel Cleaver - snog
Jack - snog.

The original story told in the Bridget Jones' Baby novel was Bridget sleeping with both her exes - Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy . I've always thought they were two halves of the perfect man - the charming, sexy bastard, and the solid, decent human rights lawyer. So there was a lot of fun to be had writing about the competition between them.

Shatter: "Don't worry if it comes out trying to shag the nurses it's Daniel's and if it comes out with a poker up its are, it's Mark Darcy's. "

WhatsGoingOnEh · 14/12/2016 21:35

Helen, thank you for your writing tip -- I'll do that. :)

MinesAGin · 14/12/2016 21:36

The books do appeal just as much to younger women as those the same age as Bridget - my daughter's read all of them and loved them, as have all her friends.

VanillaSugarAndChristmasSpice · 14/12/2016 21:36

cough Speaking of casting:

Leather Jacket Man: Hugh Bonneville
Roxter: Chris
Mr Wallaker: Daniel Craig (obvs)
Neighbour: Helena BC or Minnie Driver.

Just saying, Helen Halo

HelenFielding · 14/12/2016 21:36

@WhatsGoingOnEh

Helen, thank you for your writing tip -- I'll do that. :)

OH no! Don't do what I just did and put "Shatter" instead of "Shazzer"
Second writing tip - always check your work back before posting.

Sorry about that.