Blog Tour - The Worse Case Scenario Cookery Club by Chrissie Manby

Today I am pleased to welcome Chrissie Manby to my blog to celebrate the publication of her new paperback, The Worse Case Scenario. Firstly I must apologise because this should have been posted yesterday, however computer problems have made it a day late. Chrissie has visited lots of blogs and readers can check out the blogs below to follow the tour in its entirety.

Chrissie has joined me on the blog and discusses her 'annus  horribilis’ and how she has written her way back to happiness .........

I don’t mind telling you that the last twelve months have been among the worst of my life.  Scrap that.  Not ‘among’ the worst.  They have been the worst, full stop (touches wood and hopes I won’t need to add ‘so far’).

Anyway, the year I like to call my ‘annus fucking horribilis’ began with the sudden death of my father last August.  The fall out from that, along with a variety of crises that were already brewing, combined to make the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 one constant round of grief, despair and disappointment.  Of staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, heart pounding, brain full of anxiety.  Of pulling the duvet over my head in the mornings, as I whined ‘do I really have to face another day?’

Yep.  I was fantastic company. And boy was it showing in my writing. 

I started working on The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club just after Dad died.  The book’s due date was the end of March 2017.  Midway through February 2017, I read through what I’d done thus far and realised I’d accidentally written a tragedy.  All three of my main characters were recently bereaved, as I was.  None of them were able to move forward.  They talked and cried and sobbed and occasionally considered suicide. Meanwhile, Hodder had commissioned a book cover featuring a bunting-covered cake stall and a waggy-looking dog.

The disconnect between what I was writing and what was expected of me was immediately and glaringly obvious.  For another two weeks, I tried to make my story fit the cover.  It wasn’t happening.  On March 10^th, the day after what would have been Dad’s birthday, I scrapped the whole damn thing.  It’s written in my diary for the day.  Just four words. ‘Made decision about novel’.

It was possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever done.  I was setting aside pretty much a whole book to start again with less than a month before my deadline.  Deciding against telling my agent or my editor what was going on (in fact, I told only one person, fellow writing nutjob Michele Gorman), I made myself a timetable.  Three weeks.  Roughly four thousand words a day.  If I could hit those targets, I should be able to do it. It was madness. But I wouldn’t be the first to try.

I took Anthony Trollope, the Victorian novelist, as my inspiration.  Trollope was a writing machine, fitting in three hours before breakfast every day.  Each of those three hours was broken down into fifteen minute sections with a target of two hundred and fifty words for every quarter of an hour. Insane but, as it turned out, not impossible.

Trollope and Michele (another high speed writer) gave me the encouragement I needed.  I started the second version of The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club on March 12^th. On the morning I began again, I had a little cry. Actually, it was a big cry. Then I pulled on my big girl pants and got cracking. 

Luckily, the first draft of WCSCC wasn’t completely wasted.  There were sections I was able to salvage.  The cooking scenes and recipes remained the same.  I also retained my three main characters though I changed their back stories.  Liz’s husband didn’t die this time.  He merely left her for a health food blogger. That immediately opened up the possibility of jokes about quinoa (I was desperate after all).

As I wrote, I channelled some of my zanier heroines from novels past, such as Lizzie Jordan and Ashleigh from Getting Over Mr Right. As I dropped my attempts at ‘heartfelt’ and went instead for ‘flat-out bonkers’, the words began to flow. And something inside me began to change too.

My writing schedule was lunatic but it gave me no time to dwell on the sadness in my little corner of the world.  My waking hours were devoted to coming up with funny scenarios. My sleeping hours were no longer interrupted by those middle of the night dread fests.  I was too fricking tired for that.  My days were just writing and writing and writing.  And finally, once again, finding the energy to laugh at my own jokes (which is apparently one of my worst habits).  My crazy gamble was bringing me back to life.       

I handed in the second draft of The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club bang on my deadline. Then I took a very long nap.

I don’t know if WCSCC is my best book but it’s certainly the one I love the best right now.  Those months I spent writing the first draft weren’t wasted.  In retrospect I can see that I was working through my grief in those pages.  But I am extremely thankful for the joy writing Liz, Bella, John and the Waggy Weight Loss Club gang brought back into my life.  And to Anthony Trollope and Michele Gorman for inspiring me to pull my socks up and get on with it. Four thousand words a day? No problem.

Thank you Chrissie for joining me on my blog. Loosing a parent is definitely one of the largest things that can happen in a person's life and it takes a long time to come to terms with. I remember when my dad died suddenly, he was only 52, and it hit me for six. I hope that you are starting to come to terms with your loss and remember all the happy times you spent together.

The Worse Case Scenario Cookery Club is a great read, I really enjoyed all the characters and the storyline is believable and a really enjoyable book. The cooking scenes are fantastic and the food sounds mouthwatering.

Thank you to Chrissie Manby and her publishers, Hodder, for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.