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I fill my journal and my notes and my computer files with new scenes and ideas and inspiration every day and enrich my novel with the glorious profusion of things that I’m living in every day, and the culture of words all around me. Because the French just love words, particularly witty—or poetic—words. It’s not only that this is a city of innumerable bookshops, a city where writers both living and dead are celebrated. You also hear this love of words in shops and supermarkets, in trains and in market queues, and lots of ordinary places. French people admire people who speak well and think fast, and they love elegance of expression and quick-fire repartee—and Parisians are particularly famous for it.
Occasionally the sharpness can turn to a vinegary sourness and the wit to cutting cruelty and the elegance of expression to a stony-hearted conventionality(being made to look ridiculous is a fate worse than death for Parisians!) But most often it’s not like that at all but a distinctive aspect of Parisian life that never loses its charm. And for my young characters, discovering all those things for the first time, it’s even more magical and amazing.
You hear a lot about French style. Well, it’s true! There’s something just naturally stylish about this place. It’s not try-hard, it’s just easy and natural; even when people are dressed casually, they somehow carry it off with dash and flair. My characters are always really impressed by that—as I am, actually! It’s not just about fashion, either; it’s just the way people present things—on plates in restaurants, on displays in shop windows, and in the architecture, which is graceful and pleasing to the eye. Even the Seine seems to flow with style!
It’s so much fun too renewing with all the wonderful big sights that I’ve seen before but that never seem to pall—like the Eiffel Tower, or the Tuileries Gardens, the amazing, amazing artworks in the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay(which happens to be my favourite!) But it’s also fun discovering unexpected, much less well known things, like the extraordinary Police Museum, with its collection of original documents of famous crimes, like the affair of the Diamond Necklace; or the touchingly poetic street art in Belleville, or the Museum of Magic and Automata just down from our place, with its collections of weird mechanical dolls. Paris simply has something for every one!
All my characters love good food—not surprisingly, as I do! And Paris is the kingdom of the best food ever. There’s umpteen restaurants and little cafes and street stands selling hot crepes or waffles or roast chestnuts in the winter. As the weather gets warmer, the icecream stands open up, selling the most gorgeous fruit sorbets and creamy ices. Then there’s the bakers and pastry shops—oh my God, I can never go past them, and neither can my people! Trouble is, it’s pretty hard to decide—will you have an eclair or a chocolate mousse cake or perhaps a fruit tart or—perhaps you’ll just have to have a different one each day! The bread’s gorgeous too. And the markets are something else—the most tempting array of goodies, from the freshest fruit and vegs to all kinds of poultry, fish, meat, cheeses, charcuterie, and the most wonderful hot-food stands, rotisseries crammed full of succulent roast chickens and crackling pork ribs and tiny golden potatoes; paella cooking in big woks, hot Carribean sausage smelling most appetising, Moroccan tajines simmering slowly….
It all looks so beautiful too, like a whole lot of still-life paintings. But there’s nothing at all still-life about the vendors, who shout out their wares very cheerfully, or the crowds of shoppers who press very determinedly around the stalls, filling their baskets to the very brim.
There’s this great verb in French, ‘flaner’, which is quite hard to translate—but basically it means to stroll around, taking in the sights, taking your time—and that’s exactly what I love doing the most in this city.
Every day, I ‘flane’ for ages, taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of this gorgeous city that is at both so elegant and so sensual. I walk all over the city, from the most chic quarters to the cheerfully shabby areas, and everywhere there is something to see and do and enjoy, something that can be filed away for future reference. And as I go I can see my characters walking along—look!
There they are, just ahead of me, talking, laughing, as excited to be here as I am! They’re gazing into the glorious shop windows(Paris has the best shop windows in the world, I reckon!) They catch the Metro and take in all the odd sights of that weird underground world, with its musicians and beggars and crowds of people from all over the world. They walk by the river and take in the changing scenes of the city as it’s gone from late winter, when I first arrived, into spring and then summer, an explosion of flowers and leaves and bright clothes and cheerful voices coming out of the muted colours of winter.
Each of my books is inspired by a different French setting. In Three Wishes it was south-west France; in Pop Princess, it was Paris, in Cupid’s Arrow the green, mysteriously Celtic region of Avallon in Burgundy, eastern France; in Bright Angel, the Pyrenean mountain town of St Bertrand de Comminges, which is so beautiful that it almost breaks your heart. And now back in Paris again, researching a new book, I’m amazed all over again by how addictively lovely and how magical this city is—fully deserving its traditional name of ‘the City of Light’.As an amazed and grateful six-month resident in the Keesing Studio, the Literature Board of the Australia Council’s fantastic pied-a-terre for Australian writers in the Cite Internationale des Arts, I look out from my studio window onto a typical Paris street, a stone’s throw from the majestic Seine and the magnificent towers of Notre-Dame on the one hand, and from bustling streets full of the most wonderful little shops on the other. A short walk or Metro ride away are some of the most famous and gorgeous sights in the world. Yes, to be a writer in Paris has just got to be one of the best things ever! Welcome to my world!
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