Welcome the fabulously funny and entertaining, Jane Wenham-Jones!


SOOO happy to invite Jane to my blog today - a UK romance writer, Jane is a particular favourite at the Romantic Novelists Association events. Entertaining and side-splittingly funny, she can be relied on to oversee a great interview or generally get us buoyed up with enthusiasm to take promo challenges by the scruff of the neck! She is the ultimate PR girl :)

Really looking forward to hearing all about her latest book "Prime Time" - over to you, Jane!

Remember The Salon? The “reality” show where members of the public could go and get their hair done in a TV studio converted into a hairdresser’s where a lot of juveniles spent all day prodding each other and sniggering?
 I’d never seen the programme when I had the brilliant idea of appearing on it. Others told me it was dreadful bilge but I had my eye on the viewing figures – which were huge.
 For the previous eighteen months I’d sported fetching purple and turquoise hair extensions to match the cover of my first novel, Raising the Roof.  So what a laugh, I thought, to have my whole head a mass of pink, cappuccino, orange and black in the shades of the second one, Perfect AlibisThe Salon would have a wacky hairstyle to create and I'd get to witter on about my new book to an eager nation.
 I spent some considerable time tracking down direct email addresses/phone numbers for the producers who weren't as immediately thrilled by the prospect as I'd hoped. We had protracted discussions over whether I could show the book ( I couldn't) and whether it was OK to say what it was about (it was), what constituted  "plugging" and if I could be trusted not to do it every two minutes.
 I had to spend hours making a colour card by - rather artistically I thought - chopping a book cover into tiny pieces and creating a mosaic on the back of a postcard so that nothing remained that could vaguely identify it having come from  a book by anyone, least of all me.
Despite all the negotiations, it was still confiscated the moment I arrived at the studio in Balham High Street (somewhat hot and flustered having run up it the wrong way) , by a tall skinny bloke of about sixteen who sighed, scratched his head and  disappeared to "check with legals".
After I’d made a lot of promises I didn’t mean a word of, I was eventually allowed into the studio, where a stylist called John came over to inspect my red-at-the-the-time head.
"Nah," he said.
I tried arguing the toss until he got petulant. Putting bleach on top of henna, he insisted, would make my hair go green and fall out. This would make gripping television, I suggested. "NO!" he squealed.
       With no colours there was no story and although I made a point of droning on about the book while a girl called Mel did things to my hair that basically left it the same as it had been before, and gave her a lot of hot tips on how to find someone more interesting once she’d been married to her fiancé  - another adolescent  - for ten years and he'd started grunting, I knew very well they wouldn't show it.
So  I amused myself by watching Frankie Detorri being peroxided in the next chair along, and the  “staff” alternately sulking  and giggling  over the weirder of my fellow clients (on the other side of me was a 72 year old bloke in a skirt having his nails done and  boasting about where he had piercings. Trust me– you don’t want to know) and made mental notes in case there was an article in the whole experience.
I walked out of The Salon looking much the same as when I went in. I was on air for about three nano seconds having my hair dried. Friends loyally watching, blinked and missed it.
    But all was not entirely lost. I did get an article out of it – with a book plug at the end – and the girl who washed my hair emailed me later to tell me she’d bought a copy of Perfect Alibis. Result!
But more importantly now, the whole going-on-television business – and I did quite a lot of  it  in all – was the inspiration behind Prime Time.
On kindle or in a good bookshop near you… J
*****
Remember The Salon? The “reality” show where members of the public could go and get their hair done in a TV studio converted into a hairdresser’s where a lot of juveniles spent all day prodding each other and sniggering?
 I’d never seen the programme when I had the brilliant idea of appearing on it. Others told me it was dreadful bilge but I had my eye on the viewing figures – which were huge.
 For the previous eighteen months I’d sported fetching purple and turquoise hair extensions to match the cover of my first novel, Raising the Roof.  So what a laugh, I thought, to have my whole head a mass of pink, cappuccino, orange and black in the shades of the second one, Perfect AlibisThe Salon would have a wacky hairstyle to create and I'd get to witter on about my new book to an eager nation.
 I spent some considerable time tracking down direct email addresses/phone numbers for the producers who weren't as immediately thrilled by the prospect as I'd hoped. We had protracted discussions over whether I could show the book ( I couldn't) and whether it was OK to say what it was about (it was), what constituted  "plugging" and if I could be trusted not to do it every two minutes.
 I had to spend hours making a colour card by - rather artistically I thought - chopping a book cover into tiny pieces and creating a mosaic on the back of a postcard so that nothing remained that could vaguely identify it having come from  a book by anyone, least of all me.
Despite all the negotiations, it was still confiscated the moment I arrived at the studio in Balham High Street (somewhat hot and flustered having run up it the wrong way) , by a tall skinny bloke of about sixteen who sighed, scratched his head and  disappeared to "check with legals".
After I’d made a lot of promises I didn’t mean a word of, I was eventually allowed into the studio, where a stylist called John came over to inspect my red-at-the-the-time head.
"Nah," he said.
I tried arguing the toss until he got petulant. Putting bleach on top of henna, he insisted, would make my hair go green and fall out. This would make gripping television, I suggested. "NO!" he squealed.
       With no colours there was no story and although I made a point of droning on about the book while a girl called Mel did things to my hair that basically left it the same as it had been before, and gave her a lot of hot tips on how to find someone more interesting once she’d been married to her fiancé  - another adolescent  - for ten years and he'd started grunting, I knew very well they wouldn't show it.
So  I amused myself by watching Frankie Detorri being peroxided in the next chair along, and the  “staff” alternately sulking  and giggling  over the weirder of my fellow clients (on the other side of me was a 72 year old bloke in a skirt having his nails done and  boasting about where he had piercings. Trust me– you don’t want to know) and made mental notes in case there was an article in the whole experience.
I walked out of The Salon looking much the same as when I went in. I was on air for about three nano seconds having my hair dried. Friends loyally watching, blinked and missed it.
    But all was not entirely lost. I did get an article out of it – with a book plug at the end – and the girl who washed my hair emailed me later to tell me she’d bought a copy of Perfect Alibis. Result!
But more importantly now, the whole going-on-television business – and I did quite a lot of  it  in all – was the inspiration behind Prime Time.
On kindle or in a good bookshop near you… J
****
A British romantic comedy by Jane Wenham-Jones, author of 'Perfect Alibis'.
Laura Meredith never imagined herself appearing on TV, she's too old, too flabby, too downright hormonal, and much too busy holding things together for her son, Stanley, after her husband left her for a younger, thinner replacement. But best friend Charlotte is a determined woman and when Laura is persuaded on to a daytime show to talk about her PMT, everything changes. Suddenly there's a camera crew tracking her every move and Laura finds herself an unlikely star. But as things hot up between her and gorgeous TV director, Cal, they're going downhill elsewhere. While Laura's caught up in a heady whirlwind of beauty treatments, makeovers and glamorous film locations, Charlotte's husband, Roger, is concealing a guilty secret, Stanley's got problems at school, work's piling up, and when Laura turns detective to protect Charlotte's marriage, things go horribly wrong. The champagne's flowing as Laura's prime time TV debut looks set to be a hit. But in every month, there's a "Day Ten" ...

Buy links
Paperback:
eBook:
*****

Jane is the author of four novels and two non-fiction books – Wannabe a Writer? - a humorous look at becoming a scribe  - and Wannabe a Writer We’ve Heard Of?  a guide to the art of book and self promotion.  As a freelance journalist she has appeared in a wide range of women's magazines and national newspapers and writes regular columns for Woman's Weekly and Writing Magazine, where she is the agony aunt. Jane is an experienced tutor who is regularly booked by writing conferences and literary festivals to run workshops and give talks on all aspects of the writing process. She is also a member of Equity, has presented for the BBC on both TV and radio and has done her fair share of daytime TV, particularly when promoting her controversial second novel Perfect Alibis (subtitled How to have an affair and get away with it...) It was those – sometimes hair-raising – TV experiences that inspired Prime Time, her new novel. For more information see http://www.janewenham-jones.com and http://janewenhamjones.wordpress.com/.

 Comments??


3 comments

  1. Hi Rachel - Hi Jane!
    Having been in the audience at Jane's talk for the hungover on Sunday morning at the RNA conference in Penrith, I can attest to the fact that she's much better at waking up a room of sleepy authors than coffee!! And much more fun too. Off to get Prime Time...

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  2. Great interview! Nice 'meeting' you, Jane!

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  3. Thanks Sally and Kristina xx

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