Megan Nicol Reed Reviews Gwyneth's Xmas Wishlist, Kim's Nipple Bra & The Royal Family

 

Megan Nicol Reed

Well-known columnist, Megan Nicol Reed hit the fiction bestseller list on the release of her debut novel, One of Those Mothers, in March this year. Described as ‘Domestic noir up there with the best of them … a page-turner in all the right was,’ by NY Times bestselling author Jacqueline Bublitz, the book went on to receive rave reviews. Readers will be pleased to know Megan, dubbed New Zealand’s Lianne Moriarty and ‘new queen of the twist’, is currently working on her next novel.

 

Ahead of our conversation at the Queenstown Writers Festival, 10am, Sunday 12^th November, Megan answers some Quickfire Questions and Reviews - Gwyneth Paltrow’s Xmas Wishlist 2023, The Royal Family, The Barbie Movie etc.

 

Quickfire Questions:

English Breakfast or green tea

Literary award winner or sassy women’s fiction – can I have both?

Mads Mikkelsen or Tom Hardy – neither or maybe both, argh…

Jennifer Coolidge or Susan Sarandon – Can’t choose! Love the two of them equally!

French Champagne or orange green-skin wine

Truffled popcorn or Cheezels

Venison steak or mushroom risotto

Shop in-store or shop online – but, tragically, adore both 

Sex Education or The Beckhams or Love Island Australia

Kale matcha mushroom powder smoothie or Krispy Kreme Donut

Wellness Detox Retreat or family beach bach holiday – although have often felt like I needed a retreat after a family holiday 

HRT or Wild Yam cream

Friends over for dinner or restaurant meet-up – but both have their attractions and their downfalls

Wall Pilates or walking the dog in the dog park – but both actually feature quite prominently in my life 

Range Rover or small hybrid

Pottery mug or fine china

Duvet or duvet with top-sheet

Perfectionist or dreamer

 

 

One-sentence (brilliantly hilarious) Review/comments:

 

The Royal family: My inner socialist loathes what they represent, while the pleb in me isn’t too bovvered. 

 

New mum, Gillian Anderson in Series Three, Sex Education: I’m yet to watch the third season but I do so love Gillian Anderson, in fact, I’ve always fancied I look a teensy bit like her!

 

Gwyneth’s Paltrow’s Xmas Wishlist 2023 (inc. 24 karat gold, 24K vibrator): It takes guts to be that tone-deaf. 

 

One tip for a happy marriage: You don’t need to share each other’s interests, but your values should be in synch, oh, and keep shagging. 

 

Kim Kardashian’s just released Skims Nipple Bra: I was reserving judgement but after Googling an image of it worn under a white t-shirt, I have to say that while I’ve channelled many different looks in my time, sex doll is not one of them. 

 

The worst thing about aging as a woman: Realising how many years you wasted hating on your perfectly lovely body.

 

Describe yourself as a real estate ad: Compact with a lot going on upstairs.

 

Helicopter parents: When it comes to my kids, I’m always looking for that sweet spot between over- and under-parenting, but in truth I can be guilty of being a smother mother.

 

Name suppression rules in New Zealand: At the risk of sounding like an advocate for the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I suspect name suppression is too freely granted in NZ.

 

Dogs: My love for our dog, now aged 10, is coloured by the trauma she caused me as the naughtiest puppy in the world.

 

GANNI Boots: I once bought a pair of very expensive Ganni gumboots online and after three crippling outings, I was forced to cut my losses and drop them off at the Recycle Boutique.

 

The Barbie Movie: My daughter had seen all the videos on TikTok, and pictured us holding hands and quietly sobbing during the real women montage, but much to her dismay I slept through it. 

 

Don't miss Megan in conversation with yours truly Sunday, 12 November, 10am, at Te Atamira, Remarkables Shopping Area. Jump here for tix to our bottomless brunch. Catch you there! Jane x

The Scriptwriter - A Road Movie Spoof

Plymouth Barracuda

*I dreamt I was awarded a writer’s residency where the host was a highway motel.

Naturally, I packed my duffel bag and rocked up the next day to start it.

But WTH did I discover/do there?!

Well, you could only describe it as some bougie sort of existential mind-altering experience worthy of … of submission to a Netflix production company keen on the splatter movie short-shorts genre.*

It’s all about the script.

Setup:

Desert road movie.

Two misfits. Both creatives.

An A-grade actor with dyed black hair and one of those scalloped, receding hairlines/American. Keen to act and produce a new work near a place with three snow-capped mountains and a road called, the Desert Road.

A writer who had her first book published aged 51. Peach-toned hair/Kiwi. Keen to complete a new, ambitious project - a movie script.

They meet at a highway-side motel of nondescript architecture.

She’s come by Uber.

He drives a badass American muscle car. A Plymouth Barracuda ’71.

There are three cars in the car park. They belong to no one.

A mountain range is visible in the distance. Tumbleweeds tumble out of the tundra.

The motel owner’s son, a poppy-out-eyed greasy-haired youth is behind the desk. He will defo have a sick part to play later.

If you haven’t worked out the name of the US actor by now, let me help you.

Nicolas Cage. All 6 ft of him.

And the wannabe script-writer. Janet Bloomwayfieldmouth. 164 cm.

Scene 1:

Actor and writer greet.

They don’t say much.

Until they’ve shared a bottle of vodka. Something cheap. Finlandia.

They discover they’re the same age. 57!

They get to work on their movie script.

They sit on opposite sides of the bed in the poorly furnished motel room. They brainstorm like crazies.

Great visuals, genuinely droll snitches of dialogue, and kickass one-liners fly around the room.

Much like the overpowering patchouli-odor of the room deodorizer, which is giving Janet the sneezes.

Nicolas finds a box of coarse tissues in the bathroom for her.

The shiny brown quilt threatens to slip right off the bed.

The room is smoke-free but cigarette smoke seems to weep from the faux wood veneer headboard.

Nicolas sucks relentlessly on a grape-bubblegum vape. He explains he’s trying to give up the darts as he blows perfect smoke rings.

Janet tries without fail to find a window that opens. They both now have headaches.

Nicolas says, We’ve done great work, Janet. Let’s take a break.

He lifts the non-cordless phone beside the bed and dials '1' for the restaurant. He orders 2 x spicy pepperoni pizzas and a bottle of Finlandia. 

Scene 2:

Nicolas and Janet catch forty winks.

There’s a knock on the door. RAT A TAT TAT. TAT.

Nicolas takes the safety off his Colt 44. He’s been in short, desert road movies before.

Janet opens the door. She hands over a fifty and casually says, Keep the change.

The greasy motel youth laughs like a hyena and asks, Would you like extra sauce with that? 

He hands over the pizzas. Then he pulls out a lady handgun and aims it at Janet’s face. He attempts to pull the trigger.

Pepperoni pizza and what could be brains now splatter the ugly quilt.

Nicolas steps out from behind the door and wastes the youth.

He gathers up the script from the bedside table and flicks through it.

It’s covered in Janet’s boarding school handwriting. He has no idea what it says. It must be in a native language.

He thrusts the still warm Colt down the back of his jeans. The barrel rests under his Calvins, between his butt crack. He harrumphs and kicks the youth out of the way. Loser arsehole.

Scene 3:

Nicolas puts Janet’s hands in prayer position over her heart.

He grabs his vinyl hold-all and the vodka. He leaves the pizza, it’s covered in carpet fluff.

The motel car park still has the three cars belonging to no one in it.

A tan, three-legged dog jogs, past sniffing the air.

Nicolas pulls the door of unit 66 shut.

He does a stunt jump into the open front window of the Cuda. Forgetting he’s on the wrong side. It’s a right-hand drive.

Overcome with emptiness and emotion he slugs half the bottle of Finlandia and grabs the packet of Dunhills from the glovebox.

Lights up and takes a deep drag. Then another. 

With the cig casually held in the corner of his mouth, he drops a spectac donut, peppering the motel sign with gravel.

Then he floors-it and fish-tails onto the highway.

He wipes the tears from his eyes with the back of his hairy hand, almost burning himself on his cigarette.

Such a waste.

That was a great project. Janet was great to work with.

Oh well, writers are a dime a dozen.

Final Scene:

The Plymouth Barracuda ’71, flies westwards, airborne.

Into the blinding sun.

Janet is at the door of unit 66, waving.

Screen Shopping - A Friday Night Poem

I poured myself a wine and

perused black leather

boots on the internet,

knee-high thigh-high

mid-calf

ankle

hungry work

I ate

cracker

after

cracker of

thick creamy blue

on Seasameals

I surfed boots until that wedge of cheese was

gone

and I needed another wine to

settle into Shorty Street on the widescreen

my shopping cart holding

one item

539 dollars US Italian knee highs

with exquisite stitching detail,

softest leather inner and outer,

flat heels but oh-so-stylish

will take you from

day time to night

time on the sofa
but I didn't click check-out

I clicked the laptop lid down on

those European toes that

will never-go-out-of- fashion

and turned up The Street

in my sheepskin slippers

Books: The Year of Jane Bloomfield | The Spinoff

Click on the link below for the year of an author, bundled nicely into a lot less than the 5,000 words I started with!

Books: The Year of Jane Bloomfield | The Spinoff

(art by Eloise)

Foxes Nuzzle Each Other To Say Hello &Other Trivia

I’ll always allude that the truth is stranger than fiction on this blog and here are some odd recent events that again prove it.

Some are scary. Some are gross. Some are surprising. And good.

* If you hang white sheets on the washing line on a lovely sunny day in February in Central Otago be prepared for them to be artistically coloured purple. Ripe elderberries, plus birds, equals purple bird scat. This will not come out in the wash but will require soaking in Nappysan. Sometimes it will take at least 48 hours to get clean sheets. Persevere. Or snip off all the ripe elderberries on your property and make indifferent wine with such a low alcohol content it will not even get you pissed. After one entire bottle.

* Rest assured country dwellers that even if you can’t see them you have stoats in underground tunnels somewhere near you. Possibly right beside your house. Stoats were introduced to New Zealand to kill rabbits. It didn’t work too well. They store their prey and makes nest out of their fluffy remains. They are nasty little fuckers (sorry I don’t like to swear). However, when a stoat walks into your living room goes over the carpet to your sleeping elderly dog sniffs its bum (the dogs) then turns round, looking all butter wouldn’t melt on its hind legs with its creamy ermine tummy and brown back, then walks out again. There is only one word for it.

*Stoats also squeal when scared. I know this because I walked in on one in the chicken house when the chooks were following me in for their mash. Suffice to say. I was SCARED too. And that was not the stoat that walked up the steps across the verandah and into our LIVING ROOM the next day.

*Last October, a woman with short brown hair in a high collared purple coat came up to me outside the Miley Cyrus concert at the Vector Arena. Her lipstick was brown and her smile intent. ‘I’m from 62 Models,’ she began. I thought she must scouting one of my 14 year old charges. ‘We’re looking for interesting older women for our books. You have just the look. I spotted you….” I didn’t really hear much more after that. I was being old and getting flummoxed. I was flattered. I said no thank you. Daughter 14 seemed a bit put out. ‘Imagine coming to a concert looking for old people,’ she said. Imagine.

*If you’re in the radiology waiting room in North Shore hospital for an hour with your 81 year old dad, he might get up and say, ‘I think I’ll cash a cheque while I’m here.' That’s Alzheimers for you. It maybe time for me to stop using my chequebook.

*Sometimes nature presents possibilities that don’t involve rodents. The pretty pink roses pictured in Queenstown gardens for example. A perfect Sunday swimming pool complete with diving platform. And a head in a cloud.

* An amazing opportunity was presented to me on the, 15th December 2014 at 9.59 am precisely. It was an early Christmas presents of sorts that threw me into a spin. It involves a lifetime goal of mine and a character I created 8 years ago. I told my three children if I ever get a children’s book published I'll cartwheel nude across the lawn. I’ve gotten close, but never needed to get in the nuddy. That promise is definitely past it’s best before date. 

I’ll say no more because I’ve been superstitious ever since I was five and lay each night in my bedroom in Beresford St, Bayswater, listing the things I'd done that day in my head. My elder sister beside me not privy to the sinister wishes I hoped for myself if the bad things outweighed the good.

So I don’t want to jinx it. However, if my weekly blog posts are erratic (and they have been), it’s because my mind is tied up with characters and make believe. Elsewhere. 

It’s out with the old and in with the new in 2015. I love surprises and challenges as long as they don’t involve stoats and stings. I've got a big job ahead and along the way I hope I can return some of the kindnesses I’ve received in my writing life. I'm feeling so lucky.

I Made This Up

I've been working on a children’s book lately (one of many WIPs bulging out of my bottom drawers). Massaging this story into shape seems to have punched the pulp out of my gobby self-denigrating thought provoking blogger self. What to do? 

I didn’t want to write a half boring post on my go-to must-have all-time-fave sans-luminescent-sphere colour adapting tinted moisturizer - but it's Body Shop, All-In-One BB Cream in shade 02 if you're interested. Or how The H broke the Sky dish by throwing a large piece of carpet on it. True. Or how the cat pooed neatly on a towel in son 11's bedroom, then said towel was hung on the towel rail. NO.

Instead, I’m posting the first chapter of the aforementioned book. Critique it if you will. Nicely though, I have the skin of an old lady but the flesh of a ripe mango.

When I get this word-baby up to scratch I plan to publish it as an e-book and an audio book then sell the combo to my friends. You peeps out there with sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, friends and family members 10 years old and under. You have been warned.

Actually, sorry campers, I have removed the first chapter. Just decided to keep it under wraps. Take it to a higher papery place when it's ready. And it's not. So above is a pic of Spilt Milk softly sleeping - one very cool dog now the ripe old age of seventeen. Perspective.