French memoir Blown Out of Proportion by author Rachel Caldecott

An amazing story of love, glassblowing and one family’s gutsy move to France

Building writing confidence through experience was key to Rachel Caldecott publishing her memoir Blown Out of Proportion: Misadventures of a Glassblower in France.

Certainly Caldecott never expected to end up writing, despite coming from a ‘booky’ family that included a writer mother and publisher father.

Indeed as a youngster she was interested in “too many things” and assumed something else was waiting for her.

But, despite these doubts, Caldecott’s Blown Out of Proportion was published in April.

And it tells the tale of moving, with her husband Chris and their two young children, from the United Kingdom to southern France.

Here they establish a glassblowing studio in an impoverished, sleepy town while braving scorpion-filled hovels, eccentric locals, corrupt politicians and traumatic legal battles.

Forever Young Autobiographies caught up with Caldecott to find out more about her book, the creative process and her suggestions for fellow writers.

Taking a writing journey

Background to Blown Out of Proportion

While looking for my direction in life I had a great deal of fun.

Certainly looking back on it now, I can see certain recurring themes.

However, like the rest of my family I was interested in the arts (I went to art school), theatre and film (I studied theatre and worked briefly as an assistant 16mm film editor) and travel (I travelled a lot, worked for a Japanese travel agency and ended up living in Italy).

Meanwhile I liked ecology (I worked for two charities – World Wide Fund for Nature and Living Earth) plus human rights (my longest lasting job was for a well-known non-government organisation).

Then, quite unexpectedly, when I was 34, I met Chris.

We married four months later, and 10 months after tying the knot, we had our first child.

I then threw myself into motherhood while helping Chris run his glassblowing studio.

And when a second child arrived we decided to up-sticks and move to France.

Coaching Calls Forever Young Autobiographies. Open hand outstretched over sparkling water.

How the idea for Blown Out of Proportion began

I hadn’t intended to make this into a project.

But our experiences moving abroad were so different from everyone else that I was eventually persuaded to put it all down in black and white.

And like so many things in my life, I fell into Blown Out of Proportion almost by accident.

I started simply writing emails to family and friends.

But, as anyone will tell you, just because your friends think you can write, it doesn’t mean you should!

Instead, I researched the history of our little French town and wrote about that.

However, what was intended to be a bit of fun for the family, suddenly found itself published and on sale in the local museum and supermarket.

So with that little book, I gained confidence as a writer.

Meanwhile, when bizarre things kept happening to us, I kept making notes.

And I continued to send out emails and people continued to tell me to put it all into a book.

Strong support for the book

My big brother Stratford, an author, had always been incredibly supportive of my writing.

But I was dithering, so he suggested I turn my emails into blog posts, which I did for a while, rather half-heartedly.

Next I gathered all the blog posts together and showed them to a friend who was a literary consultant.

She made a few suggestions about how to reorganise the writing into themes and sent me off to work on it some more.

But once more writing Blown Out of Proportion went onto a back-burner as life took over.

However, during this time I was suddenly inspired (by watching our cats) to write a futuristic novel story, The Coalition (republished as The Panopticon Experiment).

In 2014, Stratford, 58, died from prostate cancer, and a year later my mother followed.

While I was rushing back for her funeral, I became fully aware of the refugee crisis unfolding around us in Europe and vowed to help in any way I could.

Certainly I had caught the writing bug by now and so used my skills to write articles about the refugee crisis.

Writing for a cause is one thing but, as you can imagine, writing about our lives in France seemed a little trivial by comparison to everything that was going on around me.

Writing and publishing Blown Out of Proportion

Getting serious

In early 2020, with my novel out of the way and published, I thought I’d submit Blown Out of Proportion to an agent.

But I guess I was overconfident at this point and fully expected to land a deal instantaneously.

Finally, one agent suggested I put it into chronological order. Themes, she said, rarely worked.

I must admit, I grumbled a bit about that but eventually realised the agent probably knew better.

So, I used coronavirus lockdown to reorganise it, find a title and get a cover.

Indeed that was a frustrating process. None of the titles worked.

However, in exasperation, my son Stan said: “For goodness sake call it Blown Out of Proportion!”

Now the final book is still anecdotal but follows a real timeline and doesn’t jump about as much as it did before.

Overcoming writing struggles

Ask any writer and I bet sooner or later they’ll admit their difficulties writing query letters to agents.

Creating snappy taglines and pithy blurbs is a highly skilled talent.

But apart from that, the hardest part was girding my loins for criticism.

I think books about overcoming some dreadful disaster, like an illness or accident, often leave the reader automatically on the side of the writer.

But Blown Out of Proportion isn’t like that. It doesn’t have any one single disaster – it has lots of smaller ones!

However, I made it painfully clear in the book that we didn’t always get it right and that we made mistakes.

Also that what happened to us was a result of our choices, our personalities and our particular circumstances.

So far, only one reviewer has been openly critical (I think she thought we should all be in therapy).

And everyone else has taken the book in the spirit in which it was written.

Rewards of Blown Out of Proportion

The top reward for finishing Blown Out of Proportion was having my kids say they were proud of me.

Indeed both said I’d done a good job chronicling our lives, helped them come to terms with the things that had happened, and understand why we stayed in France.

It was also lovely remembering things about France: the scenery in particular and how kind some people can be.

But actually, I don’t have a favourite part.

It is real life, so you take the rough with the smooth.

Tips for fellow life-story writers

First take notes and keep records.

Next get the story down roughly and walk away for a couple of months before looking at it again.

And don’t be frightened of a bit of hard work – writing is hard work.

But by the end your story should flow like a novel and be interesting to read.

Also be honest with yourself. Don’t try to be, or appear to be, something you aren’t.

In short, readers want, expect and deserve honesty.

Certainly they’ll respect you for your honesty.

Final say: Blown Out of Proportion

Blown Out of Proportion by Rachel Caldecott is a poignant and humorous memoir.

It is a unique story about a young family’s dogged determination to succeed against all odds when they move to France.

And you can find out more by grabbing a paperback or ebook version from Amazon.

Also go to Caldecott’s website for extra information and to see photo albums that relate to the book.

Finally, there is no stopping Caldecott. She is working on another memoir so stay tuned.

Happy writing!

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Case study: French memoir Blown Out of Proportion by author Rachel Caldecott