First, a little housekeeping. I forgot to mention that I made a few updates to my web site over the weekend. I've added the German cover and release info for Enchanted, Inc. and the Dutch cover and release info for Once Upon Stilettos, as well as the film and book three info that y'all already know from reading this. I made a few tweaks to the FAQ to reflect recent developments. I also just learned that the Japanese publisher has made an offer to buy Once Upon Stilettos because they seem to be getting good responses from their sales reps for Enchanted, Inc. I'm feeling very international.
Now for the topic of the day. I think I developed my recent romantic comedy craving thanks to a seminar I went to at the RWA conference. It was given by screenwriting guru Michael Hauge, and he managed to nail some of the reasons I like and don't like various romantic comedies. The thing that really stuck with me was when he said that the main problem he sees in most romantic comedies is that there's no reason for the hero and heroine to be together, other than that they're both reasonably attractive people and happen to be in the same movie. That's one of my biggest problems with both movies and books. You see the big scene near the end when one of the characters has go to through all kinds of hell and humiliation in order to win back the other person, and I find myself wondering why he/she is bothering because I don't feel like it would be a huge tragedy if they didn't work things out.
As if to illustrate this problem, someone immediately piped up with a question, asking if he didn't perhaps mean that the problem was that there was no reason for the couple NOT to get together. In writing for both book and screen, we tend to focus on the conflict because that's where much of the story comes from. But I think sometimes we get so focused on coming up with a conflict that will keep the characters apart until the happy ending that we forget to think about why they should be together, why this conflict is a bad thing for the characters, no matter how good it is for the audience.
This workshop then got me in the mood to watch some romantic comedies and test the theories in my head. What I want in a romantic comedy is a hero and heroine I actually like -- preferably where I can fall in love with him but still not mind him being with her. I want to feel like it would be a tragedy if these two people don't get together instead of wanting to tell one of them to run while he/she (usually he because too often they make the woman a raging bitch) still can. I want a few moments that make me laugh out loud, some witty dialogue worth quoting, and maybe a tear or two at the end. Above all, I want that little sigh at the end, that moment where I find myself wishing that something like this could happen for me. I'm not a big fan of more dramatic, non-funny romantic movies. It's probably because I tend to use humor as my own defense mechanism, but still, straight-out love stories usually leave me cold. The only exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are Shadowlands, which I actually loved more because of the theological implications than because of the love story (and it does have its funny moments. We were dealing with CS Lewis there), and Casablanca, and you'll get some of my views on that movie (filtered through Owen's perspective) in Damsel Under Stress (unless that part gets edited out -- and if it does, it will go on the web site eventually).
So, here's my list of favorite romantic comedies, the movies I've probably seen too many times. That's why I want to find new ones, because I don't want to risk wearing these out:
When Harry Met Sally -- I was always "one of the guys" with lots of male friends, so my favorite romantic fantasy was having one of those friends (one I had a crush on) finally notice me. It's no longer such a fun fantasy because the reality is a lot more difficult, but I still LOVE the movie.
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Sliding Doors -- my favorite movie for when I'm really low because the parallel storylines mean I don't get depressed about my life not being like the romance in the movie.
While You Were Sleeping -- one of my standard Christmas/New Years movies
Bridget Jones's Diary (but not so much the sequel)
Love Actually -- a must-watch around Christmas
It Happened One Night
Office Space
Bringing Up Baby
The Philadelphia Story
The Princess Bride
Before Sunrise (but the sequel kind of ruined this for me, as I liked the ambiguity of this ending and finding out what really happened was depressing)
Pride and Prejudice (the miniseries)
Sense and Sensibility
Shakespeare in Love
A Room With a View
Cold Comfort Farm
I Capture the Castle
Much Ado About Nothing
Ever After
Movies I do like, but have issues with. Some of these are generally beloved, but aren't necessarily my favorites for various reasons:
Four Weddings and a Funeral -- I love most of this movie. I love almost all of the cast/characters. It just suffers (for me) from that problem of why the main couple should be together. Maybe it's because Andie McDowell was so blah that she sucked the life out of every scene she was in. Maybe a different actress in that part would have made a difference, but I felt like that character had to be someone you could understand him getting hung up over to the extent that he was, in spite of the way she generally used him and strung him along. Plus, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I find the "will you not marry me for the rest of our lives" ending to be very unsatisfying. I keep wanting him to hook up with Fiona and realize that this girl he was chasing was only an excuse for his fears of intimacy that he then had to face.
Notting Hill -- again, almost the exact same problem (possibly aggravated by my aversion to Julia Roberts). I could see why she'd want to be with him, but I never understood what he got out of it, other than her being a movie star. She treats him like dirt, and then he's the one who has to go to extremes to get her back? But I love the rest of the ensemble and the London setting. I just have that "run while you still can!" reaction to the ending.
The Truth About Cats and Dogs -- my issue with this one is motivation. All we needed was to see Abby being rejected because of her appearance before she forces her neighbor to pose as her. That's a pretty extreme thing to do, to make someone else go on a date with the guy you like, and extreme actions require extreme motivations. If he'd reject you on sight after connecting on the phone, would you really want him? Just one bad rejection scene, maybe during the opening credits, might have shown why she really expected men to react that way. I still own this one, and I like a lot about it. I just want to rewrite it.
You've Got Mail -- on one level, this one works for me, but then Meg Ryan gets into a snit and it bugs me. They also get to the happy ending by switching her goal without laying the groundwork for it.
Kate and Leopold -- again, Meg Ryan just bugs, and they change her goal without laying the groundwork. But Hugh Jackman overcomes all other ills. I love the dating advice he gives the brother.
Quirkier favorites that I'm afraid I might not like as much if I saw them more often. It was their novelty that got me in the first place. For the most part, I stumbled over them on independent stations or cable on weekend afternoons, and was pleasantly surprised:
The Very Thought of You -- does fascinating things with point of view.
I'm With Lucy -- interesting structure that lends suspense to the standard romantic comedy story.
A Life Less Ordinary -- Ewan McGregor in a karaoke bar. Need I say more? Weird little movie I saw once on TV, but I'm curious as to how the whole thing holds together without editing or commercial breaks.
Mrs. Winterbourne -- has its problems, but the tango in the kitchen is fabulous, and Brendan Fraser should do more romantic comedies.
Down With Love -- silly, but tons of fun, especially if you know how publishing really works in the real world.
Little Voice -- the romance is more of a subplot, but it's such a sweet subplot.
Hmm, Ewan McGregor is on this list a lot. I'd love to see what he could do in a more straightforward, but still well-written, romantic comedy that didn't rely on weird quirks or gimmicks to set it apart. Well, a musical number or two, maybe, would be okay, of course. :-)
Recent movies I don't necessarily have sorted into categories yet:
Must Love Dogs -- okay, I guess. Kind of meh. The book was much better, and in the book, the main romantic relationship was just a subplot while the movie's standard-issue gay best friend character was a married woman in the book.
Just Like Heaven -- I liked this one because I could really see how the characters connected, and yet there was a valid reason for them not being together. I plan to buy the DVD.
The Wedding Date -- No, just no. Totally trashed a good book by changing who the hero was (in the book, he wasn't actually a real gigolo) and changing the heroine's motivation to make her insecure and needy. Ugh. Plus, Debra Messing bugs me.
Elizabethtown -- suffers the same kind of pacing and "I don't know where to end this" problems as other Cameron Crowe movies, but I really liked the relationship. I found myself wanting to be the Kirsten Dunst character. Not because she got with Orlando Bloom (he does very little for me) but because I'd love to be that kind of person, so warm and vivacious that the life just oozes out of every pore and can't help but affect everyone around you. Another one I plan to get on DVD.
There are other movies often classed as romantic comedies that don't work that way for me. For instance, Sleepless in Seattle strikes me as more the story of the little boy and his father than as anything romantic. Likewise, About a Boy seems to be more about the "coming of age" of the main character than about the romance (though I loved both book and movie). My Best Friend's Wedding also isn't really a romance, since it's about Julia Roberts trying to break up the wedding and isn't about falling in love.
And I know that the moment I post this, I'll think of more.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Birthday Recap
Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes. I did most of my celebrating last week, so I was afraid the day itself would be anticlimactic, but now I feel so loved!
I found myself a slice of double fudge cake at a neighborhood bakery (that may soon become my favorite hangout place when the weather gets cool enough to walk there -- it's too dangerous for me to let myself drive there. I'd outgrow my jeans fast). Then I found a few movies at Blockbuster, and I got home just before we got hit with a nice rainstorm that dropped the temperatures, so that at 4:30 in the afternoon it was 75 instead of 105. I opened the blinds and watched it rain while I watched movies.
I didn't find exactly what I wanted in a movie, no real romantic comedies in the vein of what I wanted, which was something along the lines of Four Weddings and a Funeral but without Andie McDowell and with a better ending (I usually stop that movie before the fourth wedding when I watch it). But here's what I did get:
The Truth About Love which the box billed as a romantic comedy, but which was really neither. Still, it was British, and it had Dougray Scott in it. It was supposedly a love triangle in which a guy secretly pined over his best friend's wife, and meanwhile her efforts to prove to her cynical sister that her husband is faithful backfire and prove her husband not only has a mistress but is willing to cheat on both his mistress and his wife. But the movie was mostly about the discovery that her husband is a cheat, and then oh yeah, she later figures out that her husband's best friend is really hot, so there wasn't really a sense of developing romance there. I now want to steal the basic concept and rewrite it to make it really good. The big downfall was the fact that the wife was played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, "acting" in an "English accent" that sounded like Eliza Doolittle in the scene in My Fair Lady where she goes to the races right after learning to speak properly, and everything she says is so slow and carefully, consciously modulated. I kept expecting her to say, "How kind of you to let me come." (She's on my list of people who must have made a deal with the devil to have the degree of fame she has without any real talent or any measurable success. I used to live in fear of her being cast as Katie in a movie based on my books, but fortunately she now has a series, so she's not available for the TV series based on my books.) Still, there was pretty scenery, plus Dougray Scott in a kilt in at least one scene and using his Scottish accent (and now I want to re-watch Enigma).
Junebug -- I'd heard a lot about this movie, so maybe my expectations were too high. Amy Adams stole the movie and deserved the Oscar nomination, but the effect was that everyone else sort of blurred into the background and became less interesting in comparison. It was a movie full of great little moments, but I'm still not sure how it all added up. Maybe I'm just too much "commercial" girl instead of "literary" girl and have too great a need to have everything all tied up, but it seemed like all the characters should have been affected in some way by the major, life-altering event that happened, but it felt more like they just drifted along. I'll have to listen to the commentary track to see what I was supposed to get out of it. What I'd love to see is a whole movie about Amy Adams's character. Actually, that would make for a great romantic comedy, if that character decided to ditch her useless husband and showed up on her ex-brother-in-law and sister-in-law's doorstep in Chicago, determined that she was now going to be all smart and sophisticated like her sister-in-law (only maybe wearing a little more eyeshadow). Heck, if I could write screenplays or had any ambition in that area, I'd write a great leading role in a romantic comedy for Amy Adams to play so she could lead a movie instead of always playing the sister or the temporary love interest. She's my candidate for the next "America's Sweetheart" that Meg Ryan seems to be giving up (except when her serious movies bomb and she then jumps back into romantic comedies) and that Reese Witherspoon may give up now that she's got an Oscar.
In Her Shoes -- I'd sort of overdone it on movies by that point, so I only watched a few minutes and will pick up on it later.
I was going to do a list of some of my favorite (and not so favorite) romantic comedies, but I have to sing at a funeral today, so I need to get ready and leave. No sympathies are needed. It's not someone I knew. She was the wife of a former pastor at my church from before the time I started going there, so they've asked the choir to sing. As a person with a flexible schedule, I'm useful for that kind of thing. Maybe I'll do my list tomorrow.
I found myself a slice of double fudge cake at a neighborhood bakery (that may soon become my favorite hangout place when the weather gets cool enough to walk there -- it's too dangerous for me to let myself drive there. I'd outgrow my jeans fast). Then I found a few movies at Blockbuster, and I got home just before we got hit with a nice rainstorm that dropped the temperatures, so that at 4:30 in the afternoon it was 75 instead of 105. I opened the blinds and watched it rain while I watched movies.
I didn't find exactly what I wanted in a movie, no real romantic comedies in the vein of what I wanted, which was something along the lines of Four Weddings and a Funeral but without Andie McDowell and with a better ending (I usually stop that movie before the fourth wedding when I watch it). But here's what I did get:
The Truth About Love which the box billed as a romantic comedy, but which was really neither. Still, it was British, and it had Dougray Scott in it. It was supposedly a love triangle in which a guy secretly pined over his best friend's wife, and meanwhile her efforts to prove to her cynical sister that her husband is faithful backfire and prove her husband not only has a mistress but is willing to cheat on both his mistress and his wife. But the movie was mostly about the discovery that her husband is a cheat, and then oh yeah, she later figures out that her husband's best friend is really hot, so there wasn't really a sense of developing romance there. I now want to steal the basic concept and rewrite it to make it really good. The big downfall was the fact that the wife was played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, "acting" in an "English accent" that sounded like Eliza Doolittle in the scene in My Fair Lady where she goes to the races right after learning to speak properly, and everything she says is so slow and carefully, consciously modulated. I kept expecting her to say, "How kind of you to let me come." (She's on my list of people who must have made a deal with the devil to have the degree of fame she has without any real talent or any measurable success. I used to live in fear of her being cast as Katie in a movie based on my books, but fortunately she now has a series, so she's not available for the TV series based on my books.) Still, there was pretty scenery, plus Dougray Scott in a kilt in at least one scene and using his Scottish accent (and now I want to re-watch Enigma).
Junebug -- I'd heard a lot about this movie, so maybe my expectations were too high. Amy Adams stole the movie and deserved the Oscar nomination, but the effect was that everyone else sort of blurred into the background and became less interesting in comparison. It was a movie full of great little moments, but I'm still not sure how it all added up. Maybe I'm just too much "commercial" girl instead of "literary" girl and have too great a need to have everything all tied up, but it seemed like all the characters should have been affected in some way by the major, life-altering event that happened, but it felt more like they just drifted along. I'll have to listen to the commentary track to see what I was supposed to get out of it. What I'd love to see is a whole movie about Amy Adams's character. Actually, that would make for a great romantic comedy, if that character decided to ditch her useless husband and showed up on her ex-brother-in-law and sister-in-law's doorstep in Chicago, determined that she was now going to be all smart and sophisticated like her sister-in-law (only maybe wearing a little more eyeshadow). Heck, if I could write screenplays or had any ambition in that area, I'd write a great leading role in a romantic comedy for Amy Adams to play so she could lead a movie instead of always playing the sister or the temporary love interest. She's my candidate for the next "America's Sweetheart" that Meg Ryan seems to be giving up (except when her serious movies bomb and she then jumps back into romantic comedies) and that Reese Witherspoon may give up now that she's got an Oscar.
In Her Shoes -- I'd sort of overdone it on movies by that point, so I only watched a few minutes and will pick up on it later.
I was going to do a list of some of my favorite (and not so favorite) romantic comedies, but I have to sing at a funeral today, so I need to get ready and leave. No sympathies are needed. It's not someone I knew. She was the wife of a former pastor at my church from before the time I started going there, so they've asked the choir to sing. As a person with a flexible schedule, I'm useful for that kind of thing. Maybe I'll do my list tomorrow.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Happy Birthday to Me!
I sent my draft of book 4 off to my agent this morning, and since it's my birthday and therefore a holiday on my calendar, I'm taking the rest of the day off.
I'd thought about going to a movie, but I can't find anything I really want to see that's currently playing at a theater near me. I'm in the mood for a really good romantic comedy, but there aren't any. Somewhere along the way, romantic comedies turned into "guy" movies, complete with bodily function humor, and the women are essentially the villains for expecting the men to actually grow up instead of remaining in their arrested development Peter Pan worlds. I may have to resort to Blockbuster because there isn't even anything I really want to see OnDemand. I'm not sure I'd find anything at Blockbuster that I haven't already seen to the point I've memorized it. There are only so many times I can watch When Harry Met Sally, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sliding Doors and the like.
Is it too much to ask for a fun, romantic movie starring a hot guy I might actually want to be with (one who acts older than twelve) and a woman I wouldn't mind him being with (who doesn't reinforce the sense I often get that the bitches get all the good guys -- though I guess the guys can't be all that great if they're attracted to bitches), with some nice witty banter and maybe some pretty scenery? A movie where I want the hero and heroine to get together at the end? Any suggestions for films like this I might be able to find at Blockbuster? (I don't have Netflix because I don't rent that many movies, and I want it TODAY because I have to get back to work tomorrow.)
While I'm out scouring the shelves at Blockbuster, I'll pick up a slice of some sinfully gooey dessert for my birthday cake. I also need a tiara for a tea I'm going to this weekend (and just because a girl really should have her own tiara).
Hmm, maybe I'll skip the movie if I can't find one and instead put on some good music and spend the day lying on the sofa and reading. I can always find good books.
I'd thought about going to a movie, but I can't find anything I really want to see that's currently playing at a theater near me. I'm in the mood for a really good romantic comedy, but there aren't any. Somewhere along the way, romantic comedies turned into "guy" movies, complete with bodily function humor, and the women are essentially the villains for expecting the men to actually grow up instead of remaining in their arrested development Peter Pan worlds. I may have to resort to Blockbuster because there isn't even anything I really want to see OnDemand. I'm not sure I'd find anything at Blockbuster that I haven't already seen to the point I've memorized it. There are only so many times I can watch When Harry Met Sally, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sliding Doors and the like.
Is it too much to ask for a fun, romantic movie starring a hot guy I might actually want to be with (one who acts older than twelve) and a woman I wouldn't mind him being with (who doesn't reinforce the sense I often get that the bitches get all the good guys -- though I guess the guys can't be all that great if they're attracted to bitches), with some nice witty banter and maybe some pretty scenery? A movie where I want the hero and heroine to get together at the end? Any suggestions for films like this I might be able to find at Blockbuster? (I don't have Netflix because I don't rent that many movies, and I want it TODAY because I have to get back to work tomorrow.)
While I'm out scouring the shelves at Blockbuster, I'll pick up a slice of some sinfully gooey dessert for my birthday cake. I also need a tiara for a tea I'm going to this weekend (and just because a girl really should have her own tiara).
Hmm, maybe I'll skip the movie if I can't find one and instead put on some good music and spend the day lying on the sofa and reading. I can always find good books.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
A Varied Reading Menu
Lest anyone think, based on the discussion of the past few days, that my reading is limited to chick lit, I thought I'd throw out some of the other things I enjoy. I only got into that discussion because that new This is Not Chick Lit book just came out and re-ignited the debate, plus it grew out of the workshop I just gave. Meanwhile, I tend to have seasonal reading tastes, and this is chick lit season.
Yeah, for some strange reason I tend to get into reading modes based on what time of year it is. In the summer, I usually focus on chick lit and lighter contemporary romance. Fall is mostly for mystery, fantasy, and some more serious literary work. In December, I tend to be a sucker for holiday-themed books, especially in romance and chick lit. That's also when I like re-reading Harry Potter books. Winter is when I tend to read historical fiction (including historical romance) and classics. Spring is kind of variable (since spring weather is so variable here). That's when I start transitioning to lighter stuff, but a good rainy day will kick me back to heavier stuff. Science fiction tends to run the gamut in tone, so I may read it throughout the year depending on the book itself. Of course, for authors I follow, I'll read their new books whenever I get my hands on them.
Some favorites by genre (and this is really skimming the surface -- two hours from now I'm sure I'll think of dozens more):
Mystery: I LOVE Dick Francis. I'm also enjoying Elizabeth George's darker, more psychological mysteries. I read most of the Ellis Peters Cadfael books, but I also loved her contemporary stand-alone mysteries (Never Pick Up Hitchhikers is one of my all-time favorites). Of course, there's Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. For this fall, I plan to start working through the Dorothy Sayers reading list Connie Willis gave me.
World War II and Action-Adventure: I've read just about everything by Herman Wouk and Leon Uris (my copy of Mila 18 is rather battered). Other favorites include Alistair MacLean and Jack Higgins/Harry Patterson (and I think there was one other name he wrote under). Still in the action genre, but pre-WWII, I love John Buchan's books.
Classics and historical novels: I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for Dickens (this winter I plan to finally finish Our Mutual Friend). I also find Thomas Hardy strangely addicting, no matter how depressing he gets. Then there's E.M. Forster, and, of course, Jane Austen. I don't know how many times I've read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, so I really ought to branch out and try something else by him. I still love Joan Aiken's young adult novels that are set in an alternate universe that corresponds to the Victorian period in our world, but which in her world have a Stuart still on the throne.
Science fiction: Connie Willis is possibly my overall favorite author (if only she'd write faster!). Alan Dean Foster was who got me into science fiction in the first place, and while I love his Flinx books, I think Icerigger is my favorite of his (great to read during a hot summer). Then there's Lois McMaster Bujold, and Anne McCaffrey, though I like her "ship" series better than the Pern series (which is science fiction, not fantasy, even though there are "dragons" in it). I've liked a lot of what I've read by Neal Stephenson, but I haven't kept up with him lately. I also really like Robert J. Sawyer. I used to be in a science fiction book group, so I read more widely then, and I discovered a lot of authors I intended to keep up with, but haven't.
Fantasy: My bookshelf's fantasy section is surprisingly slim. I guess I get more out of the library, or I was forced to write fantasy because I wasn't seeing what I wanted. I loved much of Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series, but haven't been as crazy about her more recent books in that series (it doesn't help that my favorite characters don't seem to be her favorite characters, so she keeps killing or marginalizing my favorite characters and focusing on characters I don't find interesting at all). Of course, there are the Harry Potter books and the Narnia books. More recently, I've gotten into Neil Gaiman, who makes me feel like a hack, and Terry Pratchett.
Romance, women's fiction and chick lit would require their own post. It's also hard for me to name favorites in these areas because most of my friends are authors in these genres, and it's hard to name favorites. Plus, there's the fact that most of my towering to-be-read pile is made up of romance novels I get at conferences that I haven't actually read.
Gee, it's a miracle I get any writing done with all this reading, but that's why this is such a great job. When I'm not writing, I can be reading, and reading widely is important for an author, so that counts as "work." This summer, I read 21 books in June and July, in addition to writing one. I even plan reading vacations. Last Labor Day, I bought a stack of books and spent the whole holiday weekend reading, and I've already got my stack put together for Labor Day this year. It's cheaper and more relaxing than travel.
Yeah, for some strange reason I tend to get into reading modes based on what time of year it is. In the summer, I usually focus on chick lit and lighter contemporary romance. Fall is mostly for mystery, fantasy, and some more serious literary work. In December, I tend to be a sucker for holiday-themed books, especially in romance and chick lit. That's also when I like re-reading Harry Potter books. Winter is when I tend to read historical fiction (including historical romance) and classics. Spring is kind of variable (since spring weather is so variable here). That's when I start transitioning to lighter stuff, but a good rainy day will kick me back to heavier stuff. Science fiction tends to run the gamut in tone, so I may read it throughout the year depending on the book itself. Of course, for authors I follow, I'll read their new books whenever I get my hands on them.
Some favorites by genre (and this is really skimming the surface -- two hours from now I'm sure I'll think of dozens more):
Mystery: I LOVE Dick Francis. I'm also enjoying Elizabeth George's darker, more psychological mysteries. I read most of the Ellis Peters Cadfael books, but I also loved her contemporary stand-alone mysteries (Never Pick Up Hitchhikers is one of my all-time favorites). Of course, there's Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. For this fall, I plan to start working through the Dorothy Sayers reading list Connie Willis gave me.
World War II and Action-Adventure: I've read just about everything by Herman Wouk and Leon Uris (my copy of Mila 18 is rather battered). Other favorites include Alistair MacLean and Jack Higgins/Harry Patterson (and I think there was one other name he wrote under). Still in the action genre, but pre-WWII, I love John Buchan's books.
Classics and historical novels: I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for Dickens (this winter I plan to finally finish Our Mutual Friend). I also find Thomas Hardy strangely addicting, no matter how depressing he gets. Then there's E.M. Forster, and, of course, Jane Austen. I don't know how many times I've read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, so I really ought to branch out and try something else by him. I still love Joan Aiken's young adult novels that are set in an alternate universe that corresponds to the Victorian period in our world, but which in her world have a Stuart still on the throne.
Science fiction: Connie Willis is possibly my overall favorite author (if only she'd write faster!). Alan Dean Foster was who got me into science fiction in the first place, and while I love his Flinx books, I think Icerigger is my favorite of his (great to read during a hot summer). Then there's Lois McMaster Bujold, and Anne McCaffrey, though I like her "ship" series better than the Pern series (which is science fiction, not fantasy, even though there are "dragons" in it). I've liked a lot of what I've read by Neal Stephenson, but I haven't kept up with him lately. I also really like Robert J. Sawyer. I used to be in a science fiction book group, so I read more widely then, and I discovered a lot of authors I intended to keep up with, but haven't.
Fantasy: My bookshelf's fantasy section is surprisingly slim. I guess I get more out of the library, or I was forced to write fantasy because I wasn't seeing what I wanted. I loved much of Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series, but haven't been as crazy about her more recent books in that series (it doesn't help that my favorite characters don't seem to be her favorite characters, so she keeps killing or marginalizing my favorite characters and focusing on characters I don't find interesting at all). Of course, there are the Harry Potter books and the Narnia books. More recently, I've gotten into Neil Gaiman, who makes me feel like a hack, and Terry Pratchett.
Romance, women's fiction and chick lit would require their own post. It's also hard for me to name favorites in these areas because most of my friends are authors in these genres, and it's hard to name favorites. Plus, there's the fact that most of my towering to-be-read pile is made up of romance novels I get at conferences that I haven't actually read.
Gee, it's a miracle I get any writing done with all this reading, but that's why this is such a great job. When I'm not writing, I can be reading, and reading widely is important for an author, so that counts as "work." This summer, I read 21 books in June and July, in addition to writing one. I even plan reading vacations. Last Labor Day, I bought a stack of books and spent the whole holiday weekend reading, and I've already got my stack put together for Labor Day this year. It's cheaper and more relaxing than travel.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Chick Lit: The Smart vs. Pretty Debate
I've been talking about chick lit this week, and if you'll excuse me, I'll climb up on my soapbox for a little rant. I've been a fan or author in most of the more denigrated genres that are sneered at by the literary elites. I've written and read romance novels. I've been a lifelong science fiction and fantasy reader, and I even read media tie-in books. But I've never seen anything that equals the amount of hate directed at chick lit. It's not men flinching at the girl cooties on the pink covers. It's other women who are furious, up in arms and talking about revolution against these books that they seem to see as heralding the downfall of western civilization. See what I meant about how awful women can be to other women?
They're not content to just not read the books they don't like. They won't be happy until those books are no longer published and no one else is reading them. There's even an anthology called This is Not Chick Lit to tell us what we should be reading instead. It's the literary equivalent of telling us we should be eating organic broccoli and whole grains and avoiding sweets entirely.
I find this kind of baffling. There are a lot of books published, and you can only read so many, so why not just focus on the ones you want to read instead of wasting time campaigning against the things you don't like or assuming that because you don't like it, it's worthless? I don't read horror. I'm a wimp, and I don't think it's fun to be scared. I'll admit that sometimes I do worry about the possible psychological impact these books could have on certain people. I've read exactly one Stephen King book, and that was enough to let me know that the genre can be very well written. I couldn't characterize the whole genre as hack-and-slash crap, though I'm sure there is some junk in there, just like there is for every genre. But there are enough books I like for me to read and talk about, so I'm not going to waste time talking about how I don't like horror. I don't feel like I'd sell more books or get more shelf space if bookstores stopped devoting entire sections to horror. Quite frankly, I don't care. At least horror readers are reading, and if they're going to bookstores, there's an increased chance that they might see and buy my books, so it's all good.
But the self-proclaimed elite female literary writers aren't content to let the people who want light entertainment read the pastel-covered books. No! They must stamp them out. They seem to see these books as a threat to their very existence, as though every pink book with a martini glass on the cover somehow canceled out a more worthy work. But I'm not sure what they have their panties in a twist about. Yeah, a few of the higher profile chick lit authors get huge advances and hit bestseller lists, but the bulk of us are solidly midlist. The more serious literary works are more likely to get reviewed in major newspapers and magazines. Even fashion magazines like Glamour and Elle seldom mention chick lit unless there's a celebrity tie-in or movie adaptation. Otherwise, their book columns are about more literary works. A certain author who has equated saying that an author writes chick lit with calling her a slut is regularly -- well, Mom reads this, so I won't say what the New York Times does to her, but you can get the picture. One of the publishing industry blogs once counted the number of mentions she got in the Times. It's the serious stuff and never chick lit that gets selected by Oprah and the national morning show book clubs. There are those tables in the front of bookstores that once were very pastel-tinged, but hello! That was because those tables are for trade paperbacks, and for several years, chick lit was the predominant genre published in trade paperback. Now that the literary side of things has started publishing in trade paperback, the tables are decidedly more mixed. I'm not seeing the source of the jealousy or sense of threat here.
I've seen the situation compared to the age-old smart vs. pretty split that goes back to high school, and I never thought I'd be on the "pretty" side of things, but here I appear to be. But when you look at it, it's smart vs. pretty in a bizarroland universe. It's in an elite private high school where everyone there is fairly smart and academically focused, but one group of girls accessorizes their uniforms, styles their hair and wears makeup, while the other group is determined to make people accept them for who they are. They don't wear makeup or waste time on frivolous stuff like parties or dating because they'd rather build their academic credentials. The "smart" crowd runs the school newspaper and yearbook, and therefore gets total say on what gets covered or immortalized. They win all the scholarships and academic awards. They run the drama club (doing only challenging theater, of course). They even get the smart guys -- the cool, intellectual smart guys, not the nerds. And then the "smart" girls just about riot and stage a protest when one of the "pretty" girls is elected prom queen because they can't handle a member of the other group getting even that much recognition.
Meanwhile, we also seem to get a lot of flak from romance authors, who see us as upsetting the "rules" they think are what readers really want to read. They insist that readers want a guaranteed happy ending with the guy the heroine meets in chapter one, that no one would want to read about the quest to find the right guy. It's enough to make a girl feel a little paranoid, with attacks coming from all sides. When declining chick lit sales were reported, the literary authors and the romance authors were practically dancing in the streets and shooting guns into the air in celebration.
I'm not even sure the attacks are valid. When critics describe what they think of as the typical chick lit novel -- a group of girlfriends drinking cosmopolitans, obsessing about Manolos, sleeping around and dishing with their gay best friends -- it sounds to me more like an episode of Sex and the City than like any chick lit novel I've ever read. I've probably devoted more pages to shoe obsession (but with magical reasons) than I've seen in any other chick lit book. Yeah, the Shopaholic books have a lot of shopping in them (duh!), but those books are about the pathology and how out of control that woman's life is than they are about "whee! shopping!" Otherwise, the shoe thing might be a minor character quirk or the writing technique of using specific details (something you'd think literary authors would understand). It's a lot funnier and paints a much more vivid picture for Bridget Jones to step in a pan of mashed potatoes in her new kitten-heel black suede shoes than for her to merely step in a pan of mashed potatoes while preparing for a disastrous dinner party.
I've read maybe three chick lit books that follow the supposedly formula plot of girl in publishing dating lots of losers before meeting Mr. Right, but that similarity is only on the back cover. The books themselves are very different and are about so much more (which makes you wonder if these anti-chicklitters have actually read anything beyond the covers). For instance, Melissa Senate's See Jane Date wasn't so much about the dating as it was about family and her growing realization while getting ready for her cousin's wedding that because her parents were both dead, she was pretty much alone in the world and wouldn't get to experience her own wedding along with her parents. No wonder the poor girl didn't want to face that family wedding alone and without a date!
I will admit that I'm getting tired of the gay best friend, but that's popping up in all books, not just chick lit. It wouldn't be so bad if that character wasn't almost always either Will or Jack from Will and Grace. There are other potential sounding board characters out there, or at least some other character types. My administrative assistant when I worked in PR kept a Bible on his desk that he read during breaks and was probably the most strictly morally upright person in the office (think Angela on The Office, but a gay man -- and a bit nicer if you were on his good side), for instance. I haven't seen that kind of gay sidekick character show up yet in a book.
I recently read a book by the writer known for the slut comparison (I refuse to give her publicity here) because I figured I couldn't talk about her without having actually read something or I'd be as guilty of making assumptions as she is. And I must say, it was a chick lit-like plot, but it wasn't good enough to be chick lit. It wasn't funny or entertaining, the heroine was boring with no real character to her, and the story was pointless. I also didn't feel like I'd been edified in any way. I didn't learn anything about the human psyche or the way the world works, or anything like that. I don't see how that can be declared "good" and good for us to read, while books published as chick lit are "bad." I guess if you take a chick lit-like plot (girl falls for her cousin's boyfriend in college and never manages to get involved in a real, deep relationship afterward because subconsciously she's waiting for him) and write it in a boring way, it becomes "good." Whatever.
Oh well. Enough ranting. Read what you enjoy. Try new things to see whether or not you enjoy them before you bash them. Don't waste your time focusing on things you don't like, and don't judge other people on what they enjoy. There's plenty of things out there for all of us. I did find this take on the whole debate, so I'm not the only one getting miffed about this.
And now, I really must get back to work. Busy, busy, busy.
They're not content to just not read the books they don't like. They won't be happy until those books are no longer published and no one else is reading them. There's even an anthology called This is Not Chick Lit to tell us what we should be reading instead. It's the literary equivalent of telling us we should be eating organic broccoli and whole grains and avoiding sweets entirely.
I find this kind of baffling. There are a lot of books published, and you can only read so many, so why not just focus on the ones you want to read instead of wasting time campaigning against the things you don't like or assuming that because you don't like it, it's worthless? I don't read horror. I'm a wimp, and I don't think it's fun to be scared. I'll admit that sometimes I do worry about the possible psychological impact these books could have on certain people. I've read exactly one Stephen King book, and that was enough to let me know that the genre can be very well written. I couldn't characterize the whole genre as hack-and-slash crap, though I'm sure there is some junk in there, just like there is for every genre. But there are enough books I like for me to read and talk about, so I'm not going to waste time talking about how I don't like horror. I don't feel like I'd sell more books or get more shelf space if bookstores stopped devoting entire sections to horror. Quite frankly, I don't care. At least horror readers are reading, and if they're going to bookstores, there's an increased chance that they might see and buy my books, so it's all good.
But the self-proclaimed elite female literary writers aren't content to let the people who want light entertainment read the pastel-covered books. No! They must stamp them out. They seem to see these books as a threat to their very existence, as though every pink book with a martini glass on the cover somehow canceled out a more worthy work. But I'm not sure what they have their panties in a twist about. Yeah, a few of the higher profile chick lit authors get huge advances and hit bestseller lists, but the bulk of us are solidly midlist. The more serious literary works are more likely to get reviewed in major newspapers and magazines. Even fashion magazines like Glamour and Elle seldom mention chick lit unless there's a celebrity tie-in or movie adaptation. Otherwise, their book columns are about more literary works. A certain author who has equated saying that an author writes chick lit with calling her a slut is regularly -- well, Mom reads this, so I won't say what the New York Times does to her, but you can get the picture. One of the publishing industry blogs once counted the number of mentions she got in the Times. It's the serious stuff and never chick lit that gets selected by Oprah and the national morning show book clubs. There are those tables in the front of bookstores that once were very pastel-tinged, but hello! That was because those tables are for trade paperbacks, and for several years, chick lit was the predominant genre published in trade paperback. Now that the literary side of things has started publishing in trade paperback, the tables are decidedly more mixed. I'm not seeing the source of the jealousy or sense of threat here.
I've seen the situation compared to the age-old smart vs. pretty split that goes back to high school, and I never thought I'd be on the "pretty" side of things, but here I appear to be. But when you look at it, it's smart vs. pretty in a bizarroland universe. It's in an elite private high school where everyone there is fairly smart and academically focused, but one group of girls accessorizes their uniforms, styles their hair and wears makeup, while the other group is determined to make people accept them for who they are. They don't wear makeup or waste time on frivolous stuff like parties or dating because they'd rather build their academic credentials. The "smart" crowd runs the school newspaper and yearbook, and therefore gets total say on what gets covered or immortalized. They win all the scholarships and academic awards. They run the drama club (doing only challenging theater, of course). They even get the smart guys -- the cool, intellectual smart guys, not the nerds. And then the "smart" girls just about riot and stage a protest when one of the "pretty" girls is elected prom queen because they can't handle a member of the other group getting even that much recognition.
Meanwhile, we also seem to get a lot of flak from romance authors, who see us as upsetting the "rules" they think are what readers really want to read. They insist that readers want a guaranteed happy ending with the guy the heroine meets in chapter one, that no one would want to read about the quest to find the right guy. It's enough to make a girl feel a little paranoid, with attacks coming from all sides. When declining chick lit sales were reported, the literary authors and the romance authors were practically dancing in the streets and shooting guns into the air in celebration.
I'm not even sure the attacks are valid. When critics describe what they think of as the typical chick lit novel -- a group of girlfriends drinking cosmopolitans, obsessing about Manolos, sleeping around and dishing with their gay best friends -- it sounds to me more like an episode of Sex and the City than like any chick lit novel I've ever read. I've probably devoted more pages to shoe obsession (but with magical reasons) than I've seen in any other chick lit book. Yeah, the Shopaholic books have a lot of shopping in them (duh!), but those books are about the pathology and how out of control that woman's life is than they are about "whee! shopping!" Otherwise, the shoe thing might be a minor character quirk or the writing technique of using specific details (something you'd think literary authors would understand). It's a lot funnier and paints a much more vivid picture for Bridget Jones to step in a pan of mashed potatoes in her new kitten-heel black suede shoes than for her to merely step in a pan of mashed potatoes while preparing for a disastrous dinner party.
I've read maybe three chick lit books that follow the supposedly formula plot of girl in publishing dating lots of losers before meeting Mr. Right, but that similarity is only on the back cover. The books themselves are very different and are about so much more (which makes you wonder if these anti-chicklitters have actually read anything beyond the covers). For instance, Melissa Senate's See Jane Date wasn't so much about the dating as it was about family and her growing realization while getting ready for her cousin's wedding that because her parents were both dead, she was pretty much alone in the world and wouldn't get to experience her own wedding along with her parents. No wonder the poor girl didn't want to face that family wedding alone and without a date!
I will admit that I'm getting tired of the gay best friend, but that's popping up in all books, not just chick lit. It wouldn't be so bad if that character wasn't almost always either Will or Jack from Will and Grace. There are other potential sounding board characters out there, or at least some other character types. My administrative assistant when I worked in PR kept a Bible on his desk that he read during breaks and was probably the most strictly morally upright person in the office (think Angela on The Office, but a gay man -- and a bit nicer if you were on his good side), for instance. I haven't seen that kind of gay sidekick character show up yet in a book.
I recently read a book by the writer known for the slut comparison (I refuse to give her publicity here) because I figured I couldn't talk about her without having actually read something or I'd be as guilty of making assumptions as she is. And I must say, it was a chick lit-like plot, but it wasn't good enough to be chick lit. It wasn't funny or entertaining, the heroine was boring with no real character to her, and the story was pointless. I also didn't feel like I'd been edified in any way. I didn't learn anything about the human psyche or the way the world works, or anything like that. I don't see how that can be declared "good" and good for us to read, while books published as chick lit are "bad." I guess if you take a chick lit-like plot (girl falls for her cousin's boyfriend in college and never manages to get involved in a real, deep relationship afterward because subconsciously she's waiting for him) and write it in a boring way, it becomes "good." Whatever.
Oh well. Enough ranting. Read what you enjoy. Try new things to see whether or not you enjoy them before you bash them. Don't waste your time focusing on things you don't like, and don't judge other people on what they enjoy. There's plenty of things out there for all of us. I did find this take on the whole debate, so I'm not the only one getting miffed about this.
And now, I really must get back to work. Busy, busy, busy.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Book Report: Chick Lit and Modern Jane Austens
Today's T-shirt: Freedom Run 2002 (the year I ran -- well, walked). I haven't done a t-shirt report in a while because I've been busy and out and about, which means wearing normal clothes, or else it's been hot and I've been coping by wearing tank tops or sundresses. I was out and about this morning, but I've since changed into comfortable clothes. I'm not sure the UPS guy recognized me this morning when I was actually dressed in real clothes with makeup on. He's only seen me before in "work" mode, which is kind of scary.
Before I get into the real entry, I have a bit of news. We have a title for book 3, which will from now on be known as Damsel Under Stress (say it out loud and you see that it's kind of punny -- there are also layered meanings relating to the content of the book itself). I'm very proud to say that I was the one who came up with this title. The previous two books were titled by the folks at Ballantine, and I turned this one in as "Book Three" so that I wouldn't hamper the creativity of the marketing guys in coming up with a title. Then a week or so ago I came up with a title idea, everyone seemed to love it, and I got word yesterday that this will be the title. It looks like it will be released the last Tuesday in April, so mark your calendars now.
If there are any foreign readers here, the Dutch edition of Once Upon Stilettos is set for release in November (I have a cover, which I'll add to the web site), and the German edition of Enchanted, Inc. will be published in January 2007. They're using the US cover art, but they seem to have made Hex and the City the title instead of the tag line (and I did come up with that tag line).
So, now for a continuation of the discussion on chick lit, stemming from the talk about Jane Austen. Yesterday I got into the elements of chick lit as written by Jane Austen, so today I'll hit my book report as a way of showcasing some modern books.
One thing I mentioned yesterday was that Austen showed the full spectrum of female friendships -- the bad as well as the good. Let's face it, women can be awful to each other. Even good friendships may have their moments of jealousy and competition, and there may be times when your best friend is the person who can best drive you insane. Kristin, my agent, says she sees a lot of proposals for chick lit novels that start with a group of great friends having brunch so we can see what wonderful friends they are. That would be lovely in real life, but it makes for a pretty boring book.
One modern author who isn't afraid to address some of the more negative aspects of female friendship is Emily Giffin in her books Something Borrowed and Something Blue. The two main characters in these books, Rachel and Darcy, have been best friends since elementary school, but there's an element of what Sex and the City called "frenemies" in there, too. Darcy is very selfish and competitive, and she has a strong need to prove that she can beat Rachel. When Rachel gets a crush on a guy, Darcy has to go prove she can get him. Along the way, Rachel learns that Darcy is usually going to win, so why try? In Something Borrowed, Rachel finds herself falling in love with Darcy's fiance, Dex -- a guy Rachel knew first and introduced to Darcy because deep down inside she couldn't imagine a guy like him ever liking her, and she knew she'd lose him to Darcy, anyway. The problem is, Dex is also falling for Rachel, and his wedding to Darcy is growing closer and closer. Rachel is faced with the dilemma of whose happiness means the most to her, hers or Darcy's, and she has to take an honest look back at her friendship with Darcy to evaluate just how real that friendship ever was.
Something Blue is Darcy's story, in which we learn what was going on with Darcy while all that was going on with Rachel, and then it goes forward with what Darcy does in the aftermath. Giffin took some risks in writing this series (and they paid off, since both books were bestsellers) because we usually don't like to admit how awful women can be to each other. It's not all friendship bracelets and undying support, and anyone who thinks it's that way probably doesn't remember fourth or fifth grade (seriously, we should be parachuting ten-year-old girls into these worldwide trouble spots. The bad guys would be begging for mercy in hours. A really good and bitchy ten-year-old girl is meaner than any Green Beret ever thought about being). I was surprised that I liked Darcy's book better than Rachel's book, since I'm much more like Rachel, and I've certainly had a Darcy or two in my life. I remember one friend who offered to help me learn to transition from crush to boyfriend, so I was supposed to pick out a target, and she'd help me meet him and get to know him. Next thing I know, she had her own claws into every guy I picked out, to the point that none of them would look twice at me. Just to test my suspicions, I started pointing out the nerdiest guys I could find, and sure enough, she'd have them wrapped around her finger in no time. I decided I didn't need her "help" anymore and kept my crushes to myself. I never did learn to transition from crush to boyfriend (I guess it's her fault I'm still single). Anyway, I kind of lost patience with Rachel and the way she handled her dilemma, while Darcy was so unrepentantly shallow and selfish that she truly earned her comeuppance and her ultimate transformation. It was like what I said about The Devil Wears Prada, that if you're going to have a character who's supposed to go through that kind of growth, really go for it and let her be a bitch. Something Blue also ran the gamut of possible romantic interests in the way Austen's books often did, where you're not quite sure who she'll end up with.
Meanwhile, Marian Keyes handles the family conflicts so very well. Her latest, Anybody Out There? tackles a tricky subject with her trademark warmth and humor so that the result is more uplifting than depressing, and a lot of it is because of the interactions with the heroine's sisters and parents. That family (which has starred in many of Keyes's other books) may be crazy and silly and sometimes even combative, but they still love and support each other. I can't wait to see what she does when the youngest sister finally gets her own book. I also recently read Keyes's previous book, The Other Side of the Story, which reminded me in some ways of Last Chance Saloon, probably my favorite of all of hers. Both books have a similar structure of seemingly unrelated parallel stories that end up converging. The Other Side of the Story gets into the fallout of a broken friendship and how that affects the people involved, and we do see both sides of the story. It's also about publishing, as two of the stories are about writers and one is about an agent.
None of these books are the stereotypical chick lit "dating, drinking and shopping" stories. Not that I've read too many of those. I'm not sure where that stereotype comes from, and it's a stereotype imposed externally based on a minority of books in the genre. Tomorrow I'll get into the chick lit controversy and what's turning into a "smart vs. pretty" debate, with me on a side I never thought I'd be on in any "smart vs. pretty" situation.
And now I should work. Or I could watch something on my nifty new LCD flat panel TV. Battlestar Galactica and Firefly look soooo purty on that screen.
Before I get into the real entry, I have a bit of news. We have a title for book 3, which will from now on be known as Damsel Under Stress (say it out loud and you see that it's kind of punny -- there are also layered meanings relating to the content of the book itself). I'm very proud to say that I was the one who came up with this title. The previous two books were titled by the folks at Ballantine, and I turned this one in as "Book Three" so that I wouldn't hamper the creativity of the marketing guys in coming up with a title. Then a week or so ago I came up with a title idea, everyone seemed to love it, and I got word yesterday that this will be the title. It looks like it will be released the last Tuesday in April, so mark your calendars now.
If there are any foreign readers here, the Dutch edition of Once Upon Stilettos is set for release in November (I have a cover, which I'll add to the web site), and the German edition of Enchanted, Inc. will be published in January 2007. They're using the US cover art, but they seem to have made Hex and the City the title instead of the tag line (and I did come up with that tag line).
So, now for a continuation of the discussion on chick lit, stemming from the talk about Jane Austen. Yesterday I got into the elements of chick lit as written by Jane Austen, so today I'll hit my book report as a way of showcasing some modern books.
One thing I mentioned yesterday was that Austen showed the full spectrum of female friendships -- the bad as well as the good. Let's face it, women can be awful to each other. Even good friendships may have their moments of jealousy and competition, and there may be times when your best friend is the person who can best drive you insane. Kristin, my agent, says she sees a lot of proposals for chick lit novels that start with a group of great friends having brunch so we can see what wonderful friends they are. That would be lovely in real life, but it makes for a pretty boring book.
One modern author who isn't afraid to address some of the more negative aspects of female friendship is Emily Giffin in her books Something Borrowed and Something Blue. The two main characters in these books, Rachel and Darcy, have been best friends since elementary school, but there's an element of what Sex and the City called "frenemies" in there, too. Darcy is very selfish and competitive, and she has a strong need to prove that she can beat Rachel. When Rachel gets a crush on a guy, Darcy has to go prove she can get him. Along the way, Rachel learns that Darcy is usually going to win, so why try? In Something Borrowed, Rachel finds herself falling in love with Darcy's fiance, Dex -- a guy Rachel knew first and introduced to Darcy because deep down inside she couldn't imagine a guy like him ever liking her, and she knew she'd lose him to Darcy, anyway. The problem is, Dex is also falling for Rachel, and his wedding to Darcy is growing closer and closer. Rachel is faced with the dilemma of whose happiness means the most to her, hers or Darcy's, and she has to take an honest look back at her friendship with Darcy to evaluate just how real that friendship ever was.
Something Blue is Darcy's story, in which we learn what was going on with Darcy while all that was going on with Rachel, and then it goes forward with what Darcy does in the aftermath. Giffin took some risks in writing this series (and they paid off, since both books were bestsellers) because we usually don't like to admit how awful women can be to each other. It's not all friendship bracelets and undying support, and anyone who thinks it's that way probably doesn't remember fourth or fifth grade (seriously, we should be parachuting ten-year-old girls into these worldwide trouble spots. The bad guys would be begging for mercy in hours. A really good and bitchy ten-year-old girl is meaner than any Green Beret ever thought about being). I was surprised that I liked Darcy's book better than Rachel's book, since I'm much more like Rachel, and I've certainly had a Darcy or two in my life. I remember one friend who offered to help me learn to transition from crush to boyfriend, so I was supposed to pick out a target, and she'd help me meet him and get to know him. Next thing I know, she had her own claws into every guy I picked out, to the point that none of them would look twice at me. Just to test my suspicions, I started pointing out the nerdiest guys I could find, and sure enough, she'd have them wrapped around her finger in no time. I decided I didn't need her "help" anymore and kept my crushes to myself. I never did learn to transition from crush to boyfriend (I guess it's her fault I'm still single). Anyway, I kind of lost patience with Rachel and the way she handled her dilemma, while Darcy was so unrepentantly shallow and selfish that she truly earned her comeuppance and her ultimate transformation. It was like what I said about The Devil Wears Prada, that if you're going to have a character who's supposed to go through that kind of growth, really go for it and let her be a bitch. Something Blue also ran the gamut of possible romantic interests in the way Austen's books often did, where you're not quite sure who she'll end up with.
Meanwhile, Marian Keyes handles the family conflicts so very well. Her latest, Anybody Out There? tackles a tricky subject with her trademark warmth and humor so that the result is more uplifting than depressing, and a lot of it is because of the interactions with the heroine's sisters and parents. That family (which has starred in many of Keyes's other books) may be crazy and silly and sometimes even combative, but they still love and support each other. I can't wait to see what she does when the youngest sister finally gets her own book. I also recently read Keyes's previous book, The Other Side of the Story, which reminded me in some ways of Last Chance Saloon, probably my favorite of all of hers. Both books have a similar structure of seemingly unrelated parallel stories that end up converging. The Other Side of the Story gets into the fallout of a broken friendship and how that affects the people involved, and we do see both sides of the story. It's also about publishing, as two of the stories are about writers and one is about an agent.
None of these books are the stereotypical chick lit "dating, drinking and shopping" stories. Not that I've read too many of those. I'm not sure where that stereotype comes from, and it's a stereotype imposed externally based on a minority of books in the genre. Tomorrow I'll get into the chick lit controversy and what's turning into a "smart vs. pretty" debate, with me on a side I never thought I'd be on in any "smart vs. pretty" situation.
And now I should work. Or I could watch something on my nifty new LCD flat panel TV. Battlestar Galactica and Firefly look soooo purty on that screen.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Jane Austen: The Mother of All Chick Lit
As promised, here's an entry on my Jane Austen workshop.
I originally came up with my idea of doing a workshop on Jane Austen and chick lit as a way of explaining chick lit to my local Romance Writers of America group. The more traditional romance writers have had a hard time with the chick lit genre. They don't seem to understand the appeal of books where a happily ever after isn't necessarily guaranteed, where the heroine may date multiple men on the way to Mr. Right, and where that hot guy who shows up in the first chapter might not turn out to be the hero -- all of which go totally counter to most of the romance "rules."
Jane Austen is generally credited with starting the Regency romance subgenre, but she wasn't writing Regencies. She was writing contemporary novels. And while her books do have romantic plots in them, the romance isn't the main story. The main story in Austen's novels has more to do with a woman's place in the world -- how she copes with society's expectations of what she should do with her life. And that is chick lit in a nutshell. Those expectations have changed in the past 200 years (thank God!!!!!), but women do still have similar struggles, and those struggles are what dear Jane wrote about. They're also what the best chick lit novels are about.
But when I did this workshop last week with Kristin (my agent), we ended up taking a slightly different approach. It wasn't so much about how chick lit differs from romance but rather how we can learn from Jane's example to find ways to make modern books timeless classics.
One big element is the heroine and her central conflict. The central story conflict in a romance novel is the romantic conflict with the hero, but in a chick lit book, as in Jane Austen's books, the central conflict is between the heroine and some aspect of her world. It may be her family (as in Pride and Prejudice), societal expectations (Sense and Sensibility), or even herself (Emma). One recurring theme in Austen's work is the precarious nature of a woman's position in society. She's utterly dependent on either male family members or her husband. Because of inheritance laws, even a comfortably well-off woman may find herself suddenly poverty-stricken if the male relative who inherits her family's property doesn't take proper care of her. The only way to be secure is to marry well.
We may not have the same circumstances today, but the age range usually covered by chick lit is equally precarious in its own way. That's when you're working your way up the corporate ladder, dependent on your boss for your next paycheck, and few young women are secure enough to be able to just quit on the spot if their boss is mean or if they hate their job. There are bills to pay, and not everyone has the luxury of being able to call Daddy for help when things get tight. And not everyone who has the ability is willing to. Women today may not be quite as dependent on a husband to secure their place in the world, but what about the woman in the crowded and expensive New York real estate market who's been living with a boyfriend and can't afford to break up with him, no matter how awful things are, because she can't afford to move out, even if she could find a place? If you think in terms of a young woman's place in society, you automatically add more depth, conflict and interest to the standard "bad boss/bad boyfriend" stories. Then there are the situations like we see in Emma, where the heroine is fairly secure with no worries, but she's incapable of seeing how precarious her friend's position in life is. Today, that's the friend with the great job who insists on eating at expensive places and then suggests just splitting the check down the middle to make things easier, even though she had a salad, an entree, a dessert and a couple of drinks while you had a salad and drank water because that was the only thing on the menu you could afford.
Austen's heroines have believable flaws -- Lizzie and her quickness to judge and mock others, Emma and her obliviousness to the way the world works, Marianne and her emphasis on emotion over reason. All of them have strong voices and strong attitudes that grow out of their characters. As Kristin said in our workshop, it's not enough to have a heroine who has a snarky, sarcastic voice. Where does that voice come from? In Lizzie's case, you have to look at her relationship with her father and the way he sees the world. That's reflected in her, and it means she has an almost masculine approach, which is pretty radical in her time and automatically affects the way she interacts with both men and women. These are all three-dimensional characters, not simply mouthpieces for witty remarks.
Then there are the guys, who are not your standard-issue romance heroes. In fact, if they look like standard-issue romance heroes, they're probably the bad guys, or at the very least they're jerks (Willoughby, Wickham, Frank Churchill). The guys who get the girl in these books are a little different. They're shy and antisocial, and you don't realize what a great guy they are until you get into their comfort zone (Mr. Darcy). They're the boy next door, with whom you've never had a spark of sexual tension until someone else notices him (Mr. Knightley). Or they're meek, awkward and ultimately penniless (Edward in S&S). She pulls the switcheroo on us, so we are never quite sure who is the right guy until the end.
But the guys actually play a minor role. If you start counting pages and scenes, there are more scenes of the heroine's interactions with her sisters or female friends than there are of the heroine's interactions with the romantic leads. Female friendships and all their permutations and implications are emphasized. The central conflict in Sense and Sensibility that drives the plot and the character growth is between the sisters. The men are mostly offstage. Emma was largely about Emma's efforts to make Harriet into her ideal friend. Then there's the dark side of female friendship. It's not just brunch and gabbing about men while being best friends forever. Women can be awful to each other, and Austen shows this, with the antics of Lizzie's sisters, the cattiness of Caroline Bingley, the duplicity of Lucy Steele, all the persuaders in Persuasion. Lizzie's friend Charlotte isn't necessarily as bad as all these, but her decision to marry someone she doesn't respect in order to get security has a strong impact on her friendship with Lizzie. How do you maintain a friendship when you can't stand your friend's husband?
Austen also makes some kind of statement about society in each book. I first read Pride and Prejudice in a college course on satire, and it works from that angle. In her books, Austen goes off on the emphasis on marriage, inheritance laws, gossip, marrying for money, propriety, and various social customs of her time. Her heroines may be utterly believable, but like a good satirist, she populates her books with secondary characters who are just a little bit exaggerated to better illustrate her points. Thus we have memorable people like Mr. Collins and all of the Dashwoods' neighbors.
And now this is getting long. Tomorrow I'll look at some modern chick lit books to show how some authors are taking a good cue from Jane.
I originally came up with my idea of doing a workshop on Jane Austen and chick lit as a way of explaining chick lit to my local Romance Writers of America group. The more traditional romance writers have had a hard time with the chick lit genre. They don't seem to understand the appeal of books where a happily ever after isn't necessarily guaranteed, where the heroine may date multiple men on the way to Mr. Right, and where that hot guy who shows up in the first chapter might not turn out to be the hero -- all of which go totally counter to most of the romance "rules."
Jane Austen is generally credited with starting the Regency romance subgenre, but she wasn't writing Regencies. She was writing contemporary novels. And while her books do have romantic plots in them, the romance isn't the main story. The main story in Austen's novels has more to do with a woman's place in the world -- how she copes with society's expectations of what she should do with her life. And that is chick lit in a nutshell. Those expectations have changed in the past 200 years (thank God!!!!!), but women do still have similar struggles, and those struggles are what dear Jane wrote about. They're also what the best chick lit novels are about.
But when I did this workshop last week with Kristin (my agent), we ended up taking a slightly different approach. It wasn't so much about how chick lit differs from romance but rather how we can learn from Jane's example to find ways to make modern books timeless classics.
One big element is the heroine and her central conflict. The central story conflict in a romance novel is the romantic conflict with the hero, but in a chick lit book, as in Jane Austen's books, the central conflict is between the heroine and some aspect of her world. It may be her family (as in Pride and Prejudice), societal expectations (Sense and Sensibility), or even herself (Emma). One recurring theme in Austen's work is the precarious nature of a woman's position in society. She's utterly dependent on either male family members or her husband. Because of inheritance laws, even a comfortably well-off woman may find herself suddenly poverty-stricken if the male relative who inherits her family's property doesn't take proper care of her. The only way to be secure is to marry well.
We may not have the same circumstances today, but the age range usually covered by chick lit is equally precarious in its own way. That's when you're working your way up the corporate ladder, dependent on your boss for your next paycheck, and few young women are secure enough to be able to just quit on the spot if their boss is mean or if they hate their job. There are bills to pay, and not everyone has the luxury of being able to call Daddy for help when things get tight. And not everyone who has the ability is willing to. Women today may not be quite as dependent on a husband to secure their place in the world, but what about the woman in the crowded and expensive New York real estate market who's been living with a boyfriend and can't afford to break up with him, no matter how awful things are, because she can't afford to move out, even if she could find a place? If you think in terms of a young woman's place in society, you automatically add more depth, conflict and interest to the standard "bad boss/bad boyfriend" stories. Then there are the situations like we see in Emma, where the heroine is fairly secure with no worries, but she's incapable of seeing how precarious her friend's position in life is. Today, that's the friend with the great job who insists on eating at expensive places and then suggests just splitting the check down the middle to make things easier, even though she had a salad, an entree, a dessert and a couple of drinks while you had a salad and drank water because that was the only thing on the menu you could afford.
Austen's heroines have believable flaws -- Lizzie and her quickness to judge and mock others, Emma and her obliviousness to the way the world works, Marianne and her emphasis on emotion over reason. All of them have strong voices and strong attitudes that grow out of their characters. As Kristin said in our workshop, it's not enough to have a heroine who has a snarky, sarcastic voice. Where does that voice come from? In Lizzie's case, you have to look at her relationship with her father and the way he sees the world. That's reflected in her, and it means she has an almost masculine approach, which is pretty radical in her time and automatically affects the way she interacts with both men and women. These are all three-dimensional characters, not simply mouthpieces for witty remarks.
Then there are the guys, who are not your standard-issue romance heroes. In fact, if they look like standard-issue romance heroes, they're probably the bad guys, or at the very least they're jerks (Willoughby, Wickham, Frank Churchill). The guys who get the girl in these books are a little different. They're shy and antisocial, and you don't realize what a great guy they are until you get into their comfort zone (Mr. Darcy). They're the boy next door, with whom you've never had a spark of sexual tension until someone else notices him (Mr. Knightley). Or they're meek, awkward and ultimately penniless (Edward in S&S). She pulls the switcheroo on us, so we are never quite sure who is the right guy until the end.
But the guys actually play a minor role. If you start counting pages and scenes, there are more scenes of the heroine's interactions with her sisters or female friends than there are of the heroine's interactions with the romantic leads. Female friendships and all their permutations and implications are emphasized. The central conflict in Sense and Sensibility that drives the plot and the character growth is between the sisters. The men are mostly offstage. Emma was largely about Emma's efforts to make Harriet into her ideal friend. Then there's the dark side of female friendship. It's not just brunch and gabbing about men while being best friends forever. Women can be awful to each other, and Austen shows this, with the antics of Lizzie's sisters, the cattiness of Caroline Bingley, the duplicity of Lucy Steele, all the persuaders in Persuasion. Lizzie's friend Charlotte isn't necessarily as bad as all these, but her decision to marry someone she doesn't respect in order to get security has a strong impact on her friendship with Lizzie. How do you maintain a friendship when you can't stand your friend's husband?
Austen also makes some kind of statement about society in each book. I first read Pride and Prejudice in a college course on satire, and it works from that angle. In her books, Austen goes off on the emphasis on marriage, inheritance laws, gossip, marrying for money, propriety, and various social customs of her time. Her heroines may be utterly believable, but like a good satirist, she populates her books with secondary characters who are just a little bit exaggerated to better illustrate her points. Thus we have memorable people like Mr. Collins and all of the Dashwoods' neighbors.
And now this is getting long. Tomorrow I'll look at some modern chick lit books to show how some authors are taking a good cue from Jane.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Martha O'Connor
I gave myself yesterday off, but today I have to get back to work, since my editor's revisions on book 3 came by way of FedEx yesterday morning and I need to get book 4 to my agent this week. Plus, Mom and Dad are coming to visit tomorrow, which means frantic emergency house cleaning.
Fortunately, it's a Girlfriends Cyber Circuit day, so I can make someone else think of something clever to say. This is kind of a rerun, but my audience seems to have expanded a bit since then, so I decided not to subject the poor author to more inane questions from me. My guest this week is Martha O'Connor, author of the critically acclaimed novel The Bitch Posse, which is now out in paperback.
This book is the story of three young women, their passionate friendship, and the terrible secret that inextricably binds them together. O'Connor weaves past and present from the perspectives of three best friends, Rennie, Amy, and Cherry – as rebellious teens and then as grown women in their mid-30's coping with the repercussions of their actions. As high school seniors, the girls form a tight circle of friends – which they name the Bitch Posse – in order to lash out against tumultuous situations in their lives. But as steadfast as their friendship is, it's not enough to protect the girls from circumstances that cause all three of their lives to spiral out of control.
Flash-forward to the present, where one girl is now a wife and mother-to-be, trying to uphold a life of normalcy for herself and her family. One is a writer with a sexual addiction that sucks her into destructive relationships. And one is incarcerated in a mental hospital – and has been since one fateful night fifteen years ago, when a betrayal led them to commit a crime that profoundly changed their destinies.
What inspired you to write this book?
I think I was just ready to write this book. I sat down to distract myself from another novel that was making the submission rounds (and never did end up getting placed). I was so disgusted and disheartened at the entire publishing industry, and I was ANGRY. I figured no one would ever publish The Bitch Posse anyway, so the one and only person I was writing it for was... me. And that freed me to turn off all the censors, something I desperately needed to do in order to write honestly about these characters.. particularly Rennie, whose teenaged affair with her teacher is echoed by her sexual addiction 15 years later.
How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine(s)?
While I have not based any of the characters on myself or people I know, each one of the girls (and women) holds a little piece of me. Of course, I am a writer and used to be a teacher, like Rennie. Cherry feels the need to look after people, just as I do. And Amy's a mother -- and when you become a mother, the whole world changes in a very profound way. Instead of living only for yourself, you start living for someone else's sake as well. And I was able to access those emotions when writing about Amy's struggle with her premature baby, Lucky.
Is there anything else you'd like to say about this book or the process of writing it?
The best thing that happened to me was chronic failure. I was sure no one was watching nor would they EVER watch, and that freed me to write my heart out.
For more information, visit Martha's website.
Speaking of success following failure (boy, can I identify), I got the great news yesterday that one of my writer friends got a great two-book deal after years of struggle. She has the same former publisher I had, and she'd faced similar problems with them, where they just didn't want anything else she sent them. Now she's finally found someone who recognizes her talent, and I'm so happy for her. Her e-mails are so lyrical, poignant and funny, full of warmth and humor, that I can't wait to read her novels. She's writing southern magical realism, and I think I'm going to offer to blurb her book so I can get a sneak peek. Don't worry, I'll be sure to blab all about her book as it nears publication. I think I was almost as happy to hear about her contract as I was to get my own comeback book deal. There was squealing and flappy hands of joy, which I don't recall doing for myself (I was too busy rushing out to buy shoes).
I think for the rest of the week I'll do a series of posts on chick lit, since that's what I've been saving up in Book Report content, and I have that Jane Austen stuff to talk about. Now, though, I have to get the house company clean, which may require unpacking and doing laundry.
Fortunately, it's a Girlfriends Cyber Circuit day, so I can make someone else think of something clever to say. This is kind of a rerun, but my audience seems to have expanded a bit since then, so I decided not to subject the poor author to more inane questions from me. My guest this week is Martha O'Connor, author of the critically acclaimed novel The Bitch Posse, which is now out in paperback.
This book is the story of three young women, their passionate friendship, and the terrible secret that inextricably binds them together. O'Connor weaves past and present from the perspectives of three best friends, Rennie, Amy, and Cherry – as rebellious teens and then as grown women in their mid-30's coping with the repercussions of their actions. As high school seniors, the girls form a tight circle of friends – which they name the Bitch Posse – in order to lash out against tumultuous situations in their lives. But as steadfast as their friendship is, it's not enough to protect the girls from circumstances that cause all three of their lives to spiral out of control.
Flash-forward to the present, where one girl is now a wife and mother-to-be, trying to uphold a life of normalcy for herself and her family. One is a writer with a sexual addiction that sucks her into destructive relationships. And one is incarcerated in a mental hospital – and has been since one fateful night fifteen years ago, when a betrayal led them to commit a crime that profoundly changed their destinies.
What inspired you to write this book?
I think I was just ready to write this book. I sat down to distract myself from another novel that was making the submission rounds (and never did end up getting placed). I was so disgusted and disheartened at the entire publishing industry, and I was ANGRY. I figured no one would ever publish The Bitch Posse anyway, so the one and only person I was writing it for was... me. And that freed me to turn off all the censors, something I desperately needed to do in order to write honestly about these characters.. particularly Rennie, whose teenaged affair with her teacher is echoed by her sexual addiction 15 years later.
How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine(s)?
While I have not based any of the characters on myself or people I know, each one of the girls (and women) holds a little piece of me. Of course, I am a writer and used to be a teacher, like Rennie. Cherry feels the need to look after people, just as I do. And Amy's a mother -- and when you become a mother, the whole world changes in a very profound way. Instead of living only for yourself, you start living for someone else's sake as well. And I was able to access those emotions when writing about Amy's struggle with her premature baby, Lucky.
Is there anything else you'd like to say about this book or the process of writing it?
The best thing that happened to me was chronic failure. I was sure no one was watching nor would they EVER watch, and that freed me to write my heart out.
For more information, visit Martha's website.
Speaking of success following failure (boy, can I identify), I got the great news yesterday that one of my writer friends got a great two-book deal after years of struggle. She has the same former publisher I had, and she'd faced similar problems with them, where they just didn't want anything else she sent them. Now she's finally found someone who recognizes her talent, and I'm so happy for her. Her e-mails are so lyrical, poignant and funny, full of warmth and humor, that I can't wait to read her novels. She's writing southern magical realism, and I think I'm going to offer to blurb her book so I can get a sneak peek. Don't worry, I'll be sure to blab all about her book as it nears publication. I think I was almost as happy to hear about her contract as I was to get my own comeback book deal. There was squealing and flappy hands of joy, which I don't recall doing for myself (I was too busy rushing out to buy shoes).
I think for the rest of the week I'll do a series of posts on chick lit, since that's what I've been saving up in Book Report content, and I have that Jane Austen stuff to talk about. Now, though, I have to get the house company clean, which may require unpacking and doing laundry.
Monday, July 31, 2006
My Adventures (and some news)
I'm home! I actually got home yesterday, but I spent most of that time collapsing before having to go out and see a show last night.
I don't have a lot to report about the conference because there's not a lot that remains fascinating in retrospect that would be interesting to anyone who wasn't directly involved. I didn't pick up on any real publishing news other than it seems as though publishers other than Avon have started looking for more historical romances and that particular market slump appears to be over. I didn't go to any industry sessions about chick lit, so I can't say what's going on with that market, but it did seem like we were recognizing a lot of first sales at the chick lit chapter's party, which makes you wonder how big the slump really is.
I survived the big mass autographing Wednesday night and even sold out of books for the second year in a row. The first four times I participated in that event, I maybe sold a few books each year, so it was three hours of futile sitting there while my self esteem shrank to earthworm levels. That makes me even more appreciative of the thrill of running out of books long before the end of the evening. Even when I wasn't signing books I had people coming up to say how much they enjoyed my books. For a while, the checkout line went right past me, so I got a few impulse purchases from people who stared at the covers long enough they had to come over and see what the books were about.
Thursday the luncheon speaker was Meg Cabot, and she's even funnier in person than in her books. I loved the reason she gave for wanting to become a writer: the movie Romancing the Stone. Not because of the adventure part or the Michael Douglas part. For her, she loved the part where Joan Wilder is working at home in her pajamas, then she finishes a book and celebrates by drinking a little bottle of vodka. She said that's when she thought "I want that job!" She also described her adventures in attending the movie premiere for The Princess Diaries.
Friday was my crazy day. In the morning was the publisher booksigning. They do these events where they give away books, and people line up for hours to then get into this reasonably small room filled with authors to grab free copies and meet the authors. I call it " pretend to be a bestseller time" because it's the one time I get to experience the thrill of having people lined up in droves to get my books. I guess the secret is to give the books away for free. The other secret is to not be a big bestseller so that your line is shorter and then people jump to get in that line because their odds of getting a book improve that way. I also got to experience bizarro upside-down world at that event when people like Mary Jo Putney, Patricia Rice and Suzanne Brockman were asking me to autograph books for them.
That day I also met with one of my new editors and had lunch with my agent. It looks like my idea for a title for book 3 is the current title to beat, and it sounds like they are interested in more books in the series. At lunch, I brainstormed book ideas with my agent, and she kept pushing me to raise the stakes. She threw out an idea that I HATED -- until just before I fell asleep that night and it snapped into place. The way I'm thinking of using it is totally different and is a twist on it, but she was right about that being the element needed to intensify the story. I hate it when she's right like that, and not just because it means I get no sleep. We did our workshop on Jane Austen that afternoon, where I got still more ideas. I hope the audience got something out of that workshop because I know I learned a lot just giving it (and I may do a whole post on that topic later). That night was my publisher's party at the Ritz-Carlton, after which I went back to my room and collapsed.
Saturday I went to the best workshop ever, a two-hour session by screenwriting guru Michael Hauge that may just change my life. Again, there's subject matter for its own post, but I can't wait to play with the ideas I got in that session.
In general, I spent too much time wearing high heels. I grew addicted to the orange-infused water they kept in the hotel lobby. I didn't get nearly enough sleep or food (at least, nutritious food), and the whole week is now a blur, but I'm wired and inspired.
Finally, remember that big news I mentioned a while back? My agent sort of outed me at the conference, so I guess it's safe to post. In journalism, this would be called burying the lead, but in fiction it's called building suspense. Drum roll please ... Enchanted, Inc. has been optioned for a TV series!! Now, before anyone gets excited, this is just an option. It doesn't mean they're going to make a series. A lot of stuff gets optioned, then they pitch a lot of stuff to see if they can get financial or network backing for a pilot, then some of those things actually get made into pilots, and then a few pilots get picked up as series, and we all know how few series really get a chance to build an audience and grow -- two series last fall that were based on books were cancelled after just one or two episodes. So I'm not holding my breath or counting my money yet. But it is a first step and it shows that someone in Hollywood is interested enough to put money into the option. I was going to buy a new TV to celebrate, but I'm getting that for my birthday so I'll have to come up with something else.
And now I must go buy some oranges so I can make my own orange-infused water. I guess I need to get other food, too. The cupboard is kind of bare at the moment.
I don't have a lot to report about the conference because there's not a lot that remains fascinating in retrospect that would be interesting to anyone who wasn't directly involved. I didn't pick up on any real publishing news other than it seems as though publishers other than Avon have started looking for more historical romances and that particular market slump appears to be over. I didn't go to any industry sessions about chick lit, so I can't say what's going on with that market, but it did seem like we were recognizing a lot of first sales at the chick lit chapter's party, which makes you wonder how big the slump really is.
I survived the big mass autographing Wednesday night and even sold out of books for the second year in a row. The first four times I participated in that event, I maybe sold a few books each year, so it was three hours of futile sitting there while my self esteem shrank to earthworm levels. That makes me even more appreciative of the thrill of running out of books long before the end of the evening. Even when I wasn't signing books I had people coming up to say how much they enjoyed my books. For a while, the checkout line went right past me, so I got a few impulse purchases from people who stared at the covers long enough they had to come over and see what the books were about.
Thursday the luncheon speaker was Meg Cabot, and she's even funnier in person than in her books. I loved the reason she gave for wanting to become a writer: the movie Romancing the Stone. Not because of the adventure part or the Michael Douglas part. For her, she loved the part where Joan Wilder is working at home in her pajamas, then she finishes a book and celebrates by drinking a little bottle of vodka. She said that's when she thought "I want that job!" She also described her adventures in attending the movie premiere for The Princess Diaries.
Friday was my crazy day. In the morning was the publisher booksigning. They do these events where they give away books, and people line up for hours to then get into this reasonably small room filled with authors to grab free copies and meet the authors. I call it " pretend to be a bestseller time" because it's the one time I get to experience the thrill of having people lined up in droves to get my books. I guess the secret is to give the books away for free. The other secret is to not be a big bestseller so that your line is shorter and then people jump to get in that line because their odds of getting a book improve that way. I also got to experience bizarro upside-down world at that event when people like Mary Jo Putney, Patricia Rice and Suzanne Brockman were asking me to autograph books for them.
That day I also met with one of my new editors and had lunch with my agent. It looks like my idea for a title for book 3 is the current title to beat, and it sounds like they are interested in more books in the series. At lunch, I brainstormed book ideas with my agent, and she kept pushing me to raise the stakes. She threw out an idea that I HATED -- until just before I fell asleep that night and it snapped into place. The way I'm thinking of using it is totally different and is a twist on it, but she was right about that being the element needed to intensify the story. I hate it when she's right like that, and not just because it means I get no sleep. We did our workshop on Jane Austen that afternoon, where I got still more ideas. I hope the audience got something out of that workshop because I know I learned a lot just giving it (and I may do a whole post on that topic later). That night was my publisher's party at the Ritz-Carlton, after which I went back to my room and collapsed.
Saturday I went to the best workshop ever, a two-hour session by screenwriting guru Michael Hauge that may just change my life. Again, there's subject matter for its own post, but I can't wait to play with the ideas I got in that session.
In general, I spent too much time wearing high heels. I grew addicted to the orange-infused water they kept in the hotel lobby. I didn't get nearly enough sleep or food (at least, nutritious food), and the whole week is now a blur, but I'm wired and inspired.
Finally, remember that big news I mentioned a while back? My agent sort of outed me at the conference, so I guess it's safe to post. In journalism, this would be called burying the lead, but in fiction it's called building suspense. Drum roll please ... Enchanted, Inc. has been optioned for a TV series!! Now, before anyone gets excited, this is just an option. It doesn't mean they're going to make a series. A lot of stuff gets optioned, then they pitch a lot of stuff to see if they can get financial or network backing for a pilot, then some of those things actually get made into pilots, and then a few pilots get picked up as series, and we all know how few series really get a chance to build an audience and grow -- two series last fall that were based on books were cancelled after just one or two episodes. So I'm not holding my breath or counting my money yet. But it is a first step and it shows that someone in Hollywood is interested enough to put money into the option. I was going to buy a new TV to celebrate, but I'm getting that for my birthday so I'll have to come up with something else.
And now I must go buy some oranges so I can make my own orange-infused water. I guess I need to get other food, too. The cupboard is kind of bare at the moment.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Jennifer Barnes
I'm having one of those days when I realize I need to start removing things from my to-do list before I go crazy. I leave in the morning for Atlanta and I have soooo much to do.
I got to "meet" my new editor yesterday. It turns out we met last year at the RWA conference (she remembered my red shoes). I think she'll be really fun to work with, and she seems pretty jazzed about my series, so yay!
Based on the results of my survey, I think I'll do some wrap-ups about anything interesting that happens at the RWA conference but without doing any kind of detailed day-by-day reporting. It will probably mostly be about interesting people I meet, cool books I discover and anything interesting and/or funny I do. If there's any really hot publishing news, I'll share it, but I tend not to pick up on that stuff. I have this bad habit of discussing hair-care products instead of business when I get in conversations with editors and agents (it's funny how many editors and agents have curly hair).
If anyone is in the Atlanta area, there's going to be a big, huge, mondo booksigning for charity Wednesday evening. Something like 450 authors will be lined up in a hotel ballroom for people to wander by (or throw peanuts to -- I feel like a zoo animal at times), chat with and get books from. The books are donated by the publishers, and the money from the book sales goes to support literacy efforts, which is a very good cause. You can also bring books of your own to get them signed by your favorite authors (though I think they have a cap of five books now, since in the past people literally brought in suitcases full of books to be signed, which monopolized the authors, and the idea is to SELL books to raise money). This event is free and open to the public (you do have to buy the books, but you get in the door for free). It will be from 5:30 to 8:30 Wednesday evening at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta (near Peachtree Center). For more info, here's a web site with the details and a list of participating authors.
And now I leave you with an entry from the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit. My guest this time is Jennifer Barnes, author of the new young adult novel Golden. Jennifer sounds pretty golden, herself. For one thing, she's a fellow native Oklahoman. For another, she just graduated from Yale and is now off to study at Cambridge. Her research on animal and child cognition has been featured on ABC's World News Tonight and Animal Planet. Whew!
About the book:
When Lissy James moves from California to Oklahoma, she finds herself in the middle of a teenage nightmare: a social scene to rival a Hollywood movie. And if understanding the hierarchy of the Goldens vs. the Nons isn’t hard enough, Lissy’s ever growing Aura Vision is getting harder and harder to hide, and if she’s not careful, she’s going to become a Non faster than you can say “freak.”
But it’s becoming clear that Emory High has a few secrets of its own. Around the halls, the term “special powers” goes way beyond one’s ability to attract the opposite sex, and there may be something more evil than the A-crowd lurking in the classrooms. Lissy can see a lot more than the average girl, but she’s about to learn the hard way that things aren’t always as they appear and you can’t always judge a girl by her lip gloss.
And now the interview:
What inspired you to write this book?
In general, I've always been fascinated with the supernatural, and most of my books definitely tend to incorporate paranormal concepts. When I sit down to write a book, I generally start with that concept and go from there. With Golden, I knew I wanted to write about a girl who could see auras, and to me, it made a lot of sense to throw my aura seer into a situation in which her power would be both an advantage and a major pain. Since I transferred schools right before my freshman year in high school, I'm no stranger to having to navigate a new teen social scene, and I decided to throw Lissy into a similar situation at a school where the social hierarchy was a million times more well defined. The rest of the book just came out of those two ideas.
Describe your creative process.
I don't do much plotting up front. Generally, I start with a very small number of things -- a character's name, any supernatural powers he/she might have, and the corresponding aspect of teen life that I think really goes with those powers in some important sense. For Golden, I knew that Lissy saw auras and that she was transferring to a new school. For my second book, Tattoo, I knew that it was about a group of friends who got super powers from a batch of mystical temporary tattoos, and that was it. Once I know the general concept of the book, I just start writing, and everything else- character, plot, etc just falls into place. I write each draft straight through, and in general, I try to write in large chunks (at least a chapter per sitting). Once I make it through the first draft, I set a manuscript aside for several months and move on to a new project before I start revising the old one. For me, it really helps to have some time and emotional distance between me and whatever I'm revising.
Do you have any writing habits or rituals?
I almost always write very late at night. In college, this was kind of a necessity. I didn't want to miss out on having a normal college life, so I generally wrote after everyone else had fallen asleep- usually between two and four in the morning. As for music, I usually pick one or two songs per book, and listen to them on repeat the entire time I'm writing. That way, when I go back to revise, all I have to do is turn on that book's song, and instantly, I'm back inside my main character's head.
How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine?
Lissy and I actually have quite a few things in common. I didn't realize it when I was writing, but she kind of resembles me physically- she's on the tall end of things, and we both have thick, somewhat unruly brown hair. Personality-wise, I think we both have a tendency to sound a lot more sarcastic inside our own heads than we do when we speak to other people- we both definitely have a constant inner monologue going on. At the same time, though, we're also very different- I think I'm a lot more chilled out!
How have your studies in cognitive science influenced your writing -- either in character development or in the special powers your characters have?
Actually, it's hard for me to think of a specific way that my background in cog sci has influenced my writing. Most of my undergraduate research concentrates on primate and child cognition; I spent a lot of time working with monkeys and lemurs in the wild, and a good chunk of time in preschools, working with three and four year old kids. It's a pretty far cry from writing for teenagers!
(I don't know ... my dad the retired high school teacher would say that "monkeys and lemurs in the wild" sounds a lot like teenagers.)
How did you manage to fit in the time to write a novel while you were studying such a challenging field at such a challenging university? (I guess I'm trolling for time-management tips because I write full-time and don't seem to have enough time.)
I actually wrote the first draft of Golden over a nineteen day period the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. At the time, I was doing a summer workshop at the USC school of cinema, so I'd have classes in the morning, I'd work on my film all afternoon, hang out with friends for a while, and then come back at night and spend a couple of hours writing. Since Golden, I've written a variety of novels while actually at Yale, and generally, the same kind of system works for me. No matter how busy I am, most days I can manage to take a couple of hours at the end of the day to write. For me, it's relaxing. If I go too long without writing, I get kind of twitchy. And, as weird as it seems, I get a lot more writing work done when I'm at school, and following a really hectic schedule, than when I'm at home doing nothing. The busier I am, the more compelled I am to create, and that makes writing a whole lot easier.
Chocolate: dark or milk?
Actually, I'm one of those strange people who doesn't like chocolate at all. I absolutely abhorred it when I was little, and I'm still not a fan, but I dislike milk chocolate less than other kinds.
(I'm in shock here! This may be the first writer I've known who didn't have a minor chocolate addiction! But hey, that leaves more for me!)
What are you working on now?
I've got my hands in quite a few projects right now. I just finished up final edits on my second book, TATTOO, and turned in two sets of revisions- one on the Golden sequel (coming in September of 2007) and one on the first book of a new series about cheerleading secret agents (The Squad, January, 2008). I'm getting ready to submit my first middle grade novel- a character-driven mystery, and I'm probably going to start on the second Squad book next month. In the meantime, I've given myself July off from writing- which basically means that I still write, but I don't try to finish anything, so right now, I'm about a fifth of the way through a bunch of different novels!
For more info, check out her web site or her blog.
And now I'm off to tackle the to-do list. See you all next week!
I got to "meet" my new editor yesterday. It turns out we met last year at the RWA conference (she remembered my red shoes). I think she'll be really fun to work with, and she seems pretty jazzed about my series, so yay!
Based on the results of my survey, I think I'll do some wrap-ups about anything interesting that happens at the RWA conference but without doing any kind of detailed day-by-day reporting. It will probably mostly be about interesting people I meet, cool books I discover and anything interesting and/or funny I do. If there's any really hot publishing news, I'll share it, but I tend not to pick up on that stuff. I have this bad habit of discussing hair-care products instead of business when I get in conversations with editors and agents (it's funny how many editors and agents have curly hair).
If anyone is in the Atlanta area, there's going to be a big, huge, mondo booksigning for charity Wednesday evening. Something like 450 authors will be lined up in a hotel ballroom for people to wander by (or throw peanuts to -- I feel like a zoo animal at times), chat with and get books from. The books are donated by the publishers, and the money from the book sales goes to support literacy efforts, which is a very good cause. You can also bring books of your own to get them signed by your favorite authors (though I think they have a cap of five books now, since in the past people literally brought in suitcases full of books to be signed, which monopolized the authors, and the idea is to SELL books to raise money). This event is free and open to the public (you do have to buy the books, but you get in the door for free). It will be from 5:30 to 8:30 Wednesday evening at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta (near Peachtree Center). For more info, here's a web site with the details and a list of participating authors.
And now I leave you with an entry from the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit. My guest this time is Jennifer Barnes, author of the new young adult novel Golden. Jennifer sounds pretty golden, herself. For one thing, she's a fellow native Oklahoman. For another, she just graduated from Yale and is now off to study at Cambridge. Her research on animal and child cognition has been featured on ABC's World News Tonight and Animal Planet. Whew!
About the book:
When Lissy James moves from California to Oklahoma, she finds herself in the middle of a teenage nightmare: a social scene to rival a Hollywood movie. And if understanding the hierarchy of the Goldens vs. the Nons isn’t hard enough, Lissy’s ever growing Aura Vision is getting harder and harder to hide, and if she’s not careful, she’s going to become a Non faster than you can say “freak.”
But it’s becoming clear that Emory High has a few secrets of its own. Around the halls, the term “special powers” goes way beyond one’s ability to attract the opposite sex, and there may be something more evil than the A-crowd lurking in the classrooms. Lissy can see a lot more than the average girl, but she’s about to learn the hard way that things aren’t always as they appear and you can’t always judge a girl by her lip gloss.
And now the interview:
What inspired you to write this book?
In general, I've always been fascinated with the supernatural, and most of my books definitely tend to incorporate paranormal concepts. When I sit down to write a book, I generally start with that concept and go from there. With Golden, I knew I wanted to write about a girl who could see auras, and to me, it made a lot of sense to throw my aura seer into a situation in which her power would be both an advantage and a major pain. Since I transferred schools right before my freshman year in high school, I'm no stranger to having to navigate a new teen social scene, and I decided to throw Lissy into a similar situation at a school where the social hierarchy was a million times more well defined. The rest of the book just came out of those two ideas.
Describe your creative process.
I don't do much plotting up front. Generally, I start with a very small number of things -- a character's name, any supernatural powers he/she might have, and the corresponding aspect of teen life that I think really goes with those powers in some important sense. For Golden, I knew that Lissy saw auras and that she was transferring to a new school. For my second book, Tattoo, I knew that it was about a group of friends who got super powers from a batch of mystical temporary tattoos, and that was it. Once I know the general concept of the book, I just start writing, and everything else- character, plot, etc just falls into place. I write each draft straight through, and in general, I try to write in large chunks (at least a chapter per sitting). Once I make it through the first draft, I set a manuscript aside for several months and move on to a new project before I start revising the old one. For me, it really helps to have some time and emotional distance between me and whatever I'm revising.
Do you have any writing habits or rituals?
I almost always write very late at night. In college, this was kind of a necessity. I didn't want to miss out on having a normal college life, so I generally wrote after everyone else had fallen asleep- usually between two and four in the morning. As for music, I usually pick one or two songs per book, and listen to them on repeat the entire time I'm writing. That way, when I go back to revise, all I have to do is turn on that book's song, and instantly, I'm back inside my main character's head.
How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine?
Lissy and I actually have quite a few things in common. I didn't realize it when I was writing, but she kind of resembles me physically- she's on the tall end of things, and we both have thick, somewhat unruly brown hair. Personality-wise, I think we both have a tendency to sound a lot more sarcastic inside our own heads than we do when we speak to other people- we both definitely have a constant inner monologue going on. At the same time, though, we're also very different- I think I'm a lot more chilled out!
How have your studies in cognitive science influenced your writing -- either in character development or in the special powers your characters have?
Actually, it's hard for me to think of a specific way that my background in cog sci has influenced my writing. Most of my undergraduate research concentrates on primate and child cognition; I spent a lot of time working with monkeys and lemurs in the wild, and a good chunk of time in preschools, working with three and four year old kids. It's a pretty far cry from writing for teenagers!
(I don't know ... my dad the retired high school teacher would say that "monkeys and lemurs in the wild" sounds a lot like teenagers.)
How did you manage to fit in the time to write a novel while you were studying such a challenging field at such a challenging university? (I guess I'm trolling for time-management tips because I write full-time and don't seem to have enough time.)
I actually wrote the first draft of Golden over a nineteen day period the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. At the time, I was doing a summer workshop at the USC school of cinema, so I'd have classes in the morning, I'd work on my film all afternoon, hang out with friends for a while, and then come back at night and spend a couple of hours writing. Since Golden, I've written a variety of novels while actually at Yale, and generally, the same kind of system works for me. No matter how busy I am, most days I can manage to take a couple of hours at the end of the day to write. For me, it's relaxing. If I go too long without writing, I get kind of twitchy. And, as weird as it seems, I get a lot more writing work done when I'm at school, and following a really hectic schedule, than when I'm at home doing nothing. The busier I am, the more compelled I am to create, and that makes writing a whole lot easier.
Chocolate: dark or milk?
Actually, I'm one of those strange people who doesn't like chocolate at all. I absolutely abhorred it when I was little, and I'm still not a fan, but I dislike milk chocolate less than other kinds.
(I'm in shock here! This may be the first writer I've known who didn't have a minor chocolate addiction! But hey, that leaves more for me!)
What are you working on now?
I've got my hands in quite a few projects right now. I just finished up final edits on my second book, TATTOO, and turned in two sets of revisions- one on the Golden sequel (coming in September of 2007) and one on the first book of a new series about cheerleading secret agents (The Squad, January, 2008). I'm getting ready to submit my first middle grade novel- a character-driven mystery, and I'm probably going to start on the second Squad book next month. In the meantime, I've given myself July off from writing- which basically means that I still write, but I don't try to finish anything, so right now, I'm about a fifth of the way through a bunch of different novels!
For more info, check out her web site or her blog.
And now I'm off to tackle the to-do list. See you all next week!
Monday, July 24, 2006
Shameful Confession
Shameful confession: I spent hours last night watching the live coverage of an ongoing police chase. It was kind of like OJ, but in this case some guy hijacked an 18-wheeler and forced the driver to drive all over the area on most of the major highways. It went on for hours, with the police having to try to block off roads ahead of the truck (since the guy didn't seem to have a problem with running into anything that got in his way, and he had an automatic weapon). At times it got to be an incredibly slow chase, and by the end the truck had no rubber left on its tires. The TV station helicopter followed it all the way, though they did back off with the helicopter and return to normal programming once the DPS shot through the engine block to force the truck to stop on an isolated stretch of road, and then it became a hostage stand-off. The hostage was later released safely and the guy was arrested. It turned out this had been his third hijacking of the day. He carjacked a guy, then wrecked that car, and when a doctor came upon the wreck and stopped to make sure he wasn't hurt, the guy carjacked the doctor (that has to be some seriously bad karma to carjack someone who stops to help you) and drove to a truck stop, where he hijacked the 18-wheeler.
Even more shameful confession: I wasn't watching all of this because of any kind of morbid fascination with the breaking news or the action or even to see how it turned out. I watched all of this because I have a serious crush (going back at least four years) on the weekend news anchor, and this was an unprecedented chance to spend hours with him instead of just little 30-minute newscasts. Plus, this guy has a tendency to come out with snarky remarks when he's on live and unscripted (one of the major reasons for the crush), and this was hours of him live and unscripted. He didn't get too snarky, but it was very cute how worked up he got about all the idiots who rushed to line the freeways and stand on the overpasses along the way to watch the chase. He kept saying that they were tracking this as a public safety issue to warn people away from these areas, so it was stupid to go there, and if you did, you were putting yourself in danger and possibly interfering with the police. I actually read while this was on in the background because I didn't much care to see the chase. I was just enjoying listening to him talk and admiring how well he managed to juggle all the input coming in from the various reporters in the field. It was the longest "date" we've had so far.
I'm so very sad and pathetic. I have e-mailed this guy -- to comment on something in the newscast, not to tell him I want to have his babies -- and he responded (yes, I saved the e-mail. See the part about being sad and pathetic), but when I responded to his response, he didn't write back. Alas. The even more sad and pathetic thing is that this crush has gone on longer than any real relationship I've ever had has lasted. It's also outlasted any celebrity crush or crush from afar I've ever had (I'm so terribly fickle in my celebrity crushes -- I may continue to like or admire someone, but usually my crush-like obsession is very short-lived).
I haven't yet decided if this counts as a celebrity crush or a crush from afar. He is on TV, and that's how I "know" him, but he's also local and we even got the same degree from the same program in the same journalism school, just a few years apart (I think he was a freshman when I was a senior), which brings it more to the realm of remote possibility than your typical celebrity crush. Hey, there's even the odd chance that I might one day be interviewed on that station when I become a bestselling famous author. And then our eyes will meet and all that stuff.
So, go out there and buy books and tell everyone you know about them so I can become famous enough to get to meet my anchorman crush. :-)
See, sad and pathetic. But the "get a life" project begins when I get this book totally finalized and turned in (and my editor's revisions on book 3). Then maybe I can meet real-life people who can distract me from my strange obsession with weekend newscasts.
Even more shameful confession: I wasn't watching all of this because of any kind of morbid fascination with the breaking news or the action or even to see how it turned out. I watched all of this because I have a serious crush (going back at least four years) on the weekend news anchor, and this was an unprecedented chance to spend hours with him instead of just little 30-minute newscasts. Plus, this guy has a tendency to come out with snarky remarks when he's on live and unscripted (one of the major reasons for the crush), and this was hours of him live and unscripted. He didn't get too snarky, but it was very cute how worked up he got about all the idiots who rushed to line the freeways and stand on the overpasses along the way to watch the chase. He kept saying that they were tracking this as a public safety issue to warn people away from these areas, so it was stupid to go there, and if you did, you were putting yourself in danger and possibly interfering with the police. I actually read while this was on in the background because I didn't much care to see the chase. I was just enjoying listening to him talk and admiring how well he managed to juggle all the input coming in from the various reporters in the field. It was the longest "date" we've had so far.
I'm so very sad and pathetic. I have e-mailed this guy -- to comment on something in the newscast, not to tell him I want to have his babies -- and he responded (yes, I saved the e-mail. See the part about being sad and pathetic), but when I responded to his response, he didn't write back. Alas. The even more sad and pathetic thing is that this crush has gone on longer than any real relationship I've ever had has lasted. It's also outlasted any celebrity crush or crush from afar I've ever had (I'm so terribly fickle in my celebrity crushes -- I may continue to like or admire someone, but usually my crush-like obsession is very short-lived).
I haven't yet decided if this counts as a celebrity crush or a crush from afar. He is on TV, and that's how I "know" him, but he's also local and we even got the same degree from the same program in the same journalism school, just a few years apart (I think he was a freshman when I was a senior), which brings it more to the realm of remote possibility than your typical celebrity crush. Hey, there's even the odd chance that I might one day be interviewed on that station when I become a bestselling famous author. And then our eyes will meet and all that stuff.
So, go out there and buy books and tell everyone you know about them so I can become famous enough to get to meet my anchorman crush. :-)
See, sad and pathetic. But the "get a life" project begins when I get this book totally finalized and turned in (and my editor's revisions on book 3). Then maybe I can meet real-life people who can distract me from my strange obsession with weekend newscasts.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Still Recovering
I'm still recovering from finishing the book. I guess it didn't help that the first day I had a very busy day, even though I'd taken the day off, and then yesterday I had another busy day with a meeting in the morning and then a booksigning in the afternoon. Today I have absolutely zero energy. I'm pretty much devoting the day to reading.
The temperature finally dropped. It's still hot, but it's a normal hot for this time of year, and the lows in the early morning are low enough not to be hot. I was joking about needing to put on a parka when the temperatures dropped by more than ten degrees, but Saturday morning I almost got a little chilly outside. It's been in the upper 80s even in the morning, so the 70s were almost a jolt.
Unfortunately, it seemed to have affected the turnout for the booksigning. The people at the store said it was really quiet for a Saturday and their sales were down. I guess it was the first day in ages when you could actually go out and do stuff, so people weren't thinking about books. The store really tried. They'd decorated in a beach theme with grass skirts on the signing tables and some pink flamingos and beach pails lying around. But the customers who were in the store seemed to think there was a force field keeping them away from us. People would practically cross the entire store to avoid having to walk past us down the main aisle. Fortunately, some of my friends came by to keep me occupied. Otherwise, I might have been bored enough to be tempted to take the grass skirt off the table, put it on and start hula dancing in the aisles. There, um, might have been a very small hula demonstration behind the signing table as it was (really just based on my Cardio Hula workout video -- I don't know how authentic it is, but I can make it look good).
I've figured out my wardrobe for the RWA conference this week. I'm going for the "packing light" award this time by being really efficient instead of bringing lots of changes of clothes. I didn't want to deal with the huge suitcase this year. I guess I'll also have to be selective about which books I bring back with me. I used to have an Australian boss who was the kind of guy who'd travel around the world with just a small backpack, and on business trips he'd mock anyone who brought more than necessary. I remember being very pleased with myself for having a small tote bag on an overnight trip, especially since the other women going had the regular rollaboard suitcases. My boss had his computer bag with a toothbrush, a clean shirt and a change of underwear and socks in the side pocket. There was no way to beat him at that game. For me, going to this conference with a smaller suitcase will be a real achievement. Usually I bring the big suitcase I nickname "the steamer trunk." It's hard to pack light when you have a lot of evening events, so you need a couple of outfits per day. This year, I don't have as many evening events that require formal clothes, which helps.
I'm also being pretty daring by planning to wear slacks to the big awards ceremony. They're dressy tuxedo slacks, and that night I'll be wearing them with a dressy top and my red heels. My legs usually end up freezing in the ballroom during the ceremony, so we'll see if this helps. Now watch this be the year that the air conditioner breaks and we all sweat our way through the ceremony.
I won't be taking a computer, so I won't be posting live from the event, but I may do a wrap-up when I get home. I know not everyone who reads this knows or cares about the RWA conference, but let me know in comments if there's something you do want to hear about. I may even be inspired to make phone posts to Live Journal.
The temperature finally dropped. It's still hot, but it's a normal hot for this time of year, and the lows in the early morning are low enough not to be hot. I was joking about needing to put on a parka when the temperatures dropped by more than ten degrees, but Saturday morning I almost got a little chilly outside. It's been in the upper 80s even in the morning, so the 70s were almost a jolt.
Unfortunately, it seemed to have affected the turnout for the booksigning. The people at the store said it was really quiet for a Saturday and their sales were down. I guess it was the first day in ages when you could actually go out and do stuff, so people weren't thinking about books. The store really tried. They'd decorated in a beach theme with grass skirts on the signing tables and some pink flamingos and beach pails lying around. But the customers who were in the store seemed to think there was a force field keeping them away from us. People would practically cross the entire store to avoid having to walk past us down the main aisle. Fortunately, some of my friends came by to keep me occupied. Otherwise, I might have been bored enough to be tempted to take the grass skirt off the table, put it on and start hula dancing in the aisles. There, um, might have been a very small hula demonstration behind the signing table as it was (really just based on my Cardio Hula workout video -- I don't know how authentic it is, but I can make it look good).
I've figured out my wardrobe for the RWA conference this week. I'm going for the "packing light" award this time by being really efficient instead of bringing lots of changes of clothes. I didn't want to deal with the huge suitcase this year. I guess I'll also have to be selective about which books I bring back with me. I used to have an Australian boss who was the kind of guy who'd travel around the world with just a small backpack, and on business trips he'd mock anyone who brought more than necessary. I remember being very pleased with myself for having a small tote bag on an overnight trip, especially since the other women going had the regular rollaboard suitcases. My boss had his computer bag with a toothbrush, a clean shirt and a change of underwear and socks in the side pocket. There was no way to beat him at that game. For me, going to this conference with a smaller suitcase will be a real achievement. Usually I bring the big suitcase I nickname "the steamer trunk." It's hard to pack light when you have a lot of evening events, so you need a couple of outfits per day. This year, I don't have as many evening events that require formal clothes, which helps.
I'm also being pretty daring by planning to wear slacks to the big awards ceremony. They're dressy tuxedo slacks, and that night I'll be wearing them with a dressy top and my red heels. My legs usually end up freezing in the ballroom during the ceremony, so we'll see if this helps. Now watch this be the year that the air conditioner breaks and we all sweat our way through the ceremony.
I won't be taking a computer, so I won't be posting live from the event, but I may do a wrap-up when I get home. I know not everyone who reads this knows or cares about the RWA conference, but let me know in comments if there's something you do want to hear about. I may even be inspired to make phone posts to Live Journal.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Recovering
It's amazing how draining writing a book can be. I always seem to go into a big slump as soon as I'm done. But instead of being a slug today, I made myself get out and about.
I think I have a new favorite mall. I hadn't been to this mall in more than ten years (it's one of the nation's first enclosed shopping malls), but it's now been totally redone and added to, and it has all the stores I want, right in one place. Even better, it has a huge movie theater, and the first show of the day on Fridays is a super-bargain matinee. So, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean, and when I got to the mall the shops weren't even open. It was just me and the mall walkers, which meant I got a parking space in the parking garage, right by the entrance. Then after the movie, I did a bit of shopping.
I enjoyed the movie. Basically, if there's a barroom brawl and a swordfight, I'm so there, and their fight choreography was really quite creative. The people who leave the moment the credits start did miss a fun bit at the very end. I had a feeling there would be one, so I waited, even though they were cleaning the theater and seating people for the next show (very annoying). I was glad I was vindicated for my waiting because I'd have felt like a dummy if I'd sat through all the credits for nothing.
Then I wasn't really too jazzed about shopping, which is odd for me. I got some new makeup and a killer pair of mid-height black stiletto pumps, but I didn't see any clothes I even wanted to try on.
Remember the booksigning Saturday at B&N in Lewisville, Texas, 2-4.
And now time for my Sci Fi Friday slumber party (the TV only seems to work for half an hour at a time, so it looks like I'll be watching in bed tonight).
I think I have a new favorite mall. I hadn't been to this mall in more than ten years (it's one of the nation's first enclosed shopping malls), but it's now been totally redone and added to, and it has all the stores I want, right in one place. Even better, it has a huge movie theater, and the first show of the day on Fridays is a super-bargain matinee. So, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean, and when I got to the mall the shops weren't even open. It was just me and the mall walkers, which meant I got a parking space in the parking garage, right by the entrance. Then after the movie, I did a bit of shopping.
I enjoyed the movie. Basically, if there's a barroom brawl and a swordfight, I'm so there, and their fight choreography was really quite creative. The people who leave the moment the credits start did miss a fun bit at the very end. I had a feeling there would be one, so I waited, even though they were cleaning the theater and seating people for the next show (very annoying). I was glad I was vindicated for my waiting because I'd have felt like a dummy if I'd sat through all the credits for nothing.
Then I wasn't really too jazzed about shopping, which is odd for me. I got some new makeup and a killer pair of mid-height black stiletto pumps, but I didn't see any clothes I even wanted to try on.
Remember the booksigning Saturday at B&N in Lewisville, Texas, 2-4.
And now time for my Sci Fi Friday slumber party (the TV only seems to work for half an hour at a time, so it looks like I'll be watching in bed tonight).
Thursday, July 20, 2006
News Update
A few updated news items:
I talked to my editor this afternoon, and I feel much better. It doesn't sound like I'm being left out in the cold.
My TV came back to life this afternoon. I was able to watch the evening news on it and got a full-screen picture. Even so, my parents have declared that they're giving me a new TV for my birthday, and they'll even come over to help me transport it from the store and then into my house. Yay! I'm not sure how much longer the current TV will hold out, but I still have my little dorm room TV in my bedroom, and if all else fails, I can turn Sci Fi Friday into a slumber party.
And finally, the big news:
I FINISHED THE BOOK!!!! It's done! And I like it! I LOVE the ending, though I may need to tinker with it a bit to get the maximum impact. I usually end up rewriting the ending a few times before I even go back and work on the rest of the book.
Finishing a book is kind of bittersweet. There's the huge relief that it's done, but also some sadness because it's over. There's no more discovery. I know what happens. There may be editing and revising, but I'll never again get to see this story unfold for the first time.
The next book I write most likely will not be part of this series. I do want to write more stories in this series, and I have at least one, maybe even two, that I really must write (even if the publisher doesn't want them, I'd probably feel compelled to write at least the last book and find some other way of getting it out there). But I also do want to do other stuff, and now's the time to start proving to the publishing world that I can do other stuff. I also think that writing something else entirely different will help me write the series books better because that will stretch me. I'd like to do kind of what Sophie Kinsella seems to be doing with her Shopaholic series, where she alternates a Shopaholic book with a standalone book.
But for now, I'm going to take a break from writing (other than polishing chapters and sending them to Mom) until after the RWA conference, when I'll get this book to my agent to look at while I work on edits on book 3. Tomorrow, though, is Pirates day!! Yo ho ho and a bottle of Dr Pepper!
(Sorry, I get a bit giddy upon finishing a book.)
I talked to my editor this afternoon, and I feel much better. It doesn't sound like I'm being left out in the cold.
My TV came back to life this afternoon. I was able to watch the evening news on it and got a full-screen picture. Even so, my parents have declared that they're giving me a new TV for my birthday, and they'll even come over to help me transport it from the store and then into my house. Yay! I'm not sure how much longer the current TV will hold out, but I still have my little dorm room TV in my bedroom, and if all else fails, I can turn Sci Fi Friday into a slumber party.
And finally, the big news:
I FINISHED THE BOOK!!!! It's done! And I like it! I LOVE the ending, though I may need to tinker with it a bit to get the maximum impact. I usually end up rewriting the ending a few times before I even go back and work on the rest of the book.
Finishing a book is kind of bittersweet. There's the huge relief that it's done, but also some sadness because it's over. There's no more discovery. I know what happens. There may be editing and revising, but I'll never again get to see this story unfold for the first time.
The next book I write most likely will not be part of this series. I do want to write more stories in this series, and I have at least one, maybe even two, that I really must write (even if the publisher doesn't want them, I'd probably feel compelled to write at least the last book and find some other way of getting it out there). But I also do want to do other stuff, and now's the time to start proving to the publishing world that I can do other stuff. I also think that writing something else entirely different will help me write the series books better because that will stretch me. I'd like to do kind of what Sophie Kinsella seems to be doing with her Shopaholic series, where she alternates a Shopaholic book with a standalone book.
But for now, I'm going to take a break from writing (other than polishing chapters and sending them to Mom) until after the RWA conference, when I'll get this book to my agent to look at while I work on edits on book 3. Tomorrow, though, is Pirates day!! Yo ho ho and a bottle of Dr Pepper!
(Sorry, I get a bit giddy upon finishing a book.)
Abandonment Issues
I am so very close to finishing this book that I can almost taste it (it tastes a lot like dark chocolate M&Ms). Just a chapter and a half to go (I think -- you never know). I even know most of what will happen from here on out. If I'm very, very good and don't let myself get too distracted, I can finish this draft today. Then my plan is to catch an early show of Pirates of the Caribbean tomorrow morning and do some shopping at the big mall across town that's recently been totally renovated so that it now includes all the shops I could want, plus a movie theater, under one roof.
Not being too distracted could be a challenge today, though. Although I got to bed kind of late and had a little trouble getting to sleep, I still set my alarm to get up earlier today so I might get to work and finish the book. It was a good thing, because less than fifteen minutes later my agent called, and if I hadn't set an alarm, I'd have still been asleep. She had the bad news that my editor is moving to another publisher. I loooooove my editor. We're on such the same wavelength and seem to have a similar outlook on life. In fact, I've often found when randomly browsing bookstore shelves that a lot of the books I end up buying turn out to have been edited by my editor (and then I figured out I could snag them from her for free -- woo hoo!). So now I don't know what will happen to me. I'm trying not to panic, but the last time I had an editor leave me, the result was an eight-year publishing dry spell. This even comes at at similar time for me, when I'm finishing up a contract and am therefore between "jobs," so to speak. But I have an agent in my corner now, and I'm not writing for any particular "line" that's about to go away, plus I think I've done well enough and have a good enough reputation among people at Random House (I send cookies) that I doubt I'll be a hot potato with all the other editors saying, "No, you take her!"
The best comparison I can think of to this situation is if you have a wonderful boss, someone who totally gets you, who supports your career ambitions and makes sure you get to work on the projects that are best suited for you and who generally creates a pleasant working environment, and then that boss announces that he's leaving the company. You can't help but wonder what will happen next. You could get an even better boss who gives your career a real boost. You could get a jerk. You could get someone who wants to reorganize things to fit his own vision so that your role changes -- and that could be to a new role that's even better for you or it could be to something that makes your life miserable. Most likely, things will more or less stay the same. You'll keep doing your job the way it was set up and only the more emotional and interpersonal aspects will really change. But there's a lot of uncertainty while you wait to find out how things will go.
Unfortunately, that analogy isn't too soothing to me because I had something like that happen in my last job. I had an incredibly cool boss who was so supportive of my writing career. He let me work out a deal where I cut my workload to semi-part time (with a slight pay cut) and telecommuted, and I was able to create my own job where I did the stuff I really wanted to do and was best at. For almost two years, I was happier than I'd ever been in a job. And then he left. His replacement was someone I'd worked with before in another job, someone I knew wasn't entirely ethical or above-board. He was also one of the few people I'd ever had hallway screaming matches with in the workplace. He was hired over my intense objections and warnings, and I was laid off a week later (though he insisted he had nothing to do with that decision). And gee, wouldn't you know, a few years later, after that office nearly tanked, lost most of its clients and a good percentage of its workforce, that guy was caught in an ethical lapse and fired.
So, yeah, it's a good thing I have a fantasy world to escape into today. I think I'll be zapping some evil wizards.
But that wasn't the end of my morning fun. Very soon after I spoke with my agent, my TV went on the blink. The picture shrank from a full screen down to a narrow little line across the middle -- very Outer Limits-looking. That set is about 11 years old, and it gets heavy use, so I guess it was time. It was just bad timing -- that final straw for the morning to add to my abandonment issues. I guess I'll add shopping for a new TV to my list of things to do after I finish the book. I'd been wanting to upgrade eventually, and I think I will go for something nice instead of cheap -- not plasma screen HD nice, but nicer than my little 20-inch screen. It's actually kind of appropriate for me to treat myself to a good TV right now (oops, did I drop a hint?). The only problem with getting a good-sized TV is that I can't carry it or fit it in my car, so I'll have to have it delivered, and finding a time when I'll be home for delivery in their sort of wonky schedule (I've yet to find a place that promises "overnight delivery" that delivers in less than a week or that delivers when they say they will), so I guess I'll be watching Sci Fi Friday on the little dorm room TV in my bedroom. Wouldn't you know, I lose my TV just when I'm finishing a book and have time to watch it.
But enough of my whining. It's time for a fun Out of the Blogosphere book, Susan Grant's Your Planet or Mine (LOVE the title).
Think the grocery store is a great place to meet men?
Hunky interstellar fugitive, aisle 5.
With outrageously false accusations piling up against her famous political family and an ex-fiancé in hot water determined to take her down with him, the last thing Jana Jasper needs is more trouble--especially man trouble. But when she heads to the grocery store for an ice cream fix, not only does the muscled hunk in the frozen foods section ranting about spaceships and invasions look crazy, he looks... familiar.
Cavin of Far Star has never forgotten the girl he met during his weeks spent on that quaint little world, planet Earth, the girl who didn't believe he was real. And now he'll risk his future to save her. All she has to do is take him to her leader. Simple enough plan--although Jana isn't so easily convinced. Hell-bent on charming his way past her defenses, he's determined to stay one step ahead of the galaxy's most feared assassin--and may just capture his favorite Earthling's heart in the process.
Here's what one reviewer said about this book:
"Veers uncomfortably close to our actual plans to invade your pitiful little planet. Pull this book from the shelves immediately or I shall have it vaporized!" -- General Neppal, Supreme Commander of the Coalition fleet
Sue has one of the coolest day jobs of any writer I know. She flies 747s on international routes for United Airlines. For more info, check out her web site. Her blog tells all about her piloting adventures, including the time she had to play "terrorists storm the cockpit door" during a training exercise -- on a day she wore a skirt. Check it out.
Now I'm going to finish a book and maybe whimper a little over the phone to my soon-to-be-ex editor.
Not being too distracted could be a challenge today, though. Although I got to bed kind of late and had a little trouble getting to sleep, I still set my alarm to get up earlier today so I might get to work and finish the book. It was a good thing, because less than fifteen minutes later my agent called, and if I hadn't set an alarm, I'd have still been asleep. She had the bad news that my editor is moving to another publisher. I loooooove my editor. We're on such the same wavelength and seem to have a similar outlook on life. In fact, I've often found when randomly browsing bookstore shelves that a lot of the books I end up buying turn out to have been edited by my editor (and then I figured out I could snag them from her for free -- woo hoo!). So now I don't know what will happen to me. I'm trying not to panic, but the last time I had an editor leave me, the result was an eight-year publishing dry spell. This even comes at at similar time for me, when I'm finishing up a contract and am therefore between "jobs," so to speak. But I have an agent in my corner now, and I'm not writing for any particular "line" that's about to go away, plus I think I've done well enough and have a good enough reputation among people at Random House (I send cookies) that I doubt I'll be a hot potato with all the other editors saying, "No, you take her!"
The best comparison I can think of to this situation is if you have a wonderful boss, someone who totally gets you, who supports your career ambitions and makes sure you get to work on the projects that are best suited for you and who generally creates a pleasant working environment, and then that boss announces that he's leaving the company. You can't help but wonder what will happen next. You could get an even better boss who gives your career a real boost. You could get a jerk. You could get someone who wants to reorganize things to fit his own vision so that your role changes -- and that could be to a new role that's even better for you or it could be to something that makes your life miserable. Most likely, things will more or less stay the same. You'll keep doing your job the way it was set up and only the more emotional and interpersonal aspects will really change. But there's a lot of uncertainty while you wait to find out how things will go.
Unfortunately, that analogy isn't too soothing to me because I had something like that happen in my last job. I had an incredibly cool boss who was so supportive of my writing career. He let me work out a deal where I cut my workload to semi-part time (with a slight pay cut) and telecommuted, and I was able to create my own job where I did the stuff I really wanted to do and was best at. For almost two years, I was happier than I'd ever been in a job. And then he left. His replacement was someone I'd worked with before in another job, someone I knew wasn't entirely ethical or above-board. He was also one of the few people I'd ever had hallway screaming matches with in the workplace. He was hired over my intense objections and warnings, and I was laid off a week later (though he insisted he had nothing to do with that decision). And gee, wouldn't you know, a few years later, after that office nearly tanked, lost most of its clients and a good percentage of its workforce, that guy was caught in an ethical lapse and fired.
So, yeah, it's a good thing I have a fantasy world to escape into today. I think I'll be zapping some evil wizards.
But that wasn't the end of my morning fun. Very soon after I spoke with my agent, my TV went on the blink. The picture shrank from a full screen down to a narrow little line across the middle -- very Outer Limits-looking. That set is about 11 years old, and it gets heavy use, so I guess it was time. It was just bad timing -- that final straw for the morning to add to my abandonment issues. I guess I'll add shopping for a new TV to my list of things to do after I finish the book. I'd been wanting to upgrade eventually, and I think I will go for something nice instead of cheap -- not plasma screen HD nice, but nicer than my little 20-inch screen. It's actually kind of appropriate for me to treat myself to a good TV right now (oops, did I drop a hint?). The only problem with getting a good-sized TV is that I can't carry it or fit it in my car, so I'll have to have it delivered, and finding a time when I'll be home for delivery in their sort of wonky schedule (I've yet to find a place that promises "overnight delivery" that delivers in less than a week or that delivers when they say they will), so I guess I'll be watching Sci Fi Friday on the little dorm room TV in my bedroom. Wouldn't you know, I lose my TV just when I'm finishing a book and have time to watch it.
But enough of my whining. It's time for a fun Out of the Blogosphere book, Susan Grant's Your Planet or Mine (LOVE the title).
Think the grocery store is a great place to meet men?
Hunky interstellar fugitive, aisle 5.
With outrageously false accusations piling up against her famous political family and an ex-fiancé in hot water determined to take her down with him, the last thing Jana Jasper needs is more trouble--especially man trouble. But when she heads to the grocery store for an ice cream fix, not only does the muscled hunk in the frozen foods section ranting about spaceships and invasions look crazy, he looks... familiar.
Cavin of Far Star has never forgotten the girl he met during his weeks spent on that quaint little world, planet Earth, the girl who didn't believe he was real. And now he'll risk his future to save her. All she has to do is take him to her leader. Simple enough plan--although Jana isn't so easily convinced. Hell-bent on charming his way past her defenses, he's determined to stay one step ahead of the galaxy's most feared assassin--and may just capture his favorite Earthling's heart in the process.
Here's what one reviewer said about this book:
"Veers uncomfortably close to our actual plans to invade your pitiful little planet. Pull this book from the shelves immediately or I shall have it vaporized!" -- General Neppal, Supreme Commander of the Coalition fleet
Sue has one of the coolest day jobs of any writer I know. She flies 747s on international routes for United Airlines. For more info, check out her web site. Her blog tells all about her piloting adventures, including the time she had to play "terrorists storm the cockpit door" during a training exercise -- on a day she wore a skirt. Check it out.
Now I'm going to finish a book and maybe whimper a little over the phone to my soon-to-be-ex editor.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
I'm Melting
The weatherman lied to me yesterday. We didn't get our promised cold snap of only 104 degrees. Instead, it hit 107. Now they're saying it will only hit 104 today, but I'm not ready to believe them yet. The good news is that this weekend we may get thunderstorms and highs only in the upper 90s. I'd better make sure I have plenty of firewood to deal with the sudden burst of cold.
The heat is really getting to my brain. I keep having this urge to stand on the sidewalk in front of my house and do my imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West: "I'm meeeelllllltinnnng!" It's so hot that I don't want to drink hot tea except for my morning cup (and me not wanting hot tea is one of the signs of impending apocalypse). Thank goodness for Dr Pepper! Otherwise I wouldn't get my recommended daily caffeine intake for optimum book production. I am finding ways to cope. I've got my patio umbrella angled to shade one of my living room windows to help keep the house cooler. Then I brought in my old Roman shade from the garage. I had it from my first apartment, where I had a huge window facing due west that made summer afternoons utterly miserable. Blocking even a little sun helped a lot then. Now I have a huge window facing east, and the shade fit perfectly, so I put it up. It's still bright enough to read in the living room in the daytime without a light, but I think it cuts the heat a little bit, and since I get my sun in the morning, blocking the light in the morning helps keep the house cooler all day. This is the time of year when I tend to get seasonal affective disorder because it's too hot to go out in daylight, which amounts to not seeing much daylight. Winter days may be shorter, but I can usually at least go for a walk in the afternoon.
How long until October? Hmm, I know someone who lives in Iceland. Might be time for a visit. Or I could drop in on the relatives in Norway.
I'm closing in on the end of the book, only about two and a half chapters to go, unless the book surprises me (again) by being longer. I don't think that will happen because I've got the rest pretty well mapped out. Today I should be writing the big, climactic action scene -- the big finish. That is, if I can get my sluggish brain to cooperate.
Fortunately, the book I'm reading now isn't tempting me not to write (I'll deal with it in a later post). That wasn't the case Monday, when I was reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman. It was such a beautiful book, and I couldn't bring myself to put it down. Then when I was through reading it, I couldn't make myself write for a while because I felt like such a hack in comparison. I couldn't imagine ever writing something so lovely. It was also one of the most romantic love stories I've ever read, probably because it was allowed to grow organically. My main problem with the romance genre is that there are all these externally imposed rules on how a love story is supposed to progress. One of them is that there has to be some kind of strong, instant attraction. The couple may hate each other, but they're still drawn to each other even if they hate being drawn to each other. They also have to immediately notice each other as sexual beings, right from the start. Yeah, I guess that does happen, and it can be fun to read about, but it's such a shame that the genre pretty much rules out other ways a relationship might develop. In this book, the couple barely notice each other as male and female when they meet. They're both entirely focused on other things. It's only gradually, as they share adventures, do simple acts of kindness for each other, come to each other's rescue and really get to know each other along the way, that their feelings start to develop, so that when they do fall in love, it's incredibly sweet and satisfying. This book is now out in mass market paperback, but it looks like a nice trade paperback edition will be published in August, and I think I'll buy that one because it's definitely a keeper. I imagine it will be one of my "comfort food" books that I read when I need something to make me feel good. It's the kind of book you close with a wistful sigh when you're through reading it.
I just checked the long-range forecast for Atlanta, where I'll be next week, and they're looking at highs in the 80s! Now I'm excited.
And a quick reminder that I'll be part of a group booksigning this coming Saturday at the Barnes & Noble near Vista Ridge Mall in Lewisville, Texas. Last I heard (and I need to double check), it will be from 2 to 4. Even if you already have my books and don't care about an autograph, feel free to come be my designated nerd to give me someone to talk to about interesting stuff so we can lure unsuspecting store patrons into our web.
The heat is really getting to my brain. I keep having this urge to stand on the sidewalk in front of my house and do my imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West: "I'm meeeelllllltinnnng!" It's so hot that I don't want to drink hot tea except for my morning cup (and me not wanting hot tea is one of the signs of impending apocalypse). Thank goodness for Dr Pepper! Otherwise I wouldn't get my recommended daily caffeine intake for optimum book production. I am finding ways to cope. I've got my patio umbrella angled to shade one of my living room windows to help keep the house cooler. Then I brought in my old Roman shade from the garage. I had it from my first apartment, where I had a huge window facing due west that made summer afternoons utterly miserable. Blocking even a little sun helped a lot then. Now I have a huge window facing east, and the shade fit perfectly, so I put it up. It's still bright enough to read in the living room in the daytime without a light, but I think it cuts the heat a little bit, and since I get my sun in the morning, blocking the light in the morning helps keep the house cooler all day. This is the time of year when I tend to get seasonal affective disorder because it's too hot to go out in daylight, which amounts to not seeing much daylight. Winter days may be shorter, but I can usually at least go for a walk in the afternoon.
How long until October? Hmm, I know someone who lives in Iceland. Might be time for a visit. Or I could drop in on the relatives in Norway.
I'm closing in on the end of the book, only about two and a half chapters to go, unless the book surprises me (again) by being longer. I don't think that will happen because I've got the rest pretty well mapped out. Today I should be writing the big, climactic action scene -- the big finish. That is, if I can get my sluggish brain to cooperate.
Fortunately, the book I'm reading now isn't tempting me not to write (I'll deal with it in a later post). That wasn't the case Monday, when I was reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman. It was such a beautiful book, and I couldn't bring myself to put it down. Then when I was through reading it, I couldn't make myself write for a while because I felt like such a hack in comparison. I couldn't imagine ever writing something so lovely. It was also one of the most romantic love stories I've ever read, probably because it was allowed to grow organically. My main problem with the romance genre is that there are all these externally imposed rules on how a love story is supposed to progress. One of them is that there has to be some kind of strong, instant attraction. The couple may hate each other, but they're still drawn to each other even if they hate being drawn to each other. They also have to immediately notice each other as sexual beings, right from the start. Yeah, I guess that does happen, and it can be fun to read about, but it's such a shame that the genre pretty much rules out other ways a relationship might develop. In this book, the couple barely notice each other as male and female when they meet. They're both entirely focused on other things. It's only gradually, as they share adventures, do simple acts of kindness for each other, come to each other's rescue and really get to know each other along the way, that their feelings start to develop, so that when they do fall in love, it's incredibly sweet and satisfying. This book is now out in mass market paperback, but it looks like a nice trade paperback edition will be published in August, and I think I'll buy that one because it's definitely a keeper. I imagine it will be one of my "comfort food" books that I read when I need something to make me feel good. It's the kind of book you close with a wistful sigh when you're through reading it.
I just checked the long-range forecast for Atlanta, where I'll be next week, and they're looking at highs in the 80s! Now I'm excited.
And a quick reminder that I'll be part of a group booksigning this coming Saturday at the Barnes & Noble near Vista Ridge Mall in Lewisville, Texas. Last I heard (and I need to double check), it will be from 2 to 4. Even if you already have my books and don't care about an autograph, feel free to come be my designated nerd to give me someone to talk to about interesting stuff so we can lure unsuspecting store patrons into our web.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Lauren Barnholdt
We're getting hit with a freak cold snap today, which means the high will only be 104, down a whole degree from yesterday (now, where did I put my parka?).
Last night, I wrote something I never thought I'd ever write: a car chase. I didn't even realize I would be writing it until I was in the middle of it, which made it even weirder. I have actually been in the middle of a high-speed car chase, of the type that involves dozens of police cars. No, I wasn't the one being chased. It was in my TV news days, and I was out in the news truck with a photographer doing the round of fluffy weekend festival stories with lots of shots of cute kids when word of a high-speed chase came over the scanner. It was approaching the area where we were, so we pulled off the highway, turned onto the next street, and next thing we knew, we were in the middle of dozens of police cars with sirens blaring. The chase came to a stop a few blocks later and the police held us back because the guy they were chasing had a car full of guns. My photographer happened to have a bullet-proof vest in the truck (a gift from his wife), so they sent me back to the truck to get it, and as soon as I did, one of the cops pushed me down on the ground behind a police car, but our photographer was able to be in the middle of the action when they pulled the guy out of the car (I watched it between the tires on the car). Later, I got to interview the police. It was my first (and really only) TV news exclusive.
The car chase I wrote last night is a lot funnier (I hope). It involves gargoyles, which improve any car chase scene.
I'm about to go for an eye exam (and good timing because I tore my last contact lens last night), so it's a good time for a Girlfriends Cyber Circuit entry. Today's guest is Lauren Barnholdt, author of the young adult novel Reality Chick.
About the book
Going away to college means total independence and freedom. Unless of course your freshman year is taped and televised for all the world to watch. On uncensored cable.
Sweet and normal Ally Cavanaugh is one of five freshpeople shacking up on In the House, a reality show filmed on her college campus. (As if school isn't panic-inducing enough!) The cameras stalk her like paparazzi, but they also capture the fun that is new friends, old crushes, and learning to live on your own. Sure, the camera adds ten pounds, but with the freshman fifteen a given anyway, who cares? Ally's got bigger issues -- like how her long-distance bf can watch her loopy late-night "episode" with a certain housemate...
And now the interview:
What inspired you to write this book?
I tried out for THE REAL WORLD once. (I know, I'm a dork.) I didn't make it, and all of my friends were like, "It's because you're too normal!" And I was like, "That's why they should have picked me!" I thought it would be cool to see how a "normal" person reacts to living in a crazy environment like that. So I decided to write a book about it.
Describe your creative process.
I don't really plot. I find it's easier for me to figure out how things are going to go when I'm actually writing. I try to revise a bit as I go along, but sometimes it helps me to just get the draft down and finished before going back to revise.
Do you have any writing habits or rituals?
I work best in the mornings, and I have to have Diet Coke with Lime. And for some really strange reason, I tend to write better when Dr. Phil's on TV. I know, weird.
(Hey, I find Dr. Phil to be a wonderful characterization resource.)
How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine?
Ally tends to overanalyze things, which I definitely do.
What do you see as the appeal of reality TV?
I think there's something fascinating about knowing that the things going on have actually happened -- the drama isn't made up.
(Hmm, still doesn't do it for me, but I'm one of the weirdos who wants my TV as UNreal as possible -- spaceships, vampires, other planets ...)
If you were going to participate in a reality TV show, which one would it be, or is there a concept they haven't used yet that you'd like to do?
I'd like to be on THE REAL WORLD, just because I'm lazy. They get to live in a fab house, have a fab job, and they don't really have to do anything except create scandals.
Chocolate: dark or milk?
Milk.
(I really need to tabulate these results someday, but that will be after this book is done.)
What are you working on now?
Right now I'm working on a tween novel called DEVON DELANEY'S SECRET IDENTITY which will be out in May of 2007. It's about a thirteen-year-old girl who goes away for the summer and lies to the local girls about how popular she is, only to be left scrambling to recreate her "secret identity" when one of them shows up at her school. My second YA novel, ROAD TRIP, about a girl who gets stuck driving cross country with the boy who just broke her heart, will be out in June of next year.
For more info, visit Lauren's web site or her blog.
Last night, I wrote something I never thought I'd ever write: a car chase. I didn't even realize I would be writing it until I was in the middle of it, which made it even weirder. I have actually been in the middle of a high-speed car chase, of the type that involves dozens of police cars. No, I wasn't the one being chased. It was in my TV news days, and I was out in the news truck with a photographer doing the round of fluffy weekend festival stories with lots of shots of cute kids when word of a high-speed chase came over the scanner. It was approaching the area where we were, so we pulled off the highway, turned onto the next street, and next thing we knew, we were in the middle of dozens of police cars with sirens blaring. The chase came to a stop a few blocks later and the police held us back because the guy they were chasing had a car full of guns. My photographer happened to have a bullet-proof vest in the truck (a gift from his wife), so they sent me back to the truck to get it, and as soon as I did, one of the cops pushed me down on the ground behind a police car, but our photographer was able to be in the middle of the action when they pulled the guy out of the car (I watched it between the tires on the car). Later, I got to interview the police. It was my first (and really only) TV news exclusive.
The car chase I wrote last night is a lot funnier (I hope). It involves gargoyles, which improve any car chase scene.
I'm about to go for an eye exam (and good timing because I tore my last contact lens last night), so it's a good time for a Girlfriends Cyber Circuit entry. Today's guest is Lauren Barnholdt, author of the young adult novel Reality Chick.
About the book
Going away to college means total independence and freedom. Unless of course your freshman year is taped and televised for all the world to watch. On uncensored cable.
Sweet and normal Ally Cavanaugh is one of five freshpeople shacking up on In the House, a reality show filmed on her college campus. (As if school isn't panic-inducing enough!) The cameras stalk her like paparazzi, but they also capture the fun that is new friends, old crushes, and learning to live on your own. Sure, the camera adds ten pounds, but with the freshman fifteen a given anyway, who cares? Ally's got bigger issues -- like how her long-distance bf can watch her loopy late-night "episode" with a certain housemate...
And now the interview:
What inspired you to write this book?
I tried out for THE REAL WORLD once. (I know, I'm a dork.) I didn't make it, and all of my friends were like, "It's because you're too normal!" And I was like, "That's why they should have picked me!" I thought it would be cool to see how a "normal" person reacts to living in a crazy environment like that. So I decided to write a book about it.
Describe your creative process.
I don't really plot. I find it's easier for me to figure out how things are going to go when I'm actually writing. I try to revise a bit as I go along, but sometimes it helps me to just get the draft down and finished before going back to revise.
Do you have any writing habits or rituals?
I work best in the mornings, and I have to have Diet Coke with Lime. And for some really strange reason, I tend to write better when Dr. Phil's on TV. I know, weird.
(Hey, I find Dr. Phil to be a wonderful characterization resource.)
How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine?
Ally tends to overanalyze things, which I definitely do.
What do you see as the appeal of reality TV?
I think there's something fascinating about knowing that the things going on have actually happened -- the drama isn't made up.
(Hmm, still doesn't do it for me, but I'm one of the weirdos who wants my TV as UNreal as possible -- spaceships, vampires, other planets ...)
If you were going to participate in a reality TV show, which one would it be, or is there a concept they haven't used yet that you'd like to do?
I'd like to be on THE REAL WORLD, just because I'm lazy. They get to live in a fab house, have a fab job, and they don't really have to do anything except create scandals.
Chocolate: dark or milk?
Milk.
(I really need to tabulate these results someday, but that will be after this book is done.)
What are you working on now?
Right now I'm working on a tween novel called DEVON DELANEY'S SECRET IDENTITY which will be out in May of 2007. It's about a thirteen-year-old girl who goes away for the summer and lies to the local girls about how popular she is, only to be left scrambling to recreate her "secret identity" when one of them shows up at her school. My second YA novel, ROAD TRIP, about a girl who gets stuck driving cross country with the boy who just broke her heart, will be out in June of next year.
For more info, visit Lauren's web site or her blog.
Monday, July 17, 2006
The Home Stretch
It's so very hot, hot enough that your brains are in danger of melting and leaking out of your ears, so hot that I want to do nothing other than lie under the ceiling fan and drink something cold. The low temperature this morning was 85, and it's going to top 100. I guess I was spoiled by the relatively cool first week in July. It's supposed to be "cooler" later in the week when the high is only in the upper 90s. How much longer is it until October?
I am now more than three-fourths of the way through the book, so I'm on the home stretch. I should finish the first draft this week, which will give me time to give it a good read-through before I go to the RWA conference in Atlanta next week. Then after the conference I can read it through again and send it to my agent to get her feedback. It looks like if I'm good and diligent and if my agent doesn't get swamped, I'll meet my September 15 deadline. (I'll actually have to beat it because that's when my high school reunion weekend starts with the homecoming game.)
My neighborhood Target sold out of my book. Okay, so I bought the last copy, but it still shows up on their records as selling out. I really wanted a copy with that "Breakout Book" sticker, and they're bad about not restocking once something sells out, so when I saw only one copy left Saturday night, I went ahead and bought it. They had three copies to begin with, and there were still three copies of the books on either side, so I don't know if they ever replenished and just try to keep three copies on the shelf at one time, or if they just had those three copies. As of this morning, the shelf spot for my book was still empty. I hope they do restock it. I've heard reports of it selling out in other areas, which is nice to know. It would be really sad to finally get a book in Target and then not have it sell very well. Then it would be nearly impossible to get another book in Target. Now I just worry about missing potential sales because they can't keep it on the shelf.
I'm so tempted to spend part of the afternoon reading and/or napping. I've got a few books from the library that I really want to get to, including the new Marian Keyes book. I know better than to start reading that one until my book is done because I know I won't be getting anything else done once I pick it up. So, if I'm very, very good and get the book done, then I can have guilt-free uninterrupted reading time later in the week. My local library has a summer reading club for adults. I remember doing those when I was a kid, and I'm having just as much fun now filling out my reading log. Prizes for adults include Target gift cards. Woo hoo! The more books you read, the more entries you get in the drawing for prizes. I wonder if I could get away with listing the book I'm writing. It should count too, don't you think? I read it at least three times through while I'm writing it.
Hmm, maybe if I'm very good this afternoon and reach my goal for the afternoon with some time to spare, I can take book time out later.
I am now more than three-fourths of the way through the book, so I'm on the home stretch. I should finish the first draft this week, which will give me time to give it a good read-through before I go to the RWA conference in Atlanta next week. Then after the conference I can read it through again and send it to my agent to get her feedback. It looks like if I'm good and diligent and if my agent doesn't get swamped, I'll meet my September 15 deadline. (I'll actually have to beat it because that's when my high school reunion weekend starts with the homecoming game.)
My neighborhood Target sold out of my book. Okay, so I bought the last copy, but it still shows up on their records as selling out. I really wanted a copy with that "Breakout Book" sticker, and they're bad about not restocking once something sells out, so when I saw only one copy left Saturday night, I went ahead and bought it. They had three copies to begin with, and there were still three copies of the books on either side, so I don't know if they ever replenished and just try to keep three copies on the shelf at one time, or if they just had those three copies. As of this morning, the shelf spot for my book was still empty. I hope they do restock it. I've heard reports of it selling out in other areas, which is nice to know. It would be really sad to finally get a book in Target and then not have it sell very well. Then it would be nearly impossible to get another book in Target. Now I just worry about missing potential sales because they can't keep it on the shelf.
I'm so tempted to spend part of the afternoon reading and/or napping. I've got a few books from the library that I really want to get to, including the new Marian Keyes book. I know better than to start reading that one until my book is done because I know I won't be getting anything else done once I pick it up. So, if I'm very, very good and get the book done, then I can have guilt-free uninterrupted reading time later in the week. My local library has a summer reading club for adults. I remember doing those when I was a kid, and I'm having just as much fun now filling out my reading log. Prizes for adults include Target gift cards. Woo hoo! The more books you read, the more entries you get in the drawing for prizes. I wonder if I could get away with listing the book I'm writing. It should count too, don't you think? I read it at least three times through while I'm writing it.
Hmm, maybe if I'm very good this afternoon and reach my goal for the afternoon with some time to spare, I can take book time out later.
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