Gamechangers

I check the Rotten Tomatoes website once a week. It lets me know without having to read a single review whether a movie is worth watching and in less than thirty seconds of my time.
And occasionally they will interview a director, or an actor. This week they asked Kathryn Bigelow her top 5 favourite movies.
Kathryn Bigelow directed the Hurt Locker, which right now seems to be one of the best reviewed movies of the summer, second only to UP and one of the movies that created some serious buzz at the Toronto film festival. Plus, she directed Near Dark, a spectacular, vampire flick.
Her list is terrific, but the film that jumped out at me is The Terminator. She calls it a gamechanger.
And for the time it was. Go back to 1984 when the movie was released and for the time, the tension, the special effects, the storytelling, it was a movie that raised the bar for all sci fi and thrillers.
I was thinking about what my gamechangers are in romance. I know for sure, and this is going back a bit, the Anita Blake series was a gamechanger for the paranormal genre. I know they're technically urban fantasy, but they had tense plots and some amazing sexual tension and I do think they started the urban fanstasy craze, and then the series fell off the rails, but before it did, man, those books were great reads.
The JR Ward series felt like a gamechanger, in terms of connected books, secondary plot lines, and some intricate world building. For me, those books have changed the way I approach plotting.
And then in historicals, you had Sherry Thomas and Joanna Bourne writing these incredible historicals with intelligent, non-perfect heroines and scenarios that couldn't be set further from a regency ballroom, making the historical a hot commodity again.
To me a game changer raises the bar, creates new standards of what works, and smart writers pay attention. Not that we'll always agree about which books were gamechangers, but I like being challenged by better books, more imaginative storylines, better characterization. I like to see how far we can push this genre and those books usually spark some serious creative thinking and some great drunk writer discussions.
I know I've left a lot of books out of this discussion, but would love to hear if anyone has any other books that they feel are gamechangers.

Mysterious Premises

I love a good mysterious premise. I love ambiguity. I love not knowing 100% of what's going on at the beginning of a book or movie or TV series. I love wondering (to a point) why a character is behaving a certain way.

But when does a mysterious or ambiguous premise, or not-fully-revealed motivation, become an annoyance?

When it doesn't work, that's when.

And not working is sometimes a hard thing to put one's finger on, so I can only think of examples of "works" and "does not work".

Life on Mars... I didn't watch the British version of this show, and would like to, if for no other reason than to compare it to the US version, which I really enjoyed... But I think this one is a brilliant example of "works". And maybe they handled it so well because it was all contained in one short season. (The British version has a sequel called Ashes to Ashes... don't know that it's about. But assuming the British version of Life on Mars ended the same way as the US one... well, it's hard to imagine a sequel. Now I've made myself curious...)

I've heard people talking about the US version being "canceled"... and I admit I haven't read up on all the dirt, but from watching it, well, they couldn't possibly have had a second season. Or rather, if they had stretched it into a second season, at some point the "big mystery" would've become annoying rather than mysterious. There were only so many possible answers and I was still getting chills almost every episode until we finally got our answer. An answer, which, for me, was none of the possibilities I'd been considering. I think if they'd led me down all those other garden paths for too much longer, I might've been angry when the answer was "none of the above". But over 13 episodes, or whatever it was, it worked for me.

If you didn't see Life on Mars, rent it when it comes out on DVD. The lead actor is hot, hot, hot -- the acting was great (Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli) and I, for one, loved the mysterious premise and how it got solved. Plus, there's a nice little romance running through it. (Not to mention a great, early 70's soundtrack.)

Lost... Now there's one of the biggest examples of a fabulous mysterious premise. For five, (six?) seasons we've known they crashed onto an island (or were maybe dead). We've known strange things happen on this island. We know it's hard to find. We know people get healed and come back to life and others get sick and babies can't be born and some people don't age -- etc. etc. etc. And for me, it's always stayed interesting enough to pull me through the confusing bits. I know others (Molly) who think it fell apart in Season 3... and if I agree with that at all, (I actually enjoyed Season 3), it might be because they lost track of the mystery and instead transferred focus onto the love triangle. Or was season 3 the one where they were focussed on the people from the other side of the island?

I admit this show has become incredibly complicated... and I'm not sure the time travel thing is going to wrap everything up satisfactorily... And they've dropped a few threads... Michael? Walt? Walt seemed so important in the first seasons... And reappeared mysteriously a few times after leaving the island... yet now he's gone. But overall, the premise of Lost works for me.

Heroes is another example of one where the mysterious premise was AWESOME in the first season. But then they let themselves get too complicated. Talk about time travel issues. (Which Sylar is he tonight? Which Claire? Which Hiro? Which Peter? Which powers do they have this week?) But still, I think this show is a good example of a mysterious premise which, at least for a while, pulled the audience along by balancing how/when the truth was revealed. (Until it fell off the rails.)

But what really prompted his post was a new TV show called The Listener. And to be fair to the writers/producers, I haven't seen every episode. (And maybe I just want to be fair because the show's Canadian), but the "mysterious premise" is pissing me off. And has pissed me off from episode one. Okay, maybe I don't really care about being fair.

The hero can read minds. Okay. Fine. I can accept that.

He's always been able to read minds, and had to learn as a little boy how to block them out/control it, but in the first episode, "something" suddenly changes (we don't know what) and now he hears people in distress and can't get them out of his head until he solves whatever problem is causing the distress. (Talk about a convenient contrivance for a weekly series...) And we get no explanation for why things suddenly changed. But that's not even what bugs me. What bugs me is he's been told that "he must NEVER tell ANYONE he can read minds". Doing so means danger, bad things, horrible things. And while I love a big mystery, I'm sorry, but "you can never tell" isn't good enough for me. Especially if it means your girlfriend dumps you and worse, you keep getting suspected of crimes.

Why the frak doesn't he tell? Especially when not telling causes problems for him? He's a grown man. Wouldn't he question this professor guy who's been telling him he can't tell anyone, since he was a little boy? (Even if professor guy is played by Colm Feore? Okay, now I need to include a photo of Colm Feore... He's playing Cyranno at Stratford this year. REALLY want to go see it... US folks, you may have seen him as the "first gentleman" on 24 this season.)

But back to my rant... I guess my main issue is that him not telling is clearly causing big-stakes problems for him (suspected of murder, etc.) and yet they haven't convinced me that him telling carries equally dire stakes.

All that would've been annoying enough, but then I caught a bit of an episode last week and suddenly his partner (they're paramedics) knows his secret. And his partner's character hasn't exactly been set up as the kind of guy who can keep a secret... Yet, the hero seems okay with babbling-idiot-partner-guy knowing his BIG DANGEROUS SECRET. And the world hasn't ended. So why not tell the ridiculously-pretty-and-always-inappropriately-dressed-for-her-job cop, who each week is coincidentally (with a big C) involved in solving a crime related to the person who's thoughs the hero can't get out of his mind. Especially since she always suspects him of the crimes because he knows so much? And why not tell his also-ridiculously-pretty-doctor-who-doesn't-act-like-a-doctor ex-girlfriend, who he loves but who dumped him for keeping secrets??? Why doesn't he tell these two female characters? Because then the writers would have no conflict.

And with a conflict that flimsy... Well, I tend to rant.

Is anyone watching this show? Am I wrong? Is there more? Could the lead actors or the premise holes be more annoying?

If there is something else, I'm willing to take this rant back, because after the first 3-4 episodes of Dollhouse I would've said the same thing (although not this bad) and they ended up fixing that problem big time and creating a whole bunch more interesting questions/conflicts to lead us forward and now I'm desperate to see season 2.

My lessons from all this: if your plot hangs together on a secret that no one can know, the writer better give the reader/viewer a fraking good reason to believe that keeping the secret has very high stakes. And if a writer is purposefully holding back a secret about the premise... he/she had better be changing things up, and raising new questions, and upping the stakes, or we'll just get impatient and feel manipulated when we're not given the answer.

Thinking back, both Sinead and I have had premises that relied on the heroes of our stories not being able to reveal a "big secret"... but I think we both handled it better than the writers of The Listener.

Ha! While writing this, and simultaneously half-way watching Canada's Next Top Model, I just saw a teaser for this week's episode of The Listener. The voice-over announcer says: "How long can he keep the secret? Is it time to tell the truth? And then one of the pretty chicks (doctor or cop, can't really tell them apart) looks at the hero and says, "You know what I'm thinking, don't you."

Maybe they've finally realized they can't keep that crap up. Still not watching. My TBR and TBW (watched) piles are too high to waste time on crap TV. Even if it's set in Toronto.

Now. Back to Make Me a Supermodel. ;-) Hey, a gal's allowed to watch some stuff that's just pure fun.

bad bloggers pt 2

ugh. proposals, deadlines, The freaking HUNGER GAMES - taking over my life right now. I have so much to say about that book! And I will - later. I only have the brain cells for one blog and I'm over at the superromance blog at eharlequin today. Please stop by

http://community.eharlequin.com/content/harlequin-superromance-group-author-blog

Crying in the Theatre

Well, we've been very bad bloggers this week... I blame birthdays. Within 4 days at the beginning of July, I have Canada's, my younger sister's, my Dad's and America's.

Not that (being a Canadian) I really celebrate the 4th... Unless I find a good excuse to... Like an American friend... Maybe Molly needs someone to have a drink with on Sat? (Call me.)

Anyway, in the interest of not having the same post up for an entire week, I thought I'd just say how much I enjoyed seeing West Side Story today, onstage at The Stratford Festival. (Yes, they do musicals as well as the Shakespeare, to get more bums into seats.)

Clearly I knew the story going in. And I've seen the movie several times. But boy did I cry. Wow. Really well done.

Went with my sister, two of her friends, and 4 tweenaged girls. The adults were all balling. The kids, not so much. They just thought the actor who played Tony was hot.

Brilliant isn't always fun

I have a terrible admission. (Molly, prepare yourself) I have had the 4th season of the wire at my house, waiting to be watched, for almost a week and still haven't cracked it open.
And may not tonight.

We drunk writers have not been shy about our admiration for this show, and I certainly have loved it, the dialogue, the way the plot twists, and drama that seems completely true to life and really, characters like Omar and Stringer. There is a reason why this show has been hailed as the best television ever.

And when I'm immersed in a season, I watch it quickly.
But I never tear open the DVD case like a kid with a present on Christmas morning.
I know the season will have it's highs and lows and will tear my heart out while awing me with it's brilliance. I know this, and still the excitement I should have isn't there.

Because what's missing, and what keeps the Wire from being in my top three TV shows, is that sense of fun, and uplifting moments and sheer exhilaration that I got from Battlestar, or Firefly, or even True Blood.
Shows that really, in execution and scripts have more flaws, but I still find more fun to watch.
And I do love the Wire, but will I want to watch it again, just for the sheer pleasure of enjoying great TV, well, I'm not sure.

It reminds me of the movies that I loved passionately while watching, but never really felt the need to re-watch, like The English Patient, or Dogville, or even Saving Private Ryan. While I've watched Star Wars, and 10 Things I hate about you and Terminator over and over.
But in the next three days, I will open that DVD case and start the season and from there, I will once again, be immersed in the great TV that is the Wire.

Bleary eyes

Dang. I should have posted before my eye doctor appointment. Pupils are uber dilated, and I just survived (barely) the most horrendous, terrifying, exhausting walk in the heat and sunshine from the hospital where I had the snaps of my retinas taken to the dark corner of a Starbucks where I sit now trying like hell to see what I'm typing.

For the second time in about a month, I am so close to blind it's scary. I can barely see my screen. I don't realize how much of my days I spend either typing or reading until I can't really do either.

I tried to comment on another blog (actually a new groiup blog I'm part of, check it out) and it took me about three minutes of squinting and blinking and staring to figure out the stupid word for the spam check. It was readers. And not even typed in that distorted a font. For most people. Right now, I might as well by typing in wing dings. (Please excuse typos.)

So much for getting any work done today. Crap. Why doesn't this book just write itself? Maybe I should go to the movies. Who cares if Sandra Bullock is fuzzy. Ryan on the other hand...

My head hurts.

Whine.

We don't talk much about our drinking problems....

I have had a drinking Renaissance. I am a born again drinker. And what you may ask has brought me to this new level of imbibing? Martini's. That's right. In particular a cucumber and thyme martini with real bits of lemon and cucumber in it. I'm a beer girl from way back - but those days are over. I want ice cold glasses and garnishes of fresh mint and green grapes (can't even remember what that drink was - I was the drunkest person at a very swanky wedding last weekend. You honestly don't want to know, but I'll tell you anyway - I passed out in my hotel room at 8 pm with a mouth full of chocolate shake. It's a low point. Delicious. But low.)

So outside of drinking, I've done little to no writing. Little to no thinking. But I read some GREAT books - The Kitchen Boy, about the imprisonment and assassination of the Romanov's. Awesome book. And so help me - Belong To Me, the sequel to one of the best freaking books I read last year - Love Walked In. I cried non-stop from LA back to Toronto.

I think it's going to be a good drinking summer - I'm gonna buy a blender.

It's a thin line between character and plot

Have you ever read a book where it seems that the writer loved their character so much that they wrote even the smallest scenes, scenes that did illuminate some other facet of the character, but did little else?
Am reading the third in a trilogy right now, and the same character has been the lead in each book and I'm skimming large chunks of the third. We know this character too well now, that focusing in on her, and her interactions with those around her, just feels repetitious.

It reminds me of a great line from The Truth about Cats and Dogs. Love your character, but don't Love your character. (line bastardized for my purposes)

What was a fascinating mystery and character study in book one has become long and drawn out and really, boring, by book three.
Not everyone would agree with my assessment. I'm certain some readers must have loved this book. It's a fine line, because every reader is different.

Some readers love the intricate details of a character study, others want fast paced but in there somewhere, is a balance. And it's why writing is so freakin' hard, because the balance is different for each author, each book, and there is no equation, or course, or graph. There is just writing the scenes and seeing if they work.

But there are ways to illuminate character in short, but vivid ways. Watched the episode 1 of Tru Blood this week. And the elements that bothered me about the show were still there. I find the dialogue between Sookie and Bill still really stilted, and their relationship is still my least favourite storyline, but the rest is ridiculously great.
Love Tara and the way she is on the edge of peril, in a way we don't understand, but am salivating to discover. Love Jason, even if his stupidity is broadly drawn and the Lafayette in the cellar storyline had to be the highlight of my week.
What topped it all off, was Eric coming down and tearing apart one of the other cellar dwellers, in a vicious, bloodthirsty fashion, all while wearing highlight foils in his hair.
The foils were a brilliant touch. You have a vicious vampire who highlights his hair. Perfect character details in ten seconds.
Could not love this show more right now.

Perfect Little Movie

This has been a depressing six to ten months for movies for me. To understand this fully, you must understand that I saw approximately seventy to eighty films in 2008. At least. In the theatres. (That is not counting DVD's and on TV.) And 2008 wasn't an incredibly unusual year for me.

This year has been more unusual. We are almost half-way through, and I'm barely into the double digits.

Last fall's TIFF was disappointing, and I don't know if it was that, but somehow I lost my typical enthusiasm for going to the movies. Part of this is because I got caught up on some great TV like Battlestar Galactica and Mad Men and The Wire and True Blood and Project Runway. But part of it was I just didn't feel inspired to go out to the movies, and every time I did, I ended up thinking I'd have spent my time better watching high brow TV like Make Me a Supermodel or Paris' BFF.

Other than Star Trek, I hadn't seen a film I enjoyed in a really, really long time.

And while I did enjoy Star Trek, a lot, it's not really my favorite genre of film, and since this was my highlight, it felt like AGES since I'd seen a film I truly loved. A film that made me laugh and cry and feel better (or worse) about the world. Last week I went to see The Taking of Pelham 123 (boring) and My Life in Ruins (inane). Not sure why I went to either of those films except that there was little else playing I wanted to see more.

But I finally saw a great film tonight. Away We Go.

What a lovely, smart, well acted, well written, well directed film. Just about everything worked for me in this movie. Okay, can't think of anything that didn't work for me. Don't know why I hedged that.

And nice to see Sam Mendes doing a movie with a true heart after the great but depressing Revolutionary Road. Away We Go is basically about a couple searching out family and a sense of home when they're six months pregnant. Kind of nesting on a big scale. And it's just so genuinely funny and tender and real. At least I'd like to think people like their characters exist in real life. That relationships like theirs exist in real life.

I went in knowing almost nothing about this movie and I'm glad. In fact, if you can avoid seeing trailers, avoid it. Just go. Not that there are any real spoilers in the trailer (I saw the trailer just an hour after seeing the film, because I also went to see Easy Virtue... not as good).

Instead of talking about the story, (or how great Maggie Gyllenhaal was in her small part) I'd just like to mention why I'd like to buy the DVD when it comes out. I've been taking an online class on body language in an attempt to take my characters beyond smiling and shrugging... And watching the pitch perfect performances of the actors in this film made me want to study bits of it frame by frame and then try to describe the facial reactions. One scene in particular, where Allison Janney is listening to her husband talk, while the two of them are out for dinner with the Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski characters, was priceless. With just her face, we see frustration, embarrassment, anger and then a combination of acceptance, defeat and maybe even a hint of love. Brilliant.

And Jim from the Office can act. Wow. LOVED him in this movie. Seriously loved him. Want to marry him now.

So glad I got my movie mojo back.

Is YA the most exciting genre happening right now?

Let me start by saying, it is a travesty that I'm writing a blog on YA. I know little about it and up till maybe a few weeks ago, I had the stupid, and uneducated opinion that YA was about orphaned wizards, or vampires who don't have sex.
But I was lucky enough this week to spend twenty minutes at Maureen's house, and peruse her books, and picked up a couple of YA's both of which went on to blow my little mind.

The first was, The Dust of a Hundred Dogs. It's about a pirate, a teenager, who is cursed at her death, to spend her next hundred lifetimes as a dog, until she is finally reincarnated as a human, who remembers her pirate life.

The second was The Hunger Games, which, and I've only read the first chapter, completely enthralled me. I am seriously salivating to get my hands on this book, based only on the first chapter. It's set in an alternate world, features a seventeen year old girl, who has to compete in a fight to the death with twenty-three other teens.

Both books are really dark, and the premise of both is imaginative and well thought out, and like nothing in the romance genre.
As far as I can tell, the only limiting factor in the YA genre is age, your main character can't be fifty, but otherwise, almost anything goes.
The other common factor of those two books, was the voice of the main character was crisp and clear and leaped off the page. So amazing writing is also part of the package.
So I'm going to hunt down more YA books. Or maybe just scour Maureen's house again, and take all the books she's been telling me to read for the past while.

Storylines That Arc Over More Than One Book or Does Anyone Really Care About The Spinner Falls' Traitor?

We're bad bloggers - and so I'm jumping in here with something that's top of my mind right now. Over-arcing storylines. Trilogies or more with some sort of mystery that needs to be solved, or plot line that threads through every book.

My question is this - does it really work? Really?

I am reading Elizabeth Hoyt's newest - To Beguile A Beast and she has a very excellent plot line/mystery through all her books -- who is the traitor? As plot lines go it's got it all - intrigue, betrayal, torture and death and let me tell you - I could care less. Don't get me wrong, I'm heavily invested in what the events at Spinner Falls did to the heroes of the books - but as for the traitor...don't care. I skim those parts. It just doesn't seem to have any impact. No forward momentum and not enough emotion tied to it.

Now, if Hoyt can't pull it off, can anyone?

I was thinking of Brockman and her storylines over more than one book and they're usually romantic. One couple's romance gets told over several books and that's some good writing. Some good storytelling. Captivating. Until she blew it and wrote a whole book for that couple where there was no tension because she'd used it all in the previous seven books. But a romantic story arc isn't quite the same thing as that over arcing mystery.

So, then I was thinking of one of my favorite trilogies of all time Nora Roberts' Chesapeake Bay books - if you haven't read these books - do it. Even if you aren't a fan of Nora (which I'm not) these books are absolutely the bee's knees. But the mystery introduced in the first book - who is this kid? Gets resolved in the first book - he's the brother's father's grandkid. (Complicated - there's a lot of adoption in there.And I'm not really ruining anything, if you thought that was a spoiler.) So after that the mystery turns into a problem -- how to deal with this kid. And that gets escalated into --how to deal with the kid's mother. So the mystery isn't really a mystery but an ever-changing subplot. And more importantly, I think, a super super emotional subplot.

So my new feeling is this; if a mystery is raised in the first book, it might be best to solve that mystery in the first book. But it's the fallout that drives the following books, or at least impacts the characters and plots. That way it keeps rolling forward, driving things along and becomes unskimmable.

P.S. Smurphy, Beguile a Beast is great, by the way - but it is no Not Quite A Husband. It's not even close.

Summer

It's warm and sunny outside, and while I might be working, it's Friday and tomorrow, the weather forecasts tell me, it will be more of the same.
Love the beginning of summer, not just because of the weather, but there always seems to be a sense of anything is possible through May and June. I stay up longer, day dream more and plan out my weekends like each one is precious.
And, perhaps, because there is little on TV, I spend more time reading and writing, and in the movie theater. I love the trailers for summer movies, and the possibility that the movie might live up the promise of the trailer. I love the fantasy of spending a week on a chaise by a pool, reading all my TBR pile, while someone ensures my drink is always full. (Sadly, this will not happen this year, or probably anytime soon).
Maybe it's the extra Vitamin D coursing through my bloodstream, but I get my best ideas during the summer. So right now, while everyone else is figuring out all the outdoor activities they can fit into their schedule, I'm sorting out how many hours of writing I can squeeze into the next two days.
And anxiously awaiting the second season of True Blood. The trailers look amazing.. can't wait.

Inspiration

Boy, I almost missed another Wednesday. Bad blogger.

I'm currently running my RWA chapter's contest and the entry deadline was Monday night, so swamped doesn't begin to describe it.

And I'm also at the beginning of another project -- one I promised my agent she'd see something on before we meet in DC in just over a month. So, yikes.

The start of new projects are a time that can be both exciting and scary for me. A time I love if the ideas are coming, characters are forming, and the story is falling into place, but a time I hate if I keep going over the same issues in my mind over and over without finding solutions. A time I hate if I keep thinking too much about the market and how my work fits into it. A time when I, personally, need to be thinking about little other than my story.

What a great time to be spending 10-12 hours a day on contest matters and putting out fires, and trying to solve puzzles like how to divide up 100 judges, all with preferences re genre and limits on the number of entries they'll judge, across nearly 500 scoresheets that need to be completed, rather than the puzzle of my plot. Fun. Fun. Fun.

My mind can't handle too many puzzles at once. And based on the 25 pages of crap I've written for my ms this far... I need to stop and puzzle out more of my plot and start again.

Why are some books so hard?

BTW. This is NOT what I was going to post about when I started typing. Go figure. Brain broken.

Breaking Bad

In an effort to close the giant gaping hole that The Wire created in our lives, husband and I started the first season of Breaking Bad - the AMC show about the science teacher diagnosed with cancer who decides to make Crystal Meth in order to make money.

It's a great show. Bryan Cranston is spellbinding with his tears and white brief underwear.

But it's made me think about likeable characters, or in this case truly truly sympathetic ones. By the time Cranston's character decides to cook Meth, we're practically begging him too, that's how sympathetic he is. How much we feel his plight.

But my problem is this: (of course there's a problem. I have too much time to dissect this stuff.) Once a truly likeable and sympathetic character takes that step off his regular road, we know what's going to happen. Really really crappy things. The writers are going to turn the screws by having the character regret getting on this path, or repent from the path. But they won't be able to, things are going to keep them on the path.

That's good story telling, no doubt about it. I can't wait to see what decision is going to be made about the guy in the basement in Breaking Bad. But it's also a little predictable, right? Because these people are good and the screws are being twisted, I pretty much know what's going to happen to that guy in the basement. But the how and the when and the why, are all still super super compelling questions.

Now, good writers flip this stuff on their ear and I really hope that continues in Breaking Bad - I'm sure it will. But it made me think of our always likeable, always boring heroines. We know what's going to happen to them the second they get on the page - we can turn the screws all we like, but the end is the end.

Which is why we like those dark characters. The ones that live in the grey area. For some reason I'm thinking of Brisbane in those fabulous Lady Grey novels. We just didn't know that guy right away and it was good. Mysterious. Something Borrowed - again, grey area. Anne Stuart's heroes -- very grey. It just leaves room at the beginning of the novel for doubt.

And in this case a little doubt might just be a good thing.

Harlequin Behind The Scenes...

Where in the world did May go? Honestly. It was April a minute a go.

I had the very cool opportunity to go down to Harlequin's direct to consumer distribution center outside of Buffalo last week as a part of their employee appreciation day. I had lunch with the customer service reps who handle all the phone calls from subscribers. For those who might not know Harlequin offers their books on subscription, so every month, should you subscribe you get deep discounts and all the books from a line you subscribe to right in your mailbox. This system not only sets them apart from other publishers, but is a huge part of my royalty check.

Numbers for the subscription service have gone down over the years, due in large part to the aging demographic (average age of subscriber is around 63) but they still manage to ship out THOUSANDS OF BOXES A DAY!!! Granted they also do Internet orders, but still, I was totally gobsmacked. And the fifty some men and women I talked to handled thousands of calls a day too. This place was hopping.

The distribution center sits right in front of the printer - so books are delivered to the back of the building - packed into boxes and shipped out the front. Harlequin is undergoing what seems like a huge effort to cut down their waste. A lot of authors are reporting that they can turn in manuscripts via email (which is a huge savings for the author!) and now this distribution center has bought a printing press capable of printing a few thousand copies of any book. So while the print runs may have gone down in an effort to save on returns, they are able to print and ship in a matter of hours thousands of extra books, should they be needed.

I was hugely impressed by this. Hugely.

We've talked about how the return system is so wasteful and antiquated - Harlequin loses millions every year due to the return system. And the impact of this system on the environment is enough to make anyone shudder. But it's sort of like a huge barge in a small river, hard to turn around.

I was really proud to be a part of Harlequin last week. And I got free books - so seriously, what's not to love?

How many great scenes make an amazing book?

Drunk writers is not a review site. We sing the praises of the authors we love, and happily, but we never really speak critically of books, or authors, at least using specific names or titles.
But recently I read a book, Broken Wing, which had been given amazing reviews by at least two review sites I really respect.
And while there are some wonderful aspects about this book, I can not say I loved it. I can't really say I even liked it.
That this book was a labour of love was clear on every page, the characters were wounded and dark, normally characters I love, but the plotting, and pacing, was uneven, to the point of slow.
Scene upon scene, all really lovely written, went nowhere, and really didn't progress the plot. There was a ton of telling, and so many pages that I skimmed, or skipped, and in between, gorgeous, lush scenes that were dark and dramatic and compelling. For every one lovely, entrancing scene, there were five that didn't seem to do much.
I feel like I'm missing something when it comes to this book, because some of my favourite review sites are calling this book the best historical of the year. To me, it needed a good editor and a complete rewrite.
But is it just that as historical readers, we've needed a dark, dramatic Laura Kinsale type romance for so long, we'll take a book with deep flaws and some greatness and love it anyway?
Or is is that three, or five deeply emotional, amazing scenes in a book can make it great, despite the other scenes?
Or is that I need to go back and re-read this book and figure out what I missed?

Fly on the wall

Tuesday, I spent an interesting (if unproductive) hour in a Starbucks.

Sitting next to me was a man who appeared to be a sales rep for Universal Records and another who I assumed was the owner of a record store.

The sales rep gave him a few CD's, they talked music and upcoming concert tours... then the rep pulled out a catalog and talked up a few new recording artists and new titles he had from established artists.

The buyer (record store owner) then took the catalog and flipped through it saying, I'll take one of these, I'll take five of the new XXX. Oh, that's a nice cover, are they any good? (Shrug from sales rep.) Owner: Okay, I'll take one of those. Etc. etc. Until he worked through the catalog.

And from everything I've heard, this is essentially how booksellers choose books, too. Flipping through a catalog with a publisher's sales rep saying, okay, I'll take some of these, one of those, that looks like a nice cover, I'll try one of those, etc. etc. Even for the big chains.

Even if what I saw was simplified, because it was clearly a small business owner who didn't need to be looking up past sales numbers for the bands, and was only buying for one small store, I was witnessing a process not unlike a publisher's sales rep selling books to a bookstore owner.

It made me realize, once again, how authors (especially debut authors) need to recognize that even if our book rocks, the decision for a bookseller to say: I'll take five of that one, or one, or none, depends less on what's between the pages, and more on whether the sales rep has chosen to talk it up, and whether the cover looks good in the catalog, and the personal tastes of the buyer, and even what kind of mood the buyer is in the day he/she makes the order.

Yet another few ounces of out-of-our-control random to face in this business. Yet a reality.

Eye-opening. And for me, a reminder to only worry about the stuff I can control. First and foremost, my writing.

Star Trek and the joys of Genre storytelling

Saw Star Trek last night, a movie that when I first heard was coming out this summer, did not excite any interest for me. And then I saw the reviews and had to see it.
And it’s good. It relates back to the old TV series in clever ways, but at the same time the movie is a thousand times faster, more relevant and well, better written.
Hell, I even loved Kirk, a character up till now, I’d found annoying.

It’s a movie that seemed to really understand it’s genre, and rather than try and be something it’s not, it just tried to be the best of the genre and it really succeeded.

I still don’t understand, why, after both Battlestar and this movie, sci fi continues to get such a bad rap. Some of the most interesting story telling lately has been happening in this genre.

How does Star Trek relate to romance? Other than the common joys of great storytelling, there was a love for the genre on the screen. Whoever wrote this movie loves sci fi.

To me, to write romance well, you have to unabashedly love the genre. Which seems like a no brainer, but I’ve known people through my local RWA chapter who are trying to write romance, but really don’t enjoy the genre. Some, even expressed a disdain for it. They see it as an easier way to get published and hopefully by now have learned the error of their ways.

We don’t have to love all the books, but we have to be passionate about some romances to really write well in this genre. Because if people pick up a romance and are consistently surprised by the quality of the storytelling, then eventually, romance will no longer bear this stigma of being trashy.

Or maybe I’m just in an optimistic mood today..

On rats, hope and publishing

Recently, I was directed by a few different people, including Kathy Holmes, to a great article written a few years ago by Jennifer Crusie.

You should read Crusie’s article here.

But in case you don't... Here's a précis of the part that most resonated with me. Basically, psychologists proved rats that’d been trained to believe there was an island in a vat of opaque water, kept swimming (even when it wasn't there) much longer than rats that had no previous knowledge of an island.

Crusie related this to publishing and how we all need to believe there's an island and keep swimming.

Right now, I happen to be in one of those mind-spaces where I truly believe there's an island in my particular vat of opaque water. I truly believe it's just a matter of time. I truly believe that my not-yet-sold manuscripts, will sell eventually, (just not first), and will be published "better", than if they'd been contracted earlier. These already-shopped projects aren't dead, they're hibernating.

My island is out there. I believe. I'm happy to be swimming again.

Problem is... Even if you’ve seen evidence that your island is there (by way of various bits of success along they way), once you've been around this business long enough, if you're bright, realistic and non-delusional, at various points in time, no matter how much faith you have, you stop believing in the island.

I'll bet the island-believing rats would’ve eventually converted to non-believers, if they’d subsequently been dumped into island-less vats enough times. You can only be smacked in the head so many times before you start to anticipate head smacks. And the publishing business is rife with head smacks. (And writers, even successful ones, are rife with self-doubt.)

Still, thus far, every time I've suffered a major publication defeat, there's been something that keeps me believing in my island. I find reasons to rationalize my failure based on market timing, or some flaw in my project I'd do differently if I had the chance to do it again. Or I remember that the reasons editors failed to bite might be completely out of my control and more to do with their existing list and what they were looking for the day they considered my project. That if I'd been a month (or a year) earlier or later, things might've been different. And there is no getting around the shear randomness of this business, either.

But I do admit, the longer I continue, the more evidence I find to negate previously held beliefs in my island. So I have to find new evidence. New reasons to believe.

And I think that's why many writers revel in the small triumphs. The contest finals. The pats on the back from critique partners or agents or editors or reviewers or readers. The small pieces of outside evidence proving we know what we're doing and the island does exist -- even if we feel, at times, very, very far from shore.

Maybe I need to start entering contests, again.

If you're thinking of entering one... Check this out.

Literary Snobbery...It Starts So Young

I had this really fantastic, surreal experience. I was asked to be the keynote speaker at a high school literary event held at my old high school. It was very cool - the kids were incredibly keen and incredibly focused and laughed at all my lame jokes.

But little did I know the brouhaha I would create when I referenced the Stephanie Meyer Twilight phenomenon. The cheers and boo's - the fist waving and sneering. Seriously, there could have been a high school literary rumble. And this crowd probably would have broken into the appropriate song.

Anyway - the kids asked questions about the quality of the Twilight books and my response was - Stephanie Meyer is loved by millions of people - she's a gazillionaire. A kid on the "down with Meyer" side of the debate asked why such bad writing gets bought. And I said, publishers need to make money and sometimes making lots of money means appealing to lots of people. And, swear to god, someone said "isn't that like totally selling out?"

My response was - you will need to make up your own minds about what kinds of books you want to write. Selling out, or not. And then of course, someone else yells; "what did you do?"

I said, I chose to be the best writer I could be in a genre I love and buy groceries.

But as I've thought about that talk and the budding literary snobs in attendance, I wish I had answered the quality of books question differently. This is what I wish I had said:

You know how you feel when you read something you love? That jittery, excited, revved up feeling like the world is smaller than it was a minute ago and anything is possible and someone, somewhere is thinking or feeling the exact same thing you are? That feeling is why people read and it's why other people write. Now, if you love reading why in the world would you negate someone else's reading experience? Why would you diminish their joy and their excitement? Because you don't like it? Fine. Don't like it. Don't read it. But leave it there - because everyone deserves to have that joy.

The best heroines are found in real life

It seems to me that heroes tend to drive book sales. Come up with seven delicious men, and the readers will forgive you lackluster, occasionally dull heroines. Some of my favourite authors have written books, where the heroine pales next to the wonderfully complex, dark, conflicted hero. See most of Laura Kinsale's books for example, and from there go to JR Ward, both authors I read compulsively and love.
And I'm pretty sure Molly has a shrine to Laura Kinsale in her house somewhere and I find nothing wrong with that.
But what makes Jenny Crusie a goddess is her ability to create a hero and heroine that were both complex and interesting and complemented each other wonderfully.
It's something I keep in mind as I edit this book, that will never be done. I'm thinking about the traits I've given my heroine, her drive, her independence, and ensuring that somewhere in there, I'm also making her likeable, but never a pushover.
The women I most admire in my life are more and more coming to mind when I start thinking about my heroines. I write historicals, so some of it has to relate to the time period. But I have a friend, who's personal life is a disaster, who is basically a single mom and both her parents are very sick. And somehow every day she manages, not only to get out of bed, but also to laugh at something, usually herself.
She occasionally bemoans her fate, but only for a short while, and then gets back to the process of moving on. Her sense of humor, her refusal to dwell on the negatives in her life, and her need to carve out some pleasures for herself are all traits I would love to somehow embue in my heroines. Because she is not self-sacrificing, and she does wish for easier times, but she still deals magnificently with everthing that is on her plate.
In romance, in our need to make our heroines likeable, make them too self-sacrificing, never complaining, too serious and not real. The best of chick lit and women's fiction gave us heroines that felt real and fully developed, but usually in the process, the male lead suffered.
We at drunk writers have been thinking about what will make the next best selling contemporary, and I think right now, it's combining a fully realized hero and heroine and making them equals, and real.
I would read that in a heartbeat.

Human/monster action

Thinking about paranormal romances today... (My copy of Lover Avenged finally arrived!!! And I'm reading Melissa Marr... So lots of vamp and sympath and faery action in my literary life right now.)

And wondering... Those of you who read/write in the genre, do you like humans in your paranormals? Is part of the thrill, imagining the heroine with someone/something dangerous and not quite controllable? Or do you think monster/monster books work better or just as well?

Seems like a lot of authors get around this by having heroines who are half-human and half-demon, half-vamp, half-whatever...

Sorry this isn't a meatier post, but hoping some of you will add some beef in the comments... OMG, we're back to paranormal beef, zombie cows and all that jazz.

There's nothing like a twist....

Recently I had begun to doubt my new love of writing plots and subplots and external conflict, worrying that I had begun to neglect inner conflict and frankly the love story. According to my agent, editors are asking for THE BIG LOVE STORY. And I was wondering, did I even know what that was anymore? Was it time to drop some subplots and have myself a good old fashioned "let's talk" kind of romance?

Then I watched Dollhouse on Friday -- I won't give it away, because Smurphy hasn't seen it and frankly the twist was so delicious and perfect I sat up on my couch and "WHAT THE @)!?" I fell in love with the twist. I want to have twist babies with that twist. And I realized, sure good old fashioned romances are great -- but man, nothing absolutely nothing beats that moment when you get hit over the head with something you didn't see coming.

What to write when you have nothing

Some blog posts are hard.
Especially when it's Friday and I just want to ramble on about why I love chocolate pudding, and how I've been fantasizing about a Dairy Queen Blizzard, and want to read interviews with the creator of the Wire all day, instead of doing the many, many things I should be doing.

I've been trying to understand what it is about that show that we all love so much. I'm a small ways into Season 3, and itching to watch the rest, but not completely obsessed. Yet. The one thing about the Wire is that, is drops you in the middle of it's world, without ever explaining the world, but takes its time to really build the storylines. Almost the opposite of what every other show does... or book for that matter, where we spend endless paragraphs building and explaining the world and start the story immediately..
See Molly's paranormal beef post.

I've been thinking about getting my hands on the next Sherry Thomas and Elizabeth Hoyt historicals and when I can see Wolverine.. because I don't care about reviews when Hugh Jackman and Taylor Kitsch are in the same movie.

And really, I've been editing. The nuts and bolts stuff, fixing details, deepening POV, making sure the scenes make sense, not really thinking much about the actual storytelling.
It's not my favourite part of the process, by a long shot. And I'm nowhere close to being on my self-imposed deadline.

It's an exciting life....

Reviews in Romance Land

Once again, Maureen is tackling a subject about which she has more opinions than knowledge, but I can't help myself.

From what I can discern, because newspapers and literary review journals have never, ever, taken the romance genre seriously enough to review any of the books, except very grudgingly and with much disdain, the genre, up until the past five to ten years, hasn't been subject to the same kind of critical scrutiny as has, say, literary fiction.

RT magazine (and maybe others?) filled in the gap that this snobbery created, but they're generally known to be gentle in their reviews, never issuing the kind of blistering criticism that so often hits books reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, the NYT and other major newspapers, or even Library Journal. Yes, RT likes some books more than others and a great review there is a big deal, but they rarely tear books to shreds.

Then the internet, and particularly the one-button-publishing of blogs, came along and changed everything. Several new sites emerged to specialize in reviewing romance. Today there are many.

And from what I can tell, the vast majority of these review sites are also pretty soft on the books. Gentle. Perhaps it's because we're 99.9% women. Perhaps it's because the genre already takes such a beating in the public eye, that the reviewers figure criticizing a romance novel is tantamount to criticizing the genre they love. But for whatever reasons, reviewers on many of these sites seem to like virtually everything they read, or at least only review the ones that they like. Or find benign things to say about the ones they don't.

That's fine, if that's what they choose to do. Everyone who has a blog, or magazine, or newsletter or column, or other venue to express their opinions, is free to do so. As an aspiring author, I've chosen to avoid reviewing books, full stop, rarely do it, because I don't want friends to think that because I didn't review their book, I didn't like it. (Okay, I've actually chosen to avoid reviewing books because I'm lazy. And have no aspirations to be a book reviewer. Not my thing. Except maybe while drinking with Molly and Sinead.)

But what I don't understand, or agree with, is the backlash against a few review sites, most notably the ones which are hard on books they don't like, (like Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Mrs. Giggles) -- the sites where reviewers speak their opinions clearly and honestly and often with humor.

Why all the hate for these sites, as if they're doing something evil or mean? Why accuse them of attacking authors when they're simply describing why they did not enjoy a some authors' books? (Perhaps it's the humor people object too? Don't know.) And it doesn't take more than a moment on theses sites to know they LOVE the genre and LOVE some books in it. Just not every one.

Writing is very a personal process, but publishing decidedly is not. Nor is reviewing. It's not personal. Reviewers are not attacking you if they don't like your book.

As Smart Bitch Sarah said, when she visited our blog a few weeks ago and we asked her and Candy about the controversy their blog sometimes generates:

“...saying I disagree with you” very rarely means “I don’t like you,” nor does it mean “You’re wrong and I’m right.” “I disagree” are not words upon which to detonate massive bombs and shit. ... “I didn’t enjoy your book” does not mean “I deplore the fact that you’re breathing.”

Almost all writers endure tons of rejection and criticism on their way to becoming published authors. I don't get why authors can't take a little criticism after they are published. Sure, it's slightly more public than the criticism they've likely had to that point, but that's because their book is now public -- a good thing.

I've discussed this with a few people before, and was aware that there was a school of thought amongst certain romance authors that some romance review websites were "too mean", but I was appalled this week, to read Michelle Buonfiglio's transcript of an address she gave at an academic conference on romance, held at Princeton. The thesis of her address seemed to be that open honest discussion of the genre was only okay if it was "nice". Not only did she suggest that academics might look to blogs to do research on the genre (ridiculous enough in itself) but that they should only look at HER blog, because everyone posting there was nice (as opposed to her competitors' sites that were mean.

Her arguments fed into so many stereotypes about the romance genre, and the women who write and read it, that it made me embarrassed to be associated with the genre. I'm not even going to link to the transcript of her talk... but will link to the Sarah Wendell's smart response. She linked to the address if you're interested.

And here's what I think.

I don't believe in mean for the sake of being mean. Not at all. But criticism makes us stronger. Criticism makes us better. And even if we're incapable of learning from it, criticism is part of the entertainment business. Anyone who produces work intended to entertain the public -- whether they be writers or musicians or actors or poets or supermodels -- is subject to public scrutiny of their work. Putting your shit out there, means risking some people telling you it doesn't smell as nice as you think it does. Comes with the territory. If you don't want to get a negative review? Don't publish your books.

Will I jump for joy when I get a horrible review some day? No. I'm not that emotionally evolved. I'll probably crumple up into a little ball and cry, and then go get drunk with my friends to talk about how wrong the review was, maybe burn the reviewer in effigy. But then I'll get over it and either thank the reviewer for taking the time to look at my work, and/or I'll try not to think about it ever again. Even if I can't erase it from my mind, I'll know it's part of the business, suck it up, and move on.

And I'll act like a grown up and simply be glad at least someone read and mentioned my book.

Effortless takes a lot of work...

As Molly mentioned, I am taking a break from paranormals, which after reading too many in a row, have now all started to blend together, and become boring.

So, I'm reading historicals and putting a list of contemps together to buy. The latest historical I've read is the Elizabeth Hoyt, To Seduce a Sinner.. and while this isn't the best of her books, I practically devoured it, read it in two days, front to back and really enjoyed it.
So much I'm buying the next one, which just came out and looks amazing.

But what struck me about the book was how effortlessly it read. Smooth, scenes flowing well into each other and there seemed to be a real sense of confidence on the page, as if she knew she could take her time with the small scenes, because they'd be fascinating regardless.
A different experience from the paranormals I've read recently, which have felt anything but effortless, where I could almost see the author behind the scenes, working on their plot points, trying to add suspense and surprise, and adding new elements to make their books different from the other paranormals on the market. Molly covered this in her post.

And I know that the effortless book takes a stupid amount of work, polishing, removing repetition, ensuring the characters are always moving forward, and when it works, it really works. And right now, I'm seeing the effortless most in historicals, where the authors have had to step up to be noticed in what has been a declining, but just mostly overcrowded, field.

I still don't know where the effortless happens. Is it in author confidence, the fifth edit, the first draft, I just know when I read it. It's the next puzzle I'm trying to figure out.

To Market, to market, to sell a fat book

This week, I asked both Molly and Sinead: "If you were me, what would you write next?"

They both know me. They both know the industry. They both read a lot. They've both seen virtually everything I've ever written. Who better (other than my agent) to have an opinion on such a topic?

And I got two different answers, but together those answers melded into something profound and clear and useful. Exactly what I wanted/needed to hear.

My conclusion: I have to stop thinking so much about the market and just write the shit out of whatever idea feels shiniest to me right now. If it's the shiniest one -- to me -- I'll be able to write more shit in. Wait. That's not what I meant!!! ;-)

That said, I think some of the best advice I've heard about writing popular fiction (particularly genre fiction) is to write with one eye on the market. To figure out what elements of popular books/movies/TV/culture you can incorporate into your work, etc. etc. and still make it fresh. And nothing makes me more crazy than wanna-be-writers who complain that the industry is too close-minded, when said writer doesn't get requests on the query for her novel about her elderly aunt's adventures in needlepoint, written from her cat's point of view.

But all that "keep an eye on the market" advice aside: I think I had a small epiphany a couple of days ago, (that I shall probably reverse in another couple of days--cause that's what I do.) And it has to do with my personality type more than anything.

Confession: I'm highly analytical. My strongest traits on the Myers Briggs thingy are N and P. I almost always see two sides (sometimes four) to any particular problem or issue, I don't always come to conclusions in a linear fashion, and unless pressed by some kind of urgency, I hate making decisions. I can make them. But don't see the point if I can put it off for further analysis. ;-)

But what this means is: worrying about the market, about what's selling now, about what might be the next big thing, about what would be the smartest genre or sub-genre to aim for, about which genre best fits my particular strengths and weaknesses as a writer, is not necessarily a smart thing. For me.

My endless analyzing leads to nothing but frustration and second guessing. Which then leads to depression and anxiety inviting crazy over for tea.

(My apologies to Molly for plagiarizing that last bit. It's an homage to this post, where she talked about professional jealousy inviting crazy over for a BBQ.)

Ultimately, so much about this business ends up being about luck, and trying to control luck can lead to insanity.

The magic get published equation: Talent, Persistence, Luck

We can only hope to control two of those, at best.* And while, when we start a new novel, we can make an educated guess, about what's likely to happen in the market in 9-months to a year, (first date when we can realistically hope to be on submission, assuming we need to write the whole damn book -- add a year to that if you need to find an agent), or 2 - 3 years from now, (first date we can realistically hope to hit bookstores) -- the best we can do is guess. Whether our guess, an arrow shot high and hard into the stratosphere, hits the two-or-three-or-more-years-out bulls eye is highly dependent on luck.



*Caveats to above statements:
I suppose you can't strictly control talent, either... but you can learn how to make the most of your talent. Really, that magic equation should substitute skill for talent...
Also, you can influence luck by taking opportunities and putting lots of great work out there, but I think that's as much related to persistence as luck...
Did I mention I tend to be overly analytical?

Paranormal Beef

We've read a lot of great paranormal romance around here and even though Sinead is on paranormal romance hiatus and Maureen is loving urban fantasy - I'm still reading paranormal. But, I'm beginning to not love it. I think the subgenre is jumping the shark for me because recently, every paranormal romance I pick up - messes up the romance.

All these subgenres - paranormal, romantic suspense, romantic comedy, historical etc...etc... work for me and millions of other avid romance fans because the machinations of the subgenre make the romance better. More poignant, more exciting.

The alpha males and danger of paranormal romance, make the romance taste better. The internal conflict that the characters have to get over to be in love is made worse by the fact that they are a demon, or a demon hunter or whatever...

But suddenly it seems like not only are there too many of these kinds of details muddying up the world, but what the characters have to do to truly be in love comes as a huge surprise in the third act. Instead of just overcoming all the internal stuff - which is what we all love romance for- they also have to kill the demon and embrace their vampire side and mate in a pool of fire - but we didn't know that from the outset. It's like the writer changes the rules of the world, or didn't tell us all the rules, or becuse of all the external plot drama they've put in the book - a simple I love you doesn't work anymore -- and I hate that. I really hate that.

If the big premise of the book requires a huge suspension of disbelief - then the romance needs to be simple. Ward, Liu, Cole - simple romances. Really simple. And I think that's why it works - that, of course, and the characters. But when everyone starts jumping on the sub genre bandwagon, they get so distracted by the shiny elements - the things they can do with plot and external conflict and world building, forgetting that in the end, it's still always about characters and it's still always about romance.

And the Winner is......

Alison Heittman!!!!

Based on my random number generator, you are the winner of a copy of BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS: THE SMART BITCHES' GUIDE TO ROMANCE NOVELS generously donated by the Smart Bitches themselves.

Congratulations!!!

E-mail me at maureen @ maureenmcgowan.com and we'll make sure you get your book!

Thanks to everyone for stopping by the blog this week. And thanks to the Smart Bitches for giving such great interview. Way better than Billy Bob Thorton who ran from Canada mid tour with his tail between his legs after giving really bad interview. Just saying.

Smart Bitches stop in for a chat

Today, we are pleased as punch, tickled pink, squeeing with delight, (pick the cliché of your choice), to welcome Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, of the popular romance review blog, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, to Drunk Writer Talk. They're here to celebrate the release of their book BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS: THE SMART BITCHES' GUIDE TO ROMANCE NOVELS that hits the shelves tomorrow -- April 14, 2009.

DWT: Candy and Sarah, thanks for stopping by. Before we get started, what can we get you to drink?

Candy: I'm allergic to alcohol, sadly enough, so a tall glass of cold water is awesome for me.

Sarah: Wine. Love wine. Not so much a fan of hard liquor but red, white, rose and even green? Bring it on.

DWT: Hey, we don't discriminate against non-drinkers (green wine drinkers, maybe). A water and wine coming up.
What sparked you to start a romance review site?

Candy: Honestly? There weren't enough romance review sites out there that were uncensored. I'm not just talking honest, because sites like The Romance Reader and All About Romance existed, and they were fair and honest, but there was this air of constraint and politeness. I wanted a site where I was free to talk the way I normally do, which includes creative profanity (usually for the sake of comedy), and where I could air my unvarnished opinions without fear of offending an editor or website owner. And it turned out that Sarah was in favor of the same thing, too, so lo, Smart Bitches was born.

Sarah: See above re: cussing, and unvarnished opinion. Plus, the two of us approach romances from very different perspectives, and our writing styles are very different. On top of that, we crack each other up like holy cow. It ended up being a kind of perfect storm of fun.

DWT: It's a perfect storm of fun reading, too. Did you anticipate the popularity of your site? The book deal?

Candy: Hell, no. And HELL, NO. It always astounds me that we became as popular as we did, as fast as we did, because neither Sarah nor I advertised. Behold the power of word-of-mouth! We figured we'd be a two-bit blog with a small audience consisting of a couple of friends and family members, but six months after we'd started, we were smack dab in the middle of this insanely active, smart, funny community.

Sarah: NEVER did I think it would be as big as it is. Never. Not a chance. I remember it was me, Candy, her friend in Singapore and my husband reading in the first month. Then, word spread – mostly from the cover snark and the reviews using creative cussing a la Candy.

DWT: We're not averse to creative cussing, here, either. ;-) At times, your site has been a lightning rod for controversy. Do you ever find you need to rein in the comments or get people back on track?

Candy: I'm really hesitant to rein in comments unless people really start to go over the line, because I really think that fostering healthy debate means people should be allowed the space to be assholes. Mostly, however, I think our commenters do a great job of self-policing. For a site known for being bitchy, our commenters are some of the most polite and reasonable around.

Sarah: Our commenters value the community as much as we do, and often they shut down the more obnoxious and awful attacks before I even get to the keyboard to say a word about it. We definitely have contentious debates but most of the time, there are two major points of which I am most proud. One: saying “I disagree with you” very rarely means “I don’t like you,” nor does it mean “You’re wrong and I’m right.” “I disagree” are not words upon which to detonate massive bombs and shit. Two: “I didn’t enjoy your book” does not mean “I deplore the fact that you’re breathing.” There are plenty of people who do the exact opposite of what I recommend – they love what I don’t like, and they don’t like what I adore. I’m as full of shit as anybody. I stick up for my opinion but unless it’s truly, awfully egregiously shitful, I don’t discount your right to your own opinion.

DWT: So, speaking of opinions, here's a more in-depth topic. Clinch covers: for or against?

Candy: By and large, I'm against them, because they're so hard to do well, and they send entirely the wrong message about the genre. They scream: "HEY LOOK AT THE OILED TITTY ISN'T IT GREAT GET YOUR BODICES RIPPED AND PRESSED UP AGAINST THE OILED TITTY RIGHT HERE FOLKS." I do have a sneaking personal fondness for them, though—they're so bad, they're kind of good. I love them the way I love bad reality TV, or schlocky horror movies.

Sarah: Depends. Sometimes, they’re creative and evocative and visually stunning. But that doesn’t change the fact that, as Candy said, it’s shorthand for ROMANCE AHOY AND SEXXING INSIDE, MATEYS. It’s become a conundrum: do the clinch covers sell because they represent romance, or is romance so often represented by the clinch that it can’t help but sell?

DWT: Ah! The chicken and egg question--only with arched backs, bosoms and man-titty. What are your favorite romances of all time?

Candy: The Windflower by Laura London (a.k.a. Sharon and Tom Curtis), because it's a very traditional romance done really, really well—it's a coming-of-age story for the heroine, and she's kidnapped by pirates, oh noes, but never fear, she charms every damn thing she comes in contact with, up to and including the pet pig on the ship. But the authors never let you lose sight that Merry, despite being a bit Mary Sue-ish, is also this awkward, dorky girl in a difficult situation. A few other notable titles are Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, To Love and to Cherish by Patricia Gaffney (I have a bit of a Thing about forbidden sex with the hot young pastor, and Anne is an agnostic, which makes it all even more fun) and The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale. As for contemporaries, Jennifer Crusie's solo work reigns supreme in my heart and on my bookshelf—I've read everything she's published so far, and only a couple of titles aren't on my keeper shelves.

Sarah: Bitten by Kelley Armstrong is absorbing and I can’t go near it without reading six or seven chapters. The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. I love Daphne because she’s smart and used to men and aware of their foibles having more male siblings than Celine Dion, and I love that the courtship is both angsty and funny, lighthearted and serious – and has some hilariously funny scenes. Born in Ice by Nora Roberts. I love that the heroine is good at making a home welcoming – a skill and art not nearly as appreciated as it should be, and that the hero doesn’t like people and is a curmudgeon. And since I started reading Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, I’ve found myself yearning to kick more ass than I ought to. The heroines are strong and carry sharp wits and even sharper weapons, and Cole’s narratives explore evil and power and aggression and strength in new and terribly subversive ways. And I’m unable to touch Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis without reading more of it. It’s like Crazy Glue, that book.

DWT: Fabulous choices. I have a feeling your choices will spark some comment discussion. Also Kelley Armstrong is a friend here at DWT. (Although whether or not she'd admit in public to knowing us isn't clear.) What are your favorite movies and TV shows?

Candy: I love Pushing Daisies. Love love love. Love the premise, love the characters (I just about died when they revealed Emerson Cod loves to knit), love the storylines, love the camerawork and the gorgeous color saturation, love Chuck's wardrobe. Also: I want to hug Lee Pace, then lick him all over. I mean, damn. As for movies: Wes Anderson before he became kind of a parody of himself has a special place in my heart, because his movies focus on these incredibly brilliant, awkward, quirky characters.

Sarah: Movies: All incarnations of Pride & Prejudice. TV: Bones. Love the sexually unambiguous heroine and the smoldering attraction between the protagonists. I love the shifting definition of “intelligent” and “smart” and the manner in which the characters all care for one another. And this might make me a 60 year old on my Barcalounger, but I absolutely love NCIS. There’s a colleague of mine at my office with whom I have very, very little in common except a rabid crush on Mark Harmon. He brings all the girls to the yard.

DWT: I love, love, loved Pushing Daisies, too. (Not to mention P&P, and Mark Harmon...) What changes—good or bad—have you seen in the romance genre recently? What, if anything, are you hoping to see more of? Less of?

Candy: Y'know, in the past two years, I've had pretty much zero time left for leisure reading. I mean this quite literally. Between law school, the book and trying to maintain a healthy social life so I don't become too much of a hermit, my reading rate has plummeted. So I can't really speak about new trends. Although that's an incredibly boring answer, so let's see if I can make something up that's kind of convincing…. less demon tentacle rape, and more romance novels featuring gay, bisexual and generally queer characters. DOH, wait, that was only partially made-up.

Sarah: Jane from DearAuthor.com and I spoke about this in one of our early podcasts, but the lack of secure economy and profit in publishing means that we seem to be seeing more of the same repeated tropes and plots, with very little risk – which is why it’s so amazing when I see heroines doing it differently, like Maya Banks’ heroine in her May ’09 Silhouette The Tycoons Rebel Bride. She’s the sexual aggressor? RWOR. I love subversive heroines like Claudia Dain’s anchor character in the Courtesan Chronicles. I love explorations of what it really meant to be female in English history, like in Carolyn Jewel’s Scandal. I love, as I mentioned, Kresley Cole’s heroines who can and will be evil when the situation calls for it. That said, my cup of awesome is not nearly that of everyone else, so I fear the awesome subversion of expectations of female archetypes will be fewer and farther between. But I can still hope.

DWT: We love heroines who aren't so "perfect", too. What romance device(s) would you like to see die a painful death?

Candy: There's this tendency in genre fiction to use certain characteristics that serve as shorthand for how incredibly evil or virtuous or sexy a character must be. Some of the more popular uses in romance include homosexuality or a love of kinky sex in villains, or virginity in a heroine, or hypertrophied, shouty masculinity in a hero. I think over-reliance on this sort of shorthand is lazy, and it creates facile, uninteresting fiction. I'm much more interested in fiction that dares to take well-known tropes and forms, then inverts them or does something unexpected with them—or, if it uses the familiar forms, then does it really, really well.

Sarah: Shorthand blows. I would also like to see less reliance on the “I’m the hero; that’s why” and “I’m the heroine, that’s why” complacency. It’s related to shorthand but not quite the same, and shows up when motivation isn’t quite as clear as one might think, and the reader has to navigate nebulous plotslines by resting on the idea that the individual is the hero and therefore must have a shining glowy moral core of sternest golden strength. SHOW me the strength. Don’t just presume I know it because he’s the hero, that’s why.

DWT: Thanks so much for stopping by to chat! I'm hoping my copy of BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS arrives today. Or tomorrow. It better.

Finally, some great news! Sarah and Candy are giving away a copy of their book to one random commenter! Let us know your answer to any of the above questions to enter the contest!

Thanks again to Candy and Sarah and here's hoping your book will bring some new smart-bitch readers to the romance genre!

**Update** D'oh! I just realized I failed to put a deadline for the contest... Leave a comment before midnight Wednesday April 15, 2009 to be eligible to win! Winner will be announced round about Friday. Drunk writers and smart bitches ineligible. Okay, you can still win if you're drunk... But Molly, Sinead and I can't win :-(

Rant on #queryfail and #agentfail brouhaha

This is all kind of old news by now. I mean, The Guardian has even done a story, but somehow I can’t keep myself from wanting to comment.

If you twitter, or if you read writer blogs, you’ve probably heard about #queryfail and #agentfail.

For those of you who aren’t twits, (and really, seriously, the moniker is fitting -- twitter is a huge time suck--fun--but a time suck), twitter is basically micro-blogging. Posts of 140 characters or less. If you add a tag, like #queryfail within your 140 chars, then people can search on that tag and see all the posts using that tag in one long list.

So, in early March, an agent, Colleen Lindsay, had the brainstorm to do a #queryfail day, where she invited other agents to make short posts about things they’ve seen in query letters that made them an obvious rejection.

And the examples were pretty bad. Almost without exception they were things that anyone who’s done ten minutes of research about query letters would know not to do.

Some random examples:

Do not start your query by saying, "I suspect you're inundated with (certain genre), so forgive me for sending you another one.." #queryfail

Why send us a proposal for a television series when we clearly don't represent that sort of thing? #queryfail

“I have designed a unique cover for my book.” Unrealistic expectations #queryfail

Asks me to be patient with their 300,000 word novel because it really picks up steam after the first 50k words? #queryfail

Insists on calling me to tell me about their book because it's too difficult to describe in writing. Uh.... #queryfail

Tell me that God told you I would be the perfect agent for you? #queryfail

Tell me you have an idea for a novel and want to get my opinion of it before you start writing it? #queryfail

And then the backlash started. Crazy backlash. Some writers went berserk. “Agents are so mean.” “They don’t realize how hard we work on our novels.” “How can they publicly deride people like this.” “How come they have time to twitter but they don't have time to respond to my query/read my submission?”

Crazy. Ca-ra-zee.

First, it was all anonymous. Where was the public derision? Second, it was meant to be educational, not mean.* Don’t aspiring writers realize info like this, straight from the agents’ mouths is gold? Third, agents are human, not machines. And they have more things on their plates than just you. The world does not revolve around you. Do you get angry that they take time out of their days to eat and pee, too?

*Okay, it was a little bit about venting and agent bonding/networking, too, but where’s the harm in that?

I glanced at #queryfail a few times the day it was happening, kind of shrugged, ‘cause it was all stuff I’d heard before and I'm not currently seeking an agent… But then I could not believe when I started to see blog posts and tweets about backlash. Apparently, the agents who participated got hate mail and horrible things said about them not so anonymously** such that they felt the need to defend themselves against a barrage of negativity calling them things like insensitive, unprofessional and cruel.

** by not-so-anonymous, I mean one-sided anonymous. The opposite to how the agents handled it. Hateful, personal jabs posted anonymously, but naming the agents.

I was kind of appalled. Okay, I was a lot appalled. ;-)

Then, a few weeks later, agent Jessica Faust decided: why not give the writers a voice? But instead of doing it on twitter, where posts are limited to 140 characters, she invited writers to post comments on her blog venting their pet peeves about agents.

And that’s where things started to get ugly. Oh, the vitriol. And I only read the first 30 comments or so. Last time I looked, it was up to 304.

A few comments were from authors who have or have had agents and wanted to complain about things that they'd experienced, but the vast majority were from aspiring authors who'd been unable to land representation.

I get that it’s frustrating to find an agent. Been there, done that. Have watched friends do it multiple times. It’s a tough, ego-destroying process.

But I also firmly, *firmly* believe that if you have a great idea for a book that’s timely and fits into a recognizable genre, if you do your research about who to query and how to write a great query letter… You’ll get requests for pages. At least from a sampling of the queries you send out.

That said, I do believe the query process is a bit of a roulette wheel. Writing/reading/publishing is subjective, agents are human, plus they all have their own pet peeves. I’ve seen lots of examples on panels or on blogs of one agent citing one thing as a reason for rejecting that was the exact thing that caught another agent’s eye… Sub-ject-ive. But it’s not *that* hard to get requests if you've done your homework. Trust me.

Then, after you get requests, your work speaks for itself. Either it’s great or it isn’t. Either it’s that particular agent’s taste, or it isn’t. Either the agent thinks he/she knows editors who might love it, or he/she doesn’t. It’s that freaking simple. There’s no conspiracy. There’s no purposeful desire to be cruel. There’s no master plan to keep the best, most interesting work away from readers. Yes it’s subjective. Yes the system's not perfect. But it’s the way it works and if you want to play in the game, you need to know and accept the rules.

And if your writing is strong and polished. If your idea has commercial appeal (publishing is a business!!!), then I can virtually guarantee you’ll get some positive responses to your pages--even if it's only a personalized rejection the agent took time out of her day to write.

If one agent rejects your work? Don’t despair. Sub-ject-ive. If ten reject? Same thing. But if 50+ reject? Then it’s time to take another look at your work.

Ask yourself:

• Is it really well-written? Polished. Sparkling.
• Have you studied your craft or did you just expect to know everything about writing a novel by osmosis? (I know how to be a novelist, I’ve read books and wrote some short-stories and essays in school. Oh, yeah? Well, I know how to be a doctor, I watch House and took biology.)
• Is your storytelling tight, well-paced, exciting, different?
• Have you read enough in your genre (and outside your genre) to know your work isn’t cliché or derivative?
• Do you have a strong voice?

Until you can honestly answer yes (or at least I think so) to all these questions (and more), unless you've questioned your skills, recognized some of your weaknesses and improved, you’re not ready. You need to work harder. No one said writing or getting published was going to be easy. And lord knows we at DWT know that landing the agent is only the first hurdle to leap...

So here's my message to the angry commenters on the #agentfail blog:

Dear angry writer:

You wrote a book. Congratulations. Seriously. It’s a big accomplishment. Huge. But it doesn’t mean what you’ve written is publishable.

Just because you’ve poured all your hopes, dreams, money, time into writing and submitting your opus, doesn’t mean enough people will want to read it to justify an agent or publisher putting *their* hopes, dreams, money and time into trying to get it into booksellers’ and ultimately readers’ hands.

If agents are consistently ignoring you, ask yourself the above questions. Then no matter what your answers, continue to work on your craft. Get better. Don’t rant and rage and spit venom.

Get a grip.

And read this essay I stumbled upon today, or a gazillion other great essays and articles easily available (google, anyone?) about what it takes to be a published writer. And then if you still want to have a career in mainstream publishing, put on your big-girl pants and grow up.

Plot and Character Happy Together....So Happy Together

I wish. Oh! How I wish I could just make my plot and character walk through a movie musical montage - holding hands, skipping through the surf, enjoying candlelight and other delights. Instead, I have two toddlers in the back seat of a car - strapped in, tired, bored with one toy between them.

Mine! No mine! I'm not going to be your friend! I'm not going to be YOUR friend!

Not working together, barely speaking all the way to the end.

I totally get that your characters drive your plot -- plot with characters along for a ride is bad for business -- look at Season Three of Lost, Season Two of Friday Night Lights. But sometimes, isn't that just the way things work? And work best?

I really hope that I've put enough time in up front, showing the reader that yes, these are the kinds of characters who get into these kinds of problems. And no, sometimes they don't make the best decisions. And now that I'm in the home stretch all the birds are coming home to roost and these two people have some explaining to do?

I've revealed all this character, shown all this growth but the only thing that can really put this stuff to the test is plot. Big upheaval. Wreck the ant hill and watch them run around like crazy?

That works. Right?

What to write?

Maureen and I are both in the same boat. We’re both trying to figure out what to write next.

And again, the question that seems to plague both of us is, write a book without really thinking about the market, or write a book tailored to the market.

This, for so many reasons, is not a simple question. If I were thinking of writing for a Harlequin series line, I wouldn’t stray too far outside the lines, instead I’d focus on making sure I understood the line and worked to make the writing as sharp as possible.

But for single title it’s less clear. Publishers are asking for stories that are different, with a great hook. There are factors that definitely contribute to a sale. I’d say in historical, and paranormal, having a high level of sensuality is important. A happy ending is a given, and from there, it’s really tough to pin down.
I think as a writer trying to break into single title, it means I need to take risks with my characters and plotting. A couple of new authors have recently blogged that they sold their first book once they put aside their internal editor, and the comments of contest judges/critique partners and wrote complex people that weren’t necessarily immediately likeable, or the standard we have seen in previous romances.
They broke a rule of some kind and it worked for them. But, it’s a risk and as someone who would like to sell, I wish the answer were more straightforward.

But, and we Drunk writers, have talked about this a few times, there are no guarantees of a sale regardless, so no choice is ever easy. So what do I write next? No clue still, but I know I’ll be happiest writing a book that grips my imagination, and makes me sweat while I work out all the plot points and try and make the characters multi-dimensional.

I’ll write the book and worry about the market later. Like I have with my previous five books..

April Fool's Day

Are there some things you simply can't joke about?

I like a good practical joke as much as the next guy (gal) and so realizing that my day to post on DWT was April 1st, I was rubbing my hands together, trying to figure out a great fake post.

Problem was, when I really started to think about things I could post that were even vaguely writing related, the only topics I came up with were things I couldn't bring myself to joke about...

For example, announcing that Sinead or I had finally landed our first freaking contracts with big NY publishers! Or that Molly had landed a huge single title contract!

Or, to go the other direction, that one or all of us had decided to throw in the towel and never write again. :-(

Joking about these things aren't funny to me right now.

So then I started thinking about new genres we might have decided to write in... and couldn't come up with a joke there, either, because for me right now, nothing is off limits. Yes, I'm a genre whore. I'll try anything.

Am I so sensitive about this publishing process right now that I've lost my sense of humor? Or are there some things you just shouldn't make practical jokes about?

In other news, we've all decided to give up booze.




April Fool!

Have a great April Fools Day. Hope you don't get sucked in to too many scams. ;-)