It's a stakes thing

I've have a fantastic reading month. I've read some truly great books, the angel series by Nalini Singh, the first book is pretty amazing stuff, the Maze Runner had me obsessed with getting to the end for days, and then I picked up another eagerly anticipated YA book. I'm going to try and not name names, or book titles.

I'd heard nothing but positive buzz on this book, and the cover is amazing, the description of it on the back cover sounds fascinating. The first chapter is riveting and the author does an incredible job of worldbuilding. It's postapocalyptic, but a different take than I've read. So all good. Except then the book grinds to a halt.

There is a nice subtle air of menace underlying each of the scenes, but I feel like I'm forcing myself to read on. The writing is lovely, each scene does progress the plot, and really, I can't tell what is about to happen, but I'm not invested in the story, because I truly do not know what is at stake. The reader does not know the consequences for breaking the rules, we don't know what will happen if the heroine veers from the path chosen from her, and really, right now, I don't care all that much.

Maybe because she doesn't care much either. Half way through the book, there is no real sense that she wants a change in her life, and would be perfectly happy if things continued as they'd been set out for her at the beginning of the book.

So how am I as the reader supposed to care if she does or doesn't. Not every book needs a cackling villian in the background, rubbing his hands together at the thought of breaking the heroine's neck, but there has to be tension regarding the heroine's decisions, a real sense that if she makes the wrong decision there will be hell to pay, either emotionally or physically, or both.

And it doesn't have to be life threatening either. One book I absolutely love is Ain't She Sweet. The heroine has a lot to lose in this book, mostly her dignity and self-respect and there are scenes where she does hit rock bottom, and we feel every moment of her pain. It's brilliantly done.

I need to read that book again, but first I need to pick up the book following the Maze Runner, called The Scorch Trials. Anyone read them?

It's a Love/Hate thing...

So in preparation for the Oscars I’m trying to cram in all the movies that I’ve wanted to see all year but are now just finally getting to. I finally saw Black Swan but because of all the “mystery” surrounding what it was really about … I ended up totally over thinking it. I will say though that Natalie Portman did an amazing job.

Then I watched Social Network. For those of you who don’t know I’m a former West Wing fanatic. I can wax poetic for hours on the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin. I was so excited to “hear” him again in the writing and in truth he didn’t disappoint. SN sounds like the Aaron I know. Nobody does “brilliant” like he does.

But here was my problem with the movie. I didn’t like the protagonist. And sadly that’s a pretty big downside. I get that in this version of the telling of the story we’re probably not supposed to like Zuckerberg, but it still stopped me from falling in love with the movie.

I can think of so many times where an editor has commented… I just didn’t feel for the heroine or hero. I didn’t like them. This used to frustrate me… but I do get it.

Now it might make people (writers) think that all heroes or heroines have to ultimately be “nice” or else the audience won’t like them. But we know that’s not true. I just read a book where the heroine is very nice. Super nice. Pleasing in all ways. Any person would want to know this very nice person. I couldn’t stand her as a character. Nice isn’t what it’s about.

With Zuckerberg (movie version) I didn't have a problem with him not being nice. But I was looking for something more than a spoiled genius, left out of the cool kid club, who was condescending and rude to everyone around him. One moment of real friendship or a truly sincere gesture from him to anyone and that might have helped.

Ultimately I couldn’t root for him. In truth I didn’t really root for anyone in this movie… except maybe the roommate a little and the ex-girlfriend. Who delivered the best line of the movie in my opinion.

We, the audience, need to “like” the protagonist. We need to empathize, sympathize, appreciate… whatever. We need to get them. Whether they be nice or (as Eileen would say) they be asshats we need to see the story from their prospective so that we’re connected.

At least I do. HBO shows excel at this. Omar – the Robin Hood of Drug dealers from the Wire. Niki – the bitchy spoiled 2nd wife from Big Love who can also fix a washing machine and hang shingles on a roof. The FBI guy from Boardwalk Empire… (forgot his name.) Who is crazy and insane but so damn passionate about his work. The Widow Schroeder who knows her boyfriend had her husband killed and seems okay with that even though we also see her as a loving and kind mother.

Anybody else you wanted to love but ended up hating? Wanted to hate but ended up loving?

Torture (and porn)

Clearly I'm doing blog titles to get hits from people who will have zero interest in our blog. Sue me. :)

We've talked here before about torturing our characters, how we need to throw the germiphobe into the dumpster, etc.

But doing that in real life, purposefully setting people up for pain, is cruel.

And, of course, I'm talking about The Bachelor. Yes, after SWEARING I'd never watch again (many seasons ago) I have again been sucked back into the busty-and-overly-made-up vortex. One of the times I swore I'd never watch again, I blogged about it, and called the show emotional porn. I stand by that.

And this season they've sunk to new lows. Yes, they always make sure the one who's afraid of flying ends up on plane, and the one who's afraid of heights ends up jumping off something high, but this season there have been two episodes that really made me angry.

One was last night. One of the girls, one of the more sane ones, actually, is deathly afraid of bugs. I mean, she seriously needs some psychological help. And clearly the producers knew this. So where do they send her and the bachelor on the only date she ever gets with him? Into a cave in Costa Rica. With lots of bugs. Nice.

But even more egregious was the Las Vegas episode. One of the contestants lost her Nascar-racer-fiancé in plane crash when she was only 18. Then she found out 3 days after he died she was pregnant. She hadn't been on a plane or anywhere near car racing since he died. Nor has she had a relationship. (and this girl is scary-beautiful. I thought she looked old for early twenties, but they've now shown her a few times without all the make up and my god. It's unfair for one woman to get so much beauty.)

And what do they do???? First put her on a small plane with the bachelor -- presumably similar to the type her fiancé died in. Then, they take her to a Nascar race track. Oh, and the exact same racetrack that her fiancé had a bad crash at when he was racing. Nice.

Sometimes reality TV is a good lesson in how to put your characters in difficult situations. But I ask... should it be?

The movie Stranger Than Fiction suddenly pops to mind, which explored the ethics of torturing fictional characters. But these women on The Bachelor are (at least partially) real. How do the producers sleep at night? Imagine the bad karma.

How revealing should we be?

No, I'm not reprising Nipplegate in honor of the Super Bowl. I'm worried about how much to reveal to my reader and when to reveal it.

I know we've talked about this before, but I'm in the middle of revising a suspense novel where I made the very interesting decision to tell the reader everything that every bad guy was doing as he was doing it and what he was thinking while he was doing it. It has created a book that my editor described as being like watching a chess game.

I've now pulled every scene from the bad guys' points of view and put them in a separate file. I'm going to print everything out and figure out what goes back in and when and where it goes back in. I spent a lot of time and thought on these bad guys. I know a lot about them. I'm thinking the reader doesn't have to know quite as much.

The whole question is how much to reveal and when to reveal it. Do I keep their identities secret? Do I obfuscate who does what? Or why they're doing it? I don't know. I hope my exercise in separating out the threads works because this puppy is due Friday and that's just not that far away.

Momentum

Last night's Super Bowl was fantastic - even though we don't get the ads up here in Canada (except for the Eminem one, which only fed my love for the man) I couldn't have enjoyed that game more. Even though I'm a Pittsburgh fan by birth I have to admit the Steelers simply didn't deserve to win. All those interceptions? Green Bay dropped the ball a few times, but Rodgers never threw an interception. And he's squeaky clean. No rape charges, no pictures of his ding dong on the internet, no dog fighting. Just work. If games were decided on that sort of thing - it all worked out just fine.

But I've been thinking a lot about momentum. I feel stalled out in my book right now because I can't put together three working days in a row. Remember some of the first advice you heard about writing - write every day even if it's for twenty minutes. I'm not arguing with that advice, it's still good. But those twenty minute days screw me up more than help me. I feel lost in my story, spinning my wheels.

Last nights game was about momentum. About getting it, but not being able to capitalize on it. Favor would swing one way and that time would spin thier wheels trying to make something miraculous happen. Sometimes it did, but most of the time things would fall apart.

My foot ball analogy falls apart there because I can't squash the forces working against me (children - unsquashable) but I have decided that it's time to get my head out of my own behind and sacrifice some stuff to get this book done. No more afternoon naps. Yes, I admit it, I nap. Goodbye bad television tht I watch for no good reason. Hello Crock Pot. Hello babysitter and Goodbye Saturday Spinning class. For the first time this weekend I woke up early to do some work (5:30!) and I can safely say that's not a habit I'm ready to commit to.

What sorts of things do you do to create your own momentum? Any advice would help at this point

The perfect introduction

One of my favourite movies is Silence of the Lambs. I watched just part of it last night, reallly only one scene. The part where Clarice meets Hannibal Lector for the first time.
And it's perfect. The walk down to just get into the cell, where the prison warden warns Clarice about Lector with the tale of the nurse he attacked. Then, the rules, don't get close to the glass, don't give him anything, and then, they close the door after her as she walks down the long corridor towards Lector's glass enclosed cell. By this time we are expecting a monster, not the civil man who greets her.

It's done perfectly. The buildup of tension is ridiculously good, and the reversal of expectation doesn't reduce the tension at all.

I watched that and realized, whether I'm introducing the hero in a romance, or the big bad in a YA, I've never built up to it as well as I could. My last book, I had a scene where the hero has a walk home, walks into his home and is introduced to the antagonist in a way that was completely anti-climatic and didn't reveal as much as should have about the bad guy.

That first meeting in the Iron Duke is done pretty amazingly well. There is a lovely build up to Mina's first viewing of the man.

Just another thing to keep in mind as I edit and try to squeeze every last thing out of every scene.

Criticism... it's tough

I did a post the other week about a book and author I was disappointed in because she happened to be a long time favorite. I made the comment that of course I wouldn’t name names, because well… no one wants to say out loud that kind of thing.
My reasons for this are simple.

1. You never know how your comments will be taken.
2. I don’t want to leave myself open for attack… the old “who are you to say…”
3. The romance community is a small one and you don’t want to make enemies.
4. And I hate to admit this… I really do… but is it because the romance community is mostly female and women by and large are more sensitive to public criticism?

I’ve read blogs on this before and I’ve always just shrugged them off, but in thinking about how reluctant I was to actually call out this author (and so many agreed that I had done the right thing) I wondered if all genre publishing is like this or specifically romance?

The truth is I would never be “mean” in my criticism. I have too much respect for authors. Even Stephanie Myers, who I have named publicly as not being a fan of her work, I still respect that millions of people love her books for their own reasons. I have my opinion – and it’s just that. An opinion. And any criticism I would point out is usually based more on a “learning” experience. I didn’t think *this* worked. I thought *this* part took me out of the story. It’s part of the dissecting process to understand what makes books successful.

Once you’re published one of the things you have to face is your books are going to be reviewed. There will be negative ones. Not maybe. Not possibly. There will be. Someone will post something on Amazon. Someone will have something to say on some review site.

Some authors choose to ignore all reviews, but then you also miss the good ones. Some laugh them off. Some are irritated. Some are deeply hurt. See my reason 1. Since I don’t know how the author takes criticism I don’t want to risk hurting someone’s feelings. There’s no point when I can avoid it.

As for 2 - “who am I to say…” I always based this on the fact that I’m not a NYT bestseller. But it makes me think – are only NYT bestsellers able to critique books? No. The truth is I’m an avid reader and have been for 30+ years. I read across genres within romance and out. I’ve taken classes on craft. I’ve read books on writing and I’ve published my own work. I’m not a chump. But even if I were – the truth is I still get an opinion. Sad but true.

Enemies – I don’t want enemies! Okay, but then it makes me think if someone makes me her enemy just because I happened to say her book didn’t work for me… what does that say about the author. If your attitude is that every person who critiques your work publicly is an enemy… well then you’re going to rack up a bunch. And truly – if you’re not listening to other people’s criticism then you’re not
growing as an author.

Which leads us to 4. Are we too sensitive? Is it a woman thing? A writer thing? Or is it completely individual? If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything. That’s like Golden Rule # 3.

But we’re talking about books for mass consumption. What if we called the authors out? What if we said – the plot fell apart. The emotion wasn’t there. There is too much exposition. All tell, no show.

These are the things new authors are told ALL the time. Send in a manuscript to a contest that critiques and the feedback is usually going to be pretty intense. Why? It’s anonymous. People feel free to say what they think.

So why can’t we say it to these “big” authors who knew all this at some point but have since forgot or just don’t care. Who does it fall to, to tap them on the shoulder and point out where the mistakes were made? The agent? The editor? Definitely not a publisher who is on a tight schedule and needs those profits. But a blog reviewer? A peer?

As a writer I’ve read reviews that said my books were horrible, stupid and that they were thrown across the room. I’ve made people’s eyes roll and have made people hate my heroes or heroines with such passion they felt compelled to write about it in a public forum. I accept all of it. The good, the bad and even the really awful.

I don’t think anyone’s ever been intentionally malicious – although I hear stories about that happening all the time. Reviewer A out to destroy Author B. But to date I have never called out anyone as being my enemy. Do I wish everything came up roses, sure. Do I question some people’s reviews – sometimes. Obviously I’m going to defend my work.

But I wonder have we all just gotten too sensitive when it comes to people in a public forum pointing out our mistakes? And if the prevailing thought is to never say anything if it isn’t nice are we putting at risk our genre by not calling out the really bad books.

What do you’all think? Do you prefer public forums to keep things positive? Do you think review sites and blogs can offer criticism without being mean or is it too fine of a line to walk?

Ah, the Joy of Revising

I got my revision letter for Vanished in the Night, my next Eileen Carr book. I actually kind of groove on the revision letter. My editor always starts with like a page of how fabulous I am and how wonderful the book is and the general terrificosity of the whole situation.

She then proceeds to write 3 to 6 pages of what needs to be changed. It can be a little daunting and a little scary, but she's right more often than she's wrong, IMHO, and I know it will make the book stronger.

This time, there's been a fairly large time gap between my turning the book in and getting my revision letter so I basically have not touched this puppy since October. I barely remember my characters' names, much less their motivations. One of the first things that needed to be revised that my editor mentioned was that there was too much banter.

How can there be too much banter? I love banter. I will watch really stupid TV shows with bad plots and ridiculous characters as long as there's some banter. But, lo and behold. There is too much banter in this book. Everyone banters with everyone else. My detective hero banters with his partner about lunch plans, for Pete's sake. It's bad banter. Pointless banter. And what's worse, it makes my hero look like some namby-pamby arugula-eater with a touchy stomach. How not hot is that, I ask you?

She also mentioned some repetition in internal monologue sections. Ha! I thought. No way.

Oh, yes way. For some reason completely unknown to me, I have a scene where the heroine leaves one place thinking about something. There are then two scenes from other characters' POVs. Then I return to her as she arrives where she's going STILL THINKING ABOUT THE SAME F*CKING THING!!! Was I on crack? Drunk? Just out of my mind?

This is where the revising thing falls apart for me. When I look back what I've written and can't imagine what I was trying to accomplish as I wrote it. I know it's going to be okay. I can be ruthless during revisions. Still, where was my head?

Do you ever read things you've written and wondered what the you were thinking?

Missing Opportunities

Last week's critique group was a real eye-opener for me and gave me a whole new thing worry and obsess over. Missed opportunities. In one of my scenes the heroine had to come to this big, sort of left field realization. My heroine goes from passive to active in her life. So, I was very wrapped up in making sure that she came to this decision in a methodical way. I took my time with the scene - I had her getting drunk. It was a pretty static scene and not that I put thought into that, but I was so worried about the internal conflict and changes that were happening and making sure those were believable.

Everyone can relate, right? We've all had those scenes, hell, those books.

Feedback was good until Sinead opens her mouth and says the scene felt like a missed opportunity. For a moment, I was like - No. Sinead. No.

But then, of course I realized she was right. How dynamic is it to show a character going from passive to active in her life, while sitting down? While being passive? In an effort to up my game I'm trying to push scenes and characters as far as I can go - trying to get all the juice out of them as I can in my own feeble-minded way. I can't miss opportunities to SHOW my characters changing or failing. I have to combine plot with character as much as possible - and then add all the other crap - voice, mood, tone, humor, sexy sex - all of it. Previous to that night, I was a little stunted in my progress, I was obsessing about all the juice I was trying to get out of things, and then for a while I was convinced every scene was a missed opportunity.

It's not like I know I'm missing the opportunity while I'm stumbling right past it. It's not like I'm being lazy, it's that my brain is so small.

But then I realized I have a safety net. If my own writer's sixth sense doesn't see what I'm doing wrong - Sinead will. So, thanks Sinead.

Fine, I'll be upbeat too.

I'm crusty this week, annoyed at stuff I shouldn't be annoyed at, and really should have a sign on my forehead, 'approach at your own risk'. Don't know why, but I think lack of sleep has something to do with it.

But I'm going to focus on what is perking me up these days.

1) There is cider and wine in the world and I will be partaking later.

2) I have some truly amazing books on my nightstand. The maze runner, Matched, Archangel's kiss and room all waiting to be read.

3) slow progress on my current WIP, but progress is progress.

4) the vampire diaries came back on last night.

5) Molly, Maureen and Stephanie all have books coming out, and I've read three of them and they are amazing, and so looking forward to reading Stephanie's 4 1/2 star rated book.

That's all I have, but it's something.. now I'm going back to looking at the glass half empty.

Uplifting and inspirational... sort of?

Okay – I had a post that was really negative. It was written, it was scheduled and it was all set to go. I was just going to spew away! Then I read Maureen’s really great post yesterday and I just couldn’t do it. I would have been the all time Deputy Downer.

I had to remember that she’s right. The flipside to saying that every good thing in publishing is followed by a something bad is to say that everything bad in publishing is followed by something good. If we don’t ever enjoy the good when it comes it can make for a really depressing career.

Letting ourselves dwell on the negatives only brings us down. And in the middle of winter, when it’s cold and snowy do we really need anything else to do that?

So here is to my list of good things that I WILL focus on.

1. I plan to start on my new book. It finally all came raining down from the skies. And new books are always fun (unless you’re scared of them like Eileen said – but we’re not going to be scared because this is a POSTIVE POST).

2. I’ve lost six pounds on my new diet. Only 14 more to go before I have to start my 2nd 20. (Doesn’t 2nd 20 sound much better than 40!)

3. I got 4 ½ stars in RT for my Romantic Suspense due out next month. Which is good because it might be the last book I ever publish… (Slaps hand! No negativity here!).

4. Maureen has two books coming out and Molly has a book coming out and Eileen has a book coming out … and I like to read really good books.

That’s my list for right now. And it’s pretty decent.

And although we're not dwelling - venting can also be okay in little spurts. And since Maureen asked everyone about the good stuff yesterday - I'm giving everyone license to vent a little.

I'll start... I MISS WINE!!!!! Why oh why can't it be calorie free?

Now you go.

Celebrating the good stuff

I feel like this is a life goal as much as a writing goal, but Molly reminded me one day last week that I should get better at celebrating the good stuff. She scolded me a little. And I deserved it.

In this business, more than most, we get enough opportunities to learn how to accept criticism and disappointment. And over time, for me anyway, it's become harder to celebrate the good stuff, because it starts to feel like it's just a matter of time until the other shoe drops.  Which makes me feel like such a negative person. And that's not who I want to be.

So, the good stuff!

CINDERELLA: NINJA WARRIOR

I have TWO books coming out in just over two months. They are building a little buzz in the book blogger world and on goodreads. Close to 200 people have added the books to their shelves, I get several google alerts every week that people have mentioned one or the other book on their blog, and for a book that's not even out yet, from a small publisher, I think that's great. And most of the people who've reviewed or rated the books so far have actually liked them! Total strangers read and liked my books!

SLEEPING BEAUTY: VAMPIRE SLAYER

And more good stuff:

Molly and I had a workshop accepted for RWA Nationals! (Thanks Molly for writing a fabulous proposal.)  This is fabulous for me for at least two reasons. 1) My books will be out, so an opportunity to get in front of other authors (who also read and have kids who read) and 2) I really want to go to RWA Nationals. I love the national conference, but was having a lot of trouble justifying the cost this year, especially since I'm not writing in the genre. But now I HAVE to go. So, yay!!

Again with Molly, I did a Romance 101 workshop for Toronto Romance Writers in early January and a producer from CBC Radio's books department was there and did a nice podcast on the event. Yay.

And finally, I've recently been reminded by how generous and fabulous other writers are. How willing some are to offer advice and help to a complete stranger. Most recently for me, this was demonstrated by NYT Bestselling YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith, whose latest book BLESSED was released yesterday. And yet, during what must be a busy week for her,  she was kind enough to tell that she was excited about my books (based on the titles) and offered to interview me on her blog. (Plus, she might come and do an interview here, too. Yay. No pressure Cynthia.)

I hereby promise to remember at least one good thing every day. Amen.

What's your good news? Please share. :)

The Rom Com Man and Porn

I was at the gym on Sunday and without a trashy magazine to keep my brain from realizing how tired I was, I watched the last part of Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. And I liked that movie - the chemistry was a lot of fun between those two and I thought the set up was fantastic. But it made me think about what I've heard about Porn - that it's all about the women. And I think to some extent the Rom Com is the same thing - it's all about the female lead's character and comic timing and overall appeal. I think women in most Rom Com's get paid more - I'm probably wrong, but that's how it seems to me.

But for me - the effectiveness of the story arc and the romance, totally hinges on the guy. Hugh Grant in this case. That moment when they see the girl in a new light, their utter caddishness before - their black moment and grovel - for the story to really work - it's got to be about the guy. Matthew McConaghey is a total failure as a rom com lead because I don't believe anything about him but his chest. He is awful.

On the other hand, I watched a weird one this weekend (I need to be writing - I know) with Dane Cook called His Best Friend's Girl - and this guy is a huge a-hole, but watching him fall for Goldie Hawn's daughter whose name I can't remember - totally worked. Totally believable.

So, who works for you? I think it's pretty hard to beat Hugh Grant. That English reservedness coupled with the chemistry he usually has with his co actors - Love it. But who do you love? The Rom Com man - discuss...

Fear

I am trying to embrace fear. Normally, I am not a fan. I'm not a big watcher of horror movies despite having written an urban fantasy with werewolves and vampires and other nasties. I do not like being startled. I read the ends of books before I get there because I need to know that characters are okay at the end. Yes. Even when I'm reading romance and should just trust. I fear for them and it's unpleasant for me.

I have written a book proposal that is scaring the hell out of me. Two writers that I admire very much have recently (within the last six months or so) talked about how the book you're afraid to write is probably the one you should be working on. The fear means you care enough about it to get it right. The fear means you're stretching. The fear means you're doing something important.

So . . . fear is good. It's not the mind-killer (that's for all you Dune fans out there). It's the mind-grower. Okay. I'm embracing fear.

I'm also trying to embrace vulnerability. I'm not so crazy about vulnerability either. Sometimes being vulnerable is just asking to be hurt and I don't care for pain. If I could spend my entire life encased by the Tempurpedic topper on my bed, I totally would.

Vulnerability means putting out there something tender and fragile that's important to me. This book that I'm trying to write is important to me. I care about what I'm trying to show people in this novel. Exposing the ideals that I want to live by is a little scary because I'm also showing why it's so very hard to do that. It's what will make this book interesting and not preachy and not pedantic.

Anybody else have a project like that out there? Something that's scaring the pants off you, but feels imperative at the same time?

The balance

I'm working my way through Season 1 of Breaking Bad, a show that gets a ton of press and not enough people watching. It's great, made more so, by the two central performances and as a character study, this show is up there with Mad Men. Bryan Cranston's character Walt is perfection.

He is an ordinary man with chemistry skills who is driven to make crystal meth to support his family. He has other options, options the audience is shown, but none that will allow Walt to sustain his pride, and so he really feels this is his only choice. The show does an amazing job of making us care for this man and completely understanding his choices.

Where the show doesn't completely succeed for me, is in the balance of the different subplots. Walt is maintaining two lives, one where he creates and sells drugs, and another where he is trying to maintain his family, and keep them from finding out about his new career.

One is literally life and death as Walt interacts with violent drug runners and the other, while intensely important to Walt, is whether or not his marriage will survive, and when it comes down to it, the drug interactions are so much more interesting and dramatic that I get impatient when the show focuses on anything else.

They haven't perfected the balance of plot and subplot yet, but I'm interested enough in the main plot to keep watching and see what happens when the two plots colide.

Anyone else watching Breaking Bad?

When It's Time to Let Go...

I am having a really hard time right now. I recently bought a book by a favorite author that I’m nearly finished with and no lie it’s bringing me to tears… and not in the good way.

Of course I’m not going to name this author directly - I mean who am I to cause a Google alert to pop up somewhere and that says someone diss’ed your work. What I will say is that the author is successful, well respected in the industry and even if I did name her I know my comments won’t matter to her current fans. But the truth is she’s breaking my heart a little.

I have loved this author for years. A personal triumph of mine is that I have every single category book she ever wrote under every name she wrote them even the ones that NO one knows about. I have this four book continuing romance series that might as well be gold sitting on my keeper shelf – I’m sure it’s that rare. When she took chances I was there. When she switched genres I was there.

When I pass her in the halls at RWA conferences… I have this tendency to want to bow.

But lately it’s just been harder and harder to read her newest releases. Her most recent – I’m sorry but it is a hot mess.

The story is all over the place, the sex is boring and you can tell she just wants to get through the scene rather than really explore what’s happening emotionally and physically. Emotion – heck there is no real emotional development between the characters at all. They’re just suddenly in love. The dialogue is clunky and while these should be contemporary characters they do not sound like anything remotely resembling a contemporary person living in 2011.

This woman was my inspiration. She’s the reason why I wanted to write romance. This author in particular for me I put ahead of Nora because I found her first. I felt like the smartest person alive when I picked her off a shelf of all the other “red” books and then she went on to become famous. I said… “That’s right… I know talent when I read it.”

But now my heart is broken because I don’t know how I can keep reading her. These last books of hers that I’ve read… well, they are just not for me anymore. Maybe you get to a point where you can’t read an author anymore. That tipping point where they’ve told you every story they have as many times as you can handle it.

She was my comfort read. My go to buy. My never let me down author. And now I feel like if I read her anymore I’ll start to forget how great those older books were.

I think I need to let go. I feel strangely bereft. Yes, there are new authors out there to find but this woman is my reading history. And just once more I would love to capture the thrill of what it was like to read her best work. I guess that's why I keep going back. Maybe this time will be different…

Does that happen to all of us? Are we all headed to a period in time where some innocuous blogger somewhere might say… “Yeah that last Stephanie Doyle booked sucked. It’s the same story over and over again. I’m done with her.”

Of course… this means someone would actually have to read a Stephanie Doyle book.

Anybody else have this kind of experience?

Avoiding the obvious

Avoiding the obvious is so hard, especially when you're writing genre fiction, and tonight I saw two films that made me think about this and want to try harder.

The first was a great film I was seeing for the second time and the other was a really, really disappointing one.

The great one was Blue Valentine.

As a group of young woman said on the way out, "Boy was that a downer!" And it is. Um, what did you expect? The good kind of valentines aren't blue. But it's also pretty wonderful and it never goes the obvious route. While it's about the end of a relationship, it doesn't paint either character as the good guy or the bad guy. I read a review that said that the Ryan Gosling character is the more sympathetic of the two, but I really think it depends on your perspective. I think I related to her side of it more even though she's the one who wants out.

And the screenplay is so smart about how and when we learn things about the couple. Some heartbreaking things. The small miracle of the story, which I didn't really notice until the second viewing, is that while it starts off almost feeling like a character sketch kind of thing, with little vignettes about the two main characters, every detail ends up being important.

But because of the order in which the story is told, nothing seems obvious. There's a moment in this film, near the beginning, where the Ryan Gosling character does something that made me cry both times I saw the movie. He's a mover, new at his job, and they're moving a very elderly man into an old-folks home. His boss tells him to empty the boxes, flatten them and get out of there fast. But he doesn't. Instead he carefully unpacks and thoughtfully organizes the man's possessions so he'll feel slightly at home when he comes in. It's so sweet it made me cry. Twice. And completely defines the character. And we know that the Michelle Williams character is across the hall in her Grandmother's room at the time. And they haven't met yet. So it's not a leap to jump to the conclusion that the plot reason for this scene will be their meeting. And from there assume that his sweet gesture is how he wins the girl over and gets that first date. But that's not what happens. At all. It's just so real and sweet. I don't think she ever finds out what he did... (Instead, she thinks he did something horrible.)

Another thing I noticed on second viewing was a line that seemed like idle conversation the first time. Tonight I realized that it was "the statement of the theme". The screenwriting gurus say that you should state the theme of your movie on page 10 or something... and while this so didn't feel like a movie that followed those kind of rules,  it did follow that one. Ryan Gosling tells his work mates that he thinks men are the real romantics. They act like they don't care about love or settling down, until they meet the right girl, then she's all they want. Whereas women, with all their talk about prince charming make practical choices when it comes to choosing a mate. (That's not exactly, but the gist of what he said.) And it totally sums up the movie... or at least their two characters.

Great movie. Sad. Not a date movie (in spite of the sex). But so well done.

Then, I went to see Country Strong. If you've seen the trailer and, like me, thought it looked great... Stick with the trailer. Whoever edited that trailer together was a genius and made it look like the movie would actually be about something. Whoever wrote the script? Not so much. Trite and predictable and corny and cliched, and although sad stuff happens you don't care. At all. Because you don't care about the characters and the things they do and the choices they make aren't well motivated. I knew the reviews were really bad, but had to see for myself...

Just realized that, in some ways, it tries to be like a sports movie, with the big game at the end... but because there are no character arcs in the story, at all, we don't even care whether she wins the big game gets through the concert at the end. And certainly don't care enough about what happens after...

Love that Garrett Hedlund dude, though. Boy, he can sing to me with that sexy baritone voice anywhere, anytime. Looks mighty fine in a pair of jeans, too.

Demographics

So the other day, my sweetie was watching a Buffy rerun. He's a big Joss Whedon fan and, bless his heart, thinks strong smart women are sexy. I happened to walk in the kitchen as he was watching and that's when the ad came on. It was for Ru Paul's Drag Race. That's cuz Buffy reruns air on Logo, apparently. 

My first thought was, "Babe, you are SO not their demographic." 

Last night, we were watching the premier of Being Human. An ad came on for Life Alert. You know, the "Help me. I've fallen and I can't get up." thingie? My sweetheart wondered out loud why Life Alert would be buying ad time on SyFy on a show about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost trying to live normal human lives. He thought it was probably a waste of their money.

I've got a book coming out in a few weeks and am trying to decide what to do to promote it. How do I reach my demographic?

RWA does all kinds of surveys about who reads romance and I know that my demographic is probably married, college-educated women between the ages of 31 and 49. So how do I find them? RWA says that most romance readers pick books based on ads in other romance novels. Ain't nothin' I can do about that. 

What about social networking? I played around with Facebook and Twitter, but I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. A lot of my FB friends are other writers. Ditto with people who were following me on Twitter for the brief time I was willing to tweet. 

Advertising is pricey. I've run ads in RWR. They're wonderfully affordable, but again, who am I reaching? Other writers. Romance writers and definitely romance readers, too, but I still feel like I'm preaching to the choir. There's RT, but their rates are a little our of my price range. 

So I'll probably do what I always do. Blog here and there. Send out some press releases. Have a book release party. Wish me luck.

The Fighter: Plot/Subplot

We saw The Fighter this weekend and it's strange that I love boxing movies so much, but I do. The underdog thing...the stakes...the bare chests, I don't know, but boxing movies work. And The Fighter was amazing. Really and truly amazing. And the negative feedback I've heard is largely that the movie seems unfocused, torn between the main plot of Micky (Whalberg) getting back in the ring and away from his controlling family, and his brother Dickie (Bale) and his crack habit and self-destructive life.

In Bale's Golden Globe acceptance speech, he thanked Whalberg for the strength of his quiet performance, because without the anchor, the loud performances don't work. And this was the movie in a nutshell for me.

I love plot/subplot conversations. I think for a subplot to really influence and add to the plot it has to carry a whole lot of importance - we have to care. And it's a two edged sword, make us care too much and the throughline gets taken over. For me The Fighter was balanced. Writing wise it was perfection:

Dickie has to go to jail so Micky has a chance to get free of him.
Both of them have to watch the documentary so Dickie is inspired to stay clean. Micky has to be inspired to wipe his brother's embarrassment off the town he loves.
Dickie has to come home, desperate to do right by his brother so much so that he apologizes to the people Micky loves - he tries very hard to make things right.
Micky sees this, brings his brother back on his team.

Without the focus on all of those moments, the scene of them walking out into the arena for the title fight amongst the boos with Dickie's hand on his brother's head both of them mumbling his anthem the White Snake song "Here I Go Again" would not have made me feel like leaping to my feet, fists in the air, tears in my eyes.

The movie took it's time to tell all the stories and it worked. All the performances were spectacular. Nuanced and sad and funny. Social Network was good in a cerebral way. This movie was great in an all heart way. Go see it.

My character is strong and weak and it all somehow makes sense

I'm finally getting around to watching Breaking Bad. The main character plays a man that initially appears a little meek, and quiet and is desperately sick and cannot afford the payments for the treatment that may help him get better. And then through the course of the second episode, the audience learns that this quiet man has a fierce, unassailable pride, all played brilliantly by Brian Cranston.

Then you have Don Draper, who is so capable and assured in the office and a mess in his personal life, weak almost, and trying desperately to not show this weakness, which results in terrible personal decisions, a lovely contrast to how his confidence in business usually helps him make the right decision there.

Another show that always demonstrated this well, was Battlestar. Starbuck was a fascinating character, because she was so strong in battle, strong physically and completely weak within herself, whereas the physically weakest character on the show, the president, a woman crippled by illness could make the most cold, clinical, strong decision almost every time.

What I love about those shows is how they turn the audience's initial impression of a character upside down, without undermining that first impression.

I've been thinking about Maureen's post about the monster inside me in YA fiction. I'm writing a book where the main character is initially weak, both by circumstances and her own fear, but the monster in her, gives her both a physical strength and more confidence by the end of the book. But I want to do this transformation in such a way that the girl who existed at the beginning of the book is still very much present.

So that the changes build into the character who was at the beginning of the book and make her more complex, rather than a whole new person.

Sounds so easy, freakin' hard to do.

Other than that, I'm getting ready to watch the Golden Globes on the weekend. Anyone else interested in watching?

I made myself laugh...

Okay – that’s not really that hard. Sometimes I get in these moods where I can giggle over nothing for hours… not even when I’m drinking. What made me laugh this time was that I was thinking about this week’s blog and how I’m struggling to get started with my next project.

The word startabookaphobia immediately leapt to my mind and I thought… “I’ve heard that before. I think one of the other Drunk Writers wrote about this.”

This was great! This was awesome! I could read this blog and figure out what the other writer said and struggled with. Then I would read all the great comments that gave answers on how to overcome this sometimes debilitating condition.

Only when I checked it was me who wrote the blog. Back in March of last year when I started the book I just submitted to my agent. (Jokes on me - I thought was I going to be done somewhere around June.)

I had the startabookaphobia. Damn!

So I read my own blog and realized all the fears I had about trying to merge two genres… still true. My fear of executing the book in my head on to the paper… I essentially realized that fear. I just don’t feel like I went far enough. I know I have to be patient and see what the industry says… but in my gut I don’t feel like I delivered. And I couldn’t see my way through even with all the help I got (Thanks Molly! Thanks Karen!) to fixing it in a way that would make it right or better. I tried. Maybe I succeeded. But who knows.

Anyway here I am now in exactly the same place almost a year later. I have a book in my head.

I’m no longer afraid of genre crossing – because I’m not going to do it. Nanh aahh. Not me. I learned my lesson. Pigeonhole the *bleep* out of me please! This is good.

The fear to execute is still there. This time there will be less major POVS. (Yeah me! Way easier!) However in my infinite wisdom I decided to do two intersecting timelines that have to feed each element of the story.

That shouldn’t be hard right? Even though I’ve never done anything remotely like this. Getting the past and present to weave together and culminate in a brilliant way so that you can see the mystery in the past getting revealed as you solve it in present tense…

Yeah… I have startabookaphobia again. And they don’t make pills for this.

What is everyone else doing this winter? What’s next for ya’all. (Says the girl from New Jersey… but don’t you just love ya’all!)

Locating Your Inner Monster

Agent Molly Jaffa is doing a guest speaker spot on Backspace this week and she gave the most fun, not to mention easiest to understand, definition of the difference between external and internal conflict I've seen.

Doesn't matter that it was actually given as an explanation to the difference between middle grade and young adult fiction (beyond the protagonist's age).

Her point was that middle grade fiction tends to be more about external conflict, or:

There's a monster outside!!!

Whereas young adult fiction tends to be about internal conflict, or:

There's a monster inside me!!!

Awesome, right? Except that it made me realize a possible problem with my upcoming fairy tale adaptations.

The original publisher for these books wanted them to appeal to readers as young as nine... so, although I wasn't exactly thinking about them as middle grade, and I admit I'd never thought about the difference in focus until I read this great insight of Molly Jaffa's... I must have instinctively known this, because I kind of wrote them like middle grades. But, the new publisher is marketing them as YA.

I think both are very: There's a monster outside!!! (A scary stepmother who's also an evil wizard in Cinderella and a scary vampire queen and her minions in Sleeping Beauty...)

I fear that young adult readers will miss the: There's a monster inside me!! aspect.

Ah, well. C'est la vie.

You Have To Bring The Penis

I don't actually have a blog to go with that title. But that was something Stephanie said when she read my manuscript this weekend. Bring the penis I believe was her way of telling me to sex the book up. In particular the first half and in particular a scene with the hockey-playing hero in the shower. All by his lonesome. A masturbation scene.

She's totally right - but my problem has been and will probably always be - I don't like writing sex scenes. And it is 100% because of my mom. She reads these books. She gave some to her minister at church. Her book group - which includes several of my former teachers - talk about my books. And I get it - this isn't one of my best decisions. The romance world has gotten hot. And unless I write sweet romance - which I don't - I need to bring the penis and stop thinking about what my mom is thinking.

But in my efforts to resist this advice I went back and looked at some older books that I always thought had fabulous sexual tension without constant sex - but man, was I wrong. Those SEP books I love so much - those characters are constantly getting it on. Constantly making out. Teresa Mederios same thing. I wonder if their mother's read their books? The language is different, sure. But manhood by any other name is still a penis.

So, tomorrow I'm going to take my cold medication, send my kids off to school, do a load of laundry, think about what I'm making for dinner, if I'm lucky - take a shower. And then, I'll probably meet Maureen at a public coffeehouse and at some point - I will bring the penis.

How about you? Do you have your mother's in your heads while you write? Your best friend? Your Dad? Does the reality of your book being out in the world make you edit yourself?

New Year. New Attitude.

It's over. The holiday season ends (IMO) on my sister's birthday which was January 6. My worst time of the year is over and already I feel my mood lifting. I woke up on Sunday feeling positive and upbeat. I'm ready to start fresh.

I'm not a good resolution maker or a good resolution keeper (still haven't updated my will which was my 2008 resolution, for example). My other sister usually forces me to choose an affirmation to say every morning, but ever since the year she made me look myself in the eye in the mirror every day and say that she was excellent at math, it hasn't really resonated with me.

Still, I want to change my attitude this year. I'm tired of being negative. I'm tired of seeing the glass as half empty. I feel like I spent too much of last year focusing on things I can't control (like the size of my print runs) and ignoring the things I can control and do well (writing nearly every day and completing two books).

I'm going positive this year. I'm remembering that I love storytelling. I'm remembering that I have good relationships with my agent and both my editors. I'm focusing on behaving like a professional and meeting my deadlines and holding myself to high standards.

I'm going to stop feeling like I'm a loser because I haven't made it onto a bestseller list and I'm going to feel good about the achievements I have accomplished.

Oh. And I'm going to lose 20 pounds.

Anyone else going for a new attitude this year?

Black swan as a lesson in POV

I actually got out to see movies during the holiday season. I'm almost ready for the oscars, and even have an opinion on which movies and performances should be recognized.

And one movie that is getting a lot of buzz is Black Swan and rightly so. It's dark and twisted and fascinating and not for everyone, but I loved it. And want to see it again, because once is not enough to grasp everything.

Because the director was uncompromising in his approach. Everything in the movie is shown through the eyes of the heroine. I don't believe, and Maureen can back me up here, as she's seen it twice, that at any point, he shows any other POV. Everything is from her perspective, and at no point do we see her from any one else's perspective.

And it creates this sense that the audience really doesn't have a clear sense of exaxtly what is happening. We do know that the events matter intensely to this girl because it's so important to her, it matters to us as well.

It's almost claustrophobic at times, how immersed we are with in her. And it's remarkably effective, more so than a lot of books I've read lately, even though there is no narrative, no real insight into her brain except through dialogue and what we see on the screen. Essentially it's a movie told from first person, present tense.

It's got me thinking on scene choices, and how much to show the reader when we are in deep POV. It only really works when every scene moves the story forward, when every event truly matters both to the main character and to the reader. It requires a real sparseness of story telling.

I think, to be honest I'm still figuring it out, and hoping that Maureen and Molly will explain it to me during our next drunk writer talk.

You know that puzzle...

The one in the shape of the triangle that has all the colored pegs.... You remove one to start the game. The object is for each peg to leap over another peg throughout the triangle until you’re only left with one peg.

My puzzle says one peg left means you’re a genius, two pegs you’re doing okay, anymore than four pegs left… and well… the word the puzzle uses is ignoramus. That hurts.

I have a team of three people I work with and all three have reached “genius” level on this puzzle. I did once but because no one was there to see it they disbelieve my claim. This of course speaks to their genius because I would lie rather than be outdone by them - but in this case I actually told the truth.

So I did what any good boss would do when one is confronted with a challenge from one’s team and decided that I would find the pattern that I’m sure exists within the puzzle so I could repeatedly always get down to one peg no matter how many times I did it. I attempted this at the expense of countless of work hours. But really… I mean priorities people. For those of us who remember the 80s – it’s like when you finally figured out the Rubix Cube. Once you knew what you were doing you could always do it. Will Smith can do it in seconds!

While I was cursing at the block of wood and pretty plastic pegs and struggling to remember what I had done before I thought… shouldn’t I be good at this? I mean really it’s all about seeing the board a few steps ahead. You can’t just make a leap. You have to look two, maybe three leaps ahead to see where the puzzle will take you.

You have to plot. I write books. I plot. I absolutely need to see where things are going when I write. I should be able to repeatedly solve a simple board game with only one freakin’ peg left every time!

Then it occurred to me. I don’t really see that far ahead in my books. I’m definitely a plotter and not a pantser – in that I don’t just sit down and write and see where it takes me. I can’t start a book until I see that key beginning – middle- end structure.

I remember now that I don’t really “create” the beginning middle and end. I don’t make it happen like a person solves a puzzle. Mostly I just think about stuff and suddenly other stuff comes to me.

I’m about to start my next book. I know the premise, I know the heroine. I have this idea of the hero. I know the time, place and setting. I know there is a mystery, but I don’t know what happens after Chapter 1. But there is no getting to Chapter 2 for me and because there isn't I'm in this weird holding pattern.

There is no pattern in my mind that makes me see beginning, middle end. Beginning middle end for me - falls from they sky. I get lucky. I write a book.

So what I have to hope for now is that my team doesn’t continue to do this puzzle and really show me up. Because the only way I’m going to get down to one peg is if suddenly it comes to me and I get lucky.

Therefore I’ve done what any logical person would do and I have hidden all the pegs.

I’m no ignoramus.

True Grit, A Western Set YA

When I walked in the theatre to see True Grit last weekend I was expecting to see a Western. And given how many groups of men were in the audience, so did they. Little did they know, we were about to see one of the smartest, funniest, most tightly plotted, girl-driven young adult stories I've seen/read in a long time.

I've never been a big fan of Westerns as a genre, but I do vaguely remember seeing the 1969 version of True Grit on TV, (probably because I had a now-embarrassing crush on Glen Campbell). And I barely remembered that the story was about a young girl.

When the book was first published, I understand it was put out by as a "book for young readers", and having just seen the new Coen brothers movie (twice), which supposedly follows the original book more closely, I understand that. And really want to read the book. It is a YA story.

I did a (tiny) bit of research before composing this post, and now understand that the original film didn't stick to the material in the novel as well as the Coen brothers did. Plus, in the new version, the actress who plays fourteen-year-old Mattie was just thirteen during filming. The actress in the original was twenty-one. And that says a lot in itself. I was in my early teens when I saw the original on TV and likely could easily see through the adult pretending to be fourteen.

The old version also took out a lot of the comic elements and made it more about Rooster and LeBoeuf and Chaney -- more of a traditional western. I think the Coen's managed to marry the two genres. Or rather make a YA with cross-over appeal, rather than a western. :)

One of the first things that struck me after seeing this movie was what an excellent lesson in POV it is. Perhaps it was just because I'm preparing to teach a POV workshop this weekend and thinking a lot about the topic, but I couldn't help but notice that here's not one scene in this movie that's not from Mattie's POV. Even the scenes that aren't really about her, or that she's not directly part of, we only see through her eyes... Entirely seen through the eyes of a fourteen year old girl. How could that not be a YA?

The trailer makes it seem like an adult western, and I suppose that was smart on the studio/distributor's part, but how little Mattie is in this trailer is misleading. As I said above, she is in every scene in the movie, even if she's just observing a few times. Also, the trailer makes her look like a victim. They skip the important part of that scene in the river.



A good ten or fifteen minutes of the movie goes by before we ever see (or hear) Rooster. And the first time we hear Rooster, she's tracked him down to an outhouse. And the Coen's don't cheat and show Jeff Bridges's face, or go for the potential funny moment of seeing him inside the outhouse with his pants down. Or without his pants down and simply hiding from the girl. No. We're left to imagine what he's doing and just see her banging on the door, saying things like, "you've been about your business for an awful long time, Marshall" and we only see the scene from her side. Similarly, when Rooster is testifying in a court case a few scenes later, (the first time we see his character), we don't see or hear any part of the trial until she walks in the room. Another example is when someone approaches Rooster and Mattie in the forest, when she's high up in a tree, we don't hear the conversation between Rooster and the man, until she's down out of the tree and within hearing distance. Anyone who wants to understand POV should watch this movie.

Even more, anyone who wants an example of an active, decisive, perfectly motivated protagonist should see this movie. Yes, Jeff Bridges is getting a lot of attention for his performance and he was excellent. Yes, Matt Damon is HILARIOUS as the bombastic braggart LeBoeuf (pronounced "LaBeef" in this movie -- which I found hilarious in itself). Yes, Brolin is astoundingly good as Chaney and Barry Pepper is so great in the role of Ned Pepper, I can't even imagine that Robert Duvall did it better in 1969. But the real star of this film is its protagonist, Mattie Ross, played by Hailee Steinfeld. She never misses a beat.

Mostly, I love that this is a story about a brave young girl in grown up and dangerous situations, but instead of being overwhelmed, she holds her own and doesn't need to rely on the adults for everything. Yes, it's true that she does need the adults. She couldn't have gone after Chaney on her own. But she's smart enough to know this and smart enough not to let the men take advantage of her, and even smart enough to push for her own way even when they aren't really trying to take advantage -- but thinking that they know what's good for her better than she does. This girl doesn't take crap from anyone. I particularly loved the scenes of her haggling near the beginning and how much she knows about law and how incredibly well-educated and articulate she is. Her word choices cracked me up so many times.

I think she's one of the strongest female characters I've seen in a long time who didn't have unrealistic skills or superpowers. And she's fourteen!

I even think my twelve year old niece should see this movie. I actually went the second time mostly to remind myself of the content because I'd already told my sister that she should take my niece to see it and started to question my recommendation. Yes, men get shot. Men get hung. It is a western. And there is one scene that's pretty gruesome, but it's not gratuitous and (like everything) it's shown through Mattie's eyes, and we feel the horror of it with her. (And compared to the violence in many PG-13 movies, it's really not that bad.)

YA is taking over the entertainment world right now -- it's even claimed the gritty western.

Tolstoy's full of it

I'm pretty sure it was Tolstoy that said all happy families are alike, but that unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. Based on my ever so scientific and objective observations this holiday season, Tolstoy had it all wrong.

It being the holiday season, I had the opportunity to observe several family units at work and play. In my opinion, it's the unhappy families that were all alike. At the center of each one of those unhappy families was a narcissistic asshat engaging in sometimes nearly epic douchebaggery. The three NAs that I had the misfortune to observe are all self-involved, egotistical, controlling and cruel. The only thing that varied between them was the level of substance abuse. Other than that, they really were completely interchangeable.

Now the happy families, the other hand, all had their own take on things. Now, this isn't to say that the happy families didn't have problems. One of my favorite happy families we were with this holiday is headed by two people who, well, might have more than a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder. For instance, the amount of equipment required to make a cup of coffee in their house takes up most of a counter. Not only is there a coffee maker and a grinder, there is a stop watch and a thermometer and a special tamper and some other things I didn't recognize. This attention to detail and need to do things exactly right is applied to everything in their life. They actually had to rent the house next door to theirs because they have so much stuff, they were bursting at the seams. Now this might make for an unhappy situation. People pursuing perfection to the point of self-destruction. But no, they support each other and make it work. The love that flows between them and two their child is almost palpable in their home.

Another of the happy families I was with is one of those groups of people who all have really diverse ways of looking at things. This means that they don't always see a situation the same way (unlike my sweet OCDers who tend to agree about how things should be done) which could cause lots of problems. Instead, this family talks to each other and more importantly, they listen to each other. Each one wants to know what the other thinks because it gives a glimpse into the mind of someone he or she loves and because it could each one more insight into the situation.

My point is that each of the happy families has found their own path to happiness and really isn't that what we write about when we write romance? Aren't we always looking for new and unique pathways to happiness for our characters from their own particular starting places?

So again I say, Tolstoy had it totally backwards.

Dear Colin Firth

Who knew? Seriously. Don't get me wrong. I've been a fan since the days of Pride and Prejiduce, and the weight and discomfort you brought to the role of Mr. Darcy. I liked the way your eyes would shine when you smiled and lets face it, you did look pretty good coming out of that lake after your swim.

And then when you essentially replayed the same role in Bridgit Jones Diary. I was charmed. Perfect casting, really. And well, when you played the same role in St. Trinians, a movie, I suspect Rupert Everett strongarmed you into. And well, I hope it gave you a lovely addition to your house.

And then A single man came out, and you were perfect in it. A role that had some familiarity and a whole ton more depth than I'd seen from you before.

And then I went to see the King's speech. And again, you are playing a stodgy Englishman, but the depth you show, how you bring such wounded dignity to this man who stammers at the worst possible time.

It's a role I literally cannot picture anyone else in. I just had no idea you were so good. Sorry about underestimating you. Clearly I won't do it again. And it did help that you were surrounded by Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, and that the script is pretty wonderful, but anyone else could have been simply good and you were spectacular.

Looking forward to your oscar speech.

And back to world building...

Okay, I’ve talked about it and Sinead’s talked about it, but now I’m back to talking about it again. Sorry – but really it’s a topic that can stand a few posts. (I hope!)
I’m coming back to this again because I just bought this book where for me… it all goes wrong.

I had heard great things about this author and the series so I didn’t even buy the sample – just bought the whole thing and loaded it on to my Kindle. Now I wish I would have stuck to the sample. Or maybe it was a good thing because it will force me to go further into the book than I might have and maybe things will pick up once I’m better acclimated to the world.

For now though, I am a couple of chapters in to the story and so lost I couldn’t find my way out with a compass. The author is throwing really cool stuff at me – I do get that some of it is cool – but everything is being explained… sort of. But the author is also just going with it and not explaining other things which I think I need to know. I still don’t have the “big picture” concept. I’m not really sure what time I’m in, what the society is like, or the heroine’s place in any of this.

It hit me again how incredibly difficult this skill is. It makes me think of Eileen’s Messenger book. Bamm – girl is messenger between factions of a paranormals. I jumped into that book and instantly knew where I was, knew what the issues were and it just felt so effortless. The WORLD made sense.

I get it. There is something to be said for plunging into the story and allowing your readers to catch up. We know over explanations can bog a story down. However the reverse is still true. Not explaining anything or making assumptions can leave readers confused.

I remember JR Ward’s glossary which I thought was such a great idea, but then I realize that if those stories didn’t have the glossary – I still would have gotten what she was saying in context. In fact I don’t know that I ever even read the glossary. Things like a woman’s “needing” doesn’t take a whole lot explanation. The Omega – bad guy. Scribe Virgin – goddess like thing… maybe I don’t have the exact origin of what she is and can do… but I get it conceptually.

The problem with this book I’m reading is – and I’m making this example up – the author leads with words that have no sense or contextual understanding. “She used her errp on the door.” Then the author launches into this explanation of a magical mystical weapon known as the errp and I’m like huh?

There has to be that line between creating something new but still grounding it in a sense of reality that readers can relate to. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am by this book I thought I was going to love. But I just can’t seem to pick up what the author is putting down.

On a completely side note – another thing that’s going to change (at least my buying habits) with eBooks. If I had downloaded the free “sample” I wouldn’t have bought the book. Which means now more than ever those first few chapters are going to be so critical in terms of a book’s success.

I have to believe books like The Girl With the Dragoon Tattoo are going to have a hard time making it in the future because the only way I know how people got through the book, is by having someone else say…. You need to get through the first 100 or so pages.

On the upside – I’m trying more authors than ever before because of the sample. On the downside - I’m ruling out books completely based on those first two chapters, books that ultimately might have proven to be good.

1970's TV Theme Songs

Is it just me, or does anyone else remember the days when TV themes were sometimes hits on the radio? I am so dating myself, aren't I?

Molly and I sometimes meet up to write in this coffee shop that's about equidistant from our respective houses where they often play a 70’s themed satellite radio station. For me, it’s a great trip down memory lane. (Even if I often annoy Molly with outbursts like, "OMG. I haven't heard this since I was in grade six! OMG. I used to slow dance to this at boy-girl parties in grade seven!"

And one of the memories that recently sparked was old TV themes, because the station played the theme from Welcome Back Kotter. "Welcome ba-ack. Your dreams were your ticket out..."

In these days, when the opening of a TV show is often just a few chords of music and the title appearing (Lost, anyone?) it’s funny to think of a time when the opening theme and title sequence took up to a minute or more. And we sang along. And listened to them on the radio. And bought the recordings...

Off the top of my head, I can think of these TV shows from the 70’s that each had its theme song released as a top 40 single:

• Welcome Back Kotter 
• Chico and the Man 
• Shaft 
• Hawaii Five-O 
• Greatest American Hero 
• M*A*S*H 

 I just had to go and find the openings of some of theses shows on youtube. :)



Can anyone think of others? Are there more recent examples of this music hit based on a TV show theme? (I can think of a few that used songs that were already hits... or covers of them... but not quite the same thing.)

Are memorable TV show theme songs something you miss, or do you think they were just a waste of time before the actual TV show started?

Dear Ben Affleck

I should have written this letter a while ago, but I kept getting distracted by rewatching Good Will Hunting and Shakespeare In Love and to some extent Changing Lanes. And of course - looking at you. You, Ben Affleck, are a good looking guy. Seriously, that chin? And you're aging well. Clearly your wife has steered you in the skin care arena. But all of that is beside the point.

The point is I watched The Town this holiday season. And I think you are an interesting director. I think you have a voice and a simplicity as a Director. And as a writer? What a freaking suprise. You're really good. Honestly, I'm not just talking about that bit in Esquire that I've saved - about why you love motorcycles. I mean you have adapted some great books into really great screenplays. Your movies have "felt different" and considering the genre - that's not easy. Parts of The Town were awesome - casting Jeremy Renner? Awesome. Blake Lively? Who knew? There was a trajectory to the movie and I think you were shooting for something simple admidst chaos - a nice aim.

Here's your problem. You can't act. You might be great in supporting roles, but there's no way you can carry a film. And part of it is your looks. And the other part - you just can't act. And your performance in The Town was good - but it was the weakest link in a good movie - you brought the whole thing down. You ruined your own movie. With the right casting in that role - someone rougher, uglier, someone who needed that love, who could make us believe in the romantic conflict (because Ben, you did not - at all.) Or maybe you didn't show us the scenes you needed too - not sure. You were too movie star. In a gritty gritty movie, you showed up false.

Why did you do it? Why write, direct and act? I still love you Ben. I really do. But sometimes, you make it so hard.

Can you change your world once you've built it?

The answer has to be yes, but carefully, so very carefully. It's definitely a problem that rears its head during a lengthy series. I'm thinking the black brotherhood series, by Ward, or the Anita Blake series.

We should all have to deal with the problems of a ridiculously bestselling series, but I sort of understand the complications that would come with writing many books that all still read as unique.

To that end, Suzanne Collins ending the Hunger Games trilogy after three books was a really wise decision and one that probably had her publisher crying.

Because a world has to evolve to keep each book in a series different and interesting. But how do you evolve it in a way that keeps it consistent but changing and in a way that satisfies your readers.

I felt betrayed by the Anita Blake series when she made that strong, independant heroine, to my mind, a sex crazed weeping woman. I might be exagerrating, but the books became about the heroine's change into one of the creatures she used to hunt, and how she tried to keep her humanity, a really interesting preminse, but I didn't like the way she did it. It was an evolution I couldn't follow, but I understand why she had to do it.

I see the same potential problem with the Brotherhood series. What new is there to learn about the world? how does she evolve it in a satisfying way? I'm interested to learn about how she does it.

And at the same time, Ward is smart enough to start another, really interesting series.

Because sometimes the only way to deal with the problem is to end the series in a really satisfying way.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone.

You've made your world... now you have to live in it.

So I recently bought an anthology that had another story by Meljean Brook set in the same world as The Iron Duke. Here There Be Monsters. It was good. Really really good. My only complaint was that it was too short, which isn’t fair since it’s a short story.

In thinking about what I love about these stories, I told myself it was the characters and the chemistry and the story in general. I didn’t think the steampunk world mattered.

But of course it does. Brook built this world and for whatever reason I find all the elements in it really compelling. The Horde, the Frenzy, the technology, all of it. I completely buy into robot sharks and bug infected zombies.

Same with the Hunger Games book. Collins took me to this place, and while I’m not sure I want to live there, I can feel it and smell it and see it.

I’m reading another book now, a great new YA called Matched about a Utopian society. Same deal. The world the author has built is fascinating. All details accounted for. All the rules set without too much fuss. Now this place is definitely not a place I want to live, but the images and elements are all so vivid.

Worlds matter. And world building is an amazing talent. Heck, Harry Potter’s world became so real to us they built a theme park so people could go and actually visit it.

But with all this world building it occurs to me that these authors are really stuck there for a time. Thinking about what Eileen said in her post this Tuesday - it does help to write in different genres to keep things fresh. However, many authors can’t do that. Rabid fans are demanding the next book, the next chapter, the next hero and heroine.

I would think they have to spend a part of every day in that place in their heads. I also wonder how long they take building the world before they actually go to write it. And because we’re writers and all a little nuts (let’s face it) how hard does it get to be to keep separate the world you live in, in your head vs. the world you live in…

Huh… just some crazy thoughts for the holidays.

Christmas/Holiday Stories

What's your favorite movie that tends to be shown this time of year? (Or do you like to read this time of year.)

I'd have to first cite Molly's fabulous novella "The Christmas Eve Promise" in the anthology, THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, which won the RITA this summer. Think I re-read it right now. :)

My other fav is the movie, A Christmas Story. Despite the one big flaw that the kid's glasses were so much more 80's than 50's....), that movie cracked me up so much when I first saw it and I still haven't tired of it after at least a dozen viewings. How about you? Any favs?

Is that a banana? Or are you just happy to see me?

So a couple of weeks ago, I got sick. Nothing horrific. Just your typical virus with a fever and a sore throat. I took the day off of work and dozed on the couch and watched TV. There was a Law and Order: SVU marathon going. I love the Law and Orders. I'm not proud of it, but I can kind of watch them endlessly. They all flow one into the other, especially if you're running a fever.

I woke up at one point and I'm pretty sure I heard Mariska Hargitay say, "Ma'am, do you know why someone would have put a banana in your husband's rectum?"

I have to admit, it woke me up. And made me snicker although Mariska didn't even smirk. The whole experience got me thinking, though. If I was a Law and Order: SVU writer would I be making up stranger and weirder sex crimes constantly, because after a while another rape is just boring?

It's one of the things that makes me grateful for getting to work in more than one genre. Or sub-genre. Or whatever it is that I do. I get a break here and there. I can stop thinking about creepier and creepier things for my serial killers to do while I wonder about the power structure in a werewolf pack. I can stop trying to make up weird magic things about my Messenger character while I think about romantic suspense plots.

I am sincerely hopeful that it will keep me from ever writing about anyone with a banana in their rectum.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

All right - will the following please email me with thier snail mail addresses so I can send them thier free books!!!

Raven 99
Shiloh T
Jemima
April Witt
Marcy

Thanks everyone who stopped by and I hope your holidays are booze-filled and your stockings stuffed with books.

The last day of the book give away

Today you can win Ann Lethbridge's Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistress, and Ann writes wonderfully sensual, historically vibrant romances. It helps that she is English and has a charming British accent.

I've read this and it's wonderful.

The great book giveaway continues...

And in the spirit of talking about the great books we have listed, I’m adding to Sinead’s post from last week regarding The Iron Duke. It isn’t just the blending of genres that makes this book standout, although Sinead was dead on when she said how well it was done, I think it’s just flat out good.

So good I wanted to talk about it. Good thing I belong to a writer’s blog – because frankly my cats are tired of listening to me wax poetic on the topic.

Sinead said that what’s interesting about this book is that all the scenes make it go forward. So when I read it I had that little germ in my head and it really stuck. Having just finished my WIP, one of the things Molly said when she read it was that there are a few scenes were really I’m just restating information the reader already knows, because I’m trying get the information from one character to the other. It’s repetitious. No good.

Iron Duke does none of that. Everything feels fresh and new. All the information given is building on what we know. Sometimes forcing us to make connections.

Now, here is the flipside – sometimes I had to go back and re-read previous chapters to understand what she was putting together in the end (not easy in the Kindle! – see previous rant on this). But I blame that on me. A focused reader shouldn’t need the story repeated for them, a good writer shouldn’t do it. It makes me think we’ve gotten a little lazy as readers. We’re used to filler and rehashing and retelling. So much we’re not working hard enough to hold on to the details when they come. Meljean Brook forces you to think through her book and I LOVED that.

I also think if the idea of Steampunk Romance turns you off – I know I was on the fence – please dismiss the label. Call this book anything. Paranormal, Alternate Universe. Post Apocalyptic… none of that matters.

Great story. Great characters. Great chemistry. Great sex. What else do you want?

Okay so tell me the last great book you read and what made it great? Just by leaving a comment you can win The Demon in Me by Michelle Rowan - LOVE the title!

Giving Books for Christmas?

Continuing our week of gift giving, straddling the space between the gift giving holidays of Hanukkah and Christmas, today we're giving away Eve Silver's SINS OF THE HEART, the first book in her highly popular Otherkin series. (Get all three!)

Comment on this post for a chance to win Eve's fabulous book. Plus, still time to comment on the posts from Monday and Tuesday to win those books!

All winners will be selected at random and announced on Monday, December 20th.

Good luck! And if you haven't done your shopping yet... Well, you're in the same boat as me.

Tune in tomorrow and Friday for chances to win books by Michelle Rowen and Ann Lethbridge!

Ho Ho Ho -- Books Books Books

To continue our great book giveaway party, today we're giving away Juliana Stone's debut HIS DARKEST HUNGER.


Juliana Stone's day job* is rock star, Molly wasn't joking about that, and she's destined to become a rock star in the book world, too!

Comment on this post for a chance at the book giveaway! And on yesterday's post for a chance to win Tiffany Clare's book.

All the winners will be announced next Monday.

*technically more of a night job, than a day job, I suppose

Ho Ho Ho Drunk Writers Do Christmas

Remember when the Holidays meant relaxing? It meant reading a couple of great books perhaps while someone brought you snacks or drinks? Suddenly, I'm the one bringing snacks and drinks which means there's little time for reading. Bah Humbug.

However, here in the great white north there's been a huge windfall, a veritable blizzard of great books being written by some pretty great Canadian women and guess what? We're giving them away! That's right - free books all week long. Make a comment, win a book, someone might just come by with a snack, or a juice box, all for you! Could we any better elves? No. We couldn't.

Today to kick off our great week of giveaways I've got Tiffany Clare's debut - The Surrender of a Lady. If you haven't heard of this dark and sexy historical romance - then you've been in a cave. Or a candy stupor.

Tomorrow Juliana Stones' His Darkest Hunger. Dark, sexy paranormal. AND Juliana is actually a rock star. So there.

Wednesday, we're giving away the lovely and uber-talented Eve Silver's Sins of The Heart - the first in her soul reapers trilogy. That's right, soul reapers.

Some of you know her as Michelle Maddox, some of you know her as Michelle Rowen, all of you should be reading her incredible paranormal books. We're giving away The Demon In Me on Thursday.

And Finally, Friday We have Ann Lethbridge's Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistess AND a compliation of first chapters from some of the hottest Historical romance authors writing right now.

So - make comment, win some books. Winners will be announced NEXT MONDAY!!

I'm jonesing for my next fix

Apologies for the short post today, but it's close to Christmas and life is crazy busy these days..

I have nothing to read. Seriously. Well, Ok, I should read my current WIP, but otherwise, I have nothing to read!

So help me out. I have put Incarceron and The Iron King on my list, both are YA titles recommened by Dear Author, but I don't have any romances. I would kill for a great literary title. I hear good things about Room.

Any suggestions?

Can someone help a girl out before I read the Zadist book the 98th time...

When you just want to skip ahead...

I’ve praised my new Kindle up and down the wazoo. Being able to carry around my manuscript and make notes on it was huge. Being able to download any book I wanted whenever I wanted it - also huge… and expensive.

However, I have discovered a flaw. I can’t skip ahead. Now I know there are go-tos and search options but that’s not what I’m talking about. There are times in a book especially those with multiple storylines where I get anxious as to where the one storyline is taking me. I need to flip ahead a couple of pages, or chapters, to get a glimpse of what’s coming.

Sometimes all I need is seeing two names on the same page to let me know that the characters were able to find each other again. Sometimes I need more.

I remember the final book of Harry Potter when Ron takes off. That was the only time in that book I let myself skip ahead. But I needed to know how much further I needed read before he was back because I certainly wasn’t stopping until I knew he’d found Harry again.

The people I eat lunch with every day think this is insane. They also think it’s strange for me who is both a writer and avid reader that I would commit what they consider to be a reading violation. But I think it has to do with how invested I am in the story and in the characters. I feel their anxiousness. I worry and stress about the resolution of a romantic battle.

In life I can’t always know what’s coming next. I have to wait and let it play out. But with a book – I can cheat. It never stops me from reading the whole thing but it does give me peace of mind.

Or at least it did before I got my Kindle. I’m towards the end of the latest JR Ward and all I want to know is if Blay is going to sleep with Saxton. That’s it. Just that. Nothing else matters. And it’s killing me to have to read every single page until I get there!

What about you… do you skip ahead?