Why I love Drunk Writer Talk

Not the blog, but the getting together with my writer friends and talking writing, storytelling, rejections, successes and everything else in between.

I love my other friends, but they want to talk about their careers, and children, and the state of the world, and while I love these discussions, it doesn’t make me feel better when the writing isn’t going well.

It’s important because no one else wants to discuss at great length how awesome the story telling is in, Battlestar, Damages, Lost and Friday Night Lights. My non-writer friends love these shows, but don’t really have the same burning need to know why.

It’s important because no one, not husbands, not mothers, not even our best friends understand how devastating some rejections can be. And therefore they don’t have quite the right words to console. A pat on the back and ‘the next agent will love it’ doesn’t work.
Although a pint of cider sometimes does, and a bottle of wine always wins.

It’s important because no one else understands how freakin’ difficult it is to write the books we write. Truly… I think deep down every non-writer thinks they could be a best selling author if they just put pen to paper.

It’s important because it feeds my creativity. Other writers’ opinions, theories, even wacky suggestions usually get my brain working.

And most of all, it’s fun.

And again, I have gotta pimp Damages. Saw the second show, and love the questions being raised and the two timelines.. and how jaded Rose Byrne manages to make her character in the second timeline without saying a word.
I think I have a girl crush on Glen Close.

Writer Angst

Damn. Is it Wednesday already?

I completely forgot it was my drunken blog day. I haven't even had a drink to prepare.

Since I have no topic... I'm going to dump what's on my mind right now... which is mostly angst.

We writers can be a neurotic lot and I'm certainly no exception. Add that to the very long list of why my previous career didn't suit me. No one wants their accountant to be stressing all the time, or second guessing their choices, or what people mean, or reading between the lines of two sentence e-mails trying to find subtext that probably isn't there. (All things I've done in the past 2 hours.)

I'm extra-angsty this week, because I'm waiting on a couple of things. I have zero expectations of getting to the final 10 in that Amazon contest... (Really, I expected to be one of the 4900 already eliminated.) yet somehow, as the date draws near, I'm getting bummed that I probably won't be in the top 10. I also sent a new project to my agent this week and am DYING to know what she thinks. This is far from the first time I've been in this situation and you'd think I'd be better at handling it by now, but I'm not. I know I need to keep working on the new project, but suddenly it feels pointless...

I spent the first couple of days of this week on a serious high. Things were finally going my way. 2008 was going to be my year and everything was about to start falling into place.

Somehow, between Tuesday morning and now, the glass that looked more than half full, has completely drained. And I can't even site a specific trigger for this mood change. Can't find a hole in the glass, and haven't seen Daniel Day Lewis with a really long straw. (You need to have seen There Will Be Blood or last week's SNL to get that one. Okay, you need to see There Will Be Blood to get the sketch from SNL... But boy, did that SNL guy do a good impression of DDL.)

Given today's pessimism, let's hope I'm not psychic, or that if I am, my abilities were working earlier in the week but are on the fritz now.

What do you do to keep sane while waiting on news?

My Lifestyle is Catching Up With Me...

For years a friend and I made a huge deal about the Oscars. We had an ongoing bet about who could guess the most winners and it got elaborate. Sealed envelopes mailed across the country, faxes, midnight deadlines - it was a ball. The loser had to pay for this wildly decadent brunch on Easter in LA. That doesn't happen anymore - so so so sadly. It was a stupidly amazing brunch and I usually won. Since we've stopped doing that, I've stopped caring quite so much about the Oscars. This year I actually had a chance to see a few more Oscar films - of which I've seen ONE. And instead I choose to see In Bruges. (A great little film - highly recommend). Usually, I can be counted on to care about watching the Oscars. I really really like the dresses and Cate Blanchett's dress usually makes watching a three hour show totally worth it. And I love Jon Stewert.

I saw exactly ten minutes this year. I was asleep with my toddler at 9:30.

Javier Bardem (handsome dude) and his silver bedecked mother. That's what I saw. I heard there were some fun upsets in the actress category - that usually makes for some entertainment. But from what I saw on the red carpet -- the dresses were really boring. The jewelery was spectacular. But, again, I didn't see Cate.

So, tell me those of you with a more exciting life than mine -- how was it?

Where the art comes in

I’m thinking back to Maureen’s post on can writing be taught? I believe everyone can learn to craft a sentence, come up with some sort of conflict and characterization, but lately, I’m discovered the books I enjoy the most do something that I believe is due inherently to the talent of the author.

They raise deeply compelling questions at the beginning of the book and answer those questions at the time when the reader absolutely is dying to know the answer, but as the author answers that question, at the same time, the author also raises two more compelling questions.

It’s knowing not only the question to raise, but also, the answer the reader really wants, but doesn’t expect.

I think that’s the art of it.

And even the most talented writers don’t get that knack for it in the first, second, even third books. Judging from the list of rejections of some of the best-selling authors out there, I would say it takes time and lots of writing to really finesse the talent.

The questions don’t have to be plot driven, they can be characterizations that are hinted at, something held back that keeps the reader needing to know more. And it’s a delicate balancing act, because as writers we have to give the reader enough to raise curiosity, but not so much we give away the baby with the bathwater.

To me it’s the magical element of storytelling. It's the one element that's the most trial and error, hit and miss.

It seems really instinctual to me, but I'd love to hear other perspectives on this.

Plus, am finally catching Damages. Caught the first episode this past Monday and wow, speaking of raising questions. This show has seriously got me hooked in one episode.

On Contests

Okay, so I had another topic that I'd been thinking about blogging about this week... but something has got my mind on contests, again ;-)

And it's not just the ABNA thing. I'm the coordinator for my local RWA chapter's contest this year and I've spent a good chunk of the last week getting everything ready to go for that.

My opinion on writing contests has vacillated considerably over the five or so years I've been writing. The first contest I ever entered, the feedback I got just made me angry. I suppose it was the first time I'd received absolutely objective feedback. Not that I think my CP's or writing instructors had been lying to me... but they gave me feedback face-to-face, and so couched the negative in positives and were likely gentler than the anonymous judges.

I should see if I still have that entry and the feedback to check, but I expect much of it would echo the feedback I'd give if judging my 2003 era work. (But I think a few things would still make me angry. Some people have strong and strange biases and while you hope a judge won't let her bias show... it often does.)

A year later, armed with a new manuscript, I entered a whole whack of contests -- every one I could find that had a final round judge from Harlequin, the house I was targeting with that ms. I think that's the year my eyes were opened about the hit or miss subjectivity of contests. So much depends on the quality of the judges (which you can't control) and their likes and dislikes. And the only way to "control" the likes and dislikes part is to write something very vanilla, sure not to offend anyone, and while that might get you ahead in contests, I firmly believe it will NOT help you get published.

My mileage certainly varied contest to contest that year. In my own local chapter's contest, I did terrible. Whoever in TRW read my stuff that year hated it. Two out of three of them, anyway. Enough to put me way down in the pack. The exact same entry came second in the NYC chapter's contest and 3rd in the New Jersey one, and finalled in one more... Can't remember which. Now, I guess that's not a great ad for the contest I'm running this year, LOL. But it made me realize just how much luck goes into contests. You have to get the right judges. (Don't even get me started on my ms that BOMBED in the GH one year and finalled the next -- with no changes.)

I don't enter many contests anymore. I've got an agent to get my work in front of editors and don't feel like I need the pats on the back that contests can sometimes bring. (Okay, sometimes I do.)

That said, obviously I enter some. Higher profile ones. Ones where the stakes are high enough to make it worth the trouble.

How about you? Do you enter contests? What makes you decide which ones to pick?

Why I am LOST...all over again.

I have held onto Lost through thick and thin. Polar bears, black smoke, strange cabin in the woods, others, the other others, the former/earlier others, Locke's flying leap off the deep end, Charlie's totally unnecessary death, Kate and Sawyer - I've watched and I've waited, sure sooner or later my dedication would be rewarded by one answer. Any answer. The black smoke, maybe? I would love to know about the black smoke.

And just when I get so frustrated and tired of the show -- they pull me back in. Not with answers. Heaven forbid we get answers. But with questions so much bigger and so much better that the make the earlier questions look inconsequential. Silly me, worrying about black smoke when I really should be worrying about WHO WAS IN THAT COFFIN?

This season of Lost has me hook, line and sinker. Adding Jeremy Davies, the Chinese actor who was so freaking amazing in The Sopranos and Sucker-Free City, as well as the flash-forward scenes - strokes of genius.

Husband is still frustrated. Last week when the writers did what is so frequently done on Lost - first, telling the audience something we don't know about a character and then having that character tell the rest of the characters that - not only do they know what was just revealed - but they have known forever. This little device manages to just raise more questions without answering anything. Anyway, husband nearly threw the remote through the screen. He's on the verge. But I feel like having watched through the second season and the nightmares they created then - now it's as good as the first season again. I trust the writers. I'm loving every storyline. Matthew Fox is really an unbelievable anchor for the show.

Yep, I'm totally Lost. And totally loving it.

What to do when a book is going off the rails…

Working on my current WIP and having a hard time with it. A really hard time with what is essentially a first draft. It’s writing slower than any book I’ve ever written before. Each page is eeked out with what seems like blood and sweat, and I know, and it kills me, that I’m basically going to have to re-write two thirds from scratch for the second draft.

Why?

Karma maybe. The last book was pretty easy to write, certainly the first draft came out almost as a dream.

I’m really critical of myself on this book.. which might be proving to be anti-productive. I feel like I should be writing faster and better and what’s happening is the opposite.

I’m also trying to write the first book of what I hope will be a series, and I know the decisions made now will affect future books. (assuming this sells, which shouldn’t enter my mindframe now as it doesn’t do the writing any good)

And I just didn’t have a handle on some key elements of the character. And it’s taken me a long time to figure them out, and even still I don’t think I know for sure. My hero is proving particularly troublesome and he has a huge character arc throughout the story, so knowing him well is important.

So I’ve found myself going back to re-work scenes, which I almost never do. Plotting out again and again, writing scenes that don’t belong in the book just to understand characters better.

I think I’m just going to have to file this one under ‘some books are hard to write’. Hopefully in the end it will be worth it.

What techniques work for the writers out there when a book isn’t going well?

Can writing be taught?

Okay, so I'm stealing this topic from one of the forums for the ABNA contest I'm part of. It's interesting being a part of such a diverse group of writers -- at least as "a part of" as one can be while mostly lurking on the forums.

I've found most of my forum lurking exasperating. People whining that the Publishers Weekly reviewer obviously didn't read their whole book (who's fault is that, writer, if you couldn't hold a reviewer's interest???) to people who seem to think that books of a certain type or genre have no place in the contest, or it's "cheating" to ask people you know to write reviews. Makes me crazy.

But the most exasperating thing I've found personally... is the whole attitude of some of the entrants that this contest is a good opportunity to get and give critiques.

Now, for some of the entrants it might be. It might be the first time anyone has ever seen their work. They may view this as a great opportunity to learn what other writers think about their work, or would have done differently. But it's not a critique group, people. It's a contest. To me there's a big difference between a critique and a review. My ms has already been critiqued up the wazoo. Not to mention entered in multiple contests over the past three years. The only critique I'd still listen to on that ms would be one from an editor who's offered me a contract. Then, if it's ever published, if people don't like it, they can feel free to write me a negative review.

Wow, I have SERIOUSLY digressed.

Oooops. ** Maureen blushes, but doesn't delete the digression, then goes back and deletes some of it. **

Back to my planned topic...

One interesting subject that did come up on those loops was whether or not writing can be taught. Scanning through the discussion, I'm pretty sure that the more literary writers fall in the "no it can't" camp, while the popular fiction writers fall in the "yes it can" camp. Although that's a generalization.

Me, as usual, I have a foot in both camps. Love fence sitting. (or dual camp standing)

But seriously. I firmly believe that there is both a craft and an art element to writing fiction. And that the craft part can be taught. Now, not everyone is going to learn it as easily or as well, and not everyone who learns it will be able to apply it to their writing as well, but you can teach people how to make their prose and storytelling stronger. There are techniques that really work and can be taught. I know this. I feel I have learned and proven this through my own experience and have seen others learn and apply techniques, with great success, too.

But I also do think there's a nebulous, almost magic, element that certain writers possess. One that most of us will never have, or will never have as much of, in any case. Whether it's an ability to interpret human behavior in a way most of us don't see, or turn a phrase in an unexpected way, make us cry with the beauty of their words, or make us hold onto the edge of our seats, or take us places we never imagined, they've got something that I'm not sure can be taught.

What do you think... Can writing be taught?

Wanda Ottewell is so SMART!

And I'm not just saying that because she's my editor. If she wasn't my editor and I had seen the talk she gave at the Toronto Romance Writers meeting on Saturday - I would want her to be my editor.

I've been with Wanda for six years and, frankly, I can't always say that I loved her. She made me rewrite a book from scratch and pulled me out of editoral line up. She told me Flipside was over and then when I told her I wanted to write for Superromance she wasn't 100% excited about that idea. I got an agent because I wasn't totally sure how to deal with my editor. (Which is an excellent reason to get an agent for anyone who is wondering why you might or might not want an agent when you're already with a publisher. )

But, man, times have changed. And I was struck dumb on saturday by how lucky I am to have her making my work better. She has a great vision for Superromance - she understands that readers come to Superromance for home and family stories but that if we want to get MORE readers and younger readers we need to give them fast paced stories with lots of conflict and edge of the seat emotional drama. She wants readers to be grabbed by the throat in the first scene and wrestled to the ground by the end of the first chapter. I love that! I seriously love that! And as writers we have so many tools at our disposal to make that happen - emotion, suspense, humor, character - the list goes on. Let's use them. Let's use all of them!

She explained that in Superromance (this is my takeaway and paraphrasing so take that for what it's worth) each character has to have a conflict and goal with HUGE stakes attatched that will jeopardize the romantic happily ever after. EACH CHARACTER. So you've got two characters working through thier stuff, against external stuff and all that stuff has to come in to play against the romance. That's a lot of stuff. And it's hard. But it has to be real and believable. And something that I really loved is that the reader has to close the book feeling that this love the two characters have found is the safe place for them to work out thier crap. Not everything has to be roses in happily ever afters - but we have to believe that life is easier for these two because they've found each other. Isn't that beautiful?

She's opening up Superromance for all kinds of plot lines (except paranormal - she really really stressed that) but romantic suspense is welcome and light stories are welcome. Not every book has to have a kid or a baby or a cowboy. There can be a full range of sensuality. They are looking for new authors. Her big pet peeves are information dumps in the first two chapters. Slow pacing. Conflict that can be resolved by an honest conversation or conflict that is simply two people bickering for page after page.

My friends and I all talked about what she'd said at the meeting and we agreed that's good writing advice. Period. For Superromance, other category lines, single title romance or genre fiction of any kind. And that's why I love my editor.

Welcome, Eileen Cook

My friend Eileen Cook's debut novel, Unpredictable, was released this week. I've been waiting to get my hands on a copy of this book for AGES. If Eileen lived in Toronto, she'd definitely be a drunk writer. I know this because I've had martinis with her. Girl knows how to throw a good hotel room party at a conference and I was lucky enough to get an invite.

In honor of her release... I asked Eileen to comment on her experiences to date with her book launch, publicity, guest blogging and all that jazz. I'm so mad she didn't tell me about her appearance on Breakfast TV, like before it happened??? The Vancouver version of that show even comes on TV here at a reasonable hour... Oh well.

Take it away, Eileen!


The F. Scott Fitzgerald quote about writers is hitting home these days as my first book, Unpredictable, is released. (By first book I mean of course, the first book that should ever be allowed out from my office, not the first book I’ve written.)

“Writers aren't exactly people...they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

The situation is even more complicated than ol’ F. Scott could have imagined. It isn’t just your characters that want a piece of you and your time. To be a writer now often means juggling your day job, family and friends while trying to squeeze in time for the part of yourself that you’ve designated as writer.

Now if you have fellow writers as friends (and if you don’t, you really should- fabulous people writers), then you have to add another dimension to your personality- therapist. Writers are good people- but we spend a lot of time out on the ledge. Someone has to talk us down from our latest creative crisis, so you’ll need to fit that in somewhere. If you do it for a fellow writer, they’ll do it for you.

You also have to take on the role of being your own book pimp. Books die with a short shelf life if there is no word of mouth, and as the writer you’re the one who cares the most. You find yourself trying to figure out if you have any friends of friends who might be able to help you get any media attention. You learn how to write a press release, pound your head on the keyboard trying to think of one more blog topic and find yourself making your own mini store display of your books when the clerks aren’t watching. (Not that I have ever done this mind you- the book just came out yesterday. I won’t build my own displays until at least next week.)

I like the idea of being a solitary writer, alone in a garret somewhere with only my imaginary characters as company- but life is far messier and more complicated. But on the upside- all this mess gave me a blog topic so it can’t be all bad.

Special Guest Alert!

Debut author Eileen Cook will be guest blogging on DWT this week. Her book, Unpredictable, is finally out! Yippee!

No one really knows anything.

I know I don’t. I occasionally speak with authority on the state of the romance market, or what’s hot, but really, other than reading the latest sales, I know jack shit. I can extrapolate based on the info out there, but then a sale will happen that will prove me wrong.

On the few lists I now subscribe to, there’s always a few people writing with complete authority on the market, what editors are looking for, what’s not hot and what people should be writing and how they should be writing it.
And almost 100% of the time, they don’t know much either.

There are workshops in every conference on how to plot, how not to plot, how to write characters, how to ensure the right pacing, and a lot of them have great information, in the right framework. I know the first conference I went to, my head got completely turned, and for the next year I was so busy trying to write the way I’d been told, I forgot how to write in a way that worked for me.

Now, I know which writing tools work for me and which don’t, but that took writing several books, and sometimes I wish I’d written the first two books in a vacuum, without having been to any workshops, or knowing anything of the market. Not that those books would have sold, but I would have figured out what I’m most comfortable with faster, I think.

I love that romance authors, published and otherwise are so generous with their knowledge and time, and I would certainly encourage any newbie to take advantage, but to understand there is a magic to this that I don’t believe can be pinned down in a writing seminar. Learn the tools, but discover the magic, through writing, and through experiencing great stories, in which ever format they come in.

And I’m not saying this with authority. With each book I learn tons more, and I’m up to book number five, or six, I think. By book number twenty, I could be singing a whole new tune.

On being a writer

Actually, this isn't about being a writer so much as calling yourself one. Earlier this week, Kimber suggested one of us address this topic, so I thought I'd address it. (I'm always glad to have someone else think up a topic for me. (See the lazy part below.)

I've heard writers at conferences and in articles say things like, "As long as you write you're a writer and should call yourself one," or "If you don't call yourself a writer, you aren't committed," and other such nonsense.

The reason I think statements like these are nonsense is at least twofold.

First, well, who cares what you call yourself? How you label what you do doesn't change what you do or make you more or less successful at it, or make it any less real. So who cares?

Second, I think when to start outing yourself as a writer and when to start saying, "I'm a writer who may or may not have a day job, too" versus, "I'm a whatever who also writes," is totally personal. No one can tell you how you feel about your writing or how to describe it -- which are two separate things anyway.

So, that said, I can only speak with any authority about my own experience, my own decisions. I've been calling myself a writer for about three years now. A turning point was answering the "what do you do" question at a US immigration desk on the way to a conference a few winters ago. Up to that point, I'd been kind of jokey and dismissive of my writing when talking about it with family and friends, and always wrote CA on my immigration and customs forms, but I decided that for me, I wanted to change that. Take it more seriously. And for me, saying it made it feel more serious.

Adding to my personal decision was that I wasn't then, and am not now, working in another paying job. So, while I can still legally say, "I'm a Chartered Accountant," if I want to, (I still pay the dues and do the continuing ed stuff), I haven't worked in a job where I needed to be a CA for over five years. On top of that, my friends and family know I'm not working, so basically if I didn't out myself as a writer, everyone would think I'm totally lazy and have way too much time on my hands. (Well, I am lazy and I do have too much time on my hands... but that's not the point.) As any self-employed person knows, it's hard to protect your time, and without explaining to others what you're trying to do with your time... well, it'd be impossible. For me, anyway.

So, I am a writer.

How about you? Do you call yourself a writer? If yes, when did you start? If no, why not?

Writing is ruining EVERYTHING!

Sinead's last post and the resulting discussion is something we talk about a lot. Why are there so many bad books coming out? Do people really want to read these rehashed plots and cardboard characters? Well, the answer is clearly yes. The New York Times Bestseller list is filled with books that all seem vaguely familiar. And frankly, the problem isn't the books - it's us. We're writers and we're working on our craft and trying to figure things out and when we read a book - our inner editor is working full-time. Part of it is probably jealousy (how did this get sold when my books aren't) but most of it is what I heard a writer say (I want to say Laura Kinsale but I'm not sure) about why she doesn't read fiction anymore - "I've looked behind the curtain and seen the wizard." There's not much that can surprise us anymore - or mystify us - or really sweep us away. And because we've read so so so so much - and we all have, it's why we wanted to become writers - I think those things that do sweep us away are usually on the fringe. They're obscure and not seen before.

Romance is popular because it offers some predictability. It's just the nature of genre. And if we weren't trying to write it - we'd probably be a whole lot happier with it.

Writing has ruined reading. It's ruined movies and TV. It's ruined my Olympic swimming career and my knitting hobby. Damn you, writing. Damn you.

I’m not a prude…. Honest.

Been on a bit of a reading binge lately, mostly because my wonderful, and ubertalented critique partners keep handing me great books to read.
So I am in heaven.
A lot of paranormals and historicals, almost all of which have been tagged with the label, erotic, or steamy by the publishers.
One, which will remain nameless, is really well written and well plotted and I’m halfway through and it’s about as steamy as a frozen lake, which doesn’t at all detract from how much I’m enjoying it.
And clearly the publisher is just trying to drum up more sales for a really well deserving author by calling it steamy.
Another historical I’m reading has an amazing, different setting, a really unique heroine and is gripping, in all the scenes that don’t revolve around the hero and heroine lusting after each other, or having sex. Those scenes are almost laughable and seriously detract from the pacing of the book.
Feeling the same way about many of the paranormals I’ve read lately.
And hey, I love a good sex scene as much as anyone out there, but when my reaction to a book is, it would have been better without all the sex, that’s somewhat sad.
When the sex works, and it furthers character and plot, see JR Ward and Anne Stuart, then fantastic..
And I know publishers label books as erotic because steamy books sell better. Or at least that seems to be the way of things in paranormal and historical.
Why are those two genres different from romantic suspense, a genre that doesn’t seem to need the steamy label to attract readers?
Why is there a different reader expectation depending on genre? Or is it just that publishers seem to believe there is.
Or is this another trend that’s about to be oversaturated, like chick lit was four years ago.
I’m posing a question I honestly have no idea how to answer and I would love to hear if anyone knows, or has a theory.

I don't get the Oscar noms this year.

Okay, so this is a little off topic for drunk writer talk... but there are some really crazy nominations for the Oscars this year. Maybe it won't be the end of the world if the ceremony isn't broadcast.

Setting aside the acting and best movie awards for a second... Why the heck was Eddie Vedder not nominated for best score and multiple times for best song for Into the Wild??? The music made that movie and it was a great movie. I love that Hal Holbrook got a nomination for this movie, though... Back when I first saw it at the film fest in September, I thought Holbrook should get a nomination... But I also predicted nominations for Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Catherine Keener and Eddie Vedder.

What's with nominating virtually every song from Enchanted? I mean, it was a cute movie and all, and a few of the songs were funny... But seriously? How boring will the ceremony be when we have to sit through the entire song list from Enchanted! When we could be watching Eddie Vedder perform???

Speaking of Hal Holbrook, the supporting actor list was probably one of my favorites. I love that Holbrook got a nod. Really, you must see this movie. He'll break your heart. And I love that Casey Affleck got a nomination for The Assassination of Jessie James... even though he was really the lead in that movie. The Affleck boys had a good year and it's nice to see Affleck the younger getting some recognition.

The actress in a leading role list seems off to me, too... Cate Blanchett was good and all, but the Elizabeth sequel just wasn't that strong a movie and hey, hasn't she already won an Oscar for playing the exact same role? And while I loved Away from Her and love that a Canadian movie is getting Oscar recognition (Sarah Polley also got a nomination for writing the screenplay)... It does feel like Julie Christie's nomination is a bit sentimental and nostalgic... look, Julie Christie is acting again. Look, she's still beautiful in her sixties. Still talented. Not that there's anything wrong with all this. The movies have been sorely missing Julie Christie and if it takes her getting all these nominations for her to get cast in more good movies, I guess I'm for it. Don't know what my point is here. I guess when I try to think who I'd put on this list to replace her... I'm at a loss. I must keep a better list of the films I see this year so I have a reference point next year.

I love that Juno is getting lots of recognition... The not-a-Canadian film that might as well be. Filmed in Canada with a Canadian director and Canadian lead actors, Ellen Page and Michael Cera. Actually, very cool that Jason Reitman got a nomination when his dad is such a famous and successful director and producer and never won any major awards for it. (Little piece of trivia I heard today... Ivan Reitman actually won a Genie (Canadian film award) for his 1980's (or was it late 70's?) film Meatballs. Too funny.)

The foreign film list is a total mystery to me. And I see a lot of films. In fact, I saw all of the foreign films nominated for the Golden Globe in this category... And I've never even heard of any of these films. Not one.

Okay, no real conclusions here. The entire nomination list just feels flat, predictable and lacking excitement for me.

One more dash of trivia... This year's list does confirm, however, the TIFF's reign as the official launching pad for Oscar contenders... Looking down the list of films in the major categories... All of these films were in the Toronto Festival this year:
Michael Clayton; In the Valley of Elah; Eastern Promises; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; No Country for Old Men; Into the Wild; Elizabeth: The Golden Age; Away from Her; The Savages; Juno; I'm Not There; Atonement; Persepolis; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Across the Universe; Lars and the Real Girl.

I didn't do a calculation... but I'll bet that's something way better than 80% of the films -- excluding the ones in the makeup and sound categories, which rarely tend to be film festival types of movies. A couple of those foreign language films may have been at the festival. Don't know. If they were, they weren't ones on my radar screen or that I heard any buzz about...

Who wants to take bets on whether or not the strike will be over in time for the Oscars? Not sure I care so much anymore.

Tina Fey wants to be my friend

I am sure of this. I am sure of this because of her American Express print ads - the one with her baby sitting at her desk and Tina's sitting under the desk surrounded by the mess of her messy successful mom/wife/writer/huge star life. Across from the picture is what she claims to be her perfect day which includes - naps, exercise, going to the park, movies, dinner with adults - that's my perfect day too! Eerie. No?

And while it might have started with this print ad my love grows for her every week with 30 Rock and it's not just because as the star and writer of the show it's the only show with new content - it's just that 30 Rock is easily the funniest, most ridiculous show on television with absolutely a heart of gold. Case in point - the last episode with Gladys Knight and the giant sing-a-long at the end of I'm Leaving On A Jetplane. Perfect because you saw it coming a mile away but at the same time it was the freshest, funniest most unexpected thing ever. Probably because Tracey Morgan started it off. Which is another reason I love Tina Fey -- she rescued Morgan from whatever he was doing after wasting away on Saturday Night Live -- and gave him a platform for his really really strange humour. The guy is hilarious. And who knew he'd go so well with Alec Baldwin? The episode when Alec Baldwin told Tracey Morgan that Baldwin was his father? And he left because "your moms didn't want me around no more."

30 Rock has totally eclipsed The Office for my favorite comedy on television.

And as a side note -- what the hell is going on with Friday Night Lights? How can they take something so sweet and ruin it like they are ruining it? I'm still watching - but I am getting close to not caring.

Anyway - back to stalking Tina Fey.

Opening up a can of worms..

So a lot of you reading this might be at least aware of the plagiarism scandal hitting the romance writing world. An author, who I believe has been writing for years, had paragraphs in her books that were almost word for word the same from research books she might have used.

I’ve read a little on this, and everyone seems to have an opinion, most of them extremely negative.

And hey, we all know plagiarism is wrong and stupid and ultimately someone’s going to catch you.

That said, could every one get off their high horse already. We don’t know how this happened, we don’t know if the author in question copied the passages directly from the text, or just happens to have a brilliant memory. She might not have realized what she was doing was wrong.

I know some of you out there might be chuckling at that statement, but the two other incidents of highly publicized plagiarism I know of revolved around authors taking pages and pages of another author’s fictional work.

What she did was lazy writing. A character thinking, or talking in the same way a textbook would, is just plain bad writing.

But there are lots of other authors out there guilty of that.

As a historical author I do a lot of research. I have historical texts all over my house, some of which I’ve read more than once. I use them for fact checking, more than anything else, but it’s possible I could someday have a character describe something in terms really similar to a text and not even realize I’m doing it.
I’m not saying it’s likely, just a possibility.

And because of that possibility, I’m willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Or at least not sneer from my ivory tower at the horrors of plagiarism.

Because if I admit the possibility, I’ll work harder to ensure it doesn’t happen and I’ll feel more for the people who slip up.

Trying to be Smart

Sorry to be posting so late in the day, but I've had a little excitement. My manuscript, THE MISEDUCATION OF APRIL HILLSON, has made the semi-final round of the Amazon Breakout Novel Competition.

To read the excerpt and post a review, click here. Making it to the next round requires lots of positive reviews... so if you have a chance, I'd appreciate your support. (I've just learned of a complication that you need to be an Amazon.com customer -- the American store -- in order to post a review. This sucks. I'm looking into it and will let you know if Amazon fixes this. The authors are from all over the world. I think there were 12 countries from which writers were eligible to enter. The reviews should be eligible from those 12 or so countries, too. Luckily, some of my Canadian friends have Amazon.com accounts, but I've had people who are loyal customers of Amazon.ca and Amazon.nz and Amazon.uk tell me they weren't allowed to post a review.)

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled post.

And I don't have it all that well thought out. But I wanted to talk about the double edged sword of trying to be smart in this business. I guess there are tons of ways to be smart or the converse, but here I mean: trying to find that intersection between the books you want to and think you can write, and the books the market seems to want at any particular point in time.

This is a tough thing. One never knows for sure about these things, (oh, for a crystal ball) but I think it's highly possible that if my April Hillson ms hit the desks of NYC a year earlier, it might have sold. It certainly would have had a greater chance, anyway. Conversely, I think fellow DWT Sinead had a book that hit desks a year or two too early for what the market was doing.

I'd like to pretend I wasn't chasing trends when I started that book, in fact, I wasn't thinking chick lit at all when I started it. I was going to target the NEXT line at Harlequin... but it just came out with a chick lit sort of voice, although the subject matter is decidedly not chick lit. But, some editors painted me with that brush and frankly, with the glut of chick lit on the shelves and warehouses, and pipelines at major publishing houses when my ms was submitted, it was getting hard to sell anything in the commercial women's fiction arena.

C'est la vie.

I've written another complete women's fiction ms since then and started another, but it sometimes all feels so pointless. Like I'm writing books that are missing that magic intersection and I could be smarter about the whole thing.

So, I've just switched gears again. An idea came at me in a rush just before Christmas that I think might be at that magic intersection between books I like, books I think I can write well, and what the market's doing right now.

Problem is... I fear I'm too late for the market surge once again.

How does one balance this? Makes me crazy.

When Plotting Isn't Much Different From Pantsing...

I think I've said this before but - I used to be a pantser and then when I started to sell books it behooved me to become a plotter and then I became a seriously anal retentive plotter. Fifteen page synopsis with snippets of dialogue and characters thoughts were my forte. And still are, but man they take a lot of time to do and I've got less and less time it seems every day.

And so now I find myself in a strange spot. I am at the big black moment and third act in my current WIP and I find that I need a little guidance because I've managed to keep my romantic conflict on the plot lines I had laid out - my subplots have run amock (in a seriously fantastic and bizarre way - I adore my subplots right now and don't want to change them) and now these crazy unplanned plot lines and my romantic plot line are converging. So, looking for guidance I go to the synopsis I turned in with the first three chapters, thinking that my anal retentive plotting habits will give me some footholds for writing my black moment scene.

Here's what it says:

J.D. comes face to face with his past and the man he believes he truly is.

What? Huh? That's what I came up with? Isn't that every black moment? Where are the snippets of dialogue? The clever thoughts I can just plug right into poor J.D.'s head? Where's the help? Where's the plot? Who does he think he is? Who do I think he is? I thought I did all this work already?

So, here I am staring at 50 blank pages. I've got a mob boss, ( I know? I'm not kidding - a mob boss) a pregnant teenager, a man who needs to go on the run from the mob boss, a nine year old boy who wants his mommy and a woman who wants to sleep the next 50 pages away because J.D. can't get his head out of his butt (not me, thought I wouldn't mind a nap) And I have no idea what to do with all of them. In fifty pages. Isn't this what pantsers face every time they sit down to write? It's making me a little nervous. And you know something - I just don't like it. Pantsing is for people braver than I.