Nov 15, 2007
I eat off the most popular china pattern in the world: Blue Willow. I’ve always loved the rich color and elaborate design, and knew there was a famous legend depicted. Now that I know exactly what it is, my appetite may never be the same.
There are a couple of versions, but basically, a young noblewoman and her father’s secretary fall in love and run off together. Eventually they are found and roasted alive in a fire. Somehow they get turned into birds, which is supposed to make everything all right. I don’t think so. I’ve always been annoyed with Romeo and Juliet, and this is just more of the same doomed love crap.
When I was younger, I enjoyed star-crossed lovers, Heathcliff pining for Cathy, et al. I carried a torch for a lost love for years until my husband charmed the pants off me. Oh, you know what I mean. Now I want that guaranteed happily-ever-after in my books and movies. No Anna Karenina throwing herself under the train or Edna wading into the water in The Awakening. No suffering. No way.What’s the story on your china? What unhappily-ever-after book has stuck with you?
Nov 12, 2007
You may not have noticed, but there’s a list to the right called “Books I’ve Loved Lately,” BILL for short. Topping it right now is Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill, a laugh-out-loud slice of the London life of a thirty-something mother of three boys. Lucy Sweeney is meant to be a very imperfect heroine—and I did find it almost too annoying that she constantly lost credit cards and keys, ran out of gas in a car that should have been condemned as a heath hazard, and more than fantasized about Sexy Domesticated Dad, a parent at her sons’ school. She was a walking disaster. I wanted to scream, “Do some laundry! Make a list! Stop dithering!” But the pros of the book far outweighed the cons. What parent cannot identify with the thrill of finding Luke Skywalker’s inch-long light saber after months of searching? What married couple’s romantic rendezvous hasn’t been interrupted by a terrorizing toddler? The supporting characters in the book each have key roles to play, and I spent much of the night snorting with laughter (and gagging once) as Lucy mismanages her life.
I read a lot, but put very, very few books in the BILL category. Books that land there don’t have to be perfect (see above), but they must have an indescribable something. There. That’s clear as mud. What book is on your BILL list?
Nov 9, 2007
We’re not talking Irish thoroughbreds. Infamous Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss plans to open up a brothel in the Nevada desert catering to a female clientele exclusively. I do not object to the legalization of prostitution and lord knows, with every other romance book having courtesan in the title, even romance novels have come around. Brothels and gaming hells are a staple of Historical Romanceland, but sexual mores were vastly different then, if we are to believe everything we read.
But somehow I am icked out that a woman would pay to have her sexual urges satisfied. Modern-day men who pay for sex are rather pitiable to me. Maybe I’m too unworldly, but sex is inescapably twinned with love, or at least like, in my universe. Sex with strangers is, frankly, scary. And sad.
And then there are the mechanics of it. I know men are reputedly hound-dogs and can get it up for anything that moves, but….
Heidi is experiencing some red tape, and right now she’s operating a business called Dirty Laundry. That’s right. A laundromat. She’s keeping it clean for the time being.
Now, it would be my ultimate fantasy to have someone do my laundry rather than do me. I still have towels in the dryer from last weekend. What would you have your stud do for you?
Nov 6, 2007
Caveat: Reading is a subjective exercise. One woman’s masterpiece is another’s mess. I read a book not long ago, by an established author from a major publishing house, that I thought was pretty awful. It suffered from a ton of Telling, not Showing. The plot had holes you could drive a Hummer through. The heroine was schizophrenically passive/sheltered/feisty/yeah, there’s a strange drunk guy in my bed, let’s get it on ; the hero the usual “I’m not a real rake, but you’ll think I am because the heroine keeps catching me in the arms of my old lover whom I hate but I’m rescuing because I’m rich and a nice guy.”
Here is a sample:
Most of the privileged, rich and well-connected guests had already arrived. Swarms of titled, wealthy and influential people invaded the house, lawns and terraces, their colourful gowns, jackets and painted parasols echoing the bright colours of the flowerbeds and the graceful sculptures.
Lady____, widowed after just five years of marriage, was flitting among them like a butterfly. With her confident manner she presented an imposing figure.
Umm, a confident, flitting, imposing butterfly-widow. Privileged, rich, well-connected, titled, wealthy AND influential guests, in case you missed the implication. House, lawns, terraces, gowns, jackets, parasols, flowerbeds and SCULPTURES, brightly coloured. I’m picturing a giant Bob’s Big Boy or maybe a Ronald McDonald on the widow’s lawn. I know I’m being snarky, but somewhere an editor was asleep, or possibly deceased, at the switch.
I go through long bouts of deadness myself, and when the muse is not flitting like an imposing butterfly, I usually prefer not to write. God help me if I ever have to write to a deadline. I’ll have to invest in a whole lepidoptera house. With my luck, the little buggers will stay caterpillars and never flit at all.
Read any bad stuff lately? No names, please. Has writing spoiled reading for you? If you’d like, please indulge your inner editor and revise the passage above.
Nov 3, 2007
Well before Sarah Jessica Parker taught us everything about sex and friendship, she was on a TV show called Square Pegs. It featured geeky kids who didn’t quite fit in but were the better for it. Watching it with my own children reminded me of the pain of adolescence, which somehow revives itself at the worst moments. Who among us feels supremely self-confident 24/7? Not me.
As a kid I was too smart for my own good and skipped two grades. I don’t think this happens anymore, and that’s probably a good thing. While I was physically well-developed, I’m sure emotionally I could have benefited from a more gradual introduction to the teenage years—like when I was actually a teen. I started high school when I was eleven. I graduated at 15, an age when many kids are just finishing their awkward freshman year. I’m not saying the experience made me crazy, but there are times I wonder about the wisdom of the principal, Miss Charlotte Patterson (who looked exactly like the portrait of George Washington in the school hallway—in fact, I thought it was she until I was in second grade).
In college, things really came together for me, both academically and socially, but there was always that hint of uncertainty. Now I want to hang out with the cool writer kids, and it’s just a touch intimidating. I’m not the baby of the class anymore. In fact, I’m the grandma. Hi, Juliette! Hi, Sadie Jane!
But I remind myself we all start out with a blank screen or piece of paper. We all feel like the ugly duckling sometimes. I’ve just got to flap my wings, morph into my swan-self and float away. And no matter what happens, I’m not going to sink.
Geek? Freak? Or Beauty Queen? I think I can claim all three (Remember, I was second runner-up to the May Queen. A couple of well-placed shoves, and that crown would have been mine.) . Do you think writers have to suffer to succeed? Have you given yourself a deadline for publication? What do you do to boost your self-confidence? Learn your craft? Who is your inspiration? Why am I asking so many questions?
Apparently, I can’t stop. Will you pay $ to see the Sex and the City movie? Have you seen SJP in the ghastly get-up that’s Carrie’s wedding dress? Now I’m done.
