Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 110

Happiness is Turkey Recipes

I’m not a fan of turkey in general, but once a year here in America it’s everywhere. Christmas has a variety of food traditions but for Thanksgiving, it’s turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It’s the law, unwritten but still firm. So every year about this time, our media is full of a thousand ways to cook a turkey, a thousand things to do with leftover turkey, a thousand videos of exploding deep fried turkeys setting garages on fire, not to mention the President pardoning a turkey, although who knows how that’s going to go this year, he’ll probably fire it. It’s our solstice, or at least our prelude to the solstice that’s going to show up three weeks later with the longest night of the year, followed by the most obnoxious holiday of the year, followed by a new year that’s bound to be better than the last because dear God . . . It’s the cycle, I’m talking about. Which is why I read all the turkey recipes with joy even if I’ll never make another one–there are other ways to make gravy which is what this is all about for me–because it means that last cycle to a new and better time is starting.

So all the turkey news makes me happy. What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, November 12, 2020

So I’ve been rereading Murderbot because I’m still imploding over the election and the aftermath, but I did get one new hit of narrative, not a book, a movie I had heard a lot of great things about and was still dumbfounded by when I saw it: Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse. Freaking amazing. I read some other things, but my brain is full of exploding dimensions and spider heroes, so really, if you haven’t, you should watch this.

Working Wednesday, November 11, 2020

The biggest working news for me is that my internet is working again. (It went out last night. Argh.)

What’s working at your house?

Happiness is a Safer, Saner Future

We Were Too Stressed to Talk About Fiction This Week

Edited to Add:

With any luck, Biden will get Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia which will put him over 300 votes for a solid Electoral College win, giving him both the popular vote by over four million and the EC. Thank god.

Earlier:

There is no HWSWA this week because Bob and I are both Americans and we were screaming too loudly to talk. We did e-mail, but since we’re both liberals–Bob kinda and me uber–there was much shared horrified and appalled reaction to the voting done by people who evidently can’t see a Fascist when he’s ranting in front of them.

We plan to be back next week. Depending on next week, of course; this is America, the entire country could fall into the ocean while on fire by then. In the meantime,I’ve been cooking and kicking raccoon ass, and now I’m thinking seriously about going to bed with some hot chocolate and my electric blanket and a lot of pillows, maybe some brownies. I’ve got a freezer full of leftovers, so I won’t have to cook, and I’ve had enough reality for awhile. Maybe I’ll get out of bed in 2021, or maybe I’ll stay there and write a romance novel with a hero based on Steve Kornacki because smart and calm and decent is very appealing to me right now.

This is a Good Book Thursday, November 5, 2020

I read a set of three linked books and I’m still bemused by them. They were well-written books about complicated people, technically romances I think, but I realized when the male lead from the first book died at the end of the third book and I thought, “Yeah, we could spare him,” that I’d become annoyed with all of them. I think it might be because the writing was detached, almost cold, even though the characters were emoting all over the place. It might also be because I couldn’t get a grip on the romance contract; there were triangles in two of the books and I didn’t care.

Then as an antidote I read a very, warm, sweet romance where the contract was clear with a good quirky cast of supporting players, but since everything was lovely all the time, at the end the author had to pile Big Misunderstanding on top of Big Misunderstanding and that was just annoying: if you people don’t trust each other any more than this, if you can’t TALK to each other to find out the truth, then I don’t care if you’re pregnant at the end and beaming at each other. Not to mention all the protagonist’s problems fell away at the end because all the other characters made such great decisions that accomodated her . . .

All of which is to say, I was difficult to please this week, although thanks to somebody on here, I read A Deadly Education, which had a protagonist I loved, and I’m reading the new Bloom County collection and laughing like a loon, so there is hope.

But the best thing I read this week was the NYT’s essay on Durer and the self-portrait by Jason Farago.. And I’m thinking maybe it’s time to try another self-portrait. Or maybe Anna will.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, November 4, 2020

I’m making fettuccine (shallots and rosemary and mushrooms and tarragon and tomatoes and basil and garlic and lemon and baby peppers and possibly some steak but not much) and throwing things out (why did I think there was going to be a shortage of cardboard boxes?). Also working on Anna, which I shut down on when reality became a real bastard and refused to leave my brain. I’m thinking it’s time to bake something; there’s work and then there’s work where you get to eat something chocolate warm from the oven when you’re done.

What did you work on this week? Brag here.

The Importance of Breathing

It’s 1:37AM on Tuesday, and I was sitting here working on finances and trying to figure out how to keep a stray cat in my house and keep out the fatass raccoon who keeps coming in to steal her food, and neither of these things is especially stressful–although that raccoon and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus shortly–and I realized I was tense, tense enough that I wasn’t breathing. Took a couple of lungfuls of breath and felt better. Remembered the fate of my country gets decided today. Took several more deep breaths. Returned to plotting against the raccoon.

I’d address this just to the American Argh People, but I’m fairly sure most of the rest of the world is watching in horror, too. Deep breaths. Extinction burst. Nothing but good times ahead.

Jokes, cheery news, comfort reads, and anything else you can think of to get us through this day, in the comments below, please. Argh.

Happiness is 2021 Approaching

Welcome to November, the penultimate month in the Year of the Rat Bastard. As I pulled my garbage can to the curb at 6AM, I saw my neighbor Allan doing the same thing. I said, “We have to stop meeting like this.” He said, “I heard they’re cancelling daylight savings time this year.” I said, “Really??? Why?” He said, “Nobody wants an extra hour of 2020.”

2021 is going to be better and it’s only eight weeks away. Plus there are gift-giving and getting holidays in there, and I might even finish writing a book or at least get closer to the end of one. And maybe Emily the stray cat will stop looking at me like I’m a limb of Satan and come into the warm. Once I get the heat fixed. Nothing but good times ahead.

PLEASE let there be good times ahead.

What made you happy this week?

HWSWA: Chat about 5/6ths of Anna Act One

Bob and I talk about Anna and her plot problems.

My questions after this 5/6ths of the first act first draft is done:

Why is all of this happening now?

How does the Anna/Nate relationship affect/echo/contrast with the crime subplot and vice versa?

What happens at the turning points and what do those things mean?

What the hell is this book about? (I usually can’t answer this until I have an entire first draft done, but I always try anyway.)

And then Toni read then first five chapters and pointed out the Elephant in the Plot: Anna has no positive goal which is why I don’t know what the book is about. I said a very bad word and then went back to cogitating.

Also, Happy Halloween! Candy is on sale now.