Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 115

HWSWA: Revising

The latest HWSEA post is up: Revising.. I’m not sure there’s enough info there to make it helpful, we’ve degenerated into nattering a lot, so I may put another post up there that streamlines the process I used to edit Nita. Assuming you all aren’t so tired of Nita you want to scream.

In other news, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is gone, and I am desperately trying to find a silver lining. I’d love to think her death would make things more difficult for Senate Republicans in Lean Democrat states, but mostly we just lost a great, strong, smart woman, who was probably really tired and just wanted to get out of those robe. RIP RBG, you were the best.

Food on Friday, September 18, 2020

By popular demand since I blew working Wednesday.

This week I made ravioli that was meh, and a pork chop recipe that was meh, and a chicken au jus (lemon and white wine) that was fabulous. There was also a very good ham sandwich but since that consisted of slapping a slab of ham on onion bun, I don’t think it counts as making something.

Also, thank you all for my birthday wishes which were incredibly cheering. I did have a lovely day, which included sitting in the yard and watching the sun through the trees in absolutely perfect weather while listening to the sound of oars on the lake, and talking to Mollie and my brother Jack and laughing a lot. An excellent day.

What did you cook (okay, or drink) this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, September 17, 2020

This week I read my first Jojo Moyes novel and reread a Carl Hiaasen (because that guy never disappoints) and started The Literature Book: Big Ideas Explained. Yeah, I know I have degrees in literature, it’s still good to get an overview again. There’s a whole series, so I bought the ones on Movies, Religion, and Science (things I do not have degrees in), plus the Heads Up books on Sociology and Psychology (other things I do not have degrees in).

And yes, I know I forgot Working Wednesday. Well, I just realized I forgot it. The days start to run together and I lose track. Can I interest you in Working Friday? ARGH.

HWSWA Theme

Yes, I know it’s late. I had computer problems. As in, my laptop turned into a brick, but everything is fine now, so moving on . . . HWSWA on Theme and Unity is up now.

Next week is rewriting, then working with an editor, and then just a general ramble about being a writer. Good to know we have a plan, isn’t it? Now if we could just FOLLOW it.

Happiness is a New Story

We cover how happy-making it is to find a great book on Thursdays, but it’s also pretty joyful to find a brand new TV series (well, new to me) that makes us want to binge the whole thing. For me, the newest is The Art of Crime, a French series (with subtitles) about a detective and an art historian working on art-related mysteries. They’re both a little bit nuts, although in different ways, and, by the end of the second season, co-dependent on each other as they chase down bad guys in gorgeous French settings–she works in the Louvre so there’s that eye candy plus the roofs of Paris and twisty little streets–set against beautiful works of art. There are two seasons on Amazon (you need a subscription to MHz) and a third season I can’t find anywhere, and it was just renewed for a fourth, so there’s more happy in store for the future. (Where the hell is the third season? It dropping in 2019, it should be on Amazon by now. Grrrrr.)

So what made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, September 10, 2020

This week I read Rainbow Rowell’s The Attachments and Fangirl and loved them. Eleanor and Park, not so much, but mainly because at this point I can’t take angst. It’s me, not Rowell, who’s the problem.

What are you reading?

Working Wednesday, September 9, 2020

I have a list of things to do, crucial things, and I don’t seem to be doing any of them. Like a disconnect between my logical brain and my confused body. (What day is it? Did I already do that? Am I out of Diet Coke ALREADY?). I’m hoping it’s just quarantine brain and not senility.

Tell me what you accomplished this week. Inspire me.

Happiness is Autumn Weather

It’s a gorgeous day here, not too hot, soft breeze, perfect September weather.

(Perfect for oversleeping, too. Sorry about that.)

How are you weathering things this week? What made you happy?

HWSWA: Setting

The HWSWA post on Setting is up.

So here’s a question, no here’s two questions:

1. Should we keep going in October or have we accomplished all we needed to by updating the old posts (which I still haven’t linked to because . . . dizzy.)

2. If we keep going, what the hell would we do?

Maybe I’ll just start doing questionable again. The real problem is that I think we’re all so exhausted by the insanity around us, the new normal that isn’t normal, plus those of us in the US have an insane moron telling us to vote twice and that people who die in battle are losers, so we’re a little worried about an election in eight weeks, that it’s hard to care about anything, certainly about whether or not a prologue is the sign of the apocalypse. Argh.

Also I just woke up which is not a good time for me to attempt coherent thought.

The HWSWA post is up! It’s on Setting! I haven’t read it since the chat but it did have good stuff in it!

Argh. Next week is about revising Theme and Unity.

Rating Romance, a Personal System

I’ve been reading a lot of romance lately, and the results have been mixed. Sometimes I get a third of the way through and everything is just annoying, so I flip to the end and then bail. Sometimes the book is so good that I race through it and then start it again. More often, it’s good enough to finish, but when I’m done, I think, “I’ll never read that one again.” Then they just stack up on my Kindle. Reader kindling. (Sorry.). While my laptop was silent this weekend, I started thinking about a personal rating system, probably not useful for anyone else but a way to identify the authors I was going to go back to and the authors I was going to metaphorically throw things at, and it seemed to me that the same things kept triggering me, points at which my brain flashed “OH, that was great” or “One more of those and I’m setting this book on digital fire.” Flash points, if you will, the reading experience temperature at which the reader ignites with glee or rage.

I figured a ten-point system. All books start out with 100 points, the C of the book ratings, the books I finish but never read again. Books get plus ten if they do something magnificently. Minus ten would be a novel that does something so annoying I want to burn it in my back yard. Plus and minus five would be things that are nice surprises or annoying but not complete deal-breakers on their own. Plus and minus one are small pleasures and small annoyances that I could absolutely overlook as long as they don’t mount up (nibbled to death by ducks).

THE POINT SYSTEM PLUS RATINGS

• There’s a dog. (+1, also works for a cat or other living thing).

• The dog is a rescue that becomes an active part of the book (+5, along with cats or whatever else is rescued).

• Something happens during the sex scenes that really is a story-changer (+5, c’mon, the first time? It’s not gonna be perfect)

• The hero is an ordinary or quirky looking guy (+5, see Stealth Hottie below.)

• The heroine is a Stealth Hottie (+5, a protagonist that nobody notices at first until they get to know her and then find her wildly attractive).

THE POINT SYSTEM MINUs RATINGS

• The blurb asks, “Can he protect her?” (-1, but only because authors don’t write blurbs)

• The heroine puts on make-up and is instantly transformed (-1, because that actually happens in real life)

• The heroine gets a makeover and suddenly the hero notices her (-5, Shallow R Us)

• The hero smirks. (-5, smirking is a supercilious, asshole move: it means “to smile in an irritatingly smug, conceited, or silly way.”) Actually, any character who’s supposed to be a good person who smirks. Yecch.

• There are cute children who are never noisy, dirty, smart-mouthed, sullen, or annoying as hell (-5, do not use children as adorable props, that’s unrealistic and unfair to kids who may be amoral little ids but who are not colorless moppets.)

• There’s a prologue. (-5, prologues are the stuff that happens before the story begins, evidence of helicopter writing)

• There’s an epilogue. (-5, epilogues are the stuff that happens after the story ends, evidence of helicopter writing)

• The epilogue has a baby in it. (-10, great they’re fertile)

• The hero is a billionaire (-1, you know, you don’t get to be a billionaire by saving the whales)

• The hero is the heroine’s boss (-5, unequal power is not sexy, people)

• The hero is the heroine’s professor (-10, OH MY GOD DO YOU KNOW HOW ABUSIVE THAT IS???? [I may have been in grad school too long, but honestly, that’s horrible])

• There are multiple sex scenes that are awesomely awesome, OMG, and add nothing to story or character. (-10, don’t write the stuff people skip)

• The heroine is staggeringly beautiful, which has nothing to do with the plot (-10, I’m gonna have a hard time relating to her romantic problems)

• If there’s a bakery, inn, bookstore, or cafe that the heroine has inherited that requires her to move to a small, charming village full of quirky, older people who are dumb as rocks that the heroine keeps pulling from the equivalent of kitchen fires, those establishments better be fronts for something fascinating and those old people better be scamming the crap out of her. If not, (-10, for abuse of small businesses and anybody over 70)

• The dog dies (-10; if the dog lives but a kid dies, it’s -100 because what the hell, people?)

There are more, but the important thing here is that this is my system, not meant to be universal criteria. After all, many people appear to like heroes who smirk (hate ’em, really hate ’em, also annoyed with authors who DON’T KNOW WHAT WORDS MEAN) and college professors who are more interested in scoring students instead of essays [I think my worst was the sculpture prof who called me into his office for a consult and asked me if my breasts got hard when I came; I said, “I don’t know, I never looked”]). I’m sure you have other triggers that make you scream “Ten points off!” or “OMG, can I give it twenty?” (No. We have standards here.). So now I’m curious. What are your flash-points? (Don’t forget the actual points, please.)