Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 123

Competence Happy

I just read a recipe on the Bon Appetit website and realized I had all the ingredients to make it, not just the onions and beef which I would always have had but the three inches of ginger root, the sesame oil, and the fresh lemon, not to mention the bok choy he suggested as a side dish. It made me think, “Huh. Maybe I’m a cook.” Mostly it made me feel competent. Which made me happy.

And that’s when I realized how rarely I feel competent.

Right now it seems like I’m screwing up everything I touch (except in the kitchen where I’m amazing) while in the background, my government is screwing up everything it touches. I’m wondering if I’m not getting an incompetence low off of Trump and Barr and the rest of them, the same way I used to get a pot high off the kid smoking it next to me in college (I’m asthmatic, so I tended not to smoke which is ironic because I think pot is actually good for asthmatics . . . where was I? Competence is focus, Jenny.)

So I’m looking at Nita and thinking, “In heaven’s name, what am I DOING?” (old Wile E. Coyote quote) and wondering why I ever though I was a writer. Which might be the reason that when somebody shows up in my eyeline who’s quite clearly competent, I sigh and relax a little and get happier. A competence high.

I felt that way when Marie Yovanovitch testified: here was a woman who knew what she was doing and, even though she was surrounded by clowns and jokers, came out of that hearing a hero with actual applause. Or when Dr. Fauci speaks.

It’s the way I feel when I go to my therapist; here’s somebody who can see clearly where I can’t and will shove me on my way.

It’s the way I always feel when I look at at an Ann Telnaes cartoon.

It’s why I felt so happy when I read and re-read the Murderbot books this week, because the author and the central character are competence porn in the flesh (or augmented flesh).

Seeing competence makes me happy and gives me something to strive for.

What made you happy this week?

Thinking About Lily

I’ve been thinking about Nita, and the new HWSW blog, and the cottage and what it needs, and a glitch in my finances (not a disaster just dealing with somebody at the bank who will not call me back) and the hole in the fence that Milton keeps escaping through, and Lily.

This post is about Lily.

Bob and I did the first chat about The One Sentence Idea, and of course I thought about Nita, which was easy, I’ve been developing that plot for five freaking years, and then I thought about Lily. And that led me to the Central Conflict (remember the conflict box?) and the Central Question which is “Will the protagonist defeat the antagonist and achieve her/his goal?” and you can guess how that splatted when I applied it to Lily.

Basically it was “Will Lily defeat (what antagonist?) and get (what goal?)?”

So some missing pieces. Like the entire plot. Even the romance has gaping holes in it, which makes sense since there’s only 20,000 words and it’s too early in Discovery to do this kind of stuff.

So my antagonist is going to be Dorothy. (And her little dog, too. Sorry.). I don’t know what she wants, either, but it’s going to be simple. No international art theft, no shadowy drug cartels, no intricate political drama. I was in academe for several years, and one of the things I hated at the time that makes it prime ground for fiction is that, as the saying goes, the fighting is so vicious because the stakes are so small. People will go to the mat for things that leave people on the outside of that social system gaping is disbelief. And the amount of buried (and not-so-buried) resentment can be astounding.

I think Dorothy got run over by the truck that is the academic system because she was an outsider, but she was far enough inside the system to know how to work it. She’s fueled by resentment, especially toward Louis Lewis, who is a good-looking, well-connect idiot (trust me, I have stories from real life about this kind of guy) who was promoted over her and now is oblivious to the fact that she’s running the department and him. She has two basic choices: Serve him and the museum selflessly or take revenge without borking the museum which she likes while setting up for a fall the obnoxious Louis, whom she hates. I don’t see Dorothy going for selfless. I think she’d set up her revenge for the long term payoff, making incremental moves over months, but Louis is doing something that’s making her speed up her time table, and Lily gets hit by an ax and all of sudden she’s dealing with a whole new ball game.

Of course I know none of the details of this. Where’s Pam Regis when I need nefarious academic stories?

What I’m really thinking about now–idly, in between dealing with everything and rereading Murderbot books–is how Lily and Dorothy are alike and different. I kind of want them to be doppelgängers, the same character in the same situation but who depart parallel paths because Lily changes and Dorothy doesn’t, possibly because Lily likes people and Dorothy regards them all as inferior beings who pose a threat. That is, they can both be organized, efficient people who love the museum and work to make it a better place, thereby allying with each other naturally (Dorothy and Lily like each other because they’ve known each other long enough to see that commonality), but when the disaster with the ax hits (literally), they deal with it in different ways, and that’s where their paths diverge and bring them into conflict.

But I don’t have a goal for Lily. (This is not uncommon with my discovery drafts.). Dorothy wants power, money, and revenge, in a series of small assaults on Louis, over a long period of time. It’s almost like episodic TV, she does things that make him look stupid (he is) and set back his personal projects, but none of them are huge. It’s death by a thousand cuts. Nibbled to death by ducks.

But how does that bring them into conflict? I don’t know and the reason I don’t know is because I don’t know what Lily wants. Besides Fin. And I don’t know why she wants Fin, aside from the reason anybody would want a large, good-looking guy who is kind, competent, teachable and tips well.

This is why I keep saying Lily is not a book. It’s not a book because it’s not a story, and I have no compelling reason to make it into a story. But since I just wrote a short essay on The One Sentence Idea, and I’m about to write one on the Central Conflict and another one on Discovery, and since all of that is done for Nita, I keep defaulting to Lily.

Maybe I should go back to Monday Street and Paradise Park. The only thing I don’t know there is why somebody is killing princesses. Okay, that’s a big thing, but still everybody has goals.

So that’s why it’s been quiet in here for a couple of days. I’M THINKING. And phoning the bank again.

This is a Good Book Thursday, May 28, 2020

I’ve been reading the Murderbot novellas and they are so good. Murderbot is pure competence porn. So wonderful.

What have you been reading?

Working Wednesday, May 27, 2020

I’ve been working on resurrecting the He Wrote She Wrote blog. We’ve done the first chat–something about the idea of chatting with Bob cracks me up–and we’re figuring the rest now that Mollie–the professional internet person among us–has pointed out some aspects to just putting on a show in the internet barn entails.

So what did you work on this week?

He Wrote She Wrote. Again.

I spent a chunk of the weekend arguing about talking about the new blog with Bob Mayer and we’re going to try it. It’ll be called He Wrote She Wrote Again, and once a week, we’ll put up the old posts on a topic and then follow that with a new post discussing what we still agree with and how we’ve changed in a Slack chat. We’ll edit the ugly parts out. Nita and Lily will probably be mentioned, and Bob’s writing a new book in a series in which the second chapter in each book is a flashback. In first person. And there’s a prologue. I’m pretty sure he’s trolling me, but its been fourteen years, so who knows? Maybe he really is that insane. Here’s the banner until Mollie gets her hands on it and makes it better:

So see, I worked this weekend. Still working on getting all the Lily posts combined. Back at you later with that.

In the meantime, what do you want to see on the new blog? I know there are Cherry Bombs still out there, fuses sparking, and the Argh People always have an opinion. We’re pretty clear on what we want to do, but we’re I’m open to suggestions.

It’s May 25th: Get Out Your Towel and Smell the Lilacs

May 25th is Towel Day, a day we remind ourselves that, like the denizens of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as long as we have our towels, we’re covered, albeit skimpily. And of course today is also the day to celebrate the Glorious Revolution of Discworld by wearing the lilac and agitating for “Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg!”, the basics of a strong society. It’s also a day we lift our a glass of spirits to Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, two writers who have lifted my spirits too many times to count.

Smell the lilacs, Argh People, in the memory of two greats, and the sure knowledge that we’re going to be okay because we have our towels. And each other.

Happiness is Old TV

I’ve been thinking about TV pilots and something jogged my memory on Cheers, which is leaving Netflix at the end of the month. So I watched the first episode of the first season. I knew it would be funny and I knew it would be community, but what I didn’t know was that that damn theme song would make me so ridiculously happy that I sang along with it. I thought it was a callback to a simpler time, but when I checked the start date, it was the year after my divorce and a few months before I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer. So not a simpler time. Maybe it was a comfort show, maybe it made me remember when Mollie was eight and I was teaching kids I loved, maybe it was just a good show with a great theme song, but this week, “Making your way in the world today/takes everything you’ve got” and Cheers made me happy.

What made you happy?

Saturday Night Ramble

So it’s fifteen minutes until I have to go Zoom with Australia, well, with Amy, but she’s repping Australia, and I’m sitting here WITH MAKE-UP ON (not a lot, but still) and killing time.

Love the Take a Liking To A Viking T-shirt, especially if it’s the college mascot. What’s the college name? Should avoid Leif Ericsson College for something more subtle. Because if there’s anything this story is so far, it’s subtle. (Face palm.)

I’m doing two chats tonight, one at ten and one at eleven. I like this form of conference. I don’t have to put on underwear and I only had to clean one corner of my hoarder-nightmare goest room where I’ve been living for the winter months. So easy. Of course my ancient face will now be on a Zoom camera, but you can’t have everything.

I’ve been talking with Bob about reviving He Wrote She Wrote. We’re both old and tired–well, I’m old and he’s tired–but we’re thinking–JUST THINKING–about going back to the old HWSW syllabus and talking about how we’ve changed. He says he’s a lot more intuitive now. I’m almost afraid to find out what that means.

The dogs and I went out in the rain today (I stayed under the umbrella) and it turns out, they’re not fans of rain. Usually they’d stay out for a good hour, but it wasn’t ten minutes before they wanted under the umbrella. I have wimpy dogs. And now they’re all sacked out on the bed, snoozing like they actually exercised today. I’d make mock, but I’m on the same bed, killing time until I have to sparkle and shine for Australia, so not in a position of strength here.

I talked to Mollie about setting up a new HWSW blog and maybe monetizing this one with ads. Argh will never have ads, but I am curious as to how that works. I hate the blogs that put ads in every paragraph or so, they’re damn near impossible to read, but I’d trust Mollie to come up with something subtle or at least non-invasive. Haven’t heard back from Bob on that one, but we are discussing ideas about how to do this. I’m trying to talk him into Slack chats–Bob doesn’t chat but he does a nice argument–because we could just turn those into documents and then edit them and slap them up as posts.

And we’d put the old writing posts up as an archive, so that could be good. I did go back and put the rest of my road trip posts up in that He Wrote She Wrote Page. They’re mostly nattering about the tour, not that interesting, but all of mine are up. Bob actually wrote more of those than I did. Normally, he’s not that verbose.

It’s about three minutes to Australia now, so I’ll have to go. You all have a good night.

“Hello, Australia . . .”

Lily Plot Notes: Here’s Where We Are Now

So eight weeks into this, Lily doesn’t have a plot, something you have all pointed out. And I don’t really want her to have a plot because then it won’t be play anymore. But even I am starting to be annoyed by how shapeless it all is. So I went back to my old standbys: conflict analysis and acts.

Protagonist: Lily

Goal: I HAVE NO IDEA. She likes Fin.

Antagonist: Dorothy (I think.)

Goal: Cover up what she’s doing at the museum. (I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT IS, EITHER.)

ACT ONE:

Lily starts therapy, meets Fin, rejects Seb.

Dorothy . . . I got nothing.

Okay, how about Lily has just been fired from the museum for getting too close to something Dorothy doesn’t want uncovered. Plus there was an ax. Really, I got nothing.

Scenes so far:

Lily vs. Dr. Ferris: Meets Nadia (What is Dr. Ferris up to anyway?)

Lily vs Seb: He wants something from her (No idea what)

Lily vs. Fin: FIrst Meet. Vikings to the right of me . . .

Fin vs. Bjorn: No you are not interested in Lily

Lily vs. Fin: Swapping back stories

ACT TWO:

Dorothy does something that threatens the Diner, bringing the Diner Band into action. That would be Lily, Fin, Bjorn, Van, and Cheryl. And possibly Dead-Eye Guy, who’s name should probably be Dick, but then Cheryl would just lose it.

Scenes so far:

Lily vs. Nadia: Vikings

Lily vs Bjorn: Where’s Fin?

Lily vs. Fin: First fight

Fin vs. Bjorn: Violet

Lily vs Fin: Regroup with Pie

Lily vs. Seb: Park with ice cream and Fin

Fin vs. Dead Eye: Lose the gun

Lily vs. Dead Eye: Scares off Seb

Fin vs. Bjorn: Wrong Move

Fin vs. Bjorn: Stop saving me

Lily vs.Fin: Half Pass

Lily vs. Fin: Fall

ACT THREE

The Diner Band figures out what’s going on, Dorothy tries to burn down the diner building?

Scenes so far:

Lily vs. Cheryl (and Van): Pizza

Lily vs. Dead Eye: Cheryl’s Half Pass

ACT FOUR:

The Diner Gang brings down Dorothy.

Scenes so far:

Snippet of Cheryl talking about having sex with Louis in the exhibits

Okay, that’s bad but not impossible. It’s bad because it’s too early in the game to be doing this, not because the plot will be difficult.

The museum plot is really a subplot here, it’s the romance that has the juice. And I’ve been thinking about it and I think I want this romance to run smoothly. That is, everything around it is going to be nuts, but Lily and Fin meet, negotiate the relationship, test it through trauma, and commit without any Big Misunderstandings or really any big fights. There’s that early fight outside the diner, but the next day they both want to make up. Fin is just a steady, good guy, and Lily is just a great woman. There’s something really comforting in that.

Which means Bjorn and Vanessa will get all the drama as foils. And of course, there’s Cheryl. I like the idea that Lily and Fin are eye of the hurricane, very calm while everything swirls around them, the arc just them growing closer. Because I also don’t see any reason for them to fight. They’re both free, they’re both in their thirties so less likely to make mistakes because they’ve already made them, they’re ready for calm and stability. It just makes sense that they’d move quietly through the noise and the haste, finding what peace there may be in a committed relationship. It’s not a romance plot I’ve written before, so I think that would be interesting.

Plus there’s Cheryl’s obsession which I thought was going to be mindfulness, but then Allanah said “Marie Kondo” and there’s something about Cheryl letting things go with joy . . .

And since this is not going to be book, it doesn’t matter that it’s not riveting.

The key is to make whatever’s going on at the museum echo what’s happening at the diner. The diner people are all going blithely on their own way, and so are the museum people and then their paths cross. I kind of like the idea that Dorothy is a doppelgänger of Lily, efficient and angry. If Louis is in charge, that makes Cheryl his opposite number, which is underscored by the fact that they used to be lovers. I can see Seb and Bjorn as parallels easier than I can see Seb and Fin, so I should look into that. Jessica and Van? Nope. Van’s opposite number would be somebody brilliantly efficient, working outside the chaos. Hmmm. Maybe Fin and the Dead-Eye guy, if he’s really working for the museum, somebody outside it–Fin and Bjorn are outside the diner–but allied with it in some way.

Lily/Dorothy

Fin/Guy in the suit?

Cheryl/Louis

Bjorn/Seb

Vanessa/?

Violet?/Jessica

And I’d need some diner regulars. Damn. If my diner was open, I’d go and listen to what people were saying.

I don’t want anything with high stakes, no international art thefts or anything complicated. I don’t want anybody running drugs. Really, the only thing I need to keep on playing is something that jogs the Girls awake.

Maybe the guy in the suit in Dorothy’s brother. That could be interesting, two guys that aren’t involved in the two settings getting sucked into the conflict to help women important in their lives. And then the guy in the suit (suddenly I’m getting Person of Interest vibes) falls for Cheryl. There’s something about these two quiet guys standing off to one side, shaking their heads as Cheryl and Louis become crazier and Lily and Dorothy get serious. I just don’t know what’s going on.

Of course it took me a couple of years to figure out fully what was happening on Nita’s island, but that was a book.

But I did get everything put into chronological order in one file, so that’s something. There’s nothing new in there, so no need to read it, but it’s here if you want to look. And it’s about 21,000 words, so that’s 20% of a novel, 80% of a novella, but it’s not a book so it doesn’t matter.

So what’s going on at the museum? Something with Louis’s secret Viking society, about which I know nothing. Not drugs, not high end art theft, nothing complicated. I’m good with low level graft, but that seems so pedestrian for Dorothy. I think Dead Eye Guy is Dorothy’s younger brother. I don’t think Bjorn and Vanessa get PoVs, but I think Dorothy might. Dorothy has needs; what are they?

And now I must hit the grocery and the pharmacy, finish putting the 2007 posts back, and do the third day of Nita by doing a scene list and starting to cut things and put in the pieces I haven’t added yet. Also the yard is a nightmare and so is the house. Packed, the days just are.

This is a Good Book Thursday, May 20, 2020

I’ve been reading ancient Argh posts (2005, 2006, 2007) which is turning my brain to tapioca. Also Nita Act Two. Also a magazine on secret societies. And a lot of old He Wrote She Wrote posts. Sigh.

What did you read this week?

The post This is a Good Book Thursday, May 20, 2020 appeared first on Argh Ink.