Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 129

Working Wednesday, April 8, 2020

This week, I named Cheryl’s diner and collaged her a sign:

Mainly because I could see somebody saying, “This isn’t what I ordered,” and Cheryl saying, “Surprise!”

So what did you make this week?

The post Working Wednesday, April 8, 2020 appeared first on Argh Ink.

Argh Author: K. M. Fawcett’s Fearless

K. M. Fawcett’s latest novel, Fearless (The Survival Race book 2), is out now for 2.99 at Amazon, Apple, B&N, and Kobo.. Fearless is a stand alone story in a series where each couple gets their happily ever after.

Escaped gladiator Kedric wants revenge on the alien rulers who bred him for blood sport and genetic experiments. Nothing will prevent him from leading an attack on his enemy, not even the irritating–yet arousing–spiritual healer hell bent on stopping him.

Myia holds the power to heal Kedric’s lust for war…if she can control her emotions long enough to soul jump him. But how can the shaman-in-training find inner peace when the stubborn warlord refuses her touch and ignites her temper?

When Myia embraces Kedric’s darkest secrets, their destinies unite in a fight to save their loved ones. But victory will demand they surrender more than their hearts.

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Lily 3

One of the things that is probably becoming clear is that discovery drafts are really sailing into the unknown. Why is Lily seeing a therapist? I dunno. Why is she working in a diner? I dunno. What does Fin have to do with her past? I dunno. Who’s the antagonist? I dunno. This is the part at the beginning where I just write whatever comes to mind. It used to drive Bob crazy. “What is this stuff doing in here?” “I dunno.”

But your questions are good ones, the few I can answer and the ones I can’t, and there are a lot of great ideas generated by them–Why is the diner a Faraday cage? I dunno–and good reminders–Where the hell is the cat?–so we’re corking right along here. You wanted Fin’s PoV, so that’s the first scene below, and then there’s another one after that that’s pure info-dump so there will be massive rewriting, or there would be if this was going to be a book.

This is not going to be a book.

***************

“That Lily sure is cute,” Bjorn said when they were outside.

“Yep,” Fin said, and thought Lily.

Masses of curly red hair in a sloppy bun on top of her head. Big brown eyes, like velvet with sparkles. Deep dimples whenever she smiled. Cheerful and efficient and naturally bouncy and smart and—

“My kind of woman,” Bjorn said.

“No,” Fin said.

But there was a shadow behind her eyes. Something was wrong there, and there should be nothing wrong there, Lily was made of light. A soft pink light–

“What do you mean, no?” Bjorn said. “That is my kind of woman.”

“Your kind of woman wears push-up bras and tight tank tops and hangs out in bars,” Fin said. And does drugs, but it would not be helpful to mention that.

“You don’t know that she isn’t wearing a push-up,” Bjorn said.

“Yeah, I do,” Fin said, remembering the soft movement under the pink uniform.

He wasn’t even sure she was wearing a bra. It wasn’t helpful to think of that, so he tried to move on, but he’d been having a lot of pink uniform thoughts ever since she’d come down the counter to pour his coffee—he hated coffee, but if that was what it took to get her to walk toward him, he’d drink it–and he stuck there for a minute–

“I saw her first,” Bjorn said.

“No,” Fin said.

He’d seen her, outside the diner, talking to some dark-haired guy who was standing too close, so close that she kept backing up. The shadow probably had something to do with him. He’d have stopped the shadow guy but he didn’t know her. That was all she needed, another guy in the mix–

“You didn’t even flirt with her,” Bjorn said.

“Yes, I did,” Fin said.

And then she’d gone into the diner, and he’d told Bjorn he wanted a burger for dinner, and Bjorn had said, “We had a diner burger for lunch,” and he’d said, “So order something else,” and followed her in, and watched while she put her apron on and laughed at something the cook had said—the cook was also hot, he’d pointed that out to Bjorn—and then waited for her to come down the counter to him–

“I did not see you flirt,” Bjorn said.

“She did,” Fin said.

At least, she saw the specials menu. A woman with shadows behind her eyes did not want a full-court press. Take it slow. Also she was fun to draw. All those curls. Those big eyes. That apron–

“I’ll flip you for her,” Bjorn said.

“No,” Fin said, and stopped walking, and met his brother’s eyes for a long look.

“Oh,” Bjorn said.

“Yes,” Fin said.

“The cook is really cute,” Bjorn said and walked on.

“Yes, she is,” Fin said and followed him.

***************

There’s no beginning to this next scene (DISCOVERY DRAFT),it probably takes place a week after the previous scenes because Lily and Fin know each other slightly better. Yes, there will be other scenes in between. I’m just noodling around now, and this will have massive revisions because of info dump. Except not a book so no revisions. Argh.

***************

“You have a master’s degree and you’re waitressing,” Fin said.

“Yes,” Lily said. “Do you want more coffee?”

“Yes,” Fin said.

She went down the counter for the pot, conscious of him waiting for her with no impatience. He was the most restful Viking she’d ever known.

When she was back in front of him, he said, “Does Van in the kitchen have a PhD?”

“No, she has a master’s, too.” Lily poured his cup and took the pot back to the hot plate, and when she turned around, he was sipping his coffee, calm as ever.

I could do this all night, she thought. It was like doing laps with a reward in the middle. He was like human valium. If she stood next to him, she was in the calm of the storm. Kind of. That wasn’t exactly why she wanted to stand next to him.

He’s a Viking, she told herself, and then went back down the counter to him anyway. It was half an hour to closing. There weren’t many customers.

She leaned against the pie case to consider him while he sipped his coffee, the thick china cup held close in his hands. He had great hands. Not that she had a thing for hands. Or him. Still, those were great hands.

She picked up a cleaning cloth from the counter and began to wipe down the pie case, which was already immaculate because she’d just wiped it down an hour before.

Maybe he kept coming back for the pie. He always sat across from the pie case.

She turned around, and he smiled at her. Say something. “So you really like pie?”

“Not particularly.” Fin tilted his head a little, as if he were considering her, and her kicked up a beat because all his attention was on her. “How about a deal?”

“A deal?”

“You answer a question for me, I’ll answer one for you.”

“Like Truth or Dare?”

“No,” he said. “Like Truth and Truth.”

“That’s harder.”

“You can start,” he offered and smiled at her again, and she thought, I bet the whole world gives you anything you want for that smile.

I certainly would.

No, I wouldn’t.

She straightened. “I don’t have any questions.”

“I do,” Fin said. “Why are you waitressing if you have a master’s degree?”

Lily leaned back against the pie case again. “My father often asks me that.”

“I’m not your father.”

“No kidding.” Lily caught herself. “My dad is odd.”

“My dad is odder,” Fin said.

“You can’t know that,” Lily began.

“You know my brother, Bjorn? He’s a twin. Guess what his twin’s name is.”

“Leif?” Lily said. “Erik? Something that means ax-wielder?”

“Bjorn,” Fin said. “He named them both Bjorn. Do you know why?”

“He really liked that name.”

“So he could call the second one Bjorn Again.”

“Wait,” Lily said. “Is that a joke?”

“It is,” Fin said. “One he’s been telling for thirty years. It’s also true.”

“He actually named Bjorn ‘Bjorn Again’?”

“Yes,” Fin said.

“He’s a horrible person.”

“Yes.”

“What did he name the first twin?”

“Bjorn Free.”

“Okay, this has to be a joke,” Lily said, straightening from the pie case.

“It is. My father’s joke. For thirty years. My other brother has it worse, whenever Dad sees him, he whistles the theme from Born Free. My brother can’t look at a lion without shuddering.” He sipped his coffee. “We don’t see him a lot.”

“That’s hard on your mom,” Lily said.

Fin smiled. “What a great thing to say. My mom is fine. She dumped my dad long ago, and we see her all the time. We all cheered when she left him.”

“All?” Lily said. “There are more than a Fin and two Bjorns?”

“Nope, my turn,” Fin said. “You’ve had your question.”

“I didn’t ask a question.”

“You said, ‘Is that a joke?’”

Lily considered it. He probably wouldn’t ask anything horrible. And if she had to answer a question, she could talk to him longer. He’d probably notice if she just leaned on the pie case and yearned for him.

Just hell, she thought. I’m falling for a Viking. Well, that was going to stop now.

“Why are you waitressing?” he asked, and that was an easy one, so she went down the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee and then went around to sit beside him.

It was good beside him. Warm. He was big, but he didn’t crowd. Kind of like sitting next to a shade tree. An oak.

“I have always worked at this diner,” she told him. “Van and I started here when we were in high school. Then we did our undergrad out at the university and kept this as our college jobs. When we graduated with our BAs, the job market wasn’t great and we could both get teaching assistantships in our specialties, so we went to grad school and that pays nothing, so we kept working here. Yes, I know we shouldn’t have gone to the same school for the MAs, but we like it here. And the school is good.” Lily sipped her coffee. It was hot and rich and good, and she thought, This is a good diner.

“And?”

“This is a really good diner,” she told him.

“I know, I eat here often. So you got your MA . . .”

“And I took a job out at the college as an adjunct, which pays nothing, while I looked for something permanent, and of course I needed another source of income, so I kept working here. By that time, Cheryl considered me part of the décor, so I had a lot of flexibility in my scheduling. Vanessa had her MBA and she saw the diner as a kind of petri dish. Cheryl, as you may have noticed, is not averse to change, so Vanessa’s been running a diner experiment for the past five years. Between Cheryl and Vanessa, this really is a good diner. Vanessa has a cookbook out now, it’s doing really well, and she’s working on her second one, and she says that working the kitchen keeps it real for her. This is her career.”

“My question was about you . . .”

Lily used her coffee to stall for time, trying to find the easiest way to get through the next part. “I got a research job. Something bad happened. I was placed on temporary leave, so I’m working the diner full time because, while I still have benefits, I do not have a salary. Also I like it here. This diner is home. It’s a safe, warm place with food. I belong here.”

“I can see that,” Fin said. “The diner isn’t just great because of Cheryl and Van. You’re here, too.”

Lily smiled in spite of herself and gave a little shrug. Then she went back to her coffee cup. That was one safe place, that coffee cup.

“What was the bad thing that happened?” Fin said softly.

“Nope, it’s my turn,” Lily said. “You got your answer.”

Fin nodded. “Fair enough. Go.”

“Why are you following Bjorn around?”

Fin blinked. “I’m not following Bjorn around.”

“You are a successful illustrator. You could be anywhere. But you came to this podunk college town and you stick with Bjorn and you watch him constantly, and he does whatever you tell him to.”

“Now how do you know all of that?” Fin said, drawing back a little, as if he wanted to see her better.

“I can google,” Lily said. “Also that’s another question from you, so just answer the first one there, truth-teller.”

“It’s not my truth, it’s his,” Fin said.

“Oh. Okay.” Lily got up.

“Wait.” Fin closed his eyes and sighed, and then spoke faster. “Something bad happened to Bjorn, too. He needs some help right now. He got the job out at the university, and the family was concerned about him being on his own. I can work anywhere, so I came along.”

“You’re baby-sitting him?”

“No,” Fin said. “I’m his sober companion.”

“Oh,” Lily said. “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right, that’s none of my business.”

Fin shrugged. “He’d probably tell you if you asked. He’s pretty cheerful about it.”

“He’s pretty cheerful about everything,” Lily said, as Van stuck her head out of the kitchen.

“You, the one goofing off with the Viking. A little help here.”

“Gotta go,” Lily said.

“Hey,” Fin said as she went behind the counter again. “That was nice, what you said about my mom, being worried about her.”

“Well, she has to be a great person,” Lily said. “Look at you.”

Then she escaped down the counter to the kitchen, sneaking one look back as she went through the door.

He was watching her, a half smile on his face, so she gave him a quick little wave and went into the kitchen.

“You have Viking lust,” Van said.

“I do not,” Lily said. “But, oh, he’s darling.”

“The dishes are not and Mike has left early,” Van said. “I’ll help bus the tables, but I really need–”

“Of course,” Lily said, picking up a dishpan. “I’ll hit the dishes right away and then go bus what’s left. I’ll lock the doors, too. If anybody wants in, they can knock.”

“It’s okay,” Van said. “Don’t lock the Viking in. Unless, you know . . .” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lily said, but when she went back out into the diner half an hour later, she was a little disappointed that Fin was gone, his usual five buck tip stuck under the paper clip of the specials list.

She pulled the bill out and looked at the specials menu under it. He’d drawn the waitress again, holding a cup of coffee, but this time there was somebody standing beside her, a big guy, holding an umbrella over her while the rain came down in straight lines around them, not touching her.

Oh, god, she thought, and then realized that she must have said it out loud because Van came out to see what was wrong.

She was trying not to cry, but the idea of somebody taking care of her had pretty much knee-capped her and the drawing was all blurry now, so she handed it to Van, waiting for her to say something snarky so she could laugh and stop feeling so much. When Van didn’t, Lily looked at her.

“I think you’d better reconsider your stance on Vikings,” Van said.

Lily wiped her eyes on her apron and took the specials list back. “Maybe.”

She looked at the drawing again. The guy with the umbrella had a helmet on. It had horns.

Not historically accurate.

But darling.

“Oh, just hell,” Lily said.

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Happiness is a Low Bar

The NYT ran an article on how people are feeling guilty about not using the shelter-in-place time to do constructive things, and then Kate talked about the same thing, and I realized that I, too, have been feeling guilty about accomplishing nothing. Then I realized that of all the dumb things I’ve learned about myself during this virus, the dumbest is that I always set my expectations so high that they can’t be achieved. Here’s a good example: I’m in the middle of a life-altering, world-altering pandemic in which nothing is as it was and with clear knowledge that I know nothing of what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next day, next year, and I’m kicking myself and feeling worthless because I didn’t scrub my lawn furniture.

Okay, that’s not actually true. I scrubbed two cushions, one for under my butt and the other for behind my back. I did the minimum so I can sit out in the sun and watch the dogs rediscover the side yard every day. I have another eleven cushions to scrub, not counting the ones on the loungers, and I’ve only had two weeks of this to do it, which means if I’d scrubbed one a day I could have done the loungers by now . . .

I think it’s important to set the bar low. Lani used to say, “A low bar benefits everybody” and never was that more true than now. It’s time to embrace the two-cushion goal. Did I get out of bed today? Yes, eventually. SCORE! While we’re being excellent to each other, let’s be excellent to ourselves.

What made you happy this week (especially now that the bar is on the floor)?

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About Jo

Well, this is turning into a hell of a spring.

I’m okay with isolation, especially since nature is waking up and smelling the forsythia, but the news is kneecapping me, all the “this is going to get much, much worse” stuff from American media that is undoubtedly true and necessary to get people like me to put on a face mask. My house is dragging me down; it’s time to throw out everything, I’m thinking, well okay, not everything, you know, just a lot of it. I’m out of bok choy and celery. And then Monday, my mother died.

JoAnn Katherine Smith was 93, one month short of her 94th birthday.

Jo was a strong woman who embraced the fifties ideal of womanhood with a passion that brought us into headlong collision over and over. My friends from high school are writing to tell me their memories of how beautiful she was, how gracious she was, how bright her eyes were. I remember how hard she worked, how perfect her house and her hair always were, her steely determination and her old-fashioned values like be nice to everybody who isn’t family, pay your bills on time, never lie, never cheat, you are how you look so never go out in curlers, and always wear clean underwear or people will think your mother didn’t raise you right when you get hit by a truck. I am who I am because of my mother. And the eleven therapists who followed her.

I’m not in mourning because I’m happy that Jo is finally free of the prison that dementia had made of her body and her mind, and if there’s a heaven, she’s back in the fifties, drinking cocktails in a designer sheath, surrounded by adoring men and jealous women, beautiful as ever, sexy as all hell, and nobody is telling her what to do.

Rest in peace, Jo.

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Cherry Saturday, April 4, 2020

Today is Tangible Karma Day, which is specifically about recycling, but more in general about doing unto others. What goes around comes around. Pay it forward. What you put into the universe comes back to you. As you sow . . . you get the idea.

I have a sign in my kitchen:

That helps keep me honest. I think we’re pretty good here on Argh, such nice people, but if there was ever a time to polish up our karma situation, it’s now. Let’s be excellent to each other.

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Lily Notes 2

So I’ve got a better grip on the Lily story, although that’s not difficult since I had no grip at all before this. I still have no idea why she’s remembering past lives, what Fin has to do with any of it, the name of the diner, what Nadia’s role is, or . . . well, anything.

So let’s go with expectation. What are you expecting to happen next? Or with want. What do you hope happens next? Or with need. What makes no sense to you now? Or you know, anything about the story, especially if you have any ideas about what the hell is going on and what the next move should be. My big want: Lily’s kind of a wounded bird in everything I’ve written so far. I need to steel up her backbone, get that sass working. But she can’t be like Vanessa, who is cool and in charge and brilliant. She has to be Lily strong. Must cogitate.

What do you think?

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This is a Good Book Thursday, April 2, 2020

I’ve been re-reading Rex Stout as a comfort read–he wrote his last book at 88 and it was good, so that helps, too–but I’m gearing up to read about Vikings, starting with a basic children’s book which is supposed to arrive Saturday. Maybe the next scene will be Viking-centric. (I have no idea what the next scene will be.). The book has pictures. That’s about where I am right now.

Where are you with your reading?

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Working Wednesday, April 1, 2020

I know it’s April Fool’s Day, but I think Fate just pulled the ultimate trick on all of us with the virus, so I’m ignoring that. It is the first day of April, so YAY SPRING. Also I just found out there’s something called Viking knitting which does not require knitting needles, so I will obviously be looking into that. Also something called nailbinding which sounds brutal and Nordic. Lucet I already knew about, but still. Evidently there was a lot of crafting between bouts of pillaging. And I may doodle some manuscript illuminations on a specials menu, just to see how that goes.

And in other news, because I’m now obsessing on visuals, I went looking for retro diner fonts that could be used both on as the font for the diner (signs and menu heads) and as a title font, and found this list:

https://www.myfonts.com/foundry/Font_Diner/

And then lost an hour playing with fonts, which is one of my favorite things to do. (See bottom of post for some possibilities.)

Now I have to find a name for the diner. Something that sounds like a diner name but has some kind of meaning which is going to be hard because I have no idea what this story is really about. I just want the sign and the font for the visuals. And because I love playing with fonts, okay? It’s still work if I enjoy it.

So what are you working on now?

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Visual Stuff

When I wrote with Bob, he used to make me walk the terrain. We’d go to wherever the book was set and talk the story through while we walked around. The one I remember best was in the Carolinas, a big white house on a river, because I was saying things like, “Okay the gazebo for the wedding is over here, and there’ll be furniture on the front porch, maybe a swing, for that scene when the bridge goes in . . .” and Bob was saying things like “The bad guys will dock here and the scuba divers will attack the wedding from here . . .” (No, there was no scuba attack; Bob had a learning curve in writing romantic comedy, aka, nobody we like dies.). I dutifully tramped around after him through the Southern low country for Agnes and we spent one memorable October evening at an amusement park in Pennsylvania where people had chain saws for Wild Ride, but I finally had to admit that it was all worth it because he was right: walking the terrain helps a lot. (This may be why I do so many scenes in diners. I can sit the terrain.)

My version of walking the terrain is collage.

I do huge intricate assemblages for the real books, but all I need for this project is some idea of what the characters feel like (not look, feel, personality behind the faces not the faces), and I do that by flipping through images until the Girls say “That one.” It’s helpful to have more than one avatar for a character because the combination of several different people helps separate the character from whatever real people have grabbed the Girls, especially if the real person is an actor known for a certain role. Mixing several placeholders together helps undercut anything existing.

I did a quick scan for redheads for Lily because it’s important that she be a redhead and no, I do not know why. This is discovery draft, if we question every intuitive move we’ll never get anywhere. This is Sticky Time: if something sticks to the story we go with it. The thing was, I couldn’t quite see Lily. I knew she wasn’t skinny, that she’d be healthy and skeptical and strong, but both of the placeholders I found were thin and one was elegant and those things were wrong. Still the attitudes were right so I started with this:

There were two things that weren’t working here: Too thin/elegant and too hostile. The Lily in this collage is not fun. Okay, she’s going through a bad spot here, and none of these attitudes are wrong for her, but I’m missing the part of Lily that makes people like her. My concept of Lily needs work.

So I went looking for more pictures, but then I found one where she was wearing glasses. That picture wasn’t right, but I remembered that the photo that had nailed Fin for me was a placeholder in glasses. The idea of them both wearing glasses was kind of interesting. At this point, I was spending way too much time on a project that’s basically “let’s do something fun on the blog to distract from the plague,” but I was pretty sure that the glasses were key.

And then I remembered that I had a whole folder of collage glasses that I could put on pictures and I found them, and there was one pair that started a whole train of thought and I could see the scene and hear it, so I stopped looking at collage stuff and wrote WHICH IS THE POINT OF COLLAGING, TO INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE.

The Girls really love collage.

Here are the glasses that inspired 1056 words today:

Glasses are going to be HUGE in this project. Also the word “huge” which is cropping up a lot. Also, Lily’s a waitress, and that should be in there. And the cat.

For the rest of the cast, I just grabbed one picture each because this is just playing around and I do not have time to collage that many people. Annoyingly, since I had such a struggle with Lily, I found one picture of Fin, and he just walked in and sat down as he’s meant to be. It took me a minute to get Bjorn, but then it was obvious. Cheryl was also obvious even though I hadn’t thought her through. (Minor characters are always the easiest.) I thought about Vanessa and Nadia and found placeholders, and then after an hour looked at them and thought, “Nope, switch ’em around,” so Nadia is now Latina, which works just fine, and Van is now black which reminds me of Daphne but there’s bound to be some image bleed between books since they both have diners as important settings. Anyway, the placeholders are better swapped around.

Oh, and here’s the revised Lily collage.

It is, of course, like everything else in discover drafting, a work in progress and subject to change. Going back to Nita now. See you and Lily again on Friday.

ETA: Talked about the cast collage, forgot to put it in.

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