Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 130

Lily 2

A word about discovery drafts:

A discovery draft is just getting words down on paper. In my case, it’s usually to see what the Girls are up to, so my first discovery drafts are dreadful, rambling things. Hey, you want to see how the sausage is made, you’re gonna see some ugly stuff. In this case, I tried to get into this story all weekend, and it just wasn’t there. The stuff that really caught me? The manuscript illustration, the diner, and Cheryl. I needed a best friend, or at least a friend for Lily, and of course, the love interest who could no longer be named later. Finally this morning, I googled for Norse names again and found one that seemed like it might work (might not), and then because I was dying to, I googled for “manuscript illumination dragon.” And I ended up with the stuff below. Missing is any kind of decent description (I suck at description) of people or place, and any sense of change. That’ll come as I know more, although I already know Lily is thin and sharp and redheaded and nervous, and Fin is big (Viking) and blunt and blond and calm. And none of that is on the page. Discovery draft. First step in the process. Oh, and this is boring. That’s okay, too. If I ever get to a rewrite, it’ll perk up.

Note: If you read this early on Monday, there have been changes. Because it’s a discovery draft and I discover things. This is how it works. Also because I went ahead and did a small character collage and that sharpened things up considerably.

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

Lily 2

Lily walked back to her apartment, changed into her uniform, and went downstairs to the diner, somewhat buoyed by the fact that Nadia seemed open-minded enough to not assume she was a wingnut. Some days, you took what you could get.

Vanessa was in the kitchen, slapping burgers on the grill. “Watch out for Cheryl,” she called. “She went to another seminar last night.”

Lily closed her eyes. “Oh, god, what now?”

“She appears to be vegan.”

Lily stopped to contemplate. “Well, that has disaster written all over it. We’re a vegan diner?”

“No,” Van said. “We’re a regular diner with a vegan proselytizer. So how was therapy?”

“I have a new therapist!” Lily tried to look cheerful as she tied on her apron.

“You told me that already. Fenris something.”

“Ferris. No, I have another one. Ferris was . . . not good.” Lily picked up her order pad. “But I have high hopes for this one.”

Van looked at her from under raised eyebrows. “All I want for Christmas is sane co-workers.”

“It’s April,” Lily said and went out to the front counter.

Out in the diner, things were relatively peaceful in that time valley between lunch and dinner. Cheryl had been on the job: the stainless counters were polished and the black and white tile floor gleamed and everybody except for the two guys on the end had food, and even they had full coffee cups.

That was upside. The downside was that Cheryl was out at the tables lecturing two college students about their burgers, her frizzy blond hair waving as she nodded at them to emphasize whatever critical point she was making. The students looked torn between annoyance and boredom, but Lily had been here before. She’d once thought about telling Cheryl they’d get a lot more business if she didn’t drive so much of it away, but if Cheryl eased up, they would get a lot more business and they already had all they could handle, so she left her harassing the students and went down the counter to the two burly guys on the end.

They were big, one sort of blondish and the other brown-haired, and they were youngish, possibly in their late twenties or early thirties, and they were talking quietly so that was a point in their favor.

“You need a refill on those coffees?” she said, faking cheerful as she reached them.

The brown-haired guy on the right grinned at her. “Actually we’d like to order.”

“Cheryl didn’t . . . Absolutely.” Lily got her pad out of her apron pocket. “What’ll it be?”

The brown-haired guy got serious. “Two cheeseburger deluxe, medium, double order of fries, and yes, more coffee, please. Also pie. Lots of pie, but we can do that later. You busy later?”

“I’ll get the burgers on,” Lily said and turned to go.

“Wait,” the sort-of-blond said, and she turned back.

He looked a lot like the other guy, blunt-featured and broad-shouldered, but he was calmer, older, sharp-eyed instead of cheerful, and he looked like he missed nothing.

“I’ll have one deluxe, rare,” the blond said, “one order of fries, and a coffee refill please. And a defibrillator for my brother.”

“That whole order was for you?” Lily said to the brown-haired guy.

“Don’t judge,” the man said, smiling and held out his hand across the counter. “I’m Bjorn.”

Bjorn. Viking.

“Of course, you are,” Lily said and shook his hand once.

“And this is my brother, Fin,” Bjorn went on. “And you are?” He looked at the name tag pinned to her apron. “Lily. Pretty name.”

Lily looked at the blondish brother, who nodded at her, perfectly polite, and then went back to doodling something on the xeroxed menu.

Lily looked closer. He had one of those thin black markers that art majors used, “snotty markers” Cheryl called them, and he was drawing a vine in the margin of the menu. He’d already drawn a dragon in there, a very small, writhing reptile, breathing fire on the BLT listimg.

“Wow,” she said as the vine grew before her eyes. Talented Viking. Viking Who Doodles. He reminded her of someone. Probably not in this lifetime, though. Viking.

“So, Lily,” Bjorn said, trying again. “What’s the story with Cheryl?”

“Huh? Oh.” Lily looked back to see Cheryl heading their way with the coffee pot.

What could she possibly say about Cheryl?

“So I”ll put this order in,” she said and went back to the order window. “Three deluxe,” she called to Van and put the order slip on clip.

“Meat is murder,” Cheryl said loudly as she came toward them, so Lily took the pot from her and went to fill the brothers’ cups in apology.

“Why is Cheryl still employed?” Bjorn said.

“Cheryl owns the diner,” Lily said. “Your burgers are coming right up. It’ll be fine, the cook is great, and most of the rest of us are competent.”

The blondish one—-Fin-—looked up from his doodle and studied her, not rudely but not subtly, either. “Is there something wrong?”

“Wrong?” Lily said brightly. “Noooo.”

“You seem tense.”

“Uh.” And then, because she couldn’t resist, she said, “So is Fin a nickname?”

“It’s short for Thorfin,” Bjorn said, smiling at her again. “So, Lily–”

“Vikings,” Lily said with loathing before she could stop herself. “You’re Vikings.”

“No,” Fin said. “We’re from Cincinnati. Ohioans.”

“There were no Vikings in Ohio,” Bjorn said reassuringly.

“Actually, there probably were,” Fin said. “Great Lakes. But that was centuries ago, so no, we’re not Vikings. What have you got against Vikings?”

“They murdered me several times,” Lily said.

“I see,” Fin said and went back to his drawing.

Cheryl walked behind Lily and said, “An animal screams every time you guys walk into a diner.”

“I understand if you want to leave,” Lily told them. “No charge for the coffee.”

“Are you kidding?” Bjorn said. “This is like performance art. There should be a cover charge. Plus there are cute waitresses.”

Lily looked around. “Who?”

Fin sighed. “He’s trying to pick you up. He’s doing it badly, but he’s trying.”

“Oh. I’ll get your order,” Lily said, and Fin nodded and went back to doodling.

Later, when they were gone, Lily looked to see if he’d left the dragon menu. He had, but now beside the dragon, there was a tiny waitress with a sign that said, “No Vikings.”

“Funny,” she said, but she kept the menu because the dragon was beautiful.

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

Fun research for today: Dragon Illuminations

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Happiness. Remember That?

. It seems a little whack-job-Pollyanna to be burbling about happiness in the middle of a plague that’s killing thousands. I can do the right-now-in-this-moment-I-am-happy bit and still do, but underneath it all is that pervasive dread of what’s coming next, a future which all experts assure us is going to be worse. And then it will get better. And then worse again. And then better. And two years from now, we’ll all be fine again. Except for the economy. And . . .

Okay, first of all, turn off the fucking news.

I’m pretty sure most everybody on here has already gotten the message that this is not a hoax and it’s not going to be just fine by Easter so for the love of god, stay home and wash your hands. And don’t touch your face. After that . . . well, no, that’s pretty much it. Unless you’re part of the medical profession or another necessary job–and thank you from the bottom of my heart for working through this–the best we can do is get out of other people’s way.

And now we’re home so we clean house and get rid of everything we don’t need and feel lighter for it. And we work on that TBR pile because if there was ever a time to escape to another world, it’s now, and we discover a lot of new authors and new worlds. And we go online and learn things we’ve always meant to learn, like French and yoga and the ukulele. And we call people we haven’t talked to in years, just to say, “Are you okay? I want you to be okay.” These are good things.

There are other good things: Pollution is easing in heavily populated areas because cars are off the road. Neighbors are stepping up to help others, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation because in desperate times, people are just people and good people help each other. Politically, the importance of the safety net has never been more clear, and our hopelessly divided government is working out bipartisan legislation to help. Those things might change when the emergency eases, but I don’t think they’ll go back to the old ways completely. This is going to change us, and there’s a good bet that a lot of the change will be for the better.

So good things will come out of this, which doesn’t negate the fact that thousands will die, but the thousands of deaths don’t negate the good things, either.

So this week, without dismissing the harrowing times we’re in, let’s focus on the good stuff, sparse though it may be. Civilization is not going to fall, it’s just going to change. Same with us. You telling us things that made you happy this week is not you being a whack-job-Pollyanna. It’s you flexing a survival skill.

What made you happy this week?

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Cherry Saturday, March 28, 2020

March has been Peanut Month.

My experiences with peanuts have been:

Tin Roof Sundaes

Trail Mix

Mr. Goodbar

Peanut M&Ms

Jif Peanut Butter

and the ever popular “just throw some peanuts in your mouth” approach.

I kind of want a Tin Roof now.

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Lily 1: Notes

. So I’ve read through the comments on Lily’s Monday post, and there’s a lot in there to chew on. Plus, of course, the Girls in the Basement have been putting in some work. Here are my notes on your comments and the Girls’ nogging.

1. WANTS:

The Wants are expectations, basically ,the things you wanted to see next based on that very short first scene. The thing about expectations is that they have to be filled, they’re what makes a story fun even if it’s a tragedy (this is a comedy), but they have to be filled in a way that surprises. They include:

• The cat.

Pangur has to be in here. I have no idea what his personality is like, although I’m imagining he’s annoyed. Kind of like this:

Lily will talk to her cat, of course, who does’t talk to their cat? He does not answer unless she’s saying something interesting. Like “treat.”

• The Viking.

There seems to be a consensus that the Love Interest To Be Named Later must be a Viking. I’m cautiously good with that. Not as good with Erik as a name, mostly because Tim Robbins as Erik the Viking was not hero material. There’s also a consensus that the Love Interest To Be Named Later didn’t kill her in the previous lives (definitely no rape), but I think we should leave her deaths open, at least to include accidentally offing her.

Now the question is, is he reincarnated with her each time? Because that’s going to be difficult to pull off. I kind of like the idea that sometimes he’s four years old in her adult life and sometimes he’s eighty in her young life, but at this point, the whole reincarnation thing is a pain in the ass, so I’m just going to ignore that and sees what happens in the story.

What’s he do for a living? I was working along the lines of historian of some kind, but I like the idea that some people floated that he’s a painter. I liked it even better when somebody else talked about manuscript illuminations. Maybe he illuminated manuscripts back in the day and now he does book illustrations and he had a guy posed as a Viking who looked out the window and dropped an ax on Lily and that’s how she got her memory back.

Maybe not.

Maybe he’s not even a Viking. Maybe he’s Brother Sebelius, the guy who owned Pangur, the monk who illustrated manuscripts. That would be a bait-and-switch which is usually a very bad idea.

Not that PoV yet. I want to stay in Lily’s PoV for awhile. We can do Viking PoV later when we know Lily better, I think. Of course I say that, and then Week 3 I will feel the need to do Viking PoV after all.

Since Lily didn’t mention that she already had a Viking in this life, I think it’s time for the Cute Meet, without the “Cute.” Snarky Meet. Ax Meet. Oh-Hell-Not-You Meet.

As for what he looks like, I think Chris Hemsworth is the current default Viking (although Idris Elba appeals, too), but I need a Hemsworth-like avatar that isn’t quite so in-Lily’s-face-Viking. A non-hunky Viking descendant. Which probably knocks Hemsworth out completely since he’s sort of Ur-hunky although he does appear to have a strong streak of goof in him, so that could be redeeming. Also, he’s the only Viking I know of.

Well, and this one:

Yeah, this might be better:

Although somebody did mention Rick O’Connell. Not a Viking but possibly we could kind of mush them together, I do that a lot with place-holders:

Maybe something will occur.

As to gender in the reincarnations, I have no idea what the reincarnations are. There may not be twelve; that was heavily influenced by Dr. Who. Another bridge to be crossed later. I don’t even know why she’s being reincarnated. The Girls just wanted reincarnations.

Oh, and we need a name. Possible Bjorn (bear), Erik (absolute ruler), or Harald (lord and ruler). My next-door neighbor has two sons named Bjorn and Sten, so I know those are still used, but I’m drawn to Harald so I could call him Harry. That seems like a Crusie hero name. Actually, it is a Crusie hero name, Harry is in Monday Street. I do not see a hero called Norm, but that may just be a Cheers leftover.

• Nadia

I’m of two minds about Nadia. I kind of want to do thirteen sessions with her, each one discussing one of the lives, but that would mean the book would take place over 13 weeks, and that could be too long. Or I could start each section of the book with an exchange between Lily and Nadia, a piece of a session, sort of like the way the imaginary therapist was salted through Agnes.

Nadia needs to be in there, but I think she’s more along the idea of a Greek chorus. But not as an all-wise/all knowing mentor. Nadia’s good, but she’s a real person, not a symbol. Yeah, Nadia’s going to need some thought. She can’t be a love interest or a best friend because she’s a good therapist, and a good therapist would not cross that line.

• Reincarnation is real. I think magic is out–watch, there will be magic in spite of that–but reincarnation is real and Lily really is on her thirteenth? life. Maybe not thirteenth. Why the hell is she reincarnated? Is everybody? I mean, is that the way death works in this story world? Or it is just some people? In Nita, people get a choice in Hell; some of them just say, “Nope, I’m done, where’s the bus to the Elysian Fields?” Or is reincarnation part of an antagonist plot? Then we’re back in magic. I don’t want a magic antagonist.

But due to popular demand, reincarnation is real, I think.

2. NEEDS:

Beyond expectation and Wants, we also need basic fiction Needs, the building blocks of traditional story: protagonist, antagonist, conflict, setting, theme, etc. Okay, not theme yet, we need a first draft to figure that one out, but . . .

• Setting: The Girls in the Basement) feel strongly that Lily should work in a diner. I have no idea why. I’m hungry, so that may have something to do with it, but that diner keeps turning up in the background. Not that I’ve given this a lot of thought, but evidently the Girls have.

Setting includes community, so Lily needs a best friend who is not Nadia. I’m assuming she works at the diner. Maybe she owns the diner. Maybe the diner is something quirky like . . . I dunno.

Ignore me. It’s Sticky Time.

I think there’s another waitress in the diner, too (of course there are other waitresses, but I mean a recurring character) because I dreamt about her last night. Her name began with a C and she’s a vegan who lectures people about caffeine while she pours coffee. I have no idea why, ask the Girls, they sent the dream. Actually, I think I know why the vegan bit; there a picture of a grocery shelf on the net the other day with the entire aisle of shelves empty except for the vegan section which was still completely stocked. I have nothing against vegans, but that was funny.

Other settings: the Love Interest’s workplace, their apartments/homes, Nadia’s office, the street–I get an urban setting for this, but not a super big city–but I think in general, they’ll show up when they show up. College town probably. Have to explain that ax, although the ax-throwing places fascinate me, but again, that would probably do well in a college town. Plus they’re gonna have to research the past. Yeah, college town. Too bad I’m not in Columbus any more, that would be perfect. I loved Columbus. Such a great town.

Where was I?

Right, setting. East coast probably. I personally find New Jersey as a location hysterically funny, but then I live here.

• Antagonist

Later for that. I don’t even know what Lily wants yet, how do I know who’s blocking her?

• Conflict

See “Antagonist” above.

• Protagonist

That’s our Lily. Early thirties. Probably a redhead with that Irish ancestry. Has a cat named Pangur. Short temper, although that’s a cliche for a redhead. I like Gina’s “I’m not a people person, but I’m a person person. One on one, I like people. More than that, not as much.” Not rude, just preoccupied with her own problems at the moment.

She works in a diner. The thing about a diner is that there will be other people there, too, so Lily will have to talk to people. Otherwise, she’s stuck in her apartment, sittin’ and thinkin’. Sittin’ and thinkin’ is stinkin’ writing. We need people for her to bounce off of. Diner regulars. So. Much. Potential.

College town (name?). Did she teach at the university, and then there was the whatever that gave her the memories of her reincarnations? Does she have them all sharply or are they slowly coming back to her? She could be a returning grad student. I did my first masters in my thirties, second in my forties. In what? Waitressing in a diner is a good grad school job. Like bartending. Mollie tended bar through her undergrad years. I waitressed all through high school.

Her close relationships are her cat and her best friend who owns the diner. Owns? Why is her best friend running a diner in a college town?

Okay, we’re getting too deep into the woods on this. Let’s stick to what we know from the first scene, which was pure Girls in the Basement:

• The protagonist is named Lily and she’s female and angry. (Welcome to Crusie world.)

• Her problem is that people think she’s crazy. I think. But it’s also that she’s upset/angry/tormented by those memories.

• She has a cat that [she thinks?] is reincarnated with her.

• She blames a Viking for her first death and many of the ones that followed.

• She’s read Harry Potter or at least seen the movies. Nah, she’s read them, too.

• She has an aversion to axes. And Vikings.

• She appears to have finally found a good therapist.

That’s all that’s there in that first scene. A rewrite is going to have to foreshadow the antagonist, but since we don’t have a clue who that is, later for that.

I have no idea why I started with therapists. It would seem to indicate that Lily’s big central problem is dealing with the past, letting go and moving on, which would mean that the antagonist is trying to make her dwell on the past, but that makes no sense because there’s nothing to be gained by that. An evil therapist could be looking for the mummy’s treasure and trying to dig up clues from her past lives, but Nadia isn’t evil and that’s a stretch for a plot and I don’t want supernatural in here. I think we’ll let the evil therapist go. But that’s still an interesting idea in general: if Lily needs to let go of the past, who gains if she’s forced to remember? I have no idea.

Also, why is she so damn angry?

I need to see Lily in her everyday life, I think, see what turns up there. So the first scene is in the diner.

Placeholders for Lily right now are Sarah Rafferty and Dani Kind.

Generally, I’m not fond of thin protagonists, but I think Lily probably burns calories while she’s asleep. Sort of like Lorelei in Gilmore Girls; she’s always whirring inside.

3. The Girls in the Basement

This is the stuff that’s just THERE. Because.

I have no idea why Surprise Lily struck me as a good title.

I know the reincarnations came out of the “Surprise” part of that, but it could just have easily have been a multiple personality thing, or an erratic heroine thing, or somebody who pops out of cakes at parties.

Then somehow Pangur Ban attached itself, not a complete surprise since I’ve always loved that poem, but why that far back?

Why more than one reincarnation (see Dead Again as a one-incarnation story)? I know why twelve, that was Dr. Who.

Why a therapist?

Why a diner?

I think the Vikings came out of “Pangur Ban” as a time marker, but why Vikings and not monks, which is much more “Pangur Ban?”

Why are the diner uniforms that I see pink? Lily with her red hair would probably look awful in pink, but that would really depend on the pink. If it’s magenta, you’d want to put your eyes out. If it’s a nice rosy pink, she’d probably look great. But still, pink?

How do I know that Pangur is a tortoiseshell?

I have learned not to fight the Girls on this stuff. Later it will all become clear. They Know All.

Conclusion:

The next scene is in the diner with Lily and her best-friend-to-be-named-later, talking about the therapy, and then the love-interest-to-be-named-later shows up. No idea what happens; assuming snappy patter and a burger.

Feel free to continue brainstorming in the comments. I’ll be back with whatever on Monday.

NOTE: This blog post has not been edited. Apologies for rambling, mistakes, whatever.

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This is a Good Book Thursday, March 26, 2020

I can highly recommend If I’d Never Met You, by Mhairi McFarlane. It’s a let’s-pretend-we’re-a-couple romance but it’s also a whole lot more, the story of a woman rethinking her whole life, with great friendships and so much life and texture and depth that you’ll have to reread it. Just terrific.

What did you read this week?

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Working Wednesday, March 25, 2020

I swear I scheduled a WW post, I even took a picture for it, but where the hell it went, I do not know. Since so many of us are working from home now, asking “What are you working on?” takes on whole new levels of complexity.

So what are you working on?

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Argh Author: Deborah Blake’s King Me

Here’s a blast from an Argh author’s past: King Me was Deb’s second book, self-published “on a whim;” her third book was the one that got her an agent. Four books later, she sold to a New York publisher and never looked back. Until now.

Morgan’s a modern witch who bows to no man. Arthur’s a mystic king who doesn’t trust women or magic. But they’ll have to work together to find a missing wizard before an evil sorceress captures him and ends the world . . .

Morgan Fairfax and her coven perform a ritual to bring forth a hero to save the earth from war and global warming. Morgan is hoping for a brilliant scientist, or maybe another Gandhi. Instead, she gets Arthur Pendragon, King of Britain, who is not impressed with her, especially when he finds out she’s misplaced Merlin, his right hand wizard. Add in political mayhem, Morgana Le Fey and her weasel of a son, a bunch of wacky coven members, a famous actress and Morgan’s psychic Scottish grandmother, and you have a paranormal romantic comedy that will have you saying “King Me!”

As Deb says, “It’s a humorous paranormal romance, and I figure we can all use more humor now. It’s also free for anyone who has Kindle Unlimited.”

Buy it here.

Learn more about Deb on her website here.

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Revisiting Rats With Islands

I wrote an essay fifteen years ago called “Rats with Islands,” and I thought of it again this weekend because I am basically optimistic about the mess we’re in now. Not stupidly optimistic: I am socked in at home with social distancing of a good twenty feet (my house is set back from the one-lane road I live on) and enough food for a good two weeks, and I plan on doing everything I’m told like a good girl. I’m not stupid. But I am hopeful because hope is better than despair and gets me through the bad times a hell of a lot better than giving up ever has. Not that I’ve ever given up. It doesn’t seem productive, so I avoid it.

Anyway, here’s the essay I wrote in 2005 about the insanity of publishing and why you should never give up even if you never get published. Or the virus.

Rats With Islands: How To Survive Your Publishing Career

Note: Describing your islands in the comments would be good. We all need examples to swim for.

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Surprise Lily 1

Welcome to the Argh Novel Project, a multi-week exploration of fiction and the process by which . . . okay, it’s just us playing around but that’s good, too. We’re starting with the Surprise Lily first scene because that’s what most of the comments said, although I did some very light editing (took out some unnecessary words and omitted all the “smells bad” stuff because you people kept insisting on historical accuracy). There’s a page under Work In Progress in the blog menu above that I’ll try to keep updated so that all the stuff from this is one place, but that’s about as much organization as I’m capable of. New stuff goes up on Monday, we talk in the comments all week, on Friday I try to synthesize and you can comment on that, I write on Saturday and Sunday, and on Monday we start all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. If this gets boring or it doesn’t work, we’ll do something else. No rules (some guidelines, no Should, no worries. Argh People, start your engines:

Lily looked at Dr. Ferris with what she hoped was patience but probably looked like contempt and tried to explain the situation again.

“In Ireland somewhere in the 800s, I think, I was walking along a cliff face near the Abbey when I saw the Viking ships. I was thirty-three and therefore a crone, but Vikings are surprisingly unpicky when it comes to rape and murder; it’s always closing time and mead-goggles for them. I picked up Pangur, Brother Sedulius’s cat, to run back to the Abbey, and saw this big blond guy coming at me on the path, pretty clearly a Viking come ashore early to scope the place out. This has turned out to be a pattern in my life. For some reason, I always get the early Viking. Anyway, I turned to run, and the path was rough, and he grabbed for me, and I tripped and fell over the cliff edge onto the rocks below, taking Pangur with me, although he doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge.” She thought of Pangur, waiting at home, expecting a treat in exchange for her betrayal of leaving him for three hours. Tuna maybe. “Anyway, we must have gone head first because we died pretty much instantly on the rocks, so aside from the fact that I was dead, it wasn’t too bad.” Lily looked at the therapist. “That was the first time.”

Dr. Ferris nodded, her plastic smile as firmly in place as every hair on her clearly dyed head. “And how often have you had this dream?”

Lily thought about throwing something at her. The woman had been annoying from the moment Lily had arrived—“Lily, I’m so glad you’re here”—and every instinct she had was telling her to go for the door, but she was on her fourth therapist and if she ditched another one, people might start thinking the problem was her.

“Lily?” Dr. Ferris said, heavily sympathetic.

Lily tried again. “It’s not a dream. It happened. And then I died and was reborn in the 900s and then I died and was reborn in 1000s and then–”

“Let’s go back to the first . . . memory,” Dr. Ferris said, nodding and smiling, obviously refraining from putting finger quotes around “memory” with great effort.

I wonder if there’s a Dr. Ferris bobble head doll. There was definitely a Dolores Umbridge bobble doll. She could paint the hair black and add a big smile like the clown in It and that would pretty much nail–

“Lily.” Dr. Ferris leaned forward, oozing sincerity in every pore. It smelled like flop sweat. “Do you think this might possibly be a buried fantasy, something you long for and can’t express?”

Lily looked at her with contempt. “Anybody who thinks Vikings are a fantasy hasn’t met a real one.” She stopped to think about the guy on the path. Her First Viking. Big. Blond. Caused her death. And her cat’s death. Well, Brother Sedulius’s cat, but after twelve reincarnations, pretty much her cat–

“Lily?”

“Vikings are not a fantasy.”

Dr. Ferris blinked. “Actually, they are for many people.”

“Those are fantasy Vikings, not the real thing. I have it on good authority that their foreplay involved an ax. ‘Brace yourself, Bridget’ is not a joke.” Dr. Ferris looked confused and Lily gave up. “Look, this isn’t going to work as long as you think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy–”

“You think I have difficulty telling the difference between fantasy and reality.”

Dr. Ferris smiled a healing smile. “Who amongst us doesn’t?”

“Me. I have enough reality for thirteen people, and I need help dealing with it. That will clearly not be coming from you.” Lily stood up. “I’m sorry Dr. Ferris, but just no.”

“Wait.” Dr. Ferris stood up, showing real emotion for the first time.

“You’ve already decided that I’m delusional and your job is to help me see the truth. But I just told you the truth, so we’re never going to get anywhere. I need somebody who can think outside the therapy box, not somebody who will be the box.” Lily hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “I wish you the best. Stop dying your hair, it makes you look older.”

“Ah,” Dr. Ferris said, smiling again. “Anger. That can be very productive. I really think–”

Lily narrowed her eyes. “I’ve been angry for thirty-three years and thirteen lifetimes, some of them tragically short. Hasn’t produced a thing except this line between my eyebrows. See it? Looks like it was made by a very small ax, doesn’t it? Vikings. Hate ‘em. Starting to hate you, and one day you will again tell me my past lives are all dreams, and I will pick up your stapler and thwap you with it. I’m saving us both a lot of time and trouble by ending this because this is not good for either of us. Or your stapler.”

Dr. Ferris stopped smiling. “Fine.” She took a deep angry breath. “You want outside the box? Come with me.”

She opened the door and went out into the white plastic maze that held the offices of Crispin Therapy (a division of Atlantic Health), and Lily followed her, curious more than anything.

Two turns later, Dr. Ferris stopped in front of another white door and knocked.

How does she tell all these white doors apart? Lily thought, and then the door opened, and Dr. Ferris said, “Nadia?” and Lily looked past her and saw a tall black woman with a streak of blue in her hair wearing a T-shirt that said, “Do I look like a fucking people person?”

“What now, Carolyn?” the woman said. “Did I park outside the lines again?”

“This is Lily,” Dr. Ferris said, her smile gone along with the lilt in her voice. “She needs a therapist who thinks . . .” She made finger quotes. “‘Outside the box.’”

Nadia looked at her with exaggerated patience. “I am—” She made finger quotes, too. “‘Not Working Today.’ Hence this t-shirt.” She looked past Ferris at Lily. “Nothing personal.”

“Completely understandable,” Lily said.

“Lily thinks she’s been reincarnated thirteen times,” Ferris said, contempt dripping from her voice.

“Twelve times,” Lily said. “Twelve reincarnations, thirteen lives.”

Nadia sighed. “Maybe she has been reincarnated twelve times.”

“So I brought her to you,” Ferris went on. “You are definitely outside the box. I don’t think you’d know a box if you saw one.”

“I know boxes, I just avoid them,” Nadia said, with an undercurrent that said, I’m going to slam this door in your face now.

Lily nodded. “That’s how I feel about Vikings. They’re always there, but you don’t have to make them part of your life.”

Nadia raised her eyebrows. “Lotta Vikings in your life?”

“Not always. I died in childbirth—my birth, not giving birth—four times, and then there was the Plague, and don’t ever let anybody tell you a ship is unsinkable, but Vikings show up often enough that they’re a definite theme in my lives. Show me a tall, drunk, blond guy who spends a lot of time flexing, and sooner or later, he’s gonna kill me, probably with an ax.”

Nadia blinked. “Hello, Lily. Come on in.”

“I like your t-shirt,” Lily said, and went in.

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

Okay, we can talk about anything you want, but some of the things I need to know before I write something this weekend are . . .

1. What’s the next scene? That is, what do you WANT to see next? (NO SHOULDS.) (We need T-shirts with that on it.)

2. We’re gonna need some more people in this world. I do not want a cast list here, that’ll just emerge naturally as we write, I just need who you want to see in the next scene. (Writing Wonk Note: This is the Expectation part of Want. Expectation is the fun part of reading. As in, “Oooh, oooh, I bet/hope/WANT this happens/to happen next.”)

3. Where do you want it to be? (Setting is another character, has a huge impact on scene.)

Just FYI: Everything is open here (except (1) good therapists do not have love affairs with their patients so Nadia stays a good therapist, and (2) the cat does not die except in those previous lives. Also, I have no idea if Lily really has had those previous lives. Everything I know is in the scene above.

Over to you all.

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The Argh Novel: Here’s the Plan

So the plan is to brainstorm Surprise Lily (overwhelming preference) and then I’ll write whatever comes out of our brainstorming that week, and then we do it all over again until we get tired and wander off. Brainstorming should be as free form as possible, but we are gonna need some guidelines here.

First a schedule. I’m thinking I put up the new stuff on Mondays, we talk about it all week (we’ll have Working Wednesday and Good Book Thursday in there, too), we do some synthesizing on Friday, inspired by that I write over the weekend, and then we start all over. So Monday is the product of the previous week, and Friday is pulling all the talk from the week together so I have some RMoaGs* to work with.

Then about that week of discussion: No idea is dumb. We’re obviously not going to use everything that people come up with, but the whole point of brainstorming is to think “outside the box” (finger quotes), to inspire each other and not shut anybody down. It’s like improv: We do not say no.

Also, “should” is outlawed. That is, “Well, if we do that, then we should do this next.” Nope. I’m fine with “could” and better with “oooh, oooh, this would be fun,” but Should is out. For example, the first scene (very rough draft) of Lily meeting Nadia should be followed by Lily and Nadia talking. Except we don’t do Should and I don’t want to write that. It’s what everybody would expect.

What we do instead is “want.” I want to write something fun. I have an idea how to get the Lily/Nadia stuff in without writing the Should Scene (never write the Should Scene), but I’ll wait to see what you Want as far as “oooh, oooh, this would be fun.” This is basically another way of saying, “Only write the good parts.” Forget the parts that the reader needs to understand something, she’s going to skim those anyway. Get to the parts she Wants to read, which are probably the parts we want to write. The Want parts.

This is a good time to remind people that I don’t write in chronological order, so I don’t see any reason we should either. This is not brain surgery, we can always go back and add things, change things, fix things, cut things, lengthen things, we can do all of that later. And given my penchant for rewriting, we will. In fact some of those Mondays will be me putting up something we’ve already done and saying, “This needs work” and pinpointing what in it is screwing up the rest of what we’ve got.

And then along the way we’ll have to do the macro stuff. Like:

What is this book about? (Romance? Reincarnation? Dissing Vikings?)

What kind of tone and mood does it have? (Screwball? Suspense? Adventure?)

Who’s the antagonist, the character that creates the conflict for Lily? (Love interest? Somebody at work? Early Viking?)

Is there a love interest? Friends? Family? Community? Team? Dog? (There’s definitely a cat.)

What’s showing up as metaphor and motif? (We’ll do theme when the book is done: we won’t know what we’ve said until we see what we made.)

There’s a lot more, and I’m good with finding out the macro stuff as we go, but at some point, maybe this summer if we go that long and don’t wander off, we’ll have to look at what we’ve got.

But that’s about it as far as a plan. Expect chaos. Creativity thrives in chaos. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the last thirty years.

*Really More of a Guideline

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