Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 164

This is a Good Book Thursday, February 14, 2019

It’s Valentine’s Day! Take the day off and read a romance!

(Side Note: Last night, I was reading Going Postal by Terry Pratchett again (published in 2004) when I realized the bad guy–a lying, exploitive, money-grubbing son of a bitch named Reacher Gilt–lived in Tump Tower. I swear, I’ve read this book at least ten times and that joke never landed until now. Pratchett is just the best.)

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Working Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Yesterday, I worked on getting out of the ER. Fortunately, I was not in there for a heart attack; vertigo and nausea (I’m thinking it’s my meds). Finally my neighbor Allan came and sprung me about seven after which I went to sleep. Woke up feeling great. Then remembered Working Wednesday. I suck as a blogger. Today the snow has stopped (always call 911 in the middle of a horrible snow storm), I feel fine, and, uh, here’s Working Wednesday.

What’s your plan for today? (Do not choose “go to ER, lose whole freaking day.”)

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The Up Side of Failure

Something Emily said in the comments on the happiness post yesterday reminded me of something I’ve always believed in but had forgotten: If you’re not failing now and then, you’re not trying hard enough. It had been awhile since I’d failed, but then it had been awhile since I’d tried going outside my own head. I’d been writing for ten years, I just hadn’t finished anything. No chance of failure there. I never got near the mountain top.

I should be clear, I don’t think of Nita as a failure as a book, but there’s no denying I failed to get it published with an editor I have a contract with. And that was surprising, but when I thought about it, not that surprising. I had even warned Mollie there was a chance Jen would turn it down because it was just too weird. And of course, the sensible thing to do in the future would be to not write weird, to stop trying so hard.

There are a couple of problems with that, though, the first one being, I’ve always written weird. I’ve had several authors tell me they started to write romance after reading my Harlequins because they realized they could write stories that could have older heroines with smart mouths who didn’t want a baby. I don’t think I’d have had the career I did if I hadn’t tried too hard and written weird. So trying to write to market would be counterintuitive for me.

The bigger problem is that I like writing weird. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s where the creative juice is for me right now. I completely understand if nobody wants to buy my weird, marketing is crucial and publishers need to make money to stay in business. But I’m going to write what I want to write.

And then there’s the whole health thing. I don’t know whether I’m going to die in twenty years or twenty minutes, and that’s very liberating. (Who knew a dicey heart could set you free?). If I’ve only got twenty minutes left, I’m writing about mechanical bats in an alternate timeline, not about some chick going back to her home town to open a bakery.

(Apologies to everyone who has written wonderful books about going back to a hometown to open a bakery, especially since the book I’m going to be finishing in the next couple of months is about a thirty-something who gets trapped in her home town with somebody trying to kill her.).

Picture me as the penguin in the center of the flock singing, “I GOTTA BE ME!”

And no worries about Nita; if it doesn’t go anywhere in traditional publishing, we’ll self-publish (Mollie can do anything).

Because we’re trying hard enough.

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Unexpected Happiness

I had a bad day and then I had a good week. Something happened that I didn’t expect, and it blocked the path I thought I was going to take to my future, so that suddenly I had to find a new path that didn’t look anything at all like what I’d planned, and just as suddenly I realized how many options for new paths I had, how many new directions I hadn’t seen because I was concentrating on what was supposed to happen. All of a sudden, there was all this potential that hadn’t been there before. I have no idea what my life is supposed to look like now, which means it can look like anything I want. And that, not surprisingly, makes me happy

What did happiness look like in your life this week?

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Cherry Saturday, February 9, 2019

Today is Pizza Day.

I want peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and black olives. No broccoli.

Not that I’m hungry or anything.

I definitely have to get a pizza for dinner tonight.

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Tbis is a Good Book Thursday, February 7, 2019

I think Mercury is in Fucked again because things are falling apart everywhere I look, and not just for me. Solution: Read. Comfort reads, new books, soup cans, crochet instructions, the twitter feeds about Pelosi’s shade clap, the ingredients in dog cookies, just read. I was talking to my new therapist who is a genius, and she said, “One of the books I read this year is my favorite ever. Good Omens.” I shrieked and said, ‘Pratchett and Gaiman! That’s my favorite, too!” So I reread Good Omens because it reminds me that people are basically good. Also that any tape left in a car too long becomes a Best of Queen tape. I must get a Best of Queen CD for my car and leave it in there. Right now there’s just the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack (the first one) and there’s only so many times you can hear “Please go all the way” before you really need some Freddie.

Where was I? Oh, right. What did you read this week?

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Working Wednesday, February 6, 2019

This week I am sorting through ten thousand drafts of WiPs, drawing in my bee-you-tee-ful new sketchbooks, cooking new recipes, and–if I’m feeling particularly brave–washing the dogs.

What are you up to?

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We Interrupt This Five Days . . .

Just when things start sailing, you hit a speed bump. SMP did not care for Nita and does not want a Crusie supernatural, which is what Mackie would have been, so back to the drawing board. I have agents who are on the problem, and Jen and I are still good, so all is fine. It’s a marketing decision mostly, although the book was also too damn long.

Cogitating here. But no worries, nothing but good times ahead.

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The Five Days of Mackie

So in the spirit of Lee’s Make-Something-Every-Day-in-February (which I am now four days behind on), I’m going back to an old blog plan, The X Days of ?. The plan here is to write on the novella every day, regardless, and since it’s a novella, I should get a fair amount done on it. And I have to report here every day, so there’s accountability. It’s a plan.

Plus I ordered a sketchbook and pencils on Amazon and then decided that tomorrow was too long to wait and went to the craft store today, so I can actually draw today. HUGE step forward. And I already wrote today. I revised the first scene when I had lunch at the diner, and then wrote 500 words in my therapist’s waiting room. I’ll get back to it later, but I’m feeling very pro-active right now. And really itching for that sketchbook. It’s only 8 x 10 (a larger one is coming from Amazon tomorrow) but it has lovely smooth pages and I have new pencils. Very exciting.

So this is the First Day of Mackie. Goal each day: 1000 words, not counting revisions. I can do this.

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Happiness is Realizing Life is Pretty Good

I was looking back through some old photos recently and realized I was pretty damn cute back in the day. “The day” was the time when I thought I was fat, ugly, and hopeless. Nope, I was cute, and in the pictures I’m surrounded by friends who have their arms around me, laughing and happy. So today I realized that I’m still pretty damn cute, and that I’m surrounded by friends, and that I am happy. I’m with Colette on this:

How did you realize you were happy this week?

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