Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 175

The 7% Solution

Tip number 60 in the happiness book is “Join a group.”  People who belong to social groups are 7% happier than people who don’t.

Welcome to Argh.

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Cherry Saturday, September 29, 2018

September has been Milkshake Month.

I waited until now to tell you so you wouldn’t hurt yourselves.  

(My fave: chocolate and amaretto, an alcohol-sugar buzz that’s unbeatable.)

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This is a Good Book Thursday, September 27, 2018

That was September that just whooshed by while I was reading.  Lots of Pratchett this month because Pratchett is always excellent.  

So what did you read in September?

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Working Wednesday, September 25, 2018

I’ve been cooking all week which has the added benefit of giving me excellent things to eat.  Also, Max and Button’s subplot.  Also, the great Whiteboard Dilemma, which is still mostly in my head.   And I’ve started about four different crochet projects and frogged them all.  In other words, my work is ephemeral and ongoing.

What did you do this week?

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Keys vs. Pens

I write on a computer.  I love writing on a computer.  There is no doubt in my mind that if computers hadn’t been invented, I would never have written a book.  (I wrote my first master’s thesis on a typewriter.  That was enough long -form-with-witeout typing.)  Sometimes I have to diagram to see relationships, overlapping plots, anything that’s not linear and for that I have a mapping program (Curio, highly recommended).  My relationship with my laptop is intense and ongoing.

Until I get to the two-thirds (roughly) point in the novel.  Then I lust for colored pens.

I don’t know for sure why I dump my laptop then, but when I can see the entire book in my head, I need grid paper and sketchbooks and colored pens.  I need a print-out of the book and colored pens.  And most of all, I need a whiteboard and, yep, colored pens.  

Okay, I do know some of this. I know I love the non-linearity of the grid paper and cards, the ability to go in all directions at once as I diagram my plot and character arcs over and over again as I write.  Sometimes I doodle ideas and that’s harder on a computer, although there’s my iPad screen with its pen, but  I think I just I crave the feel of paper under my hand, I want to see the ink flow in the sketchbooks, I want to be connected to the experience, not just feeding information that magically appears on a screen I’m not supposed to touch (that’s the laptop, not the iPad, my fingerprints are all over the iPad).

The picture above is the first two acts of Lavender’s Blue.  The majority of the scenes there are either in cars or houses; Liz trying to escape or Liz trapped, and I wanted to see the distribution.  The names inside the icons are the antagonists.  The teddy bears are a motif throughout and I wanted to see how they were placed in the story.   It’s act-by-doodle, and it gives me a different way to picture (in this case literally) the plot, and it’s all in a notebook that’s much harder to lose than a piece of paper.  Plus because it’s a sketchbook, the paper is a lot tougher and I can do some real damage with markers without destroying the whole thing.  Also it’s fun.

I do know why I need the print-out; it’s because the book looks different on the page than it does on the screen.  It’s like meeting somebody you only know at work when you’re at the grocery store; you see a different person.  I print out the book and see a different story.  All my mistakes glare; connections I’d missed become obvious; parts that drag, drag more; parts that are too fast whiz by.  I love the print-out stage because I get to read a new book.

I’m less sure why I lust for a whiteboard at this stage.   There is real value in being able to see the entire book on the wall before me, divided into acts, blocked into scenes and scene sequences, color-coded as to point-of-view character, symbols indicating subplots.  It gives me the entire novel in one graphic.  But I’m getting the same thing, basically, from the easel-sized post-its I bought until I can put up a whiteboard, and it’s not what I want.  I need to see it on a whiteboard, not four giant Post-its.

This is the first three acts of Agnes on my old whiteboard.  I miss my old whiteboard.   (That’s Charlie reclining below the whiteboard; I miss him, too.)

If the visuals here look familiar, it’s because I grabbed them off an old Argh questionable post (question from Deb Blake, thank you, Deb)

And for right now, as I mentioned above, I’m using giant post-its for Nita.  It’s just not the same.

It is still valuable, though.  Among other things, this first pass shows me that I’ve completely borked the Button/Max subplot in this act.  Back to the drawing board giant Post-it.

Still, I’ll never give up my laptop for writing the drafts.  The idea of writing a novel longhand . . . shudder . . . although people whose work I respect prefer it.  Pat Gaffney always wrote her books in longhand, and Krissie (Anne Stuart) often does:

“It depends on the book, depends if I’m stuck, etc.  Some books just ask to be written in longhand – it’s a mystery.  I started it when I got blocked and it would knock me out of it, and I did it for love scenes, probably because of the more tactile feel (redundant) of the ink and the paper. I’m pickier about paper than pens – has to be Clairefontaine, which is like silk, but mostly any fountain pen will do.  Books just demand to be written certain ways and I don’t fight it. Works for me.”

The paper thing is interesting–Krissie feels about Clairefontaine the way I feel about graph paper and sketchbook pages–but I think her penultimate sentence in the key.  I cannot explain why I need the whiteboard, but I know I shouldn’t fight it.  The Girls in the Basement know what they need, so I should just order the damn whiteboard, rearrange my living room to open a wall for it, and then get back to figuring out Button and Max’s subplot arc.  

The writer’s heart knows what it wants and in my case, that’s a white board and many, many colored markers.

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The Art of Pacing

Well, I don’t like being exhausted, but that goes away if I sit down.  Dizzy isn’t good, either, but that goes away if I sit down.  Shortness of breath, a very bad sign, but that goes away if I sit down.  If you have problems in your life and they all go away when you sit down, you’ve got a pretty good life, especially if you like sitting down because that’s where the books and the computers and the TV are.  I think of Terry Pratchett’s Leonard of Quirm, locked up by the Patrician and not noticing because the Patrician gives him all the books and tools and supplies he needs and a great place to work.  As Pratchett says, “There’s a certain type of person it is very hard to imprison.”  I keep thinking of that as I quit in the middle of doing the dishes to sit down.   What a shame my heart won’t let me stand here for another fifteen minutes scrubbing pots.  Darn.  I’ll have to read something.

This has also led to me considering things instead of rushing by them.  I want a big whiteboard but I have not yet ordered a big whiteboard because I am considering the ramifications of my fairly small living room.  Instead I ordered a Post-It easel and that’s getting me through the I-must-see-the-entire-book-on-the-wall portion of this novel.  I’ve been considering trying a pasta salad recipe for a couple of days; usually I grab the ingredients and then forget to make it before everything goes toes up.  Today I made pasta salad, or I will have made it once I hardboil some eggs.  (Why are there eggs in this pasta salad?  Weird.)   And I’m cleaning out my kitchen a section at a time–the heart thing again–and finding that if I go slower, I’m a lot more likely to look at whatever widget I’m holding and think, I do not need this, or even more often, Why do I have three of these?  

And then there’s the fact that I’m considering my health at all.   Suddenly I’m taking care of myself, taking my meds, paying attention to the signals my body’s sending me, talking to doctors.  I even bought an Apple watch because Mollie was worried.  She said, “What if you collapse from a heart attack and nobody finds you?” I said, “I’ll die and the dogs will eat me.” For some reason, this did not reassure her.  So now if I fall down, the Watch notices and asks me if I’m okay, and if I don’t hit “Yes, I’m great, and you?” on the screen, it calls 911 and the EMTs will come before the dogs figure out it’s time for the Last Supper. Also, it has a heart rate monitor so I can see what my resting heart rate is (73, which isn’t terrible) and what my walking heart rate is (or would if I walked more).  I never had time for this kind of thing before.  Now I make time.  I pace myself.

Of course it’s a shame my heart had to implode to get me to slow down, but hey, there really is an upside here: I feel better now than I ever have before.  I’d even go so far as to say I’m healthy.

Pace yourself, people.  Also your novels, but that’s another post.

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Comparative Happiness

Studies have shown (some study somewhere always shows something) that happiness is relative, by which I do not mean your relatives make you happy. I mean that your happiness with an experience depends on what you’re comparing it to.   Is right now not as good as the best time in your life or is it much better than the worst time in your life?  There’s your relative scale for happiness.  I’m wondering if that’s why older people are so often reported to be more content.  We’ve lived through such hell that a stretch of relative calm and well-being seems like nirvana.  My personal approach is to look at anything that’s making me unhappy and think (1) Can I fix/solve/stop this? and (2) If I can’t, is this worse than the worst time in my life?  It’s never worse than the worse time in my life, so happiness returns.  

How did you find comparative happiness this week?

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Cherry Saturday, September 22, 2018

Today is Dear Diary Day.  

Diaries are very important if only for entertainment; as Gwendolen says in The Importance of Being Earnest, “I never travel without my diary.  One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” And that’s before you get to the sense of nostaligic shame that sweeps over you when you realize how completely lame you were back then (“back then” being twenty years or twenty minutes).  But the most important thing about keeping a journal is that it actually is good for you.  The study I cited when I taught was done on college students; not only did their stress levels decline when they journaled for a month, months after they stopped their levels remained lower.  That’s good stuff.   I buy journals because they’re pretty and never use them because I blog, which is not the same thing because I can’t put my deepest thoughts and fears here.

Although now that I come to think of it . . .

Do as I say, not as I do: Keep a journal.

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This is a Good Book Thursday, September 20, 2018

I’ve been reading Pratchett’s Watch series which has been interesting because although I’ve read the first three–Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, and Feet of Clay–a dozen times and loved them all, I barely remember the last four.  I remember Night Watch being exceptional, but I can’t remember details, and the others I only have vague recollections of which means it’s like reading new books.  Oh, and I’ve been reading my own book-in-progress and it’s fun, too (yes, I got rid of the godawful sex scene).  So I’ve been having a lovely time.  

What have you been reading?

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Working Wednesday, September 19, 2018

I missed getting a birthday cake, so I’m making brownies today.  With pecans because if you put pecans in, the brownies become health food.

What are you  making?

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