Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 176

Working Wednesday, September19, 2018

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

What are you  making?

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Sunshine and Reputation

I have been thinking about reputation, both in real life and in fiction.  I’ve always thought I’ve gone through life angry and defiant about reputation, my basic approach was “If you don’t like me, then the hell with you,” except when I look back, it wasn’t anything of the kind.  I worked really hard to build a reputation as a good teacher and then as a smart, original writer.  I didn’t care about the superficial stuff, people telling me I was no lady (really?  when did you notice?) or sneering at what I wore (except for the shoes, I had a shoe thing), or laughing because I wrote romance (most popular genre in publishing, laugh all you want, Monkey People), but I cared a lot about my professional reputation as a teacher and a writer. I think that’s where Nita’s coming from, too.  She can handle being Odd Dodd; she can’t handle being thought of as a crazy, lousy cop.  

Of course, the reason I’m thinking about this now is American politics.

We have a Supreme Court nominee who has just been accused of an attempted rape when he was in high school.  Setting aside the details and the validity of the accusation, I looked at that and thought, “This cannot go on,” the constant, varied, and  unsavory revelations connected to the current administration, the graft and the lying and #MeToo accusations, so that even if people can dismiss each one that comes along as a political ploy, the repeated violations of public trust have so colored the White House and Congress that at some point, that whole structure has to collapse.   

Or maybe not.  At what point does reputation matter so much that it destroys an entity (person, place, thing, administration, whatever)?  There used to be laws against disparaging a woman’s virtue, making it a misdemeanor to slander any woman older than 12 by uttering “any false or defamatory words or language which shall injure or impair the reputation of any such female for virtue or chastity or which shall expose her to hatred, contempt or ridicule” (NYT), the idea being that woman’s virtue was her most valuable commodity.  I think that’s a key component of the reputation: how much is this aspect worth to you, and how much assault can that aspect take before your entire rep is worthless?  It is irrefutable that I’m a lousy gardener, but it’s also irrefutable that gardening has nothing to do with the way I make my living, so people stopping by to jeer at my weeds are not a threat to my livelihood.   If the idea that I’m a lousy writer becomes widespread, though, I’m in deep trouble: there goes my reputation, my good word of mouth, and my career.

The only way to survive an attack on reputation is to make sure the truth is out there.  Johnson and Johnson not only survived the 1982 Tylenol poisoning but were lauded for their handling of it because they got out in front with the story and their fix: a sick person did this, not our factories but we’re taking responsibility; we’ll replace any Tylenol you’ve bought; and the bottles are now tamper-proof.  Turns out honesty is great for reputations because sunlight is a great disinfectant.

Which brings me back to American politics and Nita’s reputation.  This administration has been so slimed by events–cabinet graft, unfit nominees, sexual assault and harassment complaints, botched responses to disasters, illegal separation of children from their parents, secret meetings with foreign governments, and general cruelty, bigotry, and ineptitude–that they are in desperate need of sunshine.   That’s why I’m finding the supreme court nomination process especially fascinating right now.  The choice is coming down to sunlight or darkness: delay the confirmation and let the accuser testify in the light or rush the confirmation through and hold the vote in the dark.  

The problem with the light, of course, is that you can see everything if you’re willing to look.

The “willing to look” is Nita’s problem.  The sunshine path is to hold an island meeting and say, “Look, a big chunk of our population is demonic and somebody is killing them.  We need to band together to stop the murders and while we’re at it, stop demonizing demons because they’re our neighbors.” Her problem is that people will not want to look, will prefer to think she’s crazy, even odder than they thought before, and will hold onto their firm convictions that demons are evil, all of which will kneecap her reputation as an honest, effective cop.  The dark path is to work behind the scenes, trying to find the killers and end the group that supports them.  That’s smarter and possibly more effective, but it’s not as efficient and it fails Nita’s goal: to make her island a place where nobody lives in fear because of who they are (she’s fine if they live in fear because they’ve done something illegal, that’s what she’s there for).

The reason that’s important for this story, I think, is that it makes it personal.  Nita’s not just fighting for Good, she’s fighting for her own reputation.  It’s easy to say “A good person would sacrifice her reputation to do the right thing,” but if that sacrifice means she’ll no longer have the power to do the right thing, then shouldn’t she be taking the long view that she can do more good if she consolidates and protects her power?  Except that kind of thinking is what gets governments into messes like the ones our leaders are in, so no, that doesn’t work.  At some point, I think, Nita has to just say, “This is the right thing to do, and I’m going to do it, even though it’s going to destroy my life as I know it.”  And then show that it really does destroy her life; actions have no meanings without consequences.

Of course, I also think people are eventually rewarded for doing the right thing.  I’m a big believer in karma.  And sunlight.

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The Puzzle of Happiness

It has just occurred to me that puzzles make me happy.  The Washington Post has great crosswords that start out easy on Monday and are real killers by Sunday, and they make me happy.  And there’s the jigsaw puzzle on my iPad that Krissie got me hooked on.  And then there’s Monument Valley . . . .  I’m thinking it’s because those are all problems I can complete or maybe they just make my brain feel good.  Whatever, this week I am happy there are solve-able puzzles in the world.

What made you happy this week?

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Cherry Saturday, September 15, 2018

Today is Make a Hat Day.  

Or Linguine Day.  

Or Make a Hat From Linguini Day.

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Is (a) Sex (Scene) Necessary (Here)?

So I don’t want to write the first sex scene between Nick and Nita.  I need to know if I’m just being lazy/a coward/prudish (the last is not likely), or if it’s really unnecessary.  Plus this first scene is not very good even for a discovery draft.  Actually the second one isn’t very good, either.  ARGH.  So the first of the scenes below happens after the nightclub stuff I posted months ago.  Then Nita takes the dog out in the next scene, omitted here, and Bad Things Happen, and then she talks to Max in the bar before she goes back up and falls asleep, also omitted here.  She does not mention the sex in either scene nor does she think about it because both of those scenes are in Max’s POV.  The second scene below is the fourth scene in that sequence, when she goes downstairs the next morning and runs into Rab.  The question is, does skipping the sex feel like a copout?  Tell me no.  Also tell me why the first scene is so awful.  And the second.  Well, you know, the usual.

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

Nita followed Nick into the apartment as he tossed the ledgers on the table.  “I still think it was wrong to hit Tommy.”

“Tommy is fine.” Nick sat on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes. “I think I can get enough from the ledgers to straighten out all the blackmail.  If not, I will go out and torture the Lemmon brothers.”

Nita sat down on the other side of the bed and kicked off her shoes. “I should be against that, but I’m too tired to argue. We’ll discuss it at breakfast.” She rubbed her feet– Keres’s shoes were real killers–and then swung her legs up on the bed.  “Are you okay?  You’ve been crabby since this afternoon.”

“I’m dead.” He stretched out beside her, looked at her, and rolled away from her.

Nita took off Keres’s tunic and shoved off Keres’s leggings and pulled her poodle pajamas out from under her pillow.

“Will you quit thrashing around?” Nick said, his back still to her.

“I’m not thrashing, I’m getting ready for bed.  If you’re going to sleep there, you should get pajamas.  It’s not good to sleep in your clothes.”

“I’m not sleeping,” Nick said.  “I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About how I’m going to strangle you if you don’t quit talking.”

“That’s crabby.”

She got up, stripped off her underwear, and put on her pajamas.  Then she pulled back the covers and got in bed, which was harder than usual because Nick was lying on top of them on the other side.  She yanked at them a little bit and then gave up.  “So what exactly did you mean by ‘torture’?” she said to his back.  “Because I’m almost positive I’m against it.”

Stripe waddled over to the bed and looked pitiful.

“Stripe wants up,” she said.

“No.”

“Or maybe he wants out.”  She started to get out of bed.

“Rab probably took him out.  You’re not allowed to go out alone.  Go to sleep.”

Nita settled back into bed.  “You know, we did good work tonight, except for hitting Tommy.  That one’s on you.”

Nick didn’t say anything.

“Did you get the bank codes?  Were they in the ledgers?”  He didn’t say anything, so she poked him in the back.  “Bank codes?”

“I got them.  Go to sleep.”

“Because I don’t understand how we’re actually going to give the businesses back.  I mean those were real transactions.   It’s not like you can say ‘I’m the Devil so this deed is null and void.”  He didn’t say anything so she poked him in the back again.  “How–”

“Go to sleep or I’ll kill you.”

“No, you won’t.  What happened this afternoon that upset you?  You were perfectly fine at breakfast. Was it something with my grandmothers?  Because you had to open a hellgate for Grandma Keres?  Or was it Grandma Angelika?  Because she’d make anybody crazy.  I knew there was insanity in my family but I had no idea–”

“Shut.  Up.”   

“I just think if you’re that upset about something, I should know about it. There’s been entirely too much stuff that I don’t know about, and it always seems to come back to me, so I am against secrets.  I know you’re the tall, dark, and silent type, but not with me, New Guy, we’re partners, so tell me what’s wrong.

Nick was silent.

“Come on,” she said and poked him in the back again.  “I–”

“You poke me one more time, we’re going to have sex.”

He lay there, his back to her, while Nita sat stunned. 

“Wait,” she said finally.  “That’s an option?”

He ignored her, so she thought about it.

Something must have happened at Grandma Angelika’s and it wasn’t anything he’d found out about her because while that had been upsetting, it wasn’t about anything he had anything to deal with and it certainly wasn’t about sex, at least not with her.  But she’d gone out into the hall and he’d been weird, and then in the car, he’d smacked his head into the steering wheel, but she hadn’t said anything to upset him, so how the hell did they get to “we’re going to have sex”?

And much more important, now that they were here, did she want to?

Kinda,she thought. 

Okay, he was dead, that was a drawback, but he was more alive then most guys she knew who breathed.  Angel and Spike were dead, that hadn’t stopped Buffy.  Thousands of people read vampire romances and never said, “Ew.” 

This is reality, Dodd, she told herself, but reality wasn’t what it used to be.  And he’d been fighting for her for the two days she’d known him.   Okay, that was a little fast to hit the sheets, but technically they’d already hit the sheets, he was right there, and warm and evidently willing and really gorgeous and she trusted him and god knew she’d had sex for worse reasons with worse men, even if they had been alive.

And she loved it when his arms were around her, it was her favorite place to stand now, so lying down would probably be good, too.  Why was she even hesitating? 

There wasn’t a lot of passion there, she decided.  That “if you don’t stop poking me” was not a declaration of overwhelming lust.  On the other hand, he wasn’t a passionate person.   He’d been completely calm when he toasted Rich.  He’d been stony cold with Sadie.

But then he yelled at me when he thought I’d kept Sadie from him.  In fact, the only person he’d really yelled at in the two days she’d known him was her.  So that was passion.  Of a kind. 

What it really came down it was, did she want him?

He was smart and beautiful and he backed her up every time they hit trouble and he was very effective at problem solving and he had a great body which wasn’t real—

Wait.  She tried to parse out what not having a body meant for sex, especially since he had a tendency to overestimate his physical dimensions, and then decided the only way to find out was to have sex with him.

So did she want him?

Yes.

Well, then the rest was just waffling. 

She held up her finger, closed her eyes, and poked him again.

“What?” he snarled.

She poked him again.

He sat up. “What?”

She held up her finger, showed it to him, and then slowly brought it close to his chest and poked him again.

His eyebrows went up.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I just did the pros and cons.  Keres is never going to stop with the necrophiliac jokes.”

He leaned in and kissed her, almost like a question, a little cool, but then, dead guy, and who was she to quibble about a drop in temperature, even if it was just emotional?  She kissed him back, definitely an answer, and he put his arms around her and pulled her down onto the bed, trapping the comforter and the sheet between them.

“Wait a minute, the sheet’s in between–”

“Would you let me do this?” he said, crabby again.

“You bet.”

She kissed him again, and after a minute he said, ‘Okay, you’re right, this bedding has to go,” and she helped him pull it away, thinking, Please let this work.  Everything else in her life had gone sideways that week, she should at least get this one thing . . .

He leaned his elbow down on her hair as he threw the comforter on the floor, and she said, “Ow,” and tried to jerk her head away and smacked her eye into his hand as he reached over her.

“Are you okay?” he said, and she nodded, one eye watering as she pulled her hair free, and thought, This is going to be a disaster. 

He brushed her hair back from her eye.  “This is not going to work.” 

“Of course, it is,” she said, and kissed him again because the last thing she needed in her life was a frustrated Devil.  Just lie back and think of Hell, she told herself, and moved his hand up to her breast as a hint.

The next morning, Nita woke up, still freaked by the night before, especially losing Stripe—such a good dog, damn it—and then the guy with a gun that she was pretty sure was a Lemmon–God, I hope Max can keep a secret–and then she looked at Nick and remembered they’d had sex the night before, and that had somehow been only the second freakiest thing—maybe the third considering Grandma Angelika– that happened to her on Wednesday. 

Go to work, she told herself.  Work was normal, even if in this case it was hunting down anti-demon psychos.  She got up and got dressed, careful not to wake Nick because if there was one thing she did not want to do, it was discuss the night before.  Any part of it.  At any time.

Rab was behind the bar as she headed for the street and he stopped her. “I went up to see if Stripe needed to go out last night and heard . . . noises . . . so I didn’t go in the apartment.” He hesitated.  “Did you sleep with him?  And by ‘sleep with’ I mean ‘have sex.’”

“None of your business,” Nita said, and considered telling him that was Stripe was gone.  I’ll cry, she thought, but Rab was talking.

“Yeah, it is my business,” Rab was saying.  “That’s a big change for him.  It means he’s regaining his humanity.”

“Well, that’s good right?” Nita pointed at the door.  “I have to go now.”

“It’s not good,” Rab said.  “Not if it means he’s going to be alive again because that changes everything.  I just need to know if he’s acting like a normal human man.”

Nita hesitated.  “What’s normal?”

Rab closed his eyes.  “Did it work?”

Nita took a step back.  “Yes.  Everything worked.  It was a little . . . .”  He was all thumbs.  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I don’t, either,” Rab said.  “But if he just had normal sex, we’re in a lot more trouble than if things didn’t . . . go well.”

“Things went . . . fine.” Nita hesitated again.  “It was kind of like he’d read a book about it once . . . .”

“Oh, god,” Rab said. “Go away now.”

“Is he going to be all right?”

“I don’t know,” Rab said.  “Watch his back with Mammon and Max.  They’re the big threats while he’s down here.”

Max.  She trusted Max.  Really she did.  She had to. If he started blabbing . . . 

Rab was still talking.  “Once Nick goes back up to Hell, it’s all a threat.  Maybe he can work through it before we go back.”

“But I’m not helping,” Nita said.

“Not your fault,” Rab said.  “I think. There’s something hinky going on. What’s he doing now?”

“He’s asleep.  I figured he needed the–”

“He’s asleep?”

“Yes,” Nita said patiently.  “That often happens to human men after sex.”

“Not dead ones,” Rab said. “Oh . . . fuck.”

“Obscenity,” Nita said.  “Not like you.”

“I gotta find Jeo,” Rab said and turned to the archway.

“Rab,” Nita said, hating it.  “Stripe died last night.”

He turned back.  “Aw, I’m sorry, Nita, but that was bound to happen, he was so very old.  He’s back in Hell now, right?” 

“Yes,” she said, trusting Max. 

“He’ll be fine.  The Devils will put him in the Elysian Fields and he’ll be–”

“Chasing rabbits forever,” Nita said.

“I was thinking more peeing on every tree in Paradise,” Rab said.  “That dog really enjoyed peeing.”

Nita laughed, she couldn’t help herself, and her eyes filled with tears again. “Such a good dog,” she said, and then her cellphone buzzed,  and she saw it was Button and answered it, as Rab went back to the stairs.

“We have a problem,” Button said. 

“A normal problem, please,” Nita said, blinking tears away as she headed for the door to the street.  “A normal, human problem that any police department on this planet would have.”

“Marvella Witherspoon just filed a complaint.”

“That’s normal.  She complains a lot.  She once tried to get Justin Ashton arrested for vandalizing a book.  Justin is ten.”  Nita opened the door to the street.  “Have you had breakfast?”

“No, I haven’t had breakfast.  Her complaint is that demons have blown up the historical society.”  

Nita paused outside as the cold air hit her and made her colder.  I need a bigger baph.  “I did not hear an explosion.  Also Marvella actually said ‘demons’ to the captain?”

“There was no explosion, somebody set fire to the Stitch N Bitch room and did some kind of graffiti over the white power symbol, and she told the captain hoodlums had blown it up.  She told meit was demons and that I should go kill them.”

“I’ll meet you at the Stitch N Bitch room,” Nita said and went toward the diner to get two takeout breakfasts.

Some things could not be handled on an empty stomach.

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This Is a Good Book Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018

I watched TV for the first time in months last week and therefore only read a crochet book and the internet.  I am ashamed and will do better this week.  Maybe.

What did you read this week?

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Working Wednesday, September 12, 2018

I’m almost done with a ridiculous hat and scarf that nobody will wear but that makes me happy.   Also I wrote several thousand words that are mostly Nita screaming, “WTF?” and fixing things that go bump on the island  What did you make this week?  

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Laugh While You Can, Monkey People

Continuing my foraging through 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People, #36 is “Laugh.”  (Title reference is here, for non Banzai fans.)  Evidently, the act of laughing makes you happy or at least happier.  Since I already knew that laughing out loud reduces stress and boosts the immune system, I am not surprised about this happiness thing.  I think the key is the difference between being amused and actually laughing out loud so that you can hear yourself.  I’ve been amused by a lot of what I’ve read this morning but I didn’t laugh out loud until I hit the comments on the Alex Jones piece on the AV Club, where the commenters took up Jones’s deranged scream about liberals ending the world on Oct. 6 and began to organize the pot luck, worrying about buses, and thanking Jones for reminding them that the New Zealand he was speaking of was in the Pacific (to differentiate it from all the other New Zealands . . . ).  Also, the Illuminati bring their own crystal, the bastards.  Other sure fire laugh-out-louds for me are most of the farce Airplane!, the spit-take in Spaceballs (it’s at the 3:20 mark), and Mildred Natwick rolling down the stoop stairs in the otherwise awful Barefoot in the Park.  See also Bob Newhart’s psychiatrist and Tommy Smother’s pumas.    

So what made you laugh out loud this week?  Or just made you happy?  We do those moments, too.

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Cherry Saturday, September 8, 2018

Today is Iguana Awareness Day.   Iguanas are aggressive reptiles that bite and lash with their strong tails.  They’re evidently very cute as babies (what isn’t cute as a baby?) but then they grow to be six feet long.  Which made me think of all the other things that I’ve brought home because they were cute/beautiful/desirable in some way and that then metaphorically grew to be six feet long and not desirable.  Like the book I’m working on which was supposed to be a simple story about a small town girl who fell for the Devil and is now Game of Thrones in New Jersey.  Or the storage benches I bought to store my yarn before I remembered I don’t have any place to put storage benches (two are at my front door right now).  Or possibly my ex-husband.  I do not count the amazingly cute dogs I rescued because they did not grow to be six feet long and are still cute, but I think my yarn stash counts.  Now that I’m aware of it, I’m calling it my Yarn Iguana.  Perhaps you also have a situation at your house that you were not aware was an iguana, something you liked that you brought home and now are looking at with hopeless horror as it takes up way too much space and metaphorically bites you on the butt.  I understand some children are like that.

Today is Iguana Awareness Day.  Be aware.

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Is Sex Necessary?

Krissie and I have been e-mailing about sex in our current WiPs (I know, you’re not surprised).  She’s dealing with button flies and I’m trying to figure out plot arcs, which tells you all you need to know about how we write.  But underneath that and the place the conversation eventually went is the role that sex plays in story.  Krissie, if I’m understanding her correctly, feels it’s central to life in general and therefore central to story (not the most important thing in life, but crucial).  I feel it’s an action and therefore illustrative of character and relationship arc, but not central to anything, even story (unless you’re writing erotica, in which case, yes, central).  Add to that, I really hate writing sex scenes which is why I think of them of scenes during which sex happens.   And yet here I am with four sex scenes (maybe0 in Nita’s book.  Argh.

Nita’s story takes place over five days, so for awhile I tried to believe that it was believable they wouldn’t even have sex.  People are trying to kill them, and Nita’s world just blew up because she’s finding out she’s not human, and Nick’s world is blowing up because he’s finding out he is, and they’re both fixers and the island needs fixed in several different ways so I can see them looking at each other and saying, “You know, in a minute, but first I have to put out this fire.”  Except all of that creates stress and adrenalin which is a big push toward intimacy in general and sex in particular (office romances, war romances), especially since toward the end they’re really partners, and there’d be a move to make that physical, too.  

Which means I have to figure out what to show and what to elide.  If character changes and plot moves (along with the earth) I have to do the scene.  If it’s just “boy, that was good/bad sex,” I can have somebody just say that in the afterglow scene.  I think the first time probably needs to be on the page because so many things go wrong, but I’ve also already written it and it’s a terrible scene.  The last time everything works, but if nothing changes, I don’t write that, except that I think that showing the change from the first scene is probably important.  And then there’s Nick cycling through a 500 year (50 hell years) character arc in three days; right now I’ve got the sex scene from the arrogant bastard from 1502, and it’s short, but then there’s 1600 something and 1800 something which are going to be too brief to hit the sheets, and then 1934 which I have a draft of that I don’t like and 1969 which I do not have a draft of because that’s supposed to be the good one and nothing happens and kill me now.   Also four sex scenes is a bad idea.  Rule of threes, please.  I can elide 1934, so that would leave 2011, 1502, and 1969.  That seems . . . lopsided.  ARGH.

So I’m asking you: When is a sex scene necessary and when can it be skipped?  I’m not talking about whether you like sex scenes or not, that would depend on the specific scene, I’m talking about the scenes you want and don’t get, and the scenes you get and just skim.   And what number is too many, assuming this is not erotica, where the answer is “There is no ‘too many.'”  Also, I have a strong feeling that what actually happens during the sex act is not as important as what the characters are feeling, their emotional and physical reactions, so I’m not terribly interested in body parts and instructions on how to do this; is that necessary?  So much of this is just personal preference, but trying to see past that, when does a story need or not need a sex scene?

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