Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 197

This is a Good Book Thursday: Haul Out That Holly or the Symbol of Your Winter Solstice Celebration

Thanksgiving is over, it’s officially Christmas time.  Yes, I know not everybody is Christian, but if you think Christmas is a religious holiday, you haven’t been to a US mall lately.  Haul out that holly, damn it.  You get hot chocolate and sugar cookies with it.  Also, a good book; you get GIFTS at Christmas, let’s make them read-able.  There are things to be wary of: Mistletoe is poisonous, the Christmas tree used to be used for human sacrifices, and your relatives probably watch Fox News, so it’s the Australia of holidays, full of amazing beauty and exciting people and stuff that’ll kill you..  See here for a complete explanation of how our bastard holiday evolved.  I can see why the nudity fell out of favor in New Jersey, it’s cold here at Christmas, but at least it still involves a lot of liquor (“Get the egg nog, Marge”).  

So whatcha reading?

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Writing an Alpha Hero in the Age of the Dickhead

I have a problem with the Alpha hero and it just got a lot worse.

You may not have noticed this, but there are a lot of powerful creeps out there–Weinstein, Rose, Moore, Franken (break my heart, you bastard)–and a lot of people pointing out that “good-old-boy” does not mean “molests women and children” (and men, just ask Terry Crews).  So of course  now is when I wander into Alpha hero territory, and I’m trying to figure out how to do this because “Alpha hero” often means “Dickhead,” especially the ones from seventies who did a lot of “Whoops, sorry, I though you were a whore and that’s why I raped you” stuff.   Sarah Wendell, quoted here, says of Alpha heroes, “Not only are they super powerful, controlling, authoritative — and also often shirtless — they take care of everything.”   I can go with that definition, it’s the “let me force myself upon you because your body is something I deserve” that makes me want to kill them all.   Yeah, if you touched her without a go-ahead, you’re a Dickhead.

And now I’ve written myself into a situation where I have to write  a Dickhead an Alpha hero.

Spoilers about Nita follow, but if you read this blog, you’re already spoiled, so what the hell.  

Act One is Nita and Nick meeting and trying to get their respective jobs done in opposition to each other, and Act Two is working together and becoming partners, Nita getting spookier and Nick becoming more human.  In Act Three, though, Nick becomes so human he regresses back to what  he was when he was alive: a rich, arrogant, powerful, dangerous young man with no boundaries.  This is a recipe for Dickhead, so I already had a problem keeping Nick sympathetic in this act.  Then Trump bragged about grabbing small, furry body parts, and Moore started asking mothers if he could date their junior high daughers, and Franken decided that preying on sleeping colleagues would be funny and took a picture (“It’s a JOKE.”  No, Al, it’s disgusting and you’re a creep) and all of a sudden, the Alpha hero is walking a very thin line.

That line has always been there, of course.  Some of my favorite heroes have crossed it; I’m thinking Devil’s Cub where the hero assumes the heroine is a loose woman trying to trap him into marriage and tries to rape her and she shoots him, which makes him realize, as he bleeds out, that he assumed wrong.  It’s not enough that he apologizes on the point of death, but it’s something.  (He lives and adores her for the rest of his long life.  Still a potential rapist, though.  Dickhead.)  I used to see that line crossed all the time when I read unpublished manuscripts.  I think it was a combination of the writers wanting the heroine to have great sex without seeming like a slut (something my heroines never worry about, sluts all of them) and wanting to get to the good stuff fast.  I remember one manuscript where the hero got on an elevator, met the heroine for the first time, and groped her.  The writer of that one was not amused when I pointed out that he could be arrested for that and the heroine should have slapped the shit out of him.  Another paranormal had a vampire hero casting some kind of spell on the heroine and then having great sex with her so when she woke up, she didn’t remember any of it.  I said, “That’s RAPE,” and the writer was offended.  Well, so was I.  (Yeah, not a fan of the seventies romance novel, but YMMD.)

So the whole “do not put hands on someone else’s body unless that person has indicated great interest in having hands applied” seems antithetical to an Alpha hero, and I’m going to have to deal with that.  No, Nita will have to deal with that.  Which she will.  Nita also embraces her anger in Act Three, so that should be fun.  (It’s already fun, actually, I have part of Act Three written, including a scene that ends with Nita saying, “I’m going to go kick a Higher Power in the nether region.”  I am enjoying this book.)  But the truth is, she shouldn’t have to.  He should know to keep his hands to himself, and if he doesn’t, he’s a Dickhead.  So I have a Dickhead Hero in the third act.  

BUT–and I think this will be the key–he also has to be smart.  Skilled.  Competence porn in the flesh.  And a smart guy does not grope, or at least learns really fast not to grope.  That’s one of the things that just floors me about all these weasels in the news: How could they possibly have thought that this stuff was okay?  I know they knew they could get away with it, but how could intelligent men have thought, “If I behave this way, I will not be damaging my reputation and destroying professional relationships.”  How could they be so fucking STUPID?  

I do not want a stupid hero.  So Nick is going to have to be a fast learner, which he is.  And Nita is going to have to kick his ass all the way through the third act, which she will.  It’ll be Burn the Patriarchy to the Ground Day for the whole act.  That’ll be fun.

Grrrrr.

 

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Cherry Saturday, November 25, 2017

Today is National Parfait Day.  

par·fait: pärˈfā/  noun


a dessert consisting of layers of ice cream, fruit, etc., served in a tall glass.



 


Okay, sure it’s pretty, but it seems kind of authoritarian to me.  It must consumed in those layers, in that order.  Give me a hot fudge sundae that I can mush together to get all the flavors.  (I may just not be classy enough to eat parfaits.)


 

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Your Winter Solstice Argh Tradition

Thanksgiving is over, let’s all sing. Happy Holidays, Argh People!

(Yes, I know I was just bitching about Christmas music, but we do this every year.  Also, it’s THE DRIFTERS.  Do not complain about the Drifters.  Ever.)

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This is a Good Book Thanksgiving: You’re Gonna Need a Break Today

For those of you lucky enough to live somewhere where this holiday doesn’t happen, count your blessings.  I vaguely remember my family’s Thanksgivings before I got old enough to escape–lots of booze, leftover turkey, and yelling with football playing in the background–which I escaped by going into my bedroom, a book in one hand and pumpkin pie in the other.  For those of you stuck with it, tune out the relatives and get a good book.  

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Christmas, The Downside

I’ve been staying home and writing, but today I had to hit the grocery and the pharmacy and the craft store (skull button) and I was brought up once again by the true horror of the season: Christmas music.  The stuff is insidious; I found myself singing along to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”  I probably looked like one of those animatronic elves, nodding my head mechanically as I searched for a good skull for my Day of the Dead project.   Thank god, it wasn’t “Santa Baby.”  I listened to four different versions of that sucker while writing “Hot Toy.” Never again.  Okay, I’ll listen to the Etta James version because she can do no wrong, but that’s it.

I also looked at Christmas wrapping, most of which was fine, but there were a lot of those floridly colored retro Santa Clauses that looked like they’d had way too much egg nog and were harassing the elves.  At this point, I don’t trust any guy in position of power, but those faux vintage Santas are especially skeevy, like Steve Bannon, only not that bad.

Then I came home and found an e-mail from an amigurumi site with these:

I can just hear them chanting “For the Greater Good.”  (And now I want to do them in black with gray beards and ghostly pale faces).  Maybe circle them around a table. Put glasses on one of them.  Watch Hot Fuzz again.

Even the cooking is getting to me.  I got home and realized I hadn’t gotten refrigerator pie crust dough and thought, Crap, now I have to go back.  Then I remembered that I know how to make pie crust dough.  I blame the Christmas music for making me stupid early, since I’m still on Thanksgiving/pumpkin pie time.  I don’t haul out the holly until the day AFTER Thanksgiving, thank you.  The turkey isn’t even dead yet, people.  Get a grip.

I know I’ll feel better once the leftover turkey is gone and I have my Christmas trees (yes, plural) up.  I may even break down and make those damn elves just because there are so many things I could do with them.  The three creepy wise guys, one with a skull in his hands, one with a raven on his shoulder, and one with . . . 

Hmmm.  Must think about this while I make pie crusts from scratch while humming “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” while weeping helplessly.  

Or maybe I’ll just go back to writing a book.   Christmas: Not My Thing.

EDITED TO ADD LOCK SCREEN FOR THE IPAD:

Double tap the Home Button (that’s the circle at the bottom of the frame that you push to leave an app).

2. You will get this screen.  Find the lock rotation button on the lower right:

3. Hit that button.

 

 

 

 

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To Chapter or Not to Chapter

My distaste for chapters is well-known, but I always comply.  This time I’m thinking maybe not.  Nita takes place from Tuesday very early morning to Sunday morning.  I was thinking about going with Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday as headings to break up the book because that would help keep people oriented to the passage of time, especially since it’s a timelock plot (Nick has to become the Devil at midnight on April 2).   One problem, “Tuesday” would be 52,000 words. (It’s a long book.).   Sunday will be about 2000, so it’ll even up a little, but still, that’s a long first section, over 200 pages.   What do you think?

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Cherry Saturday, November 18, 2017

Today is Occult Day, which I was all over because of Nita until I read this quote:  

“When you start to notice the mystical, the mystical will start to notice you.” ― Dacha Avelin 

So maybe not.

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Nita’s Soundtrack, Revised Nov. 2017

One good thing about finally knowing the whole book, I also know the soundtrack, not just the songs that sound like they belong, but the songs that actually inform the different acts and plot moments.   Taken together, they make an odd playlist, but as background music for the book, they’re a help to me for  mood and character. They’re basically the aural version of collage, a tool that helps me stay on track with the world and the people in it that I’ve created, not meant to be a work of art.

Most of the lyrics aren’t directly related to the story, we’re talking mood here not illustration (wait, didn’t I say that about collage?) but there are some that are evocative.  I love Lenka’s “Trouble is a Friend” for Nita’s first act theme, not just because she accepts that she’s always going to be in trouble one way or another but because she’s about to meet Nick.  Chesney’s “Demons” has a couple of great lines that sum up Nick’s situation: “Once you’ve met the Devil, there’s no way he’ll set you free.  When I’m not chasing demons, I’ve got demons chasing me.”  

But mostly it’s mood; Henderson’s “Ghosts” doesn’t have the line alignment, but it captures the chaos of the turning point for Nita, all the things crashing down on her that lead to the fraying of her sanity.  I liked Mullins’ “Lullaby” for Nick even though the story it tells is about a singer and a celebrity kid in LA; there’s a bemused detachment there followed by the lovely chorus that is pretty much Nick’s attitude toward Nita at the beginning of Act Two.  It’s the same thing with Nita and Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See;” the words aren’t as important as the mood, the exhilaration as Nita looks at all the possibilities before her, admittedly with trepidation.

And then sometimes the songs just fit, like Lake Street Diva’s “Godawful Things” for Nita as she embraces a strange new world or “I Can’t Decide”for Nick’s third act when he becomes a Renaissance sociopath.   My favorite might be “Future Starts Slow” by the Kills for Nita’s climax–Nita in a fury is nobody to mess with–but that may be because I will always see PoI‘s Shaw walking down that New York street at night when I hear it.  Shaw is good inspiration for Nita.

Nita’s Soundtrack 11-2017

ACT ONE

Nita’s Theme: “Trouble is a Friend,” Lenka

Nick’s Theme: “Demons,” Chesney

Nita vs. Nick: “King of Anything,” Bareilles

Turning Point: “Ghost,” Henderson

ACT TWO

Nick’s Theme: “Lullaby,” Mullins

Nita’s Theme: “Suddenly I See,” Tunstall

Nita vs. Nick: “Together,” She & Him

Love Theme Nick: “Spooky,” Heap

Love Theme Nita “Godawful Things,” Lake Street Dive

“This Magic Moment,” Lake Street Dive

Turning Point: “Alone Together,” Fall Out Boy

ACT THREE

Nick’s Theme: “I Can’t Decide,” Scissor Sisters

Nita’s Theme: “Human,” Pretenders

“Such a Night,” Presley

Nita vs. Nick: “Ashes,” Tunstall

“Too Lost In You,” Sugababes

Love Theme: “Somebody Knows You Now,” Paisley

Turning Point: “Demons,” Imagine Dragons

ACT FOUR

Nita’s Theme: “World on Fire,” McLachlan

Nita Harrows Hell: “Future Starts Slow,” The Kills

Nick’s Theme: “Bleed to Love Her,” Fleetwood Mac

Resolution: “What Love Can Do,” Hiatt

 

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The Argh Ink Book Club for December: Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

For those of you who want to play and have never read Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, you’re in for a treat.  For those of you who have, let’s wallow.  We can talk about belief and commercialization and gift-giving and  how really insane bad guys can make a book move like the Hogfather’s sled.  And all the other stuff.   There’s a movie, too, which I’ve never seen but have somewhere on the DVD.  Tis the season, let’s welcome the Hogfather.

We’ll start Dec. 1.  That gives us two weeks to reread and/or watch.  

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