Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 22

Happiness Monday is Having Blog Readers Who Are Incredibly Patient

Yeah, I need to slow down and pay attention. Happy Monday!

What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, September 5, 2024

This week I reread Boyfriend Material. I love Alexis Hall for many things, but especially passages like this:

“I’m aware,” he said, “that you sometimes consider me judgmental. But I honestly can’t understand how you live like this.”
“It’s easy. All I do is touch something, and whether it sparks joy or not, I leave it exactly where it is.”

That is so my approach to housekeeping.

Also, that bit about badgers at lunch had me on the floor.

What did you read this week that was great?

This is a Good Book Thursday, September 5, 2024

This week, I read the news, crochet patterns, the first pages of several BookBub offerings, recipes, drafts of VNF and HPP, a lot of Facebook and Argh comments, instructions to put furniture together, and stuff I googled for. I miss novels.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, September 4, 2024

I am working on getting my clothes sorted out. My discovery: I have too many clothes.

What did you get up to this week?

Question for Argh

So I’ve always meant to do a writing book, but for now, I’m using all my writing time on fiction. On the other hand, I have a ton of blog posts from other blogs (I actually did a writing blog once) and notes and lectures, and I’m thinking about doing one post a week on my approach to writing fiction. Thinking about it. But really, at this point, this blog belongs to you, especially GBT, and the community stuff like Working Wednesday and Happiness Sunday. So how intrusive would one post a week of me lecturing about fiction be? I figure it’d be a good way to at least start working on a fiction book, and you could all chime in and tell me where I’m going wrong. Massive beta reads, basically. Yes, I am selfish like that.

What do you think?

Happiness is Starting Something New

So here’s the thing about writing novels: They take a long time. (A lot longer if you’re writing with me.) And it’s easy to get so far up your own . . . brain, that you get in a rut. Which has been me the past month (possibly longer). Then a friend of mine that I have not seen in far too long said, “We should do Wanderer’s Wife quilts. Go over the pattern, talk about fabric, do it piece by piece together.” If we couldn’t be together, we could still work together across the net. It has been years since I quilted, and I really don’t want to add “set up sewing machine” to my to-do list, but I thought, “Hmmmm, hand sewing.” Because I find handwork very calming. And I went down the fabric rabbit hole and now I have some gorgeous stuff and I’m going over that pattern, which is amazing, and somehow along the way, I found embroidery, especially cross stitch again, and now I’m to my elbows in fabric and floss, and now, when I start to vibrate, I put the book down and step away, and fall into all that color.

Happiness is starting a new (or rediscovering a) skill, especially if it has a lot of color.

What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, August 29, 2024

This week I read Very Nice Funerals and then had an argument about it with Bob, so happy anniversary to us. I wanted it to go one way, he wanted it to go another way, and just about the time neither one of us was backing down, he said, “Okay, how about this?” and came up with at third way that was much, much better than either of our previous choices. So now I’m back to reading VNF again. Argh.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, August 28, 2024

I moved furniture last night, and today I’m putting together a very small cat tree for Lionel in hopes he will fall in love with it and move out of Krissie’s bedroom, aka the guest room. Also working on VNF. Full day ahead.

What did you do this week?

Happy Twentieth Anniversary!

The last week of August 2004, Mollie and I flew to Hawaii for the Maui Writer’s Retreat and Conference. We got on the shuttle bus to the hotel and sat down beside this grumpy, taciturn guy, who said his name was Bob Mayer. I recognized him from the e-mail list all the Maui teachers were on where he’d been this jolly, joking guy, and I told him I’d imagined him as a lot older with a red nose. He was not amused.

We found out we were teaching in rooms next to each other, and every day he’d come over and gaslight me about the conference (he’d been there before, I was a newbie). Then one night in the teacher’s lounge (liberal amounts of free booze), he brought me a glass of white wine and said, “I think we should collaborate.” I thought it was more gaslighting, so I said, “Good one, Bob,” and he went away. When he was gone, Mollie said, “That was really mean.” I said, “He was kidding.” She said, “No, he wasn’t.”

So the next day I went looking for him and apologized and we sat outside in the sun and talked about it while people at other tables leaned to listen. He gave me an ARC of Bodyguard of Lies and he got a copy of Faking it, and we retired to separate corners to read because neither of us had ever read the other. The next day we met again and I said, “Lot of infodump.” He said, “Lot of dialogue.” We looked at each for a moment, and I said, “What the hell, I’m in.” And he said, “Yep.”

Twenty years later . . .

I have learned a lot from Bob in twenty years. We pancaked as collaborators six years later because we both had issues, but we never lost touch, and when I was drowning in depression and writer’s block, I yelled for help, and he came through, as always. Actually, we’ve both learned a lot in the ensuing fifteen years since we parted, but the thing that keeps the partnership going is that at this point, we trust each other. We’re both trying to write the best books possible, so aside from a few surprise creeks, we don’t argue much now. He still gaslights me, of course, there are the Lancelots and the zombies and the Bratva ice pirate babies, but he has to put up with my frequent meltdowns and two spaces after a period, so it evens out. And since we’re self-publishing now, a lot of the trauma is gone, and we’re just having fun. It’s a very good collaboration, a very good partnership, a very good friendship, and I am very grateful he handed me that white wine twenty years ago.

Happy anniversary, Bob. And thank you.

NYC 2005:

Happiness is Small Weird Things

I was checking a shipment online and found a bat inhaler cover. Yes, a bat I could wear around my neck that my inhaler could fit in so I wouldn’t have to worry about pockets or purses when I went out. I’m asthmatic, so I don’t take chances, but now I can go out with a bat around my neck, knowing I won’t die (from that).

It’s the little things, you know?

What little (or big) things made you happy this week?