Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 319

Time Again for the Meatballs Chant

So I woke up late today, read my e-mail, and found out that my interview with Sarah Wendell has provoked some controversy which means it's only a matter of time before somebody posts somewhere that I did it on purpose to improve page views. This is because the internet is full of conspiracy theorists, conclusion jumpers, and general all round shallow thinkers, none of whom are us. (That's a joke. I have to say that here because I'm going to get flamed all over the internet about five minutes after I post this, so it's good to point out the jokes to the humor-impaired. Yes, that's mean. New here, are you?)

So here's the gist of the storm: I did an interview with Sarah Wendell which I showed to her in its entirety and which she approved of before I posted. Neither of us saw anything wrong with it. We still don't. Other people did which caused a kerfluffle.

Full disclosure: I've never heard of any of the people who kerfluffed, never been to their websites, never interacted with any of them to my knowledge, although I don't think any of them are using their real names so I may have met them unwittingly.

The kerfluffle is over a perceived conflict of interest because Sarah is part of an author consulting firm with my daughter, Mollie Smith, and she also writes the Smart Bitches blog which reviews novels, although Sarah has not reviewed any of the authors on the Simple Progress client list. But she might some day, according to the kerfluffers, so there's a conflict of interest which she's been hiding from people. She's been hiding it by putting her name on the Simple Progress website and by talking about it on my blog, so she's remarkably bad at hiding things, but that's not the point. The point is . . .

I'm not sure what the point is. Her name is on the site. She's not reviewing her clients. She and Mollie aren't promoting their business because it's by referral only so there's no point in promoting. Is there a potential conflict of interest? Yes. Is there an actual conflict of interest? No. Do a lot of people not know what conflict of interest is? Yes. Do I want to be part of this mess? No. Why. Because it just doesn't matter.

I learned this lesson the hard way over the whole Cassie Edwards plagiarism mess during which I suggested that witch hunts were not the way to deal with legal issues and that possibly the people who were fox-trotting all over Edwards's literary grave might be out of line in a general humanity sort of way. For that, there are still people who despise me. My favorite example didn't even happen to me. Bob Mayer was at Thrillerfest several years ago while we were still collaborating. At the time we were fighting pretty much 24/7, so he'd had it with me anyway. Then the poor guy walks into a cocktail party, and some woman comes up to him and says something along the lines of "I think Jennifer Crusie is the scum of the earth because she loves plagiarism, so what are you going to do about it?" Bob said, "I don't give a damn what she does." To which said wingnut said, "Well, then, it's your fault, too, and I'm never going to read you again either." At which point he showed great restraint in not killing her with his little finger.

These people are everywhere, wrapped warm in their outrage and their sense of superiority which insulates them from any outside thought or reasoned discourse. A couple of years ago it was plagiarism. Today it's conflict of interest. Tomorrow it'll be something equally cut and dried from a legal point of view and equally distorted from the outrage-insulated point of view. This is the internet-mean-girls version of "SQUIRREL!" Yes, it's annoying if you let yourself step in it, so it's good to remember that most of this stuff is Meatballs Chant Territory: "It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It just . . ."

Full disclosure: I own a copy of the Meatballs DVD just for the chant, but I do not receive any monetary compensation from the Canandian Film Development Corporation, Ivan Reitman, or Bill Murray.

Take plagiarism, the issue that started when I disagreed with Sarah and Candy Tan on their handling of the Cassie Edwards issue (yes, the irony is strong in this one). Here's how the argument went from my point of view. I'm quite sure the Other Side sees it differently. They always do.

Me: I think you're all over-reacting about the plagiarism thing.

Rest of the Internet: But it's stealing.

Me: First of all, I don't think she knew she was plagiarizing because the stuff she took she considered research. She didn't steal stories, she lifted out the parts of her research sources that described aspects of her story, so in her mind she wasn't plagiarizing. If she'd paraphrased, she'd have been just fine. She had the same grasp of fair use that most college undergraduates have. "Somebody explain plagiarism to her" posts and comments are appropriate. "Burn the witch!" posts are not.

Rest of the Internet: But it's stealing.

Me: Second, to really get anywhere with a plagiarism claim in court, you have to show damages, and she didn't hurt anybody. She's not in competition with the guy who wrote the ferret book (unlike Janet Dailey who was in competition with Nora Roberts when she pulled big chunks of prose from Nora's books). In fact, you can argue that the ferret guy should be grateful because he got a whole page in Newsweek to make fun of romance writing which is a higher profile than he'd ever had before.

Rest of the Internet: But it's stealing.

Me: Last, it just doesn't matter. Well, it matters to Cassie Edwards because it kneecapped her career, so good job, internet mob. Nothing else changed except that Bob got mugged by a wingnut at Thrillerfest. Oh, and the Jennifer-Crusie-Loves-Plagiarism meme is still alive and well in the hearts of many. Was it plagiarism? Yes. Could the industry use a refresher course in what plagiarism is? Yes. Does is matter? In the Dailey-Roberts case, yes. In the Edwards/Ferret case, no.

Rest of the Internet: But it's stealing.

Me: Did you ever read Les Miserable? Because all theft is not created equal, and I'm getting a real Javert vibe from you guys.

Rest of the Internet: Wait'll it happens to you, then you'll sing a different song.

Me: It has happened to me. Somebody took the dock scene from Welcome to Temptation, changed Phin's gender, and published it as a lesbian-erotica short story. My publisher quietly contacted the short story anthology publisher, that publisher was appalled and offered to pull all of the books, my publisher asked me what I wanted to do, and I said that since the publisher was a small press (and therefore poor) and since the anthology had many worthwhile authors in it, and since the publication of the anthology was doing me no monetary damage, to ask the publisher to give any royalties from the short story to a charity that the anthology was published in support of. Why didn't I pursue this woman to the limits of the law? Because it just doesn't matter. She didn't hurt me. Nobody was harmed in the execution of the plagiarism. Yes, she's scum because, unlike Cassie Edwards, she knew what she was doing, but karma will take care of her. She just doesn't matter.

Rest of the Internet: You love plagiarism. BURN THE WITCH.

Me: Bite me.

Full disclosure: There's a limit to how long I'll stay on the high ground. It's not my natural habitat.

So let's move on to the conflict of interest kerfluffle. Sarah joined Mollie's business in February of this year. They devise internet marketing strategies for authors. They are not looking for clients; in fact, they only take clients by referral, usually through the agents of the authors they work for. There's no point in publicizing the business to the world at large because it's not available to the world at large, but they're not hiding it, either, which is why Sarah's name is on the website and why I put the disclaimer in and Sarah had no problem with publishing the interview as it was. Sarah does not review her own clients' books, and in fact, most of the client list on the site is Mollie's not Sarah's. So there is no conflict of interest. The potential is there, just as the potential is there for me to some day plagiarize Lani Diane Rich and Anne Stuart, just as the potential is there for me to some day lose the fifty extra pounds I'm carrying, just as the potential is there for me to some day have a hot fling in the Gulf of Mexico with Bruce Campbell, but at the moment, these are all just possibilities, so no conflict of interest. So it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't . . .

Full disclosure: I have never met Bruce Campbell and have certainly never had fantasies of having a fling in the Gulf of Mexico with him.

Full disclosure: Okay, okay, there might have been some fantasies BUT THOSE ARE NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

But shouldn't we be morally outraged at any plagiarism, any potential conflict of interest? You know, that's up to you and your god. If you want to spend your time, energy, and emotional intelligence haring after perceived injustice, you fit in well with much of the internet community where someone somewhere is always outraged over something. But since about 90% of these outrages always turn out to be the $16-dollar-Pentagon-muffins-that-weren't-really-$16, I tend to save my energy for stuff that's important. What's important? My family. My friends. My dogs. My stories. My business contracts and obligations. My blog. Real injustice. Bad government (I'm lookin' at you, Congress). Finances. Health. That kind of stuff. So somebody plagiarizing an obscure book on ferrets or failing to disclose that there's no conflict of interest in her two jobs? Uh, no. Those are Meatball Chant Issues because nobody gets hurt, nobody loses money, nobody is damaged, at least not until the internet mobs pick up their pitchforks. Those people who yell, "But it's the principle of thing," walk away unscathed after they've savaged somebody who didn't deserve it, having sucked the energy out of everyone around them, leaving wreckage in their paths. You know what really makes me mad? Internet mobs. I'd rant about them, but in the larger scheme of things, they just don't matter.

And now somewhere somebody is saying, "Jenny Crusie doesn't think plagiarism is important!" and "Jenny Crusie thinks that conflict of interest is okay!" I'd be outraged over that, but that, too, just doesn't matter.

However, just to cover my bases:

Full disclosure: I am close personal friends with Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich, Patricia Gaffney, Cathy Maxwell, and several other authors who may or may not be annoyed that I didn't mention their names here. I am lets-have-lunch-and-dish-inappropriately-because-I-trust-you-completely friends with Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jayne Anne Krentz, Alisa Kwitney, Kristin Hannah, Toni Blake, Laura Resnick, Susan Holloway Scott, Dale Burg, Gail Parent, John Saul and Mike Sack, Bob Mayer, Susan Wiggs, Pam Regis, and several other authors who may or may not be annoyed that I didn't mention their names here. I am represented by Writers' House and the Jane Rotrosen Ageny, I write for Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin's Press and have written for Shauna Summers, Malle Valik, Birgit Davis-Todd, Sherie Posesorskie, Gail Chasen, and several other editors who may or may not be annoyed that I didn't mention their names here. My daughter runs an internet marketing firm that I have no association with beyond being a client and make no profit from. I am 5'8″, weigh 195 pounds, am 62 years old, have no church affiliation although I was raised a Lutheran, which I think explains a lot. I'm a Virgo with Scorpio rising and a Cancer moon. My mortgage is too large, I'm having trouble sleeping, and last night I looked up from my work to see a three-dachshund-and-a-poodle gang bang happening on my bed, although I did not take part aside from yelling, "HEY STOP THAT!" My favorite quote from literature is "All right then, I'll go to hell," my favorite site on the internet is Ravelry, and the song that makes me happiest is John Hiatt's "What Love Can Do" although Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You" runs a close second. I'm a moderate liberal Democrat who votes across party lines. I'm divorced, have no wisdom teeth, am a stage three cancer survivor, have an incurable blood disease, and really need to get my blood pressure down. I like Sharpies. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author and should not be attributed to anybody else. Anyone who disagrees with these views in a reasonable and adult fashion is welcome to comment here. Anybody who comes here to get off on his or her outrage can bite me.

I think that should cover it. And now, back to work.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs died today. I've been pretty blatant about my passion for all things Mac. It started with my first Mac, a MacPlus back in the mid-eighties, the first machine I ever drew on, and continued with the laptops that made writing stories possible for me. I didn't write fiction until I found the Mac, and now I can't imagine writing on anything but a Mac. The iPhone was the first phone that made sense to me. The iPad freed me from finding an internet connection on the road. Steve Jobs and his design team have informed and enhanced my professional life for twenty-five years. I usually don't care deeply when a public figure dies aside from a general human regret, but Jobs's death is different. Something exciting is gone from the world today. He made the world a better place because of the way he made things. His insistance on excellence made excellence a benchmark. In today's world, that's pretty remarkable.

Gizmodo had some great Jobs' quotes. Among others:

When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

—Playboy, 1987

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful… that's what matters to me.

—The Wall Street Journal, 1993

"I want to put a ding in the universe."

RIP, Mr. Jobs. And thank you for the amazing dings you put in the universe.

Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels

Today we're thrilled, thrilled I tell you, to invite to Argh Ink the hardest working woman in romance, Sarah Wendell, possibly the only person who knows absolutely everybody in the business well enough to call them "Honey." She speaks, she blogs, she films, and she writes books. Her first book, written with her blog partner, Candy Tan, was Beyond Heaving Bosums, the Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels, and it was a huge success, so it's not surprising that she's back again, this time writing solo with Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels, in stores TODAY.

Love that cover.

I hate interviews where the interviewer hasn't read the book, don't you? Well, this is one of them because the book isn't out and Sarah didn't send me one. Not that I'm bitter. So since I know nothing about this book, here's the blurb:

Take a dashing hero with a heart of gold and a mullet of awesome. Add a heroine with a bustle and the will to kick major butt. Then include enough contrivances to keep them fighting while getting them alone and possibly without key pieces of clothing, and what do you have? A romance novel. What else? Enough lessons about life, love, and everything in between to help you with your own happily-ever-after.

Lessons like…

♥ Romance means believing you are worthy of a happy ending

♥ Learning to tell the prince from the frog

♥ Real-life romance is still alive and kicking

♥ No matter how bad it is, at least you haven't been kidnapped by a Scottish duke (probably)

Doesn't that sound great? Boy, I wish I'd read it. You do, too, so you should go buy it. TODAY. Why? Let's ask Sarah.

Jenny: Welcome, Sarah, we're so glad to have you here at Argh. The place has needed some classing up.

Sarah: Class?! OH crap I am SO in the wrong place. And dude, if you'd wanted a copy, I'd have sent you one, but you already know everything. What would I have to teach you!?

Jenny: Well, not everything. I have questions. But before we start, I have to give the standard disclaimer that we've been friends for quite awhile, and you and my daughter, the Amazing Mollie, are partners in a company called Simple Progress that this is not a pitch for because you only take clients by referral. So my views may be, uh, biased. Especially since I haven't read the book. (As I may have mentioned above, you didn't send me a book. This is key to the interviewing process when the book is not yet published. But I forgive you.)

Sarah: Ooohhh RIGHT. Yeah. See, the sad thing is, as much as I love and adore and could spend hours talking about Other People's Books (Like, for example, Agnes and the Hitman, which I loved) I am boy howdy horrible at remembering the proper order to do things to talk about my OWN book. Seriously. Bone Head. But yes, Mollie is my neighbor, along with 3/4ths of New York publishing professionals, I think. I'm forever running into publishing folks on the train. Mollie and I have business meetings in a diner, where we eat pie. One time, Mollie had cheesecake for dessert. After breakfast. Best meeting ever.

Jenny: That's my kid. I raised her well. And now back to you. Your first claim to fame was the Smart Bitches blog which has, IMHO, some of the best reviews and discussions about romance on the net. What was the impetus behind the start of the blog? To defend the genre?

Sarah: Smart Bitches (and thank you for the compliment) started because Candy and I wanted to have a place where, as she put it, we could work the power of our English degrees on the genre we loved most – and the genre we were hellfire tired of taking crap about. Romance as a genre is awesome. Some of the books within it are outstanding. Others are outstanding pieces of poo. We wanted to talk about all of it, while also elevating the mullet as the quintessential hairstyle of the romance hero. Defending the genre came easily – we were both the subject of one too many well-meaning people saying "Oh, but you're so smart! How come you read THOSE books?"

Jenny: Oh, those people. They're the same ones who ask me when I'm going to write a real book. Karma will take care of them. The Smart Bitches blog led naturally to Heaving Bosums, often literally as there have been some incendiary discussions on there. Given the tendency of many readers to become outraged over any slight to romance novels, did you get any grief from people who felt you weren't taking the genre seriously in your Guide to Romance? (It wouldn't have been from me. I thought the book was hysterical. Of course, I READ that one.)

Sarah: Yes, we were told at one point that someone was going to get us banned. From what? The internet? My favorite is, "You Bitches have gone too far!" The Bosoms, as we call our first book, did cause some negative reactions, some from people who didn't like the site and therefore didn't like the book, and others who didn't like that we were so jokey about a topic they took seriously. But on the other hand, the Bosoms has been on the syllabus at DePaul University, McDaniel College, Yale and Princeton. I think we did ok with the seriousness in that respect, and what college student wouldn't enjoy reading about romance novels in a book that uses the word "crapmonkeys?"

Jenny: I seriously feel that the use of "crapmonkeys" would improve any college course. Along with "clusterfuck." After Heaving Bosums, enflamed by your success, you plunged into your next book, this time flying solo. But this time, your thrust is different. (Is it me, or does all this sound dirty? No, it's not me, it's you.)

Sarah: Lord, I don't thrust or plunge. I trip and fall down. Or walk around with toilet paper caught in my pantyhose like a really classy bridal train. I am here to class up the joint, aren't I?

Jenny: And you're doing a stellar job of it, too.

Sarah: Yes, this time the thrust is different. Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels, or, for the sake of Typo Prevention, EIKAL, is actually classified as a "gift book." You're meant, according to the publisher, to give it as a gift. I say get it as a gift for yourself if you're a romance reader, because it is a celebration of the genre and everything we learn from it. And most importantly, it's not me talking about romance novels. There's some of me, but more of authors and romance readers talking about the books that are valuable to them.

Jenny: So it's an anthology of wisdom from the smartest women in the world?

Sarah: Since you're in it, YES! How's that for flattery? Yes, there are so many readers and writers in this book all discussing the genre and the books they loved most and learned from — it's kind of like listening to a really smart book club discussing a pile of excellent romance novels.

Jenny: Let's talk about some specifics here. You've said that the book is light and breezy, written for fun, but it has some semi-serious themes, too. One thing it emphasizes is how important it is to be the heroine in your own life. I love that. Tell me more.

Sarah: Yup! Each chapter is dedicated to one specific lesson we learn from romance novels: we learn to recognize good partners. We learn to understand our own desires. We learn how to overcome obstacles and work through problems. But the first chapter is about how we learn to be the heroine of our own lives through romance novels. Behold: I quote my own book:

[R]omances teach readers that we should know ourselves, and value ourselves, in order to find happiness. Romance readers experience the repeated discovery of someone who not only fought for her happiness, but realized that she was worth the struggle. That's the first lesson of romance novels, really: romance is found in how we treat ourselves.

Jenny: Okay, this I love.

Sarah: Each of us is the heroine of our own life, and while there are some heroines who we are better off not emulating, there are many others who are admirable because they truly learned what they were worth, and learned to appreciate themselves.

Jenny: I'm with you 100% on that. But you also say that the romance can identify what's acceptable and not acceptable in a partner, and that's where I start to go, "Uh, wait a minute." I understand that you're not talking about the span of romance since 1950 which would include the nurse-just-wants-a-doctor-to-marry genre, not to mention the sheik-and-the-little-woman subgenre and the eighties rape romance. But even just looking at the romances published in the last decade, you have a real span of hero characters in there, many of whom I wouldn't take for a shiny nickel. So 'splain yourself, Lucy: How do romances teach readers about which ones are the good guys?

Sarah: There surely are heroes who are one step into reality away from a mighty mighty restraining order. But a satisfying romance leads the reader to believe that, if the hero hasn't appropriately atoned and acknowledged his own asshattery sufficiently, he will shortly. Convincing the reader in the happy for now or the happily ever after rests in part on believing that the characters will sustain one another's happiness.

Jenny: Yes! That's the toughest part of writing romances, writing the relationship so the reader believes that this one is going to last.

Sarah: We also want to believe that the hero has accepted the heroine for who she is, and I know I personally don't enjoy romances where the characters have to change in ways that aren't appropriate for them in order to satisfy the other. Several readers discussed the idea that they decided from reading of courtships that were extraordinary that they themselves shouldn't settle for what others told them they should want – and ultimately they found what they themselves were looking for in a partner.

But we also learn by negative example. There are romances where the characters undo, recover from, or move away from negative relationships, and that's the most concrete example of how we learn to recognize a good partner. Robyn Carr put it best in the book:

"I think the antithesis of the question is more important—what do we learn from romance novels that we shouldn't get over? When our heroines walk away from lying, cheating, abusive relationships, our readers stand up and cheer! When our heroes fail to fall for mean, selfish, manipulative women, our readers applaud! Men and women in real life and in romance novels find themselves trapped in unhealthy, destructive relationships all the time, and when they choose to believe they deserve love, respect, and healthy, enduring relationships, when they reclaim their lives and demand only excellent treatment and a love they can fully trust, life is good. Readers are not only satisfied—they use those characters as role models."

Jenny: Excellent point and good for Robyn Carr for putting it so well. Next question: I'm good with your thesis that good sex is essential to a happy relationship—hell, it's essential to unhappy relationships, too—but I'm not sure that I buy that romance novels can help you there. A lot of the sex I've read has been, uh, unrealistic. Idealized even. How is that a help?

Sarah: Are we all going to have simultaneous orgasms that cause the earth to move? Ha. No. But yet we are also not so ignorant of our own anatomy that we're surprised when the clitoris is not only discovered by our partners but put to efficient use. There certainly are unrealistic or idealized or frankly fantastical sex scenes out there. Tentacles, even! As I say in the book, "Part of the problem with romance novel sex is that it is so impossibly perfect, so incredibly over-the-top wonderful, that real sex can seem messy and awkward in comparison sometimes. This is likely because real sex is sometimes awkward and messy."

But romances are one of the few venues in which women's sexuality is portrayed positively – and at times as something that can be flawed but definitely fixable. Moreover, romances represent a safe space for women to consider different sexual practices, to explore concepts that they might not be ready to discover in their own lives, or have the ability to explore at all.

Jenny: That's so true. I remember one conference I attended, where a woman stood up during a Q&A and announced that she'd been sexually abused as a child. I thought, No, please don't share this. She said she was married to a wonderful man who was very understanding but sex had always been difficult for her even though he was very patient. And then she said, "But one day I read a romance novel." She said reading in the genre gave her that safe space to tell herself that sex was good and fine and had made a huge difference in her marriage. And then she said, "And now my husband buys all my romance novels." I cried. And you know me: not a crier. The genre really does make a difference.

Sarah: There's a letter from an anonymous reader in EIKAL that will make you cry again. Similar themes – there are so few places where women can explore sex as something that is good and healthy and healing and intimate in good ways. And really, most people are curious about sex, as they should be!

Quoting myself again:

"You can experience between the book covers what you might not be quite ready to try underneath your own covers." There's tremendous power in that, and in having a private arena in which to consider one's own sexuality, what turns one's engine and what doesn't work at all. We are not a culture that can discuss women's sexual desire with honesty or even consideration or without involving an airbrush. Romances represent an entire narrative exploration of sexuality and intimacy, and the value of both of those things in a relationship.

Jenny: You're right and I withdraw my snarky question. So here's another one: You promise readers that romance novels can not only help them define "Happily Ever After," it can show them how to get it now. I write romance novels and I don't know how to get it now. (Again, sounds dirty. Again, I blame you.) Could you be a little more explicit on that one?

Sarah: Yup. And if you find a copy of the book, skip to the last chapter, because I provide a four (I think – I haven't seen the finished copy either!) page summary of the whole book. You know, for people who like to skip to the end… like me. And the truth about Happily Ever Afters is that (a) they take a lot of work and (b) they are never ending. Happy Endings take a ton of effort, because they're essentially ongoing courtship. There's always another obstacle.

Jenny: That so true, about happy relationships needing constant work. I think that's key to the success of a romance novel, that it was hard to get to that happy ending and they both had to work to get there.

Sarah: And real-life happily ever afters may not always be between two people who are presently together. I absolutely believe that, since each of us has to be the heroine of her own life, we can be happy with ourselves today and tomorrow, and afterward. The happily ever after isn't just confined to two people riding off into the sunset – it's about how you treat yourself, and other people who you love and who are important to you. You are part of your own happily ever after, in other words.

Jenny: And those are damn good other words. You have every romance writer who ever flirted with the bestseller list in there giving advice. I'm assuming that's because you know where the bodies are buried?

Sarah: Well, I tried to email Jane Austen but it bounced. I honestly didn't expect the degree of amazing contributions from the authors in the book. I know writers are busy people and didn't expect to hear back from so many – but so many writers were eager to share not only what they found valuable about the genre but what their readers had commented on. Some of the reader stories shared by authors made me cry. Romances can be personally important to the women who read them, and authors have encountered stories of that importance in a variety of ways.

Jenny: I love the cover design, especially the cheeky way they scrawled your name under the 60s' font title. The cover really captures the spirit of Smart Bitches in general and you in particular: bright, funny, irreverent, swinging, and partially clothed. Okay, not the last one. Is that how you see the book, too?

Sarah: I LOVE how cheeky it is, yes! And I'm so curious if I'll ever see the illustration under the paper bag on an actual book. That is indeed how I see the book: a funny and positive celebration of the value and lessons of romance novels.

Jenny: Tell me what you want the Argh People to take away from this interview in fifty-nine words or less.

Sarah: There are so many readers and writers of romance who feel exactly the same way you do about the books you love – we all recognize the value and importance of romance. I'm so excited about this book, and proud of how it represents the best parts of the genre, and the community of women who create and read it.

Jenny: Thank you, Sarah Wendell, author of Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels, in stores TODAY, so go buy it. Yes, now. You won't regret it. It sounds really good. (Not that I'd know . . .)

Let's All Go To The Vet

So Thursday was Vet Day, the day I mistakenly thought it would be faster and easier to take all five dogs to the vet at once. Thank God for Lani.

We got off to a bad start because I'd forgotten to round up enough collars and leashes for everybody, and then there was the hell of getting them all in the car (although Milton's always ready to go and so is Wolfie; it's Veronica who's sure it's a plot against her), and then the excitement of driving while Lyle bitched because he had to share his moment with the rest of the fam (he's used to solo trips and his own vet burger at the end, plus Mona chewed on his ear the whole way):

Then the fabulous time in the waiting room when they all ganged up on the Pomeranian who was evidently making your-mother-wears-army-boots noises, and then getting them all weighed while they checked out all the other examining rooms until we closed the door. (This is Lani and Wolfie. Wolfie feels the same way about scales that I do.)



Then there was general milling around and adoring Lani while each of them got stuff squirted up their noses and other indignities:



And then we all listened closely to what the vet said because we like her a lot, although I think what Mona is happiest about is being held by Lani . . .



. . . because it's obvious that five out of five dogs think Aunt Lani is the BEST:



Finally everybody was back in the car thanks to Aunt Lani who'd schlepped four of the dogs out while Wolfie was getting a dental looksee AND gone to Wendy's to pick up the ritual vet-burgers before Wolf joined his pack. Milton felt there might be something better outside, but the rest were just happy to be in a car with Lani and hamburger.



Then we went home and everybody got a Vet Burger and then we all took a nap. Well, I don't know what Lani did, but the dogs and I sacked out. Because Vet Day is exhausting. But the important thing is that we're all doing good including Lyle who continues to defy death and eat his own weight in mush.

Vet Day. Thank God for Lani.

Exploiting You Again: Wild Names

I'll get a real post up here as soon as I scrape myself off the floor. Quick updates: I turned 62, I'm back home, and that house I bought in NJ has to be completely gutted.

In the meantime, I need titles with "wild" in them. Shorter is better. Already used: Wild Night, Wild Ride, and Wild Child. So some more snappy two-syllable titles would be best although at this point, I'll take anything. I need three of them. No you're not going to see anything by these titles any time soon. The problem is taking up space in my brain that I need to write other things. So I'm moving it into your brains.

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaains.

Sorry. It's been a grueling month. And I'm old.

So, Wild Titles. Have at it.

On the Road Again, Bemused

So I'm on my way to New Jersey to close on the house (handing over a honking big check that will change my net worth to Not Much At All, Really). It's a two day trip because I tend to fall asleep after six hours, and even six hours is a lot when you have several stories playing in your head and you're trying to listen to all the voices. I took the same wrong exit today that I took two days ago for the same reason: voices in head.

(Also, I have the car packed to the gills with Stuff to put in the cottage which is going to be difficult because it already has Stuff: because I paid such a low price (comparatively speaking) for the house, I told them they didn't have to clean it out (they're in Arizona so it would have been the realtor who has been an absolute godsend through all of this). Which means I have to sort through the stuff. While moving some of my Stuff in. Which means day after tomorrow begins scraping up the sheet vinyl flooring, stripping wallpaper, priming every available surface, and in between, sorting Stuff. Yes, I'll blog the Stuff.)

But in the meantime I'm on the road, trying to pay attention so that I don't take the wrong turn or miss the sign that says "I-80″ after which it's a straight shot for 300 miles. I-80 is the PA equivalent of Ohio's 1-75 or I-71: long stretches of nothing except McDonalds and vaguely threatening religious billboards (HELL IS REAL) broken by insanely badly planned cities where a thousand different highways overlap, merge, court and spark. Yes, I'm looking at you, Columbus and Cincinnati, although Akron, you're no picnic, either. I have to pay attention driving through you all. Do you know how hard that is for a writer who finally has a book cooking in her brain, only to find there are two others in there babbling, too?

Here's how hard it is: Sweetness did not get off the bus on Friday. Lani grabbed Light and said, "Where's your sister?" Light blinked up at her and said, "I don't know. She wasn't on the bus." A couple of semi-hysterical phone calls later (Lani) with a background of pacing (Alastair) relayed the news that Sweetness was on the bus, she had just fallen asleep. I came into this at dinner:

LANI: NEVER EVER EVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN.

SWEETNESS: I didn't fall asleep. I was awake. I was thinking.

LANI: NEVER EVER EVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN. [Turns to Light.] And from now on you look for your sister. You SIT WITH your sister.

FAJ: Why is the younger kid looking after the older kid? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

LIGHT: Yeah.

LANI: NOT HELPING. [To Sweetness.] How could you miss getting off the bus? How? How?

FAJ: I do that all the time. I got off at the Lowe's exit the other day instead of at Eastgate. You're thinking, you miss things.

SWEETNESS: Yeah.

FAJ: It's a sign of her creativity. Same with Light. They have other things on their minds.

LANI: NOT HELPING.

FAJ: You do it, too, I know you do. It's probably your fault. You gave them that gene.

SWEETNESS: I love you, Aunt Jenny.

LANI: NEVER EVER EVER EVER AGAIN.

So okay, there was one day that Mollie didn't get off the bus (the mom who usually babysat her had sent her to another mom) and to this day I can't breathe when I think about it; I made Lani's reaction look understated. But still, this is a major factor in creativity: long stretches of time with a background going past rhythmically and nothing to do but keep the car on the road (or in the case of Sweetness and Light, nothing to do at all). I can't tell you how many major insights into stories I've had driving on 275. And missing exits.

So thank God for three hundred miles of I-80. By the time I hit the NJ border, I could have all the kinks worked out. Or I could miss a merge and end up in Canada. if so, I'm blaming Light for not watching me. It appears to be working for Sweetness.

Random Sunday

I lost my cellphone. I don't really miss it, but others do.

Lani and I went out to do Etsy shopping the other day. On the way back, we decided to get milkshakes. "McDonald's or Frisch's?" Lani said. (Our small town's choices are limited.) "Both," I said, so we got three small shakes from each place and took them home to Alastair to taste test. Unanimous decision: McDonald's. Not in the running: Steak N' Shake because it would have been no contest, those SN'S shakes are amazing.

Claire's has the best socks and sunglasses EVER. Plus Halloween jewelry. Great finds: a six pack of unmatched footie socks and clear-and-black checkerboard sunglasses with the sunglass part in a pink-rimmed flip up on the front. The spider earrings were the icing on the cake.

Speaking of cake, or a close facsimile thereoff: Halloween cinnamon rolls.



From Sandwich 365 which also has a terrific BLT costume for the whole family.

I read my horoscope. Evidently the end of the month is going to be really, really bad for me. (If you're a Virgo, start stocking bottled water.) Expect meeping. I know. "How will that be different from the rest of the days?"

Cleaning is much easier now that I'm moving. The question is no longer, "Do I still want this?" Now it's "Do I want to move this to New Jersey to a very small house?" Simples things up considerably.

For those of you wondering, Lyle is still doing fine. Lani's decided that he faked his blood test to get the mush. He's happily chewing up a cardboard box at my feet as I type. He is frumpy, his fur is bright red from the anemia, and Alastair sticks a needle in him every night and fills him full of saline solution, but otherwise he's fat and happy. His life may end at any moment, but in the moment, it's grand.

Alastair, by the way, is still dumbfounded by the weather: in the mid 90s yesterday, 63 today. "Adapt," we tell him, but he's still bitter about that earthquake.

Did anybody else see the Burn Notice episode about the guy who took his son to the survivalist camp? If so, did you have the same WTF? reaction I did to the way they ended that? The writing this season has been sloppy, but that was . . . what's the word I'm looking for? Two words: Truly Abysmal. Reminds me of the Jack Armstrong Tiger Pit story.



Jack Armstrong was a radio serial back in the first part of the 20th C and every episode ended on a cliffhanger. So one night, Jack Armstrong is surrounded by his enemies, outgunned and outmanned, with his back to a pit of tigers. At the end of the episode, Jack leaps into the tiger pit! How will he survive? Next episode begins, "After Jack Armstrong got out of the tiger pit . . ." Burn Notice: Jumping the Shark into the Tiger Pit.

It's a wonderful thing to renovate a cottage. People suggest all this expensive stuff and you say, "It's a cottage." Expensive stuff would look DUMB in a cottage. Which is good because I don't have a lot of expensive stuff. But I may go for Big Chill appliances when I eventually do the kitchen. Since I'm painting the floor and using shelving instead of overhead cabinets, the cost might come out the same. Maybe. Those suckers are expensive.

Speaking of bad seasons, Leverage is breaking my heart. When I started watching the funeral home one with Hardison in the coffin screaming and the screen said, "Two weeks earlier," I just turned it off. I hate those damn flash-forward beginnings; they're lazy, stupid writing. And now Leverage is doing it. Plus they seem to have lost that sense of fun that made the capers so compelling. I'm seriously close to dropping it, even though the first two seasons were stellar.

Lani has decided to make Sugglies for the Etsy store: Seriously Ugly Socks that have magic powers. She needs a tagline but refuses to give me one. The idea is that they're low-rise Mary Jane socks that can't be seen with shoes on, but that give the wearer incredible power with their ugliness. Or something. Lani? Come in here and explain that again.

So tonight we're buying Going Postal from iTunes and watching it while we eat fajitas (not quesadillas, got that wrong) and milk chocolate brownies while we knit (Lani), crochet (me), and discuss how the old Romans did it first (Alastair). Then we all go back to work.

That's what I call a truly random Sunday.

OMG: Going Postal on DVD

Not being British, and evidently having NO FRIENDS IN BRITAIN*, I have just discovered there was a Going Postal TV movie last year and it'll be out on DVD on Sept. 20. And Richard Coyle (better known to me as Jeff from Coupling) is playing Moist, which makes me a little dizzy with happiness. Also Claire Foy as Adora Belle and a cameo from Terry Pratchett, my go-to cheer-up guy-author, as a random postman. Oh, my God. Oh, my GOD, OH MY GOD! As Lani would say. This is one of the best books Terry Pratchett ever wrote, which means it's one of the best books ever written and now they made a movie out of it with Charles Dance as Vetinari and David Suchet as Reacher Gilt . . .

I have to go lie down for awhile. In the meantime, here's a preview:

And here's Pratchett talking about the story and the movie:

I'm pre-ordering. Because . . . oh, my God, GOING POSTAL on DVD!

*I mean, honestly: Strop, Ag, and MY BROTHER-IN-LAW WHO LIVES WITH ME, all forgot to mention this? Although Strop gets a pass because she sent me Hogfather. Still, this is MOIST. Sigh.

Good Luck, Eastern USA

Hey, we have Argh People in the path of a hurricane. For them I offer this. Please stay in touch and report in with any cool hurricane stories. I slept through the earthquake in Ohio so I had nothing to share, but Alastair did not. He went upstairs to Lani and said, "What was that?" She said, "Earthquake." He said, "Floods. A hundred-degree-plus heat. Earthquakes. You couldn't mention this before I emigrated?" Or words to that effect. Actually what he said was funnier. If Lani logs in here and gives me the actual quote, I'll change it.

In the meantime, you right-coasters, be careful out there.

Not Such a Dumb Idea, After All

So we had the home inspection yesterday, along with geothermal people who came to look at the feasibility angle. All expressed the same things I did the first time: the place is really hard to find, and it's a little run down (ohmygod it's derelict). By the end, the geothermal guy was explaining he'd be out personally to do the yearly inspections (and be bringing his fishing pole) and the inspector was more enthusiastic about the house than I am (and I love it). The foundation is rock solid–probably because it's on rock–and all the walls and windows and doors are still on true, even after sixty-five years on a lake. All the problems are easily fixable and the roof is good for another three or four years. Or as he said as he left, "This is a great house."

Then I spent the rest of the day measuring and drawing up a floor plan. I've got one now that's mostly right–may be off in places but gives me the basics–and today I get to see my grandkids. Also my daughter and son-in-law which is always nice, but let's face it, it's the grandkids. We don't close until next month, and I never believe anything is going to happen until it's a done deal, but basically, cottage-at-the-lake-see-my-grandchildren-all-the-time-go-to-NYC-whenever-I-want-no-mortgage . . . this was a brilliant move on my part. Who needs a retirement fund? (Well, I do, but I need this place more.) So :p to all the naysayers.

I've got vision, that's what I've got.

Heres a better picture of the back of the house, without the chainlink fence in the way.

Edited to add:

View of lake as Susan requested. It's a LONG way down: