Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 36

Working Wednesday, February 21, 2024

So there are different kinds of working, right? Like working on puzzles? At midnight every night (because I’m usually up until 4AM), the NYT and WaPo drop their puzzles. NYT has the high road–Wordle and Connections–and I do those first because those are my faves. The WaPo for On The Record (question about today’s news so I keep up with what’s happening just to win), Keyword (I love that one, anything less than a six is a loss), the mini crossword, the daily crossword, and the Sudoku. That gives me an hour break before I go back to regularly scheduled work. I have my own evaluations–a 1, 2, or 3 in Wordle is a win, a 4 is a tie, a 5 or a 6 is a loss, and a zero is blot on my ancestors–and my own rules of cheating (turn on the mistake alert in the crosswords, but no stopping to look up stuff) and my own rules in general (the easiest sudoku must be solved in Pen mode, no using Pencil mode to get through). But then Peter Blair wrote about his scoring system for Connections on the NYT, and now I must do that, too.

I’m not going to do all the math he does–it’s midnight and I’m tired–but I’m definitely going to try his new rule: It’s not enough to find all four groups, you must post them from easiest to hardest. For those of you who aren’t Connections freaks, the puzzle shows up as sixteen words, and you sort them into four categories of four words each. The categories are color-coded as to difficulty: yellow is easiest, then green, blue, and finally the hardest, purple. Blair’s complication? Don’t just solve them into categories, solve them so they post easiest to hardest. It’s not like I was blowing this game out of the water before that, but now I must try it.

So what did you work on today? Any puzzles or games?

Collaboration: A Recalibration

In spite of all the off-the-wall State of the Collaboration posts we’ve been doing, most of the time Bob and I are pretty serious in the exchanges we have because we’re both very serious about the books. One of the problems we have is that we’re very, very different in the way that we write, but it’s also one of our strengths. And what we’re doing now, in our eighth book, is recalibrating the process. Well, I’m recalibrating and Bob is being flexible and understanding and patient as all get out.

We can get around the fact that he’s a day person and I’m a night worker. (It’s 6AM as I write this and I still haven’t slept because I didn’t wake up until noon and then there were naps.) I have no idea why I’m a night person, I think I’m just wired this way because every time my body has a chance to sleep the way it wants, this is where we end up. Bob, on the other hand, was trained to rise with the dawn. I’m pretty sure that even if we were in the same zip code we’d never see each other. He likes the sun and I like the stars. But all of that really isn’t a problem; we overlap enough that we can still talk in e-mail/text, and that’s plenty.

The bigger problem is our processes.

Bob is very organized, very clear-thinking, very linear, which is no surprise to anybody here. He’s a lot more intuitive now than he was when we first started working, which is fun because he comes up with stuff that surprises us both. For example, there’s a cottage in the woods in this book. You’re probably about to point out that there was a cottage in the woods in the last book, but that one was mine. Bob came up with this one out of left field, a different kind of abandoned living space, a Bob cottage, and it’s right for this book, so even though we’re going to get snark from reviewers on it–if they call us cottage core, I’m gonna have words–I mostly don’t care. It fits perfectly into this story, so Bob is right again, even if this isn’t a logical move. See, he can grow, he can change.

Unfortunately, I can’t. It’s making me crazy on this book trying to be linear. I am not linear. I need to see patterns, relationships, motifs. So Bob writes words and I look at them and do diagrams and collages and tell myself the story as I go. I pull scenes out of the story and see the relationships, doing documents that are all the daughter’s POV scenes, or all the Rose and cottage scenes, or all the love scenes, so I can see the arc. Meanwhile Bob is reading my Scene One and writing Scene Two and leaving a space for my Scene Three, and writing Scene Four and . . .

You see the problem.He’s trying to finish Act One (he doesn’t write in acts, I do) and I’m writing scenes that will go in Act Four. He’s figuring out the consecutive clues to the mystery and I’m making floorplans with characters talking in my head as I draw. It’s impossible, but it works because Bob has the patience of a saint and I’m trying really hard to be more linear. I might as well try to be shorter and more organized because it’s not within my reality, but I really am trying.

OTOH, at least now we have a floor plan.

You might not be able to tell by looking at that, but I know three more scenes in the book because I drew that. I just have to write them now.

Please send good vibes to Bob. He’s suffering silently, aside from the occasional sigh. But now he has a floorplan! Yeah, he’s not excited, but his patience is endless, so there’s that.

Happiness is Work Shirking

I am really tired of having too much to do. No matter how much I accomplish, I turn around and there’s ten other things I should have been doing. Bob said nobody should write more than four or five hours a day, and I’m not sure I can even do that–brain hurts–but I’ve reached the point where I’ll give four or five hours to work and then I shirk. As in shirking work. I read (very good thing for writers to do.). I crochet (very relaxing, guaranteed to get my fingernails out of the ceiling). I cook (eat or die). And I do not think “I should be working.” I think, “I’m a work shirker, this is part of my job.” I kind of want a shirt that says “Work Shirker.” You know, a work shirker shirt.

Happiness is shirking back your life. What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, February 15, 2024

Because of something Strop said, I have been reading my way through Margery Allingham’s Campion books. Some of them I hadn’t read in decades so I couldn’t remember the murderer; that was fun. Actually, they’re all fun. Mollie’s middle name is Amanda because of Amanda Campion (and because it means “must be loved”).

What did you read that you loved this week?

Working Wednesday, February 14, 2024

It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m only allowed sugar free chocolate. I consider this to be the universe taunting me, so I’m ignoring the whole pink thing and working on a book about serial killers, my taxes, and my housecleaning. If anybody deserves full-sugar chocolate, it’s me.

What did you work on this week?

Happiness is Free Delivery

I used to live in the middle of nowhere. I loved it, but it had one big drawback: Nobody delivered. (Well, Amazon delivered, of course, and USPS, but forget ordering groceries or pizza or anything local.). Then I moved to small town in the middle of nowhere and suddenly, I could get pizza delivered, groceries delivered, TARGET delivered. OMG. Add in that my favorite grill is half a block away, and I may never get in my car again. Happiness is efficient people who leave stuff at my door.

What made you happy this week?

Back Cover Copy: Help

I have to write three sets of back cover copy for the Rocky Start books. These aren’t blurbs, they’re paragraphs and a tag line giving enough information so that the reader can decide if they want to read the book. I put it up on Facebook (because I need a post there) but this is where the real work gets done, so over to you Argh:

Rose Malone’s landlord-employer has just died in the small town of Rocky Start, Tennessee (and North Carolina) and now she’s broke with no idea if she has a job or if she and her daughter, Poppy, have a place to live. Then a stranger shows up and tries to evict her. It just isn’t the week to do that. She smacks him with a reproduction of the Maltese Falcon, he smacks her back with his fist, and then somebody grabs him and throws him into the street.

Max Reddy just wants his boots. He’s walking the Appalachian trail with his dog, Maggs, trying to leave behind a life as an elite covert operative, and stopping in Rocky Start to pick up new boots sent to the post office there when he sees a feisty middle-aged woman get backhanded by a guy in a suit. Max throws the jerk into the street and continues on his way, determined to get his boots and get out of town, even if Feisty was pretty cute. He’s been alone on the trail a long time. Some trees are looking good to him.

Rose needs to know what’s going on, so she follows Max to the post office, no ulterior motive, honest. Except to pick his pocket to find out who he is, then he can go. But by nightfall, she’s invited him under her roof for her own protection since she’s realized she’s dealing with a town full of retired spies with fire power and boundary issues, a suspicious sheriff, a sly-eyed moocher, a knife-wielding bakery owner, a conniving teenager, and a dog who’s decided she’s done with the Appalachian Trail.

Worst of all, Max is starting to think his dog might be right.

Rocky Start: This could be the start of something dangerous.

This is a Good Book Thursday, February 8, 2024

This week I’m reading old Crusie-Mayers and rereading some newer Mayers. It’s like old home week.

What good book did you find this week?

Working Wednesday, February 7, 2024

I’m taking a break–I was making myself crazy–and spending some time on getting this house (cottage?) into some kind of livable space. I dumped so much stuff in here while I was unloading the Pods and then went right back to work writing books that I’ve been tripping over things for a couple of months. It did give me an idea of where things should go, so I’m shifting furniture and figuring out storage and putting holes in the walls to hang things. Very happy to be getting some of this done.

What did you work on this week?

Happiness is Sleeping Most of the Day

I was up all night working on things and then about 6AM I fell asleep and spent the rest of the day waking up and falling back asleep again. REALLY sorry!
What made you happy this week? (For me, it was a good night’s sleep all day.)