Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 86

Happiness is Connecting

I’ve been in the fetal position for awhile here, and today I overslept, forgot the Happiness Post, and realize I had a ton of work to do since I haven’t done squat for days. Not exactly a recipe for joy. Then Krissie wrote me a long e-mail that sounded just like her and had aa ton of questions for me and suddenly it was a Good Day. And I bet if I go to Slack, Alisa has stuff for me to read on her new story. And I should definitely call my daughter. Plus Veronica is on the floor by the bed, looking at me with Guilt Eyes, telegraphing that in a good world she would be on the bed.

Happiness is connecting with people you love. How did you connect with joy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, December 9, 2021

I’ve tried several new romances lately and find myself quitting about half way though and reading the last chapter instead. I’m trying to figure out why–it’s not like I don’t know how they’re going to end–and I think it’s the quality of the writing. I’m fine (great, actually) with comfort reads, but if there’s nothing challenging in the narrative then the writing had better be top notch. Meh stories with meh writing can’t hold me. Of course, I’m also reading Pratchett (went straight from Hogfather to Thief of Time) and Stuart, so my standard of comparison is very high. Characters who think each other funny when they’re not, Big Misunderstandings, love interests who smirk (I know, I know), and just plain blah writing–I know, shut up, Jenny, and read a different book. Fortunately I have Thief to finish and Krissie’s WiP and two books by Sondheim–everything’s going to be okay.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, December 8, 2021

I woke up to twenty-five e-mails this morning, which doesn’t sound like much compared to the 600+ I had before, but it is such a waste of time. I go through and mark most as spam, but you know what I’d rather be doing with that time? Writing. Talking with my friends and family. Going out for pizza (I’m really hungry right now, so food may creep into this post). At the same time I’ve been reading obsessively about Stephen Sondheim, and something somebody said about him stuck: He showed up. I think I’ve been ducking instead of showing up, so my work for this week is to show the fuck up. I’ll let you know how that goes.

What did you do this week?

Argh Author: K. M. Fawcett’s Wilde Christmas

Our own K. M. Fawcett has her latest book out now, Wild Christmas:

All Lacey Wilde wants for Christmas is to open her long-awaited Bed & Breakfast. When her only guest is a sexy stranger who claims her adopted Military Working Dog is his, Lacey isn’t about to lose her fur baby—or her heart—to charming Marine veteran Dean Hunter.

But the K-9 controversy is the least of their troubles. Danger lurks in the shadows of Candlelight Inn, and someone will stop at nothing to steal Lacey’s heirloom ornaments. Can Dean protect the woman he’s fallen for against a deadly threat, or will this Christmas be their last?

WILDE CHRISTMAS is a part of the Candlewood Falls shared-world series, a unique world of connected stories by three different authors whose characters, business, and events appear in each other’s stories. How fun is that? It’s like a literary soap opera. The Candlewood Falls books can be read in any order, as every book features a new couple who finds true love.

To celebrate WILDE CHRISTMAS’s release, WILDE TEMPTATION (book 1) is available for 99c for a limited time:
A plant geneticist and a palm reader cook up a love potion after mixing his new apples into her old-world recipe. Now folks in their small town are hungry for love! Will Sam and Faith be tempted by their simmering desire or will they reverse their accidental aphrodisiac before stirring up more trouble in Candlewood Falls? Add into the mix the only investor who can save Sam’s orchard from foreclosure—Faith’s jealous ex-boyfriend—and Wilde Orchards is about to live up to its name.

Links to buy Wilde Christmas:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09D9WDYLV
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/wilde...
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wild...
Books2Read (UBL): https://books2read.com/Wilde-Christmas
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wild...

Links to website/more info:
Website: www.kmfawcett.com
Newsletter: https://kmfawcett.us3.list-manage.com...
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/candl...

Happiness is Mistakes

What I have found in my long life, grasshoppers, is that mistakes can be the best thing you make because they lead you places or provide you opportunities you wouldn’t have if you’d followed the right path. Take my order of Whitman Chocolates. It’s not my favorite candy by far, but it comes in that traditional yellow box with the hinged lid and it reminds me of when I was little plus it’s great for holding things. So I bought a 72 piece box, thinking it’d be a nice deep three-layer size retro storage piece. Reader, it was one layer. Yes, the thing is the size of a medium poster which is extremely impractical except . . . I’m about to start working with a co-op sampler from the Knitpicks group on Ravelry which is 10 gms each of 76 colors and I think it’s going to be motifs which means having a big flat box to lay everything out in is very convenient. Plus I have a ton of Felici that I think its going to be motifs. Plus the dumb box makes me laugh. Good mistake.

How did you find happiness this week, mistaken or otherwise?

This is a Good Book Thursday, December 2, 2021

This week I’m reading a book by Anne Stuart that you can’t get yet (feeling smug about beta reading) and some Terry Pratchett and some Elle Kennedy and a lot of recipes. Possibly Hogfather (about Discworld’s Santa) to get me closer to the Christmas mood, especially the part where Susan Sto Helit asks her grandfather (Death) what the point of the whole thing is:

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

“So we can believe the big ones?”

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

“They’re not the same at all!”

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

[from Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather.)

Such a good book. I’m definitely rereading it. Possibly with a gnome by my side.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Welp, it’s December, so I’m going to have to get serious about getting the Christmas stuff up, which means buying batteries and putting a cheapo Christmas tree on each side of my door. That’s the extent of my Christmas cheer: I’ll make na effort, but don’t push it. I don’t need to worry about decorating the living room because I didn’t take down the gnomes from last year. Of course now they’re a little dingy from the stove fire, but they were looking shady to begin with. Gnomes. There’s just something shifty about them. Possibly it’s the hats. Somewhere around here I have a green wreath and I was going to put a gnome on it so that anybody who came to the door would go to eye to eye with it and possibly reconsider. Wreath, gnome, lighted trees = rah, humbug, merry Christmas. Mixed messages, but bases covered.

What did you work on this week?

Argh Author: Melissa Yi’s White Lightning

Our own Melissa Yi is back with the ninth book in her Hope Sze medical mystery series, White Lightning. It’s out tomorrow and it sounds wonderful: romance, Al Capone, and “two centuries worth of clues.” (Remember Scorpion Scheme: “Pharoah’s Tombs, Ancient Myths, Modern Murder”?) How can you resist?

Hope Sze escapes for a romantic weekend away at the Rumrunner’s Rest, a Roaring Twenties inn once celebrated both for Prohibition’s best alcohol and the smoothest jazz bands north of the Detroit River. Then a convention of fictional villains overrun the tavern, her friend glimpses a ghost, and Hope uncovers a grisly surprise in the fireplace that may be related to Al Capone, the infamous gangster. At least two people disappeared from this very inn, and one soul will not rest in peace.

Tonight, unless Hope unravels a century’s worth of clues, death will collect several more lives. Including the one she holds most dear..

Find out more about White Lightning on Melissa’s website.

You can buy White Lightning here, buy direct from Amazon here, or go through Windtree Press for one more click.

Happiness is a Moment of Octopus

Like everyone else, I’m still Coping With Things, and that means that I have spells of despair, questioning everything. But in between those, I have moments of delight.

• Knitpicks just had a sale and I opened a box of yarn so beautiful it glowed.
• My adopted cat who I was prepared to wait years for before she was affectionate (she was a stray for at least two years) likes to sleep next to me and rub her head on my arm and runs into the house when I call her name.
• My daughter called the other day and we talked for two hours about absolutely nothing and everything.
• I bought a crepe maker and I’m now researching great crepe recipes (I got tired of running out of bread and not wanting to go to the store).
• I cleaned and redecorated my bathroom and it’s now a riot of color with two fish bags and an incoming octopus-holder-of-everything from Amazon (see right).

I mean, the octopus alone is going to give me a Moment every time I go in there now.

So what was your octopus this week?

It’s November 26th on Argh, So It Must Be . . .

The Drifters! (Yes, I know it’s a Christmas song and we’re multi-holiday here, but c’mon, it’s The Drifters. Also an Argh tradition since 2010, Clyde McPhatter and Bill Pinckney forever.)