Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 88

Argh Author: Brenda Margriet’s “The Promise of Frost”

Our own Brenda Margriet has a new feel-good, steamy contemporary holiday romance novella out today at a special price for the next week (99 cents for the week after release): The Promise of Frost.

An adventurous kitten, a curious dog, and a matchmaking eight-year-old guarantee this will be a holiday to remember.

Luca Tannon’s new neighbour is a sexy but surly single dad, which is all for the best since she’s focussed on reclaiming her life after a toxic long-term relationship.

Caleb Frost won’t let anything distract him from ensuring his son’s first Christmas as the child of divorced parents is perfect. And that includes the irritatingly intriguing woman living next door.

Everything is going as planned . . . until it’s not.

Find The Promise of Frost at Amazon.
(Single Dad, Neighbours to Lovers, Steamy. Heroine is 32, Hero is 41)

And find out a lot more about Brenda at BrendaMargriet.com.

This is a Good Book Thursday, November 11, 2021

Still reading Ngaio Marsh as I circle around the You Again rewrite. Also reading a book on idea journals (kind of collage journal) and one on crochet stitches because I’m into scarf season and one on cats in an attempt to understand Emily. My iPad refused to recharge the other day and I panicked because what am I without my Kindle reader ? (Reading on the laptop is much harder.). How do people who don’t read make it through the day? Or worse, the night?

Still thinking about the new Good Omens audio. What I need is a sample to listen to. Because I could crochet scarves while I listened.

Enough about me, what did you read this week.

Working Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Since I torched my stove, I’ve been microwaving everything, which has led to me figuring out how to microwave everything, which has made me happy. There’s a plastic container called Fasta Pasta that is making me very happy because now I can make noodles in the microwave. And a set of dishes called Anyday that are designed for the microwave that I’m loving. There’s a thing to do bacon in the microwave that I have not experimented with, but I am hopeful. And of course the egg poachers that I bought are terrific, although I still haven’t managed to arrive at poached eggs yet; what I mainly get are shell-less mostly hard eggs that are terrific for egg salad and salads with eggs and snacking; soon up to try: deviled eggs. So I am working on my microwave skills and having a wonderful time.

Also, am forced to work on You Again because Bob keeps sending demanding e-mails like:
“What’s it about? Just kill a few people. Add in an alligator.”
“You need Bigfoot. Is it a murder mystery?”
“How does the murder mystery affect the romance?”
“Do you have a conflict box?”
It’s annoying as hell except that answering him has been extremely helpful in focusing the story and showing plot holes and weaknesses so, as usual, he is necessary, even though the follow-up “Book done yet” is inevitable.

What did you work on this week?

Questionable: How did you get started writing and what challenges have you faced?

Tricia asked:
I was wondering if there are any interviews you’ve ever done that talk more about your journey to becoming published and the challenges you faced, starting your career later in life. I’d especially like to know more about what in you did prior to becoming a published writer, and what encouraged you to purse it. If not, would you be willing to either reply to my reply or make a post talking about it?

I’ve done a million interviews but most of them are lost in time (as they should be). So here are the answers to your interview questions (g).

What did you do prior to becoming a published writer?

I earned a BA in Art Education and taught art for ten years at the elementary and junior high levels, and then earned an MA in Literature and Professional (Technical) Writing and taught high school English for five years, with a break to do all of my coursework for a Phd. I quit to go back to teaching at Ohio State as a TA while I worked on my dissertation on the impact of gender in storytelling, and the research included reading a lot of romance novels, and that reading had a profound impact on my state of mind (I’d been insanely depressed and reading romance novels was energizing and positive). I was an academic so of course I had to find out why reading trashy novels had such an impact, but when I began to study them, I realized that the “trashy” part had been received from patriarchal assumptions and that romance novels were actually the most feminist form of fiction I’d ever read. So I decided to write one to see if writing the narrative had the same impact as reading them.

What encouraged you to pursue writing romance?

It was fun because I could write about angry, mouthy women who kicked ass and won the day. I really saw it back then as a form of feminist rebellion. Actually, I still see it as a form of feminist rebellion, putting a woman at the center of the narrative and giving her agency in her life (and if you think that’s not at risk right now, looking at what those fuckers in Texas are doing, may they rot in hell). Then it turned out they give you money for writing feminist rebellion, so I just kept going. I didn’t have any big plans to transform romance or transcend the genre, I just loved writing stories about women who had no time for the patriarchy. And the men who were smart enough to love them.

Talk more about your journey to becoming published . . .

I started my first romance at 41 (it was awful), wrote three more, took the first awful start and turned it into a novella called “Sizzle,” and entered it in a Silhouette contest which I was sure it wouldn’t win but thought that they might ask for my novel, Keeping Kate.. They picked twelve winners and “Sizzle” was one of them, which made me cringe–never offer anything for publication that you don’t want to see published–and turned down Keeping Kate. But the editor sent it to a book doctor at Harlequin, Sherie Posesorskie, who was brilliant and helped me save the book. That was when I realized that degrees in English did not teach you anything about writing fiction and I started to study that in seminars like Michael Hague’s (highly recommended) and working on an MFA with Lee K Abbott at OSU (also highly recommended), plus reading a lot of writing books. Harlequin published Keeping Kate as Manhunting (always hated the title) and took my next book, Getting Rid of Bradley. And then rejected the next one I’d written before I’d sold anything, The Cinderella Deal.

So I asked my editor if I could sell The Cinderella Deal somewhere else, and she said, “We have the option on your next book,” and I said, “Yes, but you just rejected it,” and she said, “WAIT A MINUTE,” and came back shortly and said, “We’ll buy the book,” and then asked for so many basic changes (new name for protagonist, new career for protagonist, no father issues for protagonist . . .) that I said, “Why did you buy this book?” and she said, “We didn’t, we bought your option, write any book you want, just not The Cinderella Deal,” so I rewrote The Cinderella Deal into Strange Bedpersons, and then a couple of years later sold The Cinderella Deal to Bantam. Publishing is a weird business.

I did six books for Harlequin and then they put a new clause in the contracts that said the publisher would hold the moral rights to the work (meaning they could change anything in the book and I would have no recourse) so I said, “Nope” and left. By then I had a great agent in Meg Ruley, and she sold two books to Bantam so I could eat while I wrote my first single title, Tell Me Lies, which she sold to Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s Press, one of the best editors in the business, and I got a two book contract for paperback originals. When I turned the book in, Jen said, “We’re doing this in hardcover” and that’s when things took off.

and the challenges you faced, starting your career later in life.

Challenges.

Well, menopause screwed with my brain, so that wasn’t a help. Otherwise starting late wasn’t a problem. It’s good to have some life experience to draw on.

But the pressures of rising in any career are always difficult: the better you do the better you’re expected to do. There is no free lunch, no point at which everything gets easy. Every book is a new product launch. The hardest thing about writing novels that get published is keeping the publishing part out of the writing part because the expectation can kill you. (This is where I make it clear that my agent and editor were always completely supportive, even when they wanted to strangle me.)

I think one of the hardest things was the brand trap. It pays off big if you establish a brand for yourself. SMP went for “Jennifer Crusie, funny contemporary romantic comedy,” and that was fine with me until I wanted to write something a little different–romantic adventure, black comedy, supernatural with demons, supernatural with witches, supernatural with demigoddesses, supernatural with ghosts–because I have a very short attention span. What everybody wanted was a sequel to Bet Me, but Bet Me was finished. Then Bad Things happened (not publishing things) and I lost my grip and my agent (we’re still good friends, she’s great) and I got a new agent, Jodi Reamer, who is fabulous and supportive, and I kept writing but I couldn’t finish anything, and the one thing I did manage to finish Jen rejected because it was supernatural, and my brand is contemporary romantic comedy. So I have one book that’s almost rewritten again and another ten started, and I haven’t published anything in ten? twelve? years, and who knows what happens next?

Publishing is not for wimps.

Happiness is Warm Pals on a Two Dog and One Cat Night

The dogs are pretty small, but the cat is very large, so that constitutes the necessary quorum for a three-dog night as we have finally dipped below freezing. I am tremendously amused by the pile of heat-radiating fur on my bed, all three all curled up together. (My asthma doc is less thrilled, but we’re talking quality of life here.) And of course it reminds me of “Joy to the World” and “Eli’s Coming” and “Easy to be Hard” and “Mama Told Me Not To Come” and . . . well, basically getting high in the seventies. Yes, I’m old.

How did you bring Joy to your World this week?

Happiness is Warm Pals on a Two Dog and One Cat Night

The dogs are pretty small, but the cat is very large, so that constitutes the necessary quorum for a three-dog night as we have finally dipped below freezing. I am tremendously amused by the pile of heat-radiating fur on my bed, all three all curled up together. (My asthma doc is less thrilled, but we’re talking quality of life here.) And of course it reminds me of “Joy to the World” and “Eli’s Coming” and “Easy to be Hard” and “Mama Told Me Not To Come” and . . . well, basically getting high in the seventies. Yes, I’m old.

How did you bring Joy to your World this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, November 4, 2021

I’ve been doing a massive reread of Ngaio Marsh (no, I didn’t know why) and got to the beginning of Swing, Brother, Swing, which is all letters from different people in the story to each other, and I thought, “Ooooh, I want to do this.” But I CANNNOT start another book, I have to finish the ones I’ve got going, so I thought about You Again, which I haven’t worked on in years (that’s the one I lost big chunks of), and which has another one of my hellaciously long set-up intros, and I thought maybe I could do that epistolary opening there and cut out about twenty-thousand words of ramp-up-to-the-real-story. So that’s why I’m rereading Ngaio Marsh: to send me back to my Crusie version of Christie-Marsh-Allingham mystery (I-should-be-so-lucky).

Also there’s a new audio of Good Omens that has Tennant and Sheen repeating their characters. I don’t like audio books, but for Tennant and Sheen . . . except it’s twenty-six bucks. Argh.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Multi-tasking here:

On the comment hearts: Does anybody else have hearts that till start out plain (black) and turn red and add a like when you click on them? Because I do, but it’s my blog and that often changes what I see from what you all see.

On Krissie’s surgery recovery: I have her Care Package done but I don’t want to leave the house. I like it here. So maybe Thursday. The problem is that I have to go to the DMV first (license expired) and I don’t wanna do that, either. But at least the package is together.

On an old books: I reread an old mystery I knew I liked, but I’d forgotten the beginning was a series of letters, and I like that so much that I thought about using that for a new intro to You Again. So once I’ve though that through, I’ll run it past you all to see if that’s better or worse than the old beginning. (The old beginning is bad, massive info-dump-through-chat, so the new intro will have to be mega-bad to be worse).

On the house: I have a new nine-week plan, one room at a time (the rooms are small, nine in a thousand square feet) until the place is spotless, just in time to start the new year. BIG PLANS.

But enough about me. What did you do this week?

Happiness is Cocoa Weather

Okay, I’m not a fan of the cold and it’s November tomorrow, so the cold has arrived. Not horrible cold, I can still go outside in shirt sleeves, but I shiver. The good thing about autumn cold? It’s not awful, it’s invigorating and it makes me appreciate cocoa again, chocolate that warms me from the inside. Lovely stuff. So cocoa weather makes me happy.

What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, October 28, 2021

This week I read books about self-portraits and reread Murderbot and Ngaio Marsh. I’m eclectic.
What did you read this week?