Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 98

This is a Good Book Thursday, May 6, 2021

Most of my reading this week was “How To Get Soot Off Of Everything,” but I did reread some Chase, Novik, and Bowen.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Happy Cinco de Mayo.
Today, I am putting a white board together. Very exciting. Also cleaning up more soot. Not as exciting.

What did you do this week?

Argh Author: Kate Kerns’ The Last Big Fake

Our own Cate M has a new book out, The Last Big Fake, writing as Kate Kerns:

From forger to fake fiancée, Darcy’s life hasn’t been exactly authentic. But her growing feelings for the man she has no intention of marrying might scuttle her plans to play “let’s pretend” one last time.

FAUX BEAU

When Seth offered Darcy a job in his upscale art gallery, he had no idea she’d be volunteering to play his fake fiancée two years later to help him keep his inheritance out of his nefarious brother’s hands. He also has no idea he unwittingly hired an art forger.

When Darcy and Seth arrive at the family chateau, she learns Seth’s estranged brother is none other than Victor, her dangerous ex-boss from her forgery days. Victor tries to blackmail her into doing one last forgery, or he’ll tell his brother her ugly truth. Before knowing Seth, she might’ve caved. But there’s more to Seth than just the honorable, sexy nerd on the other side of the office wall – and the other side of the bed. Darcy has to decide: Does she disappear to save herself? Or does she pull one last, risky con?

Find out more about author Kate at her website.

And buy on
The Boroughs Publishing Group
and Amazon Kindle.

If Good Authors Are Bad People Should They Be Published?

So it turns out that Blake Bailey, the author of the latest Phillip Roth biography, has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault along with predatory behavior when he was a public school teacher. If the accusations are true, that’s bad. The biography had been getting good reviews, but his publisher, W. W. Norton, pulled it and cancelled all future printings based on the accusations.

So here’s the question: Was that the wrong thing to do?

I have my own bias on this particular situation: I don’t like Phillip Roth’s writing (and based on Claire Bloom’s description of their marriage, I don’t like Roth much, either), and the interview I’ve read with Bailey showed him (to me) to be patriarchal in general and dismissive of women in particular.

BUT I still think it was a huge mistake to cancel the book.

There are good reasons to cancel a book. It’s racist (hello, Dr. Seuss), sexist, homophobic, etc. in a way that endangers those groups (you don’t yell “DISCRIMINATE AND ABUSE” in a crowded bookstore). Or it’s plagiarized. Or it’s inaccurate, misleading, based on lies presented as truth. That is, there is something intrinsically wrong with the content, not a difference of opinion but something that makes it morally wrong to publish it.

But “The author is a predatory creep and therefore whatever he/she/they writes should be banned” is a very, very bad idea.

First, authors are human. I think a good, close look at most of us would probably reveal significant flaws. We tend to be anti-social and have a slippery grasp on truth; we make stuff up for a living so “improving” the truth often seems to us just like a rewrite. If you extend that assumption to actors and painters and musicians, sweet Jesus, art disappears from the world. The creator is not the creation and the two should not be confused. Of course there are nice people who make good art, too, but from my experience as both an artist and a writer, they’re not the majority. I’m pretty sure my rep in the romance world is as a grade A bitch (I’m okay with that), and I know there are writers out there who after personal interaction with me think I’m the devil’s whore (I’m not crazy about them, either). They’re probably right (well, not about the whore thing, I barely know Satan), but here’s the other thing about working in a creative field: only the strong survive, only the selfish make it big because making art, any kind of art, is a selfish act: “Give me your time and money so you can appreciate my genius.” This is why Mother Teresa didn’t paint and Gandhi didn’t do long guitar riffs. You need great ego to survive a creative career, and great ego seldom leads to great goodness. (With great ego comes great responsibility.)

The thing is, though, unless that ego, those toxic assumptions, seep into the work, most people will never know we’re lousy human beings. If the art, whatever it is, works, connects with people, makes those people’s lives better, even if only for a short while, then isn’t it a terrible loss to strangle the work because its creator is awful? If the book/painting/music/acting is good, shouldn’t that be enough?

I will admit to dismissing books (for myself, not publicly) by writers I have had bad personal conflicts with, so when I see their names on books, I tend to spit instead of buy, but I would never suggest that they shouldn’t be published or that their books should not be bought; in fact, I’d fight like hell to make sure their books were kept available. We never said we were good people, we said we were good writers. The fact that people often assume we must be as wonderful as our books is not our fault. This is one of the reasons that when complete strangers who are readers see something I’ve said and respond with “Jennifer, I’m so disappointed in you,” I get snappy. I never stopped by anybody’s house and said, “I promise I’ll never say anything you disagree with, I promise I’ll never do anything you don’t like, I promise I’ll always be the person you imagine me to be,” all I said was, “I wrote this story. Want to read it?”

So for all the people who are saying, “What a shame Bailey is such a creep, the biography was really good,” please note that these two statements have nothing to do with each other. If Bailey is a creep, don’t have dinner with him, cut him dead in the street, prosecute him if that’s appropriate, but leave his book out of it. Even if it is about Phillip Roth.

What do you think?

Happiness is a Kitchen That’s Not On Fire

The good thing about bad things is that they make you appreciate the good things.
My kitchen caught fire, but everybody here is happy and healthy and I’m slowly getting a clean house out of it, and, oh, yeah, I didn’t die. That’s a lot to be happy about.

What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, April 29, 2021

I read the new Murderbot (see spoiler post for opinions, lots of opinions) and then I set fire to my kitchen, so you guys are going to have to carry Good Book Thursday this week. Wait, you always carry Good Book Thursday.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, April 27, 2021

I ordered a whiteboard.

I’m so excited, I can’t stand it. I had several plans for how to mount one in my living-room-turned-office, but I finally just ordered a rolling one. Now I just have to keep working on the office so I can roll it in. (Well, I’ll have to put it together first, but you know what I mean.). And I’ll have a place to plot on again.

I have to go take another load of not-office-stuff out off the living room now BECAUSE I HAVE TO MAKE ROOM FOR A WHITEBOARD. Sorry. Very excited.

What did you work on this week?

Spoiler Space: Fugitive Telemetry

I started the new Murderbot at 2AM when it dropped into my mailbox. Technology is a wonderful thing. Since we’re going to want to talk about it, I’m putting this post up so we’ll have the comments as a spoiler space.

DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED FUGITIVE TELEMETRY.

Seriously.

Happiness is Not $100,000

The Atlantic reports that a study done in 2010 found that while money can buy happiness if it’s lifting you out of worrying about bills into not worrying (which they defined as $75,000 or about $92,000 in today’s money) after that, it doesn’t make much difference to general contentment; another more recent study showed that more money after $100,000 doesn’t do much for your happiness. I’ve found this to be generally true depending on where I live; years ago as a single mother with lousy child support, every damn bill was a stress and I routinely priced out my grocery list before I went to the store and several times took a second job. And then my books began to make money and suddenly, paying bills wasn’t agony, I just wrote the checks. I went to the grocery with a list, but I could impulse things. I had a savings account for sudden disasters. I stopped doing a running calculus of how to manage money (although some things still stick: Every time the power goes off, I think, “Did I pay that bill?”). I wasn’t rich, but I was secure, and according to that study, secure was better than rich.

So how do you get happy after you hit security? According to that study, people. Connecting with people, having experiences with people, doing things for people. Share a meal or a vacation with people you love, pay people to do work you don’t want to do (thus freeing yourself and helping them achieve security), give to a charity you trust so you know you’re helping people. It’s people, not money; money just makes it easier to be with people.

Or, you know, start a blog so you can talk with smart, funny, kind people every week. Argh makes me happy; thank you all for showing up.

What made you happy this week?

Argh Question

For once, something Google can’t answer.

What is the nickname “Dillie” short for?

Yes, I know I named her that, but it was a long time ago. The only thing that comes to mind is Tom Bombadil and just no on that. Dylan is a possibility, but that would make her Dylie, wouldn’t it?

This is going to drive me nuts.