Molly O'Keefe's Blog, page 20

New Adult Movie?

So recently I watched the move Pitch Perfect. Staring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson (she was the awful roommate in Bridesmaids). I loved it. I thought it was funny and edgy in places and of course there was a lot of singing. And as I was watching it I thought to myself I think a woman must be directing this. Or part of it somehow, because there were just some lines that I thought were so funny that I didn’t feel like a man would understand. Elizabeth Banks provides sideline commentary during the acapella competitions that while funny is also a wink to women everywhere who know that while what she is saying is wrong, it’s also very truthful. After watching the credits I learned it was in fact written by a woman and I thought she might make a great NA writer.

Because of course there is a romantic element too. Anna Kendrick’s character has suffered as a result of her parent’s divorce. Her relationship with her father is strained. She doesn’t want to be at college, she would rather be working in music. So when she meets the funny, charming nice guy, she really doesn’t know what to do with him.Now I would say there is probably 95% less angst in this movie than other NA books that are out there, but the premise is the same. Young girl starting her adult life with all her childhood history behind her and falling in love while doing it.

In this case it worked for me. But again that might have had a lot to do with the singing and lines like.. “Aca’Scuse me?”But the trick with NA is believing in the HEA. Of course it’s not inconceivable to think Becca and Jesse will stay together all through college, get married and live happily ever after. But the reality is a couple who meet their freshman year probably won’t. So if I’m going to buy into NA anything as it relates to romance the trick is going to have to be letting the story end and freezing them in that moment and in that time.

I haven’t read an NA book, I’ve been reluctant to try because I didn’t know I would react to that HEA element of it, but if I can be so pleased with this movie maybe there is a chance for me and NA yet?

TRIANGLES Contest

About a year ago, when the ARC's for Deviants first hit the streets at BEA (was that just a year ago???) one of the first people I heard from who read the book and loved it, was a woman named Kimmy. When I clicked through to see who she was, I figured out she was an upcoming debut author herself, named Kimberly Ann Miller, and we started up a correspondence. Sometimes I heart the interweb. :)

I'm now thrilled to say that the release date for her debut YA novel, TRIANGLES, is almost upon us!
And her publisher, Spencer Hill Press, is running an awesome contest.
Yes... Spencer Hill Press is giving away a cruise to one lucky winner. Really. This is not an April Fool's joke--it's a travel voucher that can be used to cover the cost of a cruise (or any other travel--they're flexible that way). Two other winners will receive gift cards from either Amazon or Book Depository (winners' choice).
Official rules and entry forms are available online at:http://www.site.spencerhillpress.com/Triangles_Sweepstakes.html 
The PDF of the entry form is available by clicking here:http://www.site.spencerhillpress.com/uploads/Triangles_Cruise_Entry_Form.pdf 
And here's the scoop about TRIANGLES. 
[image error] Triangles the debut of Kimberly Ann MillerComing June 18, 2013
A cruise ship. A beautiful island. Two sexy guys. What could possibly go wrong?  
In the Bermuda Triangle--a lot. 
Hoping to leave behind the reminders of her crappy life--her father's death years ago, her mother's medical problems, and the loser who’s practically stalking her--seventeen-year-old Autumn Taylor hops on a ship with her sister for a little distraction. When she wakes up in the Bermuda Triangle, she fears she's gone nuts for more than one reason: that loser’s suddenly claiming they're a happy couple... a hot guy is wrapping his arms around her and saying "Happy Anniversary"... and suddenly, she’s full of bruises, losing her hair, and getting IV medication. Autumn visits the ship's doctor, hoping for a pill or a shot to make the craziness go away. Instead, she's warned that these "alternate realities" could become permanent. 

I, for one, can't wait to read this book!

Very Drunk Writer

I know we're changing our name, but last Saturday night just left me in a place way too appropriate. My family finally had its Passover seder. We are, as my kids like to say, only Jew-ish so we don't feel like we have to actually have our seders on the first and second nights of the holiday. We don't go around with candles and feathers removing all the bread from the house. We do, however, honor the tradition of drinking a lot of wine at the seder.

It's not just getting drunk, though. The whole point of Passover is retelling the story of the exodus from Egypt. It's all about the importance of passing stories down from one generation to another. I love the message of the story. None of us are free until we all are free. We were all slaves and it's our job to help other people gain their freedom. We must open our hearts and our homes to the lonely and homeless because we were once strangers in a strange land ourselves.

And we remind ourselves and teach our children about these important lessons by telling and retelling this story. We tell about the hardships we faced. We tell about the baby left in the rushes. We tell about the plagues. We tell about the last minute flight. We eat really dry flat crackers so the point of the story really gets hammered home.

We've had a few huge seders, but this year we kept it small. Just family. My mom, who has a harder and harder time every week it seems, was drinking her red wine out of a sippy cup so she didn't spill. My youngest was still pretty much drinking Martinelli's, but he made sure to have all four glasses.

I spent Sunday morning on the couch with coffee and the newspaper. I couldn't even manage a hangover run, Molly. But it felt good. It may be the most important drunk writer holiday of the year for me and I felt I honored it well.

New Ideas and thoughts on Series

I’m getting ready to come up with a new series idea for my Superromances. The Tyler Group Series that I’m finishing up now was my first ever attempt at connected stories. And I really liked it. I liked setting up the characters in one book and then seeing them through to the end in another.I was/am a little worried about readers though. I never wanted anyone to feel as if they had to read all the books in the series to understand the book they were reading now. But the truth is, For the First
Time which is out in October, I think will only really be satisfying if you’ve read An Act of Persuasion and have gotten to know Mark and his daughter Sophie first. We’ll see.

I now have a real appreciation for those people writing connected stories how much the world takes over. I’ve been with these characters now for more than a year. I feel like Ben Tyler is this personal friend I know. There are times when I thought I could really use his advice about something and wanted to call him. But I’ve run out of ideas for the series and I’m ready to move on. So this will also be my first experience leaving a connected series behind. But maybe that’s a good lesson to learn too.

I’ve read a number of series books and eventually I do get tired and leave. The characters get stale for me and the world becomes to repetitive. A perfect example is James Bond. I used to be a Bond fan for a long time. But eventually I just couldn’t watch it anymore I left when Pierce Brosnan left. But I heard great things about Skyfall and so I thought I would give it another chance. And it was a good film. But smack in the middle we have this ridiculous moment where he interacts with a beautiful woman and ends up banging her and I’m like… what purpose did this serve? Except of course it’s Bond and there has to be women and sex and martinis….It’s that fine line of meeting the expectations but not repeating everything over and over again until fans get bored. So I guess the trick is creating the world, letting people get sucked up in it, meeting expectations but then also making each new story fresh and interesting, and then letting it go when the time comes and knowing when that time is.

Wow. Writing is really hard.

A Cool World is Not Enough

I've just stopped reading another YA novel about 65% of the way through. And it's one I'd been really looking forward to reading. It's not a massive bestseller, but it definitely got some buzz and sounded cool.

But it didn't work for me.

First the good stuff: This book has a very interesting and imaginative world. And it subtly explores some really interesting ideas about gender roles and society, not to mention cool sci-fi stuff, even though it feel more like fantasy than sci-fi.

But even that is a cool thing about the book. For a long while you don't know whether it's fantasy or sci-fi, whether it's in some imagined past or the future. And the answer to that, once we learn it is satisfying enough.

There was so much about the world building of this book that I admire and/or I wish I'd thought of first. :) And the opening chapters were intriguing and exciting. I was sucked in. For a while, I thought that I was going to LOVE this book.

But then it failed to go anywhere and nit-picky things started to nag at me more and more and more.

1) The world, while fascinating, didn't fully make sense. That's the kind of thing I can easily let go if the story and characters are pulling me along but, well, see below.

2) The character's personality does a 180. To me, she becomes a totally different person after the "inciting incident". She goes from a sullen, silent teen, who's completely in her own head and doesn't share something pretty freaking important with her family, into a smart-ass who talks back to everyone, flirts with everyone, acts up to the point of putting herself in constant danger--just to be difficult. Two-thirds of the way through the book, I still didn't know who she was. And she made me more and more angry.

3) Her acting out made no sense. Even if she wanted to undermine the authority, the things she did made no logical sense. Rather, she seems determined to be punished. For no reason other than maybe the author thought that her being punished (again) would count as a plot point? And the reasons for her punishments, now that I think of it, weren't really because of her legitimately bad behavior. No. The antagonist (an adult) would punish her out of jealousy... because the protagonist kissed her favorite servant boy. Because she realized the protagonist looked good in a party dress. Because she realized the protagonist had talent and would one day be her superior. It was all such petty motivation.

4) And back to that thing she kept from her family at the start... In a nutshell, she knows that the authorities will be coming for her. In fact, she knows they're coming that night. She knows her parents don't want it to happen and have been working her whole life to make sure it won't happen. Yet.. she doesn't warn her parents that it's about to happen. Maybe because it will put a damper on her sister's birthday party??? But doesn't she think that the authorities storming in to take her away might also ruin the party??? Why not warn her family? Why not take the opportunity to say good-bye?

It didn't bother me that much at the time. Because what happened was exciting and I assumed she had a reason for not warning them, but no such reason is ever revealed. And because of her silence, her family all ends up DEAD. Worse, not once after that does the protagonist even have a passing thought that maybe she bears a tiny bit of responsibility for their deaths. Not once. Not up to 65% of the way through the book, anyway...

5) Another thing that bugged me was that characters were constantly having "big realization" moments about things that I was 99% sure they already knew, or should have known... Even the main character has this "I'm no one special" moment after it's been made abundantly clear to her over and over, that the only reason she hasn't been killed for all her bad behavior is that she is VERY special. In fact she's the key to the ongoing survival of the entire world they're in. And yet, she thinks, "They won't care about me. I'm no one special." WHAT???

6) So, it's clear the main character is an important girl. Okay, maybe not everyone knows this or knows why... but when the antagonist does things that could seriously hurt the main character, and therefore threaten their entire world... no one does anything about it or punishes the antagonist or tries to stop her! It was like nothing was connected in a world where, well, the whole point was that everything was connected and visible to the authorities. (See what I mean about the logic problems?)

7) Even though they died for it, it's hard to understand what her parents hoped to save her from in the first place... She gets taken away into what seems like a way better life than she'd been destined for if they'd been successful in "saving" her. Sure, there are subtle threats about "power corrupting the powerful" but is it worth risking death to (unsuccessfully) keep your kid from being one of the powerful few?

I suppose that question could be debated and perhaps it's one of the things the book is about... but to the point I'd reached, it had yet to be explored. And, again, the character felt no guilt about her part in her parents' deaths.

8) I found the book riddled with inconsistencies. I do know, as an author of books set in imaginary worlds... that if a reader wants to get picky, he or she can always find something to pick at... But in this book, they just piled up for me. In addition to the stuff mentioned above, at one point, the character has already seen that the authorities have wiped her sister's mind clean, and given her a new life and new memories, and the character has learned that in a few days she has to go in for a procedure that sounds like it might wipe HER mind clean, or at least alter her mind. And she thinks and worries about that. And then a page later she thinks something like: at least they can't mess with my thoughts. WHAT??? You know they can. Idiot.

9) But the biggest sin for me in this book, is that at 65% through, there was still no evidence of a plot. Worse, the main character did not have a goal. I had no idea what she wanted or how I'd know if/when she got it. The author's entire point of the story seemed to be: show readers this cool and interesting world I thought up, by making my character travel through it and to make it fun, why not have her flirt with two boys--and a creepy grown man--none of whom have any real personality.

I saw part of an author interview, and based on what I read, I don't think I"m far from wrong in my guess of the author's writing process.

Sounds like this was a first book by a seat-of-her-pants author, who had a cool idea, but really didn't have a clue as to where it was heading, or even what the story was about, other than the world ideas.

10) But the reason I finally stopped reading was that (growing frustrated) I read a few negative reviews that revealed that, even at the end, there's no indication of where the story is heading. The book ends on a cliffhanger that sounds like the author simply didn't know how to finish the book, so she didn't. If I'm this angry now, just imagine the rant if I'd taken the 3-4 more hours to finish!



Now, I actually think that it's possible to have a book that's largely about revealing cool and interesting things about an imaginative world. But only if there are fascinating characters to care about and only if that cool world holds together...

With this book's story world, if you tug on one tiny logic thread, the entire thing unravels.

(I don't want to mention the title... because I dread the idea of someone picking apart my books like this... but that last line contains a hint for anyone who might have read it.)


Can you think of a book that works with mostly world building and character development and no plot? I'm sure there must be some...


Oh, this rant got WAY longer than I meant it to. I just be on a deadline. #responsibiltyavoidance #selfsabotage

British Invasion

It started with Downton Abbey. It was like the starter drug. It was so easy. What harm could it do to watch one little British period drama. I burned through Seasons 1 and 2 in a matter of weeks. Then I got to experience Season 3 in real time including sobbing uncontrollably over Sybil with Catriona McPherson, morning after emails with my boyfriend's mother and horror at Amy Clarke's ability to laugh at melodrama.

It didn't last, though. Season 3 ended. I needed more. My friend Deb told me to check out Doc Martin. I checked out all 5 seasons that were on Netflix. A doctor with a blood phobia and Aspergers! Quirky villagers! Doting aunt! Loved it. But it couldn't last forever, either.

Then there was Call the Midwife. Six short episodes and I was left in tears by every single one of them.

I'm deeply into Kingdom now. In addition, we're now watching both Sherlock (British) and Elementary (American), the two Sherlock Holmes in modern times shows. I'm also dabbling in both House of Cards and House of Cards. Confusing? Yes, it is. They're VERY similar and yet quite different. Upper crust vs. up by the boot straps. Conservative vs. liberal although ideology does not matter much to either of those politicians.

I'm not quite sure what it is about the British shows that are drawing me in right now, but they are. Anybody else having a British thing right now?

American idol and truth

So I've gotten sucked back in. I don't know when it happen, well, that's a lie, I do. I was channel surfing and caught Candice Glover singing I Who Have Nothing, and there's nothing like someone with a huge voice singing really well to suck me into a singing competition.

And so I'm back in. And while watching the rest of the show last week and this week, I realized why I'd stopped watching American Idol. No one tells the truth on the show anymore, at least not during the performance show. Sure Keith Urban is seriously charming in his seemingly genuine enthusiasm. I could live without Nikki Minaj critiquing outfits, and well, everyone else in general, but even after a terrible performance, everyone just kind of goes meh!

At least Simon used to tell people the truth.

And last night, Iovine actually gave proper feedback, a night after the performance shows. There's nothing worse as a viewer than watching someone give a totally mediocre performance and having all the judges go on and on about how lovely the person is and how their soul showed through in their singing... seriously!

To me it devalues the power of a great performance, because if everyone is great, than no one is truly amazing.

And I know in the real world of pop music, how someone looks is as important as how someone sings, but for my reality tv, I'd like it not to matter, please.

And while I'm ranting, can we stop with the awful personalities grating off each other shows? Housewives, restaurant owners, art gallery workers, interior designers and anything else. Even the commercials for the show make me grate my teeth.

Ok, off for my second cup of coffee for the day. Maybe more caffeine will make me less grumpy.

Lost in a Story... Why I love or hate Julia Spencer-Flemming

I wish this blog was going to be about me being lost in my current WIP. How I was so enraptured with my characters I couldn’t stand being away from them so I was writing constantly. How I was so enthralled with the plot and where it was going I couldn’t wait to write the next page and the next page and the next chapter.This blog is sadly not about that. It is instead about the series of books I’m reading. I heard Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches in a podcast talking about reading books in a series and reading them all in row without a break. She said the one time she had done this without a problem was the Julia Spencer-Flemming books. Interested I looked up the series of Russ Von Alstyn and Clare Fergusson. She’s an Episcopalian priest, he’s the chief of police. Strangely they solve crimes together in a way that you actually believe and through the process they fell in love. Deeply irrevocably in love. Small hitch. He’s happily married to a woman he won’t be unfaithful to and of course being a priest she refuses to be the cause that ends his marriage.This is why straying from romance is always a risk. Because when I say I got sucked in by this couple, so hard and so quickly that’s an understatement. I’ve read four books in six days in this series. I had to buy books in advance, and go to the end, just to see how long and how heartbroken I was going to be. And because it’s not a romance I have no guarantee of an HEA as the series progress which as a romance reader could be catastrophic.Because I’m lost in this story. This happens every once and while where I get so captured I can’t think about anything else, watch anything else or write about anything else. I have to know what happens to Russ and Clare. I have to know if they can survive the myriad of obstacles being placed in front of them.I can’t read fast enough. My emotions are dependent on where they are in the story. And currently I’m reading about an absolutely heartbreaking moment in their relationship that I have no idea how Julia is possibly going to allow them to recover from. (But I bought books ahead so I know they do… phew!) I love Julia Flemming for giving me these characters, but I also hate her too because she's breaking my heart. (Not really hate... more like loving hate.)Anyway I think it’s this experience that made me want to be a writer most of all. The feeling that I could fall so far into fiction that I could sit on a couch for eight or nine hours at a stretch immersing myself in this author’s world.

One day I hope to be able to do that for readers. To write something so emotional, so compelling that they simply can’t put the book down and if they do they’re counting the hours until they can pick it up again.I’ve got about five and a half hours left of work before it’s back to Russ and Clare.

Five hours… twenty-nine minutes.

The Americans

Has anyone else been watching this new series?

I have to say, I'm kind of loving it. Sure, it's a spy story, set around 1980 that could quickly devolve into repetitive missions and near misses of being caught... But I think the reason it's working so far is that, at it's core, it's a marriage of convenience romance.

And that's such a hard trope to pull off in a contemporary (or near contemporary) setting. But here it works. It's plausible.

The set up/backstory is that the two main characters, a man and a woman, join the KGB when they are in their teens. Both are separately trained to speak and act like Americans and trained to be spies. Then, when they are in their early 20's they are introduced to each other for the first time, given cover stories and moved to the US to start their missions, working undercover as spies while posing as a married couple.

Neither is allowed to tell the other anything about their real pasts -- not even their real names. They are never allowed to ever speak Russian, even to each other. They only know each other by their fake American names and only know each other's cover stories. They live together and, to be more plausible as a couple, they have two children together. But having sex to conceive is merely part of their jobs. Then about 14 years later, (as the series begins), their relationship remains purely professional, even though they are living together and raising two children.

Both often have to have sex with other people as part of their jobs. Both have to pretend to be in love with other people to gather intelligence. We find out that he had a love in his past whom he had to leave behind in Russia. We find out that she found love with a man in the US (whom she also recruited and turned into a KGB informant), but the they are only posing as a couple. They don't love each other. Or even fully trust each other. In fact, we get the impression that she, in particular, (the harder-edged of the pair), barely tolerates her husband. He's just the dude she has to work with as part of her job--something she really believes in. And he's a big risk to her if he turns.

And then something happens. Someone appears in their lives whom the Keri Russell character knew back in Russia. Someone who hurt her. And when her husband/partner finds out that this man hurt her in the past--hurt a woman whose real name he doesn't even know,  effectively hurt a woman who no longer exists--she (and we) instantly see by his reaction that he loves her. In spite of how tough and cold she is, he has fallen in love with his wife of 14 years. And then as the series progresses we get to see her fall for him too.

It's kind of awesome.

Speaking of awesome. Did anyone else see the Bates Motel premiere? Wow. Rape and multiple murders in episode one. And Vera Farmiga is pretty amazing. I honestly don't know where they go from there. But I'm excited to find out. Poor Norman.

March break and DABWAHA

Holy cow - last week was March Break and it was insane!! I slept eleven hours last night...when is the last time you did that? Now, before you think - well, she had a week with her kids and really dodgy weather, so of course she's exhausted. That's not the case. The truth is - they were at camp. But I had to take them back and forth to camp. My husband usually takes the kids to school and I pick them up. But Adam had a very intense work week and the whole reason I put the kids in camp was so I could have a very intense work week. I have new HUGE respect for the parents who get themselves and their kids out the door, work really hard at a job they love, pick those kids up and get dinner on the table. Everyday was a marathon. Hats off Mom's and Dad's who work out of the house...

Now - in other news it's DABWAHA time. For those of you who might not know this is a Tournament of Books created by the combined talents of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Dear Author. It's modeled after the March Madness college basketball tournament, with seeds and brackets. There are prizes, not just for the book/author that wins, but for readers who pick a bracket and have the best percentage of success with their picks. All in all - lots of fun.

Storytelling Rules/Drunk Writer Talk has a lot of friends in the tournament, Cecilia Grant, Laura Florand, Ruthie Knox, Sarah Mayberry and Simone St. James. And ME!!! Can't Buy Me Love is included and I'm pretty darned excited.

Now, the way the books progress from one round to the next is by reader votes - And I'll talk about that once the voting opens up. However, if you would like to participate in what is an incredibly fun month of trash-talking, bribing and authors behaving outrageously - you can fill out your bracket
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.