Molly O'Keefe's Blog, page 52

Shame (and Michael Fassbender's penis)

I'll now disappoint all the people who stumbled onto this post from google because of the penis reference. (And another warning: This will be a short post... I'm bagged. I'm basically out of the house 14-15 hours each day during TIFF. Love it. But it's tiring.)

One of the best films I've seen so far at this year's Toronto International Film Festival was Steve McQueen's Shame.

It's not an easy film and goodness knows whether it will ever be released in the US (because of all of the nudity and sex and full frontal penis) but wow, it's a powerful film.

And, more relevant to this blog, a lesson in "show, don't tell" -- particularly where it comes to revealing character without revealing much backstory... Also it made a great use of foreshadowing to create tension.

The film is about a man with a sexual obsession. A man who uses sex to block out feeling any emotions. To the point where the one time he tries to have sex with someone he knows and likes, he can't. (Sorry, that was kind of spoilerish.)

The man's world, one in which all he does is work, watch porn, and f8ck strangers, is disrupted when his sister (also clearly damaged) lands on his doorstep to live with him for a while. She's clearly also messed up and we see this both through their interactions and through a heart wrenching rendition of New York, New York she sings in a night club (sister is played by Carey Mulligan). We never learn why these two siblings are so damaged. The only clue is her telling him via a voice mail late in the movie, "We aren't bad people, we just come from a bad place." That line tells us what we've already figured out at that point... that something happened to these two in their childhoods that messed them up. And I suppose it doesn't matter exactly what happened in the past, but most writers would tell us or add a flashback or something. And I admired that Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen did not.

Each of the two siblings has chosen a different but very destructive way to dull his or her pain and the movie builds to a moving climax where we finally see the hero emote.

I liked the slight ambiguous ending, too... Actually, would like to see the movie again to decide for sure what I think he'll do the second the movie stops. I think he changed during the movie. I hope so.

My final comment: Fassbender naked. Wow. Just wow.

Best. Book Club. Ever.

My book club just left and I know I'm a little biased and a little drunk, but they are the best book club ever. We call ourselves the BDBC which stands for Big Dumb Book Club. We came up with the name after we read One Hundred Years of Solitude and all looked at each other and said, "WTF? I don't get it." We know it's a classic. We just don't get it. It was like a bunch of random stuff all strung together. What I love best about this group is that they're completely unafraid to say that they don't get it.Tonight was the All Eileen All the Time Night. They read both the books I published this year. They always read them and they always show up at booksignings and they always want to hear about the writing and publishing and all of it. They're fabulous. They're also unafraid to try something new which is how we ended up drinking Chocovine tonight which we decided tasted like a chocolatey Bailey's. We have some lawyers, a couple of therapist-types, some scientists, a nurse, some stay at home moms. Some of our kids are toddlers. Some have graduated from college. So I'm a little high on all the love and the Chocovine and I wanted everyone to know it.Oh! I almost forgot! Romantic Times reviewed Vanished in the Night and it was kind of awesome! They compared me to Tami Hoag! I love Tami Hoag!!!Good night, everyone! I'm sending you all a big chocolatey kiss and a overly friendly wine-soaked hug!!! May you all find awesome book groups with whom to talk and drink. I came really close to ending that last sentence with a preposition, but I'm not that drunk!!!!

Do the pictures of naked men really work?

Well, maybe not completely naked, but mostly, and I'm referring to a lot of romance writer blogs and websites where they post pics of half naked men, as inspiration for heroes and as well, inspiration for the day.

And hey, I am not against seeing a fit half-naked men, but sometimes I worry that those pics aren't doing anything to dispel the myths about romance.

I still know a ton of people who dismiss romance novels as porn for women, who think of them as nothing but silly and poorly written. Which, as anyone who reads this blog, knows is completely untrue. Like any genre, there are great and not so great books, but the ambassadors of romance have to be the authors and if we spend more time discussing a hot bod, rather than craft and story on our blogs and websites, how can we expect to be taken seriously?

I want to mention JR Ward, and Courtney Milan and Sherry Thomas to strangers and not have them look at me as if I'm an addle brained twit for reading romance. Because these books are great examples of craft, and character and a lot of "serious" authors could learn a lot from romance writers. Which is why I sometimes worry, do romance authors treat their own work with the respect it deserves?

What we put on the internet is basically out there for the world, and I don't want it to be serious all the time, but it cannot be taken back and when I look at those pics, I wince, because I think of a reader that has never read a romance and is investigating an author thinking whether the might pick up their book and would they after seeing that?

I'm not sure, but I do hope they pick up the romance, because if they do, they'll probably be a romance reader for life.

My post to explain why I have no post...

With being off Monday for Labor Day it sort of messed up my days of the week.

What I thought was Tuesday was really Wednesday and today is really Thursday and my normally well thought out post (not really... I just like to pretend I think them out) is not available.

This is me, live and unedited.

So I'm going to take the most completely lame approach and ask (or beg) our readers to help me out.

I'm out of books to read. I know that's crazy talk, but truly I've gone through all my favorite authors and I haven't seen any amazing new reviews of new authors to tempt me. I'm counting the days until Meljean Brook's new Steampunk novel is out. Other than that I'm a little lost.

I don't want serious, sad or depressing. I want a great romance novel. Any genre. So for all you out there thinking, seriously? I clicked on the blog for this? I apologize but can you help a sister out and at least tell me what you are reading and loving.

Falling into Autumn

Inspired by Eileen's list yesterday I thought I'd do my own It's Fall! list.

Fittingly, temperatures here dropped dramatically on Monday, so I definitely had fall on my mind already.

Things I'm Looking Forward To:
Sleeping with my windows open. Toronto is hot and sticky in the summer and the only thing I hate more than sleeping with the air conditioning on, is sleeping when I'm hot and sticky... I love a nice cold room for sleeping and so fall is one of my favorite times of the year, for that alone. TIFF. The Toronto International Film Festival opens on Thursday and runs to the following Sunday (8th-18th) During that time, I will be seeing a minimum of 32 films. At least that's how many I have tickets for at this point. And I'm excited about them all.Oscar season. TIFF usually gives me a head start on the fall movies, but I'm looking forward to all the great films that typically open between now and the Oscar deadline at the end of the year. Fall colors. This part of the world has some pretty spectacular autumn colors and I love the show. Who knows how it will really be, but at this point the weather people are predicting a long and mild autumn. Here's hoping it doesn't turn into full-on winter until January. I've been sitting on some exciting news and fall is when I'm supposed to be able to finally announce it... I hope. Soon.Fall TV. I'm most excited about premieres for The Good Wife and Boardwalk Empire. And Sons of Anarchy Season 4.  (Sinead, you really should watch Season 3.) Also pining for Mad Men and Game of Thrones, but those won't be until winter or later, right?Finishing my WIP. I cannot wait to be over the first draft stage and on to revising. I told Molly I'd be done my first draft by the time she gets back from New Zealand and barring a miracle, that's not likely to happen, but definitely before the end of October. (TIFF is eating up way too much of my September.) Things I'm Not Looking Forward To:
Winter. As much as I love me some fall, I hates me some winter. It's a tough call between which season I hate more, the 35 C degree and humid days of summer, or icy, windy cold days in winter.  (I actually don't mind the freakishly cold weather we sometimes get here in the winter, as long as it's sunny. You can dress for cold.) Shorter days. As much as I jested yesterday, I dread the shorter days too. And they start to get shorter so dang quickly. It's no secret I'm not an early riser, and the consequence of that bad habit is that my days get VERY short...Deadlines. I'm going to be facing at least two over the fall/winter and I'm already a bit stressed out.Sandals. I will miss my open toed shoes and going sans socks. I actually wore closed toe shoes for the first time yesterday since some time in May, possibly April. On the other hand, I bought an AWESOME new pair of Fluevogs this summer I can't wait to wear. (See below.)

It's over.

Yesterday was Labor Day so as far as I'm concerned summer is over. I know it has a few more weeks according to the calendar, but in my mind, summer goes from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In our listy spirit at Drunk Writer Talk, allow me to tell you about things I'm looking forward to this fall and things I'll miss from the summer.

THINGS TO WHICH I AM LOOKING FORWARD

1) Finishing the book I'm working on now. I've got less than two weeks to go. I think it might be good. I can't wait to find out.

2) Fall TV Premieres. I can't wait for The Good Wife and Castle. I'm also curious about a lot of new shows. There are TWO fairytale based urban fantasy sounding series. Two! Plus Ringers and something with Claire Danes and Damion Lewis that sounds interesting and a bunch of others.

3) Starting a new book. I've got a third Messenger novel and a novella that I'm itching to get started on.

4) My kid's soccer season. This is the last one. He's a senior this year. I've made so many wonderful friends on those sidelines and have had such fun watching him play.

5) Figs, persimmons and mandarin oranges. I adore the summer fruit, but some of the fall and winter fruit is pretty darn special, too!



THINGS I'M GOING TO MISS

1) The light and the heat. I love the long hot summer days. I like it being light at 6 a.m. and still light at 9 p.m. I groove on it. I'm already losing the morning light and it's totally bumming me out.

2) Summer TV (In Plain Sight, Suits, Wilfred, Burn Notice, plus some more I can't come up with off the top of my head). Summer TV seems a little quirky and weird and I love it.

3) White clothes. I don't have any white shoes, but I love me my white capri pants.

4) My big boy when he goes back to school. I think we laugh more when he's in the house. I am not, however, going to miss the chaos he tends to spread through the house.

5) More relaxed schedules. School's started. We're all busy. Our house runs on a schedule year round, but in the summer it feels like it has a little more grease to it.

What I've learned this summer

More lists, in honour of Molly, who is having the vacation of a lifetime.



1) summer is the hardest time of the year to write. I'm unfocused, reluctant to sit and work and lacking in focus. And judging by how much work my critique group sends out, we all feel this way. When the Fall hits, it seems all of us get to work and scenes get sent out, and we meet much more frequently.



2) Without an actual deadline, it's hard to muster up the enthusiasm to put the last, finishing edits on a book, the detail work that I generally don't enjoy as much. I should have finished this book three months ago and I'm still editing it... Creating my own deadline doesn't work for me any longer.



3) Every writer needs a break. I've watched critique partners and friends push to three, even four books a year and there is inevitably the book that teaches them they need to take a break, the one that needs a complete edit, or where each sentence is painful and they lose the joy.



4) Too much bachelor pad can turn your brain to mush, but two hours a week is just perfect.



5) Wear white after labour day. That rule that says not to is outdated.



time to get back to work. Have a great labour day.

Things I've learned after writing this book...

Once again in honor of Molly and her love of lists I thought I would put together a list of everything I learned from writing this last book. Which if I prevail will be turned in after this weekend. (I always ask my editor for that extra weekend – this time I was super sneaky because it included a holiday.)



1. A book is easier to write when you are writing consistently every day or every other. When I take breaks between writing chunks… it's disjointed and sucky.



2. Writing for an hour consistently every day allows for more pages than trying to do major chunks of time only on the weekend. I will commit my mornings to writing. I will. (Damn you double alarm clock which always gives me an out…)



3. I can't start a sentence without And or So. I must also include the word "that" and "just" in every sentence. It simply is what it is. Thank goodness for Find and Replace.



4. I believe 20 percent of my sentences are fragments and I have a passion for the "…".



5. My favorite parts of writing are the spontaneous things which come out. Not brainstorming, not executing a chapter the way it appeared in my head, not editing it certainly. It's the things which go where I didn't know they were going, which surprise me, which make me ask - Where in the hell did that come from? - which excites me the most. I never realized that until this book.



6. I'm too linear. I can't get far enough away from the book to pick out the big things I got wrong. I can't move chapter 11 to chapter 2 or insert chapter 2 ½ between chapters 2 and 3. Thank goodness for my editor.



7. Thinking about GMC actually helps. Funny story… I had no idea what that acronym stood for. Molly sent it to me in an email regarding a book I had asked her to read. I was like what the heck… oh no – I bet it's one of those writer terms everyone should know. It was. Thank goodness for Google.



8. I need a little pressure when writing. Not a lot of pressure. I could never do a twenty four hour writing marathon. But sometimes I like to wait for the last moments because it lends a sense of urgency to the writing. I'm still putting my book together, still waiting for the word count to add up and I still have the final scene I need to write. I have to give it another read, then more editing. All of that in a handful of days. I think it makes me more focused.



9. I did not think I could write a book without killing someone. I was right. Someone in the book always has to die.



10. … I've run out but I wanted to have a 10 things listed.



And that's it. So just what are the things that you learn too….



(See what I did there.)

Be Norman Jewison = My New Goal

I'm joking, of course. Not about to go into film making. But the past few weeks I've seen a handful of Normal Jewison films as part of a retrospective put on by the TIFF and it's been kind of inspiring.



He was there to introduce a couple of them and I understand he'll be at the screening of Jesus Christ Superstar that I'm going to tomorrow evening. I bought the ticket after I learned he'd be there... (I know, crazy person going to all these films right before the festival starts. I call it stretching.)



Anyway, on the weekend I saw a rarely seen film of his called Gaily, Gaily. It was filmed in the 1960's, set in the 1910's and starred a very young Beau Bridges (playing a teenager) and an even younger Margot Kidder. In fact, the credits read: Introducing Margot Kidder.



I have a feeling the reason this film is so rare is that many Americans would consider its message to be "communist", but like so many of his films, it's critical of American society -- in this film: greed and corruption.



The film was fun, but that's not really what I wanted to talk about. Before the film, a big-wig from, um, Sony-Pictures Classics? (or one of the really big studios) introduced Jewison and then talked to him on stage for an hour. And he showed clips of 3 of Jewison's films (2 of which I'd just seen in the past few weeks--In the Heat of the Night, and In Justice for All. The third was In Country. At which I cried. At a 5 minute clip. Now I need to rent that movie. Bruce Willis. Who knew?) Anyway, the studio guy kept repeating that Norman Jewison was one of 3 or 4 filmmakers of all time whose work was a) universally appealing (he meant to a global audience) b) highly commercial, and c) art -- about something.



I don't know if "art" is the right word, but I get what the guy meant. The reason that so many of Jewison's films have become classics or are considered iconic is because he hit that sweet spot where commercial met the stories he wanted to tell. He turned Gaily, Gaily, a cutting look at politics and corruption (with definite socialist leanings... the book it was based on was written in 1910 after all), into a silly sex farce set at the turn of the century. He turns a film about civil rights into a murder mystery. He turns a cutting look at the growing power of big corporations (Rollerball) into a violent, action-paced sci-fi sports film. No matter what's at the core, his films are commercial.



At both the screening of In the Heat of the Night, and in this discussion before Gaily, Gaily Jewison told a story about meeting Robert Kennedy the winter before he started shooting and giving Kennedy a synopsis. (The two men were both in a hospital waiting room in Sundance, Idaho where both of their sons, by coincidence, had broken their legs skiing on the same day.) Anyway, the way Jewison tells it now, Kennedy told him that In the Heat of the Night was going to be an important film and Jewison claims he'd never even thought about the film in that way before that point. He just loved the story and was fascinated by the interaction and human dynamic between the two main characters. Yes, Jewison is someone who cared deeply about the civil rights movement and I'm sure that's why he chose that project (based on a book), but mostly, he claims, he was just hoping that people would turn up to see the film.



And really, isn't that what it's about? Because if no one shows up to see your film, or if no one buys your book, then who cares what fabulous ideas you included, or what beautiful sentences you crafted... Isn't it about sharing those ideas? And they aren't shared if no one wants to see the film or read the book.



If a book gets printed and nobody reads it, does it exist?



Clearly feeling existential this evening. I blame The Bachelor Pad. ;) That's what I should have posted about. :) So much more highbrow.



Fav line of this week? (and there were many, I was clapping and bouncing on my sofa a few times...)



Blake (with electric toothbrush in mouth): Give me four minutes and then we can talk.



Only a dentist could get away with using that excuse to postpone talking to the crazy chick.

Full of Hope

Okay. The rough is done. It's a huge relief. All the scenes are there (I think). All the major turning points. All the character arcs.



This rough, however, takes rough to a whole new level of rough. Nothing is in order. Stuff came out of me sometimes according to character arc, sometimes according to philosophical underpinnings, sometimes (apparently very rare times) according to plot. There's going to be some crazy wild revising going on here.



I will get frustrated. I will get mad at myself. I will get crazy. But at the moment, I am a little bit thrilled. This book means so much to me and I really think some of the things in it are really important. It's been a challenge. I've been terrified of it. Right now, it's thrilling me. Andy keeps nodding and saying, "Phase Four."



I love this part of writing. I love when all the pieces are there, but they're rough and ugly and now I can use those more refined skills to massage things into place, to turn phrases, to create great scene endings. In another week, I'll probably again be convinced that it's a terrible book and the end of my career, but for now I'm hopeful and I'm sticking with that.



What's your favorite part of writing? Which phase? Does your family know which one you're in just by how you talk about your project?