Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 238
December 8, 2011
Ideal Sleeping Conditions
TV programming note: Grimm is back this week, with an episode tonight at 9 central and again tomorrow night.
And I noticed the promos for this weekend's SyFy Saturday night movie that I think I must record (since I'll be out that night). It's a disaster movie involving an evil snow globe! That should be epic. Between the Haven episode and this, I may develop a phobia of snow globes. Then again, I've always been a bit suspicious of them …
This time of year is proving deadly to my morning productivity. My favorite sleeping conditions are essentially an igloo under a pile of bearskins. I love a nice, cold room and a big, fluffy comforter and an electric blanket (just to warm the bed initially -- I don't leave it on). It's been cold enough to chill the house, but not so cold that I have to leave the heat on at night for fear of freezing pipes. That makes for ideal sleeping conditions but nearly impossible getting out of bed conditions. I probably need a programmable thermostat that can cut the heat off at night and then turn it back on an hour or so before I need to get out of bed.
On the up side, that makes for some very good thinking conditions. I've found that changing the one scene that was wrong is creating a ripple effect. I won't have to rewrite the entire rest of the book, but I will have to tinker with a lot of it. That's good because I think it fixes most of what wasn't working. There were scenes later in the book that were there because I had this feeling that they should be there, even though I was having to strain at the plot logic to justify them. Now, though, they make more sense. Maybe all along I knew what needed to be happening and it just took my conscious brain a while to catch up.
However, I kind of have a strange shopping impulse tugging at me right now. I don't know if it will last or if I'll be focusing on the book in the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow ...
And I noticed the promos for this weekend's SyFy Saturday night movie that I think I must record (since I'll be out that night). It's a disaster movie involving an evil snow globe! That should be epic. Between the Haven episode and this, I may develop a phobia of snow globes. Then again, I've always been a bit suspicious of them …
This time of year is proving deadly to my morning productivity. My favorite sleeping conditions are essentially an igloo under a pile of bearskins. I love a nice, cold room and a big, fluffy comforter and an electric blanket (just to warm the bed initially -- I don't leave it on). It's been cold enough to chill the house, but not so cold that I have to leave the heat on at night for fear of freezing pipes. That makes for ideal sleeping conditions but nearly impossible getting out of bed conditions. I probably need a programmable thermostat that can cut the heat off at night and then turn it back on an hour or so before I need to get out of bed.
On the up side, that makes for some very good thinking conditions. I've found that changing the one scene that was wrong is creating a ripple effect. I won't have to rewrite the entire rest of the book, but I will have to tinker with a lot of it. That's good because I think it fixes most of what wasn't working. There were scenes later in the book that were there because I had this feeling that they should be there, even though I was having to strain at the plot logic to justify them. Now, though, they make more sense. Maybe all along I knew what needed to be happening and it just took my conscious brain a while to catch up.
However, I kind of have a strange shopping impulse tugging at me right now. I don't know if it will last or if I'll be focusing on the book in the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow ...
December 7, 2011
Coming Attractions
That was a fun night of science fiction Christmas TV (as a person who considers Gremlins one of the best Christmas movies ever, I can appreciate the odd mash-ups). The people behind the Eureka episode must have found some really good drugs. I actually like It's a Wonderful Life (though a lot of that has to do with my deep and abiding affection for Jimmy Stewart) and I thought the Warehouse 13 episode was a fun take on that motif. I liked that they were able to show someone the impact he has on others without him having to be in the pit of despair first. And then Haven inverted the It's a Wonderful Life motif by showing Our Heroine how the other people in her life affect her.
When I was discussing movies, I forgot to mention the trailers that I found interesting. There's an upcoming Snow White movie called Mirror, Mirror that looks a lot like a movie version of the Snow White backstory as seen in Once Upon a Time, but with the evil queen (played by Julia Roberts) as the central character. The trailer had a lot of good laughs in it, and one of my friends suggested that as a good girls' night out movie. I normally am not a fan of Julia Roberts, but I'm okay with her being evil and getting her comeuppance. I also, for personal reasons that should be pretty obvious, have a keen interest in fantasy comedies doing very well at the box office.
Then there was the upcoming Pixar movie, Brave, which is getting buzz as the first "girl" Pixar movie. If that's going to be the focus of any analysis of the success/failure of the film, that makes me kind of nervous because it means that if it doesn't make money on a par with previous films, they'll consider it proof that "girl" stuff doesn't sell. I actually hadn't noticed that the previous Pixar films were all "boy" movies centered around male main characters because I was too caught up in the story and characters to do the statistical analysis (and wasn't it the mom in The Incredibles who really saved the day?). But apparently that matters to some people, and now they're making a conscious effort to break the mold. The thing is, "boy" stuff is generally going to do better than "girl" stuff because while girls will go see "boy" movies (and may not even notice that they're "boy" movies), boys are less willing to go see movies perceived as "girl" stuff. That means "girl" movies automatically have a smaller potential audience (especially when they're aimed at an age group too young for boys to be forced to take their dates to them). Some of that is cultural expectations -- there's far less stigma to girls doing "boy" stuff than there is to boys doing "girl" stuff . Some of it is availability -- there's traditionally been less "girl" stuff available, especially of a fun and adventurous sort, so girls had to resort to "boy" stuff if they wanted anything other than "Princess Sparkles Plans Her Wedding," while there's been enough good "boy" stuff that boys don't have to broaden their reach to have things to enjoy. In the book world, it's shifting, to the point they're now worried about there being next to nothing aimed at boys. While there is a lot of the "Princess Sparkles Plans Her Vampire Wedding" type stuff in books, there is more girl-oriented action and adventure these days. Movies, though, are more focused on the male demographic.
Anyway, Brave is about a female main character and still looks like a good action movie. My other concern with this film is the hair. In the trailer, she has wild, curly hair that looks a lot like mine, only a bit redder, and since I've seen movies before, I have this dread that at the Happy Ending when she's accepted as the great warrior princess, or whatever, that they'll make her "beautiful" by giving her sleek, glossy, straight hair. I'm not sure even the storytelling geniuses at Pixar will be able to escape that particular cultural image.
Meanwhile, I had a very vivid dream last night in which I was served this absolutely divine chocolate cake/pie/cheesecake type dessert, and now I will have to dedicate my life to actually creating this recipe.
When I was discussing movies, I forgot to mention the trailers that I found interesting. There's an upcoming Snow White movie called Mirror, Mirror that looks a lot like a movie version of the Snow White backstory as seen in Once Upon a Time, but with the evil queen (played by Julia Roberts) as the central character. The trailer had a lot of good laughs in it, and one of my friends suggested that as a good girls' night out movie. I normally am not a fan of Julia Roberts, but I'm okay with her being evil and getting her comeuppance. I also, for personal reasons that should be pretty obvious, have a keen interest in fantasy comedies doing very well at the box office.
Then there was the upcoming Pixar movie, Brave, which is getting buzz as the first "girl" Pixar movie. If that's going to be the focus of any analysis of the success/failure of the film, that makes me kind of nervous because it means that if it doesn't make money on a par with previous films, they'll consider it proof that "girl" stuff doesn't sell. I actually hadn't noticed that the previous Pixar films were all "boy" movies centered around male main characters because I was too caught up in the story and characters to do the statistical analysis (and wasn't it the mom in The Incredibles who really saved the day?). But apparently that matters to some people, and now they're making a conscious effort to break the mold. The thing is, "boy" stuff is generally going to do better than "girl" stuff because while girls will go see "boy" movies (and may not even notice that they're "boy" movies), boys are less willing to go see movies perceived as "girl" stuff. That means "girl" movies automatically have a smaller potential audience (especially when they're aimed at an age group too young for boys to be forced to take their dates to them). Some of that is cultural expectations -- there's far less stigma to girls doing "boy" stuff than there is to boys doing "girl" stuff . Some of it is availability -- there's traditionally been less "girl" stuff available, especially of a fun and adventurous sort, so girls had to resort to "boy" stuff if they wanted anything other than "Princess Sparkles Plans Her Wedding," while there's been enough good "boy" stuff that boys don't have to broaden their reach to have things to enjoy. In the book world, it's shifting, to the point they're now worried about there being next to nothing aimed at boys. While there is a lot of the "Princess Sparkles Plans Her Vampire Wedding" type stuff in books, there is more girl-oriented action and adventure these days. Movies, though, are more focused on the male demographic.
Anyway, Brave is about a female main character and still looks like a good action movie. My other concern with this film is the hair. In the trailer, she has wild, curly hair that looks a lot like mine, only a bit redder, and since I've seen movies before, I have this dread that at the Happy Ending when she's accepted as the great warrior princess, or whatever, that they'll make her "beautiful" by giving her sleek, glossy, straight hair. I'm not sure even the storytelling geniuses at Pixar will be able to escape that particular cultural image.
Meanwhile, I had a very vivid dream last night in which I was served this absolutely divine chocolate cake/pie/cheesecake type dessert, and now I will have to dedicate my life to actually creating this recipe.
December 6, 2011
Secret Bookcases and Conspiracy Walls: Modern Office Decor
My house is now about as Christmasy as it's going to get. I'll probably swap out my tablecloth and put out my Christmas cookie jar as a centerpiece, but that will be it. I think next year I may make some modifications in the decor, since this is my 14th Christmas in this house, and I've been doing things more or less the same since I moved in. I did change the way I did the tree in 2000, but nothing else has changed. The main modification will likely be the garland on the loft and staircase railing. It's a (fake) pine garland with small white lights. I originally had also wound a metallic garland through it -- a gold wire with little gold mylar snowflakes on it. But this year I took that off because most of the snowflakes had come off and those things won't go away. I'd still be finding them in August because they'd cling to something and lurk, and then pop out. I may pick up some ribbon at post-Christmas sales and try something with that next year.
While I'm talking about stuff to do with my house, I found instructions for making a hidden door bookshelf and now I desperately want that. Unfortunately, there's no way to do it in my current house, since I barely have doorways (it's hard to have secret rooms with an open floor plan). But if I ever get a house with walk-in closets and use one of those bedrooms as an office, I think I will have to put bookcases on the wall with the closet door and make the closet door the "secret" bookcase door. It would go well with that "conspiracy wall" thing I kind of want to do -- you know how in TV series or movies, if a character has a conspiracy theory or is obsessed with something, there will be a secret or hidden wall collecting and connecting all the information, with photos and newspaper clippings and lines drawn between them. That would be a fun way of organizing information for my books, though I guess the conspiracy wall would have to be in the office itself instead of hidden in the secret closet or it wouldn't do much good as a reference. Maybe I could get a moving whiteboard that I could stash in the secret closet. Or I could start my day's work by triggering the secret bookcase door, going into the secret closet, pulling the string to turn on the single bare bulb (because it has to be a single bare bulb) and then studying the important aspects of the Book Conspiracy Wall before closing it up again. I could probably do a good Conspiracy Wall on the mirrored closet doors of my current office, but it wouldn't be as much fun without the secret bookcase door.
Meanwhile, today marks five months without comment since I sent a project off. I'm torn between nagging and letting it go and seeing how long it does go without nagging, since I've got plenty to work on (that may even be more profitable) and seeing how long it goes will give me valuable data points in any decisions to keep working with this organization. The people I'm about to start working for are very big on deadlines and timelines, which sounds lovely. And they aren't a state agency, which has its own administrative frustrations (you've got to love bureaucracy, unless you're relying on it to pay you in a timely manner). In general, as a self-employed writer you're usually either fighting with corporate or government bureaucracy or you're dealing with the glacial pace of the publishing world. I suspect that's a big reason self-publishing sounds appealing to a lot of people. To me, that sounds like I'd have to deal with even more of the business end of it that I'd rather let a publisher take care of. In my ideal world, I'd prefer to hide in my cave and write stories, and then a publisher would do all the work of getting them out into the world, occasionally sending me a check. Sadly, I'm not sure the world works like that anymore.
Tonight we get the SyFy summer series' Christmas episodes. I think I'll be making some pizza and then I may even turn out the lights and just have the Christmas lights on when we get around to Haven, since that one's bound to be at least a little spooky (even if they're going with the funny side of it in the promos). I'm not crazy about the way they do the "out of continuity" Christmas episodes that take place sometime in the past of the previous season, but then I guess they can hardly resolve the cliffhanger of the previous season, jump forward to Christmas, and then have a Christmas story, all in one episode. They manage it with Doctor Who because they really wrap up their seasons, without cliffhangers, and then they have a time machine that allows the Doctor to jump right to Christmas from whenever he was. With the SyFy way, it's a little disconcerting to have to do a mental rewind and disregard whatever changes happened near the end of the season. And you know there can be no consequences for the Christmas episode, or we'd have already noticed the fallout. I'm not going to complain about bonus Christmas stuff to break up the wait for summer, though.
While I'm talking about stuff to do with my house, I found instructions for making a hidden door bookshelf and now I desperately want that. Unfortunately, there's no way to do it in my current house, since I barely have doorways (it's hard to have secret rooms with an open floor plan). But if I ever get a house with walk-in closets and use one of those bedrooms as an office, I think I will have to put bookcases on the wall with the closet door and make the closet door the "secret" bookcase door. It would go well with that "conspiracy wall" thing I kind of want to do -- you know how in TV series or movies, if a character has a conspiracy theory or is obsessed with something, there will be a secret or hidden wall collecting and connecting all the information, with photos and newspaper clippings and lines drawn between them. That would be a fun way of organizing information for my books, though I guess the conspiracy wall would have to be in the office itself instead of hidden in the secret closet or it wouldn't do much good as a reference. Maybe I could get a moving whiteboard that I could stash in the secret closet. Or I could start my day's work by triggering the secret bookcase door, going into the secret closet, pulling the string to turn on the single bare bulb (because it has to be a single bare bulb) and then studying the important aspects of the Book Conspiracy Wall before closing it up again. I could probably do a good Conspiracy Wall on the mirrored closet doors of my current office, but it wouldn't be as much fun without the secret bookcase door.
Meanwhile, today marks five months without comment since I sent a project off. I'm torn between nagging and letting it go and seeing how long it does go without nagging, since I've got plenty to work on (that may even be more profitable) and seeing how long it goes will give me valuable data points in any decisions to keep working with this organization. The people I'm about to start working for are very big on deadlines and timelines, which sounds lovely. And they aren't a state agency, which has its own administrative frustrations (you've got to love bureaucracy, unless you're relying on it to pay you in a timely manner). In general, as a self-employed writer you're usually either fighting with corporate or government bureaucracy or you're dealing with the glacial pace of the publishing world. I suspect that's a big reason self-publishing sounds appealing to a lot of people. To me, that sounds like I'd have to deal with even more of the business end of it that I'd rather let a publisher take care of. In my ideal world, I'd prefer to hide in my cave and write stories, and then a publisher would do all the work of getting them out into the world, occasionally sending me a check. Sadly, I'm not sure the world works like that anymore.
Tonight we get the SyFy summer series' Christmas episodes. I think I'll be making some pizza and then I may even turn out the lights and just have the Christmas lights on when we get around to Haven, since that one's bound to be at least a little spooky (even if they're going with the funny side of it in the promos). I'm not crazy about the way they do the "out of continuity" Christmas episodes that take place sometime in the past of the previous season, but then I guess they can hardly resolve the cliffhanger of the previous season, jump forward to Christmas, and then have a Christmas story, all in one episode. They manage it with Doctor Who because they really wrap up their seasons, without cliffhangers, and then they have a time machine that allows the Doctor to jump right to Christmas from whenever he was. With the SyFy way, it's a little disconcerting to have to do a mental rewind and disregard whatever changes happened near the end of the season. And you know there can be no consequences for the Christmas episode, or we'd have already noticed the fallout. I'm not going to complain about bonus Christmas stuff to break up the wait for summer, though.
December 5, 2011
Muppet Movie Monday
I got a start on the Christmas decorations yesterday, getting the wreath on the door and the garland on the fireplace mantel. Today I need to get the garland on the loft and stairway railing, and then I think the tree will go up during tonight's airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
In the meantime, I have some writing to do. I was brainstorming some things to work on in a scene I knew wasn't working, and that sparked an idea about a previous scene that I'd thought worked, but then when I really analyzed it, it didn't. And fixing that will solve a lot of problems going forward.
It was a movie weekend, so I have a full Movie Monday report.
Saturday I went with a bunch of friends to see The Muppets, and it was awesome. I think it was written more for adults who watched The Muppet Show as kids than it was for kids. The one child in our group seemed to enjoy it, but not nearly as much as the adults did. I laughed myself silly, and my face hurt at the end from smiling so much. In addition to twisting, poking holes in and subverting just about every movie cliche ever, it actually had a relevant message about the cynicism in our world and what counts as "entertainment" these days. Plus, there was good music (that definitely showed its "Flight of the Conchords" roots) and a duet between Amy Adams and Miss Piggy. I think I need the soundtrack CD for that song alone. And we had quite possibly the best use of Jack Black in any film. I may need to see this one again to catch all the cameos and jokes.
Then on Sunday afternoon, I made the mistake of watching Never Let Me Go on one of the HBO channels. It seemed to fit the grey, gloomy atmosphere of the day. It wasn't a bad movie. It was well-made and well-acted. It was just such a bleak worldview that it left me so bummed out that I needed to watch The Muppets again to get my head on straight. Fortunately, last year's Phineas and Ferb Christmas episode was showing on the Disney Channel at the time the movie ended, and that worked. I got the feeling when the movie came out that some information that was in all the trailers and movie descriptions was supposed to be spoilery for what was a major twist in the book, so I don't know how to describe this without possibly spoiling the twist. It comes pretty early in the movie, so it doesn't seem like a huge secret that these kids in the boarding school are actually clones being grown to be used as organ transplant donors when they're adults. You can tell this is "literature" with science fiction elements instead of science fiction because in science fiction, the story would have ended up being about the clones banding together and fighting back while trying to get the story out to prove their humanity and force people to know who they were killing when they got life-prolonging transplants. I think the movie thought it had a happy ending, but I found it very depressing, and not in a "made me think about the meaning of life" way. I would say that I probably need to read the book in order to see what it was really supposed to be about, since the movie inevitably overly simplified it and messed it up, but I'll have to wait until The Muppets comes out on DVD, because I'll either need to have it on while I'm reading or have it standing by to watch immediately afterward so I won't want to slit my wrists -- or else I'll have to write the "clones fight back" story, though I suspect it's already been done, repeatedly.
I was really very pleasantly surprised by the first part of Neverland on SyFy. It was actually rather good, and not just in the typical SyFy movie "so bad that it's highly entertaining" way. The cast was all top-notch and though some of the effects weren't so hot, the story was interesting. It tinkered with the Peter Pan mythology a bit, giving a slightly different backstory and making it science fiction instead of fantasy (Neverland is another planet and the fairies are the local life form), but I think what they did worked. I kind of like the idea of Hook and Peter having had a past father/son relationship that ended in a sense of betrayal. They also seemed to mend some of the more problematic elements from the original story, like making an effort to more accurately portray the Indians instead of going with the stereotypes of that time (and using Tiger Lily's name in her native language). This version of the backstory even explains how all those disparate adventure story elements like pirates and American Indians ended up in the same story. I'm looking forward to part 2 tonight.
Meanwhile, I've discovered that all the Family channel and Lifetime Christmas romantic comedies are available OnDemand. I know some of what I'll be doing this month. I'm considering changing my usual travel schedule, since I really want to sing for the Christmas Eve services at my church, so instead of going to my parents' house several days before Christmas and then leaving the day after, I think I'm going to head over there Christmas morning and stay a few days after. That means I'll have a few days leading up to Christmas with not much going on, and that will be a perfect time for a cheesy movie marathon.
In the meantime, I have some writing to do. I was brainstorming some things to work on in a scene I knew wasn't working, and that sparked an idea about a previous scene that I'd thought worked, but then when I really analyzed it, it didn't. And fixing that will solve a lot of problems going forward.
It was a movie weekend, so I have a full Movie Monday report.
Saturday I went with a bunch of friends to see The Muppets, and it was awesome. I think it was written more for adults who watched The Muppet Show as kids than it was for kids. The one child in our group seemed to enjoy it, but not nearly as much as the adults did. I laughed myself silly, and my face hurt at the end from smiling so much. In addition to twisting, poking holes in and subverting just about every movie cliche ever, it actually had a relevant message about the cynicism in our world and what counts as "entertainment" these days. Plus, there was good music (that definitely showed its "Flight of the Conchords" roots) and a duet between Amy Adams and Miss Piggy. I think I need the soundtrack CD for that song alone. And we had quite possibly the best use of Jack Black in any film. I may need to see this one again to catch all the cameos and jokes.
Then on Sunday afternoon, I made the mistake of watching Never Let Me Go on one of the HBO channels. It seemed to fit the grey, gloomy atmosphere of the day. It wasn't a bad movie. It was well-made and well-acted. It was just such a bleak worldview that it left me so bummed out that I needed to watch The Muppets again to get my head on straight. Fortunately, last year's Phineas and Ferb Christmas episode was showing on the Disney Channel at the time the movie ended, and that worked. I got the feeling when the movie came out that some information that was in all the trailers and movie descriptions was supposed to be spoilery for what was a major twist in the book, so I don't know how to describe this without possibly spoiling the twist. It comes pretty early in the movie, so it doesn't seem like a huge secret that these kids in the boarding school are actually clones being grown to be used as organ transplant donors when they're adults. You can tell this is "literature" with science fiction elements instead of science fiction because in science fiction, the story would have ended up being about the clones banding together and fighting back while trying to get the story out to prove their humanity and force people to know who they were killing when they got life-prolonging transplants. I think the movie thought it had a happy ending, but I found it very depressing, and not in a "made me think about the meaning of life" way. I would say that I probably need to read the book in order to see what it was really supposed to be about, since the movie inevitably overly simplified it and messed it up, but I'll have to wait until The Muppets comes out on DVD, because I'll either need to have it on while I'm reading or have it standing by to watch immediately afterward so I won't want to slit my wrists -- or else I'll have to write the "clones fight back" story, though I suspect it's already been done, repeatedly.
I was really very pleasantly surprised by the first part of Neverland on SyFy. It was actually rather good, and not just in the typical SyFy movie "so bad that it's highly entertaining" way. The cast was all top-notch and though some of the effects weren't so hot, the story was interesting. It tinkered with the Peter Pan mythology a bit, giving a slightly different backstory and making it science fiction instead of fantasy (Neverland is another planet and the fairies are the local life form), but I think what they did worked. I kind of like the idea of Hook and Peter having had a past father/son relationship that ended in a sense of betrayal. They also seemed to mend some of the more problematic elements from the original story, like making an effort to more accurately portray the Indians instead of going with the stereotypes of that time (and using Tiger Lily's name in her native language). This version of the backstory even explains how all those disparate adventure story elements like pirates and American Indians ended up in the same story. I'm looking forward to part 2 tonight.
Meanwhile, I've discovered that all the Family channel and Lifetime Christmas romantic comedies are available OnDemand. I know some of what I'll be doing this month. I'm considering changing my usual travel schedule, since I really want to sing for the Christmas Eve services at my church, so instead of going to my parents' house several days before Christmas and then leaving the day after, I think I'm going to head over there Christmas morning and stay a few days after. That means I'll have a few days leading up to Christmas with not much going on, and that will be a perfect time for a cheesy movie marathon.
December 2, 2011
It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas
I had a meeting this morning to meet with my new client. This is actually an agency, so there will still be a client beyond that, but I'm working through them, and I'm a contractor rather than a regular employee, which to me means it's the best of both worlds (aside from the benefits issue, but I was already providing my own benefits, like health insurance). I can probably have fairly steady work with these people, as steady as a regular job, but I work at home, set my own hours (as long as I meet deadlines) and take on as much or as little work as I can handle. When I'm not on a book deadline, I can take on more. If I have a book due, I can do less. This may help keep me from burying my agent in manuscripts, since I can write them almost as fast as she can read them, while paying my living expenses and adding to the World Domination fund (a good plan for world domination requires capital).
Though it was a little embarrassing to open my oh-so-professional-looking notepad and find that it had dust in the creases. I haven't had to meet with clients in a very long time. It sounds like I should have taken that "vacation" in November because I'll be rather busy for the next month or so. Then again, being that busy may mean that I can afford to take a real vacation. Or that I can add some days to a trip to New York for a conference early next year and maybe even splurge on my own hotel room instead of sharing (which is the biggest stress of a conference for me).
I'm actually starting to kind of get into the holiday spirit. It started with choir Wednesday, where we're finally digging into our Christmas music (including some old standards in creative keys). But this morning driving across town on a grey, misty day really got to me, since it meant that any lights that were still on really showed up, and then when I stopped by the grocery store afterward, I had to walk through the forest of Christmas trees to get to the door, which really flipped my "Christmas!" switch. I may even put the Christmas music back into the iTunes playlist, and I'll be baking some cookies this afternoon, since the church cookie sale fundraiser is this weekend. The Christmas decorations may go up this weekend, too.
I'll have to get the decorating done before Sunday night, though, because there will be some good TV. First Once Upon a Time, which I'm really loving, and then the channel formerly known as SciFi is doing a two-part Neverland miniseries, and the cast looks astoundingly good for this kind of production. Of course, next Tuesday they're showing the Christmas episodes of their summer series, though Haven is requiring real creativity to get a Christmas episode, since the entire series so far has been set in a single summer.
Though it was a little embarrassing to open my oh-so-professional-looking notepad and find that it had dust in the creases. I haven't had to meet with clients in a very long time. It sounds like I should have taken that "vacation" in November because I'll be rather busy for the next month or so. Then again, being that busy may mean that I can afford to take a real vacation. Or that I can add some days to a trip to New York for a conference early next year and maybe even splurge on my own hotel room instead of sharing (which is the biggest stress of a conference for me).
I'm actually starting to kind of get into the holiday spirit. It started with choir Wednesday, where we're finally digging into our Christmas music (including some old standards in creative keys). But this morning driving across town on a grey, misty day really got to me, since it meant that any lights that were still on really showed up, and then when I stopped by the grocery store afterward, I had to walk through the forest of Christmas trees to get to the door, which really flipped my "Christmas!" switch. I may even put the Christmas music back into the iTunes playlist, and I'll be baking some cookies this afternoon, since the church cookie sale fundraiser is this weekend. The Christmas decorations may go up this weekend, too.
I'll have to get the decorating done before Sunday night, though, because there will be some good TV. First Once Upon a Time, which I'm really loving, and then the channel formerly known as SciFi is doing a two-part Neverland miniseries, and the cast looks astoundingly good for this kind of production. Of course, next Tuesday they're showing the Christmas episodes of their summer series, though Haven is requiring real creativity to get a Christmas episode, since the entire series so far has been set in a single summer.
December 1, 2011
The My Little Pony Death Match
I had a frustrating day yesterday dealing with business stuff. I actually had to talk to someone on the phone, which is getting extreme for me. But a client not only owes me money, but hadn't sent me a new contract covering last month, which might have kept me from getting paid for work I've already done, so I wanted it resolved, ASAP. It turned out that they'd misspelled my name in my e-mail address and no one had noticed that the e-mail address they had on file for me didn't match the way my name was spelled in the contract itself or in any of the e-mails forwarded to them by the person I usually deal with. But I was friendly and perky on the phone and got the matter resolved, and then I may have indulged in a little primal screaming of the "What is the matter with you people?" variety once I got off the phone. I ought to look up their policy for what they do if someone is a month late paying a bill to them and then establish that as my policy for dealing with them. I seriously doubt that "Oh, I guess that didn't get processed when it first came in, so we forgot about it" would fly as an excuse when you owe them money.
Then later in the evening I got to break up a fight between preschool girls. It helps that I'm enough larger than they are that all I had to do was stand between them. We then had a chat about how they were friends, so why were they fighting, and I'm still not sure what was going on because I got a long, garbled explanation that seemed to have something to do with a My Little Pony birthday party and who got to be which pony. It was definitely smile and nod time because I had no clue what they were talking about. At any rate, my conflict resolution skills were apparently good enough to end up with both of them settled into my lap and not trying to kill each other. I know the very idea of My Little Pony incites me to violence, but I didn't realize it had the same effect on the target audience. I may have to do research. If the ponies are getting into death matches, that whole thing may be a lot more interesting than I realized.
Speaking of research, I was reading a list of upcoming book releases that are considered "genre benders," and it seems like the cozy mystery genre has taken a turn toward fantasy, with a number of series involving magical elements. Since I love cozy mysteries, I may have to look for some of those. I'd probably enjoy them as a reader, but that might also be something I could do as a writer. Those kinds of series are a great fit for the way I like to write romances, so it could take a number of books for the amateur sleuth heroine and the hunky cop to get together. I just can't think of a gimmick (and they seem to require a gimmick these days), and all the situations I come up with seem to turn into a strange Haven/Once Upon a Time mash-up. If I move it to Texas, would anyone notice the similarities? And then apparently you also need knitting or cross-stitch patterns or recipes. I've been known to create cross-stitch patterns (like Firefly hand towels) and recipes, so maybe I could do this. I'll need to find and read a bunch before I can start thinking along those lines. It seems like a few of those series come up in Amazon's "people who bought this also bought that" function for my books, so that's a good starting point.
First, though, I need to finish reading the new Terry Pratchett. And writing a book.
Then later in the evening I got to break up a fight between preschool girls. It helps that I'm enough larger than they are that all I had to do was stand between them. We then had a chat about how they were friends, so why were they fighting, and I'm still not sure what was going on because I got a long, garbled explanation that seemed to have something to do with a My Little Pony birthday party and who got to be which pony. It was definitely smile and nod time because I had no clue what they were talking about. At any rate, my conflict resolution skills were apparently good enough to end up with both of them settled into my lap and not trying to kill each other. I know the very idea of My Little Pony incites me to violence, but I didn't realize it had the same effect on the target audience. I may have to do research. If the ponies are getting into death matches, that whole thing may be a lot more interesting than I realized.
Speaking of research, I was reading a list of upcoming book releases that are considered "genre benders," and it seems like the cozy mystery genre has taken a turn toward fantasy, with a number of series involving magical elements. Since I love cozy mysteries, I may have to look for some of those. I'd probably enjoy them as a reader, but that might also be something I could do as a writer. Those kinds of series are a great fit for the way I like to write romances, so it could take a number of books for the amateur sleuth heroine and the hunky cop to get together. I just can't think of a gimmick (and they seem to require a gimmick these days), and all the situations I come up with seem to turn into a strange Haven/Once Upon a Time mash-up. If I move it to Texas, would anyone notice the similarities? And then apparently you also need knitting or cross-stitch patterns or recipes. I've been known to create cross-stitch patterns (like Firefly hand towels) and recipes, so maybe I could do this. I'll need to find and read a bunch before I can start thinking along those lines. It seems like a few of those series come up in Amazon's "people who bought this also bought that" function for my books, so that's a good starting point.
First, though, I need to finish reading the new Terry Pratchett. And writing a book.
November 30, 2011
From Idea to Book
In my last writing post, I talked about evaluating an idea's potential. Once you decide that your idea really will make a good novel, you have to do still more work to actually develop it into a novel.
I have found that the biggest pitfall in turning an idea into a novel is specifics. When you're talking on the idea level, you can afford to be vague. You could even write a query letter or short synopsis without too many details. But when you write the book, you need specifics. Mostly, that comes down to "what" and "why." You may know what the villain is up to that the hero will have to stop, but why, exactly, is the villain doing this thing? You may also need the specifics of what the villain is doing, broken down into an actual plan instead of a big-picture goal. Your synopsis may talk about the hero going through a number of trials on the way to reaching his goal, but when you write the book, you need to know exactly what the trials are and exactly what the hero does to get through them.
When you come up with these specifics depends on your writing process. If you're a plotter, you may want to work it all out before you start writing. If you're more of a seat-of-the-pants writer, you'll more likely want to tackle each of these questions as they arise in your book. Either way, at some point, you'll have to drill down into specifics, and I sometimes find this to be the most challenging part of writing. An idea that sounds great when I'm talking in terms of "and then they stop the villain's evil plan" sounds less great when I have to figure out exactly what the plan is, exactly why the villain is doing it, exactly how the hero will try to counter it and exactly what the villain will do in response. One sentence in a synopsis can amount to ten or more pages in the finished book, and writing ten pages requires a lot more information than writing a sentence.
How do you get those specifics? Sometimes, it's just going through the work of asking yourself questions -- and then what? Why? Work through cause and effect. If you can't answer these questions through straightforward brainstorming and logic, then you may need to do additional research. Look at how things like elements in your story work in the real world. Research the setting, the career field or industry or any historical analogues to come up with answers. Or you can look for inspiration in other fictional works like movies, TV shows or novels. That doesn't mean copying plot elements exactly, but sometimes looking at the way another writer has handled a similar situation can help you come up with ideas for handling your own work. One thing I like to do when I'm stuck for specifics is brainstorm while putting iTunes on shuffle. It often seems like the answer to what needs to happen will pop up in a song that comes on just when I'm thinking about that problem. Daydreaming is also good. Imagine different scenarios playing out and use the one that makes the best movie in your head. If you're more left-brained, make flow charts.
One thing you may need to do in developing the novel is let go of some of the original elements of your idea. Those elements may be things that sparked your interest in the story, but they may not fit into the book, and you'll twist yourself into knots trying to force those things into your story. The characters you started with may not be the right ones for the story. Some of the scenes you first envisioned when you first came up with the idea may have no place in the actual novel. If you're having to work too hard to make something fit, it may not belong.
I guess all this comes down to work. Coming up with ideas is easy. You can even develop the ideas enough to talk about them without too much effort. But going through all the steps of writing a novel is where the hard work comes in and is what separates the relative few who complete a novel from the many who say they have a brilliant idea for a book. This is one reason why publishers are often leery of buying incomplete novels from first-time authors. An author who has never completed a manuscript may not realize the difference between developing an idea enough to write a synopsis and developing that idea into a novel.
I'm going to do one more writing post this year, so are there any end-of-year questions you want me to address? I may even do a Q&A if I get several questions that don't require post-length answers.
I have found that the biggest pitfall in turning an idea into a novel is specifics. When you're talking on the idea level, you can afford to be vague. You could even write a query letter or short synopsis without too many details. But when you write the book, you need specifics. Mostly, that comes down to "what" and "why." You may know what the villain is up to that the hero will have to stop, but why, exactly, is the villain doing this thing? You may also need the specifics of what the villain is doing, broken down into an actual plan instead of a big-picture goal. Your synopsis may talk about the hero going through a number of trials on the way to reaching his goal, but when you write the book, you need to know exactly what the trials are and exactly what the hero does to get through them.
When you come up with these specifics depends on your writing process. If you're a plotter, you may want to work it all out before you start writing. If you're more of a seat-of-the-pants writer, you'll more likely want to tackle each of these questions as they arise in your book. Either way, at some point, you'll have to drill down into specifics, and I sometimes find this to be the most challenging part of writing. An idea that sounds great when I'm talking in terms of "and then they stop the villain's evil plan" sounds less great when I have to figure out exactly what the plan is, exactly why the villain is doing it, exactly how the hero will try to counter it and exactly what the villain will do in response. One sentence in a synopsis can amount to ten or more pages in the finished book, and writing ten pages requires a lot more information than writing a sentence.
How do you get those specifics? Sometimes, it's just going through the work of asking yourself questions -- and then what? Why? Work through cause and effect. If you can't answer these questions through straightforward brainstorming and logic, then you may need to do additional research. Look at how things like elements in your story work in the real world. Research the setting, the career field or industry or any historical analogues to come up with answers. Or you can look for inspiration in other fictional works like movies, TV shows or novels. That doesn't mean copying plot elements exactly, but sometimes looking at the way another writer has handled a similar situation can help you come up with ideas for handling your own work. One thing I like to do when I'm stuck for specifics is brainstorm while putting iTunes on shuffle. It often seems like the answer to what needs to happen will pop up in a song that comes on just when I'm thinking about that problem. Daydreaming is also good. Imagine different scenarios playing out and use the one that makes the best movie in your head. If you're more left-brained, make flow charts.
One thing you may need to do in developing the novel is let go of some of the original elements of your idea. Those elements may be things that sparked your interest in the story, but they may not fit into the book, and you'll twist yourself into knots trying to force those things into your story. The characters you started with may not be the right ones for the story. Some of the scenes you first envisioned when you first came up with the idea may have no place in the actual novel. If you're having to work too hard to make something fit, it may not belong.
I guess all this comes down to work. Coming up with ideas is easy. You can even develop the ideas enough to talk about them without too much effort. But going through all the steps of writing a novel is where the hard work comes in and is what separates the relative few who complete a novel from the many who say they have a brilliant idea for a book. This is one reason why publishers are often leery of buying incomplete novels from first-time authors. An author who has never completed a manuscript may not realize the difference between developing an idea enough to write a synopsis and developing that idea into a novel.
I'm going to do one more writing post this year, so are there any end-of-year questions you want me to address? I may even do a Q&A if I get several questions that don't require post-length answers.
November 29, 2011
Tis the Season to Be Mean?
It looks like I'll be starting work for the new client next week, as I've got a meeting on Friday. The work I'll be doing with them will actually use my degree -- specifically and not just in a general "stringing words together" sense, as it involves writing video scripts. Now I have to think of something to wear. I suspect they're pretty casual, as it's a virtual agency, but I still want to look professional. It's been more than a year since my last business meeting.
And that means I need to buckle down this week to get done with the current phase of the current project. Yesterday was relatively unproductive until late in the day, but I don't have to go anywhere or do anything else today, so I should be able to rock and roll.
I didn't do as much reading over the weekend as I normally would on a holiday, but I did watch a fair amount of TV, and it seems like the theme for this holiday season is "mean." There are ads about gloating to Santa that you've already bought all the good presents (gloating to Santa? Really? Talk about getting on the naughty list). There are ads about being obnoxious to store staff. The car ads are particularly bad, with the parents who run off in their son's car instead of acknowledging his arrival, the entitled rich jerks who hire celebrities as holiday employees, the Lexus driver who wipes out a person with a more common car using a giant snowball so he can get his parking space, and the test drivers who take the salesman hostage by refusing to return the car after the test drive. It's all enough to justify my reclusive nature. I feel like doing a Charlie Brown lament. It was bad enough when Christmas was commercialized in the sense of getting more stuff to make your holiday extra merry, but now it's commercialized in the sense of "I'm getting what I want, and I don't care how that affects anyone else."
It's all very depressing, and it totally harshes the warm fuzzies from watching the Lifetime "discover the true meaning of Christmas while falling in love" movies. But since almost everything I watch is in reruns this week, I can ignore it all and focus on my work.
And that means I need to buckle down this week to get done with the current phase of the current project. Yesterday was relatively unproductive until late in the day, but I don't have to go anywhere or do anything else today, so I should be able to rock and roll.
I didn't do as much reading over the weekend as I normally would on a holiday, but I did watch a fair amount of TV, and it seems like the theme for this holiday season is "mean." There are ads about gloating to Santa that you've already bought all the good presents (gloating to Santa? Really? Talk about getting on the naughty list). There are ads about being obnoxious to store staff. The car ads are particularly bad, with the parents who run off in their son's car instead of acknowledging his arrival, the entitled rich jerks who hire celebrities as holiday employees, the Lexus driver who wipes out a person with a more common car using a giant snowball so he can get his parking space, and the test drivers who take the salesman hostage by refusing to return the car after the test drive. It's all enough to justify my reclusive nature. I feel like doing a Charlie Brown lament. It was bad enough when Christmas was commercialized in the sense of getting more stuff to make your holiday extra merry, but now it's commercialized in the sense of "I'm getting what I want, and I don't care how that affects anyone else."
It's all very depressing, and it totally harshes the warm fuzzies from watching the Lifetime "discover the true meaning of Christmas while falling in love" movies. But since almost everything I watch is in reruns this week, I can ignore it all and focus on my work.
November 28, 2011
My Thanksgiving Holiday
I think I'm having my post-holiday slug day. I barely dragged myself out of bed this morning because the bed was so cozy and warm, and I couldn't think of any urgent reason why I absolutely had to get up. Now I'm trying to persuade myself that I must get groceries. I have Thanksgiving leftovers, but I'm lacking one or two crucial ingredients for each thing that I could do with the leftovers. To make things even more fun, I discovered while searching the pantry to see if maybe one of those crucial items might be hiding in the back that a jar of molasses had fallen on its side and oozed onto the shelf. That meant cleaning the pantry, which ended up being a bit of a decluttering as I got rid of those things that lurk in the back, long past their expiration date.
I had a good holiday, which I started early by going with some friends Tuesday night to the fall concert of the One O'Clock Lab Band, a student jazz band that regularly gets nominated for Grammy Awards for best jazz recordings. I also discovered a restaurant in my neighborhood that night. On the outside, it looks like just another restaurant in a strip mall. Then you step inside and are in a New York City Italian restaurant. It has similar dimensions and decor and atmosphere. I almost felt like if I looked out the window, I'd see Greenwich Village. Italian is my favorite thing to cook, but now I know that if I'm craving Italian and don't want to cook, I can walk a few blocks and go to New York. It's small enough that it's the rare kind of restaurant where I'm willing to eat alone.
Then we had a real family Thanksgiving for the first time in about six years, since my brother and his girlfriend came. There was a bit more work and less lazy relaxing than when it's just my parents and me, but it felt more like a family holiday. I did discover through playing with my mom's blood pressure machine and my parents' elliptical machine with heart monitor that while I'm thin and have great muscle tone, I'm terribly out of shape. It looks like I need to exercise more regularly than just in ballet class and the occasional long walk. I've also noticed that I have a bad habit of holding my breath when I'm concentrating on something. I've heard of sleep apnea, but not thought apnea. Now I'm trying to remember to breathe. That's not supposed to be something you have to think about.
This was more of a weekend for sports than for movies, but I was tired enough Saturday night to actually watch a Disney Channel movie, and it wasn't that bad. The movie was Geek Charming and was about a film geek who needs to make a documentary for a film festival student contest that could win him a Hollywood internship, and he decides to make an expose on popularity, focusing on the school's queen bee whose life goal is to win their school's equivalent of prom queen. Along the way, he learns that she has hidden depths and she learns that there's a difference between being popular and having friends. It was rather cute without being too irritating, and they managed to sell me on an outcome I was dreading at the start of the movie. Plus, unlike almost every other Disney Channel thing ever, they didn't feel the need to cram in songs performed by the stars (unless that was what was in the soundtrack I didn't pay attention to). I'm a fan of musicals, but I'm not a fan of the Disney Channel teen starbots whose voices are so weak that they're Autotuned into sounding inhuman, just so they'll have something to play on Radio Disney. And it was nice to see teens aspiring to something other than being rock stars.
Now I simply must drag myself out so I can eat this week.
I had a good holiday, which I started early by going with some friends Tuesday night to the fall concert of the One O'Clock Lab Band, a student jazz band that regularly gets nominated for Grammy Awards for best jazz recordings. I also discovered a restaurant in my neighborhood that night. On the outside, it looks like just another restaurant in a strip mall. Then you step inside and are in a New York City Italian restaurant. It has similar dimensions and decor and atmosphere. I almost felt like if I looked out the window, I'd see Greenwich Village. Italian is my favorite thing to cook, but now I know that if I'm craving Italian and don't want to cook, I can walk a few blocks and go to New York. It's small enough that it's the rare kind of restaurant where I'm willing to eat alone.
Then we had a real family Thanksgiving for the first time in about six years, since my brother and his girlfriend came. There was a bit more work and less lazy relaxing than when it's just my parents and me, but it felt more like a family holiday. I did discover through playing with my mom's blood pressure machine and my parents' elliptical machine with heart monitor that while I'm thin and have great muscle tone, I'm terribly out of shape. It looks like I need to exercise more regularly than just in ballet class and the occasional long walk. I've also noticed that I have a bad habit of holding my breath when I'm concentrating on something. I've heard of sleep apnea, but not thought apnea. Now I'm trying to remember to breathe. That's not supposed to be something you have to think about.
This was more of a weekend for sports than for movies, but I was tired enough Saturday night to actually watch a Disney Channel movie, and it wasn't that bad. The movie was Geek Charming and was about a film geek who needs to make a documentary for a film festival student contest that could win him a Hollywood internship, and he decides to make an expose on popularity, focusing on the school's queen bee whose life goal is to win their school's equivalent of prom queen. Along the way, he learns that she has hidden depths and she learns that there's a difference between being popular and having friends. It was rather cute without being too irritating, and they managed to sell me on an outcome I was dreading at the start of the movie. Plus, unlike almost every other Disney Channel thing ever, they didn't feel the need to cram in songs performed by the stars (unless that was what was in the soundtrack I didn't pay attention to). I'm a fan of musicals, but I'm not a fan of the Disney Channel teen starbots whose voices are so weak that they're Autotuned into sounding inhuman, just so they'll have something to play on Radio Disney. And it was nice to see teens aspiring to something other than being rock stars.
Now I simply must drag myself out so I can eat this week.
November 22, 2011
Book Report: Fantasy and Nostalgia
Today is the day I get ready to travel for Thanksgiving. Laundry is already in progress, and then I have to figure out what to bring. At least this year we don't seem to have major climate shifts in the forecast, unlike some years when it's 75 degrees on Wednesday, then there's snow or ice on Thanksgiving day, or else it's in the 40s on Wednesday, but warming to the 70s or 80s before I return home. I should be able to bring just one jacket instead of needing several different kinds of coats. It complicates packing when you need both shorts and sweatshirts. I likely will not be online the rest of the week, so I'll take this opportunity to say Happy Thanksgiving!
I actually have some recent reading to talk about, so it's time for a book report!
First, there's Cold Magic by Kate Elliott. I'd heard of this as a steampunky sort of thing, but the steampunk-like elements are pretty minor (the fact of airships plays a major role, but we don't actually encounter them). It's really more of an alternate history Victorian story, but I think all Victorian-like settings these days get called steampunk. Whatever you call it, I really enjoyed this book. The alternate history is REALLY alternate, not just Victorian London with zombies. There's an entirely different history that leads to an entirely different population in what we think of as England, and there's even some different geography (Great Britain is part of the continent, not an island). There are elements of fairy folklore, and there's a wonderful romance woven throughout. Cat is an orphaned young woman living with her aunt, uncle and cousins and attending college when a Cold Mage shows up with a contract that demands the oldest girl in the house be married to him. That would be Cat. Next thing she knows, she's off on a cross-country adventure with an arrogant mage who's part of a movement to sabotage industrialization and technology so the mages can maintain their power. And then when they reach their destination, things get much worse for Cat -- and for her husband. I was furiously turning pages on this one, and now I desperately want to get my hands on the sequel. In addition to hitting a lot of my fantasy buttons, it's also a good example of the kind of romantic story I enjoy, where the relationship grows through the things they experience together.
And then I read Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, which is a fantasy classic I hadn't read before. It's based on the old ballad about a woman who has to rescue her lover from the fairies, but it's set at a Minnesota college in the early 1970s. Although it's a fantasy, the fantasy elements are very subtle until near the end of the book, and it takes a long time for them to show up and for us -- and the heroine -- to be sure they're supernatural. I may have to re-read it because I suspect that more fantasy elements will become more obvious now that I've read the end and know what's going on. Mostly, though, this is a book about college life. Although it follows the heroine through all four years, the most detail is lavished on the freshman year, getting into the way groups of friends fall together and the way patterns and habits develop. It reminded me so much of my own college years that I practically ached with nostalgia. I don't know if I've ever had another time in my life when I made friends so quickly and easily. It seemed like you could just fall in with a group of people, and then suddenly it was like you'd known them all your life. The book got into those standing appointments for group dinners in the dining hall, the late-night study hall conversations, the midnight movies at the campus theater and all those other things I remember from my college years. The only difference was that in the book the heroine had far more masculine attention than I got. Guys just weren't interested in me my freshman year (well, really, ever, but I did have a boyfriend for part of my sophomore year), unless they were extremely subtle about showing it and/or I was extremely dense about noticing it (both of which were possible). I do know that my initial group of friends turned out to involve one frenemy who claimed she was going to help me learn to attract guys, but then every time I designated a target, she went after him herself, even though she had a boyfriend back home. I don't know how far it went with any of them, but she did manage to wrap them around her little finger so they noticed no one but her, and I'm very sure none of them had any interest in me. I ended up switching groups and falling in with the geeks around Halloween, and I was much happier. There were some couples pairing off in our group, but for the most part, we ran as a general herd instead of a group of pairs. I guess another difference was that in the book most of her friends were classics or English majors and went around quoting Shakespeare all the time, while my friends were mostly engineering and computer science majors who went around quoting Monty Python, Star Trek and Star Wars all the time.
It's hard to separate my feelings for the book itself from all this nostalgia, so I can't say how much I enjoyed it because of the book itself and how much was that I was enjoying the nostalgia. As I said, I may have to read it again to focus more on the story instead of getting caught up in misty, watercolored memories triggered by events in the book that reminded me of my college years.
Now off to go to useful things.
I actually have some recent reading to talk about, so it's time for a book report!
First, there's Cold Magic by Kate Elliott. I'd heard of this as a steampunky sort of thing, but the steampunk-like elements are pretty minor (the fact of airships plays a major role, but we don't actually encounter them). It's really more of an alternate history Victorian story, but I think all Victorian-like settings these days get called steampunk. Whatever you call it, I really enjoyed this book. The alternate history is REALLY alternate, not just Victorian London with zombies. There's an entirely different history that leads to an entirely different population in what we think of as England, and there's even some different geography (Great Britain is part of the continent, not an island). There are elements of fairy folklore, and there's a wonderful romance woven throughout. Cat is an orphaned young woman living with her aunt, uncle and cousins and attending college when a Cold Mage shows up with a contract that demands the oldest girl in the house be married to him. That would be Cat. Next thing she knows, she's off on a cross-country adventure with an arrogant mage who's part of a movement to sabotage industrialization and technology so the mages can maintain their power. And then when they reach their destination, things get much worse for Cat -- and for her husband. I was furiously turning pages on this one, and now I desperately want to get my hands on the sequel. In addition to hitting a lot of my fantasy buttons, it's also a good example of the kind of romantic story I enjoy, where the relationship grows through the things they experience together.
And then I read Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, which is a fantasy classic I hadn't read before. It's based on the old ballad about a woman who has to rescue her lover from the fairies, but it's set at a Minnesota college in the early 1970s. Although it's a fantasy, the fantasy elements are very subtle until near the end of the book, and it takes a long time for them to show up and for us -- and the heroine -- to be sure they're supernatural. I may have to re-read it because I suspect that more fantasy elements will become more obvious now that I've read the end and know what's going on. Mostly, though, this is a book about college life. Although it follows the heroine through all four years, the most detail is lavished on the freshman year, getting into the way groups of friends fall together and the way patterns and habits develop. It reminded me so much of my own college years that I practically ached with nostalgia. I don't know if I've ever had another time in my life when I made friends so quickly and easily. It seemed like you could just fall in with a group of people, and then suddenly it was like you'd known them all your life. The book got into those standing appointments for group dinners in the dining hall, the late-night study hall conversations, the midnight movies at the campus theater and all those other things I remember from my college years. The only difference was that in the book the heroine had far more masculine attention than I got. Guys just weren't interested in me my freshman year (well, really, ever, but I did have a boyfriend for part of my sophomore year), unless they were extremely subtle about showing it and/or I was extremely dense about noticing it (both of which were possible). I do know that my initial group of friends turned out to involve one frenemy who claimed she was going to help me learn to attract guys, but then every time I designated a target, she went after him herself, even though she had a boyfriend back home. I don't know how far it went with any of them, but she did manage to wrap them around her little finger so they noticed no one but her, and I'm very sure none of them had any interest in me. I ended up switching groups and falling in with the geeks around Halloween, and I was much happier. There were some couples pairing off in our group, but for the most part, we ran as a general herd instead of a group of pairs. I guess another difference was that in the book most of her friends were classics or English majors and went around quoting Shakespeare all the time, while my friends were mostly engineering and computer science majors who went around quoting Monty Python, Star Trek and Star Wars all the time.
It's hard to separate my feelings for the book itself from all this nostalgia, so I can't say how much I enjoyed it because of the book itself and how much was that I was enjoying the nostalgia. As I said, I may have to read it again to focus more on the story instead of getting caught up in misty, watercolored memories triggered by events in the book that reminded me of my college years.
Now off to go to useful things.
