Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 257

Conspiracy, or Not?

I think I've figured out how to resolve the computer issue. I've managed to find all those settings and archive files and how to transfer them to a new machine. The only thing I'm not absolutely certain about is the Internet connection set-up, which isn't helped by the fact that you have to be able to get online to use the online set-up tools my ISP has. I think I'll try writing down the settings from the old computer and entering them into the new computer to see what happens. At the very worst, I could use dial-up to get the set-up done. This way of doing things is probably better in the long run because it avoids bringing over a lot of stuff that I'd have to update anyway, like printer and scanner drivers. I'll probably do the initial set-up for the Internet stuff later this week, after I've taken care of a few things that have to be done and that I know I can do on the old computer. Then I can take my time moving everything else over and installing software.

The latest Internet kerfluffle seems to involve questions of whether there's a YA mafia that conspires to exclude and destroy any aspiring author who dares to give one of their books a bad review. The basis of this is that a lot of YA fantasy authors are friends and hang out together (which is true -- I even got to be sort of included in one of these sessions, so maybe I'm a satellite member) and that some of them on their blogs have cautioned new writers about saying lots of mean things about other writers on their blogs because that could harm their careers. That has been taken to mean that they will crush you and keep you out if you dare insult a member of the mafia. Some authors are debunking this on the basis that authors are too lazy or busy to come up with grand schemes to destroy their enemies.

I guess I'm more industrious (or vindictive) than they are because I have binders full of my plans to crush my enemies under my heel (not really -- my plans are in a spiral notebook). But my enemies are not other authors. When I ride triumphantly into New York at the head of my conquering army (figuratively speaking), I know exactly how I will make the people who've thwarted my ambitions grovel before me (actually, I'll probably just smile and make the occasional thinly veiled reference to the fact that they haven't always been so eager to work with me and then enjoy their discomfort). But there's just no point in bringing down other authors because that doesn't bring me any closer to world domination. Mind you, even my plans for crushing my enemies under my heel don't call for me to do anything more than be so extremely successful that any past decisions about me will be called into question (like "Why didn't we manage to make her a bestseller when we had her?" or "We could have bought this book for a song back then, and now we're having to pay a fortune for it"). These plans don't involve me actually doing anything to harm anyone.

If another author fails -- if her book tanks or she has a book rejected -- it doesn't help me at all. If a book that got a huge advance fails, it only means the publisher has less money to use to buy a book from me. Another book being rejected doesn't mean they'll buy my book. While I wouldn't mind it if publishers became less enamored of dark and angsty books about sexy vampires or dark and gritty books about half-vampire, half-fey assassins, it wouldn't really help me much if those entire categories suddenly tanked. The way the publishing world works, publishers wouldn't then say, "Hey, if the darker books aren't selling, maybe lighter books would sell." Their response to an entire category tanking would be more along the lines of, "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! We're all going to die!!!!" followed by a period in which they refuse to buy anything that isn't an absolutely surefire success, which generally means an author who's already a known bestseller (which isn't me). About the only way another author's failure might help me is if someone designated for a lead slot didn't turn in her manuscript on time so that my book got moved into that slot and stood a better chance of being positioned as a bestseller (so be wary if I'm suddenly challenging you to in-depth online debates about TV shows or sending you links to TV Tropes. I may be trying to keep you from meeting your deadline. But that only works if I've already sold a book, if I know who has the lead slot in my release period, if my book is already done, and if mine is definitely the one that would get moved up to lead).

As for that issue of whether writing negative reviews can hurt your career as an author, I would have to say that it depends. I don't think it will get you blacklisted, but it may cost you some of the possible support you might have had otherwise. What can an established author do to help another author's career? We can recommend them to our agents, which may get them one step beyond the slushpile. We might be able to recommend them to our editors, which again is a step beyond the slushpile. This isn't a make-or-break thing, though. If the book is something the editor would buy, it would have been bought with or without the recommendation. It just might take longer without it. A negative recommendation is probably going to be ignored and will only make the author making it look petty, unless there's concrete evidence or a specific reason (I will warn an editor or agent if some weirdo who stalked me at a convention tells me he's going to send a manuscript and say I recommended it). Besides, unless the person tells the author they're submitting to that author's agent or editor, the author won't know to tell the editor or agent to reject them, and just generally telling everyone in the industry to reject a particular person would go beyond "petty" and into "Charlie Sheen" levels of crazy. Once the book is bought, a more famous author might be asked to give a promotional blurb for the cover. Established authors may sometimes get sent advance copies, with the hope that they'll talk about them. Again, this isn't make-or-break. They can always find someone else to blurb or talk about the book.

So, do negative reviews hurt, in those areas? Well, it does seem pretty nervy to tell someone her baby is ugly and then turn around and ask that person to tell you your baby is pretty. But it does depend on how the negative reviews are handled. If it's a thoughtful, well-written review that doesn't seem to be grinding a personal axe, that's one thing, and I can probably get past it if I really like the book. If it's a real mean-girl snarkfest done purely to make the reviewer look clever with her ability to tear a book apart or if it sounds like the reviewer has some kind of personal issue with me and is trying to bring me down, then don't hold your breath. I'll probably think you're a bit of a backstabber if you shred my book or me like that and then turn around and ask me to recommend you to my agent or ask me for a blurb. However, I also won't go around telling my editor or agent to reject you or other authors not to blurb you. They're not going to use a blurb saying "this book sucks!" and I wouldn't send one, anyway, because it would hurt my relationship with that editor. I can't speak for editors or agents about this sort of thing. They probably take reviews less personally than authors do, so they're not likely to blacklist you for daring to say anything negative about a book they worked on. However, they do look for patterns. If they see that you hate everything they've worked on, they're likely to think you're a bad fit -- and why would you want an editor or agent whose books/authors you tend to hate? If you're always posting those mean-girl shredfests that come across as personal vendettas, then you may come across as someone who'd be a nightmare to work with.

I, as an author, generally don't talk negatively about books, for a number of reasons. For one thing, even negative publicity can be good publicity because it makes people more aware of the book, and a really negative review may send people running to find it just to see if the review was right. If I really hate a book, I won't want to give it the publicity. I'll just ignore it. In my blog, I only talk about books I think my readers might enjoy that I can generally recommend. I may sometimes include critical comments if I have to recommend something with caveats -- you might find it interesting, but there's an aspect you'll have to get past. I'll admit that I'm also a bit of a weenie. I know a lot of authors and run into a lot of authors in situations where I have to work with them, like on convention panels. I'd rather avoid the awkward position of being on a panel with someone whose work I've reviewed scathingly. I also don't want to be someone whose name comes up under "don't put me on panels with this person" on convention programming questionnaires. Meanwhile, my career is currently in a fairly fragile state, so I'm not going to run the risk of getting on the bad side of an editor I want to buy my work by shredding a book she's worked on. There's also the fact that I don't always like the books compared to mine either in the industry or by fans, and it would be foolish of me to essentially sabotage a publisher's marketing campaign using those comparisons by criticizing the books I don't like. I'm not going to praise a book I didn't like just to help with that marketing, though. I'll just not say anything. Maybe that's playing "nice-nice," but I just consider it to be diplomacy. And, believe me, there are times when I'd love to unleash the snark on a book, but I have to consider my own motives and the possible results. My tastes seem to be out of the mainstream (I seldom like the really popular books), so it's not as though I'd really be warning people away from books they're sure to hate. A lot of the time, the snark would probably mostly be about "how can this book possibly be so popular when I think it sucks?" and I don't think I'm in a position to say that.

Actually, I seem to see a lot more semi-organized campaigns to destroy authors' careers from reviewers or unpublished authors than I do the other way around. There are those campaigns to post negative Amazon reviews trashing books if they cost more than $9.99 on the Kindle, and there are a few authors that certain review sites seem to be on a mission to bring down. Some of the unpublished author reviewers seem to have that "how could this dreck be published while my books are being rejected?" attitude in their reviews. And then there are the times when one author's more ardent fans go on the offensive against another author who dared speak negatively about their idol (with or without the knowledge or encouragement of that author). When published authors do try to bring down other authors, it tends to be less-prominent authors trashing more successful ones rather than the successful ones trying to stomp on those just breaking in. You're more likely to hear of published authors helping and supporting newer authors through speaking, how-to articles or even outright mentoring. While I've heard tons and tons of trash talking from unpublished or less successful authors about bestsellers, I've never heard successful authors talking about wanting to ruin the competition. Though it is possible that I haven't been invited to the meetings (hey, maybe they're plotting against me!).

I guess that's another reason I avoid negativity when discussing books. I don't want other authors to think I'm spiteful about those more successful than I am (since they know that does happen), and I don't want readers or unpublished authors to think I'm trying to squash potential competition (since a lot of people believe that happens). I'm not perceived as a neutral, objective party when it comes to talking about books.

And now, since my Ongoing Plan for World Domination involves being so successful that it will make anyone who's ever rejected me look shortsighted, I need to get to work.

I Need a Computer Wizard or an R2 Unit

The good news: I have a new computer. Yay!!!

The bad news: Apparently, my old computer is so old that I can't upgrade easily to a new computer. I'm just one system version behind the automatic set-up utility being able to work. I guess you're only allowed to get a new computer if you've already got a newish computer. I'm sure there's a workaround and if I network the computers, I can easily transfer files (and it would probably be good for me to start with a clean slate with only the things I need). I don't need to transfer software because either it's all already on the new computer or I've just bought the current version to install on the new computer. What I'm worried about, though, is transferring the "behind the scenes" stuff like Internet account settings, bookmarks, saved passwords and other web site stuff, iTunes playlists, e-mail archives, calendar stuff and address book from Entourage/Outlook, etc. I'll probably call Apple tech support later today (or later this week) and see if they can talk me through it, but at the moment I have a raging headache, so it's probably not a good time to try to deal with it. It doesn't help to get snippy and snarky with the tech support people, and in this state, I'd probably growl at them.

I guess maybe I should have gone to the Apple store, after all. This is what I get for "I can do it myself!" Though, really, a larger factor was that I went to the electronics store at the end of my street, five minutes away, instead of driving nearly half an hour across town to the Apple store. If I could have teleported to the Apple store or if there were one that wasn't in an impossible to get to place, I'd have been happy to let them do it all.

Or, on second thought, maybe that wouldn't have helped. I just saw this on Seth Godin's blog about his experience with this, so it looks like this is an issue even if you have the right software.

I just found the info on transferring the Firefox stuff, so that's one down. Now, if I can find the Internet access info from my ISP (which I'll have to get on my phone, as that's a web site that won't work on my old computer) and figure out how to transfer iTunes playlists, I may be okay making a clean start with my documents.

But it will have to wait because the headache lingers. I want to go escape into an imaginary world for the rest of the day. Too bad I can't use one of the MSI computer wizards (though I think that didn't make it into the final cut of the book -- the tech support staff was literal computer wizards. It was fun.).

A Distinct Lack of Favorites

I made some good progress yesterday, in spite of playing hooky during the day. It was just such a gorgeous afternoon that I felt entirely justified in spending part of it taking a walk, especially since the walk involved going to the post office and bank and then dropping by the Indian market for some tea. And, yeah, I did take the scenic route home, but I don't think it's that much longer than the direct route would have been. I came home energized and managed to write quite a bit. I only stopped because it was very late and I needed a research detail to go further. I should get a lot of work done tonight -- and, yeah, it will have to be tonight because I have plans for the day. There have been a few errands I've been putting off for a while, plus, I think I'm going to buy the new computer, at last. I can spend the weekend getting it set up.

I've come to a sad realization lately -- I don't currently have a "favorite" TV show. I'm a TV person when it comes to visual entertainment because a long-running TV series is, to me, far more like a novel (my primary form of entertainment) than movies are. Movies are like visual short stories. I watch a fair amount of TV, though less than I used to, but when I'm "watching" TV, it's usually not my sole focus. I'll also be reading, doing crossword puzzles, writing blog entries, doing other writing, brainstorming plots, doing housework, exercising, etc. But there's usually at least one show that's my "favorite." That's the one I consider "appointment" TV, where I prefer to be home to watch it in real time as it airs because I don't want to wait to see it or risk not seeing it. I don't do other stuff while it's on. I look forward to it coming on. I may even get really crazy and plan meals and snacks or do something to create the right viewing atmosphere. When I was at the height of my X-Files obsession, I used to have the countdown perfectly timed so that I could have some kind of drink and snack ready, the lights down and a few candles lit (for atmosphere) and the TV and VCR ready to go (I taped episodes as I watched for repeat viewing and for discussion fodder). And then after the show, I'm eager to get online and discuss it with people. I may find myself daydreaming new stories for the series that often serve as fodder for my own story ideas. If I like a plot or character type from a series, it might be something fun to incorporate it into my own writing, and if I play with the idea in someone else's universe, it doesn't alter the way I see my own characters until I've decided how it will work.

But while there are a number of shows I like at the moment and I still do a fair amount of online discussion, there isn't anything like a "favorite." There's nothing I would want to schedule around, nothing that makes me not want to do anything else when I'm watching, nothing that I eagerly anticipate. Some of that may have to do with the advent of OnDemand -- when you don't have to worry about missing something, you're less anxious about watching it right then. I may be growing up. But mostly, I think I'm just in a lull.

When Doctor Who returns, that comes close to this kind of thing, but as I don't get the channel that shows it, it's not something I generally watch in real time. I either get it OnDemand (if they haven't messed up and only posted the HD version or skipped it entirely, as my cable company has been known to do) or through the kindness of friends -- or else it's something watched in a group environment. That means there's no sense of "ooh, it's Saturday, and Doctor Who starts at eight!" Doctor Who starts when someone pushes "play."

I do kind of like the UK version of Law and Order, but only the cop portion. I can tolerate the lawyer portion because lawyers are okay when they wear funny wigs, but it still gives me jury duty flashbacks. I love the two cops, though, and their relationship is one of the best on television because they've sort of got this father/son thing going on, except they frequently switch roles, so that the young one will be parenting his older partner (especially about his eating habits). I'd totally watch the Brooks and Devlin show, whether it was a crime show or a Barney Miller-style sitcom of them just hanging around the station house and making wisecracks at each other (who knew Jamie Bamber was this funny, after his string of tragic costume dramas and then Battlestar Galactica?). But still, that's another thing I only get OnDemand, so I see it when I hit "play," and since I lose interest once the cops have done their job, I definitely do other stuff while watching most of each episode.

Some of the things that I used to enjoy have gone downhill in quality, so I'm either not watching at all or they've been relegated to background noise or delayed viewing. I tried going back to House a couple of weeks ago but no longer recognize the show, and I'm three weeks behind on NCIS: LA. For a few weeks, there was Downton Abbey on PBS, which held a temporary Favorite Show position, but now it will be a year before we get new episodes of that.

On the upside, there is a new Phineas and Ferb on tonight. That one, I don't read through because it's too easy to miss the visual gags. But I'll be taping it so I can fast forward through the horrendous Disney Channel promos for the rest of their truly vile series.

More Identity Issues

I am both extremely frugal and fiercely independent, which can be a really dangerous combination. My attitude tends to go along the lines of "Why should I pay someone else to build me a house? I could probably find a how-to book at the library, pick up a few things at Home Depot and then do it myself." (That is a slight exaggeration, but I do know a few things about home construction, thanks to Habitat for Humanity. It would just take me forever because it takes me about a dozen strikes to hammer a nail.) My parents are rather painfully aware of this tendency, so when I mentioned that I would soon be shopping for a new dishwasher, my mom suggested that I should get it delivered and professionally installed, even if there was an extra cost. My initial snarky remark was, "What else would I do? It's not like it would fit in my Focus." She pointed out that she does know me, and then I joked that, on second thought, all the appliance stores are at the top of the hill at the end of my street, so I could probably strap the dishwasher onto a dolly and then ride it down the hill, coasting to my house. My mom said she'd be laughing all day at that image, so in case anyone else needs a laugh, I thought I'd share. I'll admit that I giggle every time I think of it, myself.

And I bet I could make it work, though I'm not sure about the installation part. Maybe the library has a book ... It would probably be tough to steer a dishwasher careening down a hill, though, and the road down the hill does curve.

Yesterday was a low-productivity day. I was bouncing off walls after ballet Tuesday night, so I stayed for jazz. I later realized that the bouncing off walls probably had something to do with the music we were using for class. The teacher had a new CD that I dubbed "The Ballet Class Music that Won WWII" because it was piano arrangements of WWII-era music, and that just makes me want to dance. I was foxtrotting around the room between exercises. The foxtrot is my absolute favorite dance, and I haven't had a chance to do it in years. Switching to 70s funk music in jazz class was a jolt (though I campaigned for using actual jazz music for jazz class). Because the soreness comes slowly, I am now paying for the two dance classes in a row. I'd thought that all that physical activity would make it easy to sleep, but it didn't, and after getting to sleep very late at night, I woke up rather early in the morning.

Then I had a fierce headache for much of the day, which got worse with concentration, and I was kind of stuck on the book. I needed to think about what would happen next and how it would happen, but thinking made my brain hurt. And then there was choir. Strangely, choir seemed to cure the headache (or that was when the Tylenol kicked in). I was afraid that the kids would make my head explode, but I was fine, and when I got home from three rehearsals (children, then the early music chorale and then the big choir), I was finally able to break through the logjam and outline/plan the next section of the book, so today should be a moderately productive day.

I've developed a new mistaken identity situation (to go with the fact that some distant relatives accidentally used my e-mail address when ordering from Dell). A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call, the caller asked for a person who isn't me, and I automatically said that they'd called the wrong number, but midway through, I realized that the name they'd asked for sounded familiar. Apparently, the hesitation came through in my voice, so the caller asked if I knew that person. It was the person who used to live in my house. I never met her, but she didn't have her mail forwarded, so I got her mail for a while and had no way to get it to her. I think she was a renter because I bought the house from someone else. But I've had my phone number for nearly twenty years, so I know she's never been at this number. I then figured out what must be going on. It was probably a collection agency working through her past addresses and using a reverse directory to get the phone numbers associated with those addresses. Since I don't want those people calling me or getting me mixed up with her, I told the guy what I knew, that more than thirteen years ago she must have lived at my address, but I knew nothing more about her and she could not be reached at this number. I've had a couple of more calls since then, and while they've all been very polite and assured me they're making notes in their records, I'm going to start asking them for their companies' names and documenting these calls because I'm starting to feel harassed, considering this person never had this phone number and lived at this address more than a decade ago. I don't think she's suddenly started using this address, since I haven't had any mail for her in nearly a decade and we've had all new mailboxes since then, so there's even a new key and she couldn't be taking mail out of my box. They just must be trying to find her and have outdated information.

What I need is the electronic version of a moat filled with hungry crocodiles. And maybe a sea serpent. I could ride my dishwasher across the drawbridge, waving my sword.

Wall-E's Hero's Journey

I've spent the last several months working through all the stages of the hero's journey. To illustrate how the hero's journey works in practice, I'm going to track it through a film. Disney/Pixar do a really good job of story structure (Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer's Journey, has worked as a story consultant for Disney, so it's probably not by accident that their stories line up so well), which makes their films good for analysis (plus, they're short). I initially thought of doing this for Tangled, because it has the journey structure for dual heroes, but it's not out on DVD yet, so I consider it within the spoiler protection window (in other words, Mom hasn't seen it). I decided to go with Wall-E, since it functions as almost a silent movie and you really have to look at the characters' actions to judge them and where they are on the journey since there's almost no dialogue. That makes it an interesting exercise. It is a slightly atypical hero's journey in one respect, though. Wall-E himself doesn't change much. Instead, he changes his world by changing the others he encounters. He goes through the stages on the journey and he does seem to expand his horizons and expand the scope of what he considers to be his duties, but I think he's still fundamentally the same character as he was at the beginning. He's more of a catalyst who changes others by changing the way they see the world.

Naturally, there are spoilers here for the entire movie. If you haven't seen Wall-E, get yourself a box of tissues (this is Pixar, after all) and watch it, and then come back here.

Ordinary World: Wall-E the trash robot lives on an Earth covered in trash but abandoned by humans. He goes through his daily routine of collecting and compressing the trash, creating cubes that he stacks into tall towers. His only companion is a cockroach, and he frequently has to take shelter from terrible dust storms. But he's managed to carve a life out of this sad place by scavenging whatever treasures he finds in the trash and bringing them to a "home" full of toys, Christmas lights and pretty, shiny stuff. He entertains himself by watching a videotape of Hello Dolly and longs for the kind of romantic moments he sees in the old musical. He's particularly fascinated by the way the people in the movie hold hands, and he longs for that kind of contact.

The Call to Adventure: Wall-E finds a single green plant among the rubble -- a sign that the Earth isn't dead, after all. At the same time, a spaceship arrives.

Refusal of the Call: At first, Wall-E hides from the ship's probes and from EVE, the exploratory robot from the ship, who seems hostile. He watches from afar as EVE goes about her mission to scan the Earth for life.

Meeting with the Mentor: Wall-E meets EVE and brings her home with him to escape a dust storm, then shows off all his treasures to her. He shows her his plant, and she takes it into her body, then shuts down completely. (This is a sort of reversal of the usual Meeting with the Mentor, in that he's the one giving knowledge to someone else, but it fits with the idea of him bringing change to others and changing his world.)

Crossing the First Threshold: Wall-E crosses into the special world of the story, the spaceship, when the scout ship returns to take EVE away and he hitches a ride so he can be with her. Now he's in an entirely new place full of robots and humans -- and not full of trash.

Tests, Allies and Enemies: Wall-E has to learn his way around as he tries to track EVE when she's taken for evaluation. He encounters the obese humans who float around on hoverchairs and the fleet of robots that meet all their needs. During his explorations, we get to see what life is like on the massive spaceship that has housed the human race for generations. Meanwhile, his interactions with the people and robots start to show them that maybe this life isn't what it should be. He also meets the evil Autopilot that wants to keep everyone on the ship. Strangely, the plant Wall-E gave EVE is missing when she's brought to the ship's captain, which means the ship won't be returning to Earth. Our little trash robot accidentally frees the ship's misfit robots and creates an incident while trying to rescue EVE when she's sent for reconditioning after what they believe is a malfunction in claiming to have found life. That gets them both declared rogue robots. EVE tries to send him back to Earth on an escape pod, but then she discovers that a security robot stole the plant. In trying to get the plant back, Wall-E gets stuck on the escape pod, with it set to self-destruct. He escapes as EVE comes to his rescue -- and he's got the plant. Wall-E and EVE "kiss" and go "dancing" through space together. Their flight also brings together two of Wall-E's new human friends, who start to break out of their inert existence as they watch the two little robots.

Approach to the Inmost Cave: EVE carries out her mission to bring the plant to the captain. The captain is disappointed by the contrast between what's on the ship's files about Earth and what's in EVE's data, but the Hello Dolly video she got from Wall-E restores the captain's hope, and when he revives the plant by giving it water, he realizes that they need to go back to Earth because the plants need to be cared for. Meanwhile, Wall-E has followed EVE to the bridge.

Ordeal: Auto tries to stop the captain from putting the plant into the ship's holodetector to trigger the program that will send the ship back to Earth. Wall-E rescues the plant from Auto's minions, but gets shot and blown down a trash chute in the process, and Auto deactivates EVE and confines the captain to his quarters. But EVE reboots, waking in the airlock trash disposal, where she finds Wall-E in a pile of trash about to be shot out into space. She rescues him just in time with the help of one of Wall-E's new robot friends, but he's badly damaged.

Reward: EVE tries scavenging the trash pile for spare parts to repair Wall-E, but he wants her to carry out the directive of getting the plant to the captain so the ship can go to Earth. She tells him that she considers him her new directive and doesn't want to leave him, but he persuades her that the return to Earth is more important.

The Road Back: EVE picks up Wall-E and the plant and takes off to get the plant to the holodetector. Wall-E's human friends and the misfit robots help them battle their way past the ship's security systems and all of Auto's schemes. Meanwhile, the captain has managed to get back to the bridge and has learned that Auto is following orders from hundreds of years ago, when the people in charge decided Earth couldn't be fixed. He thinks things have changed, but Auto won't listen to him.

Resurrection: Wall-E makes it to the holodetector and fights to hold it open to put the plant in it, but Auto makes it close before they can get the plant in. The captain fights his way off his lounge chair, using his legs for the first time in his life, to get to where he can turn off Auto. The humans on the deck find the plant and pass it to EVE so she can put it in the holodetector, and that triggers the ship to return to Earth. Unfortunately, Wall-E appears to be dead. When they reach Earth, EVE takes Wall-E back to his "home," where she repairs him, using the spare parts he's been scavenging. But when he reboots, he doesn't seem to remember her at all. He just goes back to his work, even when she plays Hello Dolly for him. She reaches him, though, when she holds his hand the way the people in the movie did, and Wall-E is back (to the sound of Michael Crawford singing "It Only Takes a Moment"). And I cry.

Return with the Elixir: The captain brings the plant back to Earth and plants it, telling the children from the ship about farming and how many plants they're going to grow. Meanwhile, we see the new "family" of misfit robots gathering around Wall-E and EVE. In the closing credits, we see how the humans and robots work together to restore the Earth.

I originally classified the bit where EVE tries to send Wall-E away in the pod as the Ordeal, with the dance through the stars as the Reward, and then had the rest as a very long Road Back/Resurrection sequence. And then I pondered whether the Inmost Cave/Ordeal stuff was the way I have them here, but with the Reward coming in anticipation of the Ordeal. I finally decided that the dance through the stars was really more of a "getting to know you" thing and the real Reward in their relationship came when EVE was willing to give up her original directive for Wall-E, and he got what he initially wanted (her) but now had the greater goal of getting back to Earth. That leads into more of a turning point moment, even though the dance through the stars is glorious and has all the usual hallmarks of a Reward sequence. I guess that shows how awesome Pixar is, when something in Tests, Allies and Enemies has the power of the Reward. This also shows that the important thing is the result, even if you classify things in different ways while plotting. It ultimately doesn't matter whether you see something as Ordeal or just as a Test. What matters is the way the audience responds.

Both EVE and the captain also have their own journeys, to some extent. EVE's ordinary world is her mission, she gets the Call to Adventure when Wall-E makes friends with her and gives her the plant, and her death/resurrection involve her gaining a new "directive" in caring about Wall-E while truly understanding the importance of her original directive. The captain's ordinary world is the slug-like existence he's been living. He gets a Call to Adventure when EVE returns with evidence of plant life. The Inmost Cave/Ordeal part is when he first challenges Auto and gets locked on the bridge. Then his death/Resurrection comes when all seems lost and he feels helpless, but he manages to get to his feet to turn off Auto.

And now I'm done with the Hero's Journey. I hope you've enjoyed taking it with me. After Tangled comes out on DVD (and Mom sees it), I may revisit the topic to show how the dual-hero structure works, since that's how you plot romance novels. In the meantime, I'm open to other questions or topics you want me to address.

Book Report: Gothic Screwball Comedy

I'm afraid my dishwasher has finally given up. It hasn't been working ideally for nearly a year. I was planning to replace it when I got my tax refund last year, but then I messed up my shoulder and ended up using the tax refund on medical bills. Then I had plans to buy one when I got my Japanese royalties, but hadn't yet gotten around to it. I'd figured out ways of working around the problems, so it seemed to be okay. Yesterday, though, as I was unloading the dishwasher, I realized I couldn't tell any difference between the "clean" dishes I was taking out and the dirty dishes I had ready to go in. And I know I ran it because I remember having to shut my bedroom door because of the noise. So now in the meantime while I do some research to find out what's available, what I need and what seems to work and then do some comparison shopping (and then probably wait for delivery/installation), it looks like I'll be washing dishes by hand and using the dishwasher as a large dish drainer. Doing dishes by hand isn't so bad if you stay on top of it, and that will force me to keep the kitchen cleaner instead of letting things pile up.

Isn't the life an author glamorous? And no, I don't have live-in servants to do the dishes for me or a personal assistant to go buy a new dishwasher for me.

I haven't done a Book Report in a while, mostly because I've been either re-reading or doing research reading, but I read a fun, relatively new book last weekend that I may as well talk about, Maybe This Time, by Jennifer Crusie. I've known Jenny for a long time, though I wouldn't say we're particularly close. In fact, she may not even remember me without a lot of reminders. But back before she hit it big, she kind of mentored me through something of a career crisis, and then I helped her with a PR thing when she was getting ready to launch her first "big" book, so I tend to think fondly of her. Mainly, she was the person who really jolted me out of the category romance mindset and convinced me that it said good things about me as a writer that Harlequin couldn't manage to press my books into any of their category lines when I was devastated at getting a "we love this book but don't know what to do with it, maybe you should look elsewhere for publication" rejection letter from my editor at Harlequin.

I've pretty much quit reading romance in the last few years because I realized it isn't really my thing (yet another sign that I probably wasn't cut out for category romance), but I saw this book at the library and decided to give it a shot. I'd followed Jenny's discussion about writing it on her blog and thought it sounded like something I'd enjoy, and yeah, it was pretty much right up my alley. What we have here is a screwball comedy gothic -- it's a fun blend of two of my favorite genres. There are all the elements of the classic gothic story: spooky old house in a remote location, young woman sent there as governess for kids with serious issues, creepy housekeeper. But, as this is an update on the gothic genre, the heroine is far more proactive and gets to do more than run around in a floaty white nightgown and scream. But then a screwball comedy invades, with a big cast of wacky characters and lots of doors slamming and shifting alliances.

Our heroine Andie agrees to do a favor for her ex-husband and go to serve as a tutor to his two wards (children of a dead family member), who live in the old family house in a remote area. The relatives who'd cared for them before had died, and the nannies hired since then have all left, but the kids freak out completely if anyone tries to take them out of the house. Andie gets there and realizes that the situation is totally screwed up, but needs to be handled delicately. And she also starts to suspect that there might actually be such a thing as ghosts. Then, at the worst possible time, her playboy ex-brother-in-law shows up with his latest girlfriend, a scandal-hungry TV reporter who claims she's investigating the supposedly haunted house. The reporter has in tow her cameraman (with whom she's sleeping), a parapsychology expert who believes in psychic phenomena but debunks ghost stories, and a brash, outspoken medium. Then Andie's stiff and formal ex-mother-in-law shows up when she learns that the reporter is actually trying to do an expose on the family. To make matters even more fun, along comes her boyfriend, who thinks she's using this situation as an excuse to avoid him, and the ex-husband she's not totally over. And then a major storm hits, stranding and isolating them all there -- with a trio of unhappy ghosts. Hijinks ensue.

You wouldn't think that gothic and screwball comedy would blend well, since gothic is all about atmosphere and comedy shatters the atmosphere, but it seems to work here because the gothic stuff is genuinely creepy and threatening, which makes the comedy even funnier in contrast. I think this book would make for a fun movie. The one part that I didn't really love was the romance, but that comes back to my issues with the romance genre rather than to a problem with this specific book. I actually liked the relationship more than I have those in most romances I've read lately. It's just that "romance" romance isn't very romantic to me.

Anyway, this would be a fun book to read on a stormy night. You'll get a few genuine chills even while laughing yourself silly.

And now I think I need a long, white, floaty nightgown.

Monday Miscellania

One other thing that occurred to the appeal of the "sucked through a portal" fantasy is that it really is the ultimate outsider/fish out of water story. By the time I was reading books like that instead of just daydreaming myself into my favorite story worlds, we were moving around a lot, so I always seemed to be the new kid adapting to a new environment. I got into the Narnia books when I'd moved to another country and was obsessed with them when we moved within that country to another place that felt even more foreign to me. Then in high school, when I first started trying to write that kind of story (I think all my attempts at writing fantasy back then started with a "sucked through a portal" kind of event), I was really feeling like I'd fallen down the rabbit hole. I'd gone from living in military communities where everyone was the new kid for a while and there was so much turnover that it was hard to develop cliques or "in" crowds to living in a small town where a lot of my classmates had been going to school together since kindergarten. Of course the idea of being a foreigner in a strange place appealed to me -- though it was more like I'd been made to leave Narnia for a less magical place.

In other news, I've figured out the problem I've been having with the book so far. This story is essentially one long chase scene, where the good guys are pursuing the bad guys through the whole book. Until the middle of the book, the good guys are always one step behind (because if they meet too soon, the story's over), so they come up on the aftermath of what the bad guys have been doing. The good guys have to deal with the chaos the bad guys left in their wake so they can then piece together what the bad guys might be doing next and where they'll be going. I've realized that even though the bad guys are off-stage, I still have to work out exactly what they've been doing so that the aftermath works. I'd been just writing the good guys' side of the story, then have had to go back and re-write when that isn't working. It's so much easier when I first at least outline what the bad guys have been up to, leading into the point where the good guys come in. Then the aftermath makes so much more sense. It should go more quickly now that I know to do this.

I did spend my usual Sunday afternoon on the sofa. I finally saw the last Next Generation Star Trek movie, Nemesis, on the Sci Fi channel. That was the one Trek movie I'd never seen. I'd seen all the ones before in the theater, often on opening weekend. I went with all my friends from work on opening night to see the previous two, but this one I just never got around to. And now I can see why because my goodness, but that was awful. I didn't think it was possible for a movie with space battles in it to be that boring. Through the whole movie, I kept thinking I needed a nap because I couldn't keep my eyes open, so when it ended I thought I'd lie down for a while. I was wide awake then, so I guess it really was the movie putting me to sleep. But worse than the boring was the self-indulgence. It was like everyone involved knew it would be the last Next-Gen Trek movie they'd make, so they all got to live out their personal fantasies. Save it for the gag reel or your home movies, folks. Fortunately, I ended up reading through much of it, so I doubt enough of it will stick in my brain to truly scar me.

I only watched the last half hour or so of the Oscars, mostly because I wanted to see Colin Firth win and hear his speech when he did because he's always hilarious in that dry, self-deprecating British way, and he didn't disappoint (and talk about changing the image of a real person -- from now on, in the popular imagination, King George VI looks like Colin Firth, and he so very much didn't). However, seeing all the stuff from The King's Speech much have seeped into my brain because I had vivid dreams about them deciding to do sequels, since that one has done so well, and the sequels carried these characters through the war. Only the war I saw played out in my dream was more like something out of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. For instance, the German bombers in the Blitz were sort of submarine planes -- they came to England under water, then burst out of the water to fly, trailing bombs behind them. And there were giant robots. And I was there, experiencing it all, instead of just watching the movie. It was weird, but I think I'm going to file those images away because they'd make for a great story.

Now, I need to go be efficient and stuff. I'm turning over a new leaf this week. Really.

Other Worlds

I'm having a flake attack day. I wrote a blog post last night for easy posting this morning, and that seemed to have triggered the thought that I'd already posted my blog for today. So I've only just now remembered that I only wrote it but hadn't yet posted it. I would say that I should probably hide out today instead of inflicting the flakiness on the world, but I'm in desperate need of groceries. Still, there's no telling what I might end up buying in this state.

That recollection the other day about Ethelinda's layered outfits maybe having been inspired by a scene in a childhood favorite book has made me look at other literary tropes I love to see if I can think of what inspired them. I've been thinking particularly about my fondness for "sucked through a portal" books.

Though I should clarify my terms here. I started using "sucked through a portal" as an umbrella term for stories involving people from our world visiting a fantasy world because my agent has ranted about the "sucked through a portal" trope on her blog. What she actually means is stories of this type where there's no reason for the person to visit the other world -- the protagonist is going along, minding his own business, when he's suddenly sucked through a portal into another world. She prefers it if the character actually does something, even if it's inadvertent or accidental, that initiates the travel or if the people on the other side have chosen this person directly, even if there turns out to be a case of mistaken identity. I can see the point, though I will argue that one of the most famous "sucked through a portal" stories ever, The Wizard of Oz, was a random event. I don't recall there being any particular reason why Dorothy, of all people, was whisked away to Oz by a tornado (though it's been a very long time since I read the book). Anyway, I jokingly say I've got a sucked through a portal story when I discuss an idea involving travel between worlds with my agent.

As far back as I can remember, my favorite form of play was making up stories. I'd have my dolls and toys act out my stories, or I'd dress up in my play clothes and act them out myself. If I was in a situation where I couldn't act anything out, like lying in bed before I fell asleep or in the back seat of the family car during a long drive, I'd just mentally write the stories -- yes, in narrative. And I remember that some of those stories involved travel to another world, though I don't remember any particular book or story that triggered the idea. Most of my obsessions can be tracked back to one particular book that sparked my imagination. There was the annual broadcast of the movie version of The Wizard of Oz, but in the movie, it's just a dream and Dorothy doesn't actually travel anywhere, and I didn't read the book until later. I did have a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the "story and the songs" record album of the Disney version, but I don't recall being all that captivated by it. The closest thing I can think of was the Land of Make Believe on Mr. Rogers, but as I recall, that was very explicitly about visiting within your imagination. Besides, I was mostly fascinated with the trolley. I really, really wanted a trolley like that.

I suspect this was a case of me developing the idea more or less independently out of sheer Mary Sueism. I was a big fairy tale fan. I not only had the all the "story and the songs" records for all the Disney fairy tale movies (what we had in the days before home video), but I had books of fairy tales that were less Disneyfied. I was fascinated with the world of the tales -- that quasi-medieval place with fabulous long dresses, fairies, dragons, brave princes, sword fighting and all that. I kind of thought that the heroines of those stories were wasting the opportunities that came with living in a world like that. I mean, you've got a fairy godmother who can give you whatever you want, and all you want is to go to a party? I did occasionally play Cinderella, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, but that was more along the lines of starring in the Broadway show. I'd put on costumes and sing along with the songs on the records. More often, I'd make up other stories in that setting, sometimes with a main character in that world who was kind of like me having the sorts of adventures I'd want to have.

But sometimes, you just want to go there yourself. I suspect that the "sucked through a portal" subgenre came from that same impulse, of being so enamored of a fantasy world that you dream of actually going there and what you would do if you went there. When the real world seems boring and drab and you feel unimportant or unwanted, you can visit a magical world where you're a hero. I suspect there aren't too many fantasy fans who never daydreamed in class about a mysterious person stepping through the wall of the classroom and announcing that he was there to fetch the long-lost heir to a magical kingdom -- and then pointing at them. Or was that just me?

So, when I discovered that there were books about that sort of thing, they struck my imagination intensely. It was like, "Yes, that's it exactly!" I'd imagined opening a door and finding myself in a magical world long before I read the Narnia books. As I think about it and scan my bookshelf, I've realized that as big a part of my imagination as this trope has been, I haven't actually found that many books that fit it. There are the Oz books, of course (though Dorothy eventually becomes pretty marginalized and the books are mostly about Oz itself). And the Narnia books, which were very much like my childhood imaginings, with the characters from our world having big adventures in a fairy tale land instead of just lying around or doing housework. I liked Stephen R. Donaldson's mirror duology but couldn't get into the Thomas Covenant books. Alan Dean Foster had his Spellsinger series about a California rock guitarist who ends up in a magical world where his music is magic, and there were the Landover books by Terry Brooks (though I've only read the first).

I've tried writing a couple, without much success (though one of them involved characters from the other world coming through a portal and arriving here). They can be tricky. On the one hand, having an outsider as the viewpoint character gives you someone who needs things explained and allows you to use contemporary references and speech. You've got the fish-out-of-water thing going on for some humor. On the other hand, there's the issue of whether it's believable for the outsider character to survive and deal with things, and then you have to work out what to do at the end of the story. Do you just send the person home or do they decide to stay? If you're in young adult it's even dicier because you generally don't want a kid staying away from home and family forever, unless it turns out that the other world is where they truly belong. One thing I've liked about the Narnia movies that wasn't addressed at all in the books is how that experience would affect the kids once they returned to the real world. And then there's the fact that it's way too easy to Mary Sue these stories, since that's generally the seed at the core of that fantasy.

I guess that's one of those things that will have to simmer on the back burner for a while until I can figure out a way to do it -- and do it right. These days, it seems to be more popular to have the magical world coexisting with the "real" world, with no portal or wardrobe required for an ordinary person to become part of the magical world.

More Internet Follies

Because Stan the ghost apparently ran off with the stopwatch I use to time my writing sessions, since I've cleaned all the areas where I've used it without finding it, I resorted to buying another cheap digital sports watch at Target (what the old one was). I had been using a stopwatch app on my phone, but I soon realized that doing so defeated the purpose of disconnecting from the Internet to work. If my phone was right there, it was too easy to check my e-mail or look up random things online whenever I got stuck.

Meanwhile, I've cleared up one set of Internet follies from last week, only to get another. I tried using a different e-mail address and was able to get a message through to the blog hosts for that guest post I hadn't been able to send. I don't know if my server was the problem or if by the time I resorted to using the Gmail address I was forced to get to access Android services on my phone the problem had resolved itself.

Now, though, I'm dealing with a case of mistaken identity. I got a Yahoo mail account way back in the Dark Ages, using just my last name. Since my ISP handles their e-mail through Yahoo, my ISP account is mapped to that Yahoo ID. I guess I was able to get that address because I was the first member of my extended family to go online. Anyway, this week I got an e-mail to that address from Dell, confirming my order. At first I thought it was some kind of spam, but then saw that the customer was some other Swendson with a mailing address in the town in Kansas that my grandfather was from, so I figure we're related. There's no way that address is their address, since it's mine and has been for more than a decade, so I guess when they typed it into the Dell order form they left out an initial, or something. Now, not only am I getting their order information, but I'm getting all the Dell marketing spam, and I can't find a way to alert Dell that they're sending the order information to the wrong address (though I did unsubscribe from the marketing e-mail). I tried replying to the order confirmation e-mail, but that came back with an automated "we don't check this mailbox" notice. The customer service contact involves a form that requires all sorts of stuff like your address and customer number. I'm certainly not going to put my information in there, since I'm not the customer, but it seems like impersonation to put the customer's information in there, and then there's no place on the form to say that the above information is actually incorrect. There is a place to modify the profile, but since I don't know the correct e-mail address, I can't correct it. You'd think they'd want to know if their messages weren't reaching the intended recipient, but they make it impossible to do a good deed and let them know. I'm a pretty die-hard Apple customer, but if I weren't, this experience alone would keep me from ever being a Dell customer, since they make you jump through so many hoops to contact them. I may resort to printing the order confirmation and mailing it to the billing address on the confirmation with a note that they might want to correct the e-mail address they gave Dell. I think this customer is a second or third cousin (possibly a son or grandson of one of my grandfather's brothers), but I've never met that branch of the family.

Argh. And now I just got the shipping notice and order tracking information. If anyone reading this is a Swendson who ordered a computer from Dell, you're giving out the wrong e-mail address. And if anyone from Dell is reading this, how can I let you know that you're sending customer information (including account info, mailing address and phone number) to the wrong person? As a warning to anyone considering doing business with Dell, from the looks of this, I could easily have changed the shipping information just by clicking on the link in the e-mail I received. I could re-do the entire customer profile, and in a way I have altered it as I set it so I didn't receive marketing messages, since that was the only way to keep them from coming to my address, and that required doing so as this customer.

The spam comments on the blog continue, though lately they're at least for the latest post instead of really old posts. I'm not sure what yesterday's post had to do with burning movies to DVD, but that's what the spam of the day was. The comments acted like they were asking me how to do this (because writing about fairy godmothers apparently means I know that), though the links in the post were to places where you could buy that software, apparently. Is anyone really stupid enough to fall for spam blog comments? If you're reading a blog and see a comment on something entirely unrelated, do you think it's a good idea to click on those links? You'd think someone would have to or they wouldn't bother continuing to do this, but I suppose it uses so few resources on their part to do it that even one or two responses would make it worthwhile. And I really don't see what the benefit is to spamming the entire Internet with e-mail in Russian.

The Fairy Godmother

It's Enchanted, Inc. question and answer time! I was asked about the fairy godmother in Damsel Under Stress. The question was more about why she dressed the way she did, with each outfit layered on top of the other, but to really address that, I need to get into where the character came from, so I'll just do All About Ethelinda.

When I wrote Book 2, Once Upon Stilettos, I didn't know if there would be more books. The publisher had bought the first book and a sequel, and although I'd planned more books, I wouldn't know if the publisher would want more until the first book was published and they saw how well it sold. I had the second book written and turned in before the first book was published, and that second book had even gone through copy edits before they made a decision about more books. Because of that, I tried to give some kind of closure at the end of the second book, in case there weren't any more. And so, I got Katie and Owen together at the end of book 2. I'm not sure I would have done that if I'd known from the start that there were sure to be more books. But I did, and it was too late to change things by the time I got the go-ahead for more books because it required more than changing the ending. I'd have had to make subtle alterations through the whole book.

That meant I had to deal with the fact that they were now a couple when it came to the third book, and I didn't want to run into the Moonlighting syndrome where getting the couple together saps all the energy from the story. This wasn't a romance (in spite of the fact that this is the aspect of the story that a lot of readers seem to respond most strongly to), so the main conflict didn't have to be between Katie and Owen. Their relationship wasn't the main plot. But I still worried that a lot of the energy in the story would be gone if they were just together, and that was that. I didn't want to have some silly misunderstanding break them up, but I needed some kind of monkey wrench to throw into things.

The idea of what I could do came from an unrelated line of thinking. I have had a spectacularly unsuccessful love life. We're talking Epic Fail territory here. I've had very few real relationships, and none of them have gone well. I've also had a string of really bad dates that never quite made it to the relationship point. Even the dates that went well managed to go nowhere. I have been known to moan that what I really need is a fairy godmother. But then I have to wonder if that would even work, considering that of all the times people have tried to set me up with someone, it's never gone well. I've never had a set up where I could see why the person thought we'd be suited for each other. It's always been more along the lines of "You have so much in common! You're both single!" or, worse, "He's probably not your type, but he just needs some confidence, and you're nice." So, it would be my luck that if I got a fairy godmother, she'd be incompetent, and she'd probably show up after I met Mr. Right. I remember that I was thinking along those lines one evening while making dinner, and then I had that "Ding! Ding! Ding!" moment where I realized that this was what I needed for my book. I was dealing with a world where a fairy godmother could exist, so I could make the metaphor literal. The second Shrek movie had done the evil fairy godmother, so I decided to go with one who wasn't evil, just misguided and not very good at her job. I'd worked with people who had done one good thing once in the past and who were still resting on their laurels -- they'd won an award for something ten years ago and they'd never updated their skills or grown beyond that, but they never let you forget their past success, either. They assumed that because they'd been right in a big way that one time, every other idea they came up with was automatically brilliant.

Like my former co-worker who had a shelf full of trophies and a wall full of awards for work she'd done in the 70s and 80s (she'd worked there forever) but who was practically incompetent in the 90s. She had to get someone else to print documents for her because she couldn't work the printer. She never turned off her computer because she didn't know how to turn it on. She treated the computer like a typewriter, so instead of deleting when she made a mistake or changed her mind about what she wanted to say, she'd leave the mistake, type a row of Xs (as though she was x-ing through the mistake, but since the computer doesn't let you type over something it just came out as a line of Xs after the mistake) and then type the corrected version. When she used spellcheck, she automatically accepted all corrections, even on names. That meant that to edit her work (which was my job), I'd have to get out the faculty directory and figure out who Dr. Moron Whiner really was (I didn't make that up, but I won't use his real name here to protect the innocent). I never saw White-Out on her monitor screen, but I would not have been at all surprised. She might have been a good writer at some point, but you had to be a mindreader to figure out what she'd written when she used a computer. Asking her did no good because even she couldn't figure out what she meant when she looked at it, and she'd get offended if I asked because she was an Award-Winning Public Relations Writer and I was just an entry-level peon, and what did I know?

I figured that a fairy godmother might do something like that. Have a success as big as Cinderella who goes down in folklore and gets movies and Broadway musicals made about her, and she might figure that covered it all. Anyone who tried to argue with her plans would be reminded about Cinderella. And, of course, she'd have spectacularly bad timing. She might even deliberately show up after the couple is already together so she could take credit for them getting together -- except, of course, that her efforts to get them together could actually drive them apart. She wouldn't update her tactics at all to take into consideration modern times. If dragons were good for getting couples together back in medieval times, then they should work today.

I think to some extent that she was the personification of all of Katie's doubts and fears about relationships. I haven't met a guy as awesome as Owen, but I suspect that if I did after my horrendous track record, I'd be suspicious and insecure. If I haven't managed to work things out with any reasonably normal men, I'd doubt my ability to make things work with a gorgeous, powerful, wealthy man. I mean, the guy down the street doesn't want me, so why would Mr. Perfect? Someone showing up to offer to help me would only make matters worse. I didn't want Katie to spend the whole book whining about her insecurities, so I channeled all that into another character who could raise the question and add to Katie's stress levels.

I'm not entirely sure where the layers of clothes came from. That was just always there. I suppose it was a way to visually represent the fact that she'd never moved on from the past -- instead of removing the previous clothing and starting fresh, she was just layering things on top, and everything was worn out. I never really delved into it, but I figure she was rotating clothes, wearing her entire wardrobe at once and just moving layers around. It only just now occurred to me that there might be some Heidi influence there. That was one of my favorite books when I was a small child, and for some odd reason, the thing in that book that really struck my imagination was the opening scene where Heidi is being brought to live with her grandfather and she has to wear all her clothes at once for the trip (I guess because she didn't have a suitcase). I remember acting that out with my play dress-up clothes, putting on multiple dresses in layers. I don't know if I ever tried to leave the house wearing more than one dress, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did because I was that kind of kid. I recall the "wear everything you own for the journey" element from a few other books, and I guess I responded to that because I was an Army brat and we moved a lot. I don't know whether I thought that wearing all your clothes was better or worse than packing them in a suitcase, but I found it oddly fascinating, and there is a possibility that my brain dredged that up from my subconscious and used it on Ethelinda.

As for what you'd see if you weren't magical or magically immune, I figure she was just the kind of frumpy old woman who layers a lot of ill-fitting sweaters, like a sweater vest over a long-sleeved crewneck sweater, with a big, baggy cardigan over that, and then a longish shapeless skirt, sagging stockings and sensible shoes.

Any more questions about the series? I'm doing this every other Wednesday as long as I have questions.