Gary Ghislain's Blog, page 7

Love, Dating, Romance and other things I should research more – Part 2

I was in Paris eating veal brain at a lovely restaurant with my adorable friend A. The brain was whitish and gelatinous and served on a bed of carrots, onions and boiled potatoes and really made me feel like I was Doctor Frankenstein about to transplant with a fork and knife and plenty of garlic. 
My friend was telling me about her last misadventures in dating guys. The funny thing is that I had a very similar meeting just a day earlier with another friend of mine lamenting on the uselessness of all men.
The main problem with both of them, I believed, was that they lacked the proper tools to handle boys-girls communication. While we can easily translate Swahili into Albanian online, there's still no Google Translate tool sophisticated enough to help girls get boys talk.
I think Google should start working on it. Like, its translation engine should immediately detect guys' bullshit and translate it in plain English for better inter-gender understanding.
To help Google team of linguists, I list here a few obvious suggestions.

"I'm just out of a very emotional relationship" = "You're just a one night stand.""I've got to work now." = "We just had sex. I'm not aroused by you anymore. I don't want to cuddle.""Sorry, I'm tickly." = "I'm not physically attracted to you. Don't touch me.""Should we split the bill?" = "When I think I could be spending this money on a better looking girl.""I'll phone you." = "I will not phone you.""I'm a very quiet guy" = "I will not phone you.""I'm very busy." = "I will not phone you.""Your friend X is really nice." = "I would rather be with your friend X.""Let's keep it adventurous." = "I think I just gave you genital herpes.""There's no spark left between Sarah and I." = "I will never leave Sarah for someone like you." "It was great." = "how soon can I leave without upsetting you?""I'm not ready for a new relationship" = "there's no way you're moving in my apartment.""Yeah, me too." = "I don't love you."
Otherwise, the best wine to go with brain is a dry white Muscadet.

Love, Dating, Romance and things I should research more – Part 2

I was in Paris eating veal brain at a lovely restaurant with my adorable friend A. The brain was whitish and gelatinous and served on a bed of carrots, onions and boiled potatoes and really made me feel like I was Doctor Frankenstein about to transplant with a fork and knife and plenty of garlic. 
My friend was telling me about her last misadventures in dating guys. The funny thing is that I had a very similar meeting just a day earlier with another friend of mine lamenting on the uselessness of all men.
The main problem with both of them, I believed, was that they lacked the proper tools to handle boys-girls communication. While we can easily translate Swahili into Albanian online, there's still no Google Translate tool sophisticated enough to help girls get boys talk.
I think Google should start working on it. Like, its translation engine should immediately detect guys' bullshit and translate it in plain English for better inter-gender understanding.
To help Google team of linguists, I list here a few obvious suggestions.

"I'm just out of a very emotional relationship" = "You're just a one night stand.""I've got to work now." = "We just had sex. I'm not aroused by you anymore. I don't want to cuddle.""Sorry, I'm tickly." = "I'm not physically attracted to you. Don't touch me.""Should we split the bill?" = "When I think I could be spending this money on a better looking girl.""I'll phone you." = "I will not phone you.""I'm a very quiet guy" = "I will not phone you.""I'm very busy." = "I will not phone you.""Your friend X is really nice." = "I would rather be with your friend X.""Let's keep it adventurous." = "I think I just gave you genital herpes.""There's no spark left between Sarah and I." = "I will never leave Sarah for someone like you." "It was great." = "how soon can I leave without upsetting you?""I'm not ready for a new relationship" = "there's no way you're moving in my apartment.""Yeah, me too." = "I don't love you."
Otherwise, the best wine to go with brain is a dry white Muscadet.

San Diego Comic Con 2011

[image error]
Get into your spandex/leather/pleather pants and your Black Mamba Cape and come get a copy of How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend @ChronicleBooks booth (1506) at San Diego Comic-Con July 21-24

Blog Tour Planet Earth June-July 2011

[image error]
6/20/11 The Book Cellar - Interview /Give Away  
6/21/11 YA Librarian Tales - Guest Post
6/22/11 The Children's and Teen's Book Connection - Interview /Give Away  
6/23/11 Word for Teens - Guest Post
6/24/11 Teens Read and Write - Give Away Guest Post
6/25/11 Carrie's YA Bookshelf  - Guest Post
6/26/11 Friendly Reader - Give Away  
6/27/11 Cracking the Cover - Interview    
6/28/11 Mother Daughter Book Club.com       
6/29/11 The Hate-Mongering Tart/The YA-5/Dear Teen Me - Interview/Give Away/Guest Post
6/30/11 Novel Novice - Give Away/ Guest Post
7/1/11   Pink Me - Author Interview

Peace

Top 10 foods and drinks for writers

10. Coffee. Forget water. Water is for civilians. Drink it till caffeine pops your eyes out of their sockets. Try not to break your laptop while hammering the keyboard.
9. Extra hot chili sauce. Pour generously on any food. Transform every meal into a slightly painful yet memorable experience. Keeps you inspired. Particularly dandy when used on stale Cheez Doodles.
8. Croissants, donuts, muffins or any carbomegatrons. To keep writing, you need proper fuel. Sugar's your friend. Don't forget to soak in coffee to keep the caffeine level high.
7. Crisps. Any flavor goes. The less they look like they once were potatoes the better. Chew noisily. The noise of eating crisps keeps a writer stimulated way past midnight.  
6.  Rum, as in "Mojito with a lot of rum". A particularly bad review lingers on Google or the blogosphere? Your dream editor just turned down your latest manuscript? Writer's block issues? No problem. Here's the perfect anesthetic. A pint of heavily loaded Mojito. Plus, you get a lot of hanger out while muddling the mint leaves with the pestle. And shaking the cocktail counts as working out.  If you don't have rum, vodka or tequila will do the trick. 
5. Cold one day old pizza with extra mayonnaise toping. Also known as 'Breakfast of Champion' in this house.
4. Frankfurters. Here is my recipe: Write three pages. Walk away from your laptop. Open the fridge. Take a cold frankfurter. Eat it while absentmindedly gazing into the fridge. Return to the laptop. Write three more pages.
3. Popsicles. They're the best. Don't know how anyone can write without them. And you can nervously chew on the stick hours after you finished one.
2. Red wine. The perfect treat after a day of successful writing. Helps you clear out the cholesterol while counterbalancing the effect of caffeine. Avoid phoning or texting ex-girlfriends and unsuccessful flirts after finishing the first bottle. Goes well with extra spicy stale Cheez Doodles.
1. Chocolate. I got this trick from a romance creative writing class. Eating chocolate for a writer is like researching. Chocolate gives you a sensation close to being in love. Eat chocolate and you'll experience that evasive feeling without the upcoming heartache and arguments about who should do the dishes and take the trash out.

10 things I will do on “How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend” release day

1. I will wake up at 6 a.m. and be dragged out of bed by two Swedish creatures (6 year old, 4 year old) demanding breakfast, television and cuddles (in that precise order).
2. I will not strangle myself with coffee, yell and throw marmalade toasts at my computer while reading any new reviews and blog-o-things. I will stay away from Goggle. Well, I might goggle a bit. Doh!
3. I’ll spend my morning working on the outline of my new space invasion YA project, super sizing it with extra cursing, ruckus, general disobedience, random inappropriateness and other trademark bits and bobs. 
4. I’ll go and light a candle in front of one of the many Jack Sparrow posters spread all over Stockholm.
5. I will have a thought for my father who was still alive and prouder than a mother hen on hatching day when Chronicle Books bought my manuscript. I’m sure he'd be even prouder today.
6. I will buy enough booze to slow down a large herd of reasonably sized ponies.
7. I will prepare finger version of traditional Swedish gourmet food (hot dogs, burgers, crisps, cake… I’ll throw a herring or two in there for good mesure).
8. Guests, food, drinks, laughs: PARTY!
9. I will get wasted and still resist the urge to phone ex-girlfriends and regale them with babbling tales of my literary adventures.
10. I’ll collapse into bed and dream of space invasion, books writing themselves, and sales ranks in the low two figures.  

10 things I will do on "How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend" release day

1. I will wake up at 6 a.m. and be dragged out of bed by two Swedish creatures (6 year old, 4 year old) demanding breakfast, television and cuddles (in that precise order).
2. I will not strangle myself with coffee, yell and throw marmalade toasts at my computer while reading any new reviews and blog-o-things. I will stay away from Goggle. Well, I might goggle a bit. Doh!
3. I'll spend my morning working on the outline of my new space invasion YA project, making sure there's enough cursing, ruckus, general disobedience, inappropriateness and other trademark bits and bobs in there. 
4. I'll go and light a candle in front of one of the many Jack Sparrow posters spread all over Stockholm.
5. I will have a thought for my father who was still alive and prouder than a mother hen on hatching day when Chronicle Books bought my manuscript. I'm sure he'd be even prouder today.
6. I will buy enough booze to slow down a large herd of reasonably sized ponies.
7. I will prepare finger version of traditional Swedish gourmet food (hot dogs, burgers, crisps, cake… I'll throw a herring or two in there for good mesure).
8. Guests, food, drinks, laughs: PARTY!
9. I will get wasted and still resist the urge to phone ex-girlfriends and regale them with babbling tales of my literary adventures.
10. I'll collapse into bed and dream of space invasion, books writing themselves, and sales ranks in the low two figures.  

Free and Laughing in Las Festival de Cannes

I know. I'm supposed to be locked at home outlining my next YA novel to submit it to my publisher sort of pronto. But nothing says I can't do that in Cannes while doing also… well…? other things!
Doesn't a writer need to move around, see and experience new situations, get inspired by people and their quirky ways to bring some freshness and originality into the work?
I know what you're thinking: "Sure! Running after strange bunnies on the Croisette will certainly give you a creative electroshock, Gary."
Well, exactly! And it also gave me a good glimpse into the human soul. Because, you see, before the bunnies appeared, everyone was busy doing their things. Like interviewing movie people, actors, producers, directors and such… and everyone looked sort of bored and blasé. Then, shazam! BUNNIES!
They all cut short their interviews, cameramen and photographers just abandoned the poor movie schmucks mid-sentence, and sprinted after the girls to get a good shot of their ears. And everyone looked terribly amused.
So that's the thing I've learned about human beings today: they all go for the bunnies!

Outline this, Moliere!

When I went up to Paris to study, I immediately joined an acting class. As a teen, I was reading lots of theater. Sartre, Anouilh, Ionesco… I had a thing for Moliere too. We studied him extensively in high school. They showed us this great movie about him. Writing, acting, boozing, loving and never ending parties. That was his life. And I thought… Goddamn!
Though, I soon realized theater was not for me. I was so shy, the first time our teacher put me on stage in front of a large group of students and asked me to embody the letter "O", I rather turned into the letter "Aaaaaah!" Once, I remember, I had to play a romantic scene with a girl who was a professional actress. She was to tell me that she loved me and kiss me. It took me weeks to recover. And when I did, I quit the acting class.
I'm a book person. An apartment with a view, a laptop, plenty of snacks, lots of coffee and a cat called Claude, that's all I ever need.
But my work with theater is not over. I still have to write outlines for my novels. And that, ladies and gentlemen, dear public, is my very own little theater.
Let me explain… everyone, silence! Position position! And… CURTAIN!
An outline is like a miniature version of a novel. A neat little stage where I can lay down my story and start acting it up. I'm like Chaplin, or Woody Allen, or Moliere for that matter, I always use the same cast: a boy, a girl, an army of unruly teens and exasperated adults. I distribute the parts. I tell them what to expect: there, a pod from space! There, a deadly alien virus! There, you parents trying to kill you! I tell them how to scream. What to think. How to dress. I choose the sets, the days, the nights, the speed of time and the color of the moon. I'm the stage manager, the set designer, the director and the producer of this show for exactly 15 pages.
When it over, the curtain falls down. The outline is ready. I send it away to my agent, to my editor hoping they will think it's better than butter.
And if they do think it's better than butter, I fill my apartment with snacks and coffee and cats called Claude and start writing.
Only writing is never as neat and controllable as outlining. The actors who used to be so gentle suddenly refuse my stage directions. They laugh at me each time I show them my great blueprints for my novel. They just snatch the pages, tear them, trash them and off they go improvising. My little theater falls apart. The stage collapses. The roof caves in. I realize that my theater was built right in the middle of a dangerous and unpredictable jungle. My cast abandons me. I have to follow them if I don't want to stay alone in the ruin of my well thought plans. Together, we go into the wild and I just try to keep up with them, clumsily taking notes whenever they say or do something totally unexpected.
I wonder: Did Moliere have to put up with this?
RIDEAU!

Love, Dating, Romance and other things I should research more

There are two important things I've learned during my creative writing classes at university:
1. You should always write about what you know2. Any story worth writing need to be researched
There's a problem there for me. I write romance and humorous science fiction. My daily job includes Alien invasions, spacegirls, and distant planets you access by walking through walls down here on earth.
See. Nothing I know anything about! Nothing I can research if I don't want to end up browsing through tones of documents proving that Georges Bush Senior is some sort of lizard.
Which leave me with the other aspect of my writing: romance!
There's something I like to research. Extensively!
There are a few essential conditions to researching romance.
1. You need to be single.
If you're in a serious relationship or married, or committed to anyone in anyway, you will not make a good romance researcher. Romance doesn't start after the first kiss, after the wedding, after you moved in together, or after you made any sort of serious commitment. No, no. A first kiss, or a wedding, belong to the last pages of a romance (or the opening pages of a comedy, a drama or a tragedy). No, a good romantic story is a story of first things exclusively. First sight. First date. First acceleration of the beating heart. First kiss. First love. First "marry me, Josie!" The end.
So, to research romance, you need to be single, available, and have a very open schedule. And then, you need to date. A lot.
2. You have to be a good listener and know how to ask the right questions.
When you're on a date, or just meeting anyone, try to focus exclusively on relationship issues. Also, in a spirit of fairness, let your test subjects know that everything they tell you will most probably end up in a book or a blog. So when they phone or email later to complain, you'll be in a "I told you so!" situation.
3. Use your time efficiently.
Remember, you're not looking for a partner. You're researching! If you lunch with Anna, try to brunch with Laura and dinner with Enia (not their real names). In one day, you'll have more romantic material than you'll ever get from a Lifetime TV week'athlon.
For example, Anna will tell you that she's obsessively single, meaning she's obsessing about un-singling herself. She will tell you that decisiveness is the sexiest quality in a man. She will say that a real romantic hero is someone who is not afraid to say things like "I'm going to kiss you now!" or "I like you and I want to be with you." Though, Anna will also tell you that she just broke up with a very indecisive person who was also very bad in bed. This might just explain that.
Laura is in a more complex situation. She is in a serious relationship, but she just found out that her boyfriend is using online dating to chat with other women. So she set up an alias on one of the sites he's using.  Now, she chats with him on a daily basis under the screen name "Natasha". "We never talked so much before. Now that I've become Natasha, he's like chat chat chat!" she laughs. The only problem with her ruse: she got addicted to online dating. Hence the reason why she's on a date with you!
And then there's Enia… Ah, Enia…! You're not dating, no no. She's just a friend. But somehow, Enia is very open-minded about discussing relationships, romance, love… She's like a cornucopia of good romantic data. But she's also absolutely lovely, and extra funny, and clever, and painfully attractive… which makes her a total professional hazard and the possible ruin of any given researcher (you).
Enia is in a serious relationship (ts! Shame… but remember, just collecting data here, okay). She's in love with her boyfriend (typical!). But they fight sometimes. "He says 'go to hell.' And I take it literally and start packing my things getting ready to leave him and go to hell!" She nearly left him a few times in the past. "The secret to staying together," she explains while the waiter delivers your Baba dessert, "is to co-own a flat with your boyfriend. It makes it much harder to break up and walk away!" Ha. There you got it. Real-estate as the raison d'être for good romance. As soon you leave the restaurant and part ways, you take out your notepad and write down this nugget of romantic field research: "the solution to a durable loving relationship is… location location location!"