M.J. Compton's Blog, page 48

Style over Substance

I’m not one to care overmuch about the appearance of things. I usually drive an older car. As long as it runs and it’s safe, I’m happy. I don’t need big and shiny and new.

I used to wear makeup. I stopped this past summer because it was melting off my face. I never started again, because I find I’m happier without it. My left eye doesn’t tear up all day long anymore. And shoes! I used to wear sexy, strappy heels. Now I aim for comfort. If I’m comfortable, I’m happy.

I know a woman who bakes cookies as a side business. She gives the misshapen, slightly overcooked, not perfectly decorated ones to her friends. “It’a all about presentation,” she tells me.

I see elaborately decorated cakes or fruit/vegetable presentations and while I do admire the artistry–some people are really clever and talented enough to pull it off–I wonder, “Why?” Why go to all that work for something that’s going to be eaten anyway?

Okay, yes, I wash my clothes and shower on a regular bases, even though I know they and I will only get dirty again.  But a clean body and clean clothing are necessities. A cake that took 100 hours to decorate is not. Who am I trying to impress with cosmetics? I shouldn’t be driving a car at all (but I am a hideously spoiled American).

I would rather be known as fair, honest, and kind than stylish.

 

National Have Fun at Work Day

Yes! This is a thing–having fun at work.

And, as an author, I can say that frequently I do have fun at work.

When something I wrote 5 chapters back suddenly makes perfect sense, and I find I can build off it.
When I’m so angry at someone, I name a villain after that person–then do really bad things to them in the story.
Daydreaming. Because it’s really plotting. Prove it’s not.
Ditto computer solitaire.
Losing oneself in research, because learning new stuff is fun.
The words flowing, and making sense while they do so.
Wearing sweats to work.

Nat’l Opposite Day

It’s National Opposite Day. It’s supposed to be a day for kids being silly.

But opposites is an interesting concept. It’s a tool writers use to keep their stories interesting.

Romance authors are often told, “write the firefighter and the arsonist.” Opposites create conflict. Conflict is what keeps a story interesting.

One tool authors use is called the List of Twenty. Write down the problem at the top of the page then come up with 20 solutions. The first five answers will be obvious. The cliches. The tried-and-true. The next five will be ridiculous. Supposedly the next ten will work for you because you’ve gotten the cliches cleared away and jumpstarted true creative thinking.

I used the List of Twenty with success while writing And Jericho Burned. My problems was what kind of trauma would my heroine have suffered as a child that would turn her into a claustrophobic. I think I came up with a great answer.

I read another interesting exercise the other day: write down nine things that wouldn’t work. Just the opposite of the above. This has the mind approaching the problem from the opposite angle.

In The Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook super agent Donald Maas suggests reversing motivations. Another of his exercises consists of figuring out what a character would never do, then have the character do that.  His standard advice on almost every aspect of writing is “do the opposite.”

In my February 28 release, Mask of the King, I made sure my hero reacted to something in a way my editor didn’t expect. That’s a twist. I think most readers will expect him to react in a certain manner, which is one of the reasons I didn’t write the scene that way.

Opposites. They don’t just attract, they rock.

 

 

 

 

 

3 Brief Movie Reviews

Captain Fantastic-I saw the trailer this summer and wanted to see the motion picture. It was scheduled to play at a local film fest, so TV Stevie and I went. Except the fest was running dreadfully off schedule. We waited an hour and the auditorium doors still hadn’t opened from the previous movie, so we left. I eventually took it out of the library.

I am fascinated by people who live off the grid. I thought this movie would be…more. Loved parts of it. Was appalled at other parts. And the ending disappointed. Two librarians told me it was a good movie, but the ending lacked…more. And they were right.

Cafe Society-I let TV Stevie talk me into watching this one, even tho’ morally we should be boycotting Woody Allen.

I usually like Jesse Eisenberg.  Out of 96 minutes of motion picture, I remember one scene. One. Shortly after the main character arrives in Hollywood, he tries to hire a hooker.  Jesse Eisenberg plays Woody Allen playing Alvy Singer in Annie Hall (who my husband tells me is Woody Allen) and Candy the Hooker is none other than Anna Camp, best known (to me) as the preacher’s slutty wife in True Blood. (Yes, I know, she was in the Perfect Pitch movies, too, but I know her best from True Blood.)

Hell or High Water–Another flick I let TV Stevie talk me into watching.

Yes, it stars Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges, but even that could not redeem this movie. I thought I would hate the movie because the DVD package read as if it was a gratuitous violence film.  An action film, filled with special effects and lacking in plot.

It was not. It had a perfectly respectable plot. Jeff Bridges plays a Texas Ranger (romance hero fodder). The four main characters were fairly well-drawn.

Yet I couldn’t help but think if the same movie had been written about four women in the same situation it would not be as critically acclaimed or garnering the press this one is getting. I mean, look at how much the Ghostbusters female re-boot is being slammed. This movie is ‘important’ only because the characters are guys.

I put Thelma and Louise on my “must watch again” move list.

Defining a TV Icon

A celebrity of the past died recently. I heard him referred to as a “television icon.”

What? I looked him up. He was on TV for less than ten years. Sorry folks. That doesn’t make him an icon. I’m not saying he was a bad actor–I wouldn’t know. I’m not saying the program for which he is best known was bad–again, I wouldn’t know.

But I do know he was not an icon.

These people are television icons:

Bill Cosby (no matter how you feel about his alleged crimes, he’s still a TV icon. That can’t change)
Walter Cronkite
Dick Van Dyke
Mary Tyler Moore
Lucille Ball
Bob Newhart
Andy Griffith
Carroll O’Connor
Oprah
Betty White

These people are not:

Alan Thicke
nearly all of the cast of Friends
Alan Alda
Ted Danson
Kelsey Grammer
Jon Hamm
Bea Arthur
Anyone starting our in this millennium–they may be PENDING icons, but they’re not there yet.

 

 

National Hat Day

I love hats.

I have many.

But hats don’t like me, because I’m short and short people have a limited range of hat styles they can wear with out looking…stubby.

 

Looking Back

I was leafing through an old note book and came across an exercise in which I was asked to describe my perfect work space.

Bare windows with blinds to close at night. Bare wooden floors. Pale apricot walls. A desk. A great chair.

Laptop computer.

Great audio system. A rocking chair in front of the windows.

I work there whenever I can. My dream schedule–work 7am to 3pm every day. No other people around.

How do I feel working here? Good. Productive. Fitting inside my skin.

Welcomed. I feel welcomed.

I guess it’s still a work in progress.

National Joy Germ Day

Today is National Joy Germ Day. It’s a day specially designated to spread joy. The day and the phrase Joy Germ is the brainchild of a woman named Joan White.

I have actually met and worked with Joan White. When I first started working in local TV, she had her own advertising agency—Joan of Art. In 1981, she came up with the concept of Joy Germs, renamed herself Joy Germ Joan and started infecting the world with a positive mindset. Today there are Joy Germs in every state, in Europe, and in Africa.

In 1981, I was a cynical, callow youth. I thought it was a ridiculous concept, although a couple of my colleagues at the TV station embraced the idea.

Ever wish you could go back in time for a do-over?

Happy Joy Germ Day! Try to infect everyone with whom you come into contact with happiness.

National Trivia Day

It’s National Trivia Day. Here are ten bits of useless information.

One of Adolf Hitler’s nephews came to the US, joined the navy, and fought his uncle’s army in WWII. His descendants live on Long Island.
Former President Bill Clinton once correctly answered three questions about My Little Pony on the NPR radio show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.
Taylor Swift won more awards at the 2010 Grammy’s than Elvis Presley did in his entire career.
The Germans have a word for emotionally based overeating: kummerspeck, which translates to “grief bacon.”
666 isn’t only the Mark of the Beast–it’s also the sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel.
Horses can’t vomit.
A pheromone in male mouse urine that stimulates sexual attraction in a female to that particular male was named Darcin—after Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Obsession for Men, by Calvin Klein, is used by photographers in the wild to attract big cats into camera range.
Forty is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.

Happy New Year?

Ever wonder why we celebrate our New Year in the dead of winter (in the northern hemisphere)? It’s not based on any scientific event (solstice, equinox, etc.) or seasonal marker. It’s based on a civic practice of ancient Romans.

I think there are several other days that would be more suitable.

The Winter Solstice: the shortest length of daylight in the year. After this, the hours of daylight gradually increase, bringing us out of darkness.
The Vernal Equinox: Spring begins! Life reawakens from winter slumber. Leaves burst from tree branches. Flowers bloom.
The Autumnal Equinox: New school years begin in the autumn. The Jewish New Year is in the fall. We get ready for the long winter ahead.

Why not one of these dates instead of a day picked by a politician as the day newly elected politicians took office?