Jennifer Griffith's Blog, page 29

Super Duper Duper Cool!

I went to a booksigning this morning and this author guy said,

“Have you seen that sumo video? The one where the little white guy can cream all the huge, enormous sumo wrestlers? Time after time, he just smears them. You have to look it up!”

Well, bet your bottom dollar, I came right home and found it. Wimp dot com. Fun site!

Anyway, here’s the link. Check this out. Does it prove the whole premise of Big in Japan, my novel where a big white guy can go to Japan and accidentally become a sumo wrestler? That’s for you to decide. Still, it’s three minutes. Just watch the awesomeness.

http://www.wimp.com/sumowrestler/

 

Oh, and I have to give a big “thank you” shout out to Mark Nielsen of MarkSNeilsen.com–great find! (Check out his page and his beeeeeautiful new book. So glad I got my hands on a copy.)

Larry, Daryl and Daryl

Do you remember the Bob Newhart Show? I don’t mean the one where he’s a psychologist in Chicago in the 1970s, but the one where he runs an inn in Vermont in the 1980s. He has those neighbors, “I’m Larry. This is my brother Daryl, and this is my other brother Daryl.” My dad loved that show, so of course I did too.

I’m in the process of naming (and renaming) some characters in my WIP, and I was thinking about names that come from certain eras. Like the name Daryl, for instance. I went to high school with a lot of guys named Daryl. Wrestlers, mathletes, band guys, cowboys, all manner of Daryls.

However, now that I’m easing out of the baby-naming years, I realized I don’t know anyone at all in my generation or younger who is naming a child Daryl. The ladies who wrote “Beyond Jennifer and Jason” would say it’s in “fashion limbo,” I imagine. It’s not being used for girls or for boys by anyone in my circles of acquaintance, despite the fact that there was that gorgeous actress from Splash named Daryl Hannah. The name didn’t seem to make that boy-name-to-girl-name crossover like so many other names (Taylor, Dakota, etc.)

Names sometimes have an era. Not all. Some are more timeless. But a lot of them have an era. So when I’m writing a story, I think it’s important for me to choose names for the characters that reflect the age or era in which they might have been born. I’ve often picked up a story with a historical setting but the character has a super-modern trendy name and it’s off-putting. Sometimes it bumps me out of the story so much I have to put the book down.

So, yeah. Back to work on the WIP, galley slave. Maybe I’ll name someone Larry…

http://www.youtube.com/embed/5yyB06HvAjI?rel=0” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

Super Blogger Moi

So, even if I don’t add a lot of content to this site this month, I’ve been adding a certain amount of text gravitas to the World Wide Web in general. Need evidence? Check out this list of blogs I’ve been scribbling all over lately. (Many thanks to my publicist Kirk for facilitating the blog tour. I hear he did a bang-up job on his presentation at the League of Utah Writers Roundup this weekend. Way to go, Kirk!)

Liesel K Hill’s Blog Where I rant about how the Great American Novel might not be that great.

Elsie Park’s Blog (check out the September 6, 2012 entry), where I ramble on about fun stuff that happened to me in Japan, and some scary food.

Mormon Mommy Writers Where I dish about my secret dream job: Matchmaker. It’d better stay a dream because I stink at it.

Lehua Parker’s Blog Where she lets me channel my inner sumo wrestler right there on the page. Yipes.

Shaunna Gonzales’s Blog Where I take a stab at debunking the writing “myth” of “Write What You Know.”

Christopher Loke’s Blog Where I talk about the ever delicious Malibu Chicken at the Sizzler and how it applies to writing great fiction. Wellll, doesn’t it?

Terron James’s Blog Where I sound off about cliffhangers–but I won’t tell you how it ends. Not yet…

Adrienne Monson’s Blog Where I reveal what the dedication means in Big in Japan.

Penny Freeman’s Blog Where I blog about sumo and a trip to Mars.

 

I think there are more! If I remember them I’ll post later. I know I’ve typed my little fingers down to the nub. Well, that actually might be due to weakened fingernails from a lack of Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my diet. Seriously, they are peeling and breaking and awful. And it dates to the time I quit the LDCs. Coincidence? I think not.

 

Oil, water, and other things that don’t mix

First, water.

We’re in a drought here, and our town’s mayor (a jolly fellow who I like a lot) declared a state of water emergency. The aquifers of this desert have been depleted quite severely through pumping, and so now the squeeze is on. No water for our little lawns (emphasis on little. We’ve got postage stamp lawns as it is here.) They even suggested taking the rinse water from our dish washing and using it to water the potted plants outside.

Yikes.

So, that’s exciting. And awful. We’ve had a few days of reprieve from the heat, thank Heaven above, and some rain at last. It’s not going to remedy a decade of drought, but yeah. We’ll take it! Any drops, any time!

So, enough about the weather.

And I’ve decided to skip oil because I’ll probably go on a political tirade. As the Japanese say, “iranai.” (Nobody wants that.)

In other news, I heard last night that BIG IN JAPAN will now be stocked at in the Barnes and Noble warehouse to be available to all the stores in Arizona and nearby places. Wowee! That’s so cool. I do give credit to the awesome, totally neat friends I have who diligently went into their local bookstores and asked for the book. Thanks, peoples! You make me so happy. The publisher (Jolly Fish Press, who are truly the jolliest) worked really hard for this, and they also said this increases the chance of this being stocked nationally. Woo hoo! Feeling the happy for that.

Now for the other things that don’t mix.

I have been on my non-writing kick as I reorganize my house and now, I sit down to quickly do my household budget and bam. I forgot to pay a bill–an important one. And it was due today. At least when I was writing I could do the budget. When I’m painting and decluttering and washing baseboards and selling stuff on the facebook garage sale site, I guess I can’t also keep up with the money.

I could do writing and money, but not writing and housekeeping. Although it appears I can’t do housekeeping and money, either. So, I guess I am not good at housekeeping for a reason. I think it’s because if I do it, I end up not being able to do anything else. And since there are a LOT of other things that really, really ought to be done (like cooking–which I haven’t done well this past few days either, burning the ground beef on Saturday into antrhacite, and then undercooking the pinto beans yesterday so horribly that they were still crunchy at dinnertime and we all just had to eat chips and salsa for dinner although no one complained), I think perhaps I should just finish this round of housekeeping in the next few weeks and then let it go.

Like for another decade, as I have in the past.

It’s better that way. For everyone.

My Super Secret Superhero Mission du jour

I have spent the last several days just clearing out the toy room. After five kids and about 15 years, there are a LOT of toys. The girls went to my neighbor’s yard sale the other morning and brought home more treasures, and I thought, “That’s it! It has to stop somewhere.” Not that the trinkets were bad. They’re fine. But they just added to the already enormous pile of toys that’s probably cloning out there.

So today, I felt super duper super when I took the kids to school and then dashed home and made quick work (well, kinda slow– everything takes longer than I think it will) of a huge black plastic garbage bag full of sheer trash. Broken toys, ripped doll clothes, actual garbage. THEN, I loaded up a second huge black plastic garbage bag full of toys they really, really don’t need. Toys they’re too old for, toys they never play with, toys I find truly annoying. It’s hidden in the back of the truck to be deposited at the thrift store for some other mom to enjoy someday.

Like the cute young mom who offered to buy my gallon-Ziplock bag full of mega-bloks for $5. Bless her heart!

NOT ONLY THAT, but I also got rid of a huge, square grand piano last week. It was a collection site in my living room for about 10 years. Just a landing place for people’s homework and neckties and computer parts and dust. Now? Someone else’s living room collection site. Someone who I hope will give it the respect it deserves. It was a pretty thing. Just…magnetic.

Phew. Can I just say? It’s great to chuck stuff in the trash. Very empowering.

There’s probably some analogy, like decluttering = severe manuscript editing in there, but I’m just not in that mode for a few more weeks. I need some kind of super hero cape and mask as I carry on in my important, sanity-saving work of making the house safe. For a time.

 

Everyday Annoyingness

I just got my JCPenney mailer yesterday. It’s the new flashy, colorful one from the revamped JCPenny taken over by the former Apple executive. Cute stuff, but the models are all a LOT taller than I am so I have no sense of how any of that stuff would look on me. Oh, and it looks like the only food they’ve had in years is dry crackers. Poor girls.

But back to the pamphlet. It’s been streamlined down to a few pages like a booklet instead of the big honking catalog they used to send. I loved that catalog. But it’s all online now, so I can see the utility of not sending that. I say I used to love the catalog, but I have a caveat. I did love it–before they started their slogan “JCPenney: Everyday.”

What’s with that? Every single time I looked at that slogan I winced.

Why?

Because “everyday” is an adjective. It means “ordinary,” or “commonplace,” or “usual.”

Why would a big company want to shout constantly to the world, “Hey! We’re ordinary!”

No wonder they needed to headhunt an Apple executive to come in and restructure things. Didn’t they have anyone on staff who could point out this obvious, glaring error in their advertising? I ask you.

Now, if they’d been a little more grammtically savvy and chosen the two-word version of this lineup of letters, calling it, “JCPenney: Every Day,” it would have made more sense. Like they wanted customers to come in and shop every day because every day they would need the great stuff at JCPenney. Not just ordinary, boring, everyday stuff.

I guess I have a little pet peeve about this, it would seem. So, here’s my momentary, mini-campaign to point out the difference.

Everyday = an adjective that means commonplace. “It’s only the Joneses coming for dinner tonight and not the Carstairs, so just use the everyday stoneware and not the fine china.”

Every day = an adverbial phrase that means a frequency of an activity. “I would shop at JCPenney every day if I were as tall as those willowy models, but you can’t make me subsist on saltine crackers alone, so I’ll need a larger size than the fashion they show in the booklet.”

Whew. Rant complete. Now I think I’ll go order a dress shirt for my husband from JCPenney, since they dumped their annoying slogan. In fact, I’ll get two. He needs another blue one since he wears blue almost every day.

 

Scottsdale Rocks! Flagstaff is Cool!

Had a fun weekend going on a mini-book tour at Barnes and Noble stores!

Friday I hit the Barnes and Noble in Scottsdale, the one on Shea and the Loop 101. It was a really busy store, and people were coming in and out with their kids after school. Everyone there was in a great mood, happily buying books to read, chipper and friendly. The staff plunked me down at a table right next to the front door so I could accost people coming in with my “Can I tell you about my novel?” line. Luckily, lots of people stopped to listen to my spiel:

“It’s the story of this guy, Buck Cooper. He’s huge. He’s fat. He’s Texan. He goes to Japan and accidentally becomes the first blond sumo wrestler.”

And with that, voila, the customers let it sink in and then everyone cracked a smile. It was funny to watch the identical reactions. A woman who purchased a copy also took a stack of bookmarks to take to her book club and see if they’d like to have it as one of their reading selections. Yeah!

Best of all, some really cool friends made the drive to the North Valley. I had writer friends come. Friends who used to live in our town but who’d moved to Phoenix came. Political friends. And even my awesome friend Tory from my freshman year of college. I have to say, without Tory, there might not be a Buck Cooper. Tory decided to go on a mission and her example and encouragement made me think I could do it too. And I ended up in Japan.

Tory and moi at the Scottsdale Barnes and Noble. We’re both wearing her scarf design!

Thanks, Tory! Oh, and thanks for the very cool scarf. Tory’s making these and they’re beautiful. And washable. And they’re her very own design. She has apatent.*I* have a friend with her very own patent. I think that makes me pretty much cool by association. Check out her scarves here.

 

The next day I bombed on up to Flagstaff. Do you know, it’s actually cool there? I mean, weather cool. Like 73 degrees. I felt like I’d fast-forwarded the calendar by three months or something. And I got to eat lunch with my niece Kendle and her cute beau, Mike, at Chipotle. Giant burritos with delicious rice and salsa in them. Very cool. It was great to see Kendle. She’s a total doll. And my friend Kimberlee stopped in with her two cute boys–who had both been born since Kimberlee lived near me, so that was really fun.

Good times!

What Writers Do in the Off-Season

Last week my husband said the three most magical words to me.

Yeah, yeah. He said those too. But the other most magical words: “We need new carpet.”

Who CARES if that’s four words. Yesssss! As if I haven’t been dropping hints about this since the DAY WE MOVED IN. This carpet was never my choice. In fact, I’ve pretty much winced in revulsion every step I’ve had to take on it. So. Ugly. But it was in good condition. (Emphasis on was.) So we didn’t replace it right away. I did my best to keep it shampooed and to put down the throw rug under the kitchen table (WHY have light blue carpet in the dining room? I ASK you!)

So. Now, 12 1/2 years and five kids and about 900,000 gallons of red Kool Aid and who-knows-how-many other unfortunate fluid spills later…it’s not light blue. It’s something else. I don’t think there’s a Crayola even in the 128 pack that describes it.

But Gary can SEEEEE now that it’s time! Hallelujah!

UNFORTUNATELY for me, as much as I am desperate for the new carpet, I’m also a realist. The walls (12 years and no fresh coats of paint later, possibly 17 years, since who knows if the former owners ever painted) MUST be painted. I went through the total agonies last week of trying to choose just the perfect color for each wall. It went something like this:

“Um, does this look white to you? How white? Too white? I mean, because we don’t want to go too white, it’ll feel like a hospital room.” Or, on days when I was thinking of other tones and brought home the free quart from Ace on “Free Quart Saturday” in just the PERFECT shade, it went more like this. “Wow, Jen. That’s really dark. If you put that in the hallway, it’ll be a lot like a dungeon. It’s already like the scariest tunnel of fear and darkness there. I won’t be able to walk down the hall to our room if you do that color.”

Fine. Back to white. Or light grey.

So, I bought this putty color. It was in my friend Mary’s house and looked absolutely PERFECT. So, I grabbed a quart of that and started in the girls’ room. Best place to start, since it has the worst walls and is the most out-of-the-way. “Two Turtle Doves” is the name of this shade. I slap it on the walls. It’s kind of dark and dungeon like in the girls’ room, so I assemble the light I got from Ikea and put it in there too, since most of the lightbulbs in the ’90s white and gold ceiling fan are burned out, and when I replace them it doesn’t make any difference.

Two Turtle Doves is fine. It’s not NEARLY as perfect as it was at Mary’s house. But she has fantastic hardwood floors and it’s just all chic in there. Our house is ’90′s-and-yard-sale-tastic. Two Turtle Doves grows on me. But, then I see a blip of paint that hit the cream colored ceiling and it hits me:

I am going to have to paint ceilings.

Have I mentioned my height? Or lack of it? How on EARTH am I going to paint ceilings? Our ladder (it’s pretty high, 6 or 7 feet), will NOT get me up there.

Then I strike gold. I will just repaint the house the same color it is. The trim is already the same color (somebody originally had the same idea I did–just swipe the paint on there and get it over with!) Laziness WINS! As does not having to paint any ceilings. Except maybe over the tiny dots of chocolate milk splashed above the dining room table.

Here’s a pic of my practice-run of painting something for the first time in YEEEEARS:

Girls’ room bookshelf. WAS icky wood-panel laminate. Now kinda cute white with contact paper in the back. Adding 2 more shelves. And books. Lots of books.

So this is what I’m doing while I mull over the newly-minted outline of my rewrite of my WIP about art. I paint. Poorly. And insert photos sideways onto my blog, too.

Good Friends and Sell-Outs

I think I have the coolest friends ever.

Last Saturday at the signing at Bookworms, so many cool people showed up. Some bought books, some brought books they’d previously bought for me to sign. One brought me a purple Sharpie marker (thanks, Melinda!), one brought me a delicious sugar cookie brownie thing with great frosting. (I am kind of a frosting snob, so that matters.)

In fact, so many good folks of the Gila Valley came down to the store that the supply of copies of Big in Japan sold out. Yeehaw! Thank you, great friends! So much!

Felt great to be there. I really appreciated the Eastern Arizona Courier for their article letting everyone know about it, and also the radio station, KATO (thanks, CW) for the interview that morning. My husband recorded the audio of the show, and someday when I figure out how to do it I’ll upload it here.  (It could be a while.)

Meanwhile, my 1999 Suburban turned over 200,000 miles this afternoon. There was this brief moment where it was 199,999.1 when I almost wanted to stop the car on the highway and take a photo of the cool, binary odometer. I do love binary stuff. I celebrated by eating three bites of Bluebell Ice Cream at family home evening tonight. Even though I’m (supposedly) off sugar.

It was a celebration, what can I say?

Booksigning and Newspaper Article

In this morning’s paper is an article about my upcoming booksigning! I’ll be signing copies of BIG IN JAPAN at Bookworms Bookstore on Highway 70 in Thatcher this Saturday morning, August 18th from 10:00 until 1:00 (unless copies run out.)

PLUS, I’ll be talking on KATO radio AM 1230 at 7:30 that morning. I hope I don’t have a panic attack. I get all nervousy and stuff. The local media is super nice to me.

So, since Krista mentioned this website in her article I’m going to add some cool links here. First is the link to the book’s website, courtesy of Jolly Fish Press. They did a bang-up job, didn’t they?

Here’s a link to the page on Amazon with the reviews. Here’s a link to the reviews on Goodreads. Here’s a link to the purchase page on Barnes and Noble, in case you’re a nook reader.

If there’s anybody who already bought a book and wants to bring it down to Bookworms for me to sign, please do! It’d be fun to see you. (And the Bookworms folks won’t mind.)

I really appreciated the article! I do have to clarify one thing–that there’s not a strong emphasis on Buck “wandering through the Texas landscape” going on in the book. Hindsight is 20/20, but I should’ve made sure to provide the reporter with a copy (even though she was on deadline.)