« October 2004 | Main | December 2004 »
November 30, 2004
On being blasted by random web surfers . . .
Alesia, from bemusement central...
So I open my reader mail and have one from a guy in Texas, who is kind enough to leave his entire signature line on the note (name, company, address, phone, fax, etc.). He works in an insurance agency, and I now know exactly where it is, in case I wanted to track him down and whack him over the head with his e-mail. Or report him for surfing on company time. Or, you know, something creative.
He writes:
>>just bumpin' along through your website. i'm curious, and serious, do you consider what you do "literary"? when you go to bed at night, do you feel good about calling your work "literary"?
just curious.
Todd<<
So I write back:
"Well, it beats working in an insurance agency.
just serious."
This is clearly somebody who has never read my books, but found me via our literary chicks blogsite. Todd, Todd, Todd. Tsk, tsk. A little reality check here – I guess you missed the forum posts comparing my work to Steinbeck? Hemingway? Wolfe? Homer? (That would be the Iliad dude, but I’ll take Simpson).
Or were you just surfing the web on company time for a phrase like ‘sex toys’ and came up with the first chapter of NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST? ‘Fess up, Todd. We’re all adults here. Getting those brown paper-wrapped packages at work, now?
Plus, it’s a little personal asking about what I do when I go to bed at night. I know being a writer and having a website makes me a public figure, but, you know, eeuuuwwwwww.
Alesia, who is never serious
p.s. Hey, everybody! Just for fun, check out the Top 10 Ways you know you're Not a Nice Girl! Except, of course, if you're Todd.
Posted by Alesia at 9:45 PM | Comments (2)
November 24, 2004
Gratitude, Among Other Things...
Lani, writing from Dante's Fifth Ring Of Hell...
... also known as SickKid-Ville. Yargh.
So, because I've got sick kids, and I've been sick, and because I have to go out in a few minutes and edit a PSA for Syracuse Habitat for Humanity, I'm gonna steal Alesia's idea and say what I'm thankful for.
I'm sure the very idea of this is so riveting that your hand is literally shaking. I'll give you a moment to gather yourself before I continue.
Better? Okay. Let's get cracking.
Let me start with one quick caveat - I'm leaving out the meaningful stuff. You know. Husband. Kids. My fellow Literary Chicks. Clean water. Relatively good health. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yadda yadda yadda. That stuff goes without saying and Alesia did her list so graciously that I would look like a big, fat copycat and while that's what I am, I like to be a little more discreet with my copycatting.
So I'm going with the less obvious stuff. The stuff that, in the end, doesn't really matter much. But it's more interesting, so here I go...
I'm grateful for medications that cure nail fungus, but give you diarrhea, dry mouth (what exactly is dry mouth, anyway? And how the hell is that a side-effect of medication? Isn't the cure for this... you know... water?), heart irregularities, internal bleeding, muscle aches, nervous ticks and very, very, very bad breath. But, as they lower you into your grave, at least your nails will be super-fungus-free. Whew.
I'm grateful for my DVR, which records Oprah for me every day without giving me a hard time about it. If only my husband could do the same.
I'm grateful for Lovely Colin Firth, because... well... he's Lovely.
I'm grateful for Laurie Dhue. In the summer of 2003, I was in New York and I passed her on the street while she was picking out fruit at a sidewalk market. I mentioned her as an aside in my blog, and she has since been my top search string draw, getting me thousands of hits and possibly a book sale or two. Go, Laurie Dhue!
I'm grateful for chocolate, because... well... it's chocolate.
I'm grateful for duct tape because if you are willing to part with a simple thing like, say, your pride, there is no vehicle part that cannot be fixed with duct tape. I would include a picture of the family van for an illustration of this point, but as I'm tight on time, I'm just going to let your imaginations do the work. Let me just say... it's blue, but we call it the Silver Bullet.
I'm grateful that Robitussin not only makes a kid stop coughing, but also makes them fall asleep. Also, it does not cause diarrhea, dry mouth, heart irregularities, internal bleeding, muscle aches, nervous ticks or very, very, very bad breath as side effects. Yay, me.
Okay. Gotta run. Gotta edit. Gotta dope the kids up on Robitussin. May your holidays be full of cheer, and hopefully also, something alcoholic. Enjoy!
Posted by Lani at 8:51 AM | Comments (4)
November 23, 2004
On being thankful
Alesia, from pumpkin pie central...
Hi all. I've been MIA because first my daughter was miserably sick for AN ENTIRE WEEK, and then she gave it to me. As par for the course, it magnified in me, and for 9 days I've been down with a miserable case of the flu. Finally went to the doc Friday because it got worse and I evidently have all sorts of miserable 'itises' -- sinusitis, bronchitis, and flu. He gave me 5 different bottles of drugs, all of which have hideous potential side effects (being a former drug lawyer, I always read the fine print, which scares the hell out of a person).
I mean - do I want my congestion to subside badly enough to risk stomach bleeding???
Irritability? (ha! like I don't have that anyway, with a deadline looming and being this sick.)
Hair growing out of strange places??? (Ok I made that one up, but you never can tell.)
Anyway, in the midst of feeling sorry for myself and blowing my nose through my fifth box of Puffs, I looked at the calendar and started thinking of reasons to be thankful. . .
I’m thankful for the my wonderful husband, who believed in me and my writing career even when I wasn’t sure that I did. I’m thankful for my amazing children, who taught me all about unconditional love. (Trust me, if you can love somebody who is loud, messy, demanding, and sometimes smelly, it’s unconditional love.)
I’m thankful for my readers more than I can ever express. It still feels like a miracle to me each time a total stranger spends hard-earned money to buy one of my books. I’m thankful for the letters I get telling me I made someone laugh, or touched her heart, or helped her escape from her troubles for a few hours.
I’m thankful for Lani and Michelle, my wonderful friends and fellow writers who created a community and friendship with me. And I’m thankful for all of the new writers I’ve met on this crazy journey. We’re all nuts, but at least we’re nuts together! :)
Most of all, I’m thankful for having the chance to dream. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! May you have many, many reasons of your own to be thankful.
Hugs,
Alesia
Posted by Alesia at 2:55 PM | Comments (1)
November 17, 2004
How I amuse myself...
Lani, writing from lovely Syracuse...
You know, there's something that happens to you when you become a parent. Or, rather, happened to me when I became a parent. Well, when I became a parent of kids old enough to watch certain television shows with the religious fervor I've had for such fare as Moonlighting, Northern Exposure, The X-Files and Buffy.
So, maybe it is just me. Maybe it's hereditary. So this is going to be less a "funny because it's a shared experience" blog and more a "funny because isn't Lani a big doof" blog. But, what the hey, it's all a good time, right?
God willing...
... anyway, this is what I do. When I'm watching a particular episode of some mind-numbing children's television show (because very little children's television isn't mind-numbing) of which I've watched about ten episodes eighteen-gazillion times (repetition - the staple of the kiddie tv diet) I tend to imagine the characters in adult scenarios just to amuse myself.
For instance, right now, as I watch Dora The Explorer hang out with her inane monkey/best friend Boots, I imagine that Boots is dealing crack and keeps the stash in his boots (thus explaining why the monkey's foot coverings are easily five times his body mass). This also explains why, despite the fact that Dora and Boots go to the Big Mountain at least every other episode, they can never find it without the help of Map. Crack is hell on short-term memory.
As for the Sesame Street gang, I've always suspected that Big Bird is manic-depressive, Elmo needs ritalin, and Cookie Monster has an eating disorder. I mean, come on. He keeps chomping cookies, but never actually swallows anything.
Barney the Purple Dinosaur is the result of someone's college drug experimentation. Joe on Blue's Clues can't get a date, wears the same shirt every day and spends all his time playing mystery games with his dog and he's happy about it. Clearly, there are issues there. I still don't have a theory for the Teletubbies. Those guys are just creepy.
I'm one of those people who should have never had children, aren't I? Whoops. Well, too late now. Keep my poor babes in your prayers.
Posted by Lani at 4:52 PM | Comments (5)
November 16, 2004
Stretching literary muscles
Alesia, from yet another deadline central...
I’m writing a character in my new book, NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST, who is giving me fits. Literally. I mean, there’s twitching. It’s just not pretty.
Why? Because she’s genuinely nice. Brianna is the good old-fashioned, sincere, earnest, kind, full of goodness and lemon-scented nice. Brianna works for Kirby, who is a snarky smart-ass trying to make it big by being tougher than the next guy. I adore Kirby. I empathize with Kirby.
To paraphrase the delicious Brendan Fraser in THE MUMMY, “Kirby, I get. Brianna, I don’t get.”
So my question of the day is: Do nice girls really finish first?
A huge part of the chick lit voice, for me, is the funny, cynical, ironic, and realistic take on life, love, and all the other craziness. It fits me perfectly, because I AM that person. That voice you hear when you read my books – that’s the real me, not some artificial persona I put on like a red leather glove when I’m writing. (Although, writing with gloves would be difficult, but you see where I’m going.)
Part of me has always been a little cynical and a little skeptical of people who seem to be genuinely nice. I watch them and wonder when the crack in the niceness veneer will happen – when the true, evil self will rise up and smack somebody down. (This is a flaw in my personality; I can admit it.)
Or else I wonder what they want from me.
So writing a truly nice person is a literary stretch. I keep veering over to just a touch of snark in her introspection, or else I mock her a teensy bit without even realizing it, by having her say the equivalent of ‘Gee Whiz’ in dialogue.
So my new strategy is: Embrace the Nice. Stop Battling the Nice. Now I’m writing Brianna as someone who is kind and caring and sweet, but maybe needs to learn how to be a little bit of a diva to realize her goals. I’m still stretching, but not so much racked with pain.
Have a good week – Embrace the Nice.
Hugs,
Alesia, trying to be nice. Or, maybe, just a little nicer.
Posted by Alesia at 6:52 PM | Comments (1)
Bridget's Scary Knickers and Freaky Friday...
From Michelle, the disaster area...
Well, I had a bit of an eventful weekend. When I say eventful, I don't mean it in a crazy, wacky, go-to-fun-parties kind of way. I mean in a why-do-these-things-always-happen-to-me kind of way.
First disaster of the weekend: On Friday, I dropped the iron in rather a dramatic way. It smashed to smithereens and blew out half of the apartment's electrics, naturally, because when I am clumsy I do not do it by halves...
Now the electric cupboard is situated just outside the front door of the apartment, so all I had to do was to open it and replace the blown fuse. I can do this, I thought to myself. I have the technology--at least, I have the fuses! Unfortunately, it was at that point that I discovered that we hadn't got a key to access the electric cupboard...
Why do these things always happen on Friday afternoons when everything and everyone is winding down for the weekend? I envisaged a weekend without power in the kitchen (therefore no cooking, which is good), and a weekend without a refrigerator and freezer (therefore all the food in the refrigerator and freezer would go bad, which is not so good). One desperate phone call to the very nice real estate agent, one visit by the very nice locksmith, and bingo! The very nice locksmith also changed the fuse for me!
Second disaster of the weekend: I went to see the new Bridget Jones movie early Sunday evening, so, of course, the police were called and the movie got cancelled. It's absolutely true! This is what happened...
I purchased my ticket, bought my concessions and settled myself in the very nice comfy theater chair. Now, the Dutch as a race are very tall, so there is plenty of legroom in Dutch movie theatres.
The lights go down, people stop chatting and lapse into a silent, expectant hush...and then about 30-40 youths between the ages of about 12 and 16 decided to run up and down the aisles, shout and curse a lot, and generally make it impossible for anyone to hear the movie.
So after the management tried to remove them (they really did try but all they got was a string of abuse), the movie got stopped and the police were called.
The manager was so nice and very apologetic, and we all got our money back--but I still haven't seen Bridget's scary knickers...
Michelle, who plans another trip to the movies just as soon as she's got over the trauma
Posted by Michelle at 8:44 AM | Comments (1)
November 13, 2004
He's So Lovely
Lani, writing from lovely Syracuse...
Had a great day today. Went to the movies with a girlfriend and saw Lovely Colin in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Many people don't like this movie, but I loved it because Lovely Colin was in it and I lurrrrrrv him.***
Oh, and we've officially re-named CWaP from Lilly....
***I don't know what it is about that man that regresses me to the mentality of a thirteen year old. I'll ask his picture when I kiss it goodnight.
Kidding, kidding, I'm kidding. I don't actually kiss the picture goodnight. I learned that lesson the hard way when my C. Thomas Howell picture was ruined by my Bonne Bell Dr. Pepper lip gloss in the seventh grade. With Colin's picture, I just kind of wave goodnight...
Kidding! I don't have a Colin picture.
I have a blow-up doll.
Kidding... okay, enough of this... even I know when a joke gets old...
... to Tobey. Named for a cat I was forced to put in Time Off For Good Behavior as part of a Nano writing challenge, and then was forced to take out when my editor said, "What's the deal with the cat just suddenly showing up here?"
So... Tobey it is. Sweetness and Light don't quite understand. They keep asking me why I've started calling the cat Tobey.
"Her name is Lilly!" Sweetness (the older daughter) will say.
"Not a he," I reply.
"Stop calling Lilly names!" Light will say.
"Stop calling Tobey Lilly," I shoot back.
It's nice to be able to talk to your children on their level. I should be able to continue doing that until their maturity outpaces mine. Sweetness is 5 now, so I give it... maybe a year or so. Wish me luck.
In other news, I'm making fine progress on TBTAKL (The Book That Almost Killed Lani, otherwise known as MAYBE BABY, due out in June 2005). I call it TBTAKL (little pet name) because it hasn't killed me yet. Yet being the operative word here. I tell you this because if it does kill me, I want the police to know where to look. That's all I'm saying.
Posted by Lani at 8:44 PM | Comments (3)
November 11, 2004
The 11th Hour...
from Michelle, quietly reflective in Rotterdam...
This morning at 11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time--the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month--I kept a 2 minute silence as Big Ben finished bonging the time from Westminster. I have done this every year for as long as I can remember.
Today in the UK it is Remembrance Day...
On the 11th of November, 1919, at 5 a.m. in the morning in France, the Armistice was signed. Six hours later World War I ended.
Since then it has been a tradition that at this hour, on this day, in this month, we give thanks and remember ALL those who gave up their lives in combat.
And on today of all days, as I watched the Queen and Prince Philip lay their tributes to two unknown soldiers who died In WWI, I had tears streaming down my face and one simple thought in mind:
Peace on earth and goodwill to all men (and women and children, obviously)
Michelle xx
Posted by Michelle at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)
November 9, 2004
Birthday presents
Alesia, from birthday party central...
OK, birthday cake is calorie free, right? It’s like a law? If not, it should be.
Hey, I’ve lost 9 ½ pounds, so I deserve a little birthday cake!!
So Navy Guy proved again that he’s a keeper. I’m a total gadget geek, and he came through with a mini flash drive. What the heck is that, you normal (read: non-geekoid type) people ask?
It’s a tiny thing, about the size of a lipstick, but flat, that’s basically a big honking pile of computer memory. I saved all of my book files on it and only used around 1% of the memory. You have to understand the completely irrational compulsion to save your book files that screams through the psyche of any working author. We’ve all heard the “I lost 15 chapters of my book when lightning struck my power lines and my computer went down and it was only 3 days from my deadline” stories. This prospect strikes terror into the hardiest of writers.
We’re terrified, so we back up. And back up. And back up. We save to floppies and CDs and flash drives. We e-mail files to ourselves, so if every computer in the state of Florida, for example, goes down in another hurricane, I could drive to Georgia and get on my internet e-mail account and retrieve my book. We mail CDs of files to relatives in other states, because . . . well, you’re getting my point by now. LOL!
So here I am, with my birthday cake and my lovely flowers and my new slippers and my flash drive. Plus I’m living my dream of being a full-time writer. Life is pretty darn wonderful, isn’t it?
Hugs,
Alesia, another year happier
p.s. SHOP ‘TIL YULE DROP hit the Bookscan bestseller list again! Thanks to all of you who helped make that possible! (Remember, it fits in a Christmas stocking! LOL.)
Posted by Alesia at 10:12 PM | Comments (5)
November 7, 2004
CWaP
Lani, writing on her lazy laptop lying on the lazy couch...
Hey, dig me! I haven't blogged in over a week! La-hooo-ser!
Thanks so much to the super-cool Lit Chicks who picked up the slack for me. Love ya, girls!
Anyway, I've been back for a week now and moved straight into monster revisions on MAYBE BABY, my June release from Warner Forever, so that's part of why I've been so absent. The other reason?
I'm just plain lazy. Not a huge secret, this, but for those of you not in the know, I thought I'd get it out on the table early on.
It's not as easy as you'd think, you know, being lazy. It's a special art. For instance, when you're married with young children, it's hard to be really lazy. There are no entire days spent on the couch surrounded by various foodstuffs and watching a week's worth of TiVo'd Oprah episodes.
(Am I the only one feeling a little gypped that TiVo didn't exist when I was childless? Anyway...)
No, no. Being lazy with children requires much planning and thought, because in order to be truly lazy with children, you have to find a way to manipulate your partner (if you're single with children, lazy will just never happen, you might as well give up now) into doing the work. My husband and I, both being inherently lazy people, are experts at this. Whenever one of us manages to manipulate the other into doing the work, we usually respond (from the couch) to the manipulatee's grumbles with some variation on, "Ah, yes, Grashoppah. Watch. Learn."
For instance, my husband is the expert in Feigning Sleep. This is what happens, pretty much almost every morning. The girls wake up, and come gunning for me. I don't know why it's always me. It just is. They say, "Mommy, Mommy, we need food/clothing/shelter/etc." And I say, "Go ask your father." And they walk over to Adam, stare at him for a moment, and then they return to me.
"He's sleeping," they say.
"So was I," I say. "Wake him up."
"Mother, dear," they say, "although we're young, we recognize instinctively that we wish not to waste our whining on fruitless pursuits. Now, get up lady, we want orange juice."
"Ask Daddy to get you orange juice," I say, hiding my head under the pillow.
"Did you not hear us the first time, woman?" they say. "He's sleeping."
Ah. Sure. Sleeping. Riiiigggghhhhht. But there's not much I can do. The girls can scream and cry right under his nose, and until they're dressed and fed, he won't stir. I could pour buckets of ice water down his pants and tweeze his nose hairs, and still - nada until breakfast has been served.
Score one: Adam. The man is a master.
Me, on the other hand, I'm a little more direct. Once the morning has been taken care of and Adam has finally "woken up" I then start in on the list of things "we" need to do.
"We need to do laundry," I say. "Dishes. The cat box. Vacuuming. And there's something living under the sink."
"By 'we' you mean 'me,' right?" Adam will say.
"Of course not," I respond. "I'll do the cat box."
Eventually, I think silently. But see, he can't fight, because he hates the cat box and he knows that if he pushes me, he might get stuck with it. Because in the end, I am woman, and I get my way. He knows it. I know it. Who ever says men have all the power has not been living in my house or the house of any woman I know.
Score one: Lani. Yesssss, Grasshoppah.
Currently, we're engaged in the ultimate battle of laziness, as the task doesn't even require physical effort - naming the cat.
A few weeks ago, we got a kitten named Lilly. She was cute, but skittish. She hid in the tiny crevices of the apartment and would only come out at night, after all of us had gone to bed. Which was okay, because... lazy. If she was out all day, we'd have to pet her and stuff.
In the past week, however, she decided she liked us, and has been joining us during the waking hours. Which is how I made it three weeks with this cat without realizing something very important.
"Lilly" has a penis.
We found out yesterday. Celia was scratching her - I mean, his - back and he arched his butt up and I happened to see a bulge in the back area and thought, "Hmmm, methinks something's very wrong with our girl cat." So I picked him up and turned him over and...
Well. Hey. Dig that. Lilly has a Willy.
So, since then, Adam and I have been hot-potatoing the task of re-naming Lilly with something a little more masculine.
"Willy," I said. "Because, you know, he has one."
"No," Adam said, "Frank."
I tilted my head and looked at the tiny, skinny little thing. Eh. Couldn't do it. Tiny cat. Big name. Didn't work.
"No," I said. "I don't think so."
"Hm," Adam said, flipping the channel on the remote.
"Hm," I said, sitting down with my laptop.
So, as it stands, Cat With a Penis still doesn't have a final name. I've taken to calling him CWaP, for short. And it's a sophomoric humor play on "crap" which he likes to do. A lot.
Speaking of which, "we" need to clean out the CWaP box. I'm gonna go tell Adam...
... in a minute.
Posted by Lani at 2:55 PM | Comments (3)
Spam!
From Michelle, in the Slagroom...
Did you know that spam is speedily gaining popularity and is getting to be the new "in" thing?
It's absolutely true! But I don't mean the Internet variety, I mean the meat variety that comes in a can...
Spam. I love it! You can put it in a sandwich, you can casserole it, you can grill it, you can fry it. Was there ever such a versatile food?
Three cheers for the spam revival!
On a sadder note, bad news about Branston pickle (the kind Bridget Jones eats straight out of the jar--I love to eat it that way, too!).
There was a fire at the Branston pickle factory, which means that production has stopped for now, which means that Branston pickle stocks are running out, which is not good news for pickle-loving me!
Apparently, some canny people are auctioning off their Branston on ebay. Owkey, I'm heading over there RIGHT now...
Michelle
Posted by Michelle at 8:31 AM | Comments (3)
November 4, 2004
The Full Monty
From Michelle, in the Slagroom...
Sheffield, the jewel in the crown of the north of England. Home to The Full Monty, and also home to my family!
I didn't see any nekkid steel workers while I was there this last weekend, though, which was a disappointment...
But I did get to watch ultimate favorite soap on TV--Coronation Street (fondly referred to as Corrie), the UK's longest running soap. Can't remember how long, but it's at least 40 years now and at least one of the original cast (Ken Barlow) is still in it!
I love this soap. I adore this soap. So much so that while I was living in the States (which no, does not get Corrie--you just don't know what you're missing out on!) my sister and brother-in-law faithfully taped 4 episodes per week and mailed it to me so that I could keep up!
Currently, crazy Maya is still on the rampage and is terrorizing Dev and Sunita.
For a peek at what all the fuss is about, go here and check it out.
http://www.itv.com/page.asp?partid=91
Michelle
PS. Don't get Corrie in the Netherlands, either. Long suffering sister and b-i-l still taping it for me...now all I need is a European video machine so I can watch!
Posted by Michelle at 10:18 AM | Comments (2)
November 3, 2004
Election Day Hangover
Alesia, from sick daughter central...
I’m so tired and sick you’d think it was from a cheap drunk mixing whiskey and vodka. Sadly, I was stone cold sober all night. I do it to myself every four years – stay up all night watching election returns – and it usually ruins my birthday for me. Sigh. Turning 29 right after an election. Again. :)
I’m frantically preparing for travel to Orlando to speak and then to Tampa for a booksigning (plus have darling daughter home from school for the third day in a row with a nasty cold), so this is it for today, but I promise to check in soon. After I get some sleep, maybe.
Hugs,
Alesia
Posted by Alesia at 11:20 AM | Comments (1)
November 2, 2004
Food Glorious Food!
From Michelle, still in the Internet cafe...
So, I went to the UK this weekend. More about that soon, but in the meantime, here's what I ate...
Thursday evening--fish and chips with curry sauce.
Friday lunchtime--fish and chips with curry sauce.
Friday evening--curry.
Saturday lunchtime--burger and fries (no fish and chips or curry sauce available at the service station).
Saturday evening--curried cottage pie (courtesy of mom!)
Sunday lunchtime--burger and fries (ditto, no fish, chips or curry sauce available).
Sunday evening--curry (courtesy of my husband, Oh Patient One)
Can you see a pattern developing here? I love curry!
Back Thursday to tell you more about my trip to England.
Michelle, with a weight gain of 500 pounds (feels like), but it was worth it...
Posted by Michelle at 10:05 AM | Comments (2)
