Breakfast of Champions

I just wanted to take a moment to give a shout out to Marjorie M Liu.  She is an author whose earlier work was one of my biggest inspirations for writing.  As a matter of fact the first book of hers that I read had me running into the other room to tell my hubby that this author is already writing almost exactly how I'm going to write!

Once I even had breakfast with her, just the two of us.  We met at a reader/author conference thing in Cincinnati and I tried my hardest to play it cool.  Apparently I played it cool enough that she was willing to meet for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  It was a huge moment for me, one that I will always remember.  We talked about writing and publishing but also about life and family.  Turns out bestselling authors are regular people, and that was the coolest thing of all for me.  She was normal and I'm (relatively) normal so what is there to stop me from being a writer?  Nothing!

So thanks, Marjorie!  Someday I intend to dedicate my first book to you (and my family, of course).  You may never see it or know it but it will be there.  Because sometimes it only takes some eggs and toast to provide a life changing perspective.  

Artistic Explorations

Okay, I have been putting off this post for way too long, but now I need to just get it off of my chest -
Gena Showalter's book Last Kiss Goodnight was not her best work.

There, I said it.  Gena Showalter, who I love and look to as an example in good writing, made a book with flaws.  It wasn't as much of a fall-on-your-face problem such as Lori Foster's My Man Michael (which was well and truly awful), but it was not what I had come to expect from such a talented writer.

First, my thoughts on the book - it was okay.  Lower case 'l'.  I dug the whole beauty and beast thing, the addition of demonic forces was worth a small nod and the circus environment was very cool.  The hero was tough, vulnerable and worth rooting for.  The heroine was...ok.  I saw that I was supposed to see her as tough and vulnerable since she was abused by her father, had no place to go and yet maintained her compassion but I still never really grooved with her.  She was a bit of a caricature to me: pretty + spunky + abused + gentle = perfect romantic novel heroine.  Meh.

But since I am such a sucker for the beauty and the beast story line I was totally willing to roll with it.  Until the angel and devil popped up on the hero's shoulders.  Really?  Angel and devil speaking into each ear trying to tempt a man into good or evil?  I kind of got my fill of that back in the Warner Bros days of my youth.  If felt like it was a writing short cut for the hero's inner turmoil, his change of heart and ultimately his survival of the climax.  (Oops, spoiler alert - but then the hero always survives so it's not exactly a big surprise!)

And so even though I wanted to write my 'review' since the day after I bought the story I have held off. I even read the story again, hoping  that it would be better.  But not really.  Still the same decent story sprinkled with way too much out of place hack.

But then, after coming upon a scathing review of My Man Michael on Amazon I realized something - writers, even writers that you love, have no obligation to write the story that you want to read every time.  They are artistic and creative people who are free to experiment, play and stretch their figurative wings in whatever way makes them happy.  If an author stays in a place that I find to be weird and do not like then I don't have to read their work anymore, even if I might mourn the lose of what I thought they could do.

Here's a secret, I'm married to a professional artist.  Really.  And he is always working to see if he can draw better, paint better, write better or try a new medium.  If you don't live with and artist then that might seem flaky but here is the thing - art comes from the soul and the soul is constantly changing.  Sure the basics are the same but the world and the input that you give yourself in books or art are always affecting it.

So I am not a huge fan of Last Kiss Goodnight but I admire the fact that Ms Showalter tried something a little different.  And as for Ms Foster...I think that I am not her only fan to say, "Nice try, but I'm going to pretend that this never happened".

The 5 Stages of WTFness.

Time for a little sharing, not too much, so don't worry!  My dad has been diagnosed with a nice, slow growing cancer.

That is what we in the writing biz like to call 'Bullshit'.  Also, as a bit of history, I have a lovely slow growing cancer that is pretty much gone but refuses to look like it on blood work.  So that makes this bit of news upsetting but kindof old hat.  I know how this works, I know that the news is the most horrible part of it and I know that eventually life will go on as normal.

But first there are stages of getting through it that must be lived through.  Forget the Stages of Grief, to call this Greif is to give it too much power.  I prefer to make my own names, my own ways and my own stages.  And so I present to you...The Five Stages of WTFness!

Stage 1.  You just found out something truly life changing.  Your child has autism (been there, got that t-shirt), you can't have anymore babies (that t-shirt is a lovely pink), you have cancer (a red t-shirt), your mother won't be getting better and will need a nurse to care for her when you and your dad are at work (wow, I have a lot of t-shirts!),  your dad has CLL...  You get the point, those moments when life HAPPENS to you.

Stage 2.  Shock and Awe.  Numb, numb, numb.  Your brain, who loves you, realizes that you need time to 'process' before you can reeeeally process and so it shuts you down a bit.  You may or may not cry but you will probably end up on the floor staring at the wall at some point.  It seems pathetic, but don't worry, it's all part of the process!

Stage 3.  Cry.  Your.  Eyes.  Out.  I mean cry until your sinuses swell shut, you can't put contacts in past your puffy eyes and you stop bothering with Kleenex because you are wearing a perfectly good and absorbant long sleeved sweater or shirt.

Stage 4.  Reason.  Research your guts out on the internets.  Read the facts and then read them again.  They are bricks to tie to your ankles to keep you on the ground in case Stages 2 or 3 pop up again.

Stage 5.  What the hell am I doing with my life!?  Any issue that is traumatic enough to trigger the Stages of WTFness is traumatic enough to effect your life whether in thought or deed.  And so you can and should take the opportunity to look at your life with a critical eye.  Kid has autism?  Make sure I know how to love him in a way he understands and what I can do to be his biggest champion.  No more bio kids?  What is required for adoption and how soon can I start that process?  Cancer?  How do I simplify my life?  My dad's cancer?  What am I doing with my life that I would love to change?

You see, for me and my dad we are not super emotional people.  He is treating his cancer like I did mine, it's just a pain in the ass to get through and a warning to live with purpose.  But since this is my second walk down C Blvd, I am feeling a bit more existential than that.

If my life is full of crap to get over and live with then what am I doing to make sure that I am making the living part worth while?

That is the question for this week's homework.

Good luck.

Just found this quote and really like it.  I think it explains what I was trying to get down in my post a couple of days ago.

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living.  Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or  you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are  hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first,  restlessness. The second symptom(when hibernating becomes dangerous  and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears  like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car.  They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock  treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them  and saves them from death." ~Anais Nin