Lynn Raye Harris

It’s official. I forgive them the pokey pacing, the often “lecturing down to uneducated masses” tone, and the never ending Princeton tour. The parts about the Hypnerotomachia, and the mystery as to what was hidden in the book — the who wrote it and why — was AWESOME. (The real Hypner. is coded, but this solution is fiction, though a great story nonetheless.) I would definitely give them another try if they write another book. They do have a facility with language that is simply beautiful. In fact, this book is like so many of the literary works I’ve had to read over the years — difficult, sometimes boring (can we say The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence?), but ultimately worth the effort in the payoff that comes from having stuck with the text. I absolutely adore it when a book gets to the end and a light bulb goes on and I’m like, whoa, that was amazing (Absalom! Absalom! by Faulkner).

This is short, but I’m off to the beach in a few. I have a cold, believe it or not, but sitting in the sun feels good. I’ll report later.

Funny moment last night while talking to hubby. Somehow, we were talking about the sky, and I was talking about my favorite description of sky anywhere ever. It’s in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (I’ll post it in a minute). So I’m talking about Cather and then he says, “In Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader–” and I fell over laughing before he could even finish. I laughed so hard I cried. The juxtaposition of Cather and the Bathroom Reader (full name: Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges into History) had me howling. I told him I was gonna blog this, and he said, “Great, make me sound stupid to the world.” I’m like, “Yeah, you mean me and the one or two people who accidentally stumble onto my blog from time to time.” I forget what was so important in the UJBR he had to tell me, btw. It isn’t a bad book at all, but it sure doesn’t belong in the same conversation with Cather. Ha! Hubby chalks it up to the dangers of being married to a snooty English major. Okay, here’s my favorite description of sky evah!

The ride back to Sante Fe was something under four hundred miles. The weather alternated between blinding sand-storms and brilliant sunlight. The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still,–and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one’s feet, but what one saw when one looked about one was the brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere, the sky is the roof of the world; but here, the earth was the floor of the sky.

The earth as the floor of the sky makes me shiver every time. What an image! This is a book I highly recommend. It’s about two priests from France who come to the American Southwest in the 19th century and are charged with spreading the gospel, which they do in a respectful manner that illuminates the faith and goodness of these two men. And they do get contrasted with corrupt priests so that you see what true faith is all about. It isn’t about browbeating the Mexican-Americans into casting off their tribal beliefs and embracing Christianity, as some folks believed. This book is a beautiful story. I wish I could write like that.

Last night was critique. In talking with Ann Peach, I’ve finally realized that my hero’s goal isn’t good enough or heroic enough. So, I have some thinking and rewriting to do. And, honestly, I am sort of relieved because it means I can read for the thesis and not feel guilty for not working on the book. I have to let the situation marinate for a while. Ann likened the process to the old dial-up days when the computer screen would scroll down and everything was blurry. This would happen again and again until finally the image came into focus. She said that a book is like that too. You keep working it until it comes into focus, which can take several rewrites. I am not afraid of rewrites, but I am afraid of not getting the plot right yet again. I have got to learn to outline my books. In fact, I’m going to rethink this one and do an outline before I fix the problems. According to my hidden talent (see below) I will get there if I don’t stop working on my dreams. Why did I pick this image, btw? The sky. I love to take pictures of the sky when I’m lying on the beach.

Your Hidden Talent

You are both very knowledgeable and creative. You tend to be full of new ideas and potential – big potential. Ideas like yours could change the world, if you build them. As long as you don’t stop working on your dreams, you’ll get there.

Waikiki, lying on grass, chillin. Think we climbed Diamondhead earlier that day.

To show my solidarity with the ladies suffering through tanning sessions, manicure appointments, wardrobe shopping, and hard-body dieting for the conference, I plucked my eyebrows today. Indeed, I feel your pain.

I tend to pluck haphazardly for weeks and weeks, and then one day I decide it’s time for a good plucking. So I get out the magnifiying mirror and tweezers and get busy. Today was my get busy day. I am sporting new, Kevin Aucoin-approved brows. Or at least I hope he would have approved since I used his book as a guideline.

Hubby will, quite typically, not notice a thing.

Unfortunately, I’m not talking about a svelte figure. Hubby informs me yesterday, after I spent time whining over how I just couldn’t get anything going on the novel, how I couldn’t pick up the thread, how I needed to work through the weekends and somehow didn’t do so and now I’m lost again, that I am spreading myself too thin.

Wednesday group, RWA, blogging, website updating, newsletter editing, email–these are the culprits. He says I have to stop giving time to everybody who wants it, at least for a while. He says to cut it off, hole up, and finish the book. If they are your friends, he says, they’ll be there when you’re done.

And let’s not even mention the thesis. I technically have until March 1st, but I’d really wanted to have it done, finished, gone, by October 1st so I could change my graduation date to December. If I am to make the October deadline, I need a draft ASAP so it can circulate among my committee and make it back to me in time to make the changes, circulate again, and then get to the library by Oct 1st. Really, I suppose I just have to change my expectations, live with the March deadline, pay the extra money (less than $200, so not bad) for the continuation course for Spring, and make a time table for the chapters now. Reading The Rule of Four has gotten me somewhat motivated to get back to the thesis. I even started reading De Beauvoir in earnest again.

Speaking of Rule, I am so bored with it I can hardly stand it. But the writing is beautiful, so I keep reading. I’m over half way now. I figured out the villain a long time ago. Mostly, I keep reading to see what else is revealed about the Hypnerotomachia. That part is cool. And I do think these authors have a career in front of them and will only get better with time. For a first novel, it’s a damn fine one. But, I think they could learn a thing of two from just about any Harlequin Intrigue author or romantic suspense author out there. And I’m kind of tired of the Princeton tour, too. My opinion, however, doesn’t mean much because they are successful in spite of my grumblings. A quick check of Amazon.com reveals a mixed bag of comments. I do get that it’s a literary thriller for people with brains (I didn’t say that, honest; Bookpage said it, though not quite that insultingly even if that’s what they actually meant), but I don’t think dressing it up in fancy words excuses the lack of excitement or makes me a numbwit because I notice and complain. It’s not that I don’t have a brain, or don’t get the hoity-toity scholarly stuff, it’s that I want some excitement, a reason to turn the page. It takes over 100 pages for a body to show up. And chapters are alternated between present and flashback. Too many flashbacks, IMO.

Just my opinion, as I said. You don’t have to agree with me and I won’t be insulted if you don’t. And I am just dumb enough to keep reading anyway, though I may start skimming to move it along.

I really want to get to some of the other books on my TBR, but I don’t want to stop reading a book to do it. Do you stop reading books that bore you, or do you force yourself through anyway? Sometimes I do stop, but much of the time I make myself finish, even if I skim the last half. I used to feel guilty for that, but I don’t anymore.

I am like Cinderella, but without the last minute save by the Fairy Godmother. I am not going to National. In fact, I have never been to National. I want to go, and I intend to go next year because my parents are now living within spitting distance of Atlanta. Good excuse to attend the conference and get some visiting done too.

Why have I never gone to National? Money, for one thing. I have never been able to justify the expense when I hadn’t sold a book. When I first joined RWA several years ago, I couldn’t afford the conference even if I had wanted to go. When it finally came to the city I lived in, I’d moved to Europe two years prior. And no way could I justify an international flight back to the States in any of the six years I spent overseas. Not to mention, I wasn’t writing much then.

But now I want to go. I still don’t know what good it will do me. Pitches, yeah, okay. But when you see the stats on how many books actually get bought that way, it isn’t much. Contests, the right ones, offer as much of a chance of getting your work in front of the right editor as the pitches do. Or so it has been said. I do hope to have a first sale ribbon by the next conference, though I refuse to hold my breath over that one. It’ll happen when it happens.

The thing that amazes me in reading blogs and stuff about the conference build-up is the focus on appearance. I never knew I needed a tan or manicured nails or a killer dress or a tiny waist to go to National. Good thing I’ve got a year. The tan is happening naturally, and certainly not on purpose, just from the strength of the Hawaiian sun. I don’t care how much sunblock you put on, the sun turns you brown over time anyway. If you spend any time outside, you’re gonna get brown. Now, for the manicure, I can get those in Chinatown pretty cheap. No problem there. The dress? Well, I figured I’d wear my Aloha dresses, but I can always bring the three evening gowns I possess (and never wear in Hawaii because no one gets that dressed up evah). Now, the tiny waist. Oh my. Guess I have to keep hitting the track for that one. Hubby’s been making noise about training for some damn marathon they have here. I ain’t running 26 miles for anyone! But maybe I’ll have to sneak it up to 3 or 4 or 5 miles from the 2 I usually do. Damn it, and I just thought I needed money to go to National!!

It’s my husband’s fault. He played Iz’s version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” earlier and I can’t get it out of my head. What a beautiful rendition of the song! Iz is short for Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (comma-ka-viva-olay), the big Hawaiian guy who had a voice like an angel. When Iz died several years ago, due to complications from obesity, he was the first and only non-governmental person to lie in State at the Hawaiian capitol building. Beautiful, beautiful voice. Try some of the clips on Amazon and see what you think. Haunting.

Lovely Hawaiian day today. Sunshine, tradewinds, not too hot. I just can’t explain this sky. It’s a color blue I don’t remember anywhere else. The trees are so green, the mountains green and imposing, the flowers bursting with color. Hawaii is amazing. I am in love with it, and my love means something to me because it wasn’t instant. I got rock fever within a month of arriving. Rock fever is that feeling you get that the island is closing in on you, that you can’t go far in any direction without seeing ocean, that you are limited to what is on this island. It’s silly, I guess, but it happens to a lot of folks who come here to live from other places. I cannot believe I ever wanted to return to cold and rainy Germany.

Okay, sorry, don’t mean to natter on, but today is a good Hawaii day for me. I love it and don’t ever want to leave. Just give me a chair and a book and a beach, and I’m happy.

Did not write today, though I swore to work through the weekend. Too many things going on today, including hubby’s necessary (snort!) trip to Comp USA. He bought a new wireless router and immediately came home and screwed up our internet connection. The man is a computer professional. This makes no sense to me. But, after a couple of hours, he got it fixed. I always freak over computer things. Don’t tell me I don’t have a connection, even if I don’t intend to use it right now. Because, damn, I may need it. Immediately. What if I have to look up the name of that singer who sung that song? You know, THAT song. Or find out why St. John’s Wort is called St. John’s Wort? Don’t cut me off from my font of knowledge!

Sheesh.

Feeling much better today. Life is great, book is going, I do not suck as a writer, my story does not suck, and blah blah blah. What caused this miraculous turn around in mood? Oh, many things I am sure, but last night I picked up a book I’d started to read last week and so much of it made sense for where I was in my thinking at that moment. Neill D. Hicks’s Screenwriting 101 is a must-read in Lynn’s world. The parts of the book about screen story are great. He breaks it all down to the most basic elements of what needs to appear on screen to satisfy the audience. Doesn’t take much imagination to think of your book in the same terms. I jotted so many story notes while I was reading, and this morning I knew what to write. The part about cognitive dissonance really made so much sense to me. When you keep that in mind, you can write just about any situation and make it work for character conflict. Hicks explains it really well in story terms too.

Kind of wondering about my parents right now. After twenty years of living in Europe, they’ve finally returned to the States to live in Alabama. The last email I got was from Atlanta and nothing else in two days. I wonder if the culture shock is too much for them….

I have to run off to the store soon. And the post office. Why oh why can’t I have a maid and a personal assistant? I have a needy cat and a husband who can’t find anything. The other day, after he accused me of misplacing his pager whilst cleaning, I made him call the damn thing. It was in his gym bag, a place I never go. Still doesn’t stop him from asking me–the instant he can’t find something–where it is. I am the all-seeing, all-knowing household goddess. Ha!

I have to give myself permission to have a sucky day. And I have to give myself permission to step away from the computer and just go read a book or clean my house (bwahahahaha!) or go shopping or whatever. Sometimes it’s okay to leave the book alone and let the brain go on holiday.

Hmm, is there a Thursday trend at work here? Critique on Wednesday, irritated and out of sorts on Thursday. Huh, must study this phenomena further.

Now, the goofy thing is that it wasn’t my work on the chopping block last night. It’s just a general feeling I always get that this group isn’t quite working for me and I don’t know how to fix it. We had a big discussion about trying to focus on story issues rather than nitty grammar critiques, and the moment we started to critique someone’s story, the grammar police were out in force.

“You can’t, can’t, can’t use a comma that way!” someone cries. “Thou must, must, must have clear antecedents!” (Well, yeah, but can we just WRITE that on the fricking paper and talk about WHY the motivation or goal or whatever isn’t working or isn’t going to work 100 pages down the road?) You could just see all the wind going out of this young lady’s sails the more people talked. And she’s a good writer.

Ann wasn’t there; she’s on Kauai, I think, but she’ll be back next week. And she’s the one who said this group needed to start looking at story instead of 5 pages of this and 5 pages of that every week. Bring synopses, practice pitching, etc. She’s right, but the only problem with this group is that it’s too inclusive. Anybody can show up to a meeting and get involved. We usually have regulars, but occasionally we’ll get a new face. And these people write all over the spectrum. Some wouldn’t read a romance if it was the last thing standing between them and certain death. How can that person give constructive critiques of a romance synopsis? How can I give constructive critiques of a literary synopsis? I may have a background in literary studies, but that doesn’t mean I could write one to save my life. Me, I’ll be looking for the romantic conflict. Ha!

I don’t know. Just a load of blathering from a frustrated writer. I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Woe is me. It’s one of those days. One of those days where you ask yourself if you’re really supposed to be doing this and if it wouldn’t just be better if you’d quit kidding yourself, deceiving your spouse, and go get a friggin job.

Critique has that power over me, and not because we actually did much critiquing last night. It was the stuff passed on by one of the members that Ann Peach had said to her. Stuff about the market for fiction, how it seems as if the things getting published are over the top ideas, the bigger and more over the top the better, etc. Paranormal is hot (which she’d already said and I’d already heard). I don’t care for paranormal. Vampires don’t excite me in the least. Ghosts and witches and all that? Not interested. So how could I possibly write about that? I can’t, at least not until the idea of a lifetime strikes me and I have to write it. I did start a paranormal chick lit sort of thing, when an idea struck me that I loved, but there’s not a demon or vampire anywhere in it. *sigh*

I love my stories when I’m working on them. They are wonderful and brilliant and the best thing ever written. And that’s how it should be, I think. You should feel that way when you’re caught up in an idea. (And no, I don’t really think my stories are the best thing ever, just when I’m working and caught up in the process and in love with the characters; the honeymoon ends fairly quickly, ha!)

So what’s a girl to do? Keep writing and hoping one of the ideas sticks to the wall in New York? Give up? (I’m just asking; don’t intend to give up) Get depressed? Eat chocolate? Get off her ass and write that thesis because she’s gonna need it to work when the writing thing doesn’t pan out?

Oh, I am so wallowing this morning. But when I talked to the hubby last night after I got home, he had smart things to say. He said keep writing, don’t try to write something you don’t like or don’t understand, trends come and go, things change, keep telling your stories your way because you have a voice and it comes through in what you write. He’s a smart man, that guy. Now, I’m going to drink my coffee and wallow a bit in my own misery and think about how to toss a vampire into my story (not really, hee hee).

Currently Reading:

Still working on Kristin Hardy and the Princeton guys’ The Rule of Four, and various other stuff. And though I said I don’t care about paranormal stuff, sometimes a great premise comes along and you have to read it no matter what it’s about. So, I could not resist buying Julie Kenner’s Carpe Demon. If the title wasn’t clever enough to pull me in, the cover, blurb, and smart-ass comments would have done it. I want to read it NOW. But, I need to finish a couple of other books first. Damn it.

Music:

Heard last night on the “Nights with Alice Cooper” show (as I was driving home): “That’s the song ‘Bad Company’, by Bad Company, off the album titled Bad Company. [dramatic pause] Very creative.” ROFL! Why does that amuse me? I don’t know. I’m an easy laugh, I guess. Hubby pointed out that Alice appeared in one of those Wayne’s World movies and was spouting brilliant stuff, so sedate, backstage while Wayne and Garth gaped. It’s as if you expect this guy to be an idiot and yet you find a professor under the black eye makeup and long hair. Anyway, he amuses me in a smart-ass kind of way. You go, Alice!