Monthly archive

May 2009

Sunday, May 31, 2009

In which I try not to whine

This post first saw the light of day at the old Blog A Go-Go on January 2, 2008. And, hey, guess what, you guys? I'm at BookExpo.



More than one person has mentioned to me recently that they read my blog because I don't complain. (I tried once. I wrote a scathing, shimmering, incandescently enraged blog entry last month when I was so angry I wanted to kick a few people with pointy shoes until the streets ran red with their hearts' blood. But I got over it and it just seemed silly to leave the entry in the publishing queue when I was no longer wanting to torch their houses, bulldoze the remains, and salt the earth so nothing would ever grow there again. I jest!)

Anyway, in light of those observations about the character of my blog, I started thinking about the mood of this place and how closely it reflects what's really going on in my head. I decided this blog is completely me, but me at about 80%. (I censor. A LOT.) But--without compromising the privacy of people who didn't ask to have their personal lives hung out on the washing line of the internet--it is as authentic as I can make it. I really do muse about the things I write here, and I enjoy writing things that I think YOU will enjoy.

But more than that, I am acutely aware of the power of gratitude. (Warning: New Age feeling-type sentiments ahead.) I always believed I would be a published writer. Even as a child, I would practice my autograph or being interviewed by Barbara Walters because I knew those skills would come in handy one day. What I didn't expect is that it would take me almost until the age of forty to get published. I was twenty-three when I wrote my first novel, and it was fourteen years until I got a book deal. Fourteen years of rejection letters and writing novels that nobody wanted. My confidence and my faith in myself as a writer were beaten so thin moths could have used them for wings. It was, simply put and without melodrama, a dark time.

It hurts to think about it now, so I try not to. But when I do, I am knocked to my knees by gratitude for what I have. My reality now is that every day I can walk into a bookstore and see my work, printed and bound and for sale, ready to go home with someone and hopefully give them a pleasurable escape from their workaday life. My reality now is that I get on airplanes and travel to wonderful places to meet people who believe in what I do and want to help make me successful. And my reality now is that every single morning, I turn on my computer and there is e-mail waiting for me from readers who say things like, I hope your well is ever plentiful and you always find joy in your words.

So that's why I don't complain here. This is the place where readers come to meet the real me, and what you find here IS the real me. But it's the best me. I put on a pretty party dress and my dancing shoes because I know you're coming and I'm happy to see you here. So thanks for coming, and thanks for appreciating what I do. Because without you, I am a girl with eight lonely little novels in a box under her bed, and I never forget that.
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Saturday, May 30, 2009

In which we talk neighbors

This entry was originally posted to the Blog A Go-Go on January 8, 2008. Hey, did I mention I'm at BookExpo right now? Because I totally am.



Neighbors make me nervous. We've had some lovely ones over the years and some not-so-lovely ones. Our current neighbors are delightful. We never hear from them, and even though I am highly suspicious about the new compost bed (come ON, that thing is 30x40 feet and bordered by 6-foot tall stockade fencing--it is not so much a compost heap as a BODY FARM), they are quiet and that is the most important quality in a neighbor.

Well, quiet and not creepy. The two can often go hand-in-hand, as I discovered in Texas. We lived across the street from a very sweet churchgoing couple. They were devoted to each other and their four children. They were quiet and thoughtful; the husband mowed the yards of elderly neighbors and the wife took them home-baked treats and pictures colored by the children. It seemed like they were too good to be true, and it turns out, they were.

After a few years of quiet domesticity, the wife disappeared, and the husband and children seemed unkempt and disheveled. It transpired that the wife had left the family for good to live with another man. Her pusher to be precise. Naturally, neighborhood sympathy fell heavily on the husband, but these things so often have two sides, don't they?

On the day the wife had told her husband she would be coming around to collect some of her things, he got the children ready for school and put them on the bus. Then he sorted his wife's clothes into garbage bags and stacked them neatly in front of the garage to await her. Above them, right on the garage door, he hung her wedding gown, a pristine white dress with an overlay of lace and an ENORMOUS SCARLET LETTER on the bodice. I'm not kidding. He had cut a letter "A" out of red felt and stitched it (alright, maybe he used Aleen's craft glue) to the front of the dress.

It hung there all morning, swaying gently in the breeze. I know because I watched it. I kept thinking about him, sitting up at night, crafting his revenge--literally--and I was deeply horrified. (And wildly interested too, if I'm honest. It was the most riveting thing to happen in our neighborhood since an adulterous couple chose to park in the cul-de-sac around the corner for their noontime trysts. The mailman surprised them one day. Or they surprised him, I've forgotten now.)

Anyway, by the time the children came home, the gown was gone and the bags collected. I never saw who came and got them, or what the reaction was to the ruined dress. Only the wire hanger was left, twisted and limp as if someone had jerked the gown off of it in a hurry. The husband and children moved away shortly after and never heard of them again. Everyone blamed the wife for abandoning her family, but sometimes I wonder. A man who is capable of hanging out your wedding gown with a blood-red mark for the whole world to see might not have been the easiest sort to live with in the first place.

I'm just glad he didn't keep a Body Farm.
Friday, May 29, 2009

In which Scarlett O'Hara was a freaking genius

I am at BookExpo, but because I suffer from blogger-guilt I'm posting this entry from the Blog A Go-Go. It was originally posted on January 12, 2008.



Last Thursday, otherwise known in my house as the Day of Relentless Unpleasantness, was not a good day. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that by late Thursday afternoon all I wanted to do was put my head through a plate glass window. (You know in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" when Holly Golightly talks about the mean reds? My mean reds could kick her mean reds in the throat and not even spoil their pedicure. It was a VERY BAD DAY.)

Anyway, as much as I wanted to vent my many frustrations, I couldn't. I had my Second Life PR event to do, and I had to put on my big girl panties and DEAL. (I should mention that my excessively sweet and pretty-sure-she-ought-to-be-sainted mother let me rant at her for quite awhile. Then she tag-teamed with my husband and HE listened and brought me tea and offered cocktails. These people GET ME.)

So at some point, I had to put myself together and do my job, much as I wanted to crawl under the duvet and hide out until Groundhog Day. When I was trying to figure out how best to do that, I thought of Scarlett O'Hara and the line, "I'll think about that tomorrow." Fine, I decided. I will shelve the many unpleasantnesses and I will think about them Friday.

But THEN, I remembered her other favorite line. (No, not "Fiddledeedee", which always sounded completely ridiculous coming from Scarlett. As my husband remarked, it was a lot likelier that she would have at LEAST said, "Up yours, Rhett.") It was the immortal line, "Tomorrow is another day."

Ponder the implications for just a moment. On the one hand she's saying, Oooooh, we won't think about nasty things until tomorrow. And on the other, she's deciding that tomorrow is a fresh start and we won't think about anything bad then either. SO SHE NEVER THINKS ABOUT ANYTHING BAD EVER. It's genius, and I have decided to adopt it as my life philosophy immediately. I mean, yes, she ran through husbands like pantyhose and lost several fortunes and MAY have resorted to killing Yankees and eating dirt, but that seems like a small price to pay to avoid worry lines and insomnia, don't you think? Fiddledeedee.
Thursday, May 28, 2009

In which I am packing

Today is all about getting ready for BookExpo--or it would be if I wasn't desperately trying to get TDTF packaged up to mail off before I leave! I have to finish the dedication and acknowledgments, and then I can scamper over to the trusty folks at the UPS store to pack it up for me and send it off. Then I can leave for New York with a clear conscience!

I am VERY much looking forward to the trip, and not just because it means a decent couple of nights' sleep without the pup, I promise. Friday is the ABA luncheon to which I was thrilled to receive an invitation. (Meg Cabot and Neil Gaiman will also be there. That would be blatant name-dropping, but since I don't know them, it's more like fangirl squeeing.) Anyway, once the luncheon is finished, I will be signing in the ABA Lounge, then it's off to the Met with my agent for some quick research into the next Julia Grey book and a bite of dinner. Then my publisher is hosting a bash at an art gallery in SoHo, so I get to have a fabulous evening with some of my favorite folks. The next morning it's back to BookExpo for two signings and lunch with my agent. (I adore my agent, so spending time with her is always a treat.) And then dinner at the Ritz with my editor--another lovely person who treats me like minor European royalty. All of that before flying back home eeeeeearly Sunday to spend the rest of the weekend enjoying my family.

I'm actually exhausted just thinking about it, but I plan to have a ball. I get the chills every time I go to the Met, so I am beyond happy that we have a few hours to poke around there. I always feel restored after absorbing so much genius in one place, don't you? Anyway, I've loaded my iphone with a few podcasts and Italian lessons, lots of great music, and some Miss Marple from PBS. I have two new books--a Georgette Heyer mystery from the 30s and a lush nonfic about perfume and a woman's quest to travel the world to plumb the mysteries of fragrance and create her own signature scent. (It was either that or a gorgeous new bio of Mata Hari I just found. I'm feeling frivolous this weekend.) I plan to enjoy every minute of my trip!

Hope y'all have a gorgeous weekend--I'll be posting entries from the Blog A Go-Go while I'm away. If you are going to be at BookExpo, please let me know you're a blog reader so I can make a big fuss over you!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

In which we ponder simplicity

When I'm sitting with my feet up and sipping a cup of something yummy, one of the blogs I like to peruse is A Bloomsbury Life. This post is particularly thought-provoking, raising questions about extravagance and immediate gratification vs. simplicity and appreciation through the medium of pictures. I loved it--and it's a very welcome reminder that more stuff, bigger stuff, shinier stuff, is not the key to happiness. Right now I'm trying to live in the moment, grounding myself--not an easy thing for me, but with a puppy in the house, sometimes the most absurdly small things can be deeply pleasurable (a full night's sleep for one, a fuzzy hug for another). What about you? What small happinesses add up to something good for you?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

In which love is like a warm puppy


I promise not to go too mad with the puppy pictures, but occasionally, a dose of something warm and fuzzy is just good for you.
Monday, May 25, 2009

In which I finally got to the movies!

I cannot tell you the last movie I saw in the theater. No, really. It seems that two or three times a year a flurry of movies I want to see will come out all at once, and I don't manage to see any of them until they show up on Encore in a year or two. Le sigh. And movie-going itself has become an extremely questionable pleasure given the proliferation of cell phones and PDAs and the people who wield them. Honestly, unless you're a transplant surgeon and there's a kidney in a cooler somewhere waiting for you, TURN IT OFF. You're not that important. At the risk of sounding cranky, I also long-ago gave up the idea of seeing a movie on a weekend night. The last time I had an encounter with "tweens" was during "Casino Royale" when I tore a strip off the girl sitting next to me for talking INCESSANTLY when Judi Dench was whupping up on Daniel Craig. People, you cannot mess with Bond.

Anyway, it had been AGES since the husband and I managed a date, so we took ourselves off to a movie at ten a.m. Monday. You probably think that's a typo, but seriously. Ten in the morning. It was GLORIOUS. There were about four other couples than us--all middle-aged, which was perfect. Middle-aged couples are the best movie-goers because they actually watch the movie. Very young couples are too busy slurping on each other, and very old couples are always asking each other what just happened. LOUDLY.

So we went to the first showing of "Angels & Demons", and I found myself scratching my head. A LOT. Most of the changes were vast improvements over the book--eliminating Langdon's presence in the helicopter was a moral necessity because between you and me, it was ABSURD. But some of the changes seemed to be for the sake of change, and I would dearly love to know why. (And one--the camerlengo's virtually non-existent motive in the film--was inexplicable.) One of the biggest criticisms of "The Da Vinci Code" was how much people just stood around and talked, and there's less of it here, but that also means there's less discussion of art and symbolism--my favorite parts of the books, although I dearly loved seeing a dramatization of conclave, however imperfect. I am a bit of a Vatican geek when it comes to conclave. I watched CNN round the clock during the last papal election. Waiting for a puff of smoke doesn't sound that interesting, but I find it RIVETING. (I called it wrong, though. I thought Cardinal Lustiger of France would be elected. Ah, well.) In all, it was very lovely just to be away with the husband for a few hours with a passably good movie and some VERY good popcorn. This should hold me over until the Dillinger film with Johnny Depp...
Sunday, May 24, 2009

In which we have Shoe Lust

Because sometimes it really is all about the shoes.
Friday, May 22, 2009

In which we play games

This is evil. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Thursday, May 21, 2009

In which I was feeling philosophical-like

This entry was originally posted on the Blog A Go-Go on January 25, 2008.

A day is not a long time. And yet it can change everything. Things that were going horribly awry can correct themselves, gently, without interference. Imminent disaster can be averted. Ships can be steered away from the rocks, and what seemed certain is suddenly a momentary shudder, a goose walking over your grave and then toddling happily away again. And one by one, each of the things that seemed to be hurtling out of your grasp, come quietly back, waiting patiently for you to notice how well-behaved they've become. If you move too quickly, you might startle them. So you breathe softly and make no hurried movements. Instead you relax, and give a little sigh of relief and recognition that whatever storm clouds gather blackly on the horizon, it only takes one great gust of fresh air to blow them to tatters. Nothing is as bad as you feared, and everything is better than you believed. It is a very good day.