Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Lani Diane Rich arrived Friday night and I’d love to tell you we did sophisticated, publisher author stuff, but I’d walked all over NYC all day, and she’d been doing the editor/agent thing, so we just vegged at the apartment. The highlight of the evening was when we googled for the Ugliest Dog Contest and then laughed ourselves into hysterics at the dogs, all of whom had proud loving owners so we weren’t being cruel. Sam, of course, is the ugliest dog of all time, a three-time winner of the event, and once you see him you really wonder how any other dog could have beaten him, but we did develop a special fondness for another dog, a little lady in pearls and a tiara:

I’d post Sam’s picture, but he was scary. Sweet but scary. We were devastated to learn he’d died at fourteen, which was pretty good considering the problems Sam’s DNA probably had. His obit is here including a video. Be afraid.

Then Alesia Holliday ducked out of the PASIC conference and came to spend the afternoon and evening, and we bought enough chocolate for thirty and once again let down the glamour of the published author by eating ourselves sick on candy and laughing way too loud. I’d write more about that, but I think Lani has it covered. At least there were several times tonight when she said, “That’s goin’ on the blog.” I believe she’s calling her entry, “That’s Goin’ On The Blog, Bitch,” but I’m not sure. We sort of lost our grip early on. And the real problem with that is that the stuff we found hysterical wouldn’t be if I tried to reproduce it. Giddiness so rarely translates well. Unlike Sam, who was ugly but lovable in any language.

Tomorrow I’m all alone with leftover pizza and leftover Chinese and Agnes, since I have the galleys of Agnes and the Hitman here. I’m trying to think of what I’ve accomplished this week, and it’s been pretty much consuming large amounts of food and walking a lot but not enough to counteract the large amounts of food. And laughing. The laughing is key.

But now I need to get back to work. Galleys, short stories about getting rid of bodies, papers about community, you all have done the research, now I have to write the damn things. The party’s over.

I really am sad about Sam. We will not see his like again.

My day started with a film crew in the apartment. This place is so colorful and funky that film scouts keep coming through–three since I’ve been here–and today a whole crew came through and they’ve decided that this is the place for the apartment their hero rents. One of them said, “This looks like a place a guy would come after his divorce.” I wanted to say, “He must be loaded then,” because the Village is not cheap. Then I looked the movie up on the IMDB–Multiple Sarcasms–and the character is an architect so he could probably afford it. A couple of weeks ago they shot scenes for Definitely Maybe here. It truly is a great apartment.

Then lunch with Dale at Trump Tower which is so not my kind of place but fun to visit once. And the restaurant was very good–Jean Georges–so that’s always a plus. Then we walked all over the upper West Side and down by the river and finally ended up at the Metropolitan because Dale wanted to see the Barcelona exhibit, which was marvelous, and because I needed to research ancient Mesopotamia, since the protagonist in the Fun Book is an ancient history professor (the history’s ancient, the professor’s 42) and Mesopotamia is her specialty.

That seemed like a good idea when I thought of it, and then I gave her ancient languages as her field of interest, and today I got a look at what cuneiform actually looks like. Yikes. The big stuff on the wall panels I can understand reading, but most of these tablets are tiny, tiny, fit in the palm of your hand tiny, and the wedge-shaped markings on them are like chicken scratches. We’re talking the equivalent of four point type. Those Sumerians must have had eyes like bats. And now my poor professor heroine has to read this stuff. Plus, like a dummy, I had her reading scrolls, and cuneiform was clay tablets. This is what happens when you do your research after you’ve written ten thousand words. So I got books on Mesopotamia and writing and one on Barcelona because that show is amazing, and then, having walked for four hours straight, much of it on the marble floors of the Met, I took a taxi back to the Village where I’m now waiting for Lani to show up after her day of lunch and drinks with editors and agents.

I’d tell you more about Dale, who is one of my favorite people, but all you really need to know is that late one night her son called her and told her to get her fake gold tooth and her accordion and meet him, and of course she did, and he filmed her as part of his band’s video for a little number called “Lotion in the Basket” (his band is Team Facelift). Dale is a good mother. The video is not worksafe so be warned, very R for obscene language, but if you want to see how much Dale loves her son and what she looks like in a gold tooth playing her accordion, click here.

I have the best friends. Really.

This is probably going to be a huge Duh for the rest of you but I finally figured out the problem with Zelda’s negative motivation: It’s negative.

As you may remember, Zelda didn’t want to go to Rosemore, but Rose lures her in and then keeps her with the promise of helping her find her father. I was trying to explain this to Mollie yesterday–always a good way to solve something, by the way, explain the problem to someone else–and it occurred to me that what I had to do was let go of that first scene entirely and start over.

Because the solution is that Zelda wants to go to Rosemore because she thinks Rose knows who her father is. Positive goal. I’m so happy. And I can spin the conflict out with two positive goals: Zelda wants Rose to tell her who her father is so she can go find him immediately, and Rose wants Zelda to stay and help Scylla serve for the holidays. Which gives me the conflict/struggle which Zelda will lose because Rose holds all the cards.

Of course, that means I’m going to have to rewrite that first scene almost completely but it’s worth it. I’ve finally got a positive goal, which means I have push.

Really, travel is very good for writing.

Mollie said, “There’d better be an On the Road post with my name on it by tomorrow morning.” It’s because Bob had one. Sibling rivalry.

So I spent a gorgeous day in New York with my brilliant and beautiful daughter. We had big plans that pretty much became talk all morning, then leave the apartment for Chinese followed by cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, then come back and talk all afternoon until her husband, Josh, came by at which point we left the apartment for dinner, and then came back and talked for a couple of minutes before they went home. I never did make it to MOMA with her, but we had a great time just the same.

Except for my cell phone problem. I am cellphone phobic. Don’t like ‘em, don’t like hearing ‘em ring, don’t like trying to figure out all the bells and whistles. I have one because you have to be crazy to travel without one, but I try to avoid actually using it. Mollie and some other people I could mention find this hysterically funny in that you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me, this-woman-is-a-Luddite kind of way. So when I talked to my dogsitter on the phone and Mollie began laughing, I ignored her. Turned out I had the speaker phone on the whole time, so now I’m wondering if I’ve been broadcasting all my calls in airports and on the street. Thank God I never talk dirty to anybody on it.

Then the phone rang again and I answered it (turning off the speaker phone) and there was no one there. So I looked at the screen and there was a text message. I do not do text messaging, hell, it’s a miracle when I answer the damn phone when somebody calls, but this one I got:

wonder how long it will take you to read this no fair if mollie does it

I said, “I think your husband is making fun of me” because although my son-in-law is a darling, he does think I’m hopeless when it comes to cell phones, possibly because he’s had to explain two other models to me, usually while sitting in a restaurant or a hotel lobby after I’ve failed to meet them on time because I don’t know how to pick up my messages.

Mollie looked at the number and said, “Nope, not Josh’s number. Who’s at xxx-xxx-xxxx?”

Three guesses. He’s stuck in an airport with nothing to do, so he joins with my daughter in making fun of me.

But I fixed them both. I sent my first text message. It said:

Ha.

I could have said more, but I wanted to start slow. Actually “Ha” had some garbled stuff after it because I screwed up the letters and didn’t know how to delete. Well, it’s a learning curve. And now he can sit down in Hilton Head and try to figure out what “gfe*lsn” means.

But Mollie and I had a fabulous day, and we only talked business for about half of it (gossiping about publishing doesn’t count, that’s pleasure) and she showed me the two gorgeous wallpaper graphics that she’s designed to be downloaded from the finished The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes website when it goes up (the site has a plain placeholder design right now, but you’re not going to believe what a beautiful job she and Mara have done on the design that’s going up in a couple of weeks). She’s a genius. I’d put up the graphic she gave me as an example, but she’ll kill me if I do. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Gorgeous.

Oh, and SMP delivered the Agnes galleys to me today, too. I’m betting Anne-Marie had something to do with that. “Come to the Village and correct your galleys.” Come to the Village and kiss me, Talberg.

Tomorrow it’s lunch with Dale who said, “I know some interesting places” which worries me. She told me once that the Tenement Museum had a great restaurant. The problem with Dale is, she has a sense of humor. So I’m having a big breakfast. And then tomorrow night, my pal Lani comes to stay for a sleepover. She’s more fun than Bob. For instance, she holds conversations. And unlike my daughter, if she heard me talking into a phone that had the speaker on, she’d tell me right away. Probably.

Actually, all my friends have great senses of humor. So there’s probably going to be laughter no matter what happens. Which is a pretty good thing, I’m thinking. So tomorrow: Lunch in a tenement, much hilarity at a slumber party, and obscene text messages about nuns on the speaker phone. Nothing but good times ahead.

I’m sitting in the apartment with Bob, and we’ve both got computers going. It’s sad really. Every now and then he snickers and reads something to me. About nuns.

We walked through the village and down into Soho to the Apple store because he woke up and stepped on his power cord and it wouldn’t work any more. Bob without a computer is not a pretty thought. Most of the way we argued about this movie he’d just seen which he insisted was called Heaven Can Have Her. I said, “No, I know that movie, it was Leave Her To Heaven, it’s a quote from Hamlet.” He told me I was wrong. For miles, he told me I was wrong. Then we got back and I checked the IMDB and said, “Leave Her To Heaven.” He said, “That’s what I said.” Now he’s looking up nuns on the internet because he wants the heroine of the solo book he’s working on to be a nun. (Some of you may remember Abigail from the old He Wrote She Wrote blog.) He’s also suggesting that I should be a nun. Or teach at a convent school. Or . . . well, it depends on what Google entry he’s reading.

I called my doc this morning, and she told me I had a tetanus shot in Nov. 2004, so I’m good with the lockjaw problem. In fact I walked all over with Bob who complained the entire time that his feet were going to hurt tomorrow. I finally said, “Hey, I’m the one with the hole in my foot.” He said, “I know, I’m surprised it doesn’t hurt.” I said, “It hurts, I’m being brave.” He said, “Uh huh.” Then he made fun of me because I wouldn’t cross against the light. Then two blocks later I crossed against the light and he yelled at me for being careless. I said, “But back there, you said–” He said, “You didn’t even look.” I said, “So I only get points if I do it on purpose?” He said, “Yes.” Then he crossed against the light without looking.

He just read out loud, “The average age of nuns today is sixty-nine,” and then added, “You’re a puppy.”

So earlier today, I had lunch with Jen and showed her my Curio stuff and she loved it. You can actually pitch a book with pictures, I was amazed. And she said she could “see” Always Kiss Me Goodnight better than You Again, probably because it was all one picture (it’s the one I posted here) instead of being divided into four acts/boards like YA. Or maybe I just have a better grip on that story. Anyway, it was a great lunch.

Bob just said, “I think you could still write.” So it’s okay if he sells me into a nunnery because I can still collaborate. I told him I’m Lutheran. He said they have Lutheran nuns. Then he went back to researching. He appears to be serious about making the heroine a nun. He grew up going to Catholic schools, maybe it’s something to do with that?

So anyway, my foot is really throbbing right now, but it has stopped bleeding and I’m not going to get lockjaw–I think Bob was a little disappointed–so Mollie and I are on for the walking all over tomorrow. Bob is leaving first thing in the morning, having just dashed into town at the last minute without telling anybody which is why you should ignore the pathetic moaning he’s doing on his blog–if you don’t tell people you’re coming in, they can’t save a lunch date for you–and is now dashing out again.

Bob just said, “I don’t think the nun thing is going to work for this book.” YA THINK?

We’re living the dream in New York City.