Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

I took Krissie and Lani to the airport today and then came home. I felt bereft as soon as they rolled their suitcases into the terminal so I went to the bookstore. The idea was to get a book on horror writing to see if there was anything in it I could use for AKMG. I walked out with:

The January/February Cloth Paper Scissors. Because Pokey Bolton’s magazines are fabulous.

A 5″x7″ notebook with a translucent black and white cover and yellow pages with a black elastic band to keep it closed in my bag.

The 3″ x 4″ version of the same notebook for shopping lists. Unfortunatelyl, the pages in it are white.

A fabulous magnetic close journal with a shiny cover, the Paper Blanks Golden Fuschsia Ultrawrap. It even has a pocket in the back to stash stuff. If Krissie had been there, she’d have ripped it out of my hands.

Two greeting cards.

A postcard that says “Oh, my god, my mother was right about everything” to send to my mother. Or my daughter. I haven’t decided.

A completely useless pen with a pretty bead on the top of it.

Samantha Graves’ Sight Unseen.

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Mintues a Day. I can dream, can’t I?

How To Become A Famous Writer Before You’re Dead. I can always use some tips.

Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing which I’m pretty sure is an essay he wrote a long time ago. It’s possibly the most inflated book I’ve ever read–lots of illustrations and about one sentence per page, you can read the whole thing in ten minutes if you’re a slow reader–but since everything he says he not only right but extremely helpful, I’d say it’s good value. I particularly like Rule 2: Avoid Prologues. But I’m good with all ten of them. The man just knows how to write.

And a book on horror writing: On Writing Horror.

I’m feeling much better now.

I spent the whole day trying to fix that first scene. Lani and Krissie were kind enough to say I got it, but you know, at this point, the whole scene reads “blah blah blah” to me. Forget beats, the words don’t make sense. I think the window on this book is closing for me which is a panic-making time. If I don’t get Shar and Sam right pretty soon, I’ll never get them. Then I’ll have to eat worms and die.

Other than that, we had a lovely day at home in front of the fire trying to hammer out the first act. We’re hoping it’s the time intensive act and the rest will just be polishes, which I think is true except I have to fix my act three romance so . . .

Kill me now.

The other thing I have to do is clean this house. We’ve got yarn and cookie crumbs everywhere. But we are having such a good time, it’s worth it. Tomorrow it’s quilt stores for Krissie and then back here to finish Act One after lunch at Steak and Shake. It’s a plan.

So I think I’ve finally got a grip on Shar which makes me happy although I’m still struggling with the first scene. First scenes are the worst. I must have rewritten this scene twenty times already BEFORE it became the first scene. Now that it’s first (we cut the first two scenes), it has to do even more heavy lifting. Not that I’m complaining. Much.

So we worked all morning and then went out for a late lunch, stopped at Michaels to find yarn I needed to finish a project, got yarn so I could make a hat to match Krissie’s coat (pictures tomorrow possibly) and went to the grocery to get extra food because tomorrow (Tuesday which is actually today since it’s 2AM) there’s going to be an ice storm. We got an inch of snow tonight and it’s beautiful. Then we came home and did two of my favorite old movies, Charade and Avanti. Charade is good, but Avanti . . . that may be my favorite romantic comedy of all time.

So we’re having a wonderful time, but we’re not getting a lot done because we keep stopping to talk. And make cookies. And laugh. Also, I owe Bob an apology. I make fun of him when he comes to stay and e-mails me from the upstairs guest room, but at one point, we were all in separate rooms talking on Campfire, so we’re no better. Well, a little better; we need Campfire to upload files to each other. But still . . .

So tomorrow, we’re working in front of the fire and building a scale model of the bakery and making more cookies. It’s like camp. With wine and internet access. And I will figure out this first scene. I’m not leaving my bedroom until I get it done. If they want me, they can e-mail me.

I know, I didn’t post yesterday but Krissie did on D&G so it’s all there. And I forgot to threaten anybody with death tonight so there’s probably no new post on D&G. But the high points are, we did the podcast last night, and it was tremendous fun (here’s Lani)–

–and then we had to go to B&N today so I scooped up some pens on the way out the door. When we got there, somebody gave me UMF to sign, and I signed it in blue ink and passed on the pen to Krissie and she wrote, “Ditto,” underneath what I’d written and signed her name. And kept my blue pen.

So I picked up the next blue pen I had and signed the book and passed it to Krissie who signed it with the other blue pen: “Ditto, Anne Stuart.” But my blue pen was lousy so I traded it out and kept signing. About an hour later, Krissie says, “Why were you signing with a sewing pen?” and I looked and the second blue pen was a sewing marker, the kind where you make the marks on the cloth and then it disappears twenty-four hours later.

So somewhere in the Cincinnati area is a woman with a copy of UMF that tomorrow afternoon will read only, “Ditto, Anne Stuart.” We are really, really sorry. (I blame Krissie.)

Oh and we talked out D&G this morning and then again at lunch, but as Lani said, “Look, we have to WRITE something,” so tomorrow morning, we’re writing. In real pen. Argh.

But we’re having a really good time.

Krissie made it in at 10AM, so we went straight to iHop and celebrated. Then we came back home and gave her a bear that looked like Beastie and a balloon that played “Hot Stuff.” Fickle Milton spent the rest of the day leaping from Lani’s lap to Krissie’s lap and back again. Veronica doesn’t trust either of them, proving what an excellent judge of character she is.

We did talk about D&G but that stuff goes over on the other website. We also talked about publishing, writing, TV, movies, food, and dogs, made lunch, made dinner, made cookies, and watched more Burn Notice, part of Time Bandits because Krissie was sure there was some Mesopotamia in there (there wasn’t, it was Mycenae), and all of Ocean’s Thirteen, which was mostly confusion broken by some excellent moments. Or as Lani said, it’s a movie that gets by completely on charm. Since a lot of my early books get by on the same basis, I am not criticizing.

I also found out tonight that Lani has never seen Hot Shots and, even more tragically, Krissie has never seen Ruthless People. And neither has ever seen Head Office which is one of my favorite bad movies. The wonderful thing about all of this is that we have time to watch whatever we want because they’re here for seven days. Just makes me want to do the Snoopy Dance.

Coming up: We’re doing the podcast on Lani’s Will Write For Wine and a booksigning at the Union Center/West Chester Barnes and Noble on Saturday. Also Hobby Lobby, Target, two quilt stores and a movie if we can find one we want to see. It’s like a vacation and I didn’t even have to leave home.