Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Jen Weiner has a fabulous blog–you must read her take on the Literary Establishment and the slavish love they’re showing Oprah-dissing Jonathan Franzen–and she’s been kind enough to review Maybe This Time, too. You should go look.

Callie has a brand new sister.

Clearly she has her grandmother’s sleep habits.
SO happy in Ohio.

You know, you think you know somebody and then they move in with you and suddenly their dark sides emerge. In the case of Lani Diane Rich, it’s particularly egregious.

First I found out about her tawdry past. We were looking at one of those gaudy unicorn illustrations, and I was making mock, and she said, “I used to collect unicorns.”

The silence stretched out and she looked up and said, “What?”

I said, “This is the kind of thing you tell people before you move in.” read more >>

Okay, the commercial is hysterical, but the guy in real life, Isaiah Mustafa? Hot, funny, smart, capable of reinventing himself, hot, funny, smart, talks about his girlfriend, hot, funny, smart, confident enough to make fun of himself, hot, funny, smart, did I mention gorgeous? Also, great sense of humor. If I wrote him, nobody would believe him. Watch:

Also, I love Ellen Degeneres.

Now I just have to figure out how to use “I’m on a horse” in real life.

Anne Stuart’s new book Ruthless is out August 1. Plus there’s this interview and a free download for a prequel (see bottom of the post). What more could you want?

JC: So you came in from the cold of your ICE books, and now you’re writing hot historicals about rakes and virgins. How did that happen?

AS: I adore rakes and virgins, though unfortunately Elinor is no longer a virgin when she runs afoul of my decadent hero. In a perfect world I would write dark romantic suspense and lighter historicals (and this is lighter than the ICE books — Rohan only kills two people and both of them are in a duel). I started out writing gothics, then regencies so I have a weakness for other time periods, and I love love love historicals.

JC: Why? You’d have to pull me through a hedge backwards to make me do all that research. Plus, they talk funny. What’s the draw of days gone by?

AS: Ah, it’s not research if you want to read about it or know the stuff already. You’d never worry about writing a character who was an artist. You know that stuff. As for the draw, it’s the appeal of different rules, different lives, different times. Whether things are a matter of life and death, as in the medieval period, or social ostracism, in the Regency or Victorian period, it’s not something we tend to worry about. The men are exotic simply because they come from a different time, and everything is totally divorced from the shit we have to go through daily. read more >>