Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

So the new Trust Me On This Cover came back looking like this:

And I said, “Oh, dear god, not that pink. Walter would pee in that suitcase, that’s how much he’d hate it.” (Did I mention my Walter was a dachshund? But the dachshund-in-the-suitcase picture was too dark. Argh.)

So it’s going to be one of the ones below. I don’t know which one. I’ll probably be as surprised as you are in November, although I’m grateful to Bantam for working so hard on this and especially for letting me write Walter in. In living color, evidently. read more >>

Tonight on Popcorn Dialogues we’re doing Born Yesterday, which I do not recall having seen before but for which I have high hopes.

In the meantime, here’s that list of books you were asking for (click on the image to get a full screen chart). They’re all in order, but most of the category novels don’t have dates on them because I can’t find them yet. They used to be on the site but they disappeared in the remodel.

Let me know if I’ve left anything out. I did that fairly late last night. read more >>

It’s been hell in Ohio. I stayed up until the sun came up structuring Liz and it’s actually looking pretty tight (until you get to the scene level) but then I read the news and tragedy struck last night. Well, actually, lightning struck. Touchdown Jesus, aka Drowning Jesus is no more. I can’t remember if I posted about Touchdown Jesus before–he made a great H in the O-H-I-O cheer–but anybody who ever went north into Ohio on 75 knew him well. And now he’s gone, completely burned in a lightning strike. I’ll be back to post again later, but suffice to say, Ohio has lost one of its favorite landmarks and we are sad. Or as Lani said, “If that thing had burned before I’d had a chance to see it, I would have been upset.” (You really had to experience it without knowing it was coming. On our way up 75 the first time, I’d said, “Pay attention on your right coming up,” but it really wasn’t necessary. The thing was sixty-two feet tall. As I recall, she said, “Oh. My. GOD.” and then laughed hysterically all the way to Wapak.

They’re planning on rebuilding.

Updated to add: Gawker has the story, too, and there are many links in the comments.

The other half of the discovery/prompt/world-of-the-book process for me is the collage. It’s not just putting together placeholders in one picture, it’s the colors and the words and the motifs and generally finding out what happens when you put all the random visual elements of the book together to see what the juxtaposition does. Lavender’s collage isn’t done yet, but it’s changed in detail from where it was in the beginning (click to enlarge):

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Welcome to the Twelve Days of Lavender’s Blue. It’s been hell here this week and today was not a whole lot better, but we’re getting it together which means I have to get really serious about getting this book done. Well, I’ve been serious all along but Trouble Ensued and then More Trouble Ensued and then . . . But now, Trouble is just going to have to play with itself because I have a book due in . . . eleven days. The book itself is in good shape, I just have to get my head back in it. Which means two things: soundtrack and collage.

The soundtrack took a big leap forward when I realized that most of it was going to be country. Liz, the heroine, has her own theme for this book, Terri Clark’s wonderful “Bigger Windows, Bluer Skies” and there’s some more Clark in there, too–”Easy on the Eyes” and “Three Mississippi,” and I’m pretty sure that Liz’s theme for the series is “No Fear,” but the artist I’m using most is Roseanne Cash. No surprise, I’m a longtime Roseanne Cash fan, for many reasons not the least being that she’s such a storyteller in her songwriting. Plus she did “Rules of Travel” which is on my list of Top Five Albums of all Time. For “Beautiful Pain” alone I’d love her. For Lavender, I’ve got “Burn Down This Town,” “Down on Love,” “God Is In the Roses,” and “Will You Remember Me?” There’s more but they’re iffy at the moment; those are ones I’m sure of, the ones I’ve written the scenes to already. read more >>