Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Copying, stealing, making it new. Jeff Veen did an Ignite talk based on Picasso’s comment that, “Good artists copy, great artists steal”:

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The fabulous John Charles of Booklist gave Maybe This Time a starred review.

Starred Review: The plan did not include ghosts, or working, even temporarily, for her ex-husband, North Archer. The plan was for Andromeda “Andie” Miller to march into North’s law office, return a decade’s worth of uncashed alimony checks, and depart to begin her bright new romantic future with writer Will Spenser. But somehow Andie ends up taking care of North’s two young wards. The kids have already gone through three nannies, one of whom claimed Archer House is haunted, but Andie figures she can manage for a month. Until she starts seeing ghosts herself. Six years after her last solo effort, Bet Me (2004), RITA Award-winning Crusie triumphantly returns with a bewitching tale. Graced with deliciously original characters (including a housekeeper who could give Mrs. Danvers a run for her money), imbued with addictively acerbic wit, driven by a wildly inventive, paranormal-flavored plot that offers a subtle literary nod to Henry James, and featuring two protagonists who just might get their romance right the second time around, Maybe This Time is Crusie at her very best.

— John Charles

Publisher’s Weekly reviewed Maybe This Time:

Maybe This Time
Jennifer Crusie, St. Martin’s, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-30378-5
Crusie (Bet Me) is back on her own–after a couple of books written with Bob Mayer–with a sweet, offbeat romantic tale of second chances. Thirty-four-year-old Andie, hoping to cut the ties that still bind her to rich ex-hubby North, winds up instead getting drafted to “fix” the troubled orphaned children of North’s cousin, who live with a grouchy housekeeper and a crew of ghosts that have an interest in the kids and their gothic mansion home. But there’s no ordinary fix for this unruly bunch of living and undead as Andie tries to cajole them all–troubled and lonely kids Alice and Carter, dead aunt May aiming for a do-over, newly dead Dennis, and ancient spooks Miss J and Peter–into moving on. Crusie’s created a sharp cast of lonely souls, wacky weirdos, ghosts both good and bad, and unlikely heroes who are brave enough to give life and love one more try. You don’t have to believe in the afterlife to relish this fun, bright romp. (Sept.)

Very happy in Ohio.

Okay, I rewrote the Liz/ML scene and I think it’s where I want it for now. So here’s the scene that comes before it, Liz and Mom. And then I’ll stop. There’s a limit to how much you can exploit your readers with bad drafts. Oh, and for those of you who missed the opening scene a couple of months ago, the bear Liz is lugging is about five foot tall. And purple.

At five-thirty, Molly took me home, stopping her minvan in front of my mother’s little gray ranch house, three doors down from my aunt ML’s split level. As I got out, I saw Mom had a new mailbox, a bear lying on its stomach, its mouth hinged so it could eat the mail.

“Adorable,” I said.

“It could be worse,” Molly said. “She could collect Hummels.”

She carried my two suitcases up the walk while I lugged the bear and my laptop bag behind her, and when we were still a good six feet away, the door opened, and there was my mother, her hair in a carefully combed, side-parted, bottle-blonde bob; her pretty round face immaculate in Estee Lauder; and her powder blue sweatshirt appliqued with a blank-eyed teddy bear. read more >>

So thank you very much for the betas on Liz and ML. Here’s a rewrite. Please notice, I did not say THE rewrite. Because there will be more. Have at it:

Three houses down, I knocked on the door and my aunt MariLou answered, sharp and slim as ever, her white hair razor cut and her gray eyes narrow under over-plucked brows, the yang to my mother’s well-fed, bottle-blonde yin.

“Well, look who finally came home,” she said, crossing her arms under her bodacious rack, which Molly says is the only good thing her mother ever gave her.

“Yep,” I said. “Molly here? We’re going to go out–”

“Come in here, Elizabeth,” my aunt said, opening the screen door with no welcome in her voice at all, and I went in. read more >>