Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

So I was thinking this weekend, as I traveled six hundred miles back to southern Ohio, about romcom endings. Actually I was thinking about “She,” the Elvis Costello song, and I looked it up on You Tube (I was in a hotel for the night), and you know how it is on You Tube, it’s like eating potato chips, you just keep going, and I ended up on the press conference scene from Notting Hill, which led me to the declaration-in-the-office-in-front-of-everybody scene in The Proposal which led to me asking, “Why do all these movies have this stupid I-have-to-tell-you-I-love-you-in-front-of-everybody end scenes?” I can kind of see the press conference scene since there’s no way a bookstore owner could have gotten to a mega-star at that point, and Thacker did kind of keep it in code with his “daft prick” line, but there’s no way Andrew wouldn’t have dragged Margaret into an office for his proposal. So why all the public love? read more >>

As we’re gearing up to start the PopD Mystery series (and we’re all sick right now, so take “gearing up” with a grain of salt), it’s a good time to talk about what we’re going to do and invite comments and suggestions, starting with our definition of “mystery.”

For the purposes of PopD, a mystery is a story where the goal of the protagonist is to solve a crime, preferably murder. The protagonist thereby becomes the detective even if he or she is not a private eye or on the police force. If it detects and solves crime, it’s a detective. This usually means that the antagonist is the criminal which makes plot analysis so much easier than in a rom com. It also makes sense because mysteries are plot-centric while romcoms are character-centric. So for once the good-guy/bad-guy description of protagonist/antagonist is going to work. Three cheers for a just society. read more >>

This is an old draft post from back when we were doing PopD; it’s got good stuff to talk about in it although I think it could have been a lot shorter, but I don’t have time to do a full edit and you’re about to set the monkey free, so comment on this. Doesn’t have to be about the bags. Have a nice time.

Lani/Lucy has this theory that everything in a story has to work all the time, do two or three jobs, or it’s not earning its keep. Since I have the same theory, it tends to crop up when we’re doing the Popcorn Dialogues analyses, but this week, for What’s Up, Doc?, we really bit down on it. (Please note: Massive movie spoilers ahead.)

If you haven’t see the movie (and you should, you should), it’s about a guy named Howard who’s trying to get a grant to study the musicological attributes of igneous rocks. The second scene in the movie is Howard with his humorless, micro-managing fiancee, Eunice (the magnificent Madeline Kahn), in a cab that stops suddenly so that he bangs his head on the red plaid suitcase that holds his rocks. It’s important that the viewer know that there are rocks in the bag, so Howard complains, Eunice tells him to suck it up, and the cab driver makes a “I hate it when somebody touches my rocks” joke. (Why yes this is similar to David and his prehistoric bones and humorless fiance in Bringing Up Baby. It’s an homage.)

The cab has stopped short because a woman named Judy has walked in front of it carrying a red plaid bag just like Howard’s. read more >>

I’ll get a real post up here as soon as I scrape myself off the floor. Quick updates: I turned 62, I’m back home, and that house I bought in NJ has to be completely gutted.

In the meantime, I need titles with “wild” in them. Shorter is better. Already used: Wild Night, Wild Ride, and Wild Child. So some more snappy two-syllable titles would be best although at this point, I’ll take anything. I need three of them. No you’re not going to see anything by these titles any time soon. The problem is taking up space in my brain that I need to write other things. So I’m moving it into your brains.

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaains.

Sorry. It’s been a grueling month. And I’m old.

So, Wild Titles. Have at it.

The screen on my laptop just went wonky. We took it to the Genius bar and they say it needs a new display. Which they don’t have. The display should be in with five days and then if I leave it with them overnight . . .

Okay, my screen is WRIGGLING. And they’re not going to be able to fix it for A WEEK???

Pardon me, I had to go lie down for a minute. read more >>