Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Music has a huge impact on my storytelling, but I’ve never written a book that relied as much on a soundtrack as Maybe This Time. The book takes place in 1992 so the music was crucial in rewinding my brain back twenty years. Although there are no flashbacks in the book (I am strongly anti-flashback), a lot of the music flashes back even farther to the year North and Andie were married, 1982, evoking memories and affecting actions in the present (well, in 1992).

The music from 1982 was music from Andie and North’s courtship (short though that was) and marriage. Andie’s theme was “Layla,” by Eric Clapton (original version) because North said that was the music that had to be playing in her head when she moved. (North’s theme was “Human” by the Pretenders, but I lost it when I moved the setting back to 1992 since it didn’t come out until 2004.) read more >>

If you’ve ever read a gothic romance, you know the house is everything. They used to call gothic romances “Girl Gets House” books, and there was reason for that: the girl marrying the hero and getting the house was a metaphor for her claiming power over her space, staking her turf if you will. But in Maybe This Time, Andie doesn’t want the house, she can’t wait to get out of the house, and when she does, she never goes back. For it to have that great an effect on her, it had to be fairly ominous. So I went on an internet search and found exactly nothing. Then Stroppy Rachel came through with an English country house that had been for sale for awhile. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted but it was damn close, so I stole the floor plans and changed them a bit and then photoshopped (badly) the house to get what I wanted, and voila, thanks to Rachel, I had Archer house. read more >>

Andie put the weirdness that was Alice and Carter out of her mind and spent the next hour unpacking and settling into her new room. It was surprisingly charming: white paneled walls and high, sculpted ceilings and long stone-lined windows. The drapes were blue damask that clashed with the incongruously cheap silver-patterned black comforter that somebody with a lot of romance in her soul and no money in her checking account had bought to cover the large walnut four-poster bed. The rest of the furniture in the room was a mixture of styles probably inherited from different parts of the house as hand-me-downs, and the crowning touch was a cheap wood plaque over the bed that said, ALWAYS KISS ME GOODNIGHT. There was something a little obsessive about that which, given Andie’s surroundings, leaked over into creepiness. She put her pajamas on, brushed her teeth in the bathroom, put Kristin’s folder about the kids on the bed, and then, looking at the “Archer Legal Group” label on the folder, went to get her jewelry box from her suitcase. Buried at the bottom in a small manila envelope was her wedding ring, pretty and cheap, now painted and varnished to keep it from tarnishing again, the last thing she had left from her marriage. She should have thrown it out since it was worthless, but . . . read more >>

Andie followed Mrs. Crumb into a short dismal hallway with faded wallpaper and a worn wood floor. The housekeeper turned to go up a narrow flight of equally worn wooden stairs that were probably the servant stairs, and then she stopped on the first step, her watery, protruding eyes even with Andie’s now.

“I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea,” she began. “I’m sure Mr. Archer just forgot to tell me—” She looked past Andie and scowled. “Now what are you doing out here?” she snapped, and Andie turned and saw Alice standing behind her, looking even smaller and thinner than she had in the kitchen, her neck festooned with all that jewelry, the headphones from her Walkman still over her ears.

“Hello, Alice,” Andie said. read more >>

The first chapter to Maybe This Time is up on the website, but since I want to go that extra mile for the Argh People (that would be you), I’m posting the three scenes from the second chapter here for the next three days.

Chapter Two

“You’re late,” a voice snapped from behind Andie, and she turned and saw a plump, overly powdered, elderly woman, her pale, watery, protruding eyes hostile under her improbably red-orange updo, her red cupid’s-bow mouth obviously painted on with a brush.

“Yes,” Andie said, putting her suitcase down on the floor. “You must be Mrs. Crumb. I’m–” read more >>