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I went on a bit of a reading binge this week, so I have some reactions (because, now that my food critic job is over, I’m going to need to get opinionated about something!) So, my recent reads with short critiques, in the order that I liked them and with my new Five Semicolon (best punctuation mark ever!) Rating System:
I was incredibly lucky to get an ARC of this explosive opening to a dynamite new series! I literally couldn’t put this book down. I read the whole thing in a two hour plane trip and two hours in bed that night. The characters were fascinating and multi-faceted, the action was non-stop, the plot was intricate and the settings were lush and detailed. A Tampa girl myself, I felt almost like I was at home when I read Leto’s descriptions. I hear this is going to be a series and all I can think is — when is the next one coming out?Dirty Little Secrets gets Four Semicolons and a Comma from me.
This is the first book I’ve ever bought from Liquid Silver Books and if this is an example of the quality to be found there, I’m definitely heading back for more! I loved this book. I loved the romance the way I liked the romance in Secretary — nothing I’d be into, but boy am I glad they lived happily ever after! Anderson actually made the threesome thing romantic, through a tender, incredibly heartfelt story of two noble cops who are the victims of an unfortunate experiement in peacekeeping — their psyches are permanently fused, but they need the addition of a willing owman to make the joining permanent and fully operational. The reason it works is becuase these guys aren’t sexually deviant; they’re your basic blue color detectives just looking for a nice girl, but one that doesn’t mind taking them both on. Tall order. To add to that problem, she needs to have a special brain chemistry that is compatible with their malfunctioning Tandem Chips. Now, before you rush out and buy this book, I will point out that it’s incredibly explicit and depicts sex acts (aside from the obvious) that actually were a bit much for me. But once again, the well-plotted story and quick-paced writing glossed over the rough spots for me. Anderson is a very creative storyteller, and has an eye for detail that make me think she’s got a big future in SF. Very, very well done. Four Semicolons
I haven’t been keeping up on my Blaze releases in the past few months, and I’ve picked up a few to get into what’s being publishied in the line *now*. Despite the slow start (no pun intended), I was with Alexander with her sweet, rather tender story of a mature, hippie baker and her Peter-Pan syndrome lover. Tucker, the “hero” (and believe me, I use that word extremely loosely) seemed to get along fine. He wasn’t the type of guy I’d fall for (or even recommend to Rory) but the heroine was pretty with it (love me some plus-sized woman secure enough to be a nude model!) and if she liked him, who was I to question her love life? However, Alexander lost me early in the third act, where Tucker and Rory are in bed, and when Tuck’s nosy brothers come into his trashed bachelor pad basement apartment, he freaks out like he’s an eleven year old who’s been caught with his hands down his pants, freaks out, and kicks her out of his apartment window, clutching her clothes in a bundle A 32 year old man. Supposedly, this schlub redeems himself by dressing up in Armani and Prada, but you can’t turn this piglet’s ear into a silk purse. First act: Three Semicolons, Second act: Four Semicolons, Third Act: One Semicolon, for an unfortunate average of Two and Two-Thirds Semicolons (would that be two semicolons and a raised period?)
(In passing, this book had “sisters” named Rory (for Aurora) and Mikki (for Michaela) much like the twins in Leto’s recent Blaze series. What’s up with that? Are there a Rory/Aurora/Mikki/Michaela crew in daily soaps or something? Is that why they’re appearing in Blazes in droves?)
I’m admittedly more of a Pixar Princess than a Dreamworks Diva, but this movie is from the man who brought my childhood imagination Tron so I thought I’d give it a whirl. And whirl it did. Though visually stunning, I don’t know if I should be paying $9.75 to watch computer animated “marble madness” or “domino” games. The visual tricks got a little old after a while when it became obvious that there was no decent story to back the bells and whistles up. A perfectly motivated chase scene morphed into a false doubles ice-skate spoof of robots sliding on ballbearings, and the climax was put on hold so they could do a ten second homage to britney-freaking- Spears. Brad Bird, where are you when I need you? I’ll take your Iron Giant any day.
Some questions I have: Where did the rest of the “outmoded” army go during the battle? Why did the Bigweld hole himself up to play dominoes? Why did the evil guy’s dad just hang out there? How many movies to I have to watch where Amanda Bynes (or her digital equivalent) dances (badly) to James Brown? I used to like computer animated movies becuase the cost of making them meant that the script had to be perfect and strong before people would put in the time to drawing things. Apparently, that’s out the window. I should have known that “the people who brought me Ice Age” didn’t have anything I really wanted.Two Semicolons and a Comma.
Another of the new Blazes by a relatively new Blaze writer, but one who is apparently making a big splash in the line. Now, I very much enjoyed the premise of this story — a well-motivated deception! An interesting twist on amnesia! However, a lackluster heroine and a really meh hero sunk a large portion of the book for me. Redeemed, somewhat by a spunky secondary heroine/best friend and her sexy, redheaded (note to the PTB over there at Blaze, more of these men, please!) doctor secondary hero/best friend were an absolute joy to read. I’d read another of Hunter’s books, if only in hope that she writes more Travises and Pennys, and fewer Mirandas and Colins. Meanwhile, because the split in the book was about 80/20, and I’d grade it 1.5/4 I’m forced to leave it with and average of Two Semicolons.
Pages written (sorry, Larissa): 9
This is a large number for me.
It might be a female thing, but I don’t have much energy today. I also don’t have anything particularly original to say (other than the above) so today I’m going to be sending you to interesting blogs I’ve been reading:
Poor Alison Kent. Chick can’t open her mouth without someone jumping down her throat. She posts an innocent musing about her reading preferences and the romance writing blogosphere reacts like North Korea just had a suspicious “seismic event.” Everyone responds with “Well, if you don’t like romance heroines, maybe you should stop writing them!” Ou-ooch. I really don’t think Kent meant any harm in her post. She did title it ‘Write What You Enjoy Reading” and then wrote that she didn’t enjoy reading romance, so unfortunately anyone who skimmed over the first sentence of her blog might have missed that the whole point of the title was to introduce her ongoing conundrum. I think this might be another example of ultra-sensitive romance writers and readers who are so used to defending themselves that they do it at the slightest provocation, and they fear Kent is one of those writers who is about to jump ship and claim she never did like the genre, anyway. She’s not, I assure you. The real tragedy here is that Kent has been so disappointed in her in-genre reading choices that she goes elsewhere, which is a shame, because there really is some good stuff out there. After all, Alison Kent keeps selling, so there’s obviously a market out there for the stuff she likes, and likely other writers who are doing it. (Alison, hon, when you read this, maybe you should think of branching out from the RITA entries. If I judged the genre based on the GH entries I read every year — even taking into account that they are unpubbed — I’d throw in the towel, too.) 
Next up, we’ve got Kathleen O’Reilly, whose post on Story and the state of film reminds me very much of the ideas put forth in the amazing essay F/X Porn by Mr. David Foster Wallace. I love this essay. I refer to it all the time when I complain about Hollywood movies, and the term “[BLANK] porn” has made it into the household parlance. For those of you without the time or inclination to read DFW’s whole essay (and I suggest you seriously reconsider your stance, he’s a brilliant writer and literary critic), I will sum up: F/X Porn refers to those action movies in which the plot seems to exist solely to set up the long action sequences [cough, cough, carchaseinsecondMatrix, cough cough], just like in porn movies, the premise only exists to set up the extended sex scenes. So Sailor Boy and I talk about romantic comedy porn, reality show porn, fried chicken porn… I love our relationship, by the way.
Finally a quick change of gears from writeroriented blogs, we’ve got Overworked and Underf*cked. People who say my heroine’s are unsympathetic and slutty? Read Avatar, and you’ll see that my audience is not the soccer mom. Man, is this chick hot (and the pic of the — is that caviar? — hot.
Not much time for diversions today. I’m busy, desperately trying to un-meh a manuscript that desperately needs it.
But, meanwhile, I have come up with a name for my darling baby Mazda: Nikita.
Though I think this is an intersting article about fan clamoring for a return to the Buffy/Angel universe, that and $3.50 will buy me a latte at Starbucks. There’s a poll up asking who we’d most like to see in a spin-off. (I’d pick Giles, but didn’t the BBC’s Watcher stall at the starting gate? And we already know Eliza Dushku would rather ride the merry-go-round on Fox Fridays than reprise Faith.)
I wonder who is going to win The Marster fans are rabid, I tell you. Though his response to a Spike spinoff is interesting (see above article):
I told him I would be very interested in doing it within a five-year time span, but being that the character is a vampire, I didn’t think that I was the guy to play him after that because, with everyone who played a vampire on that show, it was a prime concern that you try to maintain the look that you were hired with, that you really try not to age.
Jimmy boy, I think you already missed the boat.
Now, I was living in a tent in the middle of the Outback during the last season of Angel, so I missed it, but I wasn’t exactly crying in my billy can. I thought the show jumped the shark ’round about the time Cordelia jumped in bed with Angel’s supernaturally-aged son, and not even the appearance of the awesome Mrs. Fishburne rescued it for me. And the addition of Spike didn’t whet my appetite either.
I don’t like ensouled Spike. I like him bad and sensitive, like he was in the second season, in the fourth season, hell, even in the fifth season. Remember that scene in the second season when he teams up with Buffy to fight Angel and Acathla (sp?) and says how he, unlike most evil villains, does not want the world to end, because he likes it here. I don’t want my bad boy to get all guilty, because I like him the way he is. I thought the characterization of Spike in the six and seventh seasons of Buffy was one of the things that was most wrong with the show.
But it doesn’t stop me from watching the reruns on TNT. In the one I was watchign the other day, Spike got “corporealized” and proceeded to hook up with Harmony (whom I always thought was a highly amusing character, btw). And there he is, on top of her, thrusting away (great undying soulful love for Buffster, by the way — I love how both vamps whore around L.A. while still holding onto the idea that they are competing for the Slayer) and we get a close up view of his craggy old face, and all the nooks and crannies that the cakes of pancake makeup aren’t quite hiding.
And it occurs to me: Spike is getting old!
Now, “old” and “unattractive” are not the same things at all — after all, I’d still do Paul Newman if given half a chance, and he’s what? Three hundred? But Spike isn’t quit pulling off the Billy Idol thing anymore. He looks more like Billy Idol in The Wedding Singer. That’s not a compliment.
So Spike spinoff? Five years or not, only if he plays a supernaturally aged vampire. He can be a 45 year old vampire, no problem, but he’s not going to play a 25 year old one anymore. Sorry. And I think he should lose the bleach. It doesn’t become his maturity.
I bought a new car!
I know, I can hardly believe it myself. It’s a Mazda3 hatchback, midnight blue, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! It’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought in my life. Sailor Boy is in love with it — a little bit jealous, actually. It’s fast and sleek and cute and quick-witted.
What do you think?
At least this one is on topic with my current WIP:
Which Illuminati are You? by Quizilla
Welcome to the new feature on Diana’s Diversions: The Daily Whirling, in which I will be positing a question that’s been, you guessed it, whirling around in my mind.
A few months ago, I received an agent rejection that went something like this: “Your manuscript isn’t paranormal enough to be what’s selling these days in paranormal, and as a straight romance, it doesn’t fit neatly into a genre like romantic comedy or romantic suspense.” I’m also reading a Blaze book right now that I’m not sure is sexy enough to be much like a Blaze.
So here’s my question. How often does a romantic comedy have to be funny? Every few lines? Every few pages? In a suspense, how often should the characters be in danger? In a paranormal, should a vampire jump out at least once a chapter? In a sexy book, how many sex scenes should I expect?
I freely admit that the agent’s assessment of my last book is a valid opinion. I don’t call it paranormal, and I don’t enter it into the paranormal category of contests becuase, frankly, it doesn’t perform well against the Feehanesque masses. It’s more like an early X-files than a Buffy — the paranormal element could be there, or it could not. The hero is not a vampire. There are plenty of jokes, but very few of the pratfalls and quirky, klutzy heroines that mark today’s “romantic comedies.” They are in danger quite a bit, but it’s by no means a romantic suspense, and the heroine doesn’t kick enough butt to make it romantic action. I think it’s sexy, but despite my best intentions, they only do the deed — onscreen — twice in the whole novel. They think about sex quite a bit, however, and it permeates the whole book. I’ve always thought of it as a straight romance, have billed it as such, and I’m only mildly worried that it’s not “really” enough in any of these directions to bypass the dreaded “unmarketable” or, worse, “meh.”
I’m writing a new books now, and it’s supposed to be flip and irreverant, and once again, there are jokes, but they aren’t yukking it up and hamming around for the reader. No one has tripped into the arms of an Adonis yet. Is that a problem?
How often do we need to demonstrate our subgenre in our manuscripts for them to count?
Okay, I’m in a pissy mood, I’ll give you that, but I’ve still had just about enough.
When I decided to pursue the business of novel writing, I did *a lot* of research. I studied, I read, I read, I read some more, I studied, I spent time on chats, and I asked questions of people. I did not:
1) Send 60k sweets to spicy lines asking for 100k. Insist that it’s so good that the publisher won’t care.
2) Rewrite romantic comedy novellas to be 100k romantic suspense novels or, alternately, YA books, because that’s what’s “hot.”
3) Insist that I know everything about the publishing industry to go it alone, then ask questions like, “Should I include a cover letter with my manuscript or just put it in an envelope?” And “How do you write a synopsis?”
4) Say things like, “How can this editor have requested my manuscript in this contest when it says on their website that they aren’t accepting any submissions?” This particular person also swore up and down that the address was not listed because of said policy of being closed to submissions. In actuality, they were very open to queries, and the address was listed right on the publisher’s website.
5) Post on a much-populated contest loop that my grammar is perfect because I’m a professional writer and have a professional copy editor critique my work, when my GH entry (which I emblazoned my name all over) was the worst example of bad grammar in the entire judging packet — and the judge is also a copy editor who recently received a perfect score on her copyediting test, so she knows of what she speaks. There’s grammar and there’s style. This was grammar. (And I would like to point out right now that I dont’ want any responses about the grammar on this blog, my emails, or my eharlequin posts, because I never edit them. I just sally forth. But you’d better believe I edit my novels before I send them out.)
6) Say, I’ve decied to write for this category line. I’ve read the backs of all the novels out this month and want to know if they are all just like that. I figure I’ll be published by next year — as long as I don’t decide to restart the book over again. No, I haven’t bothered reading any of hte books in teh line. Why would that be important?
I have observed each of these instances in the last two weeks, and I’m about to bite right through my tongue. PEOPLE! Research! Open your mind! Don’t act desperate! Admit that you don’t know something! Learn the f****** language! Sheesh.
Okay, I feel better now.
Got this from Cece, who got it from Steph:
A List of Ten Things I’ve Done That You Probably Haven’t:
1. Tagged Bats in Costa Rica
2. Attended the New Zealand Premiere of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
3. Took a plane trip to New York City on September 11, 2001.
4. Climbed Mt Ngarahoe (a.k.a Mt. Doom).
5. Worked as a restaurant critic.
6. Been offered a bribe as a federal employee — and of course, turned it down!
7. Listened to Hilary Clinton and George W. Bush speak at the same event.
8. Toured an unpublished dig at Herculaneum.
9. Modeled for a romance novel cover.
10. Lived in a building with no right angles.
Interstingly enough, the main thing I’ve done that most people haven’t is write a novel — but most people who read this blog have done that. Oddly enough, the largest population of none-writers who read this blog have done the other unusual thing, namely, graduating from Yale, and have probably therefore also done #7, and commonly #10.
Man, I’m boring, but I’m still young. I’m bound to do cooler stuff someday.
Stolen from Barb who stole it from someone named debg:
Write down one piece of your own work – it can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a paragraph – that you particularly love, and that you would point to if asked for an example of your voice. Fiction, fic, poetry, drama, song lyrics, anything at all, published or unpublished.
For readers:
Write down the first sentence, passage, bit of dialogue, whatever, that has stuck in your mind from something you yourself didn’t write.
The writing one was a lot harder than I thought. Apparently I’m crazy for my own prose. I decided to pick my favorite line from my newest work-in-progress:
“We run the country, even the states you wouldn’t think we’d care about, like Nebraska.”
The reading one was easy. Despite the endless snippets of books, essays and plays I’ve been forced to memorize throughout the year, there’s only one I like quoting so much, and that’s from Douglas Adam’s Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s all about evolution, humor, and the ridiculousness of logic:
“I cannot prove that I exist,” says God, “becuase proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. Q.E.D.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
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