Each clue in the Beautiful Creatures: Unlock the Curse Contest involves a powerful or magical object, a talisman of some kind, found in one of six supernatural novels. Solve each clue and complete each challenge to win Genevieve’s locket – the powerful Civil War talisman that unlocks the mystery of the curse that haunts Lena Duchannes.
In RAMPANT, unicorns are more than pretty creatures that accompany hearts and rainbows. They’re man-eating killers, with fangs and razor-sharp horns, dripping deadly venom. Almost against her will, Astrid is sent to a boot camp in Rome to become a unicorn hunter. When she arrives at the ancient Cloister, she encounters a fountain featuring the statue of a woman. What object of power does the statue hold?
Find the typepad blog that corresponds to this challenge, (the URLs are all the same EXCEPT for the name of the featured novel: wickedlovely, tithe, etc.) fill in the name of the book as the user name, and the name of the clue object as the password: then you’ll be able to unlock the sixth challenge.
The reason I haven’t blogged much this week is that I’m sick. I hate being sick. Hate hate hate. So when I’m sick, on top of feeling like crap, I’m in a pretty poisonous mood. At which point, it’s usually better that I just stay off my blog. Either that or share with you some real ranty mcrant-rants.
Don’t worry, I’ve spared you.
So what have I been up to? I’ve been reading. RITA entries and Golden Heart entries, mostly. I’ve been watching old romantic comedies on DVD. French Kiss is better than I remember it being. Overboard is not. I think it’s possible I’m just much more creeped out by the slavery aspects in the latter than I was when I saw it a long time ago.
I’ve also been reading many fascinating things on the internet. And I’m here to share them with you.
Justine Larbalestier’s blog vacation has made for some truly amazing guest posts. One of my favorites is the fabulous Lauren McLaughlin on how having a baby made her look at her fiction-writing in a totally new way. I really love the way Lauren is always so honest and forthright about her development as an artist. I think there are a lot of writers out there that feed into the myth that they popped out of the box full-formed, but that’s not the case, and reading articles like Lauren’s inspire me to talk more about my development as a writer. It’s also an interesting post because I always read the Cycler character of Ramie as being a person of color. (I see Filipino, actually — anyone else?)
My other favorite Larbalesti-guest post is from my newest object of professional-crushdom, Varian Johnson, on time management. Have I mentioned how Varian, upon hearing that we’d be at the same conference, brought me a bookstore newsletter that had an article about me all the way from Austin? As if I wasn’t already crushing on him because of the awesomeness that was My Life as a Rhombus. To wit: Varian’s books rock, and so does Varian. And so does Varian’s post on how he manages to be a civil engineer and a writing professor AND a writer AND help his (drop-dead gorgeous–I met her at the aforementioned conference) wife pick out granite countertops on the weekend. And here I am with a messy house, a fridge full of chicken soup and jello, and no other job but writing. I feel like such a slacker.
Speaking of the hard-working and prolific, another blog post I liked a lot recently was Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s take on the hated prologue on the Red Room. Lauren writes in half a dozen genres (at last count) and is as big a fan of the prologue as I am (her prologue count is 10/14, mine is 5/6). The prevailing opinion, however, is that one shouldn’t write prologues. Poppycock. What one should not write, under any circumstances, are bad beginnings, whether it’s labeled prologue, chapter 1, or nothing at all. (My prologues are rarely longer than a page, and are never labeled prologues.) For me, the prologues in my books that have prologues are all about setting a theme for exploration in the book, much like an epigraph of my own design.(Indeed, my only book that doesn’t have a prologue has an epigraph. So there.)
And, speaking of writing advice, a massive depository of such can be found in these two articles in the Guardian. It was interesting to read Elmore Leonard’s, which I either don’t agree with or disregard (perhaps to my detriment), especially given how much I always loved the advice I heard was his of “leave out the parts people skip.” However, apparently he wasn’t saying what I thought he was. I thought, you know, the boring bits. He thought, long paragraphs. Huh. I do like Roddy Doyle’s advice to give your work a name as soon as possible. I always find I work much better once I have a working title. It crystallizes my theme. Also, Geoff Dyer’s:
“Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.”
Which I think is very important for especially genre writers to remember. So often we fall into the trap of doing something because we believe (erroneously) that it’s expected by the readers. Have characters make the unexpected choice, have the unexpected reaction. Surprise the reader.
Richard Ford says, “Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.” That was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, so I’m right there with Ford. Sailor Boy has thought I should be a writer from the word go. He bought me tickets to my first writing conference. He’s always been one of my biggest supporters. In fact, I was on the phone with him today about a new direction in my career, and he was really pushing me forward. I’m extremely fortunate.
Hilary Mantel advises: “Write a book you’d like to read. If you wouldn’t read it, why would anybody else? Don’t write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book’s ready.” So true. I was doing an interview recently, which asked what I’d write if I didn’t have to worry about money. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be offended by that question. Because the answer is the same damn stuff I’m writing now. I write books I want to write, and books I’d like to read, and I always expect that I’m not the only one who feels that way. Yes, I get paid for projects, but I’ve also turned things down that were worth good money because I didn’t want to write them. I think you can feel that sort of thing in the writing. Write for yourself, and the rest will fall in line.
I also love everything Jeannette Winterson says. There’s a lot of good advice in these articles, and a lot I think is ehhhh, but, you know what they say about opinions.
What else have I been reading? Well, there’s this laughable suit going on against JK Rowling. Man, people will do anything for a buck, I think. And PublishAmerica, a vanity publishing house, is now telling their authors that they will submit their supposedly good-as-the-big-guys “published” book to Random House, because (this is my favorite part): “Every writer dreams about becoming a published author. Once they have reached that goal, as you have, many dream of the next step up: to become a Random House author. Random House is one of the most prestigious publishing names. Their extensive operation a few miles from our own headquarters makes them virtual neighbors.”
So apparently every published author’s dream is to become a Random House author? (Disclaimer: I actually am a Random House author, and happy about it.) But I know lots of writers who are perfectly happy not being Random House authors and, when given the choice, chose not to become Random House authors in favor of better contract terms at, say, Penguin or Little, Brown. The whole letter is worth reading for entertainment value though. In passing, last I heard, PA was in Frederick, Maryland. Random House is located on Broadway, in New York City. This “extensive operation a few miles” away the letter is talking about is actually a Random House distribution warehouse in Westminster (yay, Google Maps). Hint: they don’t acquire manuscripts there. I feel sorry for the RH mailroom clerks who are going to have to deal with this influx of bound slush from PA.
And, last but not least, I enjoyed this blog post by author Kate Douglas on the challenges of breaking into a new genre, and how to stay published, even when you’re being published very well.
I had a lovely weekend. Marianne Mancusi came to visit. We went out to dinner, took Rio hiking, visited the spy museum, watched a rather disappointing chick lit (Why, Dear John? Why?) and baked muffins. We also talked NON STOP about books.
These are Marianne’s recent YA books. They’re about a pair of twins… and vampires. And they’re awesome.
Marianne let me in on some super top secret information about her upcoming books, which basically had me swooning, because she’s drawing on one of my most favorite stories ever ever EVER.
So that was a lovely weekend and I’m glad Marianne was here to drag me out of my winter hibernation, otherwise it’s entirely likely I would have spent the weekend on the couch in fleece pants watching my brand new and muchly-cherished DVD sets of Avatar: the Last Airbender. Because that’s exactly what I proceeded to do as soon as Marianne went home on Sunday afternoon.
But it’s noon on Monday now and I’ve already completed two of my four big goals for the day, so I’m feeling pretty good.
And, I have a winner for the HEIST SOCIETY book, and that is:
Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the authors of BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, are on their way to Seattle, Chicago & the Bay area for the second leg of their book tour. They are hosting a special contest in honor of the tour, and I’m part of it. The winner of the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES: Unlock the Curse Contest will be win the magical object that brought Ethan and Lena together in the novel… Genevieve’s locket.
Information from my book, RAMPANT, will be used to solve one of the clues to unlock a challenge in the contest. Here is the complete list authors participating in the contest and their books, in the order in which the clues for their books will be given:
WICKED LOVELY by Melissa Marr
TITHE by Holly Black
CITY OF BONES by Cassandra Clare
SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater
THE DEMON’S LEXICON by Sarah Rees Brennan
RAMPANT by Diana Peterfreund
So come back to this blog to find a clue that will help unlock one of the six challenges, and good luck Unlocking the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES Curse!
And here are pictures of the gorgeous cameo locket prize!
Isn’t that gorgeous? I love books that come with special jewelry. Now I just need someone to start making me swords and alicorn daggers.
Quickly, because it’s a gorgeous morning outside, and I’m about to blow Rio’s puppy mind by taking her for an actual hike for the first time since the blizzard…
The other day, I met up with the awesome Ally Carter on her DC stop for her Heist Society Tour. She sounds like she’s having a blast on tour, so make sure to drop by and see her if she comes to your area next. (Think it’s just Texas, at this point.)
Anyway, we had a nice chatty dinner, during which, I’m pleased to announce, I was able to sate my kiwi cravings by eating pavlova for dessert. Oh, pavlova, how I missed you!
Also, I got her to sign a copy of HEIST SOCIETY for you, dearest blog readers. And I’m going to give it away RIGHT NOW. And all you have to do to enter is leave a comment hear telling me the following:
If you were a master thief, what would you steal?
Have at it. Contest open internationally. Closes Sunday night.
So this post started life a few weeks ago as a conversation with Carrie about what “dystopia” actually meant in the context of writing dystopic fiction. Carrie’s opinion, which I’ve since confirmed is the prevailing one, is that a dystopia is a society featuring negative/miserable/oppressive/violent conditions. My understanding of a dystopia, which I’ve held since high school up until the point that I had this conversation with Carrie and went to do some research on the subject, was that the word dystopia was specifically dealing with a society that presented itself as being perfect and utopic, but was rotten underneath. Something like the society in Scott Westerfeld’s book UGLIES. Everyone thought they were happy and at peace, but it was a lie.
Compare that to the societies in Carrie’s books, where no one is under the delusion that they are living in a perfect society. So I was describing her books as being post-apocalyptic but not dystopic, whereas she was saying they are both. (Note: you can have dystopias without corresponding apocalypses. Cf. THE COMPOUND and CANDOR.) So is Publisher’s Weekly, as of 2/15, in an article about “dystopian” YA fiction that comes with the headline “Apocalypse Now.” From the article:
“…hundreds of thousands of today’s teens are reading future-as-a-nightmare novels—and not just the 1984 and Brave New World classics required by their teachers. Publishers will be releasing dozens of new dystopian titles over the next few years. Among the scenarios: no more gas, no more water, viruses run amok, genetic manipulation gone awry, totalitarian leaders, reality TV gone too far, and so on.”
(Incidentally, both 1984 and Brave New World, to me, are what I’m thinking of when I classically define “dystopia”: both show societies that present themselves as being the ideal–particularly the latter, which bears many similarities to Uglies in its makeup and treatment of “wild” men.)
I have a thing for dystopian fiction and always have. Much of my juvenilia takes place in post-apocalyptic and dystopian worlds, and much of my teen reading did, too. In fact, most of my science fiction reading can be classified under the post-apocalyptic or dystopian sub genre. (Though, in a con-level conversation about YA SF on Janni Lee Simmer’s blog the other day–and really, the whole thing is worth reading–one big topic was how many SF folks discount dystopic fiction from their ranks.) If the idea of fantasy and science fiction is about holding up a mirror to real world issues, it helps if you can recreate the entire world of your story around that particular real-world issue. Do you want to talk about genetic engineering creating unfair class differences? Gattaca. Do you want to talk about ideals of beauty? Uglies. Privacy? 1984. Free will? Candor. Censorship? Farenheit 451. Third-world exploitation and getting desensitized to televised violence? The Hunger Games.
Like a scientist, the author of a dystopian work of fiction creates a set of very particular conditions within which he runs his human experiment.
As an author of six books of fiction set in our world, I have to say that’s an idea with seriously seductive potential. How often do the rules of our world get in the way of fiction I want to right? Astrid may rush out into the knight with an alicorn in her fist, intent on vigilante justice, but even she knows that the police must be called, people must be taken to the hospital — there’s proper procedure. In Secret Society Girl, the grinding of the tectonic plates between the created society (which has its own arguably dystopic qualities) against that of the real world formed much of the tension of the books. Was Amy going to follow the rules of her society, or the rules of the real world? What about the other society members? How could they play those rules off one another to achieve their ends?
So though I have never written a dystopic novel, both of my series do deal with a fictional construct of a little worlds-within-worlds where the rules operate differently, and usually in such a way that it’s severe detriment to the members of the little society. Rose & Grave’s secrecy hurts its members; the benefits aren’t as clear. The rules of the Order of the Lioness are restricting and backwards, even to those trying to resurrect it. I would describe only the former, however, as being a society that thinks of itself as actually beneficial.
(It’s interesting to think about this though, because I recently finished writing a historical killer unicorn story that has a very different perspective on the OoL — it is apparent to me now that a society might work under some circumstances and not others. If the world outside is a far more dystopic place then maybe you’re better off in the Order.)
But I’m not convinced yet, because I also would argue that books that are simply post-apocalyptic are not dystopian. To me, [The Hunger Games] is simply post-apocalyptic. (Those in charge weren’t and aren’t aiming for a utopia. Just control.) Similarly, just because a war is involved doesn’t make it dystopic to me. (Is Star Wars dystopic? Is The Hurt Locker?)
Unlike Joni (who comes down on my side of the definition, i.e., “dystopia”=”utopia gone wrong”) I would absolutely argue that The Hunger Games is dystopic fiction, even by her and my more limited definition. You are simply seeing it from the perspective of the already-oppressed. The population of the Capitol is shown over and over again that they have been taught to believe that their society is perfect, and that this horrible, torturous existence of the Districts is the way things are supposed to be.
So now we’ve got these two working definitions of dystopia:
a utopia gone horribly wrong (Uglies, Gattaca, Candor, etc.)
a world where everything is as bad as it could possibly be (The Forest of Hands & Teeth, Life As We Knew It)
But at what point are we just mixing up post-apocalyptic worlds and dystopian ones? Is an apocalypse necessary to bring on a dystopia? It’s easier, I suppose, to remake the world in the dystopic image of your choice if you clear it out with an apocalypse, first.
One of my favorite pieces of dystopic fiction is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake. (She recently wrote a sequel, The Year of the Flood, which I haven’t read, though Ursula LeGuin’s review in the Guardian should not be missed, seeing how she takes Atwood to task for insisting that her work is NOT science fiction. ). O&C is about a dystopic future society, one in which corporations rule the United States, genetic engineering and pharmaceuticals are king, all creative endeavors have gone to the lowest common denominator (read: porn and snuff films), and the manufactured apocalypse that comes out of that. It’s not post-apocalyptic, really, It’s just plain apocalyptic, and it’s the dystopia that brings the apocalypse about, not (as is so often the case) the other way around.
Is dystopia in the eye of the beholder? Carrie calls her books dystopic. Publisher’s Weekly, along with some other sites that have been compiling lists of dystopic YAs, agree. To read these lists, though, one comes away with the idea that for all the talk about vampire books, it’s post-apocalyptic and/or dystopic fiction that’s really making a splash in YA these days.
There are books on that list I’d describe as dystopic, and ones I’d describe as post-apocalyptic. My own, personal definition is that if the effects of the apocalypse is still coloring everything, and bringing it down, it’s post-apocalyptic. If it’s more about the new (evil) society and the way things are working (even if that society is a direct response to the apocalypse), it’s dystopic. For instance, I’d classify Uglies as dystopic, because though we hear about the Rusties and what happened to them, it’s ancient history to Tally, like Roman ruins. It has nothing to do with her life and the way her dystopic society operates.
(And, as I said earlier, it’s quite possible to have a dystopic story without a corresponding apocalypse.)
But the trend these days is to lump them all together. Post apocalyptic –> dystopic. And maybe, as a subset of YA speculative fiction, it’s as good a definition as “a girl and her paranormal boyfriend.” After all, there are a lot of books on shelves right now that are werewolves or demons or fairies or fallen angels and they definitely appeal to the same market share as the people who are reading the ones about vampires. The people who like to read the post-apocalyptic books are the same ones who read the ones I’ve been calling dystopic.
The PW article goes on to say:
“YA authors “are using the dystopian genre to try to grapple with the issues of today,” says David Levithan, v-p and editorial director at Scholastic. But unlike writers of adult fare, they are giving their downbeat stories an optimistic twist. “It’s about improving the dystopia rather than throwing up your hands and saying, ‘This is what we’re fated to be,’ ” he says. “We realize we could be these characters.”
““If there’s any one theme in children’s literature, it’s hope,” Perfect author Lerangis concurs. That was true for Diamond of Darkhold, the fourth and final tale in Jeanne DuPrau’s Book of Ember series, and it’s true for the final book in Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It trilogy. The books are never as bleak as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, or Stephen King’s Under the Dome. Scary stories (and movies) help kids work out their fears, says Girl in the Arena author Lise Haines, “and almost function like fairy tales. Even in the worst of situations, we find ways to get through, and sometimes even better the world.”
I really like that. In fact, I was saying something very similar to my editor the other day, in a discussion about this very topic. About how post-apocalyptic fiction can in fact, be quite optimistic.
Thanks to Kiersten White, a fellow HarperTeen author who as a debut novelist is understandably keeping close track of these things, I discovered that the fall 2010 list has finally made it to pre-order status at Amazon. Kiersten’s book, Paranormalcy, is out September 21, a week before Ascendant. (September 28). I have to say it’s always fun to see the listings go up. It’s usually the first time I see things like proposed page count, suggested retail price, and ISBN. Yes, authors sometimes find these things out from Amazon, too. I have a friend who first saw her cover when it went up on Amazon.
In case you were curious, the ISBN numbers of Ascendant are:
ISBN-10: 006-14-90024
ISBN-13: 978-006-14-90026
Those numbers will really come in handy if you wish to order Ascendant from book retailers other than Amazon.
Speaking of covers, I saw an early version of Ascendant’s recently. V. exciting stuff. One thing I really like about the cover concepts behind this series is how hard Harper works to nail down Astrid’s emotional state in the pictures they choose of her. I know from talking to my editor that they look a lot before they get the right picture that portrays what she’s going through in each novel. As those who have read Rampant know, Astrid’s duty rest very uneasily on her shoulders, for more reasons than one, and it’s this conflict that forms the core of Ascendant. This is the book where environmentalism comes to the fore, folks.
In other news — and perhaps it’s the knowledge that my antipodean friends are enjoying their summer right now while I’m snowbound in DC — I’m finding that I’ve had the most insane cravings for New Zealand food recently. I’ve been drooling over photos of pavlova, which I could make here, you know, if I knew anything about whipping egg whites. I’ve been making a ton of lamb dishes. And I’ve been craving two things that I can’t actually get here, and those two things are:
glucose energy candy
hokey pokey ice cream
I know, I hear you now. “Glucose energy? I’ve got news for you, Diana, all candy has glucose energy.” Yes, but only in New Zealand do they actually have a candy that CALLS itself that, that advertises its benefits as glucose energy, that features commercials in which a harried kindergarten teacher doles out little dollops of glucose energy to her oddly lethargic charges so they can go out and act like madmen on the swingsets again.
So here’s a story. I was hiking the Tongariro Track, which is a three-day hike on the North Island through a (mostly) volcanic wasteland that is famous primarily for being the Mordor set in Lord of the Rings. (It’s actually gorgeous and often sunny in real life). And I was tired, because, not being a New Zealander (like, you know, Edmund Hillary), I don’t think of anything less than a ten day trek into the wilderness as (and I’m quoting here) “a bit of a wander.” So I was sitting, trying to catch my breath, and a very nice Kiwi woman dropped by and, concerned for my lack of stamina, offered me a few pieces of her glucose energy candies. (They are fruit-flavored hard candies.) Sailor Boy and I made much merriment out of the way she called it glucose energy, and chocked it up to the whole “separated by a common language” thing, like how they also sell “Sultana Bran” cereal and put “capsicums” on their pizzas. But, it turned out that glucose energy is a real brand, and they have TV commercials which are so incredibly awesome I remember them six years later.
And the other thing I remember and long for and will probably be the very first thing I buy if I ever return to Aotearoa, is hokey pokey ice cream. Hokey pokey ice cream is the best ice cream flavor in the entire world, and, in New Zealand, it’s also the second most popular flavor. Like if you walk into a gas station and they’ve got three bins of ice cream it’s probably going to be vanilla, chocolate, and hokey pokey.
See this girl? Want to know why she’s so happy? Because she just bought two liters of hokey pokey ice cream for like $3 NZ and it’s got 15% more hokey pokey pieces in it. Tip Top is not expensive and yet, it’s still really, really good. Ice cream in New Zealand (actually, all dairy in New Zealand) is delicious.
NO ONE IN THE US MAKES HOKEY POKEY ICE CREAM! This is a travesty. Hokey pokey — they say it’s like toffee, but it’s not, really. It’s like… butter pecan ice cream without the pecan, and little pieces of semi-hard caramel studded all throughout. Someone please import this stuff.
There has been a lot of chatter on Twitter lately about the role of gender in YA books. On one hand, women writers and female-centric books dominate the YA market. (An interesting phenomenon given the “general knowledge” that a girl will read a book by or about any gender, but most boys will only read books about–or sometimes by–males.)
On the other, there’s still a lot of sexism. Female characters are held toridiculousstandards (especially by female readers!) and vilified for having faults. In YA fiction, as in adult fiction, male writers are showered with praise and awards while comparable books written by female writers are not. Year after year, critics “best of” lists are all about the men. In that post, critic Lizzy Skurnick writes:
I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were “ambitious.” Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . “small.” “Domestic.” “Unam –” what’s the word? “– bititous.”
Oh, those damn scribbling women and their little domestic novels!
A few months ago, I visited the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City. The exhibit displayed some of Austen’s letters, first editions of her works, things like that. But the exhibit that stuck with me the longest was on on Nabokov. Seems he wasn’t such a fan of Jane (along with Emerson, Twain, and other males):
“I dislike Jane, and I am prejudiced, in fact, against all women writers. They are in another class. Could never see anything in Pride and Prejudice.”
He was called out by Edmund Wilson, a famous literary critic. Great, huh? Well, wait until you see the manner of the calling-out:
“You are mistaken about Jane Austin. I think you ought to read Mansfield Park. Her greatness is due precisely to the fact that her attitude toward her work is like that of a man, that is, of an artist, and quite unlike that of the typical women novelist, who exploits her feminine day dreams . . . She is, in my opinion, one of the half dozen greatest English writers.”
So she’s good, but only because she writes like a man. Astounding, huh? Because no male writer (and certainly not Nabokov), ever made a great work of literature out of exploiting his own daydreams. Right? Anyway, Nabokov revisited Austen, found an appreciation for Mansfield Park, and proceeded to teach it in his lit classes at Cornell. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
As I said in yesterday’s post, I watched the new PBS version of Emma. I have to say it won me over in the end, but only because I am a sucker for the proposal scene and the way the two characters, who have had such an unequal relationship throughout the entire book come together in a moment of true mutual respect. Yes, it’s due to a big misunderstanding, but it’s quite moving, and it makes you realize that when they are married, he won’t treat her like the child he spent the first half of the book treating her as.
But I digress. My point here is that each episode of the mini-series began with actress Laura Linney addressing the screen and lecturing: “Is Jane Austen too ordinary and narrow for today?” she asks us. Linney’s point turns out to be that Emma Woodhouse is not Harry Potter or Edward Cullen or Wolverine. That she’s just a normal human with normal flaws. (Those magical guys all have “normal flaws” too, though.) However, the use of the word “narrow” is suspect. Ordinary? Fine. But narrow far too closely echoes another famous critic of Austen’s, Ralph Waldo Emerson:
I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seems to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer is . . . marriageableness . . . Suicide is more respectable.
Oh, Ralph, tell us how you really feel!
It must be nice to live in a world where your options are wider than “marriageableness” or not. I feel like Emerson must have read the first line of Pride & Prejudice, took it at face value, and then went for a walk in the woods. The women in Austen are concerned about marriage because marriage was the only “business” they were allowed to conduct. And Austen’s characters do in fact realize the folly of bad marriages. Elizabeth Bennet would rather risk the kind of poverty that ends up befalling the Dashwoods than wed Mr. Collins. Her friend Charlotte decides that the stigma of being an old maid rates higher on the humiliation scale than that of being married to a fool with good prospects. In Austen’s novels, the onset of love goes hand in hand with the onset of respect. They are romantic within the realm of practicality. Talk about a woman’s daydream! Those were high hopes for the 18th century gal. (And if you want to read about how easily it can all go wrong, check out Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott.)
So Austen is narrow. But it doesn’t stop in the 18th century. I recently read a New York Times profile of the writer/director/producer Nancy Meyers. Meyers is famous for her women-focused domestic comedies. She writes about affluent women and their families and their romances. Sounding familiar? Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, It’s Complicated — these are hers. The first page of the long article is devoted to talking about how Meyers was asked to move from her table at a tony LA restaurant. Ha, see? Even powerful Hollywood moguls get no respect — you know, if they’re women.
Then the writer goes on to talk about how important and influential and successful Meyers is — never letting go of the fact that gosh, it’s hard since she’s a chick. In response to a complain about the number of takes she likes to do of every scene, her (male) agent is quoted as saying there wouldn’t be a complaint if Nancy was Mike Nichols. And gosh, Jack Nicholson respects her, too! I especially loved this bit:
It would be tempting to attribute Meyers’s uninflated manner to her being female — to having been trained from birth in the art of the soft sell — except for the fact that she is more straightforward than girlish, more clear than coy. “She’s just really smart and doesn’t seem to be impeded by all the weirdness that everyone brings to whichever gender they are,” says Helen Hunt, who starred in “What Women Want.”
In other words, just because she’s powerful, don’t fear that she’s that horrible, aggressive kind of female. Don’t fear that she’s a bitch.
Later, the writer, Daphne Merkin, calls Meyers’s women-centric, romantic films “retro” and “post-feminist” — tags I find rather shocking. Because they are romantic? The women in Meyers’s films are successful and (usually) wealthy from their own accomplishments. Diane Keaton’s character in Something’s Gotta Give is a hit playwright with a tenured professor (in Women’s Studies, yet!) for a sister. Cameron Diaz’s character in Holiday owns her own movie trailer production company (and a mansion in Beverly Hills). Diaz puts it bluntly in that film when she tells Jude Law’s single-dad character that she feels comfortable telling him about her success because she knows he won’t be intimidated, having been raised by a mother who was a high level executive editor at Random House. The romantic elements of the film do not detract from the feminist ones.
And the writer momentarily agrees:
“These women are self-sufficient and notably energetic. They may not have men, at least when we first meet them, but they make do with friends and children and siblings, for whom they whip up tasty dinners and homemade pies and laugh over their own situations. When men do appear on the scene, whether in the form of a babe-chasing player like Jack Nicholson’s Harry or Alec Baldwin’s renewedly impassioned Jake (or Dennis Quaid’s Nick Parker in “The Parent Trap,” for that matter), they awaken dormant desires that nevertheless have to be fit into pre-existing, busy lives.”
But then she spends a few pages obsessing over the filmaker’s focus on set dressings. She criticizes the thread count in the upholstery as being needlessly lush and overindulgent. Let us unpack the following quote:
“Whether her insistence on “softening the message” [Meyer's quote, which I for one believe was taken out of context] through plush surroundings ultimately weakens the films — renders them more glossy and insular than they need be, even for a genre that is inherently fizzy — is a question I have debated with myself and others.”
So, because women-centric romantic comedies are “inherently fizzy” we should make doubly sure to grit them up in a visual sense? I wonder how many other filmmakers are asked not to put their characters in fancy cars or film in exotic locales in order to, you know, make something real. These damn domestic female stories!
“At worst, her films can give off an air of tidy unreality — and it is this unexamined aspect, I think, this failure to even hint at darkness, that most fuels critical ire. Richard Schickel condemns Meyers with faint praise, hinting that she and the studios have struck a devil’s pact of sorts. “Clearly there is an audience for sweet little middle-class romances of the kind she makes, and it pleases the studios to indulge a woman, whom they would not trust with more vigorous projects. It’s as if they’re trying to say: ‘Hey, we’re not sexists. We make Nancy Meyers movies.’ ””
“Sweet little middle class romances.” (First of all, anyone who lives in a house like the Hamptons mansion in Something’s Gotta Give is NOT middle class, fwiw.) But can’t you just hear Emerson’s or Nabokov’s dismissal of Austen in those words? Can’t you hear the dismissal of that roomful of critics deciding on literary awards? Why is domestic a dirty word? Why is a character driven movie about a successful person dealing with their personal lives a Best Picture nominee if it stars George Clooney, but not if it stars Meryl Streep? I think I’m inclined to agree with Meyer’s agent. An article like this would never be written if Nancy was Ned.
I leave you with this (there’s a little bit of language at the end):
I awoke to the wonder of a sunny sky and a plowed street. Yay! The downside, of course, is that Sailor Boy and I both seem to have caught some kind of crud, and neither of us feel like spending hours shoveling out to said plowed street. Rio, however, is once again interested in visiting the outside world, and our visiting dog has decided to grace us with her presence (she spent all of yesterday hibernating upstairs).
I just want to lie around drinking soup and watching Emma on PBS. I’m enjoying it, though years of watching the Gwyneth Paltrow version makes it all seem to be moving super slowly. It’s like every offhand mention of anything occurring in the book requires an entire scene in this film. Mr. Knightley tells Emma that Robert Martin came to see him? The film shows several scenes worth of Robert Martin coming to see him: Robert Martin approaching the estate, Robert and Knightley talking, and then, you know, just so we get the full and complete picture of the situation, Robert Martin leaving the estate.
Seriously?
Also the casting is giving me fits. I can’t really picture Johnny Lee Miller as anything but the kid from Hackers (and the imagined image of him and a young Angelina Jolie getting married in blood spattered t-shirts is indelible), and Romola Garai is the chick from the Dirty Dancing sequel. Didn’t like her in that, either. I wish she’d close her mouth every once in a while.
I think the problem is that I don’t much like Emma. I think it’s probably fourth or fifth on my list of Austen, and while my two favorite Austens (Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion) are among my favorite books of all time, I’ve discovered that I’m not going to fall all over an Austen just because it’s an Austen. I feel the same way about Mansfield Park. There are parts of it I really like, but Fanny never did it for me, and her relationship with her cousin? (I mean, aside from all the squicky cousins-raised-as-siblings-still-in-love thing that was apparently appropriate in Austen’s day.) Meh.
But I’m only through part 1 of 3, so we’ll see. I did find the Emma/Knightley romance arresting as a teenager, but now I don’t think I can handle the patronizing way Knightley treats Emma. I find their age difference more unsettling now.
Okay, I think I’m feeling a little better now. Time to get up and see about shoveling that driveway.
Okay, so now that I have my toast and Rio’s dirty looks have morphed from their earlier, “You’re not really going to eat me, are you mommy?” tenor to “You’re not really going to share that toast and blackberry jam with me, are you Mommy?” tenor, I guess I can go on.
Mmmmm, toast.
So anyway, as you may have picked up from my oh-so-subtle hints (particularly on the last blog post), I have signed a new book contract. It is actually the second book contract I signed this year, but I got the offer for that one last year. Yes, it’s been a momentous year. This contract will keep Rio in kibble for another two years, so that’s good. It will also keep my readers (hi, readers!) in Diana Peterfreund books for the years 2011 and 2012. The contract is with Balzer & Bray, a team that I’m really excited to be working with, and my editor will again be the remarkable Kristin Daly.
I’m not saying what the first book in the contract is, though. That’s kind of a secret for now. But, when revealed (let’s say a month or two), it will probably surprise no one who knows me like, at all. Suffice to say for now, that this is a dream project, a project that I always thought I’d write, you know, someday, and I’m shocked that someday is suddenly now. This year. Today, in fact. It has a working title, but it’s a very working kind of working title. Maybe. I dunno.
I hate titles (until I hit upon the perfect one). Almost as much as I hate the snow.
You know what I don’t hate? Character names. The nice thing about starting a whole new book is that I get to come up with whole new character names. See, writing series, as I have been, means that I at best only get to come up with a few new names per book. Like Micah Price (and Jamie Orcutt) or Darren Gehry and Salt or Michelle Whitmore and Topher Cox (I was particularly proud of that one) in successive books in the SSG series. I came up with all the names for Rampant like five years ago, so being able to come up with a few new names (all French) for Ascendant was fun, too. I also got to come up with fantabulous new names for all the short stories I’ve been writing, and really, I think I outdid myself. Not having new characters to name for so long made each one all the more precious.
But these names for my new book? Oh, how I heart them! I hug each one too me, and pat them, my preciouses.
Also, don’t tell Carrie Ryan, but I think my name obsession is totally contagious. You should hear her talking about names these days. I did that.
I wonder, also, if readers care as much about the names I give my characters as I do. If they see a girl named Philippa and realize it means “Horse lover” or a set of characters named Cornelia and Cornelius and realize they have the names they do because of their unicorn hunting heritage. (An early reader — and really, I should just tell you, it was Carrie, which makes me all the more happy I’ve converted her to my evil, name-obsessive ways) was like “Do you realize you named two characters Cornelia and Cornelius?” and I was like, “Yes, because Cornelia’s mom, Sybil, gave her the female version of the family name Sybil’s brother has.” And it wasn’t like it was even confusing, since they went by Cory and Neil, which don’t look alike at all. I don’t like it when too many characters have names that look alike, which was annoying when I realized I’d gone ahead and named three of the most important characters in the SSG series all names that started with J. Oops. Who knew Josh and Jenny would end up being so important?
Also, you will be pleased to learn that I have broken through my A-obsession. The main character of this book does not have a name that starts with an A. Though she should. (That was a hint, people.)
Here I have had the opportunity to name like a dozen new characters. It’s so exciting. I’m drunk with options.
(I would like to point out that my husband shudders at the thought of someday naming a baby with me. You think I’m obsessive when it comes to fictional people? Ha. Ha ha. Though the benefit is that fictional people never have to endure playground taunts. I mean, except Astrid. Poor Astrid.)
Also, I really, really love these characters’ names. They might be my favorite names of all time. I’m having so much fun with their names, I am afraid I might be neglecting other things. Like, you know, actually writing the book.
And the other thing I remember and long for and will probably be the very first thing I buy if I ever return to Aotearoa, is hokey pokey ice cream. Hokey pokey ice cream is the best ice cream flavor in the entire world, and, in New Zealand, it’s also the second most popular flavor. Like if you walk into a gas station and they’ve got three bins of ice cream it’s probably going to be vanilla, chocolate, and hokey pokey.
