Well, the first two weeks of my Buddy Pact with Becky are over, and so far it seems to be a success. Neither Becky nor I have missed a deadline. Which is good, especially since she as a real-life deadline looming and I have a desperate desire to get my book in the mail. Three cheers all around.
But, frankly, it's been hell. There's been very little blogging for me over the past few weeks, because all my time was taken up with worrying, snacking, playing online games, asking Mark how I got myself into this mess--in short, procrastination.
Come the last few days of each week, I managed to kick myself into high gear and work from sun-up to sun-down to avoid losing my precious $50. Does anyone else have this problem: you're capable of Herculean effort, but for some reason not ordinary effort?
It's like, I have to keep reminding myself, "Hey, Jane, this is something you chose to do. It's not, like, something you have to get through. It's your life's work, for crying out loud!"
But everybody's life's work has parts that are pure joy and parts that are, well, pure work. I guess I'm in a pure work place right now.
Now, sending it off? That'll be pure joy.
OMG Star Trek OMG
What can I say about the new Star Trek movie? I mean, what CAN I say about the new Star Trek movie? Because the last thing I would want to say is anything that might spoil it for anyone.
So I will simply try out a new maxim I've been floating around in my head for a while:
Story is about change. Character is about constancy.
Whoever wrote the new Star Trek movie Gets It. Which is why, despite any of its charming imperfections, we hard-core Trekkies love it.
So I will simply try out a new maxim I've been floating around in my head for a while:
Story is about change. Character is about constancy.
Whoever wrote the new Star Trek movie Gets It. Which is why, despite any of its charming imperfections, we hard-core Trekkies love it.
Five Things My Mom Does Better Than Anybody Else
- Make lasanga
- Plan birthday parties
- Fix disasters
- Scrapbook
- Love me
Buddy Buddy
Of all the things that are hard about being a writer, cultivating discipline is probably the hardest. I've been struggling with it for years, for what feels like my whole life. And I don't think I'm alone. Other people struggle with it too.
A couple of years back, when I was looking for a house, my Realtor mentioned the program she had developed to deal with her occasional lapses of discipline. She had a buddy system with another Realtor, and they would give one another weekly assignments. Her buddy might tell her that her job for the week was to get two new clients, or fix up her office, or catch up with her filing, or whatever. And if one of them failed to complete her assignment, she would pay a penalty.
"If she doesn't do her assignment, she has to pay me a hundred bucks," my Realtor explained. "And me... well, I'm also motivated by money. But in smaller amounts. So if I don't complete my assignment, I have to give her twenty bucks."
Hmm... ok. So, let's set aside for the moment the fact that my Realtor was obviously running quite the racket on her "buddy." It still seems like a good idea. And since I heard about it, I've been looking, casual-like, for a buddy of my very own.
And I've finally got one. I brought up the system to my friend Becky the other night, and she agreed to buddy up. She has a dissertation; I have a book. We both want to get done. We're designing our own assignments for the moment, since we don't know all that much about one another's processes, but I think that should be ok. And we have equitable penalties -- fifty bucks apiece.
So, it's on. Ten pages for her, three edited scenes for me: all by Sunday morning. I feel pretty confident about getting there because... uh, yeah, fifty bucks. Which means it may not be long until my book is packed into on envelope on its way to New York.
A couple of years back, when I was looking for a house, my Realtor mentioned the program she had developed to deal with her occasional lapses of discipline. She had a buddy system with another Realtor, and they would give one another weekly assignments. Her buddy might tell her that her job for the week was to get two new clients, or fix up her office, or catch up with her filing, or whatever. And if one of them failed to complete her assignment, she would pay a penalty.
"If she doesn't do her assignment, she has to pay me a hundred bucks," my Realtor explained. "And me... well, I'm also motivated by money. But in smaller amounts. So if I don't complete my assignment, I have to give her twenty bucks."
Hmm... ok. So, let's set aside for the moment the fact that my Realtor was obviously running quite the racket on her "buddy." It still seems like a good idea. And since I heard about it, I've been looking, casual-like, for a buddy of my very own.
And I've finally got one. I brought up the system to my friend Becky the other night, and she agreed to buddy up. She has a dissertation; I have a book. We both want to get done. We're designing our own assignments for the moment, since we don't know all that much about one another's processes, but I think that should be ok. And we have equitable penalties -- fifty bucks apiece.
So, it's on. Ten pages for her, three edited scenes for me: all by Sunday morning. I feel pretty confident about getting there because... uh, yeah, fifty bucks. Which means it may not be long until my book is packed into on envelope on its way to New York.
I Want to Sell My Soul to HBO
I was in the bookstore yesterday and I noticed there was a new cover for Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Book publishers like to update their covers every once in a while, to keep them looking fresh and modern and on code, so this wasn't exactly a big surprise. But as I leaned closer, I got one.
Emblazoned across the top were these words: "Now an HBO original series."
I tell ya, HBO is all about the cozies lately. Less than a year ago they released True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris' wildly popular Sookie Stackhouse mysteries. Now they've fallen in with the traditionally-built ladies of Botswana's first all-girl detective agency.
Next year? Who knows. But all I'm saying is, if a bright young writer were to come out with something awesome... well, the sky's the limit.
Emblazoned across the top were these words: "Now an HBO original series."
I tell ya, HBO is all about the cozies lately. Less than a year ago they released True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris' wildly popular Sookie Stackhouse mysteries. Now they've fallen in with the traditionally-built ladies of Botswana's first all-girl detective agency.Next year? Who knows. But all I'm saying is, if a bright young writer were to come out with something awesome... well, the sky's the limit.
Make Mine Sushi
Lately, I've had a real thing for sushi. I can't get enough of it. For dinner, for lunch... heck, I'd even eat the stuff for breakfast.
Problem is, you just can't get sushi cheap. So last Friday I got out my much-read-but-never-used sushi cookbook and decided to give it a whirl.
My sushi cookbook, I should mention, is entirely Japanese in character. It cares very much about aesthetics, technique, and Doing Things Right. As evidence, I submit the following quotes:
"Hold the rice ball up to the light. You should be able to see light filtering through it."
"The best way to grate wasabi is with a piece of sharkskin attached to a small wooden board."
"Thou must toast the nori for ten seconds, and the seconds of the toasting shall be ten. Thou shalt not toast eleven, nor shall thou toast nine (excepting that thou then procedest to ten). Twelve is right out."
I ignored most of this. Not because I don't appreciate the eternal Japanese pursuit of perfection (in fact, I dote on it), but because if I hadn't, the intimidation factor would have killed this project in the offing. I also had to pass on using actual raw fish, because I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to drive all the way to the Asian market across town, and I had this conversation with the girl behind the seafood counter at Kroger:
Me: Hi, I was interested in making sushi tonight. Do you have any tuna that's fresh enough for that?
Fishmongress: We have it, but it's frozen.
Me: (aside) I don't think you understood my question.
So, I was stuck with the following seafood:
Problem is, you just can't get sushi cheap. So last Friday I got out my much-read-but-never-used sushi cookbook and decided to give it a whirl.
My sushi cookbook, I should mention, is entirely Japanese in character. It cares very much about aesthetics, technique, and Doing Things Right. As evidence, I submit the following quotes:
"Hold the rice ball up to the light. You should be able to see light filtering through it."
"The best way to grate wasabi is with a piece of sharkskin attached to a small wooden board."
"Thou must toast the nori for ten seconds, and the seconds of the toasting shall be ten. Thou shalt not toast eleven, nor shall thou toast nine (excepting that thou then procedest to ten). Twelve is right out."
I ignored most of this. Not because I don't appreciate the eternal Japanese pursuit of perfection (in fact, I dote on it), but because if I hadn't, the intimidation factor would have killed this project in the offing. I also had to pass on using actual raw fish, because I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to drive all the way to the Asian market across town, and I had this conversation with the girl behind the seafood counter at Kroger:
Me: Hi, I was interested in making sushi tonight. Do you have any tuna that's fresh enough for that?
Fishmongress: We have it, but it's frozen.
Me: (aside) I don't think you understood my question.
So, I was stuck with the following seafood:
- smoked salmon
- imitation crab
- cooked shrimp
- spinach
- mushrooms
- green onions
- avocado
- cucumber
- homemade teriyaki sauce
- soy sauce
- pickled ginger
- wasabi from a tube (my local Target was all out of sharkskin graters)
Cracking the Code
Whether you realize it or not, you know the code. The code of packaging. It's the code that tells you that chips that come to you in a muted-color bag are healthier than those in a bright one. That Milano cookies are a perfectly respectable snack to serve to adults. That Target's generic shampoo is exactly like Head & Shoulders, only cheaper.
Tropicana recently had to abort their latest packaging redesign when their sales plummeted. The reason? They were off code. Looking at it now, I can't imagine what they were thinking.
Tell me that doesn't look like a generic store brand: low cost, low quality (at least in consumer perception). Tropicana didn't look like a premium brand anymore. And the sales reflected it.
The code, of course, isn't limited to the grocery store. It ranges far and wide, touching everything we shop for.
Like, say, books.
Walk into any section of the bookstore, and you'll find a wealth of cover styles, each designed to attract the fans of different sub-genres. Take, say, the mystery section. Cozies have bright colors, cartoonish pictures, and punny titles. Historicals have muted colors.Serial killer thrillers love red, black, shadows, and serious-looking fonts. And femjep tends to stick to a dusky, wistful palette. (That's "female-in-jeopardy", y'all.)
One shelf over, in Romance, we see the same kind of division.
And we'd see it in Sci-Fi, YA, Literature, and Self-Help as well. I imagine it must be a constant challenge for cover designers to turn out something that is both eye catching and on code.
Code is a double-edged sword. It attracts readers who are predisposed to like your work, but it also has a way of limiting you. That cozy cover, for example, says, "Hey, girls, lots of laughs!" but also, "Men, keep walking."
This is why you'll see some writers with really excellent word of mouth go around naked (code-wise, that is). They've already attracted a huge fan base; the best the cover artists can do is avoid turning anyone away. Janet Evanovich gets codeless covers. So does Sue Grafton, though that wasn't the case when I first read Grafton back in the 90's. (That frame and font, by the way, are 80's-90's code for cozy.)
All this isn't really something for me to worry about. I won't be designing my cover, and my input might be minimal. But I think it's an interesting look into the world of branding and marketing. So the next time you pick up a bag of chips, ask yourself:
"Are these really healthy, or do they just look like they are?"
Tropicana recently had to abort their latest packaging redesign when their sales plummeted. The reason? They were off code. Looking at it now, I can't imagine what they were thinking.
Tell me that doesn't look like a generic store brand: low cost, low quality (at least in consumer perception). Tropicana didn't look like a premium brand anymore. And the sales reflected it.The code, of course, isn't limited to the grocery store. It ranges far and wide, touching everything we shop for.
Like, say, books.
Walk into any section of the bookstore, and you'll find a wealth of cover styles, each designed to attract the fans of different sub-genres. Take, say, the mystery section. Cozies have bright colors, cartoonish pictures, and punny titles. Historicals have muted colors.Serial killer thrillers love red, black, shadows, and serious-looking fonts. And femjep tends to stick to a dusky, wistful palette. (That's "female-in-jeopardy", y'all.)
One shelf over, in Romance, we see the same kind of division.
And we'd see it in Sci-Fi, YA, Literature, and Self-Help as well. I imagine it must be a constant challenge for cover designers to turn out something that is both eye catching and on code.
Code is a double-edged sword. It attracts readers who are predisposed to like your work, but it also has a way of limiting you. That cozy cover, for example, says, "Hey, girls, lots of laughs!" but also, "Men, keep walking."
This is why you'll see some writers with really excellent word of mouth go around naked (code-wise, that is). They've already attracted a huge fan base; the best the cover artists can do is avoid turning anyone away. Janet Evanovich gets codeless covers. So does Sue Grafton, though that wasn't the case when I first read Grafton back in the 90's. (That frame and font, by the way, are 80's-90's code for cozy.)
All this isn't really something for me to worry about. I won't be designing my cover, and my input might be minimal. But I think it's an interesting look into the world of branding and marketing. So the next time you pick up a bag of chips, ask yourself:"Are these really healthy, or do they just look like they are?"
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