My Wonderful Excuse

As you can see by the NaNo count on the right, I seem to be going backwards as regards my writing goals. But I have a wonderful excuse for why I didn't get more done over the weekend.

Well, I have a good excuse.

It's an excuse, you decide its merit.

I was house and dog sitting for Jonnie and Steve. So I had to give some attention to the dogs. Plus there's the extra time that normal things take to accomplish, because you're not in your usual environment. So there's that. But J&S have a new addition to the family since the last time I housesat. A big-screen HD TV. I spent a little time getting acquainted with this new addition.

And the biggest culprit in all this not writing? HBO. They decided to show a True Blood marathon. I read the book that the series is based on, Dead Until Dark. And I liked that book. A lot. As a matter of fact, I picked up the next three books in the series. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the series is about Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in Louisiana who can hear people's thoughts. The books take place in a near future just after vampires have come out of the coffin, so to speak. They are able to drink a synthetic blood now and are lobbying for equal rights. Sookie meets and falls for a vampire, whose thoughts she can't hear. The main story, however, is a murder mystery. Seems other waitresses who've been involved with vamps are being killed.

The series contains all the elements of the main plot of the book. The characters from the bar and Sookie's family are there. There's the "What's up with Sam", her boss, element. The murders. Bad vamps. Ambiguous vamps. Bill the Vampire's trouble walking the line between the vampire world and the human one. And there are a lot of added storylines. A lot. Voodoo and exorcism. A wacky girlfriend for Jason, Sookie's ne'er-do-well brother, and all the comes from that. But one of main things I loved about the book is missing: the funny. Now there is humor in the series, but not the belly-shaking, tear-squeezing laughs from the book. And for all the nudity and sex, a lot of the sexiness is missing, too.

Did I like the series? Yes, I did. After all, I spent the better part of the weekend watching it. And I really want to see the final three episodes, even though I know at least part of the ending.

The Dexter television series did a similar thing with Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Main story is there. Lots of extra stuff added to make it fill up a full television season. They, however, managed to keep the funny. And maybe even add to it.

I understand the changes. You have a 300 page book that takes several hours to read. When you film it, it takes even less time to watch, because the pictures take care of setting and character description. And you need to fill 12 episodes with an average running time of about 50 minutes each. So you need more stuff. And in both cases, they have added well.

Here's the question: Do you think we as writers who all love our television (and you know we do) maybe try to put too much in our books? Do we try to fill them up with all the extra stuff that we see in our favorite shows? And if we do, is it a bad thing?

Lavender and Oreos

Jonnie and Steve asked me to dogsit this past weekend. I just hung out with the dogs, watching the Deadzone and 4400 marathons on USA, reading some Neil Gaiman short stories from Smoke and Mirrors. A really great weekend.

When you watch a lot of television, however, you end up watching a lot of ads. It seems that everything is lavender scented these days. Air freshener, fabric softener, detergent. I happen to like lavender. The handcream on my desk is lavender and bergamot. It's a relaxing scent. But why now? Why did the marketers decide 2007 is the year of lavender? There was once a glut of lemon-scented things. Then 'herbal'. They never said which herbs, just herbal. Then there were the esoteric 'morning rain' and 'mountain air' scents. Now we're into lavender.

And I'm thinking there was an accident at the Oreo cookie factory and they couldn't shut the machines off, because everybody and Adam's tomcat are offering Oreo cookie things. Oreo cookie sundaes and milkshakes and pizza (I'm not kidding about that one).

How does this relate to writing? Well, I did the watching television and playing with dogs instead of working actively on MMG. But, more directly, I think creative people can fall into the trap of looking at what's hot right now and trying to duplicate that success. The danger of too many seminars on marketing and publicity.

If I'm going to be part of a trend, I want to lead it. So no lavender and Oreos for me. Guess I need to buy new hand cream.

Final Feedback

Well, I received the final feedback for this draft of MMG last night. There will be much more when I start my rounds of queries. Jenny wrote up a great summary with an assignment. Maybe because I'm always harder on myself than anyone else would be comfortable being, it wasn't anywhere nearly as harsh as I thought it would be. Even with my thinking that she was delaying because it was such bad news.

I did wait until this morning to read it. Wanted to just enjoy last night with The Group. We have such a great mix of people now. All different genres and backgrounds, but it works somehow. I hope John decides to join us. He makes a nice addition.

Now I need to go buy a big 3-ring binder (part of my homework) so I can begin working on it this weekend. I'd start sooner, but this is shaping up to be a crazy-making week. Meeting last night (which was wonderful), meeting tonight for PPW, possibly a concert tomorrow night, barbeque at Jonnie and Steve's on Saturday (again, wonderful) and another meeting on Sunday (jury's out on this one). Oh, and maybe dinner with Geoff if he doesn't pick Saturday.

Think I may take Friday off just for me. Sounds like a plan.

It's Close

I need to warn anyone going to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with me that the scene shown here will cause loud and prolonged blubbering in Yours Truly. I tear up just thinking about it.

On Sunday morning some friends and I will be seeing the moving. However, I realized today that I am infected with the Immediate Gratification germ and must see the movie tomorrow. So I'm going right after work.

I guess I could say it's an Artist's Date. So I will. It's an Artist's Date.

This also means that I have about 100 pages to read between now and then if I want to finish the book before the movie. It's not a requirement, but would be nice.