Skip to main content

Monday Miscellany--The Fruitcake Edition

1. I got the first season of Everwood on DVD a little while ago and, man, I love that show. I know it was (supposedly) family friendly, or whatever, but it's another fine example of teenage characters done right--sarcastic, self-involved, dramatic, but totally relatable at the same time. (CALL ME EPHRAM!) And I cry at least every third episode.*

2. Dear Winter, if you could pick either rain or snow, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

3. I have heard the hype about Harry & David pears before, and I always thought "jeez, how good could it be? It's a pear." Yes, it's a pear and I'm an idiot, because Harry & David pears are The Best Pears I Have Ever Tasted In My Life. If you have the opportunity, try one, but make sure it's ripe.** I ate one before it was ripe, and it was just another pear. But a ripe Harry & David pear? Worth the wait.

4. We had the annual potluck at work last week, and I have to say that the people in my division can really cook! I cannot, so I made cookies from a mix (which everyone loved and some people asked for the recipe for***), but there were some seriously accomplished things at the lunch. And then afterwards everyone rolled back to their desks and tried to stay awake for the afternoon.

5. Why do I eat more oranges in winter than in summer? Is it because they look like little suns? Or is it because I like paying higher prices?

~~~

*What? I have a soft spot in the middle, like a bad apple.

**It's ripe when the bottom is slightly soft to the touch. Not the top, the bottom.

***They were Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Shortbread cookies. Very easy (I don't make any other kind) and tres delicious.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Monday Miscellany

1. I've been watching old episodes of The West Wing on Bravo lately, and have come to the conclusion that I love the character of Sam Seaborn. He's smart, he's earnest, he's a good writer, and he's played by Rob Lowe. What's not to love?* 2. I just bought the cutest jacket at Ann Taylor Loft. I know you care, but it's not every day that one can find a white denim jacket with styling reminiscent of Michael Jackson and a tailored waist. I'm just saying. 3. NaNoWriMo proceeds apace. There is no way that I'm going to be able to keep writing at this pace after this month is over, but I'm on track to finish. It's an interesting project...in some ways the speed is freeing and in other ways it's extremely limited, as to make the word count I have no time to go back and revise. 4. Alien and Aliens are amazing movies. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ? Not so much. 5. This week's Glee characterization inconsistency watch: Rache...

Why Are The Characters Friends?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of books where the main character and her best friend don't get along. This is confusing to me. Why is the main character friends with someone she dislikes, or is afraid of, or actually hates? I get that it happens--I've seen Mean Girls . I've read Queen Bees and Wannabes . Heck, I'm old enough to have been the prime audience for Heathers . But in order for this fractured best friend relationship to be convincing, it has to be set up. In both Heathers and Mean Girls , there's a reason why the protagonist is friends with a bunch of b*tches--she chose to be. She knows that they're jerks. In fact, she can feel herself becoming a jerk right along with them. It's part of the character arc, the point of the story, that being friends with these girls is not who she really is. But the relationships I've been seeing lately don't make that kind of sense. The protagonist doesn't have a reason to be friends with...

Jay Takes A Stand

Moonrat, still at Editorial Ass, is making me think a lot lately. She did a recent post here about sexualized violence in print ads, and connected the dots to sexualized violence in books and other media, which got me thinking about how I treat girls and women in my books. To be clear--I'm a feminist. I believe in equal pay for equal work and reproductive choice, and the whole ball of wax. I'm not going to go into detail about all that here because, frankly, there are people out there whose blogs are dedicated to that kind of thing (like Jezebel *) and they do it way better than I ever could. But that's my political orientation, in case you care. So when I was writing The Book, it was very important to me that my female protagonist S did not fall into any of those "heroine needs saving by the hero" tropes that so many books for teenage girls do. Sure, there's something very "romantic" about the hero swooping in and rescuing the heroine, right? ...