Skip to main content

Monday Miscellany

1. Working from home (which I had to do two days last week due to snow) is not really as fun as it sounds like it should be. Sure, you're at home, and yes, you're wearing pajamas, but you're still working.

2. On Bravo, they've reached the episodes of "The West Wing" after Rob Lowe leaves and, just like the first time around, I am losing interest. I think it's because I don't find the character of Josh Lyman (played by Bradley Whitford) as engaging as everyone else does. Sam (Rob Lowe's character) is sort of the sweet gooey center of the West Wing staff on the show, the nice guy, the doll, and when he leaves, there's no real replacement for him, so the cast becomes a series of wise-cracking asses none of whom I find charming.*

3. Speaking of Rob Lowe, this weekend I watched the complete novel version of The Outsiders. Then I had to read the book. Then it was three in the morning and I had to go to bed. God bless you, S.E. Hinton. For real.

4. Is it just me, or when you finish a project do you want to jump right into the next one right away? I read somewhere that Samuel Richardson** would write for a certain amount of time each day, and if he finished one book in the middle of that time, he would just start another. I sort of get how he feels.

5. Have you ever wondered what Kelly Clarkson would sound like if she could really wail on guitar? Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present Orianthi.***



~~~

* Also, Rob Lowe? HOT. Then and now. But really it's not about physical attractiveness in a character for me (not that it hurts :) ). Sam Seaborn is a character that is mostly adorable with a side of smartass, whereas Josh Lyman is mostly arrogant prick with a side of "oh, sorry." And don't even get me STARTED on the whole Josh/Donna thing...

** 18th century novelist Samuel Richardson, that is. He's not very wisely read nowadays because his books are HUGE, but he's awesome.

*** Yes, that's really her playing the guitar. She's major.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love Rob Lowe, he is on the show Brothers and Sisters also.

I like that song! She is beautiful.

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

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?

Most. Favorite. Person. EVER.

I've been a regular reader of Lynn Viehl's blog for almost a year now. She's an (incredibly) prolific Sci Fi/Fantasy writer with a zillion novels out (you know, approximately). She's also a really generous author--she spends a lot of time talking about her process, and the publishing business, and most recently ran the Left Behind and Loving It blog workshops for people who didn't go to the RWA con. Seriously, her blog is an invaluable resource for writers looking for a pragmatic, yet encouraging, voice about publishing. She also gives away a TON of stuff. She's always offering prizes for things, which is awesome. Recently, I won a "goodie bag" for commenting on a post (that's all I had to do--comment), and it just arrived in the mail. "Goodie Bag." That's an interesting phrase, right? Suggests something cute and delicious, but not too filling. Like, I knew there would be a couple of books in it, and I thought, like, a coffee