Dilemma

Don't ever talk about your novel to anyone socially until it's published. Ever.

-Miss Snark

So, here's me at a party last weekend:

RELATIVE OF THE GUY'S: So, how's the novel doing?

ME: Well, an agent is looking at it. I'm writing another one in the meantime.

ROTG: [Blank look] Can I read it?

ME: Hmm, ah, no, I don't - no, I don't think so.

ROTG: No really, I want to read it. Email it to me!

ME: Um, if it gets published, you can read it then.

ROTG: The first few chapters! Email them!

ME: [inward shudder at the insane closeness of the Guy's vast family and the inevitability that my work will get forwarded to 30 people] Uh, no, maybe not.

ROTG: Why not?

ME: Well, it puts you in an awkward position if you don't like it.

ROTG: Oh, don't worry. I'll TELL you if I don't like it.

ME: Um. Have you ever read a romance?

ROTG: My grandmother loved her Harlequins.

ME: [puzzled at non sequitur but willing to go along] That's nice. But really, thanks but no thanks.

ROTG: The first two chapters. I'll TELL you if they're good or not. EMAIL THEM to me!!!

Bejeebers. What the hell do you do in these situations? Now I know why I don't go to very many parties.

No one at my day job knows that I write. If I ever get published, it will be under a pen name that no one I work with will ever know until the day I cork. And I don't even write spicy stuff.

I've sometimes wondered if this is rude of me, or too introverted, maybe snobbish in some weird way. But now I know it's the only way. 'Cos those nice, clueless people will find you, and they will not leave you alone.

I couldn't avoid this situation, because of course the Guy knows I write, so he's told his family. He's just nice. They're all nice. They need to stop being nice.

New tactic: Avoid parties... by saying I have to stay home and write.

Do Not Disturb

I've mentioned before that I work in television. There are a lot of good people in the television business, but they are not - absolutely not - the big readers of the world. One of my coworkers only read two books last year: The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. I am positive, after five years of working together, that another reads no books at all - no cookbooks, diet books, nothing. I am in frightened awe of her bizarre, book-free universe.

Readers and non-readers are different breeds. In some ways, they just don't talk the same language. For instance, non-readers apparently can't resist marching up to a colleague who is reading on her lunch hour and saying: "Whatcha reading?"

They're just trying to be nice, of course, but this is a serious breach of reading etiquette. Readers never do this to each other. We get intensely annoyed at it, not least because we can't fathom why someone would insist on asking a question they have no hope of understanding the answer to (after hearing the title, which of course they haven't heard of, the next response is always a polite "Oh. Is it good?")

But of course, the main reason we get so irritated at the interruption is because it's just that - an interruption. We wish we had a sign that said If I wanted to talk, I'd be talking right now. Non-readers really don't see reading as, well, doing anything. They imagine it must be like watching TV. It isn't.

When fellow readers see someone reading, we, too, absolutely must know what that person is reading. But we wouldn't dream of interrupting. Instead, we - and you know you do it - circle the person quietly, angling our heads, trying to get a surreptitious look at the book's cover. I've been known to make multiple passes, waiting for the reader to turn the page and angle the book. I've been known to pretend to drop something to get a glimpse. Sometimes it's disappointing (Clive Cussler? WTF?) and sometimes it's intriguing (Wodehouse; Catch-22; Moby-Dick).

I've never seen anyone read a romance novel at work, though I see it all the time on the commuter train. Maybe most women, like me, are bold enough to read a romance in front of a bunch of strangers who aren't going to interrupt, but too shy (or just too tired) to face the non-readers' inevitable "Whatcha reading?" with "An erotica called She Goes and Gets It" or "The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Bride". Your HP is for the train; your Wodehouse is for lunch hour.

I always carry three books in my bag. I can modify this if one of them is trade and weighs more, but for mass market it's always three. In case I finish the one I'm currently reading, I have the next one in line; in case I start the next one and don't like it, I have a third for backup. Oh dear, you think, she has OCD, I think she needs to see a doctor.

But on Friday, on my commute home, the train's engine died in the middle of nowhere and we sat for three hours. Oh yes, children - three hours. I didn't get home until after eight o'clock. What did I do with my time? Well, I finished the book I was currently reading (Beau Crusoe - fantastic book), started the next one (a mystery I got from the library), gave it 70 pages and was bored, so I moved on to number three (Colleen Gleason's The Rest Falls Away.) The non-reader across from me was stuck with three hours of Soduku - her brains must have been leaking out her ears - and everyone else was bored stiff.

And I didn't get interrupted, either.

Good Day

What makes a good day, for me?

1. Going to your writers' group and getting your work critiqued by really smart writers who know what they are doing.

2. Going out with a few of them afterward, talking and laughing, and deciding to give a critique group a try.

3. At loose ends after that, discovering that you have both an unused gift card from Christmas and a really big bookstore nearby.

4. Spending nearly two hours in said bookstore, buying anything you want, without it costing you a dime.

That's pretty good.

I saw 300 last night - it was good, I think, though I had to watch it in a theatre packed to the rafters with teenage boys. ("Prepare for glory!" they shouted as the opening credits rolled. They also tittered all through the sex scene.) Now, I know these guys are actors and have personal trainers and all that, but really - how did they get their bodies to look like that? I don't think anyone ate a carb for six months. I mean, it was sexy, I guess, but really I was more awed than anything.

The plot isn't much of one, and I had to keep remembering it's an adaptation of a comic book. That means I had to turn my inner historian off. How come they don't have any food with them? Why don't they carry any medical supplies? Did they really fight with no pants on? No, no, stop - it's just a story.

And here is where I am scourged when I admit that I think The Phantom of the Opera is the cheez-doodliest story in the history of the world, and that the movie made so little impression on me that I don't actually know who Gerard Butler is. The many women who lust after him would be in shock.

Really. I'd like to like him. Let me try:




Hm. Nope. Pulse normal. Sorry.

Maybe someday,
Abby

Sunday Morning

I was shockingly without internet for a few days. You would not believe how clean my house is right now.

But now I'm once again able to search the web for important things. Like:






Also: Eva Mendes told Britain's Empire magazine, "If God exists, he looks like Clive Owen, or at least he should do!"

Also: Owen will appear in "ad campaigns for Hypnose Homme, a men's fragrance with top notes of mint and cardamom."

See, aren't you glad I got my connection back? If only I could use my powers for the forces of good.

I could have written a deep, thoughtful blog post, but then I read Nephele Tempest's post on her love of books:

After all, friends and lovers come and go, and even a great pair of shoes will eventually wear out, but books… Books will never go away, and even if one might let me down, there will always be another on the shelf to redeem it. Books are my eternal love affair.

OK... that's pretty good. I can't compete with that at this hour. I also can't compete with the Risky Regencies interview with Carla Kelly. That's really good, too.

So you get Clive for now.

Cheerio,
Abby