Tag Archives: Gwen Jones

Non Sequitorial

The Morning this Writer had the Whole House to Herself

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Cutie Pie

I’ll have the house to myself all day, so I’ll get up at the crack of dawn and hit my desk by 6:00 AM. I’ll mute my phone, ignore my email, and do nothing but write. Oooh! I love it when I can work in my jammies.

5:30 – Alarm rings. Roll over, hit snooze.

5:31 – Cat finds ball. Ignore tinkly bell and fall back asleep.

5:40 – Alarm rings again. Cat jumps on face. Swat at cat. Miss cat. Knock over alarm. Alarm stops by default. Pull pillow over head. Fall back to sleep.

5:44 – Dream of jingle bells.

5:49:58 – Cat pulls curtain and curtain rod from window, knocks alarm from night table.

5:50 – Alarm rings. Give up, get up and go to bathroom. Tinkly sound emanates from bedroom.

5:55 – Feed cat.

5:58 – Bowl of Cheerios and sliced banana. Get newspaper while cereal soggies.

6:03 – 6:14 – Front page, editorials, comics, horoscope. Take vitamins.

6:15 – 6:19 – “Morning Joe.”

6:20 – 6:47 – Switch to TCM while “Joe” is on a commercial break and become embroiled in pre-code Jean Harlow/Clark Gable rom-com until cat leaps into window at neighbor’s cat reminding you to look toward wall clock.

6:48 – Make cup of tea; visit bathroom while waiting for water to boil, turning on laptop en route. Brush teeth. Spy book on dresser on the way out. Finish reading chapter started the night before.

6: 54 – Return book to dresser.

6:55 – Retrieve tea and head toward office.

6:56 – Visit several email accounts and return email, re: 3 student crises, web course designer, critique partner. Email agent. Sneak peek at Facebook, Twitter, tweet, favorite. Check website.

7: 18 – Bring up work-in-progress. Shrink work-in-progress. Bring up FreeCell. One therapeutic game to get brain functioning. Or two. Three. Four at the most.

7:39 – Bring up work-in-progress. Remember need to look up legal term first. Shrink WIP; go online, homepage, CNN. Check if world blew up the night before. Switch to Google. Find term. Tweet. Check email. Answer email. One more FreeCell. Return to WIP.

8:07 – Emergency email from critique partner. Forestall imminent artistic self-thrashing and proceed to email buck-up. Email is replied to in less than a minute. Send another buck-up complete with happy emoticons. Check Twitter.

8:47 – Return to WIP. Stomach growls. Go to kitchen and make toast, toss cat teeth crunchy treats. Stare out window at trash truck across the lake as toast toasts. Remember forgot to put out trash. Run out door in robe. Return to smoke alarm blaring from toast stuck in toaster. Open windows. Toss toast. Fan.

9:05 – Return to office. Email from agent. Needs immediate proposal for prospective editor. Panic but produce passable proposal in less than ten minutes. Return to WIP, but first retreat to kitchen for cube of 72% cacao dark chocolate while entertaining visions of NYT Bestseller Glory. Return to office and WIP. See cat had jumped on keyboard and now there’s kmsadslvy]e0-vn’aey9-3 rya2932f all over page 78. 79. 80. 81———————

9:16 – 9:19 – Clean up WIP. Phone rings. Seems forgot to mute phone.

9:20 – 9:51 – Chat and play solitaire.

9:52 – Return to WIP. Take sip of tea, notice it’s cold. Go to kitchen to reheat tea. While heating eat forkful of cold spaghetti from fridge. One more. Another. Mmmm….

9:58 – Return to office. Pick up hand weights. Lift. Throw out back. Lay on floor to stretch. Cat jumps on stomach. Yelp. Swat at cat. Miss. Cat circles head, purring. Melt.

10:10 – Remember forgot tea in microwave. Go to kitchen to retrieve. Spy calendar and see it’s wrong day for trash on my street. Go to street to retrieve trash can so don’t look like an idiot. Return to kitchen and retrieve tea. Cold again. Check MSNBC on TV as tea reheats. Go to HBO during commercial break.

Noon – Get up to retrieve tea as credits roll for “Get Him to the Greek.” Dump tea; go to fridge and retrieve pot of spaghetti from fridge. Take to office, shrink WIP and go to Slate.com and read “Dear Prudence” while eating cold pasta with fingers. Phone rings. Still forgot to mute. Chat while licking fingers.

12:49 – Find Lindt Dark Chocolate Truffle from old Christmas stash in desk while rearranging desk tray while still on the phone. Eat, toss wrapper at trash. Miss.

12:50 – Cat finds missed wrapper. Grabs in mouth. Runs from room.

12:51 – Hear a crashing sound from bedroom. Ring off phone. Go to bedroom. Jewelry box and entire contents is now on floor, truffle wrapper on top. Scoop contents, return to box, return box to dresser. Toss wrapper. Cat missing. Eye bed, still unmade.

12:52 – Call day a wash. Return to bed. Bed never so comfortable…

12: 59 – Cat finds ball.

Unsolicited Writing Advice!

Why Strong Women Need Alpha Males

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Alpha you bet!

One of the basic tenets of romance concerns the hero and heroine overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles to fall in love. It doesn’t matter if he is a detective, a duke or a ditchdigger—or if she’s a countess or a country bumpkin or a feminist attorney. Their problems can be of class differences or underlying neuroses or even as simple as she hates men who wear Panama hats. Whatever the bone of contention, it has to forceful enough to cause night sweats and rashes, yet still won’t stop them from crossing mighty rivers or hacking through buffalo grass to get to each other. And nine times out of ten, it’ll be the hero doing the hacking because as sexist as that sounds, most romance readers still like their men physically stronger than they are.

All right…don’t get your knickers in a twist. There are reasons for that, and if you’ll just calm down a second I’ll tell you what they are. First off, romance heroines are strong women. That’s right–tough, inside and out. They’re also smart enough to spot a sniveler a hundred yards off. So of course – and here’s the logic – a strong and smart woman is not going to be looking for a man weaker than her. It just wouldn’t make sense, because if he was, she’d barely give him the time of day. She’d be looking for her equal at least, but more often than not, she’d be looking for someone to knock her off her feet. He can’t be anything less than an Alpha Male, someone powerful, smoldering, unrepentant. And looks alone aren’t enough, because our savvy heroine can get anyone she wants with a crook of her little finger. Her man, in any form he takes, has to be everything she’s looking for plus. Plus equaling that inimitable quality only she can define, and recognizable the moment she meets him.  Because when she collides with someone who can actually best her, it’s such mind-blower she’s instantly intrigued, whether for good or for bad, for love or for hate. And from there, the chase begins.

I can hear you saying, but that’s not realistic. Most men have foibles, shortcomings, are far from perfect. But this isn’t the real world, my dears–this is fantasy. Yet in so many ways, it isn’t. Fact or fiction, real life or not, don’t we all realize something in our object of affection that no one else can? Aren’t we privy to insider info maintained for our eyes only? Of course we are. Because only when we’re in love do we open up our hearts, to share the things no one else can see, to an enraptured audience of one. Who would want it any other way?

Unsolicited Writing Advice!

Why we love those bad, bad boys

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marlon7We’ve all read about them. Those incorrigible, gorgeous rakes who don’t give a damn about stealing your company, raiding your trust fund, double-crossing the best friend or breaking your heart. He’s the one with the best lines even though they slice to the quick, telegraphed from a mouth crooking sardonic and eyes that flash and burn. He’s always the snappiest dresser with the shiniest shoes and the most expensive jewelry, more often bought with your line of credit. If he gets in a fight he wins without mussing a hair, and that slight nick high on his cheekbone only makes him more dashing. His voice is smooth as silk and it rumbles through you like an electric charge, as he’s talking you out of your clothes and everything in your wallet. He’s on everyone’s A List, is invited to all the best parties, frequents the finest restaurants and clubs, and is only seen with the most beautiful woman. He has the tightest abs and the broadest shoulders, is tall and lean and impossibly gorgeous. He’s the consummate lover but he’ll never fall in love, yet he’s what every woman wants and what every man wants to be. In film he’s Gordon Gekko the ruthless arbitrageur of Wall Street, in romance, he’s the pitiless rake, Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, in Lisa Kleypas’ wonderful novel, The Devil In Winter. And for all their cunningly manipulative ways, we are unabashedly drawn to them like magnets to metal filings. We worship them, adore them, envy them, lust after them. Only to be cut down and debased and betrayed over and over again. So why in the world are we continually drawn to this bad, bad boys?

Because oh…how we love to see them fall!

And when they do, it’s usually spectacular, a crash and burn of epic proportions. But then we get to witness the most marvelous thing– their redemption–and what a fascinating thing that is, watching these fascinating creatures evolve, scrabbling their way back to the top–and to us. It’s a precipitous climb, full of switchbacks and reversals, but when they finally learn their lesson, we get to wallow in their devotion, their bad, bad ways making them oh-so-good exactly where we need them.

Romance writing is all about the resolution of conflict between two protagonists so love can bloom, and there’s nothing like a rake whose odds are so out of favor, it almost seems impossible he’ll ever end up redeemed. But it also  makes the most compelling reading. Give me a good old bad boy any day, as they’re the most challenging and certainly the most fun. Because as everyone knows, that’s all we girls really wanna have anyway.

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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

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Happy New Year (fingers firmly crossed)

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2012-9gag-ecard-funny-happy-new-year-Favim.com-361850I’m seriously in need of a Happy New Year, folks. I’m not even joking. Last year, although it had a few highlights, was so full of sturm und drang that my head’s still reeling, and if I have to face another one like that in the next, I may as well hit the bottle now. (Which is never a bad idea, to tell the truth.) Even so, I choose to remain an optimist, and it shouldn’t be as hard as some people believe. Think about it: why is it we so readily accept the bad stuff, but when something really good happens, it’s a miracle! Maybe because we’re just too conditioned to think we deserve less, that wanting more is unrealistic. If that’s true, then maybe it’s time to get greedy–not for more materialistic things, but greedy for more happiness in our lives. For more appreciation of the simple things, for more living in the moment, for more doing all those things now you told yourself you’d do later, you know, in that perfect nether-time that never comes. Maybe we should listen to Eleanor Roosevelt who once advised: You must do the thing you think you cannot do. They say the secret to a happy relationship is to continually surprise each other. Maybe in the New Year we should apply that to the most important relationship in our lives, and do the things that will surprise ourselves.

All the best in 2015!

Gwen

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Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that

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Vintage-Santa-Claus-Cigarette-Ads-4Okay, maybe there’s something slightly creepy about seeing the old elf with a cigarette in his hand, but  back in the day, a Lucky would be just the thing for Santa baby after a long, arduous night of breaking and entering. But it’s 2014 and that Santa’s gone like the smokes, as well as all that cholesterol-laden milk and Oreos. For this gen’s kiddies we have a cool Kris Kringle, Urban Hipster Santanon-fat and gluten-free, with no more Barbies or Play-Doh or plastic trucks. For the hipsters kids we have organic plush animals and our First Banjo, or my personal fave, the Candy Pink Marabou hat. But hey, the important thing is the feeling about this time of year hasn’t changed, and it’s still all about good will toward men, women, and anyone else in between. And of course, the belief that things will always get better in the New Year, because if can’t believe that, if you don’t have that hope, what else really matters?

The Merriest of Christmases, the Happiest of New Year’s, and the best of everything to everyone in 2015.

Gwen

Unsolicited Writing Advice!

Writing isn’t all glam and cocktails, you know…

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romancing-the-stone-special-edition-20061016035744678-000Have you ever seen the movies Misery or Romancing the Stone? Both feature writers banging out the final paragraph of their books before they triumphantly type THE END, culminating with either an elaborate ritual or an all-encompassing snif of enormous satisfaction. Now although it’s true that most writers look more like Kathleen Turner sporting a red nose and a dirty bathrobe than James Caan with his Dom Perignon, it’s also true that if there’s a writer out there who is really and truly done when she types THE END, then I’ve yet to meet her. The fact is it’s the rare person who emits perfection the first time.  My best writing usually comes through in the rewrite, which I’m sure is true with most: it’s all in the editing.

But there are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to the nip/tuck of the edit (perhaps more, but I’ll just focus on two, or we could be here all day.) The first is the “just write it!”, the second is to edit on the fly. Both have their merits, and neither method is wrong.

The average novel is anywhere from 75,000 to 125,000 words, or 300-500 double-spaced pages, most falling somewhere in between. For a work of this length, I’ve known “just write it!” writers to pump out 200,000 to 300,000 words before they finally take a breath and fan the smoke off their laptops. Many take their inspiration from such methods as Book In a Week or NaNoWriMo which instructs participants to just get it out–no editing, no going back over what’s been written. The point is to get the words down and create a first draft, and worry about the revising later. The main thrust is to get the ideas out. I believe this method works well for people who plot their story out beforehand, who work from outlines, or, to take the opposite tack, who write best in stream-of-consciousness. Like a virulent case of verbal vomit, “just write it!” writers throw it all against the wall, deciding to see what’ll stick after it dries.

I prefer to fix on the fly and edit whiile I write. Unlike my plotting, I’m deliberate in my revising. Usually I go back to edit before starting another writing session, whether that session is a couple of hours worth or from the day before. Most of the time I do both, and always if I set it aside for a while, as I’ve done now by revisiting the novel I put aside last year. The advantages to this is it keeps the story fresh in your head, lets you and fix plot or continuity problems, and you’re certainly writing more concisely and compactly, as you’re choosing your words more carefully, not just pumping out the first thing that flies into your head. Of course, there’s always the chance, with constant revisiting, that you’ll drain the life out of your prose. The last thing you want to do is beat it into an over-processed, mechanical bore. But this method does help if you tend to lose track of your story, working even better if you’re actively writing every day and on a deadline.

Neither method is right for everyone, and you may work best under a combination of the two. The important thing is you’re writing, and if it takes a bit of the nip and tuck, or more than a few Joycean interior monologues to get you going, then damn the Spell Check–full speed ahead!

 

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Five Sure Signs the Holidays are Coming

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vintage-christmas-shopping-pinterestHere’s a post making the rounds of my recent Blog Tour. You know, in case you missed it. Doubtful, right?

It’s December and the Holidays are coming, a time for parties and family and my favorite part—lots and lots of cookies. Rather than get caught up in the chaos that befalls so many this time of year, and I simply let it all rumble past like a runaway train, and if something happens to fall out of the caboose for me, so be it.  But if you believe the concept driving the season is peace and not what-piece-is-for-you, then here’s a few hints to let you know just how far behind you are:

  1. The Great Work Stoppage –As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey comes out of the oven, it’s as if everyone forgets they have a job. Suddenly all meetings become holiday parties, and if you’re expecting that report to get finished, you might as well call back next year. In my day job I’m a college professor, and I nearly have to hit my students over the head with their final exam to get them to even remember my name.
  2. Vanishing Editors –If you were hoping to get your manuscript sold before the end of the year, you can forget it if you didn’t hear by Turkey Day. From then until after New Year’s, editors, as well as a goodly amount of agents, take a breather and make the rounds of Gotham’s holiday celebrations, where I imagine a fair amount of dealmaking takes place over the babaganoush. If you’re the writer, think of it as a temporary reprieve from submission angst.
  3. Everything’s on Sale – Back in the day, you used to have to wait until after Christmas to get a price cut, but thanks to retail giants like Wal-Mart and Macy’s, the discounts only get deeper the closer you get to the big day. Which is fine, because if you’re like me, the shopping starts the day before, and I’m all about half-off.
  4. The Dread Christmas Sweater –Think about it: if it wasn’t the holidays, would you ever wear that sweater in public? Do you actually like rick-rack, glitter, Rudolph’s battery-operated flashing nose, or cable-knitted Thomas Kinkade reproductions on your chest? So much better to wear the DCS’s less offensive cousins, The Christmas Socks. At least we only have to endure them when you cross your legs.
  5. “Oh go ahead – it’s the Holidays.” – Which means, go ahead and eat that brandy cheesecake as big as your head. What the hell – you’re on Lipitor anyway, and your blood test isn’t until January. Which also means you can eat half that Hickory Farm’s beef stick, which is my personal holiday no-denial favorite. No fooling, I’m stocking up!

Happy Holidays!

 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving!Ah, Thanksgiving! The start of the Holiday Season and the end of all sanity. But not me. I’m taking each day one at a time. Which means remembering there’s always tomorrow to resume eating right again. For now, at least for today, there’s the Jersey equivalent of seasonal weather going on outside, making it all cozy and warm in here. So I can ignore the fact it’s slowly turning from freezing rain to sleet, and will eventually end up as snow just when I’ll be leaving to pick up my niece from the train. Oh well. What are holidays besides family time, and we’d do well to remember what’s really important in life, and gather them around us. Like Yuengling and pumpkin pie. C’mere, you…

Happy Thanksgiving, to all!

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RELEASE DAY – THE LAWS OF SEDUCTION

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TheLawsofSeduction (2)HiResWhen Rex Renaud, the COO of Mercier Shipping, is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, he knows he’ll need a miracle to clear his name … and sassy lawyer Charlotte Andreko is the perfect woman for the job. Charlotte has built her career defending pro bono clients against womanizers like Rex Renaud, and she’d much rather let him sweat it out in a jail cell than defend him in court. Yet Rex swears he’s been set up, and when he offers her a shocking sum of money in exchange for her legal counsel, the financial security is too tempting to resist. The court dubs Rex a serious flight risk—how many people have their own jet?—and he’s released on one condition: Charlotte’s his new jailer, and he’s stuck with her until his arraignment. But when a bomb threat sends Rex and Charlotte on the run, neither is prepared for the explosive chemistry and red-hot passion that flare between them as they hunt for the truth about his arrest.

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