Casting Stephanie Plum

Seeing as I got on a movie-talk roll last week… Let’s continue it, shall we?

As most Stephanie Plum (of the Janet Evanovich novels) fans have undoubtedly heard by now, Katherine Heigl (Izzy on Grey’s Anatomy) has been signed to play the much beloved Plum character in the film version of ONE FOR THE MONEY. If you do a bit of searching on the ‘Net, the choice of Heigl has created a bit of an uproar. It doesn’t much matter to me, because I haven’t kept up with the book series. I read the first book and loved it, but I didn’t discover the books until Ms. Evanovich was already on book 5 or 6 or 7 in the series, and I already knew from a discussion on a writers’ listserve that…

(In the event you don’t already know this spoiler and don’t want to know, don’t highlight the white bit below. If you do highlight it, the spoiler will appear in blue print or something. And, no, I have no idea if this works on the Facebook or Goodreads feeds for this blog).

…I already know from a discussion on a writers’ listserve that… (highlight next portion if you already know the spoiler).

The Joe Vs. Ranger issue still had not been resolved by book 5, 6, or 7, whichever was currently on shelves at the time.

So, I read book 1 (ONE FOR THE MONEY), loved it, and promptly went out and bought books 2 and 3. I can’t recall if I ever finished book 2, but I know I didn’t finish book 3. The idea of having to read all those books and still the relationship question was hanging in the air was just too daunting for me. Now, I make certain, when I hear about a great series like this, to either (a) stick my fingers in my ears and holler, Na-na-a-boo-boo! whenever people start discussing romantic plot issues or (b) start reading the series when it first appears and keep up with the books as the author puts them out.

I must admit, however, back when I read Book 1, Katherine Heigl did not jump out at me as an obvious Stephanie Plum choice. One could argue that when I read Book 1 Katherine Heigl had not yet been cast on Grey’s, in fact I had never heard of her, so how could I possibly imagine her as Stephanie?

Whatever. Who DID I imagine as Stephanie? Sandra Bullock and/or Marisa Tomei. However, I suppose both actresses are “too old” by Hollywood standards to play Stephanie now.

Whatever, Katherine has been signed.

Are you a Stephanie Plum fan? How do you feel about KH as the lead character? Will you go see the movie? Will it ruin it for you? Do you just not care?

In my understanding, Ranger and Joe Morelli have not been cast yet. At least my puny Internet search didn’t turn them up. So let’s take this one step further. Now that you know KH has been cast as Stephanie, who would you like to see playing Ranger and Joe along with her?

If you could choose an actress to play Stephanie and then choose your own Ranger and Joe, who would you choose?

I can’t remember enough about Ranger and Joe to decide. So please play the casting game for me, my lovelies. Play!

Got A Mad-On For Nicholas Sparks?

For every romance writer who currently has a mad-on for Nicholas Sparks because of his perceived arrogance, here’s a link to funny instructions on How to Write a Nicholas Sparks Movie on cracked.com. First, read this quote from The News-Herald Blogs, and then read the funny instructions. Well, I think they’re funny.

Quote from News-Herald Blogs:

“I don’t write romance novels.” His preferred terminology: “Love stories — it’s a very different genre … (Romances) are all essentially the same story: You’ve got a woman, she’s down on her luck, she meets the handsome stranger who falls desperately in love with her, but he’s got these quirks, she must change him, and they have their conflicts, and then they end up happily ever after.”

Mr. Sparks says he doesn’t write romance novels. I’ve never read one of his novels, but I have watched a couple of movie versions, and he’s right. He doesn’t write romance novels. He does write “love stories.” There’s no guarantee that a love story will end happily. Love Story didn’t. Bridges of Madison County didn’t. And neither do Nicholas Sparks’s novels.

Romance novels do end happily.

Wouldn’t it be nice if some “love stories” did? Otherwise, the love stories just get predicable. Don’t they?

Whether Mr. Sparks writes formulaic fiction is something I can’t address with any degree of authority…because I haven’t read his books. I have to admit, though, that having at least one character die at the end of the movie version of every story a writer pens does sound somewhat formulaic to moi.

The article on cracked.com points out several other “essentially the same story”isms. If you need a laugh, check it out.

So, why do you think Nicholas Sparks books get made into movies while the vast, vast, vast majority of romance novels don’t? Is it because people die in his books, so they aren’t “formulaic”? Is it because leaving the audience crying throughout a movie version of one of your books is cathartic for them? Is it because he’s a man writing books mainly intended for a female audience, instead of being a woman writing books mainly intended for a female audience?

I rather think it’s the latter. But then I’m jaded.

Why I Don’t Watch Scary Movies

  1. They scare the crap out of me.
  2. I’m gullible (hence #1).

I should have known better…

Oh, caution. This post is full of spoilers. If you don’t want to read spoilers for the movie, The Fourth Kind, don’t read this post. If you do read this post, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Last week my husband had a birthday. I took him out to dinner to celebrate (and also so  I wouldn’t have to cook). We had a marvelous meal and a marvelous time. When we came home, he wanted to rent a movie. He settled on THE FOURTH KIND. “Okay,” I said. I thought it was a werewolf movie. Humans could be the first kind, vampires the second, something I hadn’t thought of yet could be the third, and werewolves could be the fourth kind. Not so. “The Fourth Kind” refers to alien abductions (as in abducting humans, not getting abducted themselves). We rented it through something called Video on Demand on our PVR, which isn’t a very good service, IMO. Yes, you can pause the movie, but other features are glitchy. I’ll stick to my regular renting channels from now on, thanks.

Back to my point (if I had one). You see, I never watch scary movies because of #1 and #2. I tend to operate under the assumption that people are telling me the truth. Thus, when my husband, at 19, told me he “played the organ,” I thought he meant the muscial instrument. He thought he was being cleverly rude.

Don’t ask me why I thought I could handle a werewolf movie (I can’t). Let’s just say that I love my husband a great deal and wanted to make him happy by watching the movie with him. Of course, he kept falling asleep, leaving me glued to the TV kind of alone.

The Fourth Kind opens with the main actress telling you the story is based on real events, that she’s playing this real person, and that “archival footage” of psychology interview tapes and the like are interspersed throughout the movie along with the dramatic interpretations. Okay, I think, sounds kind of nifty.

The DH should have known better. He’s seen The Blair Witch Project. I haven’t. And I never will.

Basically, the archival footage in The Fourth Kind scared the stuffing out of me. I couldn’t sleep that night, or the next night. Finally, on the third day, I woke up with this niggling suspicion about one of the “archival footage” pieces in the movie. It shows a man killing his wife and committing suicide, and it plays while the dramatic version of the event also plays on a split screen. While watching the movie, yes, it did occur to me that it was odd that the police released this footage to the movie producers, or that extended family would ever allow such a thing. But the movie continued and I bought it all for reasons I won’t go into here. Let’s just say I’ve heard alien abduction stories before.

Upon waking, I ran to “the Google” and searched for whether the “archival footage” in the movie is real. And it’s not.

So there, I’ve ruined the movie for you. However, it might be fun to watch it anyway and laugh and giggle at all the places in the movie, where, in retrospect, the actors are telling the viewer not to believe what they are seeing (but Cindy got mightily scared anyway). Clues are strewn all over the place. However, no way am I watching the movie again to list those clues! Just clicking the link for the movie website and having the little video play scares me. Which is why I’m writing this post in the bright light of day. Even though I now know events in the movie are NOT based on real events that occurred in Nome, Alaska in 2000, my imagination still gets the better of me. And off into dreamland I do not go.

Do you watch scary movies? Have you seen The Fourth Kind? Did you buy into the “archival footage”? Or am I, as they say, a moron?

Tried and Trendy

According to the latest Knight Agency newsletter, the genres that I and Penny write, romantic comedy and erotic romance, are both Dumpster-diving these days. Out of a score of 5, both romcom and erom are currently rating a 1.75 on the Yes, It’s a Hot, Hot Trend! scale (my terminology there). Yerk. 1 = Long Shot, 2 = Deep Discounts according to TKA agents. Urp. So, yeah, while I am attending RWA National in Nashville this summer, odds look bad that I’ll make NYC in 2011. And I really want to go to NYC. So, tell all your friends and neighbors, forget trends, buy Cindy’s books! Penny’s, too!

However, TKA also sees a bright side:

Now, before you check out our awesome survey, we must issue a disclaimer. Just because our agents said romantic comedy wasn’t at the tip of anyone’s tongue these days — doesn’t mean you should send your beloved manuscript, which just so happens to be romantic comedy, to the scrapper. Mon Dieu! For all we know, you could be the next Jane Austen.

That’s what I like about the ladies over TKA. They always give me hope.

Okay, let’s see, I just submitted a requested contemporary romance manuscript to a publisher, which rates a 3 on the trend scale (“Respectable Mid-Lister”), and now I’m about to return to revising my romantic comedy/mystery. Urp. Make that a “romantic suspense.” Romantic suspense is currently rating 4 “VIP – High in Demand” on the trend scale. Except, um, I think it would be mighty apparent to any editor reading my “romantic suspense” that it’s actually a “romantic comedy/mystery” in sheep’s clothing. Yes, I’m sunk.

The problem with me is I have a light voice. I love writing with a light voice. Even when I write dramatic, there’s a humorous element. And that’s how I like it. So there.

Maybe someday I’ll actually catch a trend at its crest. But it never seems to work out that way. I’m either ahead of the trend or behind it. Penny’s foray into erotic romance is an example. Of course, Penny, darn her, also tends to write light. What’s wrong with the woman?

Time to dust off my paranormal YA idea? Because paranormal rates a 4.5 right now (5 being “Hot Trend-Front of Store Placement!”) and YA paranormal rates a 5. (I have a feeling dark paranormal is doing better than light paranormal, and of course light paranormal would more naturally lend to my voice). Now, remember my post about pacing and trends and books that sell when otherwise they might not (see Monday)? You got it, the book I speak of there is one of the top two selling genres according to the TKA breakdown. But the book still has a huge pacing issue, in my opinion. Which leads me to ask, if its genre weren’t in the top 2, would it have sold?

That’s trends for you, though. They exist to torture writers and satisfy readers. Really, when God created Trends, Trends said, “I need a purpose! A sense of drive! I don’t feel myself when I don’t have a goal.” And God said, “Not to worry, I shall now create writers and you can drive them crazy. Because I have a hankering to brainstorm how to create fig leaves, so I need you to go away.”

Back to trends. The problem comes when publishers buy, buy, buy to take advantage of a hot trend (and who can blame them? They’re businesses, they want to make money) and then the market becomes overly saturated. And then the publishers start dropping authors who are no longer earning them enough money (so they can stay in business), and then these same publishers start looking for the next hot trend and the previously hot authors suddenly find themselves orphaned. Without a publisher. Not because they aren’t talented. But because they haven’t written something that suits the current trend. I have had this happen to so many published writer friends over the last year, I can’t tell you. It’s enough to make me chew on my eyeballs.

Believe me when I say that publishers have no idea what the next hot trend will be. They’re gazing into cloudy crystal balls as much as the rest of us. And writers either follow the trends once they discover them, or kinda/sorta attempt to follow them but realize their heart isn’t in it. Or they eat a lot of packaged macaroni and continue to write what they love.

Like me.

Why?

Because I’m dense. And that’s how I like it.

Kindles for Canadians! At Last!

Yes, you heard it here – probably last. The Kindle is finally available in Canada. Well, we have to buy it from the U.S. Kindle store, but the point is, we can finally buy it. And, depending on where you live in the Great White North, we can use the wireless technology to download books, too.

I checked the service area for my town, and the wireless technology IS available. You know what this means, don’t you? Anyone who wants to buy me a Kindle and ship it to me for Christmas can now do so. Feel free!

In other news, only two days remain in my 2009 BOX ‘O BOOKS HOLIDAY GIVE-AWAY. For details on how to enter, click here.

The Great Christmas Tree Debate

An innocent posting (of mine) to Facebook last weekend sparked a bit of debate, so I thought I’d bring it here. Not the debate necessarily. Just the questions. You see, I’ve been harboring a bit of Christmas-decorating guilt. Because I haven’t done any yet. And I probably wouldn’t think of doing any if not for My Liege and Youngest Son doing it for me. Doing the outside decorating, that is. The blow-up Santa on the motorcycle is on the carport roof, the blowup_santalights are on the house. But I’m not, no way, not even considering, putting up our Christmas tree until at least December 15th. I’ve never been able to fathom putting up the tree earlier than 2 weeks prior to the big day. Part of this is because we use live trees, and I like them to last until after January 1st. We put our tree in the family room in the basement, because that’s where the monster TV and fireplace is, and My Liege does love his fire every night. We have a huge living room, but when we first moved into this house it served as a living room/piano room/partial dining room AND office (complete with two desks). There was no room for a tree. So the stockings went on the upstairs fireplace and the tree went downstairs. My kids grew up like that, so that’s how they want the tradition to remain. I can’t argue.

Thanks to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, it has recently been revealed to me that it might be something of an American tradition to to do all your Christmas decorating—including putting up the tree—on Thanksgiving weekend a month before Christmas. In some ways, the idea makes me jealous. American Thanksgiving kicks off the holiday season, so dispensing with the turkey one day, observing Black Friday the next, then decorating for Christmas makes sense. For me as a Canadian, however, it doesn’t make sense until I’m staring the Christmas countdown in the face, and that’s always ten days before.

Now, some say you can put up your tree a month early even if it’s a live tree, that proper watering will keep it going until Christmas. Thanks, but I don’t want to try that with a roaring fire in the same room every evening. The other option that is becoming more and more popular is the artificial Christmas tree. Twenty years ago, I found fake trees laughable. I mean, they looked pretty darn fake. Now, they look great. I can easily see the argument for an artificial tree (which I’ll refer to as fake from now on for the sake of my typing fingers). They can go up earlier and you don’t have to worry about them catching on fire or your toddlers playing in the water or eating the needles xmas_tree_farmthat fall on the floor. If you buy a good fake tree, I’m sure you could expect to keep it for twenty years before dumping it in the landfill. Whereas, with a live tree, you replace it every year.

We get our live trees from a Christmas tree farm down the road (that’s a picture from last year). The farm is within walking distance, but the trees are up a steep hill and we always seem to have to go to the top to find THE one. That’s enough walking without needing to haul the tree all the way back to the house without benefit of the pickup. Before we discovered the Christmas tree farm, we’d cut a live tree from our woodlot or a piece of property we once owned, or one of my dad’s properties. We called it juvenile thinning. Now, it’s much easier to just visit the tree farm, which didn’t grow anything but dry yellow grass and cow pies before it came into existence. Every year around about this coming weekend, we go and flag which tree we want. Then, when we go back around the 15th, we’re rest assured there’s still a tree left to buy. The tree goes up until New Year’s Day, and then we take it into town for chipping. For getting a live tree, I figure the way we do it could qualify as “green.”

I didn’t realize until I posted about live versus fake trees on Facebook that there’s a bit of a controversy over the environmental greenness of Christmas trees. I can see arguments on both sides, so I thought I’d do a little survey here.

  1. Do you have a fake or live tree?
  2. What’s the reason for your choice? Are you motivated by environmentalism or something else?
  3. Are you staunchly against live or fake trees? Why?
  4. How early do you put up your tree?
  5. When do you take it down?
  6. If Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, why can’t we kick off our Christmas holiday season then?
  7. If not for Halloween, would we?
  8. Can you imagine drinking eggnog for two freaking months?