Day: November 14, 2019

MJ’s Musings: If Her Nora-ness Can Write…

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I have been reading Nora Roberts’ Chronicles of the One and enjoying every word. Can’t wait for book three, The Rise of Magicks to come out in a couple of weeks.

Book one, Year One, reminded me of Stephen King’s The Stand on so many levels. Of course, every other reader of The Stand said the same thing. That doesn’t make the trilogy any less compelling. After all, there are only between six and 1,462 plots in the world (depending on who’s speaking). Everything else is a variation on a theme.  Story ideas, especially from the best, are going to overlap.

A couple of years ago, I had a disturbingly vivid dream. Upon waking I transcribed  the  dream as the opening scene of a novel and read it to my RWA chapter’s critique group later that morning.  One member said, “It sounds kind of like A Handmaid’s Tale.” I had heard of this book, but hadn’t read it. The series had not yet been shown on TV. It may have been in production at the time, but if so, I wasn’t aware of it.

I wrote the book in a couple of months. It’s a dystopian tale that went through several title changes before I settled on The Eleventh Sybil.  I thought the story was powerful. My critique group agreed. I started shopping the book to agents.

By this time, A Handmaid’s Tale was airing. Sales of the novel surged.  A sequel was in the works. I read Atwood’s book while I was writing mine. They are not the same story.

Yet one agent wrote back: “I’ve read this before.”

If I were Nora Roberts, submitting Year One, would the agent say the same thing?

Okay, I get it: she’s Nora,and I’m not. But that doesn’t mean my story doesn’t deserve a fair reading.

MJ’s MOVIES: STRANGER THAN FICTION

When my critique group and I go off to the woods for long writing weekends, we also bring movies to watch during the evening. One year, someone grabbed Stranger than Fiction from the library, thinking Emma Thompson would outweigh Will Ferrell. Thankfully, she did.

I actually like Will Ferrell in this movie. He plays an IRS agent who suddenly begins hearing his life being narrated by the voice of a famous author. He hunts down the author to convince her to change the ending of the book she’s writing because he doesn’t want to die the way he will die in the book. I know. Weird.

There’s a great cast to go along with the interesting premise. This movie deserves to be better known than it is. It’s not a great movie by any means, but neither is it a dud.

MJ’s Musings: Being an Author

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I’ve always known I wanted to be an author.

In first grade, the class wrote a poem “together”. Except I was too excited to let any one else in the class participate. It was a little ditty a about a clown who came to down and turned the frowns upside down.

In third grade, poor Mrs. Birmingham tried to teach us pronouns and punctuation. I clearly remember thinking, I need to know this because I’m a writer.

Every year in early June, I would set up an “office” somewhere in my parents house, preparing for my summer of novel writing. Once year, my dad procured an old Remington cast iron office typewriter (manual), with a broken return bar. The typewriter was always in my makeshift office.

In high school, I always carried a notebook for jotting down my angsty teenage poems. I also kept a journal because journals are how biographies of famous people are researched.

When I moved into my own apartment, I borrowed my mom’s typewriter so I could “practice typing,” but I was really writing horrible poems and maudlin stories.

I always kept a notebook on me. I was always working on something. Once, while sitting in a hospital emergency waiting room for word on my badly injured grandmother, I pulled out a yellow pad and went to work. My uncle, who was with me, asked, “What are you doing?” “Working on my novel,” I replied. He said, “Oh. Are you still doing that?”

I’m a writer. An author. Yeah. I’m still doing that.

 

MJ’s Musings: Rituals from My Childhood

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My mom had Saturday night rituals for us that I haven’t thought about in years. I have no idea why I stopped doing these things. Maybe modern materials don’t require as much care as things did back in day. Maybe we took better care of our belongings because we had to make them last.

We polished, then buffed our shoes every Saturday night. There were three or four colors of shoe polish and/or paste on the upper shelf in the bathroom. My dad had a large shoe brush. According to Amazon, shoe brushes are still a thing.

The other thing we did every Saturday without fail was wash our combs and hairbrushes. I can still smell the Prell shampoo we used. My mom had a dedicated fingernail brush we used to get between the teeth on our combs.  I sometimes used a toothpick.

Yes, I still clean the hair from my brush, but my comb isn’t dirty. Is my scalp cleaner than it was when I was child because I wash my hair more often? 

Do you have childhood rituals you abandoned?

 

MJ Monday: MJ’s Movies-Snow Cake

Welcome to the debut of MJ’s Movies, where once a month–the second Monday–I’ll talk about a motion picture.

I tend to like quirky, off-beat movies. A friend recommended SNOW CAKE, a 2006 independent release starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver.

This movie should be better known than it is.

Weaver plays a high-functioning autistic woman and Rickman plays a man who “accidentally” comes into her life for a brief moment.  Wikipedia calls the movie a romantic comedy, while IMDb classifies it as a drama.  Amazon.com says:

“Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver form the quintessential indie-film odd couple in this intimately observed drama that makes a memorable detour from the usual high-concept, special effects-laden studio fare.”

So, so true. Parts are funny; parts are sad; it’s all compelling.

I was lucky because my library has a DVD available.

This movie should have gotten more attention than it received, if for no other reasons than Rickman and Weaver.

If you’re able to get your hands on a copy, grab and watch it. You shouldn’t be disappointed.