Archive for May, 2005

May 30, 2005

Maine food

I’m here in Maine in the bosom of my family. I love the food here. Yesterday I had a lobster roll. This, for people not from Maine, is a lot of lobster meat with mayonnaise in a toasted hot dog roll. It’s generally served with chips/fries and a pickle. In every other part of the world, lobster is considered a sophisticated taste; here in Maine, we serve it like a hot dog.

I also had some fiddleheads. These are the curled-up stems of young ferns which you steam and then eat. I’ve always loved them, but I’ve never been anywhere else where you eat ferns. We bought them from a stand by the side of the road.

And right now I am having my personal favourite: New England Coffee Co. iced decaf hazelnut coffee, bought from the Dead River Convenience Shop in Mexico, Maine. Yum.

I think I’ve written about 2100 words, too, which is good, considering the jet lag. I wrote most of it on the plane; I had my Dana (portable word processor) and planned to do loads of work. However, I was seated in the middle of 5 seats. So when I started to type, I realised that the man to my left and the teenage girl to my right could both easily read what I was writing.

Of course, what I was writing about was the heroine having visible nipple erection.

I’m proud of what I write, but this was just slightly embarrassing.

Fortunately the row behind me was nearly empty. So I switched seats and typed happily away for several hours.

Anyway. Forgive me if I don’t reply to most of the comments that are left here this week; my parents’ dial-up is very slow.

May 28, 2005

bzzzzzz

Well in about six hours I’m off to Maine for a week to see my family. Of course, my husband comes back from tour as soon as I leave the country. I keep thinking about that Barry Manilow song, “We’re just ships, that pass in the night…”

So my next post will be from the land of black flies and moose.

I forget about bugs while I’m in England. (Except at The Amityville Cafe.) We don’t really have any here in Reading. Not the kind that follow you in clouds, or the kind that zoom around your head maddingly until you’re forced to jump into a lake to escape them. (The “horsefly dive” was an hourly event in my childhood summers.) I haven’t been kept awake by a mosquito flying around the room in this country. The only bugs that have bitten me here are the neighbours’ cat’s fleas. And while “fly dope” was such a common substance when I was a kid that it was my summer best friend’s nickname, I don’t think I’ve bought a can of it as an adult.

I don’t miss any of these things, mind you. I’m fine here in Reading with the occasional ladybird and the curious ants. I love spring in England. Spring in Maine is just as beautiful, but you don’t get to see much of it because you’re running away from the black flies.

Bugs aside, though, I’m really looking forward to being there again.

May 25, 2005

revising for emotion

I’m on page 57. Whoo-hoo!

While this book is a rewrite rather than a revision–I figure I’ll probably write at least 50% of it from scratch–I am using some of the original scenes and changing them to try to inject more emotion. I thought I’d post some short passages to show how I think I’m doing that.

One lesson I’ve learned is that every single action should hold some significance, every single page should reflect the characters’ inner conflict, either literally or symbolically. I didn’t know that when I wrote the first version of this book, three years ago.

So here are two passages, side by side, original and revised. The new one contains nearly 75% fewer adverbs. I’ll be interested if anybody can tell the difference, otherwise. I think I can, but maybe I know too much about the characters.

The hero is a chef, and he’s giving some cooking lessons.

Version one:

“A sharp knife cuts things by itself,” Angus said. “It requires very little pressure, so it’s less likely to slip. A sharp knife will prevent many more accidents than it causes.”
Elisabeth couldn’t take her eyes off his hands as they moved dextrously on the onion and the knife. They moved like a magician’s hands, taking a whole onion and transforming it into slices seemingly without any effort whatsoever. “Doesn’t it make you cry?”
“A sharp blade slices without spraying juice around, so you’re less likely to cry. I have been known to tear up occasionally, though.” He winked at her again, and wiped his hands on a cloth.

Version two:

“A sharp knife cuts things by itself. It requires very little pressure, so it’s less likely to slip. A sharp knife will prevent many more accidents than it causes.”
Angus’s hands moved like a magician’s hands, taking a whole onion and transforming it into slices seemingly without any effort.
“You’re not crying,” Elisabeth said, drawn into the spell of watching him.
“That’s for two reasons. One, is that this is a very sharp knife. Two, is that I’m not a crier.”
Well, that’s one thing they had in common, Elisabeth thought. She wasn’t a crier, either, any more.

Any difference? Any suggestions? What do you do in revisions?

Both passages copyright me, 2005, obviously, der.

May 24, 2005

still no nude Canadians, though

Page 52. Not bad. If the rest of this book comes so quickly I’ll be laughing.

Of course, it won’t.

However, today I am laughing about Yoda’s blog about underwear.

And I’ve been tagged (so has Yoda, coincidentally…or is that “so Yoda has”?) but that’ll have to wait until I’m a bit more together. My hero’s hands have rattled me.

May 23, 2005

eh

On page 44. Slow but steady wins the race, right?

Right. Maybe.

I emailed Kathy tonight to despair about my conflict in this book. (I never think I have enough conflict, until near the end, when I think I have so much damn conflict the damn hero and heroine will never get together in a million damn years, let alone twenty damn pages.) I’ve just about gotten to the stage of desperation when I’m considering having my heroine’s Canadian hippy parents turn up, just because it will be totally humiliating for her.

I probably won’t do it. But my new challenge for this book is to include the line: “Hi, we’re nudist Canadian hippies. Take off all your clothes, eh.”

May 22, 2005

flies, awards, and the misery of a A cup girl

I’m very disappointed.

It used to be a truth of life: if you were female and you went to the Costa Coffee near platform 1 at Paddington, the cute Italian guys who worked there would always flirt with you. So yesterday I confidently marched up to the cafe and ordered my usual decaf latte to go, and there was a WOMAN behind the counter, who did not flirt with me. It was just wrong. And something must have died in there lately (hopefully not the cute Italians), because the whole place was covered in fruit flies. There were hundreds of them clinging to the walls.

So Flirt-a-Costa has become The Amityville Cafe. How sad.

Anyway. I didn’t win the New Writers Award on Thursday, but Jan Jones did for her novel Stage by Stage and I’m really pleased for her. Can’t wait to read the book! The party was great and my perfect red shoes got a mention on the RNA Website and you can’t ask for more than that.

Before the party I went through my line edit of Being a Bad Girl with my new editor, which was great, and she gave me some wonderful compliments about my writing so my head has now blown up to the size of a huge juicy watermelon.

So just as well I didn’t get flirted with at Costa yesterday, I guess, because my head might have gotten more swollen still and it would have been difficult to get through doors, etc. As it was, I bumped it on a counter (sending the flies, er, flying) and it’s bruised.

I did get a little more head-deflating after my disastrous visit to the Amityville Cafe when I was trying on evening gowns in Selfridge’s (well, a girl has to spend her advance check on something, you know) and none of them fit because my chest is too small. This is also wrong.

Anyway. My post is up on Romancing the Blog today. I wrote about negative critical reactions to genre fiction, and I think I might blog about this a bit later, too, because it’s an issue I’m very interested in.

Meanwhile, I’ve got to figure out a way to make my head smaller and my chest bigger without resorting to surgery.

May 18, 2005

fame!

Hey, this is cool. The article I gave an interview for the other day (when I was worried that I’d say something stupid about my husband) was printed in the Reading Evening Post City Woman page. It’s not up on their website yet, but I’ll post when it is.

It’s a PINK double-page spread. My neighbours, when I showed them, were quick to point out that there was a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker on the same page, and were very excited to live next door to someone who has billing with SJP. In the Evening Post, at least.

This is what they have to say about the awkward “husband question”:

In fact, so good is Julie at creating her characters that many of her friends have fallen in love with Oz, her hero in [BEING A BAD GIRL].

Julie said: “Everyone wanted him. And no, he’s not modelled on my husband. I’m not allowed to put in any of my private life. It’s all from my imagination.

“But, of course, my husband is the perfect man.”

You should have HEARD what his friends said to him down the pub this evening…

Anyway, tomorrow is the award ceremony for the RNA New Writers’ Award. I predict I won’t win. There is a lot of competition and though I haven’t read the other 8 books on the list, I know many of the authors and I know their books are bound to be excellent. But I’m meeting my editor beforehand to go through the line edits for BEING A BAD GIRL (and she loves the book!! yay!!!) and afterwards I’m going for dinner with the M&B team, so it will be a glam day, and baby, I’ve got the shoes to do it in!

May 17, 2005

next week I’ll be like a pro

This is funny, though, considering the last line of my last post.

I went to get a new lipstick (to match new shoes, see below) and the makeup counter girl was on her first day. She charmed me onto a stool.

Usually I run from makeup girls, look grumpy, and choose my makeup myself, but she had a really nice smile and I felt like being smiled at. She started testing red lipsticks on my hand. I chose a shade, she started brushing it on.

“I’ve never put lipstick on another person,” she confided. “You’re my first. I’ve had training, though.”

I started laughing, and that made her slip. Poor girl was all apologetic, even though it was my fault.

“Come back next week and I’ll be like a pro,” she promised me.

page 35

Well, I’m on page 35. That’s 11 pages in a week.

Wow, with this dizzying rate of progress I should finish the book in…let’s see…October.

It’s due in July.

Cue hysterical laughter

This could, perhaps, have something to do with the fact that I’ve had at least two hours worth of work to do every evening for the past two weeks. It’s exam season and my exam classes are producing essays every day. By the time I’ve come home, changed, run errands, had dinner, done my marking, I’m ready for bed.

Oh well. Next week should be easier.

May 14, 2005

heroes and shoes

I’m only on page 29, but I had to rewrite most of the beginning and cut a page because I have come to understand my heroine better. And I LOVE my hero. He does things and I not only go “Whoo, hot!” but I also go “Ohhhh, you poor guy.” I like heroes who are clueless about what they need, who have the answer under their noses and can’t understand it until the crunch comes. Poor Angus has defined, on page 28, what he wants out of life and, if he could only see it, that thing is love. But he can’t see it, and that’s why I love him.

On another topic, I bought a pair of shoes today. I also bought a skirt, and the skirt is beautiful–linen, red and pink floral print, very bright. (I’ve bought it for the RNA Summer party, because I’m up for the New Writers’ Award and that’s enough reason to expand one’s wardrobe.) I saw it and thought, “I must have red heels.”

It’s hard to find red shoes in May. Everything is pink and light green and white. But I found them. Candy red, two-inch heel, rounded toe, thin strap across the top, GORGEOUS.

There’s something about buying new shoes. I take them home and pose them on top of the box, and watch them for a while. They don’t do much, but still. And then, as I’m doing other things, I have a sneaky look, and I think, wow, those will just look great with this outfit…and this one…and this one…

Yeah so I’m totally superficial and I admit it. But there’s a tenuous connection here between shoes and heroes, and it’s not just because they’re nearly anagrams of each other. For both of them, when you find them and they’re right, you KNOW. And once you’ve got them and you step back and look at them, they open up a whole new range of possibilities.

Okay, that’s cheesy. But I already said, cheesy metaphors are my niche, and I’m going to milk it, baby!

May 12, 2005

page 27

…Er, that’s it, really. I got to page 27.

And I wrote an awesome simile, which I had to delete because it doesn’t fit. I might use it somewhere else, so don’t steal it, okay? (Like it’s original. Snort.) As hot as an accountant’s computer in April, and twice as calculating.*

Yes, it’s cheesy, but they say that every writer should have her own niche, and I’m thinking cheesy similes and metaphors might be mine. I actually kept His eyes had assessed her as if she were a box of fresh, ripe tomatoes.*

*These cheesy similes are copyright Julie Cohen 2005. If you steal them she will laugh heartily because they are truly cheesy.

May 11, 2005

victory!!

If you Google “make jean-christophe novelli take off his clothes”…you find me!!

YES!!!