Anticipation…anticipate…wait

During the summer I feel like I’m constantly waiting, anticipating the last week of September when the fall TV season begins. This summer was no different. I already had “my shows” picked out, my TiVo prepped and primed with a new To Do List, quivering with TV thrills. I salivated at the bright, Technicolor dream “Pushing Daisies,” brought to us by Bryan Fuller (“Dead Like Me” and the prematurely canceled “Wonderfalls”), while just barely noticing “Cavemen.” Now before I break any hearts, I do want to mention that I enjoy “Pushing Daisies” and I plan to watch it as long as it stays entertaining, but it just wasn’t as flawless as I anticipated. I had expected a fabulously whimsical fairy tale of unrequited love and unattainable intimacy, but what I got was a flashy and colorful visit to Willy Wonka’s factory. The images far overshadowed the superior writing and acting, and left my teeth throbbing. This is not to say the show is a bust, I just think it was too hyped, too, well, anticipated for its own good.

On the other hand, “Cavemen,” which I had no intention to watch until I discovered that Nick Kroll starred on the show, surprised me the most of any show out this season. The writing is clever, and subtly masks its commentary on social and ethnic prejudice in the form of three hairy and not-so-dim-witted cavemen. I find myself each Tuesday wrapped up in the world of cavemen trying to co-exist with Homo Sapiens. Each week the show slabs on layers of low-brow humor with a few nuggets of truth and honesty. I don’t think it means to send a message to the audience, but it speaks louder about racial inequality than Jesse Jackson at a Neo-Nazi/KKK bake sale. It’s just that good…

Anticipating shows is what I do, but actually getting to genuinely enjoy one is rare. I love “Cavemen” without ever expecting to, and I’m eh about “Pushing Daisies.” I think the best thing for anyone to do is to watch both, and see which one makes the weekly wait worth it each time.

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Gwen Reyes writes and maintains the movie blog Reel Vixens (http://www.reelvixens.com/)—which yes, doesn’t get updated enough. She loves feedback and chatting about anything pop culture.

Jennifer Lewis | Alpha Females

Anna Marcus, the heroine of my book Seduced for the Inheritance is a tough cookie. She’s dealing with the fallout of divorce and bankruptcy, and is freshly bereaved. Then she runs into my arrogant, demanding (and of course, irresistible) hero. Anna has just unexpectedly inherited her childhood home, a tiny cottage in the middle of the huge Paradiso estate. When estate-owner Naldo de Leon tries to buy back what he sees as an integral part of his own domain, does she hand it over with a whimper and run away?

Heck no. She’s constitutionally incapable of doing that. In fact, the more he tries to rush her and goad her into selling, the harder she fights back. She’s as stubborn, proud and insistent as Naldo…something he slowly, but surely, comes to appreciate and admire.

Anna is an ‘alpha female’ who can’t be pushed around, even by the most determined ‘alpha male.’

I enjoy writing the kind of strong heroines who stand up for their beliefs and their rights, even when that makes life more difficult for them. Perhaps I enjoy living vicariously through them. In real life I dislike conflict and will sometimes let an annoyance slide to avoid a confrontation. It’s fun to write about a woman who doesn’t mind taking the heat.

Most readers like a romance heroine to be someone they can identify with, and who they’d like to be friends with. Over the years, I think heroines have changed to reflect our changing society. These days, most of us have demanding careers and busy family lives, and can readily identify with strong women who work hard for what they want and won’t stand for being pushed around.

In a story with a strong alpha male hero, I especially enjoy seeing him matched with a woman who won’t let him steamroll over her. It makes for a lot of spark and passion, and I can picture them living happily ever after as equal partners who keep each other on their toes.

At Book Expo America this summer, I was signing copies of my debut book The Boss’s Demand, when a silver-haired lady walked up to the counter, peered at my cover, then collared me: “Does she have any backbone?” I explained that indeed she did. She went on to tell me she could only read books with strong heroines. When pressed, her friend admitted that she preferred sweet, gentle heroines.

Do you like alpha females? Or do you prefer a softer, more yielding heroine? Who are some of your favorite romance heroines, and what makes you like them so much?

Everyone who enters my contest today will be entered to win a copy of Seduced for the Inheritance . If you already have the book (a quality to be admired!) you will win a copy of my July book The Boss’s Demand. If you already own that too, then I dearly love you and I will give you something else.

Jen

http://www.jenlewis.com/

http://www.myspace.com/jenniferlewiswrites

Jane Porter | A Thing Called Grace

I’m a hard worker, a good mom, a loyal friend, and sometimes a pretty decent writer, but that doesn’t mean everything goes smoothly. In fact, sometimes it means nothing goes smoothly and life becomes what life generally is: one endless roller coaster of highs, low, and loop de loos.

I’ve been most this year on the roller coaster and the past six months have pretty much been loops and swoops and hair curling drops that put your stomach up in your mouth and leaves it there.

Like everyone else, I’ve had sick family members and lost family members and had financial worries and child worries and work worries but what the heck, we can’t cry (too much), we just have to keep going. And that’s what I’ve been doing. Putting one foot in front of the other as I finish one book and begin to hit the road and promote another. My kids hate me being gone. I’m a single mom and the boys’ dad has been in the hospital since April. They don’t want to be left with sitters. I don’t blame them for not wanting to be left with sitters but sometimes we do what we don’t want to have to do.

However, last week, one day into my eight day California book tour I lost my childcare, a girl I’d interviewed in July and started training in August. She was supposed to be my childcare solution, not my childcare nightmare. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. And so one day into my book tour—and with nearly 6 weeks of travel ahead of me—I began to pitch hit: calling anyone and everyone to help me get through the California leg of the book tour at least. My former sitters and girl friends responded. Sure, my kids were shuffled and bounced around like numbered balls in Bingo, but they were safe and with someone who cared.

I’m stuck at the airport right now in Dallas unable to get home. I’m hoping to go standby on a flight later today. My kids need to see me. I need to see them. But I’m really, incredibly calm. I’m really, incredibly happy. I feel…lucky.

I feel blessed.

I don’t know why I feel so calm when so many things aren’t lining up straight. But maybe that’s the lesson I’m learning right now. Maybe I’m supposed to learn that life isn’t about control, and making all the little ducks line up in a tidy row, but rather, keeping the little ducks floating and swimming and alive.

Maybe it’s enough that I’m grateful to be who I am, and the mother of my boys, and blessed with such good friends, family, readers and fans. Maybe it’s enough to just paddle, paddle and paddle and enjoy the swim.

So that’s where I am. Sitting at DFW, waiting for a plane to arrive, and understanding grace. I don’t have to do it all. I don’t have to be all that. I just have to live and swim and love the other ducks.

http://www.janeporter.com

Shari Shattuck | Men in Fiction

When I was asked to do this chat I politely requested some subject ideas. The ladies at Fresh Fiction very kindly hinted that most writers talk about where they got their latest book/plot idea.

Well, my plot ideas usually start with something vague, and then I pull from the myriad of images and happenings that we call life. My latest, “Eye of the Beholder” was inspired by my new neighborhood, the one I’m working on now, as yet untitled, sprung from the loins of a conversation with an old modeling friend in Atlanta, where I grew up. But I do have a subject that I’ve had to sneak up on, set traps for, and hope I capture my elusive prey. Fictional men.

Where do we get our male characters and how true are they? For that matter, how true do we want them to be? In one of his fabulously witty books, the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse has one of his characters married to well-known Romance writer Rosie Banks. Rosie’s been asked to write a column for a ladies’ paper about her husband and he exclaims in great distress, “Believe me, or believe me not, Bertie, when I say that she describes me as half-God, half prattling mischievous child!” To which Bertie replies, “Good God! She didn’t say that!”

Not a bad description of many of our men in real life, no doubt, but most of us prefer our literary men on the minor deity end of the spectrum. However loving and forgiving creatures that most woman are, I admit to occasionally keeping score on my man’s transgressions, and so in “Eye” one of my characters describes her husband as being mentally about seven when they have a disagreement. “You know, he reverts to that ‘I’m not stupid, you’re stupid!’ stage.”

I’ve stolen much of my own man’s personality for Evan Paley in the Callaway Wilde series. Joseph is my constant consultant on “maleness.” Since he’s one of those ‘real men’ in real life and an accomplished stage actor who’s filled out the emotional life of male characters ranging from Richard the Third to Lenny in 'Grapes of Wrath' to Macbeth, that Scottish king with the harpy wife, (who was played by me, giggle) he’s got some pretty good insights.

So, let me know what you think about the subject. Then let’s talk men in fiction!

http://www.sharishattuck.com/