2006

So far I haven't made any resolutions other than to finally get around to watching La Dolce Vita.

Probably because I'm pretty sure that's one resolution I can keep.

Lost in Translation

Actually that Dutch phrase means something like "To Choose or Share", according to some German guy I know. Not that he actually speaks Dutch or is from Germany, but, it seems more plausible than "Molars or Parts".

Research has yielded some extreme weirdness about this whole Dutch thing. Not only is there a British author by the name of Jill Mansell who already has a Dutch-translated book Dutch-titled: Kiezen of delen, but also, according to Altavista's Babel Fish translator, Kiezen of delen actually means "Molars or Parts".

Kiezen of delen? (Love Like That gone Dutch)

Mijn braaksel was blauwig. (My vomit was teal.)

'Vind jij het niet moeilijk om dat wijfie van je zo vaak niet te zien?' ("Is it hard to be away from your fine-ass woman so much of the time?")

'O ja! Hm ja, zo! Dat is lekker!' ("Oh, yeah! Uh huh, that's right! Give it to me, baby, give it to me!")

'Haar vriendinen zijn echt van die rotwijven.' ("Her friends are such bitches.")

'Pf, al sla je me dood.' ("No shit.")

'Ik sla dat wijf op haar bek!' ("I'm gonna kick that bitch's ass!")

'Hihihihiiiii!' ("Neighhhhhhhh!")

'Ach, flikker toch een eind op!' ("Go fuck yourself!")

As you can see I still think like a ten-year-old. (Me, to myself: "Ooh! Love Like That in Dutch! How do you say 'fuck' in Dutch? Ooh!")

Keep on carvin'

I'm still reeling from last night's Nip/Tuck season finale. Maybe because all in one episode we got: a man born without a penis (despite his being portrayed as a successful, albeit bisexual womanizer); a man posing as a woman having his penis chopped off, with a boxcutter, by a boy he/she had not only had a fling with but also got gay-bashed by and then subsequently bashed but then ended up becoming friends and going shopping with; a brother and sister turning out to be not only lovers but also a serial maimer/rapist/killer and his accomplice--never mind the weird bit about them being from Maine even though he was, uh, I think Cuban and she was, uh, British; Julia's baby (which may or may not be Sean's baby--who really knows with Julia, eh?) possibly being retarded in utero and btw, no remorse yet for her smothering that plane crash victim with a pillow when she was actually trying to kill her mother, oops; everyone in Miami apparently recovering from plastic surgery within days if not hours; Kimber showing up looking like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th with his hockey mask off, basically hinting that she wanted to get pretty again and then, after a miraculous marathon of surgery saying that being beautiful basically sucked and she couldn't be with the hottest mofo in the world anymore because they were just too lovely together, wtf; Quentin/The Carver getting shot and then jumping out of his body bag and I guess just walking out of the morgue with Kit/Sis and nobody noticed, after which they just flew to Spain and set up shop so's he could start carvin' again and I guess not be suspect even though the law found out that he was The Carver back in Miami and probably might be able to put two and two together when he starts carvin' in Spain; oh yeah, and Matt shooting his ex-girlfriend's white supremacist father and I guess just wiping his hands off and heading home, kind of like how Cherry (the transvestite) just leapt up with no problem after having his/her penis chopped off; and then of course everyone just sitting down to dinner at the McNamaras' house like nothing really happened.

Now if only Patrick Duffy had stepped out of the shower and told someone it was all a dream...

Mid-December Ramblings

Today I was in a bookstore and could find absolutely nothing that I wanted to read. That got me thinking…hmm, I wonder whatever happened to Heather Cochran’s second RDI release (her first being the wonderfully unique and not so genre-oriented Mean Season) that was supposed to be out in November? It’s December, no? Oh, well, maybe I’ll call the customer service # and ask.

I officially hate the holiday season. It reminds me of Disneyland—crowds of rude people, long lines, buying shit just to buy it and some bizarre need to eat like a hog just because there’s food everywhere. I will be glad when it’s over.

Today one of my coworkers said I look like one of those kids in Village of the Damned with this haircut.

Your weekend homework: Rent Village of the Damned and have a laugh.

Okay, okay...I promise to stop posting exclusively about my hair.

Instead I'll get back to posting mostly about LLT and writing/publishing-related topics. Like how interesting is this, my mother told me the publisher sent copies of LLT by mail the other day, in Dutch. I'm now imagining it in the hands of young women from Amsterdam.

And thinking LLT may have found its audience!

Last Christmas...I Gave You My Heart

There you have it. (Left)

If you really want to see what my haircut looks like, go check out George Michael's 'do on the cover of your old Wham! Make It Big record.

Anybody Got a Wig I Could Borrow?

I have a new name for my pain and it is Supercuts.

Now some of you may be compelled to ask: "Amanda! Why in the f--k did you go to Supercuts?"

To which I would be compelled to reply: "I don't f--king know!"

At any rate--and this one would be a cheap $11--I can see (literally every time I look in the mirror and subsequently shout in horror, "Who is that?") that my impulse to pay $500 to fly back to Virginia and visit my regular stylist was correct. Because at the moment I can't decide if my hair more resembles Meg Ryan's in Innerspace or Julia Roberts's when she played f--king Tinkerbell in Hook.

Note to all the people I've been urging to come visit me in Las Vegas: Why don't you actually put that on hold for a few months.

Royalty Statement

The good news is, I got it. The bad news is that I most likely won't be seeing but a $10.00 profit on Love Like That--and even then, it probably won't be until Love Like That is out of print.

Now here's where it might be nice to have some writer friends. See, I always thought that once a book made back the author's advance in retail sales, that was when the author started earning his or her percentage off the cover price.

(As D-list published authors, the world over, laugh hysterically...)

More good news is, in the first three months of its release, Love Like That sold about 10X more copies than I expected.

More bad news is, if I'd been correct about my uninformed thoughts on the royalty structure, I'd be: buying lavish Christmas gifts for all my family and friends, planning a spring vaca in Paris, going straight to Louis Vuitton after work and maybe looking into putting a down payment on one of those luxury high-rise condominiums that that are going up all over Las Vegas right now.

But hey, why dwell? I don't do it for the $$ anyway, I do it for the art.

I think I'll go to law school now.

Nobody Does It Better

Bored during my last hour of work tonight, I visited all the sites I regularly haunt in search of something new. Then remembered I hadn't checked in on Jackie Collins in a while and so headed to her site. At first thought, after reading Jackie's December 2005 entry, it occurred to me that my idol leads a far, far, far more exciting life as a writer than I. Then came the obvious revelation: Jackie has been publishing books for about 35 years, and I only just published my first about 8 months ago.

This led to a more inspiring revelation, as I realized, doing the math, that Jackie was around my age when she was writing her first book to be published, The World is Full of Married Men. And it was then that I remembered when I, at the age of twelve (or maybe thirteen), after reading my first Jackie Collins book, Rock Star, thought to myself: "When I'm old enough, I'm going to write like this."

Now I'm old enough...and have spent the last month or so considering myself "finished" because I can't seem to do chick-lit right and actually, don't really want to...which makes me feel kind of icky and abnormal, considering that my one published book thus far can only be classified in the chick-lit category.

Anyway.

I don't deign to think that I could ever be as successful as Jackie Collins (and for those that would scoff and say, "Oh, please--Jackie Collins writes shallow trash," let's not be forgetting her 400 million books in print and have you ever allowed yourself to be so entertained?), I guess I'm just pleased to remember anew that she as a writer inspires me as a writer--always has, always will.

When I was in middle school, reading Rock Star--how Jackie inspired me was to show me a wild world beyond the quiet seclusion of my hometown, and beyond the frustrating trappings of my age.

How she inspires me tonight, with the thought that Jackie probably wasn't typing up The World is Full of Married Men while consumed by a paranoia that she was getting too old to make her mark, and by a worry that she couldn't possibly keep up with her contemporaries.

Well, it's been decades since her first book was published and she's only gotten better with time, and when you think about it (or at least when I think about it), Jackie Collins doesn't really have any contemporaries. She's just Jackie Collins.

Lovers and Players will be out in February.

I will be in the midst of a whole 'nother submission process.

Oh, Jackie. Thank you.

When you search for Love Like That on the Barnes & Noble site right now, the first book that comes up is The Book of Us: A Journal of Your Love Story in 150 Questions.

That's funny.

Site Traffic

I didn't realize that linking to SS's original post would put me on her page like that. So I guess that either makes me a totally inept blogger or a complete nitwit, maybe both.

Either way, welcome. And, I apologize in advance if my own personal blogging about the ups and downs of writing and more importantly, publishing, upsets you.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why are people so angry at Sandra Scoppettone?

Yeah, there's a reason I rarely write exactly what I'm thinking on this little-known blog. That reason being, a reason just like this. A writer writes truthfully about the pitfalls of being published and speaks candidly about her fears for her future as a writer--and suddenly she is not only evil incarnate, but also the stupidest person who ever lived. And a lynch mob of total strangers gets in line to call her names and snidely (smugly?) tells her to shut up, while industry peers/colleagues chide and patronize her for so "dimwittedly" and offensively speaking her mind.

'Tis true that if you post your thoughts and opinions in a public forum, you're opening yourself up to be criticized by the public. But so much for writers writing about the writing life, huh?

Sasha

My girl at the Trophee Eric Bompard, where she got totally ripped off. True, the little tumble toward the end didn't make for a technically perfect program--but what a stunning performance!

Thanksgiving Proven

Thursday morning dawned cold and still, with me debating if I should lug my laptop to Denver and fearing the worst at McCarran. A decision made, I drove north on Las Vegas Boulevard, sans laptop, as the first of the day's departing planes lifted into the brightening sky. At the airport I parked my car, took the shuttle to the terminal, and as expected--met complete chaos.

I figured I would check in curbside, where there were only 2 people in line versus the 8,000 waiting inside. But unfortunately was turned away when the skycap informed me that since I'd just bought my ticket the day before, an agent had to confirm my credit card. I went inside and made camp behind 8,000 people. Then, was tapped on the shoulder. And there was the skycap from the curbside check-in, who said, "Come with me, sweetie, I'll get you through the line."

We cut all the way to the front, where he hopped the counter and saw that not only was I checked in right away, but that I was assigned an aisle seat. I gave him five bucks--and was pleased to have been born blonde, blue-eyed, and blessed with considerable assets. Shallow? Not when it means avoiding airport stress!

On the plane I was seated beside a middle-aged couple. But the man's seat wouldn't stay upright so the flight attendant moved them to another area of the plane. I was left with an entire row to myself.

Takeoff was smooth. The pilot made a comical welcome speech--relaxing me into the belief that we were really in no danger of going down. The beverage cart was still stocked with many tiny bottles of Finlandia by the time it got to me. The flight was shorter than I thought it would be. In Denver, my bag was riding around on the carousel at the exact moment I got there. Outside, my sister was just driving up.

At Lisa's house, three-year-old Maddy eschewed her traditional behavior of hiding from me, and instead jumped instantly into my arms. It was, as it always is, a joy to see six-year-old Savannah. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious--all but my brother-in-law's hideous gravy, which was all the better because it brought to mind another Thanksgiving, and another failed attempt at gravy, and a lot of laughs about other times we've spent together.

I thought many times over the weekend, how proud and lucky I am to have such a fine sister, and how happy it makes me that she has such a wonderful family and such a good life.

I got to see ultrasound pictures of the new baby! And discuss the potential of probably 1,000 names.

I got to meet Lisa's friends at a Friday night cocktail party, and they were all completely nice. We saw Pride and Prejudice yesterday, and it was really good! I helped my brother-in-law put up Christmas lights. And got to snuggle with Maddy in her feet pajamas, and sit by Savannah at every meal.

My sister has a gorgeous house and a grand hairdryer. She is so easy and enjoyable to talk to. I love that we can discuss anything and everything and that we never disrespect each other. We have so many of the same opinions. She's so smart and so funny and I love spending time with her. I love that we have shared our lives. She never makes me feel like less. She always makes me feel so much better than I did before.

My visit was rounded out by this morning's tasty brunch at Mimi's cafe. Then, at the airport in Denver, having not yet been assigned a seat...the boarding agent was kind enough to upgrade me to First Class. And obviously, my plane landed safely on the ground here in Las Vegas.

It was the best weekend. And my only sorrow is that I can't do it over again.

What a sappy post, huh?

Are all these people (really) working today?

To start this rather lengthy post, I plead guilty to first-rate blog neglect. Part of my defense is that I've not yet been able to gauge if Internet use is okay at my new job--and to keep myself sane (i.e., not let the writing lag), what I try to do when I get home at night is immediately write at least 2-3 pages that I'm hoping will eventually be bound in a novel. On that note: another part, lately all I've really felt like writing here is a bunch of negative crap about the so-called ethics of publishing, to include some "why her and not me" type comments about some other chick-lit writers out there (in particular, the ones of similar association, and maybe even the same association, who are treated to glorious parties, fabulous promotional events, and invitations to exclusive writing engagements when some of us can't even seem to get our hands on a royalty statement). Perhaps that last part is due to the kind of quiet jealousy that I believe exists inside of every writer, published or not--you love to read, naturally, and there is no other place in which you feel so at home--but still you feel the let-down of your own unrecognition, the yearning silence of your own unique voice, every time you enter a bookstore. Or perhaps it is just that even as adults, we never quite grow out of that playground self-consciousness that makes us wonder why some kids are, simply, so much more popular than others.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, the American holiday in which we gather to feast in celebration of all we should be thankful for. And while I do really love Thanksgiving--as may be evident by the Thanksgiving chapter in Love Like That--today I was thinking that it's actually kind of sad that most of us, really, only use this one day as a means of appreciating what bits of goodness we may forsake on all other days. Even sadder still, what about all the people who really don't have anything to be thankful for? Still they are expected to celebrate Thanksgiving--the same as the loveless are expected to welcome Valentine's Day and the socially-challenged are expected to party ("like it's 1999"...sorry, I had to do it) on New Year's Eve.

I still love Thanksgiving. And I do, indeed, have a lot to be thankful for, every day of the year--from knowing how to read (and write) to having clothes to wear (for as often as I longingly yearn for more, more, more!) to what will undoubtedly be my best 31st birthday present (and yes, I do realize my sister is not giving me her baby for my birthday), a new niece or my first nephew.

Some randomness:

Today I used the word "blockhead" to describe a jackass and found it to be very effective, therefore I think I will start referring to all "jackasses" as "blockheads".

I could easily live in peace and satisfaction without having to see these celebrity catch-phrases: Brangelina, TomKat and the even more LUDICROUS TomKitten (which is what the media is calling Katie Holmes's and Tom Cruise's alleged unborn, in case you didn't know) and Dashmi (at first I thought it was a new religion, not the coupling of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher).

I'm about to start reading L'Affaire by Diane Johnson, the same scribe who penned Le Divorce.

I have to fly twice in the next several days and can't say I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm loving the return of Gaucho pants.

And that's about it.

Now I'm going to drink some Shiraz, pack a bag and watch last night's recorded episode of Nip/Tuck.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Check out this article at the Sunday Herald online. It's an examination of the destructive relationship between writers and alcohol.

As I sit at my laptop, writing--a bottle of beer within easy reach.

Hi Dad