More, More, More (How do you like it, how do you like it?)

Wow, two posts in one day. Either I have absolutely nothing intriguing to keep me busy at work or I have gone CRAZY FOR BLOGGING! (You guess!)

I just found this article about you know what, chick-lit is bad, courtesy of Bookslut. I was compelled to blog up a response.

It's my humble opinion (which is on the loose today, isn't it?) that the reputation chick-lit has garnered for itself is what's hurting writers--be those writers "literary" or other. I say this as a chick-lit writer who was relieved of her publishing contract due to my books not being chick-littish enough and also because if I were a more well-known writer, I'd be known automatically as a chick-lit writer because Love Like That was published under the screaming pink banner of chick-lit so that, naturally, categorizes it as a chick-lit novel. There, has, however, been some dispute as to whether Love Like That is really a chick-lit novel...which I tend to think has been somewhat harmful to Love Like That, and not because I would like to be known as a "literary" writer but because "literary" readers automatically shy away from chick-lit and chick-lit readers are prone to shy away from novels that have been branded as chick-lit, yet contain such vile, filthy and supposedly immoral practices as one would find within the pages of Love Like That.

But is it...or isn't it?

I could write a whole litany of reasons why it is or isn't...but I don't feel like it. (I will change my mind about that below.) This post is not in defense of chick-lit or myself being labeled as a chick-lit writer. (I will also take this statement back, below.) This post is about how annoying and embarrassing and upsetting this utterly retarded argument can be...and especially because certain chick-lit books are what unfortunately define the genre for all others and the opinions of certain chick-lit authors are what seem to represent the minds of all others.

Which isn't true, by the way. It's just unfortunate that it's taken that way. See below:


The only issue here is the one that the chick literati never address but instead try to obfuscate with the red herrings of feminism and elitism, which is that their writing is hackneyed and boring and bad. Point out to a chick-lit author that her writing is inferior and formulaic, and she will call you a vengeful, misogynistic stone-thrower.

Sometimes, this is absolutely true. It's what most bothers me about being grouped in with the chick-lit shuffle. I would never be so bold as to cry tyranny that Love Like That or any book like it hasn't been reviewed by the NYT. Nor do I claim to be a feminist or anything even close to it. I don't think my chick-lit writing's inferior, but I don't compare it to classic literature or modern greats, either. If someone dislikes Love Like That, I find it's usually based on several factors--the raw characters, the language, the rampant use of drugs and alcohol without tying either to a painful addiction or a sad childhood, the cheating, etc.--none of which lead back to a disgruntled reader being a vengeful, mysogynistic stone-thrower. Formulaic, maybe--Dalton does talk about what she wears and inserts designer labels, the story does revolve mostly around her troubles with boys and men, and she does dislike her job and her revolting ladyboss...but realistically, what urban, American woman at the age of 25 doesn't experience these things?

From the article, again...

It’s because the market is saturated by bad writers claiming to rep for all women, crowding the bookshelves, making sure their one marginal, vapid story is produced ten million times over, like some pretty pink version of hell.

Again, this sort of resonates--especially the first part of it. Not saying all the most successful chick-lit writers are bad writers, but as a chick-lit writer, I cringe when certain other chick-lit writers go on the crusade and nearly laud the assumption that we ALL share the same opinions. Especially when I, as a reader, disliked their books immensely. I won't name them because God forbid someone important stumble upon this blog and immediately bar me a sister-hater and an asshole for not liking all the most beloved chick-lit faves. Some of them, I couldn't even read past the first 20 pages. Some of them made me want to start fires.

So maybe chick-lit has made it all a little more challenging for non-chick-lit writers...but another way of looking at it is, chick-lit has also made it that much more difficult for chick-lit writers who don't exactly fit in with the reigning chick-lit regime.

By the industry standards, I write chick-lit. It can't be disputed. I write about young women who have romantic issues and live in big cities, experience frustration at work and love Louis Vuitton bags. However...it can be disputed that I don't really write chick-lit because some of the elements my books contain don't exactly speak to chick-lit readers. The men in my books are rarely dreamy, usually more like nightmares. The women in my books drink heavily, smoke, have mouths that would make Quentin Tarantino proud and engage in questionable sexual practices. I make cultural references that probably make a lot of readers wonder what the hell I'm talking about--such as, Jeremy likening his and Doll's relationship to Sid & Nancy and the characters in Only the Lucky being heavily into UFC. Some would say, that's me not being able to relate to my audience and therefore not being a chick-lit writer.

All the same...I write chick-lit. And so do a lot of other people. Some of it is truly awful. Some of it is pure entertainment. Where my chick-lit writing falls, so it does. Some people love it, and others choose to think of it as fluff, trash or a total waste of paper. So be it. I was the one who chose to put it out there.

Someday, when I hopefully don't have to waste myself on a paying career from dawn to dusk, I will probably get around to writing novels with a mainstream appeal. But until then, should I be: A) crucified for giving my characters the purses I, myself, wish I could afford, or B) considered a fucking moron because I would consider it a success if even just a handful of young women out there pick up a book I wrote and are pleased to find a little bit of themselves within its pages, while on a train, a plane, a treadmill or a strip of sandy seashore?

Should any of us?

Now it does sound like I'm posting in defense of chick-lit and myself as a chick-lit writer, so maybe that actually is what this post is about. Maybe I'm just very exhausted of having to make excuses for the kind of writing I do...or maybe I'm just very upset that because four or five books out there have virtually defined the genre, the rest of us are totally fucked.

I guess what I'm getting at, truly, is that I just wish ALL chick-lit writers didn't have to be lumped together as one high-and-mighty, indignant, literarily-challenged feminist who thinks she's saving the world by writing about many of the things that most (if not all) women love, hate, experience and think about at least a few times in their lives.

Some of us just like to spend our free time writing our silly little books, I guess.

Funny mocking of celebs and MHO

I've spent the last two days shamelessly laughing at the absolute hilarity of these two sites, galleryoftheabsurd.com and gofugyourself.com, and absolutely cannot get enough. Especially amusing are the artistic renderings of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears on the gallery (along with captions so scathingly right on it's uncanny) and the posts "from" Britney and K-Fed on go fug. This shit is pure genius. I only wish I didn't discover it a little sooner.

Even more funny, the hostile, angry, poorly spelled viewer/reader comments. "Leeve the Britsteer alonne! Your juste jeless!", "How daire yu make the funn of Brad Pitt? Hes a GRATE fother!!!", etc., etc. I will be the first to admit I read Star and US Weekly, among others, more often than I read the news (sorry Dad), but that's just because the news is depressing and bleak most times (thanks to the media frenzy surrounding that JonBenet wannabe killer sick freak I now know more about the horror that is pedophilia than I ever hoped to know) and celeb reporting is just comical. That said, it's too bad that so many people (and usually ignorant people, at that) can't see the humor in a society so truly obsessed by celeb culture, and furthermore the humor in making fun of people who have made it their lifelong ambition to stand in front of a camera and then scream about not having any privacy as soon as cameras abound. You cease to be "like a normal person" once you become a celeb, that is what is meant by the word celebrity. (Which I of course know because I am a FAMOUS writer!)

I guess what I'm getting at is my feeling that people need to lighten up. It seems like people get so upset so easily these days, then use posting as the vehicle for their illogical, not to mention grammatically incomprehensible ranting. Sometimes I read the message boards on IMDB just to remind myself to be thankful that I have a brain. Then I get sad because people who seemingly don't have brains at all are still allowed to use computers. If you're not supposed to operate heavy machinery under the influence of alcohol, which makes you dumb, then why should you be allowed to use sophisticated machinery under the influence of your own stupidity?

My thoughts on an otherwise dull day. (As I write about the senselessness of ranting on the Internet and then, you know, rant on the Internet...)

I apologize for being such a bad blogger of late. It's just that I don't really have anything in particular I feel like posting about. And, I highly doubt you want to know even more about my aviation phobia, the local insect population, my love of Mexican food and the frustrations of my writing "career". Maybe you do. Or maybe I should create an imaginary child to blog adorable tales about? Maybe I'll just blog about buying a blender, cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, emptying my fridge of old produce, being hot when I go outside and doing virtually nothing at work today. That's what it's really all about.

This whole This is Not Chick Lit vs. This is Chick Lit debate is the virtual embodiment of everything I dislike about being female. Why are we all so worried about what other people are doing? Just write your goddamn books--whatever category they happen to fall under or be classified within--and be grateful that you're a) blessed enough to know how to write and furthermore live in a country that allows you to write about whatever you want, and b) blessed enough so that someone actually thinks you're talented enough to have your writing published. Most people never get that lucky!!!

That's about it for the moment. Because who's going to Champions on Ice right now?

I'M GOING TO CHAMPIONS ON ICE RIGHT NOW!!!

One year after it was supposed to be published, Only the Lucky is finished.

Now that's what I call progress.

Mel

I have been shamelessly entertained by this.

Random Bits and Pieces

I don't like the word snarky. I think this is an unflattering word, vastly overused by women who subscribe to the "bitchy is in so let's all embrace this shit" philosophy. I have always been bitchy. I would really just like to remain bitchy, not snarky. (P.S. Ask most women outside of major--ahem, cough, LA and NYC--metropolitan areas what snarky means and they wouldn't have a clue.)

I am currently reading a book titled Fiona Range--one of those books I bought several years back when I had the kind of cash to blow on 6-7 books at a time in the Century City Brentano's--none of which I would get around to reading for several years--and amazingly, delightfully, I actually want to keep reading it. Too bad it's in my car right now and there are cockroaches and crickets claiming the sidewalk between my apartment and my parking lot...not to mention it's late and I have no business doing anything other than going to bed as soon as I finish this very compelling blog entry.

Right now iTunes is playing "New York State of Mind." What's up next, the Sundays' "God Made Me" and No Doubt's cover of "It's My Life." (Definitely one of my top ten songs of all time, this version.)

Chardonnay is good. But not Black Swan's version...because getting the cork out of there takes more skill than one has to offer when all they're really craving is a cold goblet of white wine.

Tonight I took a friend to the bus station. Now I know how to get to Fremont Street from my apartment. It is said the Las Vegas Club has the best "21" odds in Las Vegas. Maybe I should check it out?

Hey, starting this month, paying back what I borrowed to fund my education will be costing another $40 a month. Again, maybe I should check out those odds at the Las Vegas Club?

The Really Important Thing

Glaring headline on Yahoo! right now:

Lance Bass says he's gay

Tiny, insignificant news items lost beneath it:

Israel endures worst losses of campaign
U.S. could face showdown with al-Sadr in Iraq
U.S. gas prices seen at $3 through summer

Maybe I won't move the blog. I don't know. Maybe I'll just blog in both locations. Wow, wouldn't that be interesting? A dual dose of my thinly-veiled complaints about the genre that barfed me up and left me for dead, even more moaning about my complete psychological meltdown as a writer and double the tales of my apartment horrors. Speaking of which, it's pretty fucking awful that I now consider roaches to be a normal occurrence, or at least the lesser of two evils...now that I have spiders, that is. Seriously. My apartment may look, on the inside, like a civilized residence...but soon there'll be mosquito netting over my bed and a machete hanging on the wall by my bedside.

Now, if you're as depressed as I that the date of August 1 is looming and there won't be a new release by Amanda Hill available at your local book retailer as was the original plan, at least you may be able to comfort yourself by reading some of my dad's journalistic genius (and that of the many talented writers he works with) over at the Washington Post Writer's Group Blog. Just don't comment back to me, "Gee, why didn't you go into journalism?" because that's one of those questions I fear I'll still be asking myself years and years from now, when I've spent 340 nights of yet another year writing yet another novel that may or may not become published.

But hey, the good news is that if Only the Lucky were coming out next week, I'd probably be pretty embarrassed about it because it is actually set in Las Vegas and I've come to realize that prior to living in Las Vegas, I didn't really know crap about what it's actually like to live here. So I guess there's a positive slant to everything--even having your confidence as a writer crushed beneath the cruel heel of today's publishing market--such as now, I am at least able to go back and rewrite the story from the perspective of a native. Oh, and native I am...because just don't be forgetting about the mosquito netting and the machete.

Happy weekend!

It is officially too fucking hot to do anything.

Relocating

My blog will soon be moving to another location. Why, maybe because I'm retarded when it comes to these things and this could easily be fixed if I wasn't retarded about these things...but the simple fact is, I can no longer stomach that sickening, vomitous pink background that coincidentally goes so well with the sickening, vomitous pink that drenches the cover of Love Like That. Speaking of which, has anyone but me lately noticed that all RDI releases are now boasting adorable, illustrated covers of adorable, illustrated girls looking, well...adorable? It's probably yet another reason I didn't fit in with that crowd--when asked what kind of image I wanted on the cover of LLT, this is what I gave them:

Oh, and this:


So anyway, yeah, the blog will be moving to this address: barelypublished.blogspot.com, and when it does and I actually start writing some interesting posts there, I'll be sure and let all of you "regulars" know.

Gross

Protect Yourself from Germs That Lurk in an Unexpected Spot

The Fox 5 News station in Atlanta, Georgia, recently ran a Health Report on a study they performed on women's purses. Their health team went to a local mall and took samples from the bottoms of 50 women's purses. The purses were swabbed with cotton swabs along the entire bottom of the purses and the swabs were placed into special containers for processing at a local laboratory.The Health Report also showed where women place their purses: public restrooms (on the floor beside the toilet), kitchen counters and kitchen tables, on tables and chairs in restaurants, etc.The outcome of the laboratory tests contained the following most serious result: 1 out of 4 purses harbored E. Coli, which causes painful abdominal cramping and severe diarrhea.Other extremely serious bacteria and viruses also were listed, including Hepatitis.They recommended that women should DAILY wipe their purses (particularly the bottom) with a disinfectant wipe and to be extremely careful where you place your purse. Most importantly, do NOT place your purse on a table (anywhere) where you will eat or an a kitchen counter and do not put it anywhere close to a toilet.Remember, when you flush a toilet, the spray goes a distance that is unrecognizable by the human eye.WASH YOUR HANDS as often as you can! Keep an antibacterial hand sanitizer cleaner (no water needed) in your purse and use it often! And as soon as you get home from shopping (or wherever you have been and usedyour purse), immediately wipe it all over with a disinfectant wipe.

I freely admit to being a horrible blogger. I'm only writing this now because I'm taking a break from cleaning my hideously dirty apartment so my married friends who are coming into town this weekend don't shriek in horror when they see how the other half--the only half--lives. It's bad enough that I recently just noticed I don't have spare bedding and have had to tell them to bring some sleeping bags. Oh--and only just realized the contents of my refrigerator consist entirely of Michelob Ultra, Brita-filtered water, salad dressing and cheese.

I am living right. Or at least, like a struggling writer.

Today, I went to work. I ate a veggie works burrito from Del Taco. And it rained.

Must return to scrubbing my shower, now.

Time Capsule

In need of one more bag, I grabbed this little green duffel belonging to my dad just before leaving Virginia last September. Now, I keep finding all this cool shit in it that is literally from another time. After that Scottsdale wedding weekend back in April, I came across a receipt from a cafe in Gare du Nord in Paris, when the family went European Vacation for my college graduation present. Then, unpacking it this morning after using it for a weekend visit to La Bella Los Angeles, out fell a box of matches from the Halcyon Hotel in London's Holland Park. Since we didn't stay at the Halcyon as a family, I have to assume those matches are from a prior trip my dad had taken to London for business. What's next, I wonder? The remnants of a Russian cigarette? The stub of train ticket to Berlin? I guess some people wouldn't find any of this as interesting as I do, but I just think it's kind of neat that 9, 10 years later, I'm still finding artifacts from so long ago in this tiny, nondescript piece of luggage.

Or, my family's just really careless about unpacking.

Talking about writing again

I think if I ever become even minimally successful as a writer, I'll stop blogging and move on to a quarterly update or something like that. I guess because what speaks to me when I read other writers' blogs, especially the kinds of writers who only produce highly-anticipated hardcovers that go right to all the bestseller lists with no qualms or questions, is when they convey humility about the writing life--and not how loved they are, and how doted upon, and how much they deserve it.

That's not to say I think all of the above isn't just once a writer has met some success and wants to write about it, the Man Himself only knows they probably struggled as hard as the rest to get there and want to share their excitement and accomplishments with their friends, families and fans. It's just to say that I've always been more able to relate to writers (including those very successful writers, especially those writers, on remembering the early days) who talk about and admit to experiencing the things that have always resonated with me as a writer--the loneliness of living in your own world with a bunch of people who don't even exist, the feeling you may be insane for preferring to hang out with these people in place of the ones who actually do exist, the frustration of spending most of your time working at a job that will probably never pay you, the upset of reading a book that really sucks and knowing how well it's selling while every editor in New York just came back to say your book is the one that really sucks, the fear that you will die before you ever get there, the fear that you are actually a pretty shitty writer, the fear of hurting your friends and family if you write anything that even slightly resembles something they've said or done, the horror of thinking about your friend's uptight mother reading a raunchy sex scene you wrote...and then, the unthinkable, that when you finally do get published, your book will get nothing but one-star reviews and be described as the literary version of Gigli.
It's funny what you learn about being published once you actually get published. If you're like me, prior to it happening, you think your whole life will change once it actually happens. Then, if you're like me, you find out your life really doesn't change all that much except that you can tell people you had a book published. Even then, they usually think you mean that you paid a print-on-demand service to make your manuscript look like a book and you've got some copies for sale in your living room.

But, there are the upsides. I've made a few new friends. I've gotten to know what people other than my best friend think of what I wrote--good and bad, it's still interesting to see how total strangers react. Sometimes they get something out of it that I wasn't even trying to give them. Sometimes, they were hoping to get something out of it that was never even there.

Another upside is that now, when I attempt to get published again, I can say I've already been published and so, with editors I'll have a little credibility.

Now I just have to get back to writing books. Oh, yeah. Tell me how to do that again?

You may notice in my profile it now says age: 31. I am AGING.

I have a gorgeous new niece named Avaleigh Love...but my sister and brother-in-law will not be selling her photos to People for $4 million.

Today my co-worker and I engaged in a worthy debate about liberalism vs. conservatism. I can't believe I didn't get interested in politics until a few years ago. I'm sure I missed out on a lot of good arguments with some Dems I used to know.

Did you know that roaches eat their dead? The other night I saw one carrying another away on my patio. What was most disturbing was that they were of different roach species. I'm so glad to have been given this opportunity to broaden my zoological knowledge.

An Idiot

So today it was enthusiastically suggested to me, "Since your book's not doing so well, maybe you should get a job as somebody else's book publicist!"

Need I comment any further?

I didn't think so.

On Literature and Film

Right now I'm reading Into Thin Air, which is making me really want to watch Vertical Limit, and also giving me hideous nightmares about being trapped on a snowy mountain. Note to self: Watching Vertical Limit would probably, actually, exacerbate this condition.

Speaking of movies, we all know why we watched The Brown Bunny (at least I do, considering I was lying half-dead on the couch after a near all-nighter at the Luxor and Matt put it into the DVD player and pressed "play"), but what I'm now trying to figure out is why I actually watched The Brown Bunny. Call it art if you like, but I had a really difficult time trying to find the "artistic" parts when the guy spent most of the movie driving and the other half, taking a piss and unloading his motorcycle from the back of his van. Got good in the last 3 minutes when there was a sort of Sixth Sense kind of thing going on, but again...the guy really did spend most of the movie driving, and without the promise of the crucial scene in which Chloe Sevigny did you know what, I can't say I would have felt compelled to keep watching past the first 10 minutes of the fucking driving.

Now here's where a truly "artistic" person would criticize me for being your usual American idiot, almost immediately after watching The Brown Bunny I took in the last half of Team America: World Police and found it much more entertaining.

I'm now convinced it was actually a good thing that ye olde publisher refused to publish Only the Lucky, due to the fact that its August release would have introduced the reading populace to a main character named Shiloh and therefore, I fear, spawned message board comments such as, "This book was totally unoriginal--she used Brangelina's baby name!"

After finishing my current, uplifting read about people dying to reach the top of Mt. Everest, I may just go for the record of being the last person in the civilized world to read The Da Vinci Code. Yeah, I've heard it's pretty good.

If I have to read one more time that the birth of Angelina Jolie's baby is the most anticipated since that of Jesus Christ...I will probably just mutter, "Jesus Christ," and keep reading.