Welcome to 2022! With the new year just begun, we’re all making plans and resolutions. Or we’re resolving not to make plans and resolutions for various reasons, often because we hate ourselves for doing so five days in. (Been there, done that.)
I’m a binge reader. I will take an author and read five or six of their books. When I start to see the tropes and how they structure things, I stop and move on to something else. This isn’t a slam at the authors, by any means. Sometimes, I read books and watch films to pick them apart. It’s a big part of learning my craft. I don’t want to do that when I read for enjoyment, though, and the moment I start “seeing” the structure, time for me to move on, no matter how much I might love the author.
There was a well-known children’s series I was pressured into trying by the librarian at my elementary school. Took it home, read a quarter that night, returned it the next day. That prompted a parent conference because the librarian accused me of not having actually read a quarter of the book in one evening and I objected to being called a liar.
I’m not talking pumpkin spice (though I’m fond of that as well), but pumpkins. Big, fat orange ones. Adorable little ones which fit in the palm of your hand. Seeing them piled up outside the grocery store gives me a thrill. Even the fake ones outside the craft store make me happy.
I love writing these tales, seeing the word count tick up, knowing I'm creating something which didn't exist in the world before. I grow fond of my characters, because they live inside me and I want to present them in the best light. Which may be one of my problems with revisions, but we're not going to talk about the downsides here.
I've never been lucky getting my casting choices. The two actors I wanted as the Doctor in Doctor Who turned down the role. I cast my books in my head, because no need to deal with pesky little things such as contract negotiations and the actor not being the right age any longer (or possibly not with us). Casting for movies and television? I'll leave that to the producers because they need to play out their vision.
The question this week for the Romance Writers Weekly blog hop is if our reading habits change with the season. My answer is “yes and no.” I still read the same books I read throughout the year—romance, mystery, history, SF/Fantasy, the back of cereal boxes—but my pattern of how much I’m reading of each type and themes within those books changes with the passing season.
Six women who wielded power which shaped the entertainment taste of a nation, five of them living long enough to watch the industry change and the roles they held as directors and producers becoming the exclusive domain of men.
In terms of heat, this at the Hallmark movie level. If Hallmark movies had more bodies, plots to overthrow the emperor, and eunuchs. Do not take your eyes off the eunuch.
Mom and I regularly attended the local fan conventions, both Star Trek/SF and nostalgia-focused. A regular feature on Saturday night was the “mystery movie,” revealed only when the credits showed up on the screen. One Saturday, Mom had said she was ready to go home, but agreed to stay until we found out what the film was. Lights went down, the Warner Bros. logo came on, along with Max Steiner’s score and a single word: Casablanca. I told Mom we could go if she wanted. She said, “No, you need to see this.”