Writing & The Good Wife

I really love television. Like, a whole lot. Like, after deliciously amazing books, it is my favorite medium, particularly for storytelling purposes. I’m not into movies for the most part, though there are many* I love. Theatre is a huge love of mine but I don’t get to experience it on a nightly basis, and also there’s something about the long-term nature of television that is super appealing to me. I love being in it for the long haul. I write academic papers on episodes I love (and loathe). I love my TiVo with a rabid** fierceness.

But I will say that lately there are not as many shows I love passionately, unless you count how I record even the billionth-repeated marathons of America’s Next Top Model. And that’s OK, because I believe a lot of pop culture and media is cyclical, and if TV isn’t doing it for me right now, before long it will again.

I DIGRESS.***

Early last season, I totally started watching The Good Wife only because my beloved Josh Charles was in it. No, really, it’s that simple for me. I will EVENTUALLY write more entries in the popular**** MY FICTIONAL BOYFRIENDS series, and probably the longest and most passionate will be devoted to Dan Rydell, so, uh, I pay attention to the man. So I started off a reluctant viewer, but before long I realized I was paying attention far more often than when a scene involved Will Gardner. Yeah, I was hooked.

I won’t get into show specifics, because I think good shows are rarely beloved because of what they literally are. Right? I mean, Uncomfortable Plot Summaries lists Doctor Who as “elderly man serially abducts young women” which is just about true, but even being less reductive can’t describe the feeling evoked in me by watching Donna Noble talk the Doctor out of leaving that family in Pompeii. So as far as The Good Wife goes, I can talk about how it’s a serial about a politician’s wife, post-sex scandal, or I could talk about it being a law procedural, but, seriously, who cares?*****

The stuff I like about the show is the stuff I like about lots of good writing, actually. Even though I write novels and not television shows, there’s something inspiring and educational about watching the pieces of wisdom you know to be true play out in front of you:

1. Don’t overload with background info or exposition. Holy crap, has a lot happened between everyone on this show. (We won’t talk about how much time I’ve devoted to thinking about Alicia and Will’s WTF-happened-back-at-Georgetown?-ness.) Holy eff, has a lot happened, period, by the time we’re dropped in in the pilot (and then, very quickly, thrown six months further). The show doesn’t dwell there, though. The show just keeps on chugging along and trusts that we can keep up.

2. Let grownups be grownups. OK, yes, I write YA, and, yes, I like to race my tiny car around town while singing along to soundtracks to Disney movies, but I truly am a grownup and when I watch TV (or read books) I expect adults to behave as adults. Yes, some people are immature, and some people have devotions to pop culture for people a third of their ages******, but I hate watching people who are supposed to be professionals in their thirties and upward behaving like junior high students. It’s much like how deeply I hate YA where teens seem like… well, no teens I know, just the approximation of what an out-of-touch writer thinks. But, anyway, I like the drama on the show playing out between adults. Sure, adults who aren’t perfect, who sometimes make very bad decisions, who sometimes seem to cling to romantic notions straight out of middle school, but adults nonetheless. And it’s funny that I hadn’t quite noticed how often this doesn’t happen until I saw something where it did.

3. Have patience. It’s tough, because a book should hook you on its first page, and if a TV show doesn’t grab you in its first scene, well, why are you still reading/watching? That said, there is something incredibly appealing to me in an enthralling but slowly building narrative that then can drop bombshells on you… after earning them. I mean, I wanted to see the kiss that happened in the episode “Heart” from about episode… 1.02 on? But how much more did it mean because we saw it in 1.17? (Holy hell, people, A LOT. IT MEANT A LOT MORE.)

SWOON AMIRIGHT

Guys, seriously, can we talk again about how janky Google Image Search has gotten? That image came up the other day when I searched for “the good wife” but this time it didn’t, so I searched “good wife will gardner” and lo and behold, luckily it did again, but on the same page of results was this:

I mean, Google, you’re not even trying now, are you? ARE YOU?

4. Get me to love, get me to hate, get me to reconsider. WHAT! I know it sounds like I’m talking crazy, but, man, one way to three-dimensionalize a character is showing me so many of their sides I have no idea if I’m for them or against them. YOU KNOW, LIKE REAL LIFE. Most of us aren’t all good or all bad.*******

Maybe the most obvious example of this on the show is Peter Florrick. Right? Talking about Peter Florrick would give me an excuse to say for the billionth time that Chris Noth looks like a really hot Sam the Eagle from the Muppets:

  

BUT! Instead I’d rather talk to you about Cary. Cary! Remember when Matt Czuchry was on the Gilmore Girls and he was such an effing tool? I am so glad his toolishness doesn’t have to follow him. One time I was waiting at the stage door area after seeing a play Mr. Czuchry was in, because I wanted to say hi to a super cool actress in it who I had met before and had super shiny hair, and when Matt came out, he thought my friend and I were shy girls too nervous to approach him, so he waited it out and gave us muchos smiles! And then I was like, OMG, this is awkward, I don’t want to break his heart and say “ACTUALLY I DON’T WANT YOUR AUTOGRAPH I AM HERE TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE” so I just kind of kept smiling and looked away and he understood and left.

MATT CZUCHRY IF I MET YOU TODAY I PROMISE I WOULD SAY SOMETHING AND NOT JUST BREAK EYE CONTACT IN A WEIRD JUNIOR HIGH DANCE MANNER.

Anyway. CARY.

ADORBS!

When we first meet Cary, we do not like Cary.******** Cary is smug and bratty, and when he makes that comment about his mom, we’re certain he’s sexist and ageist too. Right? RIGHT? Except then, dammit Cary, you wormed your way into my heart. Was it the shrooms? Was it telling Alicia you didn’t want her to lose either? Was it thinking about how, despite that Alicia is our protagonist, perhaps with my student loan debt and my frustration at paying bills in an expensive but awesome city, sometimes Cary is probably the character I have the most in common with?

And then the pattern continued! Because he would do [annoying thing] but then he’d do [great thing] or he wouldn’t [do great thing] but you grasped why he felt he had to do [the douchey thing] and it’s so hard not to be on his side except when it really freaking isn’t.

(I feel very similar about the show’s main love triangle too; despite that people have made very obvious good and bad moves in it.)

What I’m saying, GOOD GOD FINALLY, is that it’s very easy to make me hate someone who acts terribly, and it’s very easy to make me love someone who does terrific and awesome things. Position someone as the competition and let them act like a not-that-grown-up frat boy and, sure, most of us will hate them. But it’s more interesting when they’re also a very fair person who legitimately works hard at their job. Maybe they have wrongheaded notions, but suddenly you realize from their POV you would feel exactly the same way.

It gets tougher rooting against them. It’s also very difficult rooting for them. It gets messy and complicated, and the story’s ending isn’t broadcast from the word go.

I love being told stories like that, and I try really hard to do it myself.

Anyway, I know there is no world in which it is cool to worship The Good Wife.********* But luckily I am already very much aware of how cool I am not. I could go on and on about everything else I love about this (and perhaps one day I will, because I can think of so many other good writing lessons that tie into the show and, also, I love any excuse to post pictures of Josh Charles********** LET’S JUST BE HONEST HERE).

So embrace what you love. And take your writing lessons from what moves and inspires and entertains you. A lot of times, that isn’t just in a book.

*Of course, many of those are titles such as Sydney White and High School Musical 2, in case you’re imagining my devotion to only award-winners or something.
**Yeah, by “rabid” I mean “foaming at the mouth”, so what?
***Shocking, right?
****Popularity is relative, right? RIGHT, YOU GUYS?
*****Well, I do, but I’m making a point.
******AHEM.
*******I myself am 3 parts awesome to 2 parts assy.
********By “we” I do mean “I”.
*********Except for the world that I dwell in with only Sarah Skilton, which exists only when we’re rapid-fire exchanging v. v. important emails about Alicia and Peter and Cary and Will and Diane and Kalinda. I AM JUST SAYING OK.
**********

Per Your Suggestions

I didn’t know what to blog about, so I did what any normal person does: I asked my Facebook friends.

Sara R. asked me to talk about–well, Sara R.’s was complicated. I’ll quote her:

Gummi bears. Gummi worms. Gummi sharks. The variety of animals that are in gummi form. A ploy by PETA to infiltrate our youngsters with subliminal save-the-animals messages? Or just coincidentally shaped candy snacks?

Well, Sara R., that is a very strange request. Actually, there is generally gelatin in gummi animals, and therefore they cannot be eaten by vegans! But they can probably be eaten by vegetarians. Back when I was a vegetarian I didn’t pay attention to gelatin rules, honestly. Probably because I found out while nomming on Altoids, and I didn’t want to give up the Altoids.

Trish asked me to talk about boys. Here’s a line a boy used on me a couple weeks ago:

Your eyes are beautiful. What color are they?

And then today the UPS guy tried to hit on me using this:

What’s your last name? Spalding? That is a BEAUTIFUL last name.

NO IT’S NOT. IT IS A NORMAL LAST NAME FROM ENGLAND THAT EVERYONE MISSPELLS BECAUSE THE GERMAN VERSION IS WAY MORE POPULAR DUDE. That is a TERRIBLE line.

Dudes, just be normal. Please!

Anji wants me to talk about mix tapes. Oh gosh. MIX TAPES. I wish people still made them. I remember this boy and I used to mail each other mix tapes and it was so magical. I had crazy feelings of love for that boy, and I am pretty sure a big chunk of that was the joy of the mix tape in my car stereo, the thrill of seeing his handwritten track list, the knowledge that it must have taken him hours to do this, just for me. That boy broke the heck out of my heart but years later I remember the mix tapes most of all.

Brent wants me to talk about writers block. I think Brent is just being a smart ass. That’s OK, I will still indulge you, Brent. I haven’t had actual writers block in a long time, because I truly think a big part of writing is just sitting down and doing it. And if you do that often enough, it’s habit, and you’ll keep going. But I get blocked for other reasons. Like, with my book out on submission right now, it’s so hard to give Current Project the love and care it deserves, because I’m all Stresso McGee over Formerly Current Project. But, alas, I must force myself to forge onward.

One thing that really helped me was an idea brought up by my lovely friend Siobhan in this post about not breaking the chain. Listen, I know that she’s quoting Seinfeld, but she’s a much cooler person than him, so I’m crediting her. Fair? Fair.

Michael Q. asked me to talk about fainting goats. I thought this was some kind of euphemism but apparently this is a breed of domestic goat! Thank you, Wikipedia. There is even an International Fainting Goat Association. WHO KNEW. NOT ME. Thanks for the education, Mike Q.!

Dan wants me to talk about Jason Robert Brown. I’m sad that Songs for a New World seems to have lost its hold over me now that I’m ancient. There’s something about that album that, for the most part seems so rooted in your late teens and twenties. Which, really, is awesome, because I’m not sure there are that many musicals that are so specific to that point of young adulthood. Also I’m really mad I was too busy last year to catch Parade while it was at the Ahmanson.

Jennifer M. wants me to talk about literary mashups. Gosh, at first they seemed so freaking exciting. When Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out, I thought that was basically the most awesome idea ever. But I’m growing weary. Already it seems less exciting. However, I do love that people are playing with literature to make new media. Sometimes people get so focused on new technology that literature gets overlooked as something vital to our future, and it’s healthy to remember how much power it can still hold, especially in new forms.

Pearl and Brian H. want me to talk about post-apocalyptic polar bears. I must admit that this is a subject that has never crossed my mind. So here is a picture of one:

That was fun! Next time I’m out of blogging ideas I will do this again.

Now it’s time to get coffee and go to the library.

Major BEDA Fail

I’m not even going to try to catch up, and while I want to promise I will blog every day in May, we all know that will PROBABLY NOT HAPPEN. Last April I was out of work, which meant I had wayyyy more time for blogging. Also, technology has been against me. Don’t believe me?

1. My cat ate my powercord. It started working only occasionally, and was completely unreliable.
2. This part’s kind of my fault, but I kept trying to use it. My laptop shorted out. I almost cried. I almost had a heart attack, I AM ALMOST POSITIVE. But after a bunch of really smart tech moves like hitting the power button a lot and taking the battery out and putting it back in it started, and I recovered all but a few paragraphs of something I was writing.
3. Oh, right, THEN MY EMAIL GOT HACKED. (Let this part also serve as an apology to anyone I spammed. SORRY GUYS.)

Writing is also hard, you guys. I realized Current Project is clearly missing a vital character, so now I have to actually THINK UP this character and then go back and write them in. I think the book is going to be way ass stronger for it but geeeeeez. Also I’m thinking I derailed a bit and have to backtrack to keep on course. First drafts are Meanpants McGee. Plus my last project was a retread of an old idea, so while I wouldn’t call it easy, I did at least know where it was going. So that makes this one way more terrifying.

But also: more exciting. I mean, if by “exciting” you mean “an activity you do in your sweats while parked on your couch in front of your computer that you are guarding from cat attacks”.

And I know you do.

Blaze of Non-Glory

I’m cheating today; my post is just an elaborated version of a comment I left on someone else’s blog. That said, do you know what? When I did BEDA last year, I did not have a dayjob. Guess what? Working forty hours a week tends to take away from your free time.

Go figure!

The topic of bad teen writing first came up over a Twitter post (you guys, I hate saying “a tweet” so I don’t) by my agent. I responded that I couldn’t share mine because I’d burned it. I was not kidding.

I would like to fully state my case for the record. My parents live on three acres in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. About once a year we’d do a huge cleaning, and – because we could, I guess? – light the trash on fire. I have no idea. It’s so dramatic! Also: terrifying! My room was right next to the fire area!

Anyway, back then my biggest fear was for anyone – and by “anyone” I mean “any adult” – seeing my writing. (Not sure how this translated into my dreams of being published, but if I had to make a list of my illogical behaviour that wouldn’t even crack the top ten.) So one year I threw my old writing into the bonfire. I think I was mature enough to realize my child/teen writing sucked, but not mature enough to realize one day I’d absolutely adore it for said suckage.

A lesson for any teen reading this: resist the temptation of the bonfire. When you are old, you shall regret its fiery flames!

Write Your Book!

It is no lie that this post is inspired by an article I just read about the divine Meg Cabot, this OTHER post over at the lovely Stephanie Perkins’s blogggg, and is absolutely related to my most recent post. You might even call it a COMPANION PIECE!

So here we go!

When I was little, I wrote all the time. It wasn’t very good, so don’t think I was a prodigy or something. I’m trying to think of subjects where I might have qualified as a prodigy, but unless it was like memorizing episodes of all sitcoms I watched rabidly in syndication I’m blank. Anyways, one day an adult type person said, Oh, ha, what are YOU writing, is it The Great American Novel or something? And I was all, Oh crap, no it is not, I guess that’s what you’re supposed to write! (I was very influenced by adult opinion back then.) I only knew how to write about fun stuff; I could sense how utterly UNuniversal my ideas were. They only appealed to girls like me! So I got rid of my notebooks and decided I couldn’t be a writer!

I eventually did grow up and realize it was OK to write books that wouldn’t appeal to the whole world. Whew! JK Rowling, I am not. But I still worked at being Very Serious. I am not sure why. If you’ve met me (or followed me on Twitter or overheard me speaking, uh, ever) you know I am rarely a serious person. I laugh inappropriately and tell bad jokes and have a High School Musical calendar on my wall at work. I am a giant dork.

See? I bought that on purpose, by the way.

So as I was putting the finishing touches on the manuscript I assumed would be the very first one I queried with a couple years ago, a friend asked me about it. I listed the events, I spoke about overall themes. Friend said, “Oh, and it’s funny, right? You’re funny. I bet your book is hilarious.”

Oh, crap! My book was decidedly NOT hilarious! It wasn’t even funny! It was super depressing and it had not even been very fun to write. I kept wanting to hug my poor protag. But that was OK, right? Because books were not SUPPOSED to be funny and dorky, they were VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Except it had been gnawing at me, that something just wasn’t quite right with that manuscript. And I knew that, among other things, it was because it didn’t reflect me at all. So I did something crazy! I put that thing totally away, far back in an untempting folder hidden in the depths of my computer. And that new idea I had, I wrote it like I thought. I made it all super dorky and funny-at-least-to-me and I tried to capture whatever the hell people seemed to like about me in it.

That manuscript was the one that got me an agent.

So, please, you guys, if you are a dork, write your dorky book. I promise it will be better than your VERY SERIOUS PROJECT you think you SHOULD do.

And if it’s not you are totally allowed to kick my butt.

Guest-blogging!

If you want to read allllllll about my writing retreat, please check out this post on my most fabulous agent’s site!

Stuff about Writing or the Most Generic Title Ever

The lovely Sarah Skilton said I’d been negligent in my blogging, which is true, and she also commanded I include this photo of my cats:

I’ve had some fun conversations about writing in the past week.* Sorry the formatting is so wonky; I truly have no idea what’s wrong with this post. Here I am, trying to blog again, and WordPress apparently hates my stupid face. Let’s try to get through this together, internet.

1. Isn’t it funny how you can get so married to “facts” in your work of fiction? When I’m revising, either thanks to someone else’s notes or just my own ideas of what could work better, there are elements I’m happy changing. Sometimes it’s to make the story flow better, sometimes it’s because a published work of fiction used a similar element and now mine seems inadvertently plagiarisy, sometimes it’s to make a different revision work, sometimes it’s something I totally think works but notes indicate otherwise. Anyways! Sometimes these are easy to change, often they’re challenging, and every once in awhile they’re practically painful.
   
   But then there are changes I truly can’t make. Amazing that in a work of ABSOLUTE FICTION that I find something absolutely permanent and immovable. Just another thing that makes me truly think writers are crazy. (Or, you know, at least me.)




2. Casting! I’m not talking about the crazy hypothetical film/TV adaptations perhaps some of us you dream of. No, every once in awhile there’s a character I just can’t quite pin down. And then I view an actor in whatever, and totally just FEEL that character. And suddenly it’s easier. Their dialogue becomes consistent, their mannerisms firm up, they suddenly just MAKE SENSE. It’s not as if they’re based on that person at all, it’s just a tool to help define someone. And, for me, it’s not that I seek out people who I can base characters on, it’s that occasionally I’ve already got a very hazy picture in my head, and seeing someone who resembles that pulls it all into focus.**




3. I used to hate rewriting. Really, really hate it. PASSIONATELY HATE IT! And then I got actual notes on actual fixable books, and, amazingly, I figured it out. But more amazingly, I’ve grown to love rewriting. First drafts are so much easier and more fun when you can just sail through, knowing you’ll fix those rough spots later.*** And then rewriting becomes about more than just polishing and catching typos and noticing that the ex-boyfriend’s name changes halfway through. It totally works a different part of my brain than writing does, but after pounding out a whole manuscript, that part of my brain needs a vacation anyway.




4. Not so much a discussion, but I will say that when you’re down and out and angsty about your own manuscript, some positive feedback from trusted readers means the effing world to me. Writing can be really solitary, so it’s good when it’s not.

*Well, fun to me, at least. I am a huge geek, so YMMV.
**Sometimes this is also an excuse to ogle celebrities.
***It is true that this can create some soul-suckingly terrible days of rewrites, I admit.

Bad Blogger!

Egads, it has been a terribly long time since I posted. Here is what I did instead of blogging, in no particular order:

1. Finished the first draft of Current Project! I suppose now it is no longer Current Project! The abbreviation for its working title is MLLM so I guess I’ll be calling it that around these parts too. You will never guess what that stands for but if you really want to try go ahead! Here are three things about MLLM: show choir, boys with good hair, Stephen Sondheim.
2. Began first draft of what is now Current Project! Here are three things about Current Project: improv comedy, baristas, reinvention.
3. There might be some REWRITING going on too! Three things about the rewritten project: school paper, hot college boys, tattoos.
4. Went to fun events! Another Goodreads swap, this one at the fantastic Book Soup and involving the Kogi truck. Frank Portman (I KNOW RIGHT?) read at Skylight! (King Dork was totally seminal in my path to YA.) I tried to see a panel at the Paley but I ended up stuck in the lobby, which was fine, because the lobby has free soda, mostly-delicious snacks, and cute caterwaiters.
5. Went to St. Louis! Do you know what St. Louis has? My family! Also: humidity.
6. Shopped! It is the Fall of cardigans, and since I live in L.A. it will also be the winter of cardigans. I am so happy patterned cardigans are in right now! It’s not that I particularly care about fashion trends; it’s that I enjoy when my favorite items are easily accessible in stores. Also I think Doc Martens may be coming back in, but either way, I just ordered a new pair and I am psyched beyond a reasonable level.

And now I promise to be a better blogger. If you don’t believe me, look at a cute picture of my cats:

This Post Is Working Titled

You know what I hate? Titling things. I am so bad at it. I have over 65,000 words of my current project, which means it is VERY CLOSE to being finished. But what doesn’t it have? A frigging title.

I got very lucky with my last book. One came to me that I loved, that summed up everything I liked about it, and I can actually imagine on the cover of a real book. Yes, hypothetical marketing teams could still change it, and that’s fine (well, not fine, I’d cry, but I’d deal), but it was a good title to query with, and I love when people ask me what it’s called and I tell them and they say “OOOH!”

Now I have friends who think I’m excellent at titling. But, friends, you are wrong. It was a fluke!

Not Jinxing, Chocolatey Centers, and a Shiny 200

I have been neglecting this blog! But it’s all good because, well, firstly, I’m not neglecting Twitter so you can always find me there, and, secondly, I’ve been writing up a storm, and that is better than blogging up a storm. Yes? Perhaps? I just hit page 200 in Current Project (which might have a working title soon but egads is it long and also I have to live with it for a bit before speaking its name to anyone else because YES I believe in jinxing). OK, I am well-aware that page count means very little. You can jack up your font or you can amp up your paragraph spacing or you can make everything teeny tiny so it’s beautiful, and word count will be the only thing that actually matters. Still, knowing that Ink’s currently-final draft tops off at about 250, looking at that shiny 200 makes me feel really accomplished.

I’ve been reading a ton lately too. I can honestly say I feel amazingly lucky that as of late, the books I’ve liked best have mostly been manuscripts of friends I’ve read on my computer, nothing I’ve bought or taken from the library. (Also Tyrell by Coe Booth which filled me with such a bucketload of emotions it took me awhile to recover.)

Just finished watching the end of series 3 and beginning of 4 of Doctor Who with my friend Val, who is new to it. I must say that despite the I-believe-in-fairies deus ex machina move on writer/showrunner Russell T. Davies’s part, I really enjoy the end of the third season, mostly-if-not-entirely due to the genius that is John Simm, and then an amazing reveal three full series in the making. Then when we started watching the fourth series, it is truly impressive (as a rewatch knowing how it all turns out) how that series starts laying the groundwork for the finale right away. That is some extraordinary plotting and storytelling, and I’m seething with jealousy at how effortlessly it all seems to come together.

Sorry, one more series 3 thought before I return to the land of first drafts and overthinking television series. Does anyone else think the Toclafane sound like a delicious chocolatey treat? When they finally break one open I’m convinced it’ll have a truffle center, much like those Lindt balls.