Revenge is…

Scary. I don’t know if you’ve been roped into this show, but I sure have. When I originally saw commercials for Revenge, I hadn’t planned to watch. I thought it was going to be a Mean Girls kind of show. I think that mostly came from the lead actress looking so young. For whatever reason, I tuned in for the first episode and I was hooked. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s the trailer:

The whole premise is that Amanda Clarke takes on a new identity (Emily Thorne) to exact revenge on all of the people who played a part in ruining her and her father’s lives. Amanda/Emily is such a complex character that she’s fascinating to watch. Most of the time, she’s so scheming that she appears to be nothing more than a sociopath. She’s completely cold and heartless.

But then…you see her with Jack, her childhood friend, and the dog she left with him years ago, and you see genuine love. The actress is phenomenal as you watch her compartmentalize those feelings to keep on track. For weeks, I kept wishing that Amanda would abandon her mission and find happiness with Jack. It was a possibility, and although I knew it wouldn’t happen, it didn’t stop me from hoping. I guess that’s the romantic in me.

Now, it’s too late. Too much has happened, and she can’t go back. It kind of makes me sad because I don’t see how this can end well for Amanda. She’ll get her revenge, but at what cost to her?

I can understand the concept of revenge. I’m sure there have been times in my life when I’ve gotten even with someone over some wrong. I don’t think I could go to the lengths Amanda goes to get revenge. Her plans are meticulous to knock off each person. No, she doesn’t kill anyone; she doesn’t have to. She ruins them, using their own faults to bring them down.

My husband is squarely in the eye-for-an-eye camp. If someone had done to him what was done to Amanda, I could totally see him spending the rest of his life making those people pay. I grew up in a dysfunctional, abusive household. I was an angry teen. By the time I was an adult, I learned I had to let it go. The anger and hate would just eat away at me and ruin more of my life. So although I carry that baggage with me and it has formed who I am, it doesn’t rule my life. Amanda’s rage rules hers.

How about you? Are you more likely to seek revenge or do you just move on?

Pessimist or Realist?

It’s been a long two weeks for me. Right after Thanksgiving, we drove to Florida because my daughter’s cheer squad was participating in the National Competition. On the way, my husband asked my daughter if she thought she’d get first place. Her answer: “I think we’ll probably get fourth or fifth.” 

My husband accused her of being a pessimist, of not thinking positively. I like to think that she’s a realist (like me). You see, her squad made it to Nationals by default. We came in sixth place regionally, and only the top 5 teams go on. When another team opted not to go to Nationals, we took their place.

After listening to my daughter explain her rationale (and after I stopped glowing over how smart she is), I realized that writers could learn a lot from my 9-year-old cheerleader.

Many people write a book and query it with dreams of a huge advance that will allow them to quit their jobs, followed quickly by New York Times best-seller status. I’m not saying we shouldn’t dream; dreams are good. But there’s so much of the process we can’t control.

My daughter knew that she could do her best and practice so that she would give the best performance possible. She couldn’t control how tough the judges would be or how good the other squads were. Likewise, writers can’t control whether an agent will love their books. They can’t control whether they’ll get contracts or whether readers will gush over their words.

All we really have control over is what we produce.

After my daughter competed in the regional competition, the coaches took the feedback from judges and fixed the routine so the squad would have a better chance at Nationals. Writers need to do the same with each and every rejection. Take what’s useful, apply it, and move on.

Write the next word, the next page, the next book. Make it better. Because really, that’s all we can do. Whether you are working toward traditional publishing or self-publishing, there are always variables you can’t control.

My agent is currently shopping my book to editors. I hope someone will love it enough to want to publish it, but who knows? I’m not sitting at my computer refreshing my email every two minutes while clutching my cell phone waiting for The Call.

What am I doing?

I’m writing my next book. I’ve been rejected hundreds of times. I’m sure I’ll be rejected more. I’ve held onto my dream of being published, and I have faith in myself. But I am realistic in my expectations. I know I was lucky to find an agent who believes in me.

Yes, luck. Is my book good? I think so. I’ve been writing toward publication for more than 4 years, so perseverance played a part, but it was luck in querying the right agent at the right time.

Positive thinking works. Fake it until you make it is easily applied. Have faith in yourself and your abilities. If you want to be  professional writer, act like one. Even without the contract in hand.

This is the shirt we all wore to Nationals - Plenty of Positive Thinking

But you need to look at yourself and your dreams with a critical eye.

Are you doing the most you can to improve so that your dreams can be realized? Or are you just living on the hope of coming in first?

I think if my daughter went to Nationals pinning everything on getting first place, she’d be sorely disappointed with anything less, and it probably would’ve taken a whole lot of the fun out of the experience.

If you don’t get your dream agent or editor, do you stop writing? We write because we live it, and if it’s that easy to walk away, it’s probably not the right dream.

And by the way, my daughter who thought she might come in fourth? They took second place!

What’s the one thing you wish you could control when it comes to achieving your dream?

Friday Favorites – Mash-up of Fun

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, especially with the holiday in there, but I did manage to find some awesome gems to read in my downtime. I hope you enjoy.

Since I didn’t do any kind of mash-up last week, I know I missed out on a bunch of Thanksgiving-related blogs.

Thankfully, Angela Peart did a Thanksgiving mash-up that offered me much to read.

Writing advice for the week –

Catie Rhodes talks about how to build characters through small traits. Great ideas. I think it’s the small things that make characters interesting and memorable.

Tawna Fenske describes how music lends itself to a writer’s process. I recently took a class with Lani Diane Rich that focused on the Discovery part of writing. The beginning stuff, where we get to know our characters. One of the assignments was to create a soundtrack for our WIPs. It wasn’t easy to create, but it definitely helps get me focused while writing. When listening to music does it influence how you writer?

Merry Farmer offers the only writing advice you’ll ever need. Mostly common sense, but we all need to hear it when we’re bombarded with conflicting advice daily.

Food and Drink–

With the holidays upon us, lots of food and alcoholic concoctions are consumed. Personally, I’m a baker. I cook for my family out of necessity, but I bake out of love.

Myndi Shafer offers her family’s cream cheese cookie recipe that I think I’m going to try.

To go along with those cookies, Jillian Dodd gives us the recipe for holiday-themed cocktails.

Just for Fun–

Over on the Bettyverse, Nan writes about the importance of childhood dreams and how they can have a lasting impact on our lives.

Tiffany White does a weekly roundup of good TV on her Worth a Watch Wednesday. As a fellow TV lover, I read her post every week. This week she talks about Unforgettable, yet another new show I tune into. Check out her previous weeks’ posts for recommendations and critiques.

Jenny Hansen has a great post on creative swearing. When my children were smaller, I tried not to swear, but I’ve pretty much abandoned that attempt. By child number 3, my thought is that I can do what I want because I’m an adult. Of course, that means that she can swear better than anyone.

Here’s a little blurb that shows the power of social networking and Twitter. Artists gather to record a song to raise money for charity.

And finally, a friend of mine had a book release this week. Marilyn Brant’s book A Summer in Europe is now on sale. To celebrate, she’s taking readers on a virtual European tour. Check her web site to follow her blogs on the journey.

Thanks for checking out my blog. Have fun visiting the sites I’ve linked to. With all the great advice I’ve listed, it’s hard to choose a favorite, but I think Jenny Hansen wins with her creative swearing. Between the list she gives and reading the comments, I had a heck of a laugh. How about you? How do you curb your potty mouth?

Reality or Fantasy?

As I’ve said before, I watch a lot of TV. I always have. I was a latch-key kid who learned to do homework in front of the TV. Back then, there weren’t too many kids’ shows playing in the afternoon, but that’s a different story for another day. Today I’m talking about how much reality we like in our fantasy.

When we read a book or watch a movie or TV, there is a certain level of suspension of disbelief we’re willing to go along with. That’s a fancy way of saying we’ll follow the characters if we can at least buy into a portion of what they’re doing. I think we all know that in general, cops don’t really solve murders in 43 minutes. CSI techs won’t work a crime scene with long, flowing hair hanging over the dead body. (That one really bugs me.) We’re willing to accept this, though, if the characters and/or plot are compelling enough.

A new show that I started watching this season is Prime Suspect. I never watched the British version. I tuned in because I like cop shows and Maria Bello stars in it. I knew I liked her as an actress, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what she’d been in. Turns out, she was in ER many, many years ago, so I’m sure that’s where I knew her from.

Anyway, I tuned in for the first episode. Bello plays Jane Timoney, a tough detective newly promoted to the homicide squad. The good ol’ boys mentality of the men in the squad is a bit overplayed and it annoyed me because although I believe there are still men out there who think that way, they were a little too over-the-top. It makes more sense in later episodes when we discover part of their dislike for Timoney is because they think she slept her way into the position. (She didn’t, but she did have an affair with someone in command.)

What made me fall in love with the show, though, was the reality. In that first episode, Timoney is chasing down a suspect and when they turn down an alley, the suspect stops and then charges at her. She gets her ass beat. It’s not that I think this was necessary, but there are already many strong (almost unbeatable) heroines out there. For instance, I also watch Rizzoli & Isles. Jane Rizzoli is also a tough detective, and although she’s been shot at by perpetrators and tortured by a serial killer, I can’t remember a time when a suspect just hauled off and punched her.

I found this bit of reality with Timoney refreshing. It was enough to get me to tune in for more episodes and now I watch it weekly. Unfortunately, it might be on the chopping block. Although it hasn’t been canceled, it has been replaced for mid-season.

Here’s a clip with Bello talking about her character. As you watch, you will see the scene from that first episode where the suspect beats her:

I know some people avoid certain kinds of books based on the profession of the characters. For example, some lawyers won’t read books with a hero or heroine who’s a lawyer because they can’t stand the inaccuracies. I have a pretty high tolerance for things, but occasionally I get pulled out of a story or movie.

I also know some people stick with reading historical romance or paranormal because it’s so far from their everyday reality, it’s easy to go along with it.

How about you? What is your breaking point in movies or books? How much reality do you want in your fantasy?