Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Well, it’s 12:31 on the day I’m supposed to leave for Atlanta. Am I packed? Ha! Is my house clean? Ha! Ha! Is the lasagna I promised I’d make for Sailor Boy cooked? Somebody stop me!

However, I did get a lovely pedicure, and my bookmarks arrived. Aren’t they scrumptious? (The bookmarks, I mean; I’m sparing you all a picture of my toes.)

In keeping with the theme of Author Gone Wild that I’ve been cultivating over the past few weeks, I’ve got a bunch of parties to go to this year at the RWA National Conference. Dinner with the pen girls, my agent’s party, a tea party, the Chick Lit RWA party, the Lit Signing (which is always a party!), the Bantam Dell party, an evening at the theatre with my CP, and the RITA Awards. So here’s my question: how many times can I get away with wearing this season’s party dress? I’m thinking twice per dress per conference, especially considering there’s a big crossover audience. It’s a really nice dress. Sometimes I envy men. they can wear the same suit all weekend and no one blinks an eye, but recycle a dress and you’ve got the fashion gestapo breathing down your neck.

As far as new clothes, the only thing I’ve bought new were two pair of shoes for the party dresses and a formal clutch for my RITA outfit. I think I got off easy.

Been garnering some wonderful reviews all around the blogosphere, including this one by Ranger Rebecca (otherwise known as Dragonfly). One of the interesting things about seeing my book out in the world is how various readers have interpreted the sexism aspects to the plot. Some of the most progressive people I know think the premise is preposterous because, in their feminist minds, it’s unthinkable that intelligent, educated people in this country could choose to act this way. I love hearing from women who thought the book was speaking to them. In the end, we’re talking about a club — not a job, not a career, not a graduate school — but hey, just because it’s only a treehouse with “NO GIRLZ ALOUD” scribbled on it doesn’t mean it’s okay. In the book, only one person is asked straight out why he thinks girls shouldn’t be allowed in the society. I think his answer is pretty valid. No one has asked me why they should be. My answer is because the seniors tapped them. Period. But it’s not easy to do what they are trying to do, and it’s not over. Not by a long shot.

I like the idea of a group of people who question the status quo and where such questions take them. I’m writing to entertain, don’t get me wrong, but I still think that what is going on is interesting and worthy of discussion. Or, you know, kicking back on the beach and just enjoying while you work on your tan. Either way works for me.

Today I was watching Working Girl, which is one of my favorite films, and marveling again at the skillful subtlety with which the filmmakers made their point about women in the workforce. In most of the “executive” scenes, Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver’s characters are the only women involved, and every single secretary is a woman. I think I’m going to write a whole post about it at some point but, there’s packing to do now. Anyway, great flick, and very chick-lit woman’s journey as well. I love how in the end, she does indeed get the guy, but that’s not her happy ending. her happy ending doesn’t come until she gets her career. At once point, Tess’s best friend (played by Joanne Cusack) says that Tess shouldn’t expect the hero “to, like, take you away from all of this.” But the wonderful thing about this film is that not only doesn’t he, but she doesn’t want him to. It’s all about saving yourself, which is definitely my favorite ending to a story.

I also saw Aeon Flux. I don’t know why I missed it in the theaters, but I have some idea that it flopped big time. Why? I really liked it. Strong women, tidy storyline, cool action sequences, great chemistry and love story, not a ton of humongous glaring plot holes, beautiful, stunning, exquisite design… did other people see this film? What are your thoughts?

Following the comment trail in the last post, Alyssa Goodnight asked about the plotting board. I have attended the Story Magic workshop (where I was introduced to LA Confidential, which is an amazing film and everyone should go see it right now!) but I’d already been using the board for a few years. I don’t use any of the fancy software like Writer’s Blocks or Power Structure or any of the other programs that apparently do the same thing. One of my CPs has Writer’s Blocks and she likes them, but when she prints them out, they look way more confusing to me than anything I make with my post it notes. My favorite part about the plotting board is that, when I’m done, I can go across the room and just see in glorious Day Glo technicolor where I broke my book.

The actual boards are just regular poster boards. I use the extra thick kind that stand up on their own (the kind you use for science projects), but you can just fold a regular 79 cent posterboard in thirds if you want. I drew a grid on them, one box for each scene in the book. Then I assign a color post it to each plot element. For instance, pink may be romance, purple may be the heroine’s internal conflict, green may be the hero’s, yellow may be the external force acting upon them and green may be the subplot that acts as a foil. Then, each scene is analyzed for those elements. I write little descriptions on each post it note of how that plot element is dealt with in the scene, and stick them up on the board.

I find this works best for me to assemble the board after I’ve written the book. Sometimes, despite all my intense preplotting, a certain elment will wend its way into a scene without my knowledge. So I think it can work wonderfully as a revision tool for plotters or non-plotters. I know other people do this before they write. Whatever works.

The other reason I like doing it by hand instead of on the screen is that the very physicality of the task — making this humongous board — helps activate a slightly differnet part of my brain. I think of things looking at the board that I didn’t really consider just looking at a screen. Other people tell me they do the same thing laying out index cards on a table.
My favorite part is looking at it and going, “Wow, I didn’t do green for about three chapters, Better go back and weave that in a little better!” Can’t be beat for revising structure.

Okay, really off to pack now…