PARTING THOUGHTS

Paris, November 2012

About two years and 231 posts ago I started this blog with the intention of posting about books, movies, writing and travel. A few months later, Pat O'Dea Rosen agreed to join me and since then has enhanced my modest endeavor with her wit and insight, and in the process has become a dear friend.

As happens, my life took an unexpected turn last summer--a good turn, but one that added a great deal of complexity to my world. I've had to make some hard choices and one of those was to bow out of the blog. Pat will carry on and I'll certainly stop by and say hi. This, however, will be my last post so I thought I'd go back to the beginning and talk about my favorite subjects.

Three books stood out for me in 2012--two were part of Amanda Stevens' Graveyard Queen series. I loved 2011's THE RESTORER and was thrilled the next two, THE KINGDOM and THE PROPHET, were released this year. Amanda is a master of the Southern Gothic genre who never disappoints. I'm eager to read her new YA series.

The third book has been at the top of the New York Times Hardcover list and for good reason. Gillian Flynn's GONE GIRL had me on the edge of my seat with all its twists and turns and the ending totally blew me away. This book proved to me that conventional wisdom--characters need to be likable in this case--can be reinterpreted with great success.

Of all the movies I saw this year, my favorites were THE AVENGERS  and SKYFALL. Both were action flicks but of a very different tone and nature. Superhero flicks haven't always appealed to me, but who could resist Robert Downey Jr as Ironman and Chris Hemsworth as Thor? And both in the same movie? Yes!! RDJ was the glue that held the cast together and CH was just hot and cool. If there's an AVENGERS 2, I'm totally on board.

I was never a Bond fan until the Daniel Craig era. As much as I've liked Sean Connery in other movies, I just never got Bond. The pretenders, we ignore. DC's dark, tortured Bond has hooked me with his all too human  flaws. In SKYFALL we're taken on a wild action ride that also addresses the demons within Bond, M and the deliciously evil villain. It's still in the theatre. Go. Now.

Carving out time for writing this fall was a challenge but I had the chance to see James Scott Bell at the Northwest Houston RWA's Lone Star Conference in October. I highly recommend his workshop for anyone who struggles with story structure like I do. He uses movie structure to illustrate how to write a novel that will grab and hold the reader. An added bonus--this structure is also very helpful in writing the dreaded synopsis.

Last year my rambling took me to Paris over Thanksgiving. Although my husband and I have been to the City of Lights together many times, this was one of the best of our visits. For anyone planning to spend more than a couple of nights there, I want to give you a piece of advice I wish I'd had years ago: rent an apartment in a part of the city close to things that interest you and become Parisian for a short while. There are many websites with offerings from modest to luxurious and some now take credit cards. These places are generally comparable in price to a decent hotel room and you'll have a kitchen enjoy some meals in and a sitting room to rest and recoup after a day sightseeing.

That wraps up my final thoughts but I'd love to hear from everyone about the highlights of your 2012...or just say good-bye. All my best wishes to everyone for a wonderful 2013!

TOW WITH BACKSTORY

On Saturday I attended Northwest Houston RWA's Lone Star conference  where JamesScott Bell imparted his wisdom on the craft of writing fiction. At one point in discussing dialogue he warned, "Don't use dialogue to have your characters dump backstory. It's boring and real people don't talk like that." Unfortunately, on Sunday evening I learned Mr. Bell was wrong.

After a successful shopping trip at Katy Mills Mall, at closing my husband and I returned to his SUV to go home and discovered the gear shift was stuck in park and was determined not to budge. The owner's manual was no help in solving the problem so we gave up and called our insurance company's road-side assistance number for a tow. Now I'm not saying all tow-truck drivers are unscrupulous bottom feeders, but the last time Steve got towed, the driver took his car to his own lot instead of the mechanic and held it ransom for 2 days. In other words, we weren't too enthusiastic about being 25 miles from home and at the mercy of whoever showed up.

As it turned out a polite young guy arrived within a half hour and got the SUV onto his trailer with impressive efficiency. Somewhat relieved, my husband and I got into the cab for the ride to the garage that services his vehicle. Being a friendly sort, I commented that satnav systems like the one the driver had stuck to his windshield must make his job easier. Big mistake. The driver, let's call him Joe, launched into a story about how he'd been ripped off when he bought what he thought was a new Garmin and discovered it had 134,000 miles on it. After confronting the store owner, he got a more expensive brand new one and was quite pleased with himself for coming out $80 ahead. 

Without further encouragement (for once I didn't ask questions), he told us he'd been driving tow-trucks since he was 17 (he's 24 now) and used to have one of his own, and that's about the time I knew we were going to get way more information than we wanted. "I lost everything," he said, "when I went to prison." 

That was definitely a TMB moment--Too Much Backstory.

He explained he'd gone to prison for five years when he was 19 and had been out for six months then proceeded to give us an account of his present employer who was name Ahmed, his weekly paycheck of $250 (although he use to make a lot more than that before he went away), his rent of $465 a month and his annoyance that his girlfriend refused to get a job. At that point the girlfriend called his cell and we heard a lot of apologies, all starting with "Baby,..." When he hung up, we thought--hoped--the personal revelations might be finished but, no. 

To be fair, I imagine some people would have asked him why he went to prison and I'll admit I was curious. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when he gave us the gory details--a fight backing up his brother who'd been jumped by seven men that left a guy "hurt bad." This was on the job back when Joe was doing repro work--something he doesn't do anymore. Seems that big money had its downside, and AAA and insurance company road-side assistance is safer. What a surprise. 

Eventually we arrived at our mechanic’s garage, the SUV was unloaded and Joe headed home to his unemployed girlfriend and a late dinner. I thought about what Mr. Bell had said about dribbling in backstory and only telling the reader what he or she needs to know to understand the story. Did we need to know Joe’s backstory to get our car from Katy to Houston? Absolutely not. And yet it added an element of tension and suspense a silent ride would have lacked. And somehow I think that would have been just fine with us.