Musings

How to end a book is much on my mind right now because I’m racing like an an out-of-control train toward the end of THE EDGE OF RUIN, book two in my series. Two scenes, that’s all I have left two scenes. I was going to try and finish last night, but at 9:30 I realized I was beat and couldn’t think anymore so I shut down. I then stayed up too late to try and finish the latest novel I’m reading. I didn’t make it, but I came close enough to realize that this author has developed a habit that doesn’t work for me, and as a matter of craft I don’t think it works.

Last week I completed another book by this writer, and discovered that the big climax, the thing to which we’d been building for three volumes was completed on page 624. Then the book goes on and on and on ending on page 914. There are some minor loose ends that get tied up, people who are dead don’t stay dead (a particular pet peeve of mine. Check out my posts about HEROES and you’ll get the full rant), and finally we reach the happy ending with our hero at rest with his lady love and a new family.

I don’t think it works. Some of this is probably due to my long years working as a screen writer, but give me the big climax, and then within a few pages I better be hearing the violins and trumpets and the credits better start rolling. If you did a graph line for a book I think it should be a steady trending up. You can throw in a few dips to the tangent to give the readers a chance to breath, bond more with characters, have a character moment, but the overall direction should be up. Then you hit the pinnacle and the line should drop almost vertically down and you get out. For me this long dragging conclusion feels like watching a slow death.

Or maybe I’m missing something here. Has the taste of readers changed are they just reluctant to let go of a world and the characters, and want to luxuriate in an ending? See every step of the Happily Ever After coming toward them?

Melinda

My dear friends, Janice Gelb www.smofbabe.net and Stephen Boucher are in town from Australia, and I’ve been spending as much time with them as work will allow. After all, they live a world away, and to see the people rather than their phosphers is just wonderful. Stephen is green chili fanatic so we’ve been enjoying Tecolote for breakfast, and a number of fine New Mexican restaurants. When Janice and Stephen are in town we also go to a lot of movies. So, my reviews of the two I’ve seen this week.

Thursday night we ate an early dinner at The Shed and headed off to see THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES. I had an interest in this because my management company handled the option and I think they were also involved in developing the film. It’s a kid’s movie so some of the messages were pounded home with a ten pound sledge, but overall I enjoyed it a great deal. It was very charming and would have been lyrical, except the director seemed to think it increased tension if he had all the characters yelling and screaming all the time. It got very wearing, very fast. There was also a rather odd note struck by the event that brought the mother and son together. I don’t want to say more because it would be a spoiler, but once some of you have seen it we can discuss it.

The creatures were apparently right out of the illustrations in the book, and some seemed a bit like muppets, but some of them were just devastatingly beautiful. In particular the flower fairies and the sprites.

I have to say that as a movie experience it worked better than Jumper.

Last night I drove through a New Mexico February blizzard to join George, Parris, Stephen and Janice for Chinese food at Chow’s. Then most of us went off to the late feature of IN BRUGES. I had really been looking forward to this movie. The trailers made it seem funny, with wry, smart dialogue and quirky characters. Unfortunately this was not truth in advertising.

There are some great snappy scenes that make you laugh, but they are few and far between. Our protagonist is bored senseless by Bruges, and unfortunately the writer/director sells that all too well for the audience. I found myself actually thinking about just leaving and driving home. It also wasn’t a comedy. It’s dark and brutal, and the characters seem to have no consistent… well, character. It seems to change from scene to scene in the interest of setting up for the zinger. The event that is torturing our protagonist are deeply affecting, but I don’t think you can overlay comedy aspects on an event of such gut wrenching power. The result was that it’s neither funny, nor do you completely grasp the pain our hitman is enduring.

The movie really only came to life when Ralph Fiennes arrived on the scene, and then it was really violent. I don’t mind violence, but it has to make sense. If I wanted to kill someone I certainly wouldn’t run through the streets of Bruges blasting away. Maybe this was supposed to make the character seem more quirky, but to me he just seemed stupid.

So far the only movies that I’ve really enjoyed are ENCHANTED, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR, JUNO and MICHAEL CLAYTON.

Melinda

My horse is starting to scare me. I ran out to see Vento yesterday, and take him a bucket of treats. The barn manager caught me, and was laughing as he told me this story.

Vento has learned how to undress himself. He apparently is sick of wearing winter blankets, and each morning Mark would arrive to feed and find the blankets in a wad on the floor of the stall, and Vento happily naked.

On Monday Mark arrived in time to watch the process. First Vento dropped his head, and undid the front hooks of the blanket with his teeth. Next he laid down in the stall, and began to wiggle, thus sliding out of the blankets, like a snake shedding it’s skin. When he had the blankets down in the middle of his back he stood up, the blankets slide off his hindquarters, and he daintily stepped out of the straps.

I went and bought some clips so I can keep him from unhooking the front. I think it’s funny, but if he caught caught he might get hurt. I keep telling him spring is coming, but I guess it’s not coming fast enough for the Iberian Prince.

It was late so I turned him out in a paddock where he ran and bucked and ran and bucked. Hopefully he’ll have some of the bucks out of his system before my lesson today.

Melinda

I was listening to the news while I ate my lunch. Foolish perhaps, it just adds to indigestion, but I was catching up on the political coverage on this primary day. The talking heads were alternating between the Democrats and the Republican race, and trying to make the Old White Guy party seem interesting. They kept talking about how John McCain was a man of principle, a man who would risk losing an election because he wouldn’t shift his positions to do the expedient thing.

So, I lost it. Did nobody notice McCain’s vote on the waterboard/torture bill a few days ago? While I oppose McCain on almost every level, I found his stand against torture to be brave and principled since he was a member of a party that seems to embrace this abandonment of our American values. And then came this vote. Which can only be viewed as pandering to the extreme right wing of his party, and proves he is not a man of principle, but just a politician. And a particularly sleazy one as well. If you are considering voting for this man please, please look at this one issue and see if you really want to be represented by someone who seems ready to make you and every other American a party to torture.

McCain was tortured. He knows the dangers it presents to our soldiers in the field when they are captured. And putting aside what might be done to our people while they are prisoners, let’s take a look back through history. The German soldiers during WWII stopped fighting sooner when they knew they were going to fall into the hands of the British and the Americans. Faced with the Russians they continued to fight like badgers. How many more Russian soldiers died because of those last ditch efforts, and the fact the Germans had no incentive to surrender?

It makes my skin crawl that I carry the citizenship and passport of a country that now tortures people as a matter of American policy. The image of our Attorney General making the Nuremberg Defense before Congress was a new low. “The CIA interrogators were just following the protocols handed down by the Justice Department ie we were just following orders.” While I wouldn’t like to give a pass to the CIA agents I could live with that if we at least prosecuted the lawyers who wrote these decisions authorizing torture. They have no excuse. They know the treaties we’ve signed, they know American case law where we prosecuted Japanese who used waterboarding against our soldiers.

Faagh, I can’t continue. Just even writing about this makes me feel like I’ve been eating excrement.

Melinda

So, from Tinsel Town I’ll write about a movie. On Wednesday night Steve Gould and Laura Mixon-Gould invited me to a sneak preview of JUMPER. There was going to be a big part of the New Mexico folk on Thursday night, the official opening night, but unfortunately I was on an airplane to L.A.

It’s a tremendous thrill when a book writer gets a win. It’s tough to make a living writing prose, so you give a big cheer when a writer gets a piece of Hollywood money. Jumper is also one of those books that has long, strong legs because it speaks to young people about issues that torment and define their lives. It’s an emotionally powerful book.

I’m afraid the movie missed that emotional power. It was fun, I really liked the two young men playing David (Hayden Christensen) and Griffin (Jamie Bell), there were some terrific set pieces. Where it failed for me was in motivation.

The most powerful relationship was between the two young men. I wanted a movie where they teamed up much earlier, and worked together much longer. They had great chemistry.

What didn’t work was the love story because it felt sketchy. Here’s my arrogant fix — I would have had David returning home frequently to woo this girl. He has money, he can jump, why not spend time with her? The movie was trying to do so many things early in the film that it lost the emotional drive. We’ve got David learning to teleport, then using it to rob a bank, then a fairly long run of scenes about how great it is to be rich, young and carefree. Finally a fly lands in the ointment, and _then_ he goes home to look longingly at the girl, and evenutally hook up with her.

Finally Griffen shows up, and then things just start to rock.

I hope this movie does really, really well. It’s a fun two hours, and I didn’t find Christensen wooden. He was playing against a guy who got to chew the scenary, and that’s always hard. What I’d really like is the further adventures of Griffen and David.

Some of the reveiwers have complained because the director didn’t explain the “rules” of jumping. It’s always a gamble. When you explain you can end up stopping the film dead in its tracks. If you don’t explain you risk the audience tuning out. It’s why it’s so hard to do science fiction well on screen whe you only have two hours.

I’d still say go and have fun. Because it’s based on a very fine book, and let’s give a writer a big win.

Melinda

I’m writing from my hotel room at the Beverly Garland Hotel. It’s great to be back in L.A. and to know the strike is over and we’re going back to work.

Ian and I spent hours with our manager yesterday discussing The Milkweek Triptych and how to turn it into a movie. It was a great session, and we have the first act beat out in broad strokes.

We’ll meet with him again on Monday, and go over the structure. This weekend between working I’m going to show Ian more of southern CA. We’re off to the Getty Villa this afternoon.

I even remembered a camera this time so I’ll post some pictures when I get home.

Melinda

My friend, Ian Tregillis has launched his incredible website, and I’d like to encourage folks to check it out. Ian is a really cool and interesting person, and he’s also a wonderful writer. He has a three book deal at Tor, and this is the most original and unique take on WWII you have ever read. He can be found at www.iantregillis.com

Went and saw Michael Clayton with George last night. I’ve now seen three of the nominated films and I liked this one the best so far. The performances were wonderful, the direction excellent and the script was a perfect little clockwork piece where everything was set up in advance so nothing came out of left field.

I am fascinated with structure — how books and movies and television series fit together, how one wrong piece can undermine an otherwise good piece of work, so when I see it done well it makes me want to stand up and cheer. I had that feeling last night. The first season of VERONICA MARS is another example, as is season five of BUFFY

The studio sent me NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, but I haven’t been able to face something so downbeat. I don’t think I can make it through THERE WILL BE BLOOD. I’ll wait for George to give me his report and then I’ll have several points of feedback.

Now we just have to wait and see if the strike gets settled and we actually have an Academy Awards.

I may have mentioned we had this wonderful signing at Page One Book’s in Albuquerque (get you signed copies of INSIDE STRAIGHT from them. They will cheerfully mail you a book if you give them money ) My wonderful agent had suggested to my editor Patrick Nielsen-Hayden that he and his wife Teresa stay in my guest house for a few days either before or after the signing. Unfortunately Teresa couldn’t come (I’ll get a chance for a long visit with her soon, I hope), but Patrick did come up north and spend a few days.

I had all these wonderful hikes through Indian ruins planned and then it started to snow. Ian was supposed to join us on these hikes, but when I called to ask if he thought we could try it he reminded me of the narrow sandstone trail, the ladders, the CLIFFS. I reluctantly released that notion. Patrick loves the Southwest so we took a drive up toward the Santa Fe ski area. You couldn’t see the incredible vistas because of the snow and clouds, but it was beautiful. The ponderosa pines were like hulking giants festooned with glitter, and the narrow white trunks of the aspen created the illusion they were dancing through the swirling snow. It was beautiful, but we turned back at the Big Tesuque camp ground because the road was really becoming snow packed.

It ended up being a stay at home and cozy couple of days, but Patrick and I are both political junkies, so we discussed and dissected every possible ramification of Super Tuesday. I’m heading over to Making Light to see if Patrick has posted the breakdown for NY. He had a theory about the City and Obama. Here in NM we are still waiting for the outcome. Less than one hundred votes separates Obama and Clinton. I hope he wins. I think California went the way it did because of all the early mail in voting. People hadn’t had a chance to take a look at Obama before they voted.

I sat up until midnight watching the returns come in. What struck me, and gave me such a sense of joy was the knowledge that an African-American candidate was winning in Kansas, and North Dakota, Minnesota and Missouri. I think the young people are losing these gender/race identifications, and many of the states Obama won last night do not have large African-American populations. I think the idea he can’t win with white voters has been laid to rest. So the race continues, and it’s so exciting.

Now for the stress. When I got home on Saturday night after the signing and the reception, and some time spent with my agent, I had a message from my trainer. Vento had stepped on a nail and driven it into his foot. It wasn’t in the frog, but this was still terrifying news, and since it was eleven o’clock at night I couldn’t call and talk to her. There was the obvious worry that this would lame my boy, but beyond that there was a very real threat of death. If a puncture foot wound becomes infected it’s very hard to kill the infection and it often leads to the horse’s death. I didn’t sleep much on Saturday. I can now report that neither lameness or death are in the offing. They left the nail in until the vet arrived. He removed it, packed the wound with antibiotics, and bandaged his foot. He was then confined in his stall for three days with just hand walking. He never took a lame step and when I finally got out to visit him on Monday he was ready to jump out of his skin. He was like a sulky little kid who was bored, bored, bored and it was all my fault.

I want to ride, but I’m fighting a bad cold. My trainer is flat on her back with a flu/cold, they have closed the indoor arena to work on reinforcing the walls against wind. It looks like it will be Saturday before I get back to riding since Lauren wants to be the first person to hop onto a young stallion who hasn’t worked for a number of days. I’m a wimp. I’m going to let her.

So, there is the tale.

Melinda

I got in from the Eldorado Elementary School about an hour ago. I waited in line for forty minutes to vote, and the lines were longer when I left than when I’d entered. What struck me was the level of excitement and cheerful energy. No one minded the wait. We made way for elderly people who looked daunted by the long lines. People were laughing, chattering, anticipating a new day without Bush and Cheney.

I have always loved to go and vote. There is something mythic and powerful in taking part in a celebration of your country and your place in the country. Until 2000 and 2004 I thought my vote counted. I thought there was electoral justice. And then came Bush and the Supreme Court and I was shaken in my belief about our country and our system of government. But today I felt good about the process again. People have reacted with loathing to the idea of paperless ballots, and caging and disenfranchising out weakest and poorest citizens. They’re demanding reform and a chance to feel proud again, and we can see it in the stunning turn out by Democrats.

We may be disappointed, but at least we’re not crushed any longer. So GO VOTE.

Melinda