squeetus

Dickens was a genius

So I am convinced after watching a myriad of Christmas Carol adaptations this year (of which my favorite is, of course, the Muppets). How many adaptations are there? Movies and TV show episodes add up to over fifty, though there may be many more. There are plays, an opera, books...Dickens's structure has been imitated so often it feels almost cliche. And yet, before Dickens, IT DIDN'T EXIST. He done thunk it up all himself.

Of course he had influences: fairy tales, Washington Irving, Shakespeare, the Greeks, etc. He read, he listened, he took those elements of story and human nature that existed out there and wove something entirely new. IT's such a familiar story that I forget sometimes to give credit to the man who made it happen. I also read somewhere that Dickens, who was concerned about the state of the poor in Victorian England, meant to write a political tract encouraging people to do something about it. He changed his mind and instead wrote the novella The Christmas Carol, convinced fiction could do far more to inspire. 150 years later his story is still vibrant. I doubt we'd ever see a Muppets version of the essay on caring for the poor.

One of the things that fascinate me about The Christmas Carol is that we think of it as a feel-good tale, because of the ending. But of course it is actually a horror story. It's a haunting. Ghosts visit a man and scare him nearly to death. Some of them are really quite frightening, while the others are disturbing at best. The main character sees horrific and sad things. This is a visceral and psycological horror tale that Dickens coupled with Christmas and made up his own slipstream genre that resonates a hundred and fifty years later. Like Shakespeare and Austen, Dickens wrote a story that can be retold again and again, remain relevent and not get tiresome. Genius, my friends.

And as Gonzo says at the end of the movie, "If you liked this, you should read the book."

The best Christmas present

From a reader mom:

"Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack brought our Christmas present opening to a 10 minute full-stop. The girls were so engrossed they hardly acknowledged our presence. It took a lot of coaxing to get them to continue opening gifts! Thanks for helping feed my girls' love of reading with your excellent books!! Merry Christmas!"

EDIT: I just realized that the title makes it sound like I'm claiming that my books are the best Christmas present. What I meant was that the best present for me was hearing about these girls who loved the books! Shuffling myself off now...

Contemplating the bottoms of my babies' feet

There is nothing softer than the bottom of a newborn's feet. There's no part of me soft enough to touch it. But I do anyway. I can't help it. I rub them with my fingertips and against my lips, and I'm afraid I'm slowly sanding away the softness.

The babies like to have conversations now. I'll have them on my lap, my attention elsewhere, and then I'll look down to see two babies staring up at me. As soon as I make eye contact, they smile and coo. I feel like the most popular girl at the dance. And we talk for awhile, about stuff. You know.

I just know they love me. The way their eyes light up when they look at me, the way they coo so sweetly. Surely they're as madly in love with me as I am with them. And then yesterday I was across the room when I heard them cooing at a dark spot on a blanket. Curse that blanket and its theory-disproving dark spots! Let's see that blanket nurse you and change your diaper! The novelty of its beauty will wear off soon enough, my pretties. Mark my words!

Christmas week is such a lovely week. We have a fresh snowfall and a tree with presents and homemade goodies in the kitchen. I only have two afternoons this week to work on Daisy Danger Brown, so I'd better get back to it. I'll spend 15 minutes each day doing something small with it just to keep it fresh so I can jump back in next week.

This week in the life of a writer mom

Hi all. I see I'm blogging less regularly. The truth is, my hands are pretty full. The good news is, they are full of babies. Wow, I really lucked out, guys. I hesitate to write this because I don't want to brag but I HAVE THE BEST BABIES IN THE WORLD. If you're going to have two, get two like these. (But paws off mine--they're taken.) They sleep at the same time! They smile and coo! They are beautiful and healthy and smell like heaven!

We're all doing GREAT. Of course life is very differnet after having twins. Recently both babies were napping at the same time for two whole hours and I was with just my two older kids, and I was astonished at how free I was. What did I used to do with all my time? I remember thinking I was busy before, and now I laugh at my former self. Wimp! WIMP, I say! I guess no matter what our life circumstances are, we generally fill up every moment and so always feel busy. Kind of like no matter how much money we make, we could always use a little more. I don't like that last bit, and Dean and I always promise each other we will be content with what we have, and as much as our income has fluctuated over the years, somehow we always feel like we maintain the same standard of living.

As marvelous as life is with perfect baby twins, and as surprisingly calm I feel, I know I'm two steps from the crazy attic. People keep asking me how I am and I say, "I'm fine! No really, I'm great. The babies are so wonderful, it's been so much better than I thought it would be." And then someone will say something like "Have you gotten out your Christmas cards?" and I almost have a panic attack. Sanity is precarious at best. I am a very tall Jenga tower. Don't nudge me!

So maybe I don't do Christmas cards or have an organized house or make homemade neighbor gifts or bathe, but I am still writing. It's more of a disease than a pasttime, after all. I delivered midnight in austenland the day before my twins delivery. A couple weeks later I contacted my editor and told her if it wasn't too late, I really could work on it some more, and she agreed. I am so happy I had that time. I did two more drafts. Although I didn't change anying major, and if you read the two drafts a few months apart you might not even be able to tell the differences, it was important to me to trim it some more and put even more thought into diction. It's all about the diction, baby. Because of the extra time, we missed our window for 2011 publication. It takes about a year after final draft delivery to publish a book, so we're looking at early 2012. Which means I'll go two years without a new book out there. As the writer L.E. Modesitt told me years ago, your front list drives your back list. When a writer doesn't have anything new coming out, all book sales go down, sometimes significantly. As of right now, all my books are still in print though, which means even if your bookstore doesn't have them on the shelves, they can still be ordered. I don't know what my career will look like a year from now. Many authors go two years without a new book, but I never have before. This is okay with me. I really want to just stay home and snuggle my kiddos for awhile.

And now I'm working on Daisy Danger Brown again. I spent most of 2009 writing the first draft. It's a lot of stuff and a lot of work, so I imagine I'll be rewriting it for most of 2011, maybe beyond. Hm, maybe I'll have two books out in 2012!

Ps. For all those new moms out there who have colicky babies and are hating on me because I somehow got sleepy angels, just know that I'm still in maternity clothes. I'm not that magical.

On primates and plays

Having an infant always reminds me that humans are animals. I feel so mammalian, nursing my young, smelling them, knowing them by scent. I'm constantly kissing their heads and breathing in through my nose. I can smell when other people have been holding them, can sense the alien on their skin.

I'm also so aware that we are primates. I feel best when my babies are on me: asleep on my chest, in my arms, hanging on me in a baby carrier. Like all primates, babies are social. It fascinates me that babies this young are already aware of being alone. When they realize they are alone, they fuss. "Hey, I'm alone over here! Doesn't anyone care? It's not right!" They want to be picked up, held, rocked, talked to, sung to, those powerful affirmations of togetherness. And we respond instincitvely. A baby makes eye contact, and we look back. A baby smiles, and we smile. A baby coos, and we coo too. A conversation! Every bit as important as any college campus dialog or theatrical reparte.

Speaking of theater, I had the opportunity last week to see a university student one-act play adapted from my book austenland. It was an interesting and somewhat surreal experience to view people playing characters I made up speaking lines I wrote. It was my story...and yet it wasn't. I finally put my finger on it. It was like getting a glimpse inside the head of a reader, seeing the story they tell themselves when they read my book. It's famililar yet looks and feels a little different than it does when I imagine it. Just one reader's experience. Thrilling! I think this is a good way to think about movies-from-books as well. Sure, the movie is not what was in my head when I read the book, but it's getting a glimpse of another reader's experience, having a chance to experience the book in another way. It shouldn't replace our own reading experience, but can be fun and fascinating too.

P.S.  I'm the online host for Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect Fairy Tale Party on Dec 10.