Off to Atlanta...

...with high hopes and big dreams. (In case you didn't know, Romance writerss of America is holding their annual conference there this week.) The worst thing about being a writer is that you can imagine all sorts of scenarios that will never happen, but you hope they will. Like meeting that editor who expresses interest in your book. Like meeting the perfect agent. Like receiving acclaim for books past and books future.
I don't know why I put myself through it. Except I won't let the dream die.
--Gabi

Books I'm reading:
The Princess Bride by William Goldman(fabulous, simple fabulous)

It's 3 AM...

and I'm awake, waiting for the husband to return from London. An international flight, a missed connection...need I say more? Ray Bradbury called this time the hour of monsters. It's when you're awake at three a.m. that your dreams are all nightmares, your troubles are insurmountable, your self-esteem is non-existent. Something about the middle of the night magnifies every thought into an overwhelming issue you will never survive. In the morning you laugh at yourself because nothing you thought about at three a.m. is nearly as bad as you believed then.
But now it's three a.m., and the monsters attack. What if I'll never sell another book? What if my students are horrible this year? What if I'm ruining my kids' lives? What if my kids are lying to me? What if the house never stops leaking and collapses? What if ...
And now he garage door has opened and my husband has arrived home from the airport and one monster has been vanquished.
--Gabi
What I'm reading now:
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azir Nafisi
On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

The Dearth of Good Romance Movies

I just read an article about Hollywood making fewer and fewer romance movies. Nobody is writing original screenplay, and the romance stories they do film don't make a lot a money...except for a few like Sleepless in Seattle or Titanic (which people call a romance so I won't argue that definition here) or While You Were Sleeping. The article goes on to quote Nicholas Sparks, that lone voice in the romance field (heavy sarcasm), and his reason for the dearth of romance in films is because the stories are too hard to write and too few people do it well. I will agree with him here, but let me go on to post my own theories. The reason romances don't do well for the most part at the box office is because they don't film good stories. Why don't they turn to those authors who know how to pen great romances? Why hasn't Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Ain't She Sweet been turned into a movie? Why haven't Jenny Crusie's works hit the silver screen? Why isn't Linda Howard's Mr. Perfect a film? Hollywood overlooks a major source for stories by overlooking the genre. You can't tell me that a romance wouldn't be successful if they would just pick the right property. And Romance (the genre) has loads of ideas to pick from.
And is it a coincidence that "dearth" and "Darth" only differ by one letter? Hmmmmm...
--Gabi
Books I'm reading now:
Threshold by Sara Douglass
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
Size Twelve is not Fat by Meg Cabot