Tag: authors

Sunday Sundries

Reference materials from my decades as a student, writer, and author.

I wonder about other writers. With all the resources at our fingertips 24/7/365 thanks to the Internet, do writers of a certain age hold on to the books that came to them through writing classes and workshops and at the advice of teachers, editors, and other writers? Do writers who got their start in this century know the pleasure of turning the pages of a thesaurus, reference books, manuals of one type or another, and writing guides and exercises? Do they ever use pen and pencil or red pen on paper or only their keyboards or phone notes to catch, record, and alter their words?

I read an article recently about implied (country name redacted: who needs their bots or supporters landing here) threats to the cables that cross our ocean floors and the satellites hovering over us in space. It touched on the catastrophe to shipping, transportation, communications, and financial markets that a hostile nation could wreak on the rest of the world. Imagine your phone, your access to the Internet, your credit card or ATM card, online banking, retailers, airlines, grocers, all rendered useless or severely inefficient at once.

If this is what science fiction and dystopian writers try to capture, what means would they use to compose and edit their work, find a publishing/distribution system, and market and sell to an audience? I mean, Elon Musk will be fine, but what about the rest of us?

My Sunday rewatches made today Kate Hudson Day, and both films I saw were about writers. In 2003’s How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, Hudson plays a magazine columnist, Andie Anderson, who writes a “How To” feature in each issue. Inspired by the way a friend messes up potential romantic relationships, she pitches a column to her editor. She’ll start a romance with a stranger, repeat her friend’s dating mistakes, and cause him to break up with her in ten days or less. If the editor, played wonderfully by Bebe Neuwirth, likes the column, she’ll start giving Andie weightier topics than cute “how to guides” for future columns.

A couple of ad executives, at Andie’s magazine to pitch an idea for an ad campaign, learn about Andie’s story idea. When they go back to their agency, a rival agent, Ben Barry, played by Matthew McConaughey, competes with them to take back the ad campaign for a diamond jewelry account on which he’d done all the preliminary work. They disparage his ability to understand how to sell diamonds to women because he doesn’t know how to get or keep a romantic relationship. Ben bets their boss that he can make any woman fall in love with him in ten days. His boss agrees that if Ben is successful, the diamond account will be his.

The rival agents secretly contrive to hook Ben up with Andie at a restaurant/bar, knowing the two will be at cross purposes. When Andie agrees to go out with Ben, she does everything she can to make him break up with her. He tolerates it all and does everything he can to make her fall in love with him. It’s a RomCom–we know how it’ll end. Meanwhile, there are entertaining incidents at Knicks games, a movie date to Sleepless In Seattle, a dog who isn’t house-trained, Ben’s fun family on Staten Island, and Andie’s self-sabotaging friend posing as a couples therapist.

Also released in 2003 (Kate had a good year!), in Alex & Emma, Luke Wilson plays Alex Sheldon, a genius novelist with writer’s block. He borrowed a large sum of money from loan sharks to keep himself afloat, and now he can’t pay them back. The “Cuban Mafia” gives him thirty more days, and he appeals to his publisher, Wirschafter, played by the film’s director Rob Reiner. Wirschafter is good for the money (because this is fiction, and Alex must have had some really successful previous novels!), payable only when Alex gives him the completed novel in thirty days. Alex hires a stenographer (with a promise to pay her in thirty days), Emma Dinsmore, played by Kate Hudson, to make the writing process go faster.

Emma not only takes dictation all day and transcribes the manuscript at night (without pay! And with one terrible incident in which she falls into a puddle of water while catching a bus, losing almost twenty pages in her flooded bag; LOSING PAGES is a common and horrible ordeal most writers experience at one time or another, including ME, but at least I didn’t owe money to the Cuban Mafia).

While taking dictation, Emma’s reactions to what Alex narrates help him make improvements to his novel. Unbeknownst to Emma, as the two of them begin to fall in love, it isn’t only the manuscript’s loan sharks who mirror Alex’s life. The love story in the novel is based on his real-life relationship with a former lover who returns just as the thirty days ends.

Rob Reiner also directed When Harry Met Sally, and he includes a nod to that movie in this film. Emma says she never buys a book without reading the end first. If she doesn’t like the ending, she returns the book to the shelf. Billy Crystal’s character Harry also reads book endings first, because as he says, if he dies before finishing a book, he’ll at least know how it ended.

Alex & Emma didn’t make back its production costs and was not a favorite of the critics. However, as a writer, I’ve enjoyed it both times I watched it. I only wonder where I can find a publisher who’ll front me the money to hire a stenographer or at least a researcher, because research is the most labor-intensive thing I do, whether it’s via my shelf of reference books or online.

Saturday No. 2

I’m not sure that 2009’s New In Town with Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. is a rewatch because I don’t remember seeing it before. When we were at The Compound, all of the DVDs lived in the Doll House with Timothy. This made it easier, whenever one of our writing partners visited, for someone to sit on the floor and read out titles to the rest of us until we all agreed on something to watch. But when we moved to Houndstooth Hall, we had more room over in the house, so the DVDs are shelved here, including ones Timothy added. He remembers watching this one, so it’s probably one he grabbed from the used bin at Blockbuster. I enjoyed it, not only the leads, but the supporting cast.

About A Boy, from 2002, isn’t really a RomCom so much as comedy/drama. I’m pretty sure I read Nick Hornby’s novel (same title), and it felt like something I wanted to see today. Directed by brothers Chris and Paul Weitz, it features a solid cast that includes Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, and Nicholas Hoult.

I also finished the seventh and final novel in the series I’ve been rereading. It was quite strange, because there were passages that seemed different to me, and I didn’t think that could be possible. I’ve read these novels so many times. One of the passages was so jarring that I took my iPad to Debby’s to read to her, asked if she remembered it as having been written the way that was unfamiliar to me, and she did. That’s when we discovered that her physical book versions of at least one of the novels and the versions I downloaded on my iPad match, but are different from the physical books I’ve been reading since I was an adolescent that were published by a bookclub. The editor in me has what I think is a good grasp of why the bookclub made the edits it did (and I prefer the bookclub versions). I’d like to know how the author felt about the changes. (She’s been dead since 1984, and these are not books that would have gotten literary analysis/criticism that I could research.) Another problem with my ebook versions of all seven novels is that they contained many copy errors (e.g., misspelled words, missing words, wrong character names). If I ever read the series again, I’ll stick to my print copies.

Saturday No. 1

I got a working DVD of 1998’s You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan sometime last week. You may remember that I was watching my previous DVD version and it got to a halfway-ish point in the movie and stopped working. I think it was because there was some kind of tie-in between AOL, Microsoft, and the DVD, and it would play only on a computer with a certain version of Microsoft Windows that was released in 1997. Which is kind of funny, because 1997 is when I got my first Windows-based PC (before that, I’d only had Apple/Mac products). If I still had that computer, I probably could have watched the DVD.

The reason we got that computer was because I was reeling from several years’ losses of friends to AIDS, and my friend Lisa Y had, on a whim one day on a contract job we had, showed me how to access chat rooms. Tom said AOL was known for its chat rooms, so if we got a PC and loaded AOL on it, maybe I could find an AOL chat room with supportive people who’d experienced some of the things I’d been going through since 1989.

“Meeting” someone through communication via AOL email and Instant Messaging who turns out to be meaningful is basically the plot line of You’ve Got Mail. Among the people I met in the chatroom I landed in were Timothy, Jim, and Timmy, who became my friends and my writing partners, plus a stranger-then-friend who turned out to be a distant cousin from my father’s side of the family (what were the chances?).

That whole AOL experience is so LAST century, right? Yet in a viewer reaction to the movie, someone mentioned how outdated the technology is but NO ONE CARES because it’s still a good movie. I think it is, too. Like Sleepless In Seattle, there’s something so quietly sweet in the chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I say that despite how the plot line has his character (Joe Fox) opening a big box bookstore that unapologetically aims to put her character (Kathleen Kelly)’s charming independent bookstore, inherited from her mother, out of business. By the time that movie came out, I’d been a bookseller in a chain, but I shopped at local booksellers, too, and I regretted every one lost. Ironically, ultimately, Amazon not only ate the independents, it continues the process of putting bookstore chains out of business.

Until last night’s conclusion of You’ve Got Mail, I hadn’t rewatched movies this week. I got in the mood to reread a book series that I first became acquainted with in junior high school. That’s a story for another time, but it’s provided a much-needed diversion from an anxiety-filled week.

The Héctor Elizondo Effect

I found an article, “Your Cynicism Isn’t Helping Anybody,” completely by accident, and finally, I have a succinct, orderly explanation for why I often call myself a skeptic and why, for many years including right here on this website, I have denounced cynicism. (I think my earliest mention was on Christmas Eve 2007, when I quoted Carol Burnett’s interview on “Inside The Actors Studio,” wherein she said her least favorite word is “cynicism.” INDEED.)

The article I found is from Time, and I know people very often don’t click on links, but you can read it in five or fewer minutes here. I don’t dare post it in its entirety, because I don’t want to violate copyright. In the article, Zaki rebuts and questions the following MYTHS: that cynicism is clever, safe, or moral. In fact, he says, cynicism is a trap that makes us underestimate and distrust others.

Damn near everyone I know, and believe me, that group covers a range of beliefs and attitudes related to the “forbidden” topics: sex, money, politics, and religion, keeps bringing up in our conversations, and on their social media, the same questions these days: why is everyone so mean now, why is everyone so divided and disconnected, and why does no one trust anybody? I agree with the take in this article, that “cynicism,” and the way cynicism is used against us, is at the root of these problems. I’m not a cynic, but possibly I’ll end up getting Zaki’s book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, because that’s how much this article resonated with me.

The many forms of art and creativity can offer us several things. Art can confront us with what’s wrong and destructive in the world and challenge us to make things better in large and small ways. Art can remind us of our common connections and give us hope. Art can elicit our humanity by giving us the opportunity to laugh, weep, and wonder. I’m grateful that during a challenging few months, I’ve had movies to remind me of all of this. My most recent rewatches have been:


1991’s Frankie & Johnny, 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding, 1999’s Runaway Bride

Along with their humor, all three of these movies illustrate what a difference believing in oneself and others, or NOT believing in oneself and others, can make in their characters’ lives. Relationships that endure make room for apologies, forgiveness, and changes. Once again, the lead actors inhabit the lives of their characters skillfully, and Héctor Elizondo is in two of the three films, along with others I’ve already watched. If he ever plays a bad guy, I don’t want to see it. =)

Mid-week once more

Yesterday was spent writing and rewriting. Editing and revising. Writing a little more, and working out plot points in the Neverending Saga. My thoughts were so much north of here with Lynne and Minute, and I tried to memorialize that funny, sassy, brave, and loyal Westie in the post I wrote and the photos I picked. My brain was tired by the time I ate dinner, so I decided to delve into RomCom adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels.

I started with the 1996 DVD of Emma, with Gwyneth Paltrow. I think she does a wonderful job of portraying Emma and her well-intentioned meddling in the romantic lives of others. This movie makes me laugh a lot, beginning to end, so it was just what I needed. (Favorite quote from Gwyneth as Emma, when Emma fears that Mr. Knightley has gone to visit his brother John, and possibly ask his advice about taking a wife, and Emma tells her former governess: “Oh, but if he seems happy, I will know that he’s decided to marry Harriet, and I will not, I know I will not, be able to let him tell me. But if he seems sad, I’ll know that John has advised him against it. I love John! Or he may seem sad because he fears telling me he will marry my friend. How can John let him do that? I hate John!”


I fell in love with Jane Austen’s writing at age eleven, when I read a “condensed” version of Pride and Prejudice (adapted for younger readers in my Readers Digest Best Loved Books For Young Readers, shown on the lower left in the photo above). It was only later, thanks to library books, that I read more of Austen when I was old enough to appreciate her as an adult reader. Then I was either a struggling student, teacher, or whatever other jobs I took to keep my head above water, and you can see the used books I grabbed so I could read more Austen or reread favorites. (I also have Pride and Prejudice as an eBook, and several novels by other authors that feature fictitious versions of Jane Austen herself, or use her literary romances to create novels of their own.)

The book on the lower right is an edition of Sense and Sensibility that came out in 1995, the same year as the movie with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant. It has photos of the cast in costume inside it. This evening, while I cooked, so I wouldn’t BURN THE PEAS, Lynne and Debby, I put my laptop on the bar in the kitchen and finished watching the movie that I’d started after I did my writing/editing for the day. Tom got home from work and was looking over my shoulder while he was feeding the dogs, and said this movie has some of his favorite actors. I know for sure no one could portray Colonel Brandon as well as Alan Rickman, but he’s right. The entire cast, leads and supporting actors, is stellar.

I’ve seen a couple of film adaptations of Persuasion, and several of Pride and Prejudice, but without a doubt my absolute favorite is the 1995 BBC television series with Colin Firth. Once I saw him, there will never, never be another Mr. Darcy for me, and I don’t care how many beautiful actors rise up to play the part. I mentioned watching it in this post in 2016. I rewatched it at some point during the pandemic after I got laid off. It’s such a comfort watch for me, but it is an investment of time, so I think my recent watch of a newer version of Persuasion, and these rewatches of Emma and Sense and Sensibility will conclude my Austen RomComs for this go-round.

Happiness…

If you like short stories, before I changed my sidebar links to various merchants, Houston-based and otherwise, I always had a link to Jeffrey Ricker’s website. ← If you visit that link and sign up for his newsletter (trust me, you won’t be inundated with e-mail from him, and what you do get will be informative, thoughtful, and often humorous, because that’s basically the man I know), you’ll get the opportunity to download a pdf file with five of his short stories.

There’s a reason why Timothy and I included Jeffrey in the anthologies we edited, and why I’ll always read him, even when he writes outside the genres I usually read. Good writing is good writing.

Yesterday, brace yourself, I didn’t watch any RomComs or any movie at all. I did other things, mainly working on my manuscript. Slowly, but progress is progress. I also took a break to glance through the pages of Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal. I followed the direction on a double page to create a nonstop line. Then I realized it looked like “The Long and Winding Road,” so I paged through my sticker books and sheets and turned it into a journey with roadsigns (the “roadsigns” come from Adam J. Kurtz’s sticker book).


Today, along with mending Eva’s favorite dog bed, I watched one romantic comedy, my beloved Notting Hill from 1999 (twenty-five years old, geez). I was reminded again of one of my favorite lines, when Anna and William discuss Russian-French artist Marc Chagall’s painting La Mariée:

“Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat,” Anna Scott, Notting Hill.


Damn right.

Speaking of violinists, in the Neverending Saga chapter in progress, I reference a character who plays violin. Seems like a nudge to get back to my manuscript. Maybe before bedtime, I’ll watch 1989’s Cousins with Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, Sean Young, and William Petersen.

Oh, yeah, bonus: In Notting Hill, Hugh Grant’s character owns a bookstore.

Tiny Tuesday!

The term “epistolary novel” refers to works of fiction written in the form of letters or other documents (diaries and journals, telegrams, and in the age of technology, voice messages and e-mails). Some novels that use this device are Frankenstein, Dracula, The Princess Diaries, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Daisy Jones & The Six.

It’s somewhat more difficult to use the technique in film, though it’s been done (the books I listed above have all been made into films, and the RomCom that kicked this off, Love Again, has mis-sent text messages as an integral part of the plot). A little less complex than the epistolary format is a familiar device in movies and novels that have, as part of the plot, misdirected, misplaced, stolen, or hidden letters.

A favorite of my die-cast vehicles, a US Mail Jeep. Did you know that in addition to the vans and trucks that are part of your streets and highways, the USPS fleet across the U.S. includes bikes, boats, planes, helicopters, and mules? I’m not one of the people who hates on the post office. =)

A found letter is important to the plot of The Love Letter (1998), one of the RomCom rewatches I’ve enjoyed. Another quiet film set in a charming, small town (with a bookstore!), I don’t know many people who’ve seen this movie. A typed letter, without the names of its composer or recipient on it, finds its way into the hands of several people in town. Each thinks the letter was meant for him or her (and one person rewrites it and offers it to a loved one as if he were its original author). By the end, we learn the identity of the writer, and there’s a lot of hopefully-ever-after among the characters.

Do you have any favorite movies or books that use letters as part of the writing or part of the plot?

Additional rewatches so far:

1993 and 2003

Sunday Sundries

August 11 is the anniversary of the birthdate of someone I watched many movies with: Craig, good and funny memories with him, Lynne, and Tom. I couldn’t count the number of times Lynne would suddenly say, “Oh, yeah, I remember this movie now; I have seen it before.”

Craig in his movie-watching, napping, gift-opening chair.


We were watching those movies on such small TVs in those days! Jess and Greta with the TV/VCR tucked in the corner.

It’s also the anniversary of Marika’s birthday, someone with whom I agreed on very few movies. I never saw any with her, but the one she sent a DVD of so Tom, Tim, and I could watch it with Mark G Harris and Nurse Lisa while they were visiting was a complete bomb with the rest of us. Marika was disappointed, but even if we didn’t like the movie, we had fun. And popcorn.

As I shared yesterday, going forward this will be my RomCom Summer. I’ve had a couple of conversations recently about romantic comedies, and yesterday I jotted down a quick list of modern-era movies I’ve seen multiple times that can fall into the category, even if they have other elements like suspense, action, or drama.

After I made the list, I checked the shelves to see if I own the movies. That’s a sure sign that I either have watched or intended to watch them multiple times. There are more on the shelves missing from the group below, but as I said, these were the first titles I wrote down without a lot of thought, and I do indeed own all of the DVDs. They’re arranged alphabetically.

I’m eliminating Sliding Doors, Doc Hollywood, Desperately Seeking Susan, and The Truth About Cats and Dogs from the summer watch list since I’ve seen all of them within the last one to three years. I own others not shown here farther back in the queue if I run out of movies to watch (doubtful). I’ve seen those four so many times and they click the right boxes for me: couple chemistry, quirkiness and/or humor, good writing, the endings I hoped for, and settings I enjoyed.

Crossing Delancey is a quiet, warmhearted movie with a woman learning to trust herself, a pompous author (bring it on!), and a humble but not humbled possible love interest. It’s been a long time, so definitely a good opportunity for a rewatch. Layered characters are always a plus for me. I remember it as feeling like “smart” writing.

Foul Play is one of those movies that makes me laugh a lot. The love story is not as key as the comedy and suspense, but even in her more problematic movies (Overboard), Goldie Hawn never misses with me. Writing is not the first thing that comes to mind with this one–it’s the slapstick. Will watch again this season.

Love Actually: I regret that so many people dislike this movie. It’s not a simple romantic comedy, and it holds a lot of heartbreak, but I like its big cast, multiple plot lines, and the love stories, regardless of how improbable, sad, or silly some of them may be. One of my favorite things is the battle that repeats over this movie (“It’s not a feel-good holiday movie!”) and Die Hard (“It’s not a Christmas movie!”) every December on social media. The ultimate triumph is the first person who said, (paraphrased) If you hate how Alan Rickman’s character behaves toward his wife in Love Actually, you can celebrate the fate of another character he plays in Die Hard! True enough. I’m happy to rewatch Love Actually and I think I’ve seen Die Hard in its entirety once, possibly twice. (Also, I usually enjoy movies that have any kind of writer in them just to see how they’re written–it’s all very meta.)

Vying for the top spot in my personal RomCom category are Moonstruck and Notting Hill. FAMILY is key to both of them: the families we’re born into (Moonstruck) and the families we create (Notting Hill). Nothing about either movie misses with me; I love them both unconditionally, and not only are their leads shiny, but the supporting casts are full of gems. Will always rewatch both films. I think Notting Hill is one of two on this list that have bookstores in them. Always like a movie with a bookstore.

Kudos to Julia Roberts for making it on here twice thanks to Notting Hill and My Best Friend’s Wedding. Of course, she has many more romantic comedies, and I’ve probably seen them all, but My Best Friend’s Wedding made this list before the others because it offers more to me about the value of friendship than romance thanks to both of the men in her character’s life. Cameron Diaz shines in her role. Will definitely be part of my summer rewatches.

Sleepless In Seattle is a movie lover’s film: its writing, its homage to other movies, its directing, casting, and music. I think that’s why it edged out the other Meg Ryan possibilities that I know are on my shelf (You’ve Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally). I really, really want these two characters to get together. I’ll have to watch it again to make sure they do. =)

Saved Only You last for this discussion, though it’ll be the first I watch. I’ve seen it the fewest times and remember its details the least (and I often mix it up with a different romantic comedy). Still, as I wrote those titles down yesterday, this one insisted on making the cut, and I know there has to be a reason for that (is it Marisa Tomei’s charm? The way I always pull for Robert Downey Jr. to thrive?). I’ll probably do an ETA after I’ve watched it later today.

The promised ETA: Only You: completely worth the rewatch. This movie is 30 years old. How’s that possible? Favorite things I’d forgotten: Contrasting scenes at the airports at the beginning of the movie and the end in the way American and Italian airport workers responded to, “The man I love is on that plane!” Also, the Italian location shots: Posto molto bello! When I was putting the DVD back on the shelf, I pulled out another not on the list in this post.

Do you have favorite romantic comedies? I wonder if I own them.