Addendum: Double Dog Dare Accepted

It must have been the double-dog-dare: Susan zapped me a picture of her office. I'd just like to point out that I didn't have fast food styrofoam anywhere in my office. Mostly because the fast food places I frequent are too cheap to use styrofoam. What's wrong with a plan old paper bag, Miss I'm-Too-High-Falutin'-For-A-Cardboard-Box? And she's kept her poinsettia alive past Christmas, which clearly means she's made a deal with the devil.

Susan writes:
"Okay, Missy, here's my office as of this very minute. Thank God you didn't challenge me to take a picture of myself because the office looks a heck of a lot better than I do. I am cringing, however, at the fast food container on my desk, but I just had my very nutritious lunch of leftover salad with no dressing. (As long as I'm making you mad...) In total fairness, I cleaned up my desk 2 days ago, but even at it's worst it never looked like--- Never mind. My headache is coming back."



"Here's the thing. Your godawful mess of an office looks like the inside of my head ALL THE TIME, which is why I have to keep my workspace reasonably organzied. Otherwise, it would all just be too painful. That mess you work in is a credit to your amazing brainpower."

See, THIS is why she's my pal, even when wearing an electric bubble shirt and lying to Rod Stewart about me. Of course, then she ruins it by adding:

"By the way, I love your new cover for DON'T LOOK DOWN. Still angry that you only gave me that first amazing chapter to read. So unfair to keep me dangling like this, but then that cruel streak of yours does have its way of sticking it's head up, now doesn't it?"

Sigh. So of course I'm sending her an ARC. How can I not?

So Here's My Plan . . .

I made a lot of New Year's resolutions last year and I can't remember any of them which is good because it cuts down on the stress. But this year, I'm getting SERIOUS about this stuff. So I'm going to make a public record, thereby opening myself to ridicule and pity if I don't follow through. So here goes:

In 2006, I will finish at least one novel and one novella. No, really.

In 2006, I will lose twenty pounds. I'll still be overweight, but twenty pounds is doable. And I'll be healthier.

In 2006, I will get my office cleaned. This is my office:

And this is my desk:

I'm showing these pictures to shame myself into getting this done. Then I can post the pictures of the nice clean offic. A goal. So I'll do it today. Well, I'll start it today. I have to write in there (see Resolution One).

In 2006, I will be a kinder, gentler person, even while on the road.

In 2006, I will stop trying to do everything at once. Patience, grasshopper.

Five things. That's plenty. Especially since I just survived the December from Hell, so while I am sure there's nothing but good times ahead, I'm not going to shoot too high for 2006. Survival, that's my overall resolution.

And in January, I will . . .

Start my 2006 Journal. I've started at least two dozen journals in my life and I always end up wandering off, but this year, I'm keeping one so I can write down all the stuff I delete from this blog because it would get me in trouble. I didn't put it in the year resolutions because any more than five resolutions is masochism, but goes here. Just try it for a month, Crusie. Nobody will ever read it, so you can just jot things down. No stress.

Start the Dueling Blog for the Don't Look Down Tour, which is now called He Wrote She Wrote. We actually started it this morning, so that's one off the list.

Work on Agnes and the Hitman. Today, I'm going to concentrate on one of the supporting characters, Baby Dupres, and try to write a couple of her POV scenes, rough drafts. She's only going to get about 10% of the book, if that, so if I can get her down on paper, Bob can write her into his scenes. And so can I. I don't really know who a character is until I see what I write. So today, in the time not spent cleaning the office, I will find the keyboard to my big computer and write some Baby. To let you know how bad this is, I still don't know if she's a Southern belle or a mob wife. At the moment she's a Southern belle mob wife, but I'm not sure I can pull that off.

Work on Mare, the novella heroine, because I am heading to New York in ten days to meet with the other two authors of the anthology. More about that later because that one deserves a whole post, especially since I'm going to be doing the twelve days of Mare here shortly. Only not two thousand words a day. Especially since I'm writing Agnes. Okay, that grasshopper resolution needs some work.

Lose five pounds. This will involve exercise which is difficult because I can't write while I'm on the treadclimber. I've tried it, it doesn't work, I almost killed myself when I stopped to stare into space, trying to think of the right word.

And somewhere in there, I should get the proposal for Charlotte done, but I'll be damned if I see where.

So there, I'm on the record, now I have to follow through. Probably. I'm starting after I make pork and sauerkraut for lunch because it's good karma for Germans. I have no idea why, but thanks to my mother, I've been eating pork and sauerkraut on Jan. 1 for 56 years, and things have worked out pretty well, so I see no reason to stop now.

Here's hoping your resolutions are good ones (eat more chocolate, get a puppy, say something nice to yourself in the mirror every day), and your 2006 is terrific.

Happy New Year!

Just Like Cheerios

You know, the business part of writing never fails to amaze me. There's so much to it, even if you're not insane about it the way I am. My latest insanity, which I have thoughtfully inflicted on Bob, is branding the collaboration so we can sell it just like General Mills sells Cherrios. Or whoever it is that sells Cherrios.

Branding is the new buzzword in publishing. (Well, not that new. I'm never cutting edge.) The idea is to sell an author as someone who produces a certain kind of book, a product if you will. I kind of hate it because it does hem a writer in, but for the collaboration, I think it's necessary. We're trying to sell an idea here, the idea that a book with a man writing all the male points of view and a female writing all the female points of view, each writer coming from a distinctly different tradition, is fun and classy and well worth $24.95 or whatever the sucker is going to sell for. Plus Bob and I really like to teach and we want to do a five-day writing workshop in the spring, so we needed a look to market that, too. And then there's the collab website which will also need a graphic. Basically, what we needed was a logo that summed up the partnership in a clean, not-too-detailed image that we could use anywhere, in one or two colors, and that would work large or small. Not an easy design project.

So we called on the brilliant Mara Lubelle, and said, "He's a little bit violent military thriller, she's a little bit hot romantic comedy, together they solve crime," and Mara came up with four logos. And they were all good, but we're only using one, so this is the only chance to see all of them.

The first one was good, but it didn't capture the off-the-wall quality of the collboration. Nice type face, though:

The second one was better--I particularly like that bullet--but it seemed too busy and it was a little too detailed to reduce down well:

The third one I really liked and so did Bob: very clean and simple. But it was a little more violent than I was comfortable with: after all that's me in the crosshairs, or at least that's my symbol:

Which brings us to the last one, which we both liked because it made us both laugh and because it really does sum up our partnership:

No, you don't get to vote, the last one is it. But isn't it great?

Thank you, Mara Lubelle, genius logo designer.