Adrienne Maria Vrettos

I'm only half-way through, so I'm holding out hope that the book will eventually pay some attention to the second sex.  And perhaps more than an off-hand mention of the fact that there were slaves living on the island. 

Oh, the reason I started the book in the first place is because my next book takes place here, in New York City.  It has nothing to do with the city's founding but writing it is a great excuse to dork out and read non-fiction (and then complain about it and hope the author doesn't read my blog and send me an all-caps email)

Happy fall, all!

xoxo
AMV

I came home the other day to a very excited toddler declaring, “Box! Box! You open the box?”

It wasn’t quite a box, but it was a great big padded envelope from my publisher. We opened it on my bed, and found three real, live books! Well, almost. They are ARCs, which are in the almost-a-real-live-book-but-not-quite category.

This book was so hard for me to write – being a new mom, being back at work, trying to manage everything – and to see it in print, in its almost final form makes me so, so happy.
 

One copy went to my husband who now how to suffer through me staring at him while he reads, trying to discern if he just coughed or laughed. And if he coughed, was it a how am I going to break it to her that this book sucks monkey butt? Was something caught in his throat? Should I slap him on the back, shout Arms Up! or just let him keep reading? And if he laughed, was it a pity laugh? Or a real laugh? As you can see, I am well on my way to driving myself bonkers, a full seven months before the book comes out.

I wrapped one copy in the protective arms of an Old Navy bag and stuck it in my purse so I can send it up to my mom and dad. They can even pass it on to my grandmother – there are only like four swear words, and NONE of them rhyme with duck! There are few that rhyme with pit, kick, and sam though. But no one dies in this book, which may sound like an odd thing to brag about, but my first two books had a body count and I got really tired of killing people. 

And the third copy sits on my bureau. I pick it up and look at it a lot, just to make sure it’s still really real.

Oh, April 6^th, 2010, why are you so far away? 

Xoxo

AMV

Noooooooo!  Not Patrick Swayze! 

Yes, I know.  At this point most people deny the fact that Patrick Swayze was on their Who I Want to Make Out With list, but not me.  Of course, my crushes from the 1980's bordered on Beatlemania-meets-The Crucible-level longing.  There is a reason I still can't watch Stand By Me, and my dream job is still be a Production Assistant on the set of the Outsiders in 1983 (Here, Rob Lowe, let me make you sandwich.  What, C. Thomas Howell, you want to run lines with me?  Let's work on "Nothing gold can stay" again, though I think the scene needs some kissing.  Matt Dillon!  Ralph Machio!  Tom Cruise!  And of course, Patrick Swayze)

Remember Patrick Swayze in Red Dawn with that leather jacket and a sweatshirt underneath?  No?  Then get ye to Netflix!  



And Jennifer Grey was in Red Dawn, too, forever kept apart from Patrick Swayze by a selfless act of self-sacrifice.  But then they were reunited!  In Dirty Dancing.  Oh lord, don't even get me started.  I might embarrass myself more than I already have with the C. Thomas Howell dream sequence above.

And then of course there was Road House.  Unbelievably violent.  High-rise jeans.  Feathered hair.  And morning Tai Chi on the farm.

I am sincerely sad at his passing.  And I will be celebrating his life and torturing my husband (sweet retribution for college football season) by watching Dirty Dancing and reciting the whole movie while squealing, "Wait, you have to see this part!"

xoxo
AMV

I'm going over 1st pass changes to GIGI LANE, and I keep yelling out things like "Oh dear God!  She's not driving!  Why is she gripping the steering wheel??"  Then, in my exhausted state,  I debate just adding text to make it so Gigi and her best friend are in a driver's ed car with two steering wheels, and then I start thinking about my own driver's ed teacher who had only half a tongue, making the words "Stop" and "Go" sound exactly the same (I'm not making this up).  Also, my high school typing teacher only had nine fingers.  He wore a rubber prosthetic when demonstrating.  There is a theme here.  Will save for old-lady memoir.

1st pass changes stress me OUT.  I have this fear that the book will make into the world with some sort of glaring error, a character with a shaved head wearing pig tails, a character motioning with a fork after they've thrown it across the room, an Uncle who's been dead for seven years showing up to dinner in a book that's not about zombies.

It keeps me up at night. 

Though tonight even a visit from a dead zombie uncle couldn't keep me awake.  Between impromptu 4AM playdates and working on this first pass, I am completely obliterated.

Must sleeeeeep!

xoxo
AMV

I’m so determined to hold on to my feelings of loosey-goosey vacation relaxation, not even an unscheduled two-hour stop at the Allentown, PA airport due to heavy rain at LGA can get me down!! We got home at eleven last night, fed the hyperactive little one and put her to bed, ordered Mexican food and caught up on Mad Men. 

Here is what I'd look like on Mad Men.  At a picnic.  Does this Avatar make my butt look big?

We spent the week at the beach in North Carolina, where the water is so warm I wonder how I ever could have swam off the coast on Massachusetts without turning into a popsicle. I remember being a kid our trips to the beach were like this, weather wise:

But swimming in North Carolina is more like this:

 [I ask you to imagine a picture of a bathtub filled with hot water and bubbles, because my google image search for Calgon Take Me Away came up with images that were not, err, work appropriate]

It was truly a ‘family’ vacation, with not only my parents, but my in-law’s, an aunt, an uncle, three cousins and a girlfriend --- and anyone with a little one knows what this means: free babysitting! We took advantage a few times, to see District 9 (an alien movie that made me cry) and the new Harry Potter, which left me wondering if I had a heart of stone because that one scene [you know the one, but in case you don’t, I’m not writing it here to avoid being a spoiler-face] didn’t make me cry like it did in the book. Do you think that maybe they toned down the cry-factor because of the young audience? 

And then there was the food. 

I won’t bore you (and by that I mean inflame your jealousy/horror) with the details, but I will say there was a deep fried and glazed croissant involved, along with daily BLT’s (minus the lettuce), and hush puppies with honey butter. Add to that lots of diet coke with fresh lime, and you’ve got one happy writer mama.

 Speaking of writing, I didn’t do a lick of it while away*. What I did do a lot of, was read. And what I read is the BEST SERIES EVER WRITTEN (for Massachusetts natives on vacation):

I’ve written about my Spenser love before, and I have to say picking up a paperback from the book basket at the beach house is like finding a long, lost love. One who makes 80’s references I don’t understand, wears track suits and leather jackets (extra large, to cover his big gun[s]), is a gourmet cook and is irresistible to the opposite sex. 

Oh, Spenser, please wait for me. Same time next year. I’ll wear the jacket with shoulder pads and blue eye shadow you like so much.

And now I’m back at work, eating a turkey wrap at my desk and catching up on emails. I love my job, I really do, but even a job I love doesn’t compare to beach bikes and tide-pool jumping. 

*I wrote most of my first three books while on vacation, and was in dire need of a for-real, see the light of day, vacation

Swimming and napping and biking and eating and finding seashells. Mmmm summer.

 At the beginning of this year there was a ton of press about a memoir called Live Through This, written by a mom whose two oldest teenage daughters, Amanda and Stephanie, ran away from their home in Eugene Oregon, and spent two years on the streets.
 

I heard a radio interview with the mom and both girls, and ever since then I keep wishing that Amanda and Stephanie would write their own memoir, their version of what happened.  Why they left, where they went, why they came back.  How it felt to have their mom write the book, and to have their lives turned out for discussion.  I want to know the scary parts, and the parts they are proud of, I want to know if they found laughter, and how that dealt with the horrible things they saw.  And how it felt to have one sister return home first.

I want to know their side of it, because it's their story too.  

It makes me think that memoir Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff.  At the same time as that book was published, David's son, Nic Sheff published his own memoir, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines.  I wonder what it was like for them to read each other's books.  The parts they recognized, they things they didn't know, the things that made them angry, or paralyzed them, or gave them joy.  It's a sort of walk a mile in my shoes thing, isn't it, to read someone's memoir when you have a major part?  It seems like it could be healing, or infuriating, to see in print events remembered and filtered through someone else's point of view.

Maybe that's how dueling memoirs like Tori and Candy Spelling's happen.  But since most people aren't lucky enough to have a publishing contract that will get their version of things out into the world, what happens when you are featured in someone's memoir and remember things differently?  I mean, memoirs are supposed to be the writer's own truth, right?  So even if you remember it differently, it doesn't matter.  Feelings are true, you can't tell someone that how they felt about a situation isn't the way they really felt.  But when feelings and facts collide, it makes things harder.  Was a backyard a compact paradise or a tiny patch of dirt?  Did you go hungry, or did mom just forget to go grocery shopping?

Would you write a memoir?  Would you write it now, or wait until later?  Would you talk to other people in your life about that things that happened, to get their version, or just go ahead and write it as you remember it?

Just wondering.

xoxo
AMV

I know, I know, most people started their summer back when summer actually started.  But since I spent the first half of summer finishing a first draft of the NYC Mystery and the final draft of GIGI LANE, my summer didn't really start until 1:35PM yesterday when I dropped the manuscript off at the mailroom at Simon & Schuster.  

I've  been in New York ten years, and there are still moments that it feels like I step outside of myself and think -- ohmygod I actually LIVE here!  And I'm taking the subway up to my publisher to drop off a manuscript and it's just the best lunchtime road trip ever. 

So I'm kicking off summer with lunch from my dear friend and very amazing photographer Stacy.  She's working on a project that deserves a whole other blog post, so once she gives me the okay to gush about her work, I will.

In the meantime...
There is nothing better than a stoop in summer time!  Especially if that stoop is in Brooklyn, and especially if it's the late afternoon when things start to cool down and your neighbors stop by with their cute dogs and cuter babies.  Saturday evening was a super special stoop because the manager of our favorite local indie bookstore, Word, stopped to chat about books and then joined us for a walk to visit the goldfish pond at the end of the block. 

And then on Sunday we went to my favorite new place in Brooklyn - Rooftop Farms.  It's an organic farm ontop of a warehouse, and they have the most beautiful produce you've ever seen (if you, like me, find produce pretty). 



I love Brooklyn, but my most common complaint is that I feel disconnected from nature and food here.  Everything is trucked in, and even if it was picked that morning, there's still a disconnect.

But on Sunday...I stood there giddy and gaping as farmer Annie cut us three of the most beautiful tomatoes (I  told you, I have a thing for produce :) you've ever seen straight from the vine. 

These vines, to be exact...

And here is Ben, the other farmer who started Rooftop Farms, weighing our tomatoes