My Girl 2

Last night I was reading a very dark book and needed something happy before I went to bed, so I got on Netflix to see if there was anything cheerful on Instant View (Netflix Instant View is one of the greatest inventions/services ever). I meant to watch The Sandlot, because I think everyone in the world has seen it but me. But I'd have to get that one in the mail, so I opted instead for My Girl 2.

Yeah, I know. Why would an intelligent young working woman want to see a movie like that? I saw My Girl the original back when I was twelve--we actually rented it for my sleep-over birthday party, and even though I was one of the only ones who hadn't already seen it, I was not the only one who cried when Thomas J died. But a recent blog post I read (Janeheiress) reminded me how much I liked some parts of that movie, and I looked up some reviews. It turns out that no-one ever expected the original film to do as well as it did. My guess is it had something to do with Macaulay Culkin's weird, very brief span of wild popularity among all sorts of folks. But customer reviews on amazon.com confirmed that the sequel is actually the preferred one, at least among die-hard fans. So why not watch it? I thought.

Anna Chlumsky definitely had charm, even though she couldn't cry realistically for the camera. She was just the right kind of cute, and Vada's voice-over narration had a nice blend of wise sarcasm and innocent sentimentality to make the story original enough. This was the sort of movie people could still get away with making back in 1994, before it was impossible to give any innocence and charm to a coming-of-age story.

If I were to watch it again, I would probably cringe at several things, including pretty much every line that came out of the mouth of her new little boy-friend. So even though it's not a keeper, I'm glad I saw it. And the music was good, too.

Ode to my Pilot G2

I saw you in the bookstore
in a crowded plastic bin.
You cost a dollar-sixty
for a puny little pen.
But you make bold, audacious lines
avoiding smudge and smear.
To find a pen to equal you,
I’d be looking for a year.
Quantity or quality—
that neverending question.
I could have bought a 10-pack
at my roommate’s kind suggestion.
But seeing you,
you spoke to me and really made me think,
What is the real significance
of plastic filled with ink?
Images rose before my eyes
of manuscript and note
more clear and neat than all
the other things I ever wrote.
I bought you, used you
you were great.
For weeks my notes were neat.
Yet what was that—a scratch?
It can’t be—
a scratch upon my sheet!
Your ink is lost, your cap is chewed.
You’ve lost your brand-new shine.
Now I must throw away what made
so bold and straight a line.

How to Publish a Book for the Teen Market

It's actually really simple and doesn't take much thought. And I'm sure you don't even need much of a grasp of the mechanics of written English--that's what copyeditors are for, right?

Step 1: Pretend you're really sassy. Getting a sassy haircut and some edgy pictures of yourself always helps. Then put them up on your blog (and your facebook page) and be sure to mention them every hour or so on your twitter account.

Step 2: Immerse yourself in pop culture. The best way to do this is watch a lot of t.v. But make sure you dream about it. Dreams make the best premises for books, because they always seem really brilliant while we're sleeping or groggy.

Step 3: Now it's time to plan your hero. The hero has to have breath-taking good looks and mysterious manners. It's also prerequisite that he has to be or be involved with something supernatural. Don't worry--you can take whatever cliche you want for the supernatural part. Vampires, Werewolves, Fallen Angels, Incubi, Fairies, Alchemists ... they're all up for grabs, and you don't even have to be original. If you want to push the edge just a little bit, reverse the role a little bit and make the hero the "boy next door" while the girl has supernatural powers. But if you do this, make sure that all the characters somehow recognize something special about him that never gets explained. See, if it's apparent to your readers that your lead characters actually are special or different or courageous or strong, they'll find them too intimidating to read about.

Step 4: On to the heroine. First of all, it is absolutely imperative that the heroine has to act really stupid while claiming to be smart. The dumber the better. If you're struggling to find dumb things for her to do, just put her in a bunch of dangerous situations and have her act helpless and/or co-dependent. She might say she's read a bunch of classic literature and has always been ahead in school, but if she actually acts like she has a brain, it proves that she doesn't. Those are the only qualifying characteristics. And you must be absolutely certain you don't give her any personality. It ruins the story. Oh yeah, give her lots of stupid questions to ask, that way the hero can be as evasive as he wants. This will increase her fascination with him, especially if he acts like a jerk about it.

Step 4: Okay, let's talk about conflict. It can't be a real problem; it has to be trumped up, because in the end you're just going to resolve it by pretending it didn't exist in the first place.

Step 5: The plot's not too important either, because as long as you give intimate descriptions of the main characters having multiple DTRs, nothing really needs to happen. People only like to read about sexual tension, so if you've done your hero right and he's the mysterious bad boy he should be, the heroine is going to have enough internal dialogue just drooling over him and his expressions and the way he moves his body and the way he tries so hard to protect her from her own stupidity. There's no room for a plot if you set it up properly. If you don't trust me and are really worried about this, just add in some random make-out scenes; setting them in the rain or by the ocean after a swim is a nice touch.

Step 6: Minor characters aren't all that hard. There has to be a girl who is insanely jealous of the heroine, for whatever reason. Plus, there has to be another guy who has the hots for the lead girl, because no-one would believe, given how stupid she's behaving, that the guy isn't stupid for liking her unless there was another guy who felt the same way. Two guys falling for one stupid girl proves that everyone in this situation is really smart. Plus, with another guy on the scene, it makes it easier and more plausible to have all those DTRs that replace the plot. Make sure that if you mention any parents ... well, it might be a good idea to conveniently do away with the parents by having them go out of town or by killing them off in the very beginning. If you can't do that in good conscience, just make them as stupid and clueless as the heroine--that makes sense, because the apple never falls far from the tree. If the hero has parents, which I would advise against, they have to be either mentally ill or sycophants. Siblings? Blood siblings will kill the story completely, so if you want siblings in the story, they have to be adopted. Friends must be the stupidest characters. They have to be unbelievably naive, and they have to get mad at the lead all the time, but they can't ever stay mad, because otherwise they wouldn't want to be involved in all the drama.

Step 7: Finally, it is extremely important to get the right cover art. Flowers, silky fabric, or fruit always works well, but don't go with any background color other than black, and make sure there's lots of red.

There you go. Publishers will love you. Bookstores will love you. And teenage girls will love you ... well, until someone makes a big-budget film of your book. Then they'll move on to something else. Don't take it personally. The new fad won't be any better than yours.

Are You Goin to Scarborough Faire?

I'm not, but that's because I already went! Far out. My weekend, so far, has been full of interesting experiences--some of which I would love to repeat, and some of which I'm heartily glad are over.

First of all, I drove down to Waxahachie, a happenin' little town south of DFW. What was happenin' about it? Well, definitely not food. They had about a Sonic, a Taco Casa, and a Subway. But to their credit, they have a really great community theatre. That's where we went Friday night, to see "Once Upon a Mattress," which had a rocky start, but as soon as the princess came on the scene, I knew it would be a winner. It was! Everyone knows I'm a sucker for fairytale retellings, and this one could go right at the top of my list for those of the comic variety. The songs were cute, the costumes fair to middling, the singing for the most part rather good, and the choreography was, while not stellar, not drawing any negative attention to itself. I might have wished for a less rickety bench, especially considering the price of admission, but you can't have everything. All in all, highly enjoyable. I would do it again.

However, the fun pretty much ended there. We drove to a motel to stay the night, and in spite of a GPS, got lost multiple times. When we finally found it, we entered the back way, and boy, was it a shady place to arrive at nearly 11:00 at night. The room smelt of cat litter and mildew, and when we asked the person at the desk if there was a different room available, he showed us one that smelt of cat litter, mildew, and cigarettes. Ew. We cranked up the air conditioning and opened the window (but not for long), and that seemed to help a little. Things would have been just fine, even with all the noise associated with being located right next to I35E, except for the random banging on our door, accompanied by angry voices, that occurred around 1:30 in the morning. Yikes! D and I were so scared we hardly slept the rest of the night.

It was fun in the morning to have no remorse about jumping on the beds, and we got some seriously chic photos of us flying through the air.

And on to the Faire. The Faire was good. We started by watching a parade, in which the participants ragged on the by-standers for their lack of enthusiasm. I was too busy thinking about the metalwork roses I had just seen in a shop. We then wandered around a little, saw a little too much skin with some people's costumes, and settled ourselves in a little theatre to watch the Knife-throwing show. I think the climax would have been good, but the build-up was a little tedious, and we left early so as not to miss the jousting show. I had been informed, on good authority, that one must not miss the jousting.

I can't say too much about it. I couldn't hear the announcer very well, so a lot of what was going on was confusing. It was good. Medieval Times was better, though.

Then we found the book booth! D and I, being hard-core about books, were delighted with this find. The books, of course, were ridiculously out of our price range, but nice to look at all the same. I really enjoyed playing around with quills and ink. It's surprisingly difficult to do pretty, curvy letters with a quill if you're not used to holding one. I did better with the glass pen.

We passed by all kinds of fun shops and booths. I wanted to try out a hammock, but there was no way I could ever afford one, so I didn't want to put myself forward. We looked at wind chimes, which I loved; I got some inappropriate attention from a pirate who wanted to commit me to come see his show later that day (no, thanks, dude, and stop making lewd noises and getting all up in my face). We saw an acrobatics show involving ladders and tables a very ugly baby doll, as well as lots of jokes (some of which were quite funny).

Then, oh, then! We happened upon the very tail end of the performance of a man who makes music with water glasses! It was so great that if I hadn't left my wallet in the car, I probably would have bought one of his CDs. It's just as well I didn't, because stuff like that doesn't ever seem to be as enjoyable at home as it is when you're sitting outside on a wooden bench on May Day.

We watched a glass-blowing demonstration. That took a while, but he made a vase from start to finish. I liked it a lot. Then we went to the 'Hey, Nunny, nunny" show--which was two "nuns" doing a stand-up comedy routine that involved a lot of crude humor. Didn't stay long at that one.

And then it was over, and we went outside and got Sir Edward to take a picture of us all jumping off a brick wall.

I probably won't go again any time soon, but that sure was fun. I wonder if I'll be sunburned tomorrow.