This was the blog of an Eloise wannabe and her 2 roustabout kitties as they work on a book deal in the City of Lights, giggling all the way. Now it's the blog of an Eloise wannabe planning her next escape (California, Canadia?) with 2 other kitties--still working, still giggling.
Pumpkin & Kody, 1992 ~ 2010
(Buckle up, folks, this is a long and winding road.)
So, it occurred to me this morning as I was taking the bus to Starbucks that I'm not surprised by what I see anymore. Of course, I still love looking--the architecture here is stunning and you never know what might you might see in the thousand and one little stores I pass every day--but now it doesn't feel foreign. I'm used to seeing the yellow La Poste vans instead of the red and white Australia Post ones. I expect to see posters written in a combination of French and English. I'm no longer surprised by the glow of the Opéra Garnier in the morning, or the unholy mess that is the trip past the Arc de Triomphe.
It felt like a cog had slipped into place, another one, and had me thinking that maybe I'm where I need to be. I'm one of those typical "ohmygod, I love Paris, I'm going to move there...wait...who knew it was going to be so tough, why can't you behave like they do in Australia, ohmygod where's the escape hatch I just hate you all!" cases. Pathetic, perhaps, but true. And then I started moaning that here I was, all moved over to France (except for all the stuff in my mum's garage and half my brother's apartment) and I get sick and I can't run around like I used to and where the hell's the justice in that? Then I hand my insurance card to my dentist and don't pay a penny and a few days later I get a refund of 72E on an 80E surgeon's fee and I think "Hang on...what if this was meant to happen here?" Because even in Australia, even paying the amount of tax I did, I would have paid much more for private healthcare.
So who knows, maybe I'm one of those "love Paris - moving there - hate it - wait a minute, stick it out a little longer - 20 years later...." types. Alls I know is they made me smile today. Okay, maybe not the guy who was hawking huge goobers while I was waiting for the bus this morning (what the hell is what that here? Not to mention the people who flick their cigarettes away when they're done, not checking to see if just maybe there's someone behind them?), but definitely the Starbucks barista who now has a good chat every morning, my ex-physiotherapist who I keep running into on the bus in the mornings, who insisted I call her after speaking with the surgeon so she can make sure I'm in a good clinique, the 4-year-old on the bus this afternoon who was talking about Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal. 4 years old! Okay, so she probably didn't know what she was really talking about, but she knew who they were. I wasn't aware of politics until I was 10 or 11. Even my downstairs neighbor who can be a bit of a pain, offering to carry my groceries from the bus stop, and another downstairs neighbor, a man in his 70s, laughing when I told him he was faster than me.
If you think most of my life is conducted on buses these days, well, you'd be right. It's funny. People on the métro are usually more closed off, but there seems to be something about buses that gets people talking, maybe you feel more connected to life. Especially the Montmartrobus. No one takes the Montmartrobus except for the tourists and us hill-dwellers. And everyone up here has an opinion about what everyone on the bus and the people on the street are doing. Because living in Montmartre is like living in a village, people and dogs wander through the streets to their next adventure, forgetting that they're actually part of a metropolis that needs to keep functioning. I don't know how the busdrivers and garbos and delivery men do it.
(Speaking of buses, I got my workmate a good one on the 32 yesterday. We were talking about movies and I said I wanted to see Pirates 3 and she said "Oh, yes, with Deep."
"No, Depp."
"Deep."
"No! What's the matter with you people? Whay do you always change names? It's DEPP."
"What's the matter with YOU people? You say deep, for that food you have with chips."
"What? That's because it's a dip! What are you talking about?"
"Johnny Deep. D-E-E-P. DEEP!"
"No, it's D-E-P-P. DEPP!"
Quietly: "Oh. I thought it was spelled D-E-E-P. But you know, dep is verlan (slang) for ped, which is gay."
"JOHNNY DEPP IS NOT GAY!!! STOP SAYING JOHNNY DEPP IS GAY!!!"
She went so red. :-) )
So there you have it, one revelation on the bus this morning and another this evening. I was thinking about my conversation this morning with Renée, during which I'd told her how I'd met the oh-so-luscious Jamie Durie when he was about 17. I was thinking considering blabbing all about that here and then I had a moment of...not self-doubt, but you know when you think "Maybe I've told one story too many." And then I had a total Dude/Big Lebowski moment. On one of the writer's lists I belong to, they were talking about your writer code, which I thought was a total wankfest, which is always what I think when I don't have an answer for something. As in, "Holy shit, I don't HAVE a writer's code, I'm a fraud, a fake, I'll never make it! No, no, wait, they don't know what they're talking about. It's THEM!"
Ok, so my Dude moment: how something so simple can seem so profound and spin right back round to wanky. It just popped into my head "Tell your stories." And I know that's my code. Not the act of telling your story by physically writing it, but by letting people know within that what my actual story is: what I believe in, what turns me on, what I stand for and against. Your story is yours and yours alone, because no one else is going to look at the world the way you do and no one else can tell your stories and no one should try to tell anyone's story but their own, because each time someone tells a different story than what's really them, the world loses another voice.
Am I making sense here? I've been thinking a lot about some of the stuff that's going on around the romancesphere this week, and how people should be free to write what they want and no one should take you to task on it. Honestly, there are a lot of books out there that I didn't like, that I'm just not interested in reading. But that just means I'm not their target audience, which is why I refuse to diss books here and on Amazon. Okay, except for some stupid book on Apple Computers that had the phrase "hemorraghing money" scattered about 20 times throughout, which completely got up my nose. Apart from that, no. I also respect a reviewer's right to say what they want to, but I've seen some horrible attacks that I think float around out there adding to the negativity and who needs that, right?
Anyway, what really got me going today was reading this. Now, personally, I think it's kinda funny that women are writing male-on-male erotica. Funny in a curious way ("Really? That's what floats your boat? Knock 'em dead"), not nasty. Some of them are great reads, I know because I've read some, but not the thing I want to write. (Right now. Who knows?) Certainly doesn't threaten me, like it seemed to some of the guys at the Hyatt. Honestly, the poster does nothing for me. I've seen Jamie Durie just about buck-naked (yeah, yeah, I'll get to that story!) and I was waaaaaaaay more turned on by George Clooney striding to the podium as he got ready to unleash holy hell on the media after Princess Diana died. That's not to say that I think the poster--or Jamie Durie buck-naked--is wrong or disgusting or immoral. I dunno, I guess I just find them...well, no, not teenager-ish, just "Yeah, okay, what else you got?" I get more out of the back cover of the Elvis That's The Way It Is CD, which is a very simple shot just of his hands crossed behind his back, holding a mike. Seriously. That shot makes me squirm. Kinda like the moment in The Horse Whisperer when you see Robert Redford's hand on the small of Kirsten Scott Thomas's back and you think "Holy fuck, this is it, this is the love scene!" Just that one shot. Perfect. Sometimes less really is more.
But my point is (yes! I really do have one!) that I'm happy to see the broad range of subgenres in romance. 10 years ago, a friend and I were lamenting that you couldn't do this in romance, you couldn't do that, because everyone was saying "No romance heroine blah blah fucking blah." Well, romance heroines now do, I'm thrilled to say. I'm not simply talking the level of sensuality but a past that might seem unsavory to some but that no longer has to be watered down or prettied up. These are not my gran's Mills and Boon, but if my gran still wants to read M&B then there are plenty of books out for her--as well as everyone else. And who the hell does this guy think he is, taking down the author's promo articles and then not having the guts to look her in the face? Yeah, ass-whoopin' time in Houston, I'm thinking. Elvis and Ali can give it to him. Okay, maybe Ali.
And this leads me around to a post of Amra's, about what kind of writer I am. I looooove to read mysteries, especially those with strong female protagonists. I probably definitely read more mysteries and non-fiction and quirky fiction than I do romance. Yet every idea that ever pops into my head is a romance or a love story of some kind, even if it comes in the guise of women's fiction. One man-one woman romance, that's what I really love to explore--the way people can fuck things up without any help from third parties or serial killers or plots to blow up the free world. They're kinda quiet books on some levels, subversive in other ways. The hero will not be alpha. He'll be strong and his own person,
sometimes a pain in the ass if necessary, but no ex-Navy SEAL and no "Do as I say" types--unless he's ready for an ass-whoopin', too. Who
knows, maybe I'll do a disgraced former cop one day, a lone wolf type.
I've come to expect certain hallmarks: there always seems to be a death in the past that somehow sets things in motion (which comes from my obsession with how death is the great equalizer and you'd better get things sorted out now); just about always the characters will deal with the best way to care for kids, biologically theirs or not; the sensuality level will not be steaming from the first page--more loaded looks than bare chests--but they'll be good to go when they need to, and they won't be shy or coy about it; there will be mistakes made and forgiven; there will always be a search for community, belonging, and some form of escape from the corporate world. There will be laughter, laughter through tears, lots of pop culture references, the odd mention or 2 of Robert Redford, way too many margaritas consumed, and no doubt some character demanding "What the fuck??" Wherever they live, there will always be music, loud music--yes, Elvis, if need be (the sacrifices I make)--and the partaking of delicious food on a regular basis. There will hopefully be compassion and drama without self-indulgence or oversentimentality or melodrama. They will more than likely be set in California--until I leave Paris and can once again write about it with objectivity.
And that's what makes them my stories.
Thank you, and good night.
