A week without a blog post is like apple pie without cheese…

…or something like that.

I’m still waiting on approval to show off my cover art. It’s a-coming.

I’ve been struggling like a fish on a hook this week. Okay, enough lousy metaphors. I’m trying to get into the writing of REIGN CHECK and it’s been difficult. I wrote the first chapter already to go in the back of the first YA and that went fairly well, but now in chapter two…struggle, struggle. But the thing is, I always forget that I always struggle at the beginning of a new book. So I’m thinking, without remembering that I always struggle, what is wrong with me? I even made a promise to my Write-On group that I was going to be all fast-draft girl and do 20 pages a day. But that just petrified me even further. I cleaned my condo. I organized my bookshelf. I (almost) sorted through my tax info. That’s procrastination people! And that means one thing…something’s wrong.

And today I figured it out. Even though I have a synopsis for this book, I don’t have a scene by scene bullet point list. I need my scene by scene bullet point list!!! My synopsis is more of a vague overview of the action, not the action itself! I forgot that I am a plotter, not a pantser!!!

So, hooray. At least I know what’s wrong. I can fix this. This book is going to be hella fun to write as soon as I can get into it. Yes, I said hella.

The muse also landed today and gave me a new idea for another Harlequin Blaze. Not sure I have enough time at the moment to pursue this nugget of yum, but we’ll see. As always, the new idea is super shiny and distracting. Begone new idea!! BEGONE! (come back later)

Today I took a brain break and went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic. I’d just read the book last week for the first time…and I have to say…the book was much, much, MUCH better. I’m normally fairly satisfied with book to film interpretations (ie: Twilight and the Harry Potter movies) but IMHO this movie completely missed the point and the heart of the book.

***SPOILERS AHOY***

–the movie made the debt collector the bad guy! In the book he is simply an inconvenience, but ultimately, a helpful and non-evil person. The whole point of the book (I think) is that Rebecca is her own worst enemy. We don’t need to give that job to a two dimensional jerk

–the entire subplot of the investment company conning its clients out of their windfalls…that Rebecca writes the exposé on which both 1) gives her shallow life a purpose, and 2) ultimately leads to better earning. This was completely left out of the movie! How does she get her debt under control in the movie? She sells all of her stuff — earning enough to pay off her bills! I’m sorry, but that sale looked like about $2 million worth of product. So is she $2 million in debt? Nope. Just didn’t make sense to me. It felt unorganic to the character.

–Suze married Tarquin. Isn’t he supposed to be her cousin, or am I forgetting something? Couldn’t they have simply changed his unusual name (since he was completely different in the movie than the book) to take away the gross factor this caused?

–Luke’s “girlfriend” issue, which I thought was one of the funniest things in the book (when Becky found out she’d been shopping for another woman), and it’s simply brushed off.

–Also, Rebecca’s article that put her and Luke at odds on the morning talk show was one of the best, most tense, parts of the whole book!! GONE!!!!

Anyhow, I could go into more detail on why the movie didn’t work for me. Doesn’t matter. What did I like?

–Isla Fisher was perfect in the part, and would have been just as perfect had they decided to keep it in London, where it was supposed to be!!

–Hugh Dancy as Luke was fine with me, even though they’d changed his character a lot (editor for Successful Savings??) and forcibly shoved his character into way too many scenes in order to change this into a comedy romance. He’s no Hugh Jackman, but he’s not hard on the eyes.

–Also, LOVED the black and white coat Becky gave away to the homeless woman at the end. I want one. I do have some room on my Visa….but if my favorite part of a movie is a designer coat, that’s probably not a good thing.