Go here for the rest. Oh, and here’s the trailer for Innerspace back in 1987 (yes, that’s Meg Ryan playing The Girl):

Also, Martin Short has no shame:

And finally, the poster:

(Because when you’ve got a young Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, and Martin Short in a movie, what you want to showcase on your poster is a BIG THUMB.)

And now back to my slacker-i-ness:

So not even close to my 10K goal but still some progress. In my defense, I revised a huge collage presentation for National, read my Rita books, researched diners, worked on the Lavender collage, did two month’s worth of laundry, watched Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, and spent Monday afternoon separating Lucy/Lani from some firefighters. No, really, she has pictures and she’s going to put them up Thursday, I believe.

The good news is that since I have to report them here, I did put on a burst of speed at the end of the week while trying to find tax documents that Mollie’s needed for weeks. So the whole Monday Ticker this is working. Sort of.

Onward and upward in that word count.

Addendum: That damn Lucy March is at just over 30,000 words, and she’s upstairs writing now. Perhaps if I try to catch up. Not that I’m competitive or anything but, you know, just as an incentive . . .

I’m not a big fan of post-modernism, but when meta is done right, I love it, and this movie gets it right. It begins with a narrator, which I hate in movies, with a blustering faux-noir voice, which I loved immediately. He’s Harry Lockhart, he’s a petty thief, he’s Robert Downey, Jr, and he’s in way over his head. Also, remarkably disorganized as a narrator:

Some things happen at the beginning of the film but in very short order, Harry’s at a Hollywood party where he meets Harmony Faith Lane, a girl that reminds him of his high school sweetheart, who turns out to be his high school sweetheart, and a successful detective, Perry Van Shrike, aka Gay Perry, aka Val Kilmer in his best performance since Real Genius. After that, people use very bad language a lot, there are many dead bodies, Perry calls Harry an idiot many times, Harry loses a finger, and Harmony takes off her clothes, all of it accompanied by a lot of very fast, very funny dialogue. Since Lani/Lucy and I are dialogue junkies, we were delighted. (The screenplay is at My PDF Scripts. Yes, I downloaded it, this stuff is good.)

So it’s a violent, meta, at times illogical and generally excellent buddy-absurdist-noir-mystery-comedy that we recommend highly. And it’s on AMC March 14 at 7:30 AM ET so you can record it for free and watch it at a decent hour with some Chinese. We had potstickers, sesame shrimp, and cashew chicken.

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer, five out of five, uh, potstickers from Jenny and Lani/Lucy.

Thank you, Rox, who got it from her husband, Michael, who also rocks.

And if you haven’t seen the amazing treadmill video, it’s here. I think they smash the television because they’d like to move past that one, but really, it’s one of the best music videos of all time, although I will say the new one is even better.

Have a good day, and if not, this too shall pass. Because this video says so, that’s why.

The link is here: http://us.macmillan.com/static/stmartinspress/exacttarget/wildride.html

Not as funny as Prop 8: The Musical, but worth it just to see Chevy Chase falling over stuff again as Gerald Ford.

Meanwhile, I’m writing Lavender. She’s still alive, so you know I haven’t gotten to the halfway point yet.

And in other news, I just sprained my ankle, so there’s either going to be a lot of I’m-stuck-on-the-chaise-so-I-think-I’ll-ramble posts or a long silence while Lani waits on me hand and foot. That Lucy March, she’s a keeper.

I’m sure this is going to work. Guilt has always been a strong motivator for me. ARGH.

So you can do a ticker like this one:

Or like this one:

Or like this one:

They have pages of different designs for bars and sliders, so you can pretty much pick your poison.

I’m going to try this. Say every Monday, I’ll put up the ticker. And then you can throw rocks. The Liz books are contracted for 50K, but I always go over so I’m putting 70K up there as a starting point. Hmmm, maybe 60K. I must cogitate. And then I must go back to the damn copy edits. Fabulous copy editor this time, though. Tomorrow, back to Liz. With counters!

Lani’s story is about Zel and Con:

Here’s Zel’s character page:

And Con’s character page:

And the Prince:

Now hie thee to the Lucy March blog where they’re posted with thumbnails so you can see them much larger and where she has posted the rough draft of her first scene here (scroll down to about halfway through the post).

I cannot wait to read this story.

Since there are four Liz books in the series, I wanted to make the four collages work as a series, too. I started with shadow boxes but they were way too small, so I went to square pieces of foam core, no shelf for 3D this time. I was planning on hanging them two up and two down to make a big square, but I may leave them as they are now, leading into one another horizontally, the way the books lead into one another. Except the books access each other, too, so the four square might be better, especially since the last one leads back to the first. So I’ll have to cogitate.

Making the base collage was fun because I was working with the four title colors from Lavender’s Blue, Rest in Pink, Peaches and Screams, and Yellow Brick Roadkill. Krissie and Lani and I hit the craft stores and a scrapbook store, and I have to tell you, finding papers that looked right for the four books really helped me conceptualize them. They were all so different, but they all nailed the feel of the book I wanted. Then we came home and I put the backgrounds together. The orange wasn’t orange enough and the yellow wasn’t yellow enough so I had to do some tweaking, but in the end, I got four backgrounds that felt like the books to me. There’s still too much green in the Yellow Brick Roadkill collage, but I can fix that later. (Click the thumbnails to see bigger pictures.)

The collage for Lavender’s Blue is almost finished, so it’s harder to see that background, but it’s all lavenders and purples with some silver glitter details that left me twinkling for days. (Lani laughed and laughed and said, “You have glitter all over you, you sparkle.” I said, “I’m a vampire, so let’s watch that tone, shall we?” Well, you had to be there.)

Rest in Pink takes place in June at a little girl’s beauty contest, so it’s mostly interior, too, with lots of sparkles and crowns.

Peaches and Screams takes place at the county fair, so it had to feel like August, mostly outside, with that last-days-before-school heat and dust.

Yellow Brick Roadkill is about a high school drama production of The Wiz, and it takes place in November, mostly inside, so there’s a lot of theater imagery along with the Wizard of Oz stuff. (For those of you who knew me when, the choice of The Wiz for the play came from the title; the fact that we once did sets and costumes for a real high school production of The Wiz is just gravy. And how are you guys doing these days? You’re all in your thirties now, which boggles my mind because that’s how old I was when I was yelling at you to get out of the damn rafters before you killed yourselves. Or hyperventilating because you’d just told me the light booth had caught fire but it was okay because you’d put it out. Or trying to figure out how to keep those trees moving, remember that? Good times.)

Where was I?

Oh, right, the collages. The big deal for me was seeing how they worked together as a composite, the colors overlapping on each other, yet also worked alone as complete collages, the way the individual books have to stand alone. Once I started bleeding images and colors among the collages, the feel of them changed and became more complex. Doing all the backgrounds helped me conceptualize the series, while doing each collage helps me conceptualize the individual books. The whole process was really valuable. Also fun. Did I mention fun?

And now I’m writing Lavender and I know exactly where I’m going because it’s on the collage. Life is so good. And I love Liz.

Isabel A. in Columbus, OH
Beth M. in Silver Spring, MD
Peter A. in Swarthmore, PA
Eve D. in Baltimore, MD

Congrats!

And Veronica pretending the camera isn’t there:

Veronica left the room shortly after that picture was taken and Lyle snagged the bed. Lyle loves having his picture taken:

The Lyle saw a squirrel on the deck and went for it, and Mona snagged the bed. This is Mona showing her spiritual side, possibly looking for Ceiling Cat:

Then Milton wandered in and posed, too:

And then Mona went to check out the squirrel situation and Milton grabbed the bed:

Just to be clear, there are other beds in the living room. They all wanted the one by the fire.

There, dog pictures. And tomorrow afternoon a real post. Nothing but good times ahead.

And congratulations to the winners!

Erin K. in Ashburn, VA
Lindsey A. in Toluca Lake, CA
Holly La P. in Victorville, CA
Alana P. in Vineland, NJ
Susan R. in Needham, MA
Sam S. in Saratoga Springs, NY
Andrea McC. in Randolph, NJ

Only 4 more early bound manuscript of Maybe This Time will be given away – check back here tomorrow (no later than 12:01 EST) for your chance to win these last few copies.

Gilly R. in Somerville, MA
Ashley A. in Washington, DC
Diann S. in Yorktown, VA
Shaina C. in Big Bend, WV
Nora C. in Bristol, NH
Karen B. in Arlington, VA
Lisa B. in Valparaiso, Indiana
Charlene H. in Omaha, NE
Tawna F. in Bend, OR
Adrienne A. in Lyons, IL
Rachel L. in Albuquerque, NM
Ami Q. in Cincinnati, OH
Brandy S. in Milwaukee, OR
Liz M. in Ottawa, Ontario

11 more books will be given away this week – check back here tomorrow (no later than 12:01 EST) for your chance to win.

In other news, I ate a Tootsie Roll pop last night. It was hard candy. I’m allowed to have hard candy.

Okay, I’m starting over today. Today, I will be GOOD.

And tomorrow the contest will be back up again. ARGH.

But we’ve got it fixed now! We hope. It wasn’t supposed to be a nightmare. I apologize to everybody. ARGH.

In other news, we (Lani and I) started The Diet today in order to become Healthy People. So there may be some crankiness for the next two weeks since that’s how long it’s going to be before I can have chocolate pudding. Or bread. I think I get to have french fries again in 2012. Also, did you know the directions on the sugar-free Jello package tell you to stir the stuff for two minutes? Who does that? It’s Jello, not bechamel sauce. Yes, that’s cranky. Sorry. I’m in chocolate withdrawal.

And really sorry about the site crashing and the frustration and the general miasma of malfunction. I’m sure tomorrow will be better.

Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS! Have some chocolate. Please.

Terri O. in Virginia Beach, VA
Shiloh W. in Colorado Springs, CO
Jennifer P. in Evanston, IL
Kathy S. in Iompoc, CA
Terri G. in Cincinnati, OH
Michelle M. in Shamrock, TX
Rebecca McD. in Zachary, LA
Julie S. in DeKalb, IL
Gina F. in Henrico, VA
and Martha Z. in Waynesboro, VA

Yep, that’s right, we’re giving copies to all ten entrants that signed up before the form expired (FYI, it was set to only take ten entries). After the whole site-crashing snafu, we couldn’t stand the thought of throwing out the last three alternate entries.

25 more books will be given away this week – more info will come from Jenny later on today or tonight (or as soon as we figure out the best way to give ‘em away).

So they have thirty-five ARCsbound manuscripts* of Maybe This Time to send out to readers. Two things to remember:

1. This is the pre-copy-edit version, so it’s going to change. Don’t freak over typos and glitches, we’re on it. Well, I’m on it, the copy edit arrived this week.

2. You do not have to like it. If you read it and don’t like it, say so. I doubt they’ll use your quote–”Trite and awkward, not Crusie’s best. Also, what’s with the ghosts?”–but we absolutely are not asking you to read it and give good quote regardless of your opinion.

So here’s how it’s gonna work:

We’re giving away ARCs (advanced reading copies) bound manuscripts** with plain paper covers to the first seven people in the US and Canada*** who register fill the out the freaking form on this blog every day this week. Mollie will put up a This form will magically appear at noon Eastern Time Feb. 22 through the 26th, shortly after which the first seven eligible entries will be determined.**** She SMP will be mailing out the ARCs, bound manuscripts so you’ll be dealing with her them which, believe me, is a good thing. You cannot register twice, although you can register again the next day if you haven’t won the day before. The winners will be listed on the updated blog entry with their first name and city as soon as Mollie gets to it, but she’s very efficient so I doubt the wait will be long. She will also be posting the contest info on Twitter, Facebook, the CherryForums, JennyCrusieFans on Yahoo, and our mailing list, I’m assuming because she doesn’t think thirty-five of you will be interested in reading it and reporting back by the beginning of March the end of March. So no pressure, Argh People. Feel free to ignore this. If we don’t get thirty-five people who want the ARCs, I’ll just go out to the road and start flagging down cars.

And we thank you for your support.

*Not an ARC. ARCs aren’t out for months yet.
** Really, not ARCs.
*** SMP’s request, not our decision
**** Mollie requested passive voice here. I think it’s plausible deniability personally.

Or as Mollie prefers:
“Every weekday this week (Feb. 22 through the 26th), we’re giving away seven early bound manuscripts with plain paper covers of my upcoming solo novel “Maybe This Time” to US and Canadian residents. An entry form will magically appear each day at noon EST and the first seven eligible entries received will win!”