Okay, now that we’ve got Maybe This Time on there for the homepage for the website, let’s talk about something else. Because at this point, we’ve pretty much beaten the book to death. (Spoiler space is still open two posts back for conversation.)

I just got off the phone with a reviewer who said she’d been talking to writers groups about books with too much dialogue, and they’d told her that they had to write lots of dialogue because editors want white space on the page. I said, “No, that’s not right.”

This began because it’s true that many readers will pick up a book and flip through it, and if there are big blocks of type on a page, they’ll put it back because they’ve been there before. Big blocks of type mean the writer is explaining something, that nothing’s changing, because you throw in a paragraph break when something changes. That means that books with big blocks of type are often (but not always) full of authorial interruption to explain stuff like the Gatling gun. Or what the character is feeling. Or memories. For many books this translates into no story on those pages which annoys people who read to find out what happens next, which is the majority of readers.

With me so far? Big blocks of type are not bad. White space is not good. Big boring stretches of exposition or interior monologue are bad. Scenes in which things change and move are good. It’s not about the look of the page, it’s about the content.

So why is “more dialogue” not a good idea? Because dialogue has to be there to move the story, not break up the page. Because dialogue has to be a struggle, not an exchange of information. If you take that big block of exposition that explains something, and make it into a conversation where one person explains something to another person, it’s still not story, it’s still exposition, and it’s still going to be boring unless there’s something at stake. In other words, a conversation in which one character tells another character how to defuse a bomb that’s in front of them is going to be boring unless you get on the page that they’re really scared, or that one is scared and one is foolhardy, or that this is a conflict they’ve had before because one of them doesn’t listen and he’s the one who has to defuse the bomb . . . . It’s like sex scenes: If all you’re doing is giving instructions, write a manual. A scene is a unit of conflict between the protagonist and antagonist in which they struggle over a goal until one of them wins.

Don’t worry about white space. Worry about conflict and change, scene arc and climax. Cut out all the stuff that doesn’t matter (“A machine should have no unnecessary parts”). The white space will take care of itself.

Okay, you’re probably wondering why that intro is up there with the bookcover. It’s because whatever I put here goes up on the website home page, so if I’m chatting with you all, it looks weird. But we’re past the jump now, so I can say that this post is here so people can discuss Maybe This Time without spoiling it for anybody who hasn’t read the book. We’ll be doing a real book club for Maybe This Time on the fifteenth over at Cherry Forums, but for people who just want to chat about the story, this is the place for your comments. For people who haven’t read Maybe This Time yet, GO AWAY. Unless you like spoilers. Then by all means, read on.

Note: THE COMMENTS TO THIS POST ARE SPOILERS. ABANDON ALL LACK OF KNOWLEDGE YE WHO ENTER HERE.

Now watch, people will complain anyway. Sigh.

Andie’s Banana Bread
(You can knock back the chips and nuts to half a cup or even leave them out, but Alice will not be happy.)

Mix together:
3 overripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup yogurt

Mix together:
1 ½ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder

Fold flour mix into banana mix and add:
¾ cup mini chocolate chips
¾ cup chopped pecans

Bake at 350 in four mini loaf pans (5.75 x 3.25) for 45 minutes or 2 regular loaf pans (8 x 3.75) for 55 to 60 minutes.

The music from 1982 was music from Andie and North’s courtship (short though that was) and marriage. Andie’s theme was “Layla,” by Eric Clapton (original version) because North said that was the music that had to be playing in her head when she moved. (North’s theme was “Human” by the Pretenders, but I lost it when I moved the setting back to 1992 since it didn’t come out until 2004.) Their song was “Somebody’s Baby,” by Jackson Browne, because that’s what was playing when they met. And North said his first clue that Andie was going to bolt was when she kept playing “Any Day Now,” by Ronnie Milsap, when he came home at night; he really hated Ronnie Milsap. All of those (except for the Milsap) show up on a mix tape that North made for Andie in ‘82 that includes Clapton’s “Rock N’ Roll Heart” and “Man in Love;” North is a big Clapton fan, but then who isn’t? Another set of music from 1982 is a mix tape that Alice plays that belonged to her dead mother: “Gloria,” by Laura Branigan; “She Bop,” by Cyndi Lauper; “Time After Time,” also by Lauper; and “Make a Move on Me,” by Oliva Newton-John. Her mother wasn’t deep, but she was happy.

But in 1992, there’s the music on the kitchen radio that Andie and Alice dance to while they bake, which includes “Hurt So Good,” by John Mellancamp (the announcer says, “Here’s an oldie,”), “I’m Too Sexy,” by Right Said Fred (Alice loves “I’m Too Sexy”), and “Everything Changes” by Kathy Troccoli. Andie sings an old Disney lullaby to Alice, “Baby Mine,” because it’s the only one she knows, but North brings her a just-released album as a present: Clapton’s Unplugged with the acoustic “Layla” on it. Ironically, the song “Maybe This Time” was thematically right for the book, and since it came out in ’72 it was chronologically right, but it didn’t work at all musically: too melancholy.

I can’t imagine writing this book without the music to put me back two decades, so I owe a debt of gratitude to all the artists who helped and inspired me. Also, it turns out that you can play “Layla” over and over and over again and never get tired of it, so a special thanks to Clapton. Maybe This Time wouldn’t have been the same book without you all.

Here’s the photo-shopped house:

And here’s the ominous version of the photo-shopped house:

And here are the floor plans:

And here’s the Great Hall where the seances happen:

And thank you, Strop. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Edited to add:
As requested, the original picture of the house, Woodlane Hall, and the original floorplans (click to enlarge):

And here’s the stone archway onto the upstairs gallery:

She slid the ring on her left hand and smiled in spite of herself, remembering North going crazy trying to replace it with a real gold ring that wouldn’t turn her finger green. Then she put the jewelry box away and was pulling back the covers when she heard a knock at the hall door and opened it to see Mrs. Crumb with a small tray.

“A little cuppa before bed,” the housekeeper trilled, her red cupid’s-bow mouth smiling tightly, as she put the tray on the table next to the bed. “I got no problem bringing you up a cuppa every night since it’s only going to be a month?” She let her voice rise at the end, part question, part hope.

“Uh, thank you.” Andie eyed the tray doubtfully, but the yellow-striped teapot smelled richly of peppermint and there were violets painted on the big striped cup.

Mrs. Crumb nodded. “I put in a little liquor, too. You sleep good now.”

She retreated back through Andie’s door, and Andie closed it behind her and sniffed the pot. Minty. Very minty. She sat down on the bed and poured tea into the cup and then took a sip and got a full blast of at least two shots of peppermint schnapps. Whoa, she thought. The tea was good and peppermint was always nice, but unless Mrs. Crumb was trying to put her into a schnapps-induced stupor, the housekeeper had an exaggerated idea of “a little liquor.”
Maybe she should make her own tea.

She began to read Kristin’s notes, sipping cautiously. The kids’ mother had died giving birth to Alice, she read, their father had died in a car accident two years ago, and their aunt had died in a fall four months ago in June. And now, Andie thought, they’re alone with Crumb. And me. That thought was so harrowing that she forgave them the weirdness of their first meeting. Things would get better.
Poor kids.

She sipped more tea and read more notes. The three nannies had all said the same thing: the kids were smart, the kids were undisciplined, the kids were strange, there was something wrong, and they were leaving. Only the last one had tried to take the kids with her, and Alice had gone into such a screaming fit that she’d lost consciousness and the nanny had had to detour to a hospital. After that, the nanny took the kids back to Archer House and left them there. “These children need professional psychological help,” she’d written, and Andie thought, So North sent me.

That was so unlike him, not to send a professional, not to get a team of experts down there, and she thought, He’s not taking it seriously. Either that or he wanted her buried in southern Ohio for some reason.

She shook her head and went through the rest of the folder, sipping the liqueur-spiked tea until the combination of that and the dry curriculum reports from the nannies made her so sleepy, she gave up. She turned off the bedside lamp, and the moonlight seeped into the room—full moon, she thought—and it was lovely to be so deeply drowsy on such a soft bed in such soft blue light that she let herself doze, thinking, I should have called Flo to tell her I arrived, I should have called Will, I should have . . .

Something moved in her peripheral vision, something so slight she was pretty sure nothing had moved. Exhaustion or maybe the liqueur in the tea. She looked sleepily around the room, but it was just gloomy and jumbled, a gothic kind of normal, although it seemed colder than it had been, so she let her head fall back and snuggled down into the covers and drifted off to sleep, and then into dreams where there was shadowy laughter and whispering, and someone dancing in the moonlight, and as she fell deeper into sleep, the whispering in her ear grew hot and low—Who do you love? Who do you want? Who kisses you goodnight?—and she saw Will, smiling at her, genial and easygoing with his blond frat-boy good looks, and then she fell deeper and darker, and North was there, his eyes hot, reaching for her the way he used to, demanding and possessive and out of control in love with her, and she sighed in relief from wanting him, and somebody whispered, Who is HE?, and she went to him the way she always had–impossible to ever say no to North–and lost herself in him and her dreams.

“I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea,” she began. “I’m sure Mr. Archer just forgot to tell me—” She looked past Andie and scowled. “Now what are you doing out here?” she snapped, and Andie turned and saw Alice standing behind her, looking even smaller and thinner than she had in the kitchen, her neck festooned with all that jewelry, the headphones from her Walkman still over her ears.

“Hello, Alice,” Andie said.

The deep shadows under Alice’s eyes and cheekbones made her little face almost skull-like. She stared at Andie for a minute and then pushed past her and Mrs. Crumb and began to climb the stairs, something stuffed under her arm.

Andie reached out and touched her sleeve and Alice jerked away and kept going.

“Is that a doll?” Andie asked, and Alice stopped a couple of steps above her and took her headphones off.

She held up a stuffed doll with a bluish-white head, its three-tiered sepia-toned skirt flaring out from a faded gold ribbon belt around its lumpy waist. The thing looked like it had been left to mold before Alice had found it, the face and dress mottled with age. “It’s Jessica,” Alice said and went on up the stairs.

It’s dead, Andie thought.

“She won’t give that up,” Mrs. Crumb said, in her idea of a whisper. “I’ve tried giving her other dolls but she just wants that one. It’s not right. We should do something about that, you and me.”

Andie watched Alice’s straight little back climb the stairs without wavering even though she must have heard the housekeeper’s voice. “If that’s the doll Alice wants, that’s the doll she gets.”

Mrs. Crumb sucked in her breath and shook her head and then continued up the stairs.

They reached another short hall on the second floor, and Mrs. Crumb walked around the stair well and started up another flight. “Nursery’s on the third floor. Keeps the noise down.”

“Noise?” Andie said, following an entirely silent Alice, but Mrs. Crumb didn’t speak again until they were on the third-floor landing in another cramped little hall.

“This is the bathroom,” she said proudly, opening a door opposite the stairs that led to a large vintage washroom with a freestanding brass-and-frosted-glass shower in the middle of the hardwood floor. “You’re sharing this with me. My room’s on the other side”—she nodded toward the front of the house—”but I know you won’t mind since we’re going to be such good friends.” Then she moved toward the back of the house to a door that was ajar because Alice had walked through it moments before.

“This is your bedroom,” Mrs. Crumb said, pushing the door open wider.

Andie followed her into a large, high-ceilinged paneled room, dominated by a four-poster bed and a stone mantel surrounding a gas fireplace.

“And that’s the nursery through there.” Mrs. Crumb jerked her thumb at a door to the right that was also ajar, probably from Alice walking it through it, too. “I’m going to go make you a nice hot toddy now. Just the thing to help you drop off to sleep.” She smiled again, and again it didn’t reach her eyes, and then she went back out through the hall door.

“Hot toddy,” Andie said, not even sure what that was, and walked over to the open door and looked through it.

The nursery was huge, maybe thirty feet across, with a bank of barred windows across the back including a little bay-windowed alcove with a window seat full of books spilling onto the floor. There were two narrow twin beds, their mattresses naked, an ancient rocker with chipped white paint, a rump-sprung old sofa in front of a cold gas fireplace, a battered table with paper and pencils on it and several mismatched chairs scattered around it, and an old TV in the middle of the room with an ancient boom box on top of it. At the far end was a cold gas fireplace with a small, modern fire extinguisher on the mantel. It was about as cozy as an abandoned mental hospital.

Andie crossed the room and opened a door on the other side and found herself in another short hall. In front of her the door was open to a small bathroom, to the right was a stone archway to another hall, and to the left was a closed door.

Jesus, she thought. This place is Little Gormenghast. I’m going to get lost here and never be found.

She opened the door to the left and found Alice sitting on a twin bed, leaning toward an old white rocker at the foot of the bed. The walls were pink, her bedside table had a pink lamp, and her bedspread was pink and covered with daisies.

“This is my room!” Alice said, straightening as she clutched her blue Jessica doll to all the jewelry on her thin little chest. “You have to knock before you come in!”

Andie surveyed the little room, puzzled. “Do you like pink?”

“No!”

“I didn’t think so. Sorry about not knocking.”

Andie closed the door and then crossed the small hall into the larger one and found another staircase on her left, this one stone and much grander, and to her right a massive stone archway. On the wall in front of her was another door, so she opened it.

Carter jerked back against his headboard, his eyes wide, almost dropping the comic book he’d been reading. Then he saw her and scowled. “You ever hear of knocking?”

“Sorry,” Andie said. “I can’t tell which doors are rooms and which ones are halls.”

“This one’s a room,” Carter said, and went back to his comic.

Andie looked around and saw ancient heavy furniture and a bed covered with old blankets in various shades of drab. The only interesting things were the stacks of comic books, papers, and pencils on the bedside tables that said Carter did something besides glare and eat, and the carpet at the end of the bed that was riddled with scorch marks. Pyro, she thought, and was grateful the house was mostly stone. She looked up to see Carter watching her, his face stolid, so she nodded and began to close the door only to stop when she took a second look at his bedside table.
There was a lighter on it, a cheap plastic job. She opened the door wider and saw two more on the other table.

He was still staring at her, and she thought about saying, “What in the name of god do you need three lighters for?” But it was her first night and Carter already didn’t like her and she was too damn tired.
“Don’t set anything on fire,” she told him, and closed the door.

Then she walked through the stone arch on her right and almost ran into an ancient wood railing that ran around three sides of an open space. The railing rocked a little as she put her hands on it, so she looked over the edge carefully.

The opening dropped two stories down to a stone floor, empty in the growing darkness.

Okay, then, Andie thought, and made a circuit of the gallery, discovering doors that led into the nursery and into the servants’ stairwell. Then she went back to the little hall and to Alice’s room where she knocked.

“Go away,” Alice said.

Andie went in and saw that Alice had changed into a too-large jersey T-shirt that hung down past her knees, clearly a hand-me-down from some adult. She looked both pathetic—poor little Alice had to get ready for bed on her own—and eerie—poor little Alice‘s shirt said, “Bad Witch” on it in sickly green letters. She looked oddly defenseless without her armor of necklaces—they were hanging over her lampshade now—but with her white-blonde hair standing out every which way, she also looked demented. We’ll comb that tomorrow, Andie thought.

“Sorry,” she told Alice. “I just wanted to say that if you need me, I’m on the other side of the nursery.”

“I won’t need you.” Alice got into bed and pulled her covers over her head.

“Right.” Andie noticed that Jessica had fallen to the floor. “You dropped something.” She bent and picked up the old doll and poked Alice under the covers.

“Hey!” Alice said, and then Andie pulled back the covers and handed her the doll.

“Good night,” Andie said, and Alice pulled her covers up over her head again.

“Yes, we’re going to be great pals,” Andie said, and headed back across the nursery to her own room, thinking that it was no surprise the nannies had cracked. They’d probably expected to be put living in the tomb at any moment, probably by Carter and Alice.
She heard something from the hallway by Alice’s room and went back to check. Alice’s door had come partly open, and inside Alice was talking.

“She’s not staying,” Alice was saying. “She’s just going to be here a month. She’s not even a nanny. It’s okay. We’re staying right here.”

Andie pushed open the door a little more expecting to see Carter, and Alice looked around, alone in her room.

“I told you,” she began.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody,” Alice said, turning her head toward the wall.

Imaginary friend, Andie thought, and said, “Okay.”

Then she turned to go and saw the white rocker at the end of the bed.

It was rocking.

She looked back at Alice who met her eyes defiantly.

“What?” Alice said.

She did that, Andie thought, and said, “Nothing. Good night,” and closed the door, now in complete sympathy with the nannies who’d bolted.

Anybody with sense would.

Chapter Two

“You’re late,” a voice snapped from behind Andie, and she turned and saw a plump, overly powdered, elderly woman, her pale, watery, protruding eyes hostile under her improbably red-orange updo, her red cupid’s-bow mouth obviously painted on with a brush.

“Yes,” Andie said, putting her suitcase down on the floor. “You must be Mrs. Crumb. I’m–”

“Andromeda Miller. Mr. Archer told me.” Mrs. Crumb nodded, her arms folded over the aggressively flowered apron that covered her equally aggressive bosom. “He tells me everything. He trusts me like I was his own mother.”

The enormity of the lies in that short speech left Andie stunned, not just at the thought of North telling the old lady everything—North didn’t tell anybody everything—but also at him somehow collating Lydia and Mrs. Crumb.

“I know what’s best, so you do as I say, and we’ll all get along fine.” She smiled at Andie, but her eyes were cold. “That’s Carter,” she went on, jerking her head toward the boy without looking at him, “and that’s Alice, and they’re your students. Everything else, I take care of.” She transferred her reptile smile to the little girl. “I’m the one who stays with the little lambs. They know I’m the one they can count on.”

The girl ignored her, but the boy looked back at her, his eyes like stone.

If that kid is a lamb, the wolves are toast, Andie thought.

“So now that you understand how things work,” Mrs. Crumb went on, “I’ll take you to your room.” She took a step closer and Andie caught a whiff of peppermint and booze. “But don’t you get any ideas about me working for you.”

Andie looked at her, exasperated. She might just be feeling threatened—

Mrs. Crumb made a short nod toward Andie’s suitcase. “You’ll have to carry that, too. I’m not your servant. And I’ll be needing some help around the house, too, so don’t think you’re too good to pick up a broom.” She sniffed. “I know your kind.”

“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake,” Andie said, stepping on her temper. “I’m not a nanny. And for the next month, I’m the one in charge.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Crumb smiled again, false pity in the tilt of her head. “Mr. Archer put somebody he doesn’t even know over me?” She chuckled without humor. “I don’t think so. You’ll do as I say or I’ll tell Mr. Archer. And then we’ll just see what happens.”

The little girl continued scooping orange whatever, but the boy was watching now.

“Miller is my professional name,” Andie said. “My married name is Archer.”

Mrs. Crumb’s smile froze in place.

Andie shoved her ringless left hand in her coat pocket. “Mrs. North Archer. My husband sent me here for a month to fix whatever’s wrong.” She walked over to the table and looked into the bowls, since meeting Mrs. Crumb’s eyes after that lie was not easy. “After we make our assessment, we’ll decide on the children’s future.”

“Your husband?” Mrs. Crumb said, sounding torn between outrage and fear.

Andie pointed to the kids’ bowls. “Mrs. Crumb, what are the lambs having for dinner?”

“Macaroni and cheese.” Mrs. Crumb put her chin up. “That’s good for them.”

“And . . .?”

“And what?”

“Where are the vegetables? Fruit? Protein? Grains? Dairy? You have fat, starch, and yellow dye number two covered, now let’s try fiber and vitamins.”

“I don’t need to listen to this,” Mrs. Crumb said, her smile gone now.

“Actually, you do.” Andie went over to the cupboard and opened it to see boxes of mac and cheese and jars of pasta in some kind of toxic orange sauce. “Oh, my God.”

“You fancy city people,” Mrs. Crumb said as Andie opened the refrigerator.

There was a jar of jam, a loaf of white bread, a gallon jug of milk that was almost empty, and two squares of American cheese.

She turned back to the table. “You’re going to have to do better than this.”

“That’s what they eat,” Mrs. Crumb said. “That’s kid food.”

The children were both watching her now, the little girl scooping more mac and cheese, the boy with his head ducked low, two pairs of Archer blue eyes boring into her over Archer cheekbones. They were thin, pale, and hostile, but nothing about either one of them said “victim.”

Andie smiled at the little girl. “So you’re Alice.”

The little girl put on the headphones to her Walkman and turned up the volume.

Andie transferred her smile to the boy. “And you must be Carter.”

He ignored her.

“Yeah, I’m thrilled to be here, too,” Andie said. “But since we’re stuck with each other—”

“Now you listen here,” Mrs. Crumb blustered. “You can’t come in here and change things all around. I don’t believe you’re married to Mr. Archer.” She lifted her chin again. “You are not a lady.”

“And you are not a cook.” Andie turned her attention back to Carter. “Things will get better,” she told him.

He ignored her and ate more mac and cheese.

Andie took a deep breath. “Okay, look, it’s my job to make you safe and healthy and I’m going to do that. For the next month, you’ll have decent meals—”

“Well, I never,” Mrs. Crumb said.

“—and I’ll see to your education and maybe we can get you both back to school in your regular grade levels, and when I leave, there’ll be good people taking care of you, I promise.”

Carter stared at her with his flat eyes, unimpressed.

“Not military school. We’ll put you in public school. In Columbus. There are very good schools there.” She looked at Alice.

Alice kept eating, her headphones blocking all other sound.

“She won’t go,” Mrs. Crumb said, her voice fat with satisfaction. “You don’t understand—”

“Mrs. Crumb, do you want to remain employed?” Andie said. “Because right now, it’s not looking good for you.”

The housekeeper glared at her, and Andie stared back, unimpressed.

After a moment, Mrs. Crumb pursed her painted lips and sat down across the table from where Andie stood, forcing a smile. “We got off to a bad start.”

“Yes,” Andie said, waiting to see what her next move was.

“There are things about this house you don’t know,” Mrs. Crumb said, leaning forward, and Carter stopped eating to watch her. “It’s a big house, there’s history in this house. I been here all my life, since I was sixteen, I know this house. You need me.”

Carter went back to his mac and cheese and Andie thought, That’s not what he was expecting. “The history of the house isn’t important to me. The kids are.”

“It ain’t just the history,” Mrs. Crumb said, her eyes dark. “There’s things here you can’t understand.”

“Ghosts?” How dumb do you think I am? “I don’t believe in ghosts. I do believe in nutrition and basic curriculum skills, so that’s what I’ll be concentrating on.”

Mrs. Crumb dropped her voice. “Some things you can’t believe are real.”

“Like this stuff you’re feeding the children.” Andie looked at the orange smears left in Alice’s bowl as she polished off the last of her pasta. “I’ve never seen macaroni and cheese that color before. Does it glow in the dark?”

Mrs. Crumb got up and took the children’s bowls. “We should get along, you and me. You’re going to need me.”

Andie looked at the old woman’s cold little eyes. Jesus, I hope not. “I’d like to see my bedroom, please.”

“I’ll show you everything,” Mrs. Crumb said, her defiance back. “I’ll just show you.”

“Just my bedroom,” Andie said, but Mrs. Crumb had already headed for a door in the far wall, so she smiled one last time at the kids, picked up her suitcase, and followed the housekeeper.

It was going to be a long month.

Here’s the thing about Great Ideas: They’re ideas, not plots. I’d thought, So she’ll be a governess and she’ll call him to come down to the country when she finds out about the ghosts. And she’ll have a name . . . and that was it. That was my plan. After a couple of days of staring at a blank laptop screen, I regrouped. What was it about The Turn of the Screw that had stayed in my head all those years? What was it that made me want to do my version of it? Yes, yes, the governess had no name, get over it. And yes, she should have yelled for help, but that’s a paragraph. What had kept that idea lodged in my frontal lobe like a kernal of popcorn in a molar? Why had I signed that contract?

The more I looked at it, the more hopeless it became. James’s heroine was barely twenty and innocent and earnest. My heroines are in their thirties or older and jaded and snarky. James’s heroine had been isolated, in the middle of nowhere with only two children, an illiterate housekeeper, and a couple of ghosts. My books have casts of thousands. And then there was the nineteenth versus the twenty-first century problem: Even James’s governess would have called for help if she’d had a cellphone, and there aren’t a lot of ghosts whose horror can survive being googled. I was screwed.

But the story was still there, pressing on me, so I gave up and began to write, the kind of writing where you think, “This is pretty good, but I have no idea how it fits with what I promised my editor.” I wrote the first scene, a play on the governess’s first and only interaction with the children’s guardian, only in my world, they weren’t strangers, they’d been divorced for ten years. She still looked at him and thought, as the governess thought in her scene, that he was everything that was wealthy and handsome and successful and charming, she just also thought, And that’s not enough. Like the guardian in James’s book, the hero had attachment issues (he doesn’t want to); like the governess in James’s book, the heroine is determined to do a good job; but in my world, there’s no “she never saw him again . . . . [and] that’s the beauty of it.”

I moved on and took care of cellphones and Google by setting the book in 1992. I moved the setting from England to southern Ohio, but put it in a house brought over from England a hundred years before, a house that had been torn down and shipped overseas because it was haunted by two ghosts, a valet and a governess, and because a little kid had died there. (I was working on the premise that anybody who’d read The Turn of the Screw would say, “Ah ha! Bly!” and anybody who hadn’t would look at the history and say, “Creepy.”) I gave it a housekeeper who was across between Mrs. Grose and Mrs. Danvers. I gave it two kids that the heroine described as “Damian and the Bad Seed.” And I kept writing because writers are like sharks: if they stop writing, the book dies.

And then, just about the time I was despairing of ever understanding what I was doing, it became clear. I wasn’t writing James’s governess because James’s governess annoyed the hell out me. I was writing the inverse of his governess, the character I wanted in there saving the children. His governess is young and untried, mine’s older and experienced. His is given to romantic ideals, mine lost any sense of romance in her divorce. His is eager to be loved by the kids, mine just wants to feed them and educate them. Most of all, his governess is isolated and mine is plagued with guests like locusts. As one of the ghosts tells her after explaining that they take their strength from human emotions, “You here alone didn’t give us anything to feed on, you were too calm. Then all these whackjobs showed up and it’s been an open buffet ever since.” The children were different, too. James’s orphans were paragons, trying to please the governess, little beings made of light and smiles. I live with two kids and while I think they’re adorable, there are also times I want to beat them like gongs, so Alice and Carter are often gong-worthy, but they have a history that explains why: they’re orphans in a haunted house. They’re going to have some bad days. And the romance is different. For one thing, there is one, none of this “She only saw him once and that was enough.” If the romance doesn’t work, nobody gets out of there alive. So it’s a ghost story with a romance, not a ghost story with a crush-on-a-guy-she-never-sees-again. I personally feel this is an improvement.

In fact, I pretty much love this book. Thank you, Henry James, for giving me the start of it, and thank you, Jennifer Enderlin, for giving me the contract to write it.

Oh, and (click here for the first chapter.)

The books are:

1. Intro to Course, Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe (1794)
2. Northanger Abbey, Austen (1818)
3. The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe (1839) [Link is to book of short stories that "Usher" appeared in.]
4. Jane Eyre, Bronte (1847)
5. The Turn of the Screw, James (1898)
6. The Circular Staircase, Rinehart (1908)
7. Rebecca, DuMaurier (1938)
8. Nine Coaches Waiting, Stewart (1958)
9. Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt (1960)

The first meeting will be about the gothic in general and Udolpho in particular, but you don’t have to read that one to participate. After that, we’ll be focusing on that month’s book, so you’re welcome to come by if you haven’t read it, but really, everything on that list is good except for Mellyn and it’s had a huge influence on the genre so you should read it anyway. (I read it in a book club edition while I was babysitting for somebody four or five years after it came out, and I was impressed then. Not so much later as an adult.)

The idea is similar to #PopD and the romcoms: Study these stories to see what makes a gothic work. We’re not trying to do abstract literary criticism or decide what book is best, we’re trying to figure out what it is about this genre that makes it so riveting that it never dies out. The first six books are available for free on the net (click on the links in the list), so you can read them any time. And we can talk a lot more about the book club and what we’re all hoping to get out of it, etc, when we’re closer to starting it. You’re about to be inundated with Maybe This Time stuff on the blog–pub date in ten days, so brace yourself for more MTT than you ever wanted–and then after that I’m on the road for the book tour plus finishing Lavender (please god), so really, October for Gothics. It’s a good month to talk about things that go bump in the night.

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/21/gothic-book-club-oct-31/feed/ 50 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/21/gothic-book-club-oct-31/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/rabF66UvT9g/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/20/how-to-steal-a-million-tonight-on-popd/#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:53:31 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4456 I love this movie. It’s really, really, really hard to write good froth, the stuff that just keeps going and going without anything under it, like those birds that run across the surface of the water. It’s exhilarating to watch but exhausting to write, and George Bradshaw and Harry Kurnitz nailed it. Of course William Wyler directing Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole doesn’t hurt. When you’ve got two watch-them-change-the-oil-in-their-car actors gliding across the water, you’re ahead from the get-go.

How much do I love this movie? Did you ever read Faking It? Except I can’t keep it this light and this funny and this fast. If your brain needs a fabulous vacation, get it a spa robe for tonight.

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/20/how-to-steal-a-million-tonight-on-popd/feed/ 16 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/20/how-to-steal-a-million-tonight-on-popd/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/eu5v-HBJEF4/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/20/popd-tonite-how-to-steal-a-million/#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:46:06 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4374 How many ways do I love this movie? Tune into #PopD on Twitter tonight and you’ll find out.

Okay, you don’t have to, just look at this picture. THIS is how much I love this movie. You know, until we analyze it to death and kill it. Argh.

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/20/popd-tonite-how-to-steal-a-million/feed/ 10 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/20/popd-tonite-how-to-steal-a-million/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/Lfj8bkcjt3w/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/18/anybody-out-there-a-mechanic/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:54:10 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4451 So here’s the problem.
My heroine is driving down the road in a ’94 Toyota Camry. She knows that it needs looked at and that in particular if she stomps on the gas pedal hard, it’ll cough and sometimes stall, so she doesn’t do that. But then something in the scene makes her do that and the car dies completely. It’s towed into a shop where the mechanic is smart and honest and he tells her that he needs to find a part for it before he can fix it.
My questions are:

What’s wrong with the car?
What part does it need?
How long will it take to fix?

If you guys don’t have the answer, I’ll have to take my car into Toyota and get it fixed and ask there, which I should do anyway because it has a recall on it, but I have to write, so really, somebody? Help.

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/18/anybody-out-there-a-mechanic/feed/ 80 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/18/anybody-out-there-a-mechanic/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/lcMw5HrTFN8/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/18/penguin-uk-gets-open-minded/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:11:23 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4442 Penguin UK is, for a limited time, looking at unagented submissions:

People frequently ask us how to go about getting published. Our company policy is to not accept unsolicited manuscripts or synopses and we cannot enter into correspondence about unpublished work. However, for a limited three-month period from the beginning of August until the end of October 2010, we will be inviting submissions to be sent in electronically to the following address: submissions@uk.penguingroup.com.

They’re asking for a cover note and synopsis in the body of the e-mail, not as attachments. Go to the bottom of this post for a cheat sheet for a short synopsis.

Go here http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/index.html#question11 and look at FAQ 11 for the details. I know nothing more about this, and I have never written for Penguin UK; however they are a very old and respected publisher, so I’m pretty comfortable putting this on Argh.

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/18/penguin-uk-gets-open-minded/feed/ 19 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/18/penguin-uk-gets-open-minded/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/SdV-izhi7n0/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/17/bet-me-cover-again/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 04:40:15 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4418 The frog is now history, so we tried a new cover which was gorgeous (see first cover below) but which did not, to my eyes, say “romance,” and since Bet Me is probably the last straight romance (as in not women’s fiction) I’ll ever write, I thought it should say romance. So SMP’s art department went back to drawing board again and sent the second cover, which I think nails it.

What do you think? No, don’t hold back, I know how shy you guys are with your opinions . . .

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/17/bet-me-cover-again/feed/ 203 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/17/bet-me-cover-again/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/W2NPgIUzdis/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/16/lithuanian-cover-quiz/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:01:16 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4405 Mollie sent me my Lithuanian covers and somebody in the Lithuanian publisher’s art department actually read the books. This is usually not true. Titles are (in no particular order):

“Not Only You”
“Husband Hunting”
“Odd Couple”

So match the title to the cover and give the English title. (Okay, not that hard, but who needs a difficult quiz on Monday?)

Answers:
1. Strange Bedpersons/Odd Couple
2. Anyone But You/Not Only You
3. Manhunting/Husband Hunting
(Star Betty got it first. Go, Star Betty.)

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/16/lithuanian-cover-quiz/feed/ 35 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/16/lithuanian-cover-quiz/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/QNKV20WXcMI/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/14/bags-you-should-make/#comments Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:33:37 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=3812 Still futzing around with Lavender, soon to be three months overdue. I WILL have this book done by September. In the meantime, I saw The Derek Bag on the Rav patterns page a while back, and I thought it looked great:

But then I thought maybe something with a big honking rose:

Or maybe skip the whimsy and go for something useful with eight outside pockets:

Or just say, “The hell with it” and go for da cute:

But then I found the chicken bag:

I know it’s not practical. But I yearn for the chicken bag . . .

]]> http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/14/bags-you-should-make/feed/ 71 http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/14/bags-you-should-make/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/unWaYv8oIMs/ http://www.arghink.com/2010/08/13/popd-tonight-father-goose/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:43:38 +0000 Jenny http://www.arghink.com/?p=4371 If it’s Friday, it must be PopD. This week Father Goose which I KNOW is a romcom. Hallelujah!

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