Stephanie Gayle

Did you watch the Oscars? I watched about half. Every year I yell at people, especially the people who get seated near the back (designer, art direction folks, writers) and who win awards because they never hurry to the stage. Hurry to the stage people! Hurry! You are not a celebrity so they will cue the walk off music faster than you can say "Thanks Mom." Oy! Don't these people know anything?

My thoughts have been drifting to Hollywood lately as it looks as though I will be traveling to LA next month. All pleasure, no business, but who knows? Perhaps some studio exec will overhear me dispensing wit and will think, "That lady sounds like she'd make a crackerjack screenwriter. Let's hire her for gobs and gobs of money!"

Then I could be like William Faulkner, typing in the sun.

Only I think I might choose different socks.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey all, do you remember when reviews of My Summer of Southern Discomfort first came out? No? It wasn't quite the thrilling event on par with say the day you got a free slurpee? Fine. That's okay. I remember. I especially remember the Booklist review because it said I had rendered my main character's problems with "enviable grace." This was at the forefront of my mind last night when I found myself stuck half-in, half-out of my bookcase. The other half was stuck on a stability ball.

Picture of stability ball:

Looks pretty harmless, no?

I was trying to perform a side crunch. My hands were on the floor, in push up position, my belly was on the ball and I was twisting my legs to the side, when I rolled and got my feet and legs stuck in the lower shelf of my bookshelf. A lot of thoughts went through my mind, "How do I fix this? I hope my books are okay! I can't believe I'm stuck. I can totally believe I'm stuck. Oh hell, I have no leverage. How do I get unstuck?"

This woman loves her ball. It has never tried to kill her.

I started laughing and then calling "Help" in a very small voice because I didn't want anyone to find me in that position. Not to mention, there wasn't much anyone could do for me. Eventually I had to settle on gently falling off the ball to the other, non-bookshelf side.

You know what? After that fitness fiasco, I have to say my editing went well last night. Perhaps my writing's grace is inversely proportional to my physical grace. In which case I say, "Bring on the bruises!" It's all about the writing, sugar. I'm willing to take a few hits for my art.

Objects d' torture? Or aides to art?

Posted by Stephanie at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I did something yesterday I wasn't supposed to do, inasmuch as multiple trained professionals have told me never to do it (again). I trimmed my bangs. They were hanging in and past my eyes and I wasn't feeling patient enough to make an appointment with my stylist and then pay $55 for a half inch trim. So I went at them with little scissors. I have tricky bangs. They have a little curl toward the middle so if you're not careful you end up with a very uneven, cringe-inducing fringe of hair. I think I did a good job. It's a little blunt but not bad. Certainly not, "Stephanie, we talked about this. Never trim your own bangs." talk worthy.

How does this pertain to writing, you ask? I'm so glad you did! Often, in writing classes or books you hear or read advice on the craft. Some of that advice begins, "Never" followed by an action. I've heard never begin stories with dreams or flashbacks. Never end a story with a surprise for the sake of surprise. Never write outside your gender, race, experience. Never write using dialect. Never write while slicing onions (that's just practical, folks). Now some of this advice can be useful and some of it can be, how shall we say, limiting?

Understand that you can write whatever you want, however you want. A lot of these old chestnuts were constructed by people tired of reading bad stories that began the same way or contained the same terrible similarities. They figured if they told aspiring writers never to do these things then they might avoid reading stories with those gruesome elements. But you're no chump! You know that you can write amazing stuff that violates any and all of these rules (except the onion one: safety first!) Heck, sometimes you can even trim your own bangs with success!

Posted by Stephanie at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today the very handsome boyfriend and I went shopping at the bigger-than-most-towns Natick Collection. (Seriously, place is huge.) We were inside Macy's when I made a beeline to the men's coats, which puzzled the vhb. I told him I was looking for him because his handsome winter wool coat had several holes, courtesy of hungry moths. But as I surveyed the racks I realized something crucial: men's winter coats are boring. Good god, the monotony. Gray, gray, black, gray coats with three buttons.

"They're like blankets with buttons!" I cried in despair. Where was the variety? The frippery? The interestingness that continues to make me adore (and buy) winter coats.

"Most men's clothes are blankets with buttons," the vhb said.

"That's tragic." And it is. So take note designers of men's clothes. You can design a handsome jacket and still make it look better than a blanket with buttons. In fact, I challenge you to do so. And if you can make it resistant or offensive to moths, so much the better!

Posted by Stephanie at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear Valentine's Day,

Please go away. Please? Look, I enjoyed you once, long ago. When I was in elementary school and celebrating you involved cutting out construction paper hearts and adding glitter. It was nice to stuff cards into the little envelopes set up in front of everyone's school desk, fun to see what creative interpretation everyone put on you. (Though I have no doubt, this involving elementary school children, that insults were exchanged and tears shed out of class). But since those days, I admit, my attitude toward you has changed. I don't like you.

I curse when my email inbox is filled with last minute exhortations to buy roses or chocolates or anything for my sweetie (you assume I have one and that he wants such things). I have a strong desire to sweep my arm through the oh-so-red-and-white display at my local drugstore, knocking items onto the floor, spilling forth candies from your gaudy beribboned hearts for the single, engaged, and married alike to consume.

They've managed to attach chocolate to you as a lure, but you know what? The genius fuckwits of holiday marketing have decided to begin deploying Easter candy insanely early this year, so I can turn a blind eye to your rather red-light charms and select a bag of mini-Cadbury eggs. You know I always prefer bunnies to armed, naked cherubs.

I'm tired of your gender-specific assumptions that women demand jewelry or roses as tokens of love on a day chosen by advertisers to push more of this merchandise. You know what? I'm not a big fan of roses (not the red ones, especially). And you can keep your frickin' tennis bracelet. What I want is your absence. Go away, Valentine's Day. Go away. And take those creepy naked babies with the crossbows with you.

Goodbye,
Stephanie

Posted by Stephanie at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was out of my bed at 6:30 AM this morning. I do not intend to repeat that action for quite some time, as I am a cranky person before 8:00 AM. I'm actually cranky after 8:00 AM but the levels of hatitude/whininess drop.

Observations: Not a lot of people on the road at 7:00 AM though at 7:25 it is a zoo, especially near the school by my house. Which reminds me: parents who park your giant ass SUVs at the end of the drive so that I have to step into busy traffic in the early morning: I hate you. Oh, and you're a terrible role model. Also, it's quieter at 7:00. That I like. But it's darker, which doesn't help my internal clock much. And it looks like the only time of day that my grocery store is not full unto bursting with people.

Tomorrow I am going to sleep until 7:50 AM as usual and Heaven help him if the teenage boy downstairs wakes me up before it's time to go-go. Honestly, how hard does he have to slam his dresser drawers to get them to close?

Thus concludes today's cranky update.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It looks as though you can pre-order the paperback version of MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT. Depending on where you live and what book site you're visiting and perhaps whether Venus is ascending, the pub date is listed as May 6 or May 8 or maybe even May Day (the 1st). Actually, that would be awesome. I have very positive associations with May Day. For reasons unclear to me it became a tradition in my family to loot neighbors' gardens of their choicest flowers, run like hell when they discovered us pulling their blooms from their carefully tended soil, and deposit said stolen goods on our back door. Then we'd knock loudly, wait a moment, and run around the corner of the house to watch as our mother opened the door to find our purloined bouquet. She's always exclaim, "Oh I wonder who left these?" and we'd giggle madly, with one ear cocked for our angry neighbors, just in case they were still pursuing us. When we'd enter the house hours later we'd always make a big point of admiring the flowers (now in a vase). "Those are beautiful!" we'd say. "Where did you get them?" And our mother would say she didn't know. She just found them on the porch and weren't they lovely? Yes, they sure were, we'd say. This may explain why I never feel that buying and sending flowers is much of a gesture. Where's the effort? There's no running, no stealth involved.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, you can pre-order a copy of my paperback novel. Consider it a way of keeping me off the mean streets, where apparently I might do okay what with my criminal childhood and all. (Remind me to tell you the story of my first encounter with a police officer someday. I'll give you a teaser: it involved a lot of lying on my part.)

Posted by Stephanie at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Guardian Unlimited ran an interesting section on writer's rooms. Click here to check them out.
There's quite a variety in spaces, desk configurations, and decor. But what matters most is that it's a spot where the writer can write. I remember reading that Stephen King, after years spent writing on a crappy table, purchased a beautiful desk and found that he couldn't work on it. It intimidated him. So he went back to his former set up. Some days I find myself ogling beautiful long tables of solid gleaming wood, but most days when I'm actually writing, I don't much notice. Unless something, such a mug or set of keys, is physically inhabiting me (to the floor!) I don't notice it. So my desk is a little cluttered and not, I'm afraid, very stylish. Unless you consider a bottle of vitamins, a box of tissues, and a Kitchen Aid timer de rigeur. The one thing I've added to my desk recently is a little stone gargoyle a friend gave me for a birthday a few years back. He's hunched over and when I look up he stares at me with his inset eyes and seems to say, "Eyes back to your work, missy." I think of him as my taskmaster. But I know I'll probably only keep him on my desk for as long as book two is in progress. He's serving a very specific purpose.
Perhaps later I'll post a picture of it, so you can see for yourself what my deskmate looks like.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I did something recently I've never done before. No, not that. Get your minds out of the gutters, y'all. Honestly. I joined a gym. It's not that I'd never considered it in the past but usually two things stopped me: 1. The idea of working out around other people and 2. The whole paying money thing. But my wallet and my lone-wolf ways have taken the hit and I have learned several valuable things since joining my gym.

The bicycle program will not start until you pedal. Oops. I assumed you programmed it before pedaling. I was wrong. Working out in the afternoon doesn't give you more energy. At all. In fact, since my new workout routine began I return to the office looking wet and exhausted. It's not so much post-workout hair that I mind (though someone pointed this out to me) but the exhaustion. After my workout and lunch I just want to sleep for several hours. And I can't because I have work to do. However my new routine does insure that when I get home I have more time than I used to have to do things like writing and watching The Wire (I finished Season Three) and reading and eating ten times the amount of calories I burned at the gym.

And please someone tell me that the calorie counter on that bicycle was broken today because I pedaled fast and hard and my calves hurt and according to that machine I burned as many calories as are in half my Kashi bar. And I never eat just half. Wouldn't be polite.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been a fan of John Green since February of last year, when I stumbled across the video blog he was running with his brother, Hank. It was called Brotherhood 2.0 and it was all flavors of awesome. If you have a week of spare time I recommend checking it out from start to finish.

John is a YA author whose award-winning novel, Looking for Alaska, has recently met a challenge in an upstate New York school community. His defense of the book says it best. Plus, as most of John's videos are, it's articulate, funny, and dead on.

If you'd like to support John and his book you may write a letter in support and send it to: sparksfly up at gmail dot com.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)