VVEM Briefing

Fold Up The Tent/Shut Down The Show

2007-10-18T13:47:24Z

In the interest of being a better blogger, I'm consolidating my blogs. I will still have MySpace, but I'll be bloggerific blogging over at the blogspot, "jenniferarmintrout.blogspot.com. Please come visit me, as I will be ever so lonely there with no one to talk to.

WAIT! STOP!

2007-08-06T15:25:22Z

To anyone planning on going to the Barnes and Noble Grand Rapids signing today at 2, DON'T! The date listed on the website is incorrect! It is NOT on August 6th, rather, it is on August 11. If you know anyone planning to go today, please inform them of the error!

To Whom It May Concern...

2007-07-30T05:46:39Z

I finished the first draft of the final Blood Ties book at 1:27AM. And I am crying like a little bitch because it's over.

Thoughts on the RWA controversy...

2007-07-27T02:55:23Z

My first-- and only-- RWA Nationals conference was the one I attended in 1994, at the tender age of thirteen years old. I went with my grandmother, Peggy Hanchar, who thought it would be a great chance for me to see New York and catch a few Broadway shows (my main aspiration at the time being a career in the theatre). I have fond memories of Nationals 2004. I saw the Statue of Liberty, toured NBC Studios (in the hopes that upon running into my bespectacled and braces encumbered thirteen-year-old self, Conan O'Brien would be instantly smitten and we would spend long romantic evenings bonding over our unfortunate gingerness), and met Rosie O'Donnell at the stage door after a performance of 'Grease.' I hated the thought of leaving and as I sat, dejected, on the plane that tore me away from the city that had stolen my heart (upon adult consideration of real estate prices in the city proper, I have since reclaimed said vital organ), my grandmother beside me breathed a sigh of relief and exclaimed, "I'm glad that's over!"

At the time, I couldn't understand why she didn't feel the sense of utter devastation I felt at being whisked away from the magical wonderland that was New York. Now, I understand. She was at that annual drama bomb that is the RWA national conference. I might have caught the matinée of Phantom, but I had missed out on the real melodramatics.

Every year, like Christmas, fall out from conference rains down on hapless and confused RWA members, stoked in recent times by bloggers and email loops. What once, back in 1987, would have been hotly repeated gossip in the ladies room of the conference hotel and discarded with the free promotional pens and bookmarks now lives on in pictures taken on cell phones and posted in online journals.

This year, I am speaking, of course, about the Shomi authors who *gasp* wore short skirts and thigh highs to the Literacy event and, to a lesser extent, the swan hat worn by a popular paranormal romance author.

With the exception of a few blog posts or comments saying, in effect, people can wear whatever they want to promote their books and as long as no ones' tits were hanging out, leave them alone, the reaction to these three individuals has been astoundingly negative. The worst attacks have been against the Shomi authors. The convenient anonymity of the internet has given some incredibly catty individuals free reign to vent their jealousy and personal insecurities on these women. Ridiculous accusations have been thick on the ground: These authors are unprofessional, they only got their book contracts because of their looks and male editor, they have single (double?) handedly tarnished the venerable name of RWA by showing their trampy, trampy faces at the conference at all, etc.

Some are easier to dismiss than others. Yes, the editor of the Shomi imprint is male, and yes, he has, on occasion, been seen surrounded by simpering females at various conferences (and at one notable RWA function was witnessed by yours truly playing pool with a group of middle aged attendees, one of whom openly ogled his backside whilst stroking a pool cue suggestively. It is a nightmarish scene that I cannot ever erase from my memory), but before I was published by Mira, I submitted material to this editor and never once in the submissions process did he request a picture of the author in order to make his decision. If these women are published by Shomi, it's because they wrote a story that appealed to this editor, not because of any favors they gained through their sex appeal and the flaunting thereof.
To say otherwise exposes the accusers as what they truly are: vicious bitches who have broken their leashes, out to attack and destroy anyone who holds what they covet, from professional achievements to youthful, well-toned bodies. And anyone who pretends that these nasty comments stem from anything other than blatant body insecurity brought to a head by the fact that these two women wore sexy clothes, looked good in them and garnered attention over their looks is living in a fantasy.

It's harder to crack the complaints of those who feel that these women (bird hat author included now) have somehow harmed the image of the genre. I have a very strong feeling that these are the same individuals who are fighting the inclusion of Erotica in the RWA definition of romantic fiction. The writers who claw their eyes out wanting to be taken seriously, who vehemently defend romance even when no one is attacking it. To these writers I say: mind what's going on in your own backyard and don't worry about the barbecue next door.

We are genre fiction writers. We make up stories about people who fall in love and have adventures. We entertain people, usually on their lunch break or right before they fall asleep or when they're on the toilet. We are not curing cancer. We are not fighting terrorism. Our work is only important to ourselves, and to our readers for the short time they spend with it. Why the near industry-wide push to ignore that fact and pretend that what we do is of the utmost importance to the world?

What's worse is that these individuals who cry to the heavens about the validity of their literary accomplishments don't just voice their opinions and leave it at that. They want the rest of us in the industry to not only uphold their ideals, but share their views wholeheartedly. And one slip will destroy the genre as a whole.

If you want to believe that your book about a fiery, red-headed daughter of a penniless lord (who has a temper to match those luxuriant tresses) being claimed body, heart, and soul by a sexily battle-scarred knight with anachronistically impeccable hygiene is high art, be my guest. But don't expect me to, and don't expect anyone else to treat their work with the reverence you do yours.

I have to pose this question honestly: Did the Shomi Harajuku girls or swan hat lady actually hurt anyone's livelihood? Will we see a significant drop in book sales over the next year because someone wore thigh highs and pleated skirts rather than business suits to the Literacy signing? I'm willing to bet not. And if they hadn't dressed this way, would a romance novel have won the Nobel Prize for Literature? Again, willing to bet not.

The average romance reader does not buy a book based on what the author wore to what signing. The average (good) librarian doesn't buy a book because they feel the genre is important. The reader buys a book because it seems like a good story. Ditto, the librarian, who buys what her readers want to see on the shelf. If I walked into a book signing wearing sack cloth and ashes, I'll probably not sell too many books that day. But is it going to affect the actions of a person who has never seen me? No. Because they have no idea.

Unless, of course, someone takes a picture of me and posts it to a blog. The actions of these bloggers who widely disseminate the images, then complain that the sartorial faux pas is going to destroy romance make absolutely no sense. If you honestly believe this, why spread the evidence around? No one will know if you don't give them the opportunity to find out. Yes, the Dallas newspaper carried the photo. That is one news paper out of the thousands in the country. And most people wouldn't know it was in the paper if they hadn't found out in the numerous blog posts about it.

The most incredible, mind boggling part of this whole controversy has been the way people have used their personally held beliefs as a license to say horrible, insulting things about these people in a very public forum. This is a business. I want some of the people bashing these authors to think very carefully about what they're doing. Your comments will get around. They might not effect your career. They might only cause a few uncomfortable moments at future
conferences when you run into these individuals and they know the hurtful things you said about them. But there might be an editor out there or an agent who you will want to work with in the future, and they might remember, also.

You are not hurting these authors with your criticism (professionally, at least. I'm sure the experience of being made fun of on numerous blogs for the past few days has been personally hurtful), you're actually giving them plenty of publicity that they can take, laughing, to the bank. But you might be hurting yourself. And you're also making yourselves look like total assholes.

It must be colder in hell today...

2007-04-07T22:16:38Z

...because I cleaned my office. It's a miracle.

I tend to find that while I'm writing a book, my office is a nightmare of filth. I just finished writing book four and suddenly I was no longer blind to the seriously unsanitary conditions and precariously stacked empty diet coke cans teetering unsafely in the stagnant breeze.

Because I do not want to get Tetnus and also because I had nothing better to do, I cleaned up my office. It's a banner day that comes about once a year, I think, so I'm going to celebrate with this post, which I will call:

Jenny's Office: By The Numbers
(Distances are approximate. Void where prohibited.)

400 books of various genres and subjects
200 feet to Jenny's doctor's office from her office.
50 Disney trading pins
16 ugly unicorn statues, suncatchers, pictures and general bric-a-brac
14 decks of tarot cards
11 folios of sheet music
8 Bertrice Small novels
7 Earth, Wind and Fire albums
5 Musical instruments (trombone, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, Yamaha keyboard, bodhran)
4 quartz crystals
3 Little Apple Dolls
2 pictures of Herman Melville
1 crystal ball

Other assorted clutter includes various wigs and hats, a framed steak knife and a cross stitched sampler of my favorite phrase "Nevermind, I'll do it myself" translated into Scots Gaelic.

How does this enviroment, when free from dirty dishes, empty cheetos bags and discarded black jelly beans, help me focus my scattered creative energy and funnel my ideas into one, cohesive fictional vision?

I have no idea.

In fact, I'm sure that if I was mauled by bears at a camp out and dragged off into the night, the family member assigned to sorting through my things and putting my affairs to order will probably give up half way through the job, shaking their head and saying, "It's a good thing she died, because she was clearly insane."

There was a point to this. Probably some Virgina Wolf-esque, room-of-one's-own type thing.

My office is clean! Wheee!

X-Posted to my blogger site

Website Updated!

2007-01-11T20:08:59Z

The website has been updated. Go forth and find an excerpt of book two (!), pictures of some of the locations mentioned in book one (!), fanart and various other joys. www.jenniferarmintrout.com

Last post of 2006

2006-12-31T16:59:36Z

So, 2006 is almost over. It was a good year. But 2007 will be a better year. Why? Because TWO, not one, but TWO Blood Ties books will be published in 2007. That's right. By the end of 2007, a lot of fan theories will be proved true or false. Some characters will die. Some will move away. But by the end of 2007, you'll totally be ready for 2008, when the final books of the series come out.

Im in ur calendrz, skedulin ur reading.

Well, I should get some work done (writers have to work all the major holidays, you know, especially when you've got two characters you're dying to hook up and the only thing delaying an awesome hot scene is the page count) and clean up the house in preparation for the "Last Resort" new year party at my house tonight. No joke, we're not into having a big party with a band and all sorts of crazy "You should have been at Jen's party, man!" stories the day aftr. Nope, we throw "Last Resort" parties, the kind where people are like, "Well, I really don't have anything else to do. I guess I could go play Jenga at Jen's house, even though it will suck."

Have a fantastic New Year's Eve and Day, get a designated driver, be responsible and all that.

Whoops!

2006-12-17T17:44:41Z

Today, because I'm a nerd, I accidentally revealed my secrety live journal identity to some of you... all I can ask is that you help a dork out and not be all "I know where her day-to-day personal ramblings are!"

In other news, I found an interesting post on a Gerard Butler fan site today. Okay, I don't want to make it sound like I accidentally stumbled over it, because I don't want to sound like a total stalker fan. The man is super fun to look at, but I don't have the time for full blown stalking and also I saw him on Craig Ferguson's show wearing white tennis shoes and white socks with an all-over-dark sort of outfit and yeah... that diminished the sexy. Anyway, the way I found the post in this particular forum is that I was shamelessly google-ing my name and looking to see if there's any fanfic or anything floating around out there. So, this post was about the book and how I based the looks/mannerisms off of watching Gerry Butler in the movies, and someone mentioned that they'd met me at an RWA conference and that "she hates fanfiction with an unholy passion."

I just want to put it out there right now, so there are no misunderstandings, that I DO NOT hate fanfic. In fact, I love it, write it, post it to FF.net under a super secrety account, and love reading all manner of fic, from the good to the bad to the very, very bad.

I just had to clear up that rumor. Fanfic is the bomb.

Merry Holidays and All That Rot...

2006-12-17T05:55:07Z

Holidays are coming up... swamped with line edits on book the third... having a little drinky poo and watching Pirates part deux... wondering... if you could give one Chrismahannakwanzafestiyulestice present to one character from Blood Ties... who would you pick and what would you give them?

I'm such a NERD!

2006-12-16T03:34:21Z

I saw a woman browsing in the Laurell K. Hamilton books at Barnes and Nobel, so I said, "Have you read her before?" She said that no, she hadn't, and I recommended them with the caveat, "If you like vampire books." She starts talking about how she's just started to get into vampires, so I, trying to be slick, say, "Have you read Jennifer Armintrout's book The Turning?" When she says no, I started gushing over what a great book it was and how she totally had to pick it up, but the girl was so nice I felt like an evil, evil, dirty, bad liar, and I just blurted out, "I have to be honest here, I'm Jennifer Armintrout, I'm trying to totally sell my own book," and we both started cracking up. Still, I was super embarrassed at my lame attempt to be slick, so I got what I needed and hightailed it out of there. I'm such a dork.

A Quick Update!

2006-11-10T06:17:01Z

Still hard at work on books three and four of the series, but here's a real quick update!

I did an interview with www.eternalnight.co.uk, which can be read here: http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/interviews/2006/armintroutjennifer.html

And a little birdie told me I'm mentioned in this month's Fangoria magazine. If anyone gets Fangoria and wants to tell me the gist of what it says, I'd be very appreciative!

In other news, there is a bat trapped in my attic, which seems rather fitting.

MA fans, you're lovely, lovely folk...

2006-09-14T02:05:43Z

I'm currently on my honeymoon in the Berkshires, kind of darting around MA and seeing the sites. I've stopped into a couple of bookstores to sign stock, and at both locations I was informed that I'm "very popular" in MA. So, thank you, MA fans, for making me "popular."

If you're in Pittsfield, there is one autographed copy of The Turning at the Waldenbooks in the Berkshire Mall, and if you're in Boston, you'll find two autographed copies at the Borders bookstore that the Freedom Trail goes by. I think it's right across from the Old South Meeting House, or some other historical building with too many stairs for any reasonable person to climb.

The Castle Has Been Invaded!

2006-08-25T04:03:28Z

I just wanted to share that, while I am very fond of vampires, I do not like bats.

As the bat in my kitchen *just* learned. Also, my neighbors who saw all three of us running, shrieking, onto the yard in our pajamas.

In other news (if I haven't reported it already), I was just offered a contract for the final two books in the Blood Ties series, and two books of a new series, so it appears that I won't be leaving the bookstores just yet. :)

Thanks, spiderjill79

2006-07-19T18:05:37Z

Of broken computers and family plotting...

2006-07-12T01:28:36Z

Well, now that my computer is no longer broken, I can update at my leisure.

First of all, I want to just mention that my website has a FAQ section. I totally don't mind answering questions, really, but check it out if you have a question and you'll probably get an answer faster than you'd get one from me.

Second, there is a hot air balloon narrowly missing my neighbor's house.

Third, to all you aspiring writers out there, this is a warning: Your family will read your book. They will read it and then you will have the following conversation:

Grandpa: We know what's gonna happen in your second book. We got it all figured out.
Jen: Really? What's going to happen?
Aunt: I don't want to tell you, in case we're not right!
Grandpa: We were talking about it last night.
Jen: Just tell me.
Grandpa: That kid ain't dead. That other gal sired him.
Aunt: We think Ziggy isn't really dead, that in book two he'll come back, and Dahlia is his sire, and maybe now he's... well, I don't want him to be a bad guy. But maybe they join up with the Soul Eater.
Grandpa: That's what's gonna happen.
Jen: Okay... well, I'll add that as fan theory #52978 of what will happen in book two.
Aunt: Are we right?
Jen: {weary sigh}

And, later:

Jen: He wrestles alligators? Isn't that, like, the most dangerous thing you could wrestle?
Grandpa: I don't know, those vampires seem pretty tough. You can't kill them.

Now, for those of you who asked, my MySpace is (and I'm pretty confident about this) http://www.myspace.com/jennifer_armintrout I'm willing to bet at least a quarter that's the right URL.

jennyarmintrout @ 2006-06-26T15:00:00

2006-06-26T19:02:00Z

I did, in fact, finish book two revisions on time. The good news is, that leaves me open to work on the beginning of book four this week!

In other, non-writing related news, I do have a Myspace, I had one before I started this. Today, I made a resolution to check it more than once a month. We'll see how that goes...

Avoiding work...

2006-06-20T15:06:40Z

Every once in a while, when you're writing, you come across a scene you just do NOT want to deal with. I'm at that scene right now. I've been working on this one little snippet for the past two days. It's a revision for book two and I just don't want to rehash it all again.

And then she pounded her head on the desk with great enthusiasm.

So, last night, instead of writing, like I was supposed to, I updated my website with pictures from the GR signing and photos I took on the tour of Indianapolis and Ohio. I went with two other Mira authors, Karen Harper and Susan Andersen, who are just about the nicest ladies you could want to meet. A representative from Harlequin, Margie Mullens, came with us, also a very nice lady, and Marianne Szamraj, who is a bookseller and also super duper nice.

By the way, I want to thank everyone who came out to see us on that tour. It was fun, but it would have been pointless if we hadn't met any readers!

Well, I'm off to do some stuff... probably not writing. I'll wait until the deadline on these revisions is looming and I'm freaked about finishing and the dishes are overflowing the sink and I don't even have time to brush my teeth. I seem to work faster when I'm stressed and exhibiting atrocious personal hygiene.

Waldenbooks signing...

2006-06-04T16:46:17Z

I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who showed up at the Waldenbooks signing in Grand Rapids yesterday! Wednesday I leave to visit various stops in Indiana and Ohio, so check out my website and if I'm coming to your area, come out and meet me!

Well, I'm off to continue putting the finishing touches on book two!

Inagural Post...

2006-04-17T14:31:59Z

Here's a place where I can make notes with bad spelling and poor grammar about what I'm working on now, how things are going for my upcoming releases, post my good reviews and all that rot. I may update every day, maybe once a year, I'm not sure. In any case, if you're reading this, buy my book, Blood Ties Book One: The Turning, read it, enjoy it, then friend this journal if the fancy strikes you. It'll be like a hip little internet fanclub. You'll be in the know.