Julie James

So here’s an interesting “scruples” question for the weekend…

My husband and I had friends over for dinner last night, and one of our friends posed the following scenario.  It sparked a fair amount of debate between the eight of us, so I thought I’d throw it out here to see what others think.  Here’s the question:

Can you hold a parking spot?

Here’s the situation: My friend and her husband were at a crowded outlet mall over Memorial Day weekend and spent 45 minutes trying to find a parking spot.  One opened up a lane over and my friend got out of the car and stood in the empty spot while her husband drove the car around.  Another car got to the parking spot before my friend’s husband and The Other Guy told my friend she couldn’t stand there to hold the spot.   Quite angry, The Other Guy told my friend that holding a parking spot was illegal.  Said the parking spot was public property and she was illegally taking it.  When my friend wasn’t impressed with The Other Guy’s legal case, he got even angrier and threw out the Parent Card: “Do you have a son?  Because I have a kid in the car.”  Sidenote:  I have a two year-old, and boy do I ever understand use of the Parent Card at appropriate times.  (Four hour plane rides to California come to mind.)  But to me, this doesn’t seem like one…

Anyway, the stand-off finally ended when my friend’s husband got to the parking spot and “strongly suggested” (I’ll leave it at that) that The Other Guy move his car along.  

So there you go: Can you save/guard a parking spot?  Like I said, this topic spurred a lot of interesting discussion amongst all of us last night and I’d love to hear what other people think.

Note: I should mention that the photo above is NOT my friend, although that would be hysterical.  It’s just some random photo I found on the internet.

I’m back from California, but, wow, I think my brain is stuck in Napa Valley.  My first time there, and I pretty much just fell in love with the place.  So much so that I’m determined somehow, some way, to include it as a setting in one of my books.

I’ve got some work-related things going on that are taking up virtually all my time (the time not already devoted to an extremely “independent” (read: stubborn) and tantrum-prone toddler (don’t even ask about our disastrous trip to the wine store yesterday)), but I don’t want to totally neglect my blog.  So I thought I’d share some pictures from my trip.  And I think you’ll see why my brain just doesn’t want to come back to the real world.

This is the view from Quintessa, the first winery we visited.  They make incredible cabernet– my favorite type of wine.  What a way to start the trip!

A rock formation we stumbled across on one of the hiking trails at our hotel.  Not sure if nature made it look exactly like a face, or something else…

The view from Kuleto– the fourth winery we visited.  Incredible views, fantastic wine.  Oprah is building a house on one side of the hill, and Robin Williams owns pretty much an entire hill on the other side.  Must be nice to have such neighbors…

An outdoor tasting table at Kuleto… Seeing how it was a whopping 106 degrees the day we visited, we did our tasting inside.

More from Kuleto… (can you tell we liked this place?)

The restaurant at our hotel, Calistoga Ranch.  Appropriately named the Lakehouse.  Loved the views from the terrace at sunset.

And last, another view from our hotel.  Man, I think we should’ve made this trip longer…

It’s off to Napa Valley tomorrow– my first time!  So excited.  Can’t wait to sit back and relax, and of course drink some fabulous wine.  What’s great is that I’ve got a scene in my head for Book 4 that takes place in Napa– so I can count this as research.  (At least that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.)  And who wouldn’t be inspired by scenery like this?

Good news for me:  Book 4 has moved beyond the “nugget of an idea” stage and into the plot-outlining stage.   And I’m strongly considering bringing back a couple characters from an earlier book…  I won’t say anything until I decide for sure, but I’m thinking this book will have scenes in both California and Chicago, so well… it could be anyone.  ;-)

That’s a question I’d love to hear from you guys on:  do you like seeing characters from earlier stories in later books?  Or do you prefer to think of your characters living in their own world, so to speak, with no overlap?

Hey everyone!  For the next three days I’ll be over at the DIK Ladies blog, hanging out on the island.  Thursday I did a Q&A, talking about everything from the hero I’d most like to be, to the author everyone loves but I don’t get, to my favorite sex song, he, he.  Today we discuss the question: Does the car make the man?  (I’ve got pictures of some oh-so-fine cars and a special preview of the vehicle the hero in my upcoming book drives.  It’s yummy, that’s all I’ll say.)  On Saturday, I’ll tell you why I love a good comeuppance and about some women who have influenced my writing.  

Oh– we’re doing a giveaway both Friday and Saturday, so be sure to check that out.  And I’ll be lounging around on the island, drinking my tropical cocktails and happy to answer any questions you have about my books, me, or just life in general.  So, if you get a chance, drop on by!

I’m at the half-way point of the book I’m currently reading, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and I’m really enjoying it. Finding it hard to put the book down.  But about 100 pages ago, I started getting that pit in my stomach, that anxious thought in my mind: “This all might not turn out so well…”

The book, in a nutshell, takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights movement of the 1960′s and is about two African-American nanny/housekeepers who team up with a white female writer to tell their stories about what it’s like to work in white households.  The idea that it’s okay for black housekeepers to raise the children of white families, but aren’t allowed to use the same bathroom as them.   The book is divided between three different points of view– the two African-American housekeepers and the white woman interviewing them.  All three characters are aware that there is incredible danger in meeting together.  And because of the danger that is so prevalent, I find it hard to put the book down, because I want to know what’s going to happen.  I want to know that the characters are going to be okay.  And then it hit me:

Maybe they won’t be.

I read a beautiful post awhile ago by Jane at Dear Author, about the journey a reader goes on when picking up a book, and the trust that goes into the reader/author relationship.   For me, The Help is a great example of that.  I have a feeling the ending of this book is not going to be all sunshine and roses, but I’m willing to go with the author wherever she wants to lead, because she’s had me hooked from the beginning.

I had a similar, and even stronger, reaction when I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.  Wow, did that book just tear me up.  Never before has my book club been so universally moved by a book, I don’t think. While reading it, and afterward, I was depressed, furious, bruised, battered… but also incredibly touched and just so amazingly appreciative of my life.  There were scenes in it that wrenched my heart in a way that I haven’t forgotten, and likely will never forget.  But as difficult as those scenes might be, there is a beauty in being touched by a book that way.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan is another example.  This book sure gets the award for taking me in a direction I didn’t expect.  I trusted the author, even though she pulled the rug out from under me and hit me with an ending I was completely unprepared for.  The climax of this book haunted me for some time… but that, in itself, says something about  the story and the writing.

I did an interview a few weeks ago, where I talked about the appeal of romantic fiction, and how there is a comfort in the guarantee of a happy/optimistic ending.  Now, I have read romance novels that dealt with some very serious topics (Fragile by Shiloh Walker and Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas immediately come to mind), but I did have, at least, a certain peace while reading those books that somehow, some way, everything was going to work out in the end.  And there is incredible value in providing that comfort.  Sure, there are times when I want to be shocked and awed and touched, but then there are times when I want to be awed and touched and uplifted– and with no genre other than romance, in my experience, have I been able to count on this.

I think, to follow Jane’s analogy, there are times when I want to slip my hand into an author’s and have her or him say, “I make no promises.  But you’ll never forget this journey.”  And then there are times when I want the author to smile and say with a wink, “Trust me.”

When I began my writing career– writing screenplays– I think I struggled with this.  My scripts crossed the spectrum–I wrote a couple of romantic comedies, but then I also wrote some dark, suspenseful thrillers.  At one point in my career, my film agent suggested that I choose a tone so that people knew what to expect when reading one of my scripts.  I, naively, was resistant to this at first, thinking it shouldn’t matter as long as the story was a good one.  But now, having broadened my own reading, I understand better:  readers want to have some idea of what they’re diving into before committing to a 120 page screenplay or 300+ page novel.

Perhaps I’m focused on this right now for personal reasons.  Just a few weeks ago, my literary agent, in praising the manuscript for my next book, described it as a “romantic suspense.”  Of course I was pleased by her reaction, but a part of me was surprised:  Wait– I wrote a romantic suspense? I, on the other hand, would describe it as a romantic comedy with a suspense subplot.

Hmm… so what else can I tell you about book 3?  Yes, true, it has more thrills (and is longer and steamier) than my first two, but— Oh, wait.

I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.

[wink]

But enough rambling from me… I’d love to know what you expect, as a reader.  Do your expectations differ depending on the genre?  What will make you stick with a story that goes in a direction you didn’t anticipate?

**Edited to add:  I finished the book and was moved by how touching and–yes–uplifting the ending is.  Sure, there were some tears over a particularly moving scene at the end, but not the bad kind of tears.  I’d highly recommend this book.  The three women protagonists that are the core of this story are all great characters you’ll get behind and cheer for.