I've been picking them well, lately

Sometimes you see a movie that completely and totally enthralls you. For both my husband and me, this movie was Juno. I mean, how could you not love this movie? All the actors were fabulous. I loved Allison Janney and her outburst when the ultrasound technician is condescending. I love JK Simmons when he says he wants to punch Bleeker in the nuts and then decides against it because he knows Bleeker and he knows his daughter – it must’ve been June Bug’s idea. I loved Jennifer Garner and even her husband. Juno was a fabulous movie, a total delight. If you haven’t seen this movie, please, please, go ahead and see it.

Since we'd done so well with Juno, I went ahead and rented The Jane Austen Book Club. I really liked the book and I am an Austen fan - so I had to watch the movie. I loved the movie and I am really annoyed that it didn't do well. It was such a fabulous movie with such wonderful actors. I then read Persuasion, saw Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley, and saw the BBC adaptation of Northanger Abbey.

And then since we had winter break and the kids spent some days with their grandparents, my husband and I went and saw Michael Clayton and National Treasure, both wonderful movies - and as intense as George Clooney was, Nic Cage made me laugh a lot more.

With this endless winter in Denmark (it's been going on a year now since we skipped spring, summer, and fall in 2007) I have been hibernating - not reading that much, not watching movies, just becoming one with the couch. Now, however, I feel that the thaw has set in.

And just to make things better I just received Beautiful Children by Charles Bock - a much-hyped book that I'm looking forward to read. There's been talk about this book everywhere, Gawker.com. PW, NYTB, you name it - so I am curious if it lives up to the hype (word of caution: no book can live up to the hype; that's the problem with hype). If you've read Beautiful Children; do let me know what you think. I won't let your opinion color my judgment but it will be nice to know that others feel like I feel as I read the book.

Yummm, I can just taste the hype as I open the first page and sniff the glue...

Some great jobs

I was watching Top Gear with my husband and I said to him, "Jeremy Clarkson has the best job in the world." The dude was driving a Lamborghini on the show, telling us that it was such fun to drive the car.

And there are other jobs out there that are just fabulous. Mine is not one of them. My job is littered with insecurity, writing walls (I don't believe in writer's block, I believe in hitting walls and getting past them), bad reviews, unhappy readers, and creepy Amazon.com ratings (like they actually tell you how your book is doing but it's all we authors have until the royalty report comes and we know the whole truth). My job is also about great reader emails, wonderful readers, some of whom become friends, that great feeling when I get a paragraph right, some great reviews, and so on and so forth.

Writing is hard work. I just started working on a new book and when I started the book I had the feeling I always do on page 1 - "How am I supposed to produce a whole book based on a title?"

And then I tell myself that I should be happy to have the title. My problem is that I can't write a book until it has a title. I can't even write an essay if I don't have a title. I need the title to get me through the book. There's no logic to this, I just function this way.

So...speaking of great jobs, here is a small list I made - feel free to add to it:

1. Jeremy Clarkson - this guy drives cool cars for a living and does other cool things with cars (he spent one season trying to destroy a Toyota truck)
2. Anthony Bourdain - he travels around the world and eats a variety of different food
3. Brad Pitt - do I need to explain this one?
4. Paris Hilton - she makes a living going to parties (I'm not condoning her fame; all I'm saying is that she parties for a living)
5. Rick Stein - he also travels around the world, eating good food, finding places that make good food

I wanted a top 10 but only managed the top 5. My husband suggested Bill Gates but I don't think he counts. He worked like a dog to get to where he is and now he's trying to save the world. Can you imagine a more frustrating job?

My mother always says that who cares if you like your job or not as long as you earn a living doing it. And there's truth in that - we don't all always love our jobs, sometimes we do what we do because the bills have to be paid. I love being a writer - but fact is that there are parts of this job that truly suck - but overall this is who I am and I can't change that and don't want to change that.

I'm sure if I asked the people on my top 5 great jobs list if they loved their job, they would say the same thing - I love my job overall, but there are parts of it that suck.

What do you think is the perfect job?

Lonely writer

The writing profession is a very lonely. Yes, many writers are loners and we enjoy our company, as long as we have some of our imaginary friends to play with - still it's tough at times.

As I work on a new story now, I feel the itch of turning around and asking someone, "so, what do you think?" I use my husband as a sounding board - but the guy loves me, what's he going to say, "yes, honey, this truly sucks." Of course not; he's too big to sleep comfortably on the couch.

I miss having a writer's group - I miss having people I can meet with and talk about how my work sucks and how I'm getting no where; and I miss having someone say, someone who's also a writer say that it's going to be okay, the book isn't total garbage. And of course, I'd like to do the same for a fellow writer.

This is one of the hardest parts of living in Denmark and having children and a career that has nothing to do with writing fiction. I remember I heard someone once say to me, "You can do anything you want, but can't do everything."

I don't have the time to join the one writer's group that I have found - and I am unable to find another that functions the way I write. Writers who meet over email and then meet for brunch a Sunday a month to rip each other's work to make it better.

For now, I write in solitude, not knowing if what I'm writing is good, bad, or great. I just read out a chapter of what I wrote to my husband and he said, "You got more? This is good." And I looked at him and said, "I don't want it to be good, I want it to knock your socks off." He responded, "No one knocks my socks off in the first chapter." Like that's supposed to make me feel better.

I need to be alone to write (a kid coming in to show me how Homer does the throat singing is hell on my concentration) - and I need to be with people so that I can write (I want to sit in a cafe and not all alone in a corner feeling like mountain man while I write) - it's quite a predicament.

If you're a writer and have access to a writer's group - go join it; and if you don't have one, try and create one. Writing alone is the only way to write - but the evaluation process doesn't have to be a lonely one. I will try and find critique partners, help, someone writer-type...something.