Writing and 'Rithmatic

Not to generalize or anything, but most writers I know aren't into math. We're Word Women.

We use numbers to figure word count (1 page at 25 lines per pages, 1" margins all around in a 10-point font like Courier New or a 12-point font like Times New Roman equals 250 words, so a 100,000 word novel is 400 manuscript pages). Some authors can read and understand royalty statements, or so they say. Rumor has it that royalty statements are really, really tough to read. And agents earn 15 or so per cent of an author's advance. An author earns a percentage of the cover price of a book (after they've earned out their advance). So writers do use numbers. Most of us -- the ones I know -- don't like them.

My day job is in a building filled with math majors.
Y-Chromo plans on majoring in math -- he has mathiness genes from TV Stevie's side of the family.
I've always maintained a person only needs enough math to balance a checkbook and backtime a movie (I spent 30 years in TV; backtiming a movie is crucial.)

But I have a secret.

I like working with computerized spreadsheets. I enjoy making things like horizontal and vertical lookup formulas work. It's kind of like the guilty pleasure I always had in one of my high school courses: GEOMETRY.

I was horrible at geometry. Really and truly bad. And I loved it. I loved fiddling around, tinkering with theorems and hypotheses and all of that stuff.

I confessed this to a friend the other night. Another writer. "But I loved geometry," she said. "It's the only math class I ever liked. It made sense. I had my highest math grades in geometry."

A few hours later, the subject came up again and another writer friend (whose blog once boasted "no mathiness") said, "I loved geometry."

Okay. Three writers, all admittedly math challenged, loving geometry. This constitutes a trend. (This is my blog. If I say it's a trend, it's a trend.)

Why would writers -- people who deal with words -- prefer geometry over other forms of math -- such as royalty statements?

Here is my crackpot theory:

Writers love geometry because it deals with shapes; stories have shapes, plots have shapes. And we tinker until we perfect the shapes. Just like geometry.

Fungii, Not Food

A few weeks ago, TV Stevie came home from a business dinner and raved about the food and the restaurant where he and his boss met with a potential client. So I said, "Let's go there on our anniversary."

"Great idea," said TV Stevie.

Well, our anniversary is coming up, so I hopped on the Internet to see if the restaurant has a menu posted on-line. Luck! Menu, wine list, virtual tour of the dining room . . . this turn-of-the-19th-century establishment is firmly entrenched in the 21st century. I was impressed.

The wine list enthralled me. Several very nice selections. Then I began to peruse the menu.

Okay, I'm a modern girl. I don't think French Onion Soup and Shrimp Cocktail are the epitome of a first-class appetizer, and not finding them on the menu isn't an issue. In fact, the calamari starter looks great.

I was feeling good until I reached the list of entrees. Uh-oh. There are maybe two selections that aren't covered in either mushrooms or tomatoes, neither of which I like. I will tolerate tomatoes to a certain extent, but mushrooms are fungus, like athletes foot, and I refuse to eat them.

In fact, one of my fantasy careers is to open a restaurant and refuse to serve mushrooms on anything. Ever. Or hard-boiled eggs. Or green bell peppers (I love red bell peppers, especially roasted, but green? EYIIIIIIIICK!) Or mayonnaise. (Mayonnaise was invented to hide the rotting flavor of spoiled food. It is a loathesome substance. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. Check out the Worldwide I Hate Mayonnaise Club )

I'm suspicious of a chef who has to hide his cooking beneath a parasitic plant that is propigated in poop and is primarily texture without substance. Why does he does he need to do this if he can really cook?

I do not understand why most entrees are smothered in fungus. Why can't there be menu selections without mushrooms? I mean besides the stuff with the wasabi in it (shudder).

When I dabbled with vegetarianism, a huge problem was the number of recipes calling for mushrooms. And the majority of veggie patties on the market are primarily formed from mushrooms.

It must be a conspiracy of the Mushroom Pluckers of America or something.

TV Stevie is in on it. Why else would he suggest such a place, when after 19 years of marriage he should know I don't like mushrooms?

Secret Confessions

At the last meeting of my critique group, we told Purple Cactus that the 'book of her heart' -- the book she really wants to write, but she must fulfill a three-book contract first -- can be her "secret" book. One of us mentioned that Jennifer Crusie blogs about writing her "secret" books. The friend in question said that a multi-published member of our local RWA chapter also has a "secret book", a fun book. And just this morning, I read on Susan Sizemore's blog that she, too, has a "secret" book, a book to write just for fun.
Then I remembered that Braveheart Barbie
also has a secret book, something totally different than the Depression-era immigrant romances she usually writes.

I felt left out. I barely have a book to write, or so I thought.

Then I remembered the book I've been working on periodically for several years. And I do mean several. I think I can safely say I've tinkered with this baby for at least five years. Every so often, I go back to it. When I first spoke with my agent, before she signed me, she asked what projects I had in the works, and I mentioned this book. She wanted to see it. Badly.

It's a fun book, one I've adored working on. I don't know if I'll ever finish it because I'm not sure the story itself is long enough to justify a full-length novel.

My latest idea is to write three novellas (all plotted) with a unifying theme (yes, I have one) and make my 'secret' book the first of the three.

Before that, I wondered aloud to my critique group if it might not make a great Nocturne for Silhouette. The consensus there is that my 'fun' book isn't dark enough for Nocturne. I love my critique group. They're so . . . right.

So I have a secret book, a fun book, too. Whether or not it ever sees the light of day is another story.