What I'm reading

I like history, and while I don't identify as a hardcore feminist scholar, I do identify as a feminist. I am also very interested in fashion. A couple years ago, my husband bought me a book at the Mary Meuser Memorial Library book fair, Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Feminism and Fashion by Linda M. Scott. I never got that far into it because it's a heavy book and school work interfered. I picked it up again yesterday.

Every time I pick it up, I am captivated. I didn't have much time yesterday to read, but I managed to finish 50 pages. It's a well-written, well-supported book and my lack of completing it is not the fault of the author.

I've also found several points in here I could add to my honor's thesis. The whole point of reading this book was that it had nothing to do with my honor's thesis.

FROM GOOGLE BOOKS:

"Linda M. Scott wants to put an end to the belief that American women have to wear a colorless, shapeless uniform to achieve liberation and equality.

A pointed attack on feminism's requisite style of dress, Fresh Lipstick argues that wearing high heels and using hair curlers does not deny you the right to seek advancement, empowerment, and equality. Scott asserts that judging someone on her fashion choices is as detrimental to advancement as judgments based on race, nationality, or social class. Fashion is an important mode of personal expression, not an indication of submission. She demonstrates that feminism's dogged reduction of fashion to sexual objectification has been motivated by a desire to control other women, not free them. This push for power has produced endless conflict from the movement's earliest days, hindering advances in women's rights by promoting exclusion. It is time for the "plain Jane" dress code of the revolution to be lifted, allowing all women to lead, even those wearing makeup and Manolos.

Marching through 150 years of American dress history, Scott rips down feminism's favorite positions on fashion-from the power of images to the purpose of makeup. The illustrative examples-from flappers to Twiggy to body-piercing-are often poignant, occasionally infuriating, but always illuminating and thought-provoking.

With Fresh Lipstick, Linda Scott gives women the ammunition to settle the fashion debate once and for all. She challenges feminists to move beyond appearances and to return their focus to the true mission of the movement: equality for all women everywhere."

http://books.google.com/books/about/Fresh_Lipstick.html?id=5pCy8-EitMgC

Off the cuff

I have fifteen minutes before I leave for class and I'm stuck here at the college library having finished some homework early and having no brain cells left for writing.

Last night, Étienne had his Spring 2011 ready-to-wear fashion show and I imagine he shocked the world by starting the show with the models in full burqas. A couple weeks ago, the French legislature passed a law banning burqas under the French policy of maintaining a "laïc" society. The separation of church and state has led to a severe type of absence of religion from everyday life in France, and there are very real reasons why these policies developed.

But, from a practical standpoint, and a cultural/societal one, the ideology in question is not going to work and the law will cause problems.

Although Étienne is not Muslim, he has friends that are. And he sent those models down the runway in burqas to make a statement. He did finally show the clothes, but even then, every model had a headpiece, i.e. a form of the veil, and he made a statement.

I started editing Chapter 21 of Courting Apparitions, and in that chapter, Étienne flies to France. In a few days, so am I, so this is exciting. Our lives overlap. In a good way.

Details: The Right Pair of Shoes

I spend an enormous amount of time on the details in my novels. It may be "throw away" detail that the reader skims over and soon forgets, but it's the details that make a story a believable interaction with the real world.

My characters have money. Most of them work in fashion. I have a main character (Étienne) who likes to shop for shoes: for himself, for his wife, for his employees.

When I mention what shoes he recently bought, it can be an anchor in time. The first novel in my Fashion and Fiends series takes place in fall 2002. The shoes on the main characters' feet support this.

I once had a professional reader chide me for mistreating a napkin. Apparently she collected linens, and felt it was a terrible thing that my main character was ironing his napkins. This is apparently dangerous for old linens. Except these were everyday modern linens. But she noticed, and it killed my credibility for her. (Which in all honesty, I think I deserve some slack on that one since I didn't have him ironing his grandmother's lace. And besides-- he's a fashion designer, a dressmaker, linens aren't his specialty.)

So maybe it's excessive that I spend a half an hour looking for the perfect pair of shoes for my heroine to fight her battles in, but maybe not. I think the details-- if used correctly-- paint an accurate picture of who these people are.

Let's test a paragraph/scene:

They traveled the rest of the way to the car without speaking. Once Basilie lowered her bottom into the leather seat and turned on the warmer for her back, she kicked off her black patent ballet slippers. She massaged the sole of her foot, thankful she had worn flats. Étienne peered to her, then down to the shoes, one on its side, the other clearly displaying its pale innards and YSL logo.
“You scuffed those today,” he said.
“Can you polish them?” she asked. “I’d like to wear them to the party tonight.”

I like that Basilie doesn't mention, even in her own head, that these are Yves Saint Laurent shoes, until her husband looks at them. And even then it's a minor reference.

What's even more amusing to me is that Basilie is eight months pregnant and just survived a sword fight, and yes she fought the bad guy with a sword, and she's not concerned about her shoes but the upcoming party.

And she expects Étienne to polish them, to fix it, so she can continue looking good and feeling comfortable.

I could continue analyzing this, but you get the idea.

Farewell Alexander McQueen

I, like many right now, am still stunned and saddened by the suicide of Alexander McQueen, a 40-year-old fashion great.

"Why are you writing about it here?" you may ask.

My book features the apparent suicide of a fashion icon. Watching the media react to this allows me to watch, celebrating voyeurism, as I see how the real fashion industry reacts.

A little piece of me

I started today thinking about how my writer friends all have a tendency to lose themselves in whatever is the topic/interest of the moment. I'm specifically thinking of someone who recently spent a day researching Jane Austen. For no reason.

This random knowledge always comes back somewhere.

My stories have grown with me. Some are mere outlines waiting for me to pay them attention (the serial killer and the journalist; the ugly inner workings of a non-profit The Devil Wears Prada style). Others have influenced who I am.

Sometimes I can just research that tidbit I need and let it go, but other times these bits of information stick to me. I find myself approaching my 35th birthday with the alter-ego of a 50-year-old (straight, male) French fashion designer. And I really wish I could own my own French fashion house, but even though I could theoretically become French, I will never have the ability to sew...

This got me revisiting a familiar thought of mine. Each of my characters represents a different part of me.

Adelaide: my naive, lost side that always lacks confidence and feels like I'm failing.

Basilie: my smart, bitchy self

Étienne: my artsy, easygoing, charming self (the self I really want to be)

Galen: my selfish, mean self

Flidais: my powerful yet defiant self

In other stories I have alter-selfs that are more obvious. The housewife who buys herself a new outfit at Saks and cheats on her husband, for one. I have never done what she did, but her actions stem from exactly the ennui I experienced a few years ago. I can't imagine a writer who doesn't use their characters to do the things we really want to do but never would... That's part of the fun.

The value of setting

Yesterday I reflected upon first chapters, and today I thought I'd ruminate on something equally as important (and often daunting) and pivotal to the success of any story: setting.

The right setting will make or break a book.

When I first started my book, before chick lit existed, some of my characters worked in fashion, primarily so they could wear cool clothes and go to Paris. Yes, this was a 'deep' decision. Without any knowledge of the TGV or basic transportation system in France, I decided that the main female character would frequent the Strasbourg area to visit her German aunt. (I don't even remember if the aunt lived in France or Germany.) The bad guy now was just a love interest then and he lived in Germany selling antiques and making stained glass.

As the story changed and the fashion grew more pivotal, Paris became the obvious setting. But even after I had spent time in Paris (about a month), the city remained illusive in my writing. She seemed nothing more than a shadow of herself. Another contributing factor was the obvious realization that I speak French, not German. Along the lines of the old adage 'write what you know'... I find myself often fighting with my story. Why on Earth would I do anything in Germany when I'm a Francophile?

So, to avoid a two-dimensional Paris, I gave the fashion house a New York office. Problem solved right? I've spent lots of time in New York. I can create an accurate New York. Nope. My New York is a day-trip New York. Yes, I have traveled the subways, the cabs, and different neighborhoods, but I have never lived there.

My story continued to stumble and limp because New York didn't work. But how could I fix that? I couldn't move to New York (ah, but what an idea!).

I gave the main characters a weekend house in rural Pennsylvania. And it happens to be the house I grew up in. Rural Upper Mount Bethel Township. River Road. Half way between Tuscarora Inn and Driftstone Campground. Now these rich Parisians have mounted substantial renovations to the humble farmhouse where I lived... but that's also something I dreamed about as a kid, "fixing" the dilapidated house my parents rented.

But I didn't stop there. The bad guy lives in the outskirts of the school district where I live now. I can drive you down his road.

The characters visit the familiar country bar where I've been a million times.

The story soared.

Have I abandoned New York and Paris? No. Office scenes in a New York Italianate brownstone. Basilie has a fabulous apartment in the Ansonia. (And another fabulous apartment on the Place des Vosges in Paris, which we never see until book three, I think.) The office in Paris. Étienne's Ile St. Louis townhouse. But most of the story, at least 70 percent I'd say, happens in Pennsylvania.

I never thought I'd find a feasible reason for my artistic French character to be in rural Pennsylvania, but when you think about the geography of France, it makes sense. France is primarily rural and their towns are very small. Cities and small towns. Very few medium sized towns. If Étienne wished to leave the city, which he hates because it is not Paris, where would he go? Pennsylvania. And at the time he bought the old farmhouse, he probably paid $120,000 for it which is downright laughable to him. His car cost $250,000.

Never underestimate the setting.

I had a similar problem with book two of my series. I kept trying to open with the bad guy and the good guy working together in New York. My husband kept asking me WHY would the bad guy agree to work for the good guy instead of just killing him? After years of resisting, and the rejection of my critique group, I moved them to neutral territory: the country bar. Where they could casually run into each other.

And then, after their scene, I got to offer this (first draft) depiction of my former home:

"River Road originated on other side of the Portland-Columbia toll bridge. Cross the railroad tracks, pass the coal-fired electrical generator, and follow the Delaware River another four miles and there stood Étienne’s weekend house, a renovated 18th century farmhouse he had purchased as a getaway for his wife. He had spent a year with the architects and contractors overseeing the transformation from crumbling relic to country estate. His idea of a romantic hideaway didn’t quite materialize, since Adelaide sliced her wrists in the master bathroom occurred less than a month after the official housewarming.
He drove his wife’s sedan past Jules’ Volkswagen Touareg to the upper end of the driveway, parking right beside the massive deck that spanned from the house to the three car garage. The crisp air burned Étienne’s lungs. The dark sky showed a breathtaking magnitude of stars and across the street, the river lapped at its banks with a rhythm as reassuring as that of a old woman’s rocking chair. His breath materialized in foggy wisps, but the chill didn’t bother him (except for his protesting leg) because the first day of February in Pennsylvania couldn’t match the bitter damp of winter in Paris.
Climbing the stairs slowly, he lingered on the deck, chasing constellations across the horizon. The pain in his face subsided a bit in the coldness, and he knew he should head into the house and ice his wounds, but something about the night felt good and quieted his soul. The lights from the kitchen spilled into the cedar entryway, casting gold across the deck from the large window and the portes-fenêtres."