Bullies and Blue Valentines

Things are a little bleak at Collins-Rideout headquarters right now as Yvonne and I are both mourning the recent loss of loved ones.

Luckily, writing can be a great distraction—especially when it’s romantic comedy. Happily-ever-afters are exactly what we need.

And so we offer you Shatterproof, our first novella, in time for Valentine’s Day.

Shatterproof marks our return to adult fiction after a string of teen novels, most recently a paranormal romance, Torch.

It was nice to create adult characters for a change, particularly our villain, the vain, conniving, Baxter Thorpe. It strikes me now that Baxter has a few traits in common with Margo, the villain in Speechless (available in e-format on February 15th).

Speechless has a special place in my heart, not just because it’s was our first novel, but because there was a real-life model for Margo, a bully who made my life miserable for the longest six months of my career.

Devious and scheming, “Real Margo” also happened to be quite good at her job. A skilled multi-tasker, she managed to keep her lips firmly attached to her superiors’ rumps, while constantly sabotaging her staff.

I moved on as soon as I could, but in the way of true bullies, Real Margo came with me, lurking around the dark corners of my mind. Through Speechless, I did my best to exorcise her, and it worked quite well.

Or so I thought, until a fellow survivor of Real Margo called last week to catch up. Memories of that period came rushing back as we relived the old stories. We agreed that while Margo had undermined our confidence terribly at the time, the experience had made us stronger in the end.

Does that mean I felt bad to hear she’d ultimately been fired by one of the powerful butts she’d kissed? Hell no! I was thrilled! Because in my experience, bullies don’t always get punished in real life. In fact, they usually get promoted.

Knowing Margo’s antics caught up with her probably won’t chase her out of the dark corners of my mind. But I’m not sure I want to lose her now, anyway. She’s a reliable source of inspiration—a gift that keeps on giving. Every one of my “bad guys” has a pinch of Margo.

How about you? Do you have bullies in your past that haunt or inspire you?

Sandy’s Take on Framily Values

So, let’s get straight to the bad news: my dad died recently. Too recently to want to put a date on it, actually.

As someone who likes to cross bridges long before I come to them, I had worked out a Grief Management Strategy (GMS) well in advance. Basically, I go to work, avoid all mention of The Incident, work-out, and hit the hay early with a good book. Next day, repeat. (Thanks to Laini Taylor, by the way, for Daughter of Smoke and Bone—a great distraction in tough times.)

My repression machine is operating at peak capacity, fueled perhaps, by more sleep than I’ve allowed myself in years. Normally, I’m in the habit of trying to solve problems in the wee hours. This problem I cannot solve. It is entirely out of my hands. So I sleep.

Some people tell me it gets easier after a month. Some say a year. I just hope the GMS keeps working. I welcome any and all suggestions for speeding the process along.

If thoughts of The Incident intrude, I try to focus on my “framily.” This is a term Yvonne and I used in our books, LOVE, INC. & TRADE SECRETS, to describe the people in our lives who rise above mere friendship to become family. Friends + Family = Framily.

When the Incident occurred, my framily stepped up instantly. Hilary, friend since Kindergarten, offered advice on how to handle everything. She arranged for a room and refreshments for the wake, took care of many small details, and even hollered to quiet the room when it was time to deliver my speech.

Yvonne, coauthor and key framily member (along with husband, Dave), produced photos for the event, including a most embarrassing one of me in a pink bridesmaid frock. When I made my speech, Yvonne laughed so hard I thought she was going to bust a rib. Luckily it was a funny speech, so she was laughing with me, not at me, as is sometimes the case.

(Aside: a bit of advice worth sharing... If possible, buy a disposable outfit for such occasions. Many of us associate what we wore with an event, and there’s no point ruining your favorite dress. Yvonne suggested a local discount line, and I’ll be passing a $30 black dress to a second hand shop shortly.)

Then, when I decided to host 12 for dinner, Yvonne arrived with salad and wine, and busy hands, to make sure I didn’t face a mess in the morning.

Linda, another long-term Framily member, demonstrated support with coffee pods for my beloved Nespresso machine, and five (5!) boxes of chocolate. Both have an important place in my GMS.

And thus, I’ve survived week one.

Regular life is getting back in gear, which meant publishing a new book, TORCH. Now available on Kindle, TORCH is our first paranormal romance, and we’re quite excited about it. For those who expect humour from team Collins-Rideout, never fear, it’s there. Try as we might to beat it back, the funny always surfaces.

Anyway, unlike the black dress, I expect few negative associations with Torch based on timing. My dad was 100 per cent clear that his favorite among our books was SPEECHLESS—not too surprising, when it had a few parallels with my experience as a speechwriter. Only in the fictional version, the villains got punished, which was a great satisfaction to my dad.

We’ve lost a big fan of our writing, but here’s hoping we gain a few new ones in 2012. All the best to your families, and framilies.

Yvonne’s F-arty Friday: Live, in Concert

My husband and I love music of any kind—rock, jazz, R&B, ambient, orchestral, trip hop, country…OK, not too much country, but you get the picture. We are music people. And for us, the only thing better than blasting tunes on our stereo or iPod, is hearing them live. Sharing a space with the performers is an exciting and often emotional experience. In fact, few things can make me feel more alive than the rhythmic pounding of a bass guitar, the soaring strings of an orchestra, or just a single, pitch perfect note as it floats and fades over an audience so entranced you could hear a pin drop at the end.

But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that all concerts are not created equal.

I’m sure it can be tough for performers on tour to play the same songs with the same level of enthusiasm night after night, but you know what? I don’t care. They’re professionals who get paid to deliver. And their ability to make an audience feel part of a special, collective experience is what sets them apart from talented amateurs.

Or at least, it should set them apart. Because I, the fan and ticket holder, haven’t had the pleasure of hearing them play the same songs in 10 other towns before they set up at a venue near me. But I have been listening to their music at home and in my car, gearing up for the Big Night, when I’m going to hear them live, in concert.

So please, professional musicians of the world, don’t phone it in.

Like most people, I work like a dog (though frankly, not my dog).

Right now, I’ve been working on a TV series, and one of the things that keeps me going when I’m shooting outside on a cold, rainy, miserable night is looking forward to a concert.

Sometimes, my crazy shooting schedule means I have to take a road trip to see a band I like because I can’t be free when they do hit Toronto. Two weeks ago, I did just that, driving 2.5 hours to see the Kings of Leon perform in London, Ontario.

My husband I had decided to make a big night of it. We booked into a hotel, had a nice dinner, and, humming “Sex on Fire,” strolled down to the local arena, anticipating that special live music experience.

There was nothing special about that concert. The band started on schedule, played all the hits, and hit the right notes. But there was no magic. No communion with the audience, no unique arrangements, no extra energy exerted, no amazing light show—not one thing that made the concert feel any different from listening to their CD’s on a good sound system at home. Even when eight thousand people sang along to one of their biggest hits, the band didn’t put the pedal down.

I guess they were saving themselves for their upcoming Toronto audience, because according to reviews, that performance really was something special. I’m not saying their London concert was terrible—just that it was average, and average is not what I paid for and not what I expect from a band at their level.

That said, I guess I’m lucky to know that concert was only mediocre, because it means I’ve attended enough amazing concerts to expect a higher standard.

The Dears, a favorite band of my husband’s, always rock the house, but they took “giving it your all” to the next level during one particular concert at a small church in Toronto, when they had just reunited. The positive energy and emotion made everyone in that small audience feel a part of something special.

Spirit of the West is another band that consistently delivers, and every performance feels like their absolute best—until the next one.

Ironically, some of my favorite concerts have been free. Patrick Watson played the Montreal jazz festival a few years ago and managed to make over 100,000 people feel like we were part of an exclusive club, sharing one incredible experience. And many of us couldn’t even see the stage! But it was evident from every note how much fun the band was having—so much that the organizers had trouble getting him off the stage.

In Italy this summer, we stumbled upon a Queen tribute band performing in a small town in Tuscany. At 1 a.m. the town square was jammed with hundreds of locals, ranging in age from 6 to 86, all clapping along to Radio Gaga. The Freddy Mercury clone pranced through dry ice in his tight white pants, feeding off the energy of the crowd who were in turn, feeding off the energy coming from the stage. It became a highlight of our trip.

So thank you, musicians of the world, for making life better by loving what you do. When you really pour your hearts into a performance, it fills us with energy and hope that makes the daily grind a little easier. But when your daily grind is getting you down, remember that your performance is the probably the highlight of the audience’s week, or month. Having that power is a gift and privilege. So bring it, will you?

Joy Adamson & the Long Road to Fiction

True confession: I’m a crier, I’ve always been a crier, and nothing opens the floodgates faster than a touching story about animals.

Movies are the worst. Years ago, I went to see Dances with Wolves, with my coauthor, Yvonne. Remember the scene where the pet wolf (pass the tissues!) dies? I sobbed so hard Yvonne couldn’t see the screen for the fog. She leaned over and hissed, “Get a grip. It’s an ACTOR wolf.”

Too bad she wasn’t around to make the same observation a decade earlier, when I watched Born Free, sobbing into the green shag carpet in my parents’ living room. That moment where Joy Adamson drives off and leaves Elsa the lion running behind the land rover? It wrecked me. And the scene where they reunited, with Elsa giving Joy a big lion hug? My eyes are still puffy.

Books I could handle. In fact, reading Born Free and Joy Adamson’s other books made me realize that I was put on this earth to study animals in the wild.

I became a primatologist groupie, riveted by the adventures of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas, who studied chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans respectively. Until James Herriot, came along, with his stories of caring for animals in the Yorkshire dales. Maybe being a witty country vet would suit me even better!

Sadly, my ambition to work with animals hit the brick wall of reality in 11th grade. While I did well in Bio and Chem, Physics and Math were disastrous. How would I survive a Science degree?

Plus, there were some personal barriers to my whole study-animals-in-the-wilds scenario. For example, I was the kid who wouldn’t play in the sandbox because I didn’t like to get dirty. And when my family bought a cottage without plumbing, I tried to shut down all bodily functions while there to avoid using the outhouse.

My parents would snicker and say, “You can’t use a diffuser in the bush, you know.”

Finally, there was the issue of anthropomorphizing. I projected human emotions onto every creature, from bugs to bats. I was never going to get used to seeing them in pain, or tearing each other apart.

So there I was, career goals shattered, right before college apps. I did the logical thing, and studied English. On some level, I guess I knew that what I loved about all these writers was their storytelling, and I hoped that I might be able to do something similar without giving up heels and mascara.

Still it was a long journey through Africa, Borneo and Yorkshire and the corporate jungles before I realized what I should be doing is projecting human emotions onto fake humans through fiction.

It all worked out in the end, but I like to give our characters an easier time of it, at least on the career front.

Anyone have a story to share about an ambition that didn’t turn out exactly as you’d planned?

For the first five comments or e-mails, we’ll offer a free copy of Trade Secrets, our new novel, about three teens with lofty ambitions, who also happen to be moonlighting as love experts.

ROYALLY EXCITED

Today these two Canadians are chuffed to bits to announce our first appearance on the bookshelves of the United Kingdom, with the release of Love, Inc.

British blood flows in our veins, so making our literary debut there is a big deal. As such, we’d like to salute the UK with a list of our favorite things:

1. A good cup of tea
2. Royal weddings
3. Fish and chips (hold the mushy peas)
4. All things Harry Potter
5. Robert Pattinson
6. Adele
7. Cadbury’s chocolate (especially Flake)
8. All things Jane Austen (and Colin Firth)
9. Hunter wellies
10. Allison and Busby, our UK publishers

Cheers for everything, eh?