June 15, 2018
I know I’ve been teasing you all for years about a possible movie based on the book, and the truth is that we’ve come really close, but for one reason or another it just hasn’t panned out. Heartbreakers. Many of them.
Enter Barbara Stepansky, the amazing, talented, brilliant, and award-winning screenwriter who is nearly finished with a first draft of a screenplay for STARCROSSED! (Btw, I have a teeny tiny writer crush on her, if you hadn’t noticed.)
Today, she asked me if there were any scenes fans of the first book absolutely couldn’t live without. I told her I didn’t know, but I’d ask. So I’m asking!
What scenes from the book MUST be in the movie, in your opinion?
And before anyone gets too excited (including me) please keep in mind that we’re only in the screenplay stage (again) and a screenplay ain’t a movie. (Yet.)
Thanks for your help!
xoxo
June 6, 2018
I grew up in the 90’s.
It was a dreary time. Everyone
was scared of getting HIV so no one was fooling around. We wore all black, or plaid shirts over baggy
jeans. Everyone’s hair was in his or her
faces. But probably the most defining
feature of the 90’s was the music. We
listened to what is now known of as Alternative Rock.
I’ve been
thinking a lot about music lyrics and what they do once they’re on a loop in
your head, attached as they are to a melody that you can’t ever seem to rinse
out. I grew up singing songs like “Creep”
by Radiohead, “Black” by Pearl Jam, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by
Nirvana. Oh, and the Cure! Which was technically an 80’s holdover into
the 90’s, but definitely still a huge player in the music world pre y2k. I must have listened to the album
“Disintegration” about a million times, and to this day I can’t hear Robert
Smith’s plaintive voice singing “Pictures of You” without smiling.
Yes. I’ve got a screw loose. The Cure—the most manic-depressive band to
ever hit the top ten—makes me smile.
Most 90’s lyrics ran in the
direction of silent desperation, hopelessness, and self-loathing. By just singing along with my favorite songs,
I must have told myself I was a loser a zillion times and that any endeavor was
pointless because I was built to fail—or Built
to Spill as one band poetically named themselves.
I believed
it, too. It took me years to finally dare
to write a book, though I always wanted to.
I never thought I could even finish a book, let alone write one that
would be worthy of being published because, without even trying first, I was already
a failure.
I don’t blame the music I listened
to for my self-defeating inner monologue, but lately I’ve been wondering how
much what I listened to reinforced my own pre-existing condition. In the 90’s the only way to be cool was to
understand that you were insignificant, and doubly so if you were a woman. The best you could hope for was to be some
slacker’s manic pixie dream girl.
Music has
changed a lot since then, both in sound and in message. Women have changed. Lilith Fest isn’t the only way to hear
strong, confident women singing and performing and generally killing it. The notion of what is cool has changed.
I have a three-and-a-half-year-old
daughter now. Currently, her favorite
song is “Roar” by Katy Perry and we’ve been listening to it on repeat for
weeks. She’s learned a lot of the
lyrics. As I was taking her to preschool
the other morning, I looked back in the rear-view mirror and watched my
fearless, kind, and clever little girl as she howled, “I am a champion, and
you’re going to hear me roar.”
I burst
into tears. I’ve definitely got a screw
loose. The Cure makes me smile, and Katy
Perry makes me cry.