And the Oscar Goes to...

By Pamela

Last night I stayed up late to watch the Academy Awards. I'd prerecorded it and enjoyed the luxury of skimming through commercials and the less-than-thrilling portions of the show.

While many movies start out as books and some are brilliantly adapted to the big screen, others stay beloved stories that remain relegated to the pages--and imprinted on our hearts and minds.

Recent (in the past ten years or so) book-to-film major success stories include the Harry Potter series, The Jason Bourne stories, and the Twilight saga. Other stand-alone titles have gone on to be made and remade such as True Grit, Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

This year quite a few book-to-movie adaptations are slated to appear at a theater near you. Which one(s) are you most eager to see? I've added a little poll to the right of the blog. Please vote for as many as you'd like or just vote for the one you're mostly likely to see. Feel free to comment here if I've missed any that you are planning to see.

Feedback

Pam Cope and I greet George Achibra at DFW Airport.

By Susan

Today, I had the privilege of greeting my comrade George Achibra at the airport for his first visit to America.

George is Ghanaian, and has dedicated his life to rescuing children sold into slavery in his own backyard-- the vast and open waters of Lake Volta in West Africa. These children are slaves to fishing masters who work on the the largest man-made lake in the world. Children sold by their own parents out of the dire circumstances of poverty and ignorance. Children that I have come to love, children that we fight for every day at Touch A Life Foundation, where I have the blessing and honor to speak for every day.

Raul on the day of his rescue in 2008.

I will tell you only a little bit about George because I do not have the words inside me to describe him. We sat together this afternoon and discussed his work. While I am here, in Texas, building marketing plans and developing strategies for website development to further the cause for child trafficking, he is there--on a boat in the middle of the night--listening to the cries of children in the darkness, children who are still enslaved, children who do not know the meaning of freedom, children who do not know that they are loved, and that as they cry, we fight for them. He is there, watching Raul, one of the boys rescued from the lake, grow into a young boy with a beautiful voice. He is there, educating children and communities about the evils of slavery. George has made mistakes that he acknowledges. And he has also had great successes in his work as a champion for the trafficked child.

Raul and me in 2010 in Kete Krachi, Ghana.

Today in our conversations he explained to me a new concept he was learning in his Master's program at university in Ghana where he is taking classes. It is a concept called feedback. He described in great detail how you can tell someone the good and the bad of things, the right and wrong of what they are doing, with the intention of making them wiser. Stronger. Better. There is no word for it in Twe, the language of his people. In Ghana, to critique is only seen as a vehicle to tear someone down: to hurt, to show your own power, or to belittle. But the concept of feedback, this amazing way of telling someone something to improve their situation, and to help them, is a new idea to George. He was thrilled with it, this ability to give someone something like this as a gift. The light is his eyes was bright at the idea of it. Feedback.

Today, I challenge you to look at feedback in this same light. As though it is a blessing to you, in your writing and in your life. How can your peers make you better? How can their words shape your choices going forward?

Like George, I am seeing feedback as something new. I was blessed by a writing colleague this week who gave me some very positive feedback on my manuscript. Yet in other aspects of my life recently, I also experienced the frustration of negative feedback, and my ego was checked, my spirit was quieted. I am learning from both of these conversations. And I am choosing humility in both situations.

The choice is ours, you know. To either bask in the positive or to take the negative like a grown up and change what we have been doing, to make ourselves better.

I'm choosing, like George, to make myself better. To learn from mistakes and to take the path of new beginnings. To become a better writer, a stronger voice, and to be a positive influence going forward. Understanding the concept of feedback requires courage, and active decisions. George is one of those guys who gets it--even before he knew the word for it.

As a writer, my heart is open. And as a person? I am taking it all in. Accepting the feedback and working to make myself better.

Are you?

Once Upon a Time, in a Land Far, Far Away...

by Elizabeth

Does any story really begin that way? "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away..." The writers of Shrek named the kingdom for that phrase, but other than a Disney import, I'm not sure that it ever really appears in actual literature. Then again, I'm not sure it doesn't.

But what it does do, every time, for me anyway, is conjure a mood. An idea. A place in space that is not here, and it sets up the story. Places do that. A Room with a View. Mansfield Park. House of Sand and Fog. Vinegar Hill. A Tale of Two Cities. A Hotel Is a Place... All of these, each a title and a location, were found in a quick perusal of a single shelf of my wall of bookshelves. Each sets up the story if not the mood itself.

Susan has blogged about trips to Kentucky in researching her work-in-progress, as has Kim. I know Pamela has hit the road at least a few times to learn more about the characters and places in her works, and Joan's travels through England have served as inspiration for more than one novel. And a key element in Julie's latest is a road trip, something I know she's undertaken aplenty in her life.

My own travels, from short jaunts about the state to treks across the country to flights halfway around the world not only inform what I write, but what I intend to as well. My critique partners know there's a project I am not quite ready to undertake, but that has been hanging out in my back pocket for the last few years, a story that I want to tell right. I'm not ready yet, but when I am, I hope to revisit the location of its spark, both to refresh my memory of the place and also to pay homage to the characters who will inhabit the space that sets my imagination aflutter.

I'm getting on a plane again in a couple of days and, in visiting this new place, I hope to find fresh inspiration. One reason I love to travel is the same reason I am passionate about reading and writing: It opens new worlds to me in a way that nothing else can. It's once upon a time, but the time is now, and far far away is suddenly here with the flip of a passport. Talk about happily ever after.

Deliver

by Joan

Recently Pamela blogged about beginnings. Also recently I was talking with Susan about endings. I’ve been critiquing her manuscript, The Angels’ Share, and she made a comment about not being entirely certain how the story was going to end, even though she was very close to being finished. It got me thinking about the promises writers make to readers, and how we’ve all read books that started out beautifully and didn’t end up where we thought they would or, rather, where we thought they should. Just as every book doesn’t grab every reader, it’s hard to please all readers once you’ve nabbed them at the beginning!

I told Susan I’d changed the conclusion to The Bodley Girl at least four times and, even though The Architect at Highgate is 99 percent finished, I’m still tweaking the last scene. I advised her to play around with a few possible endings, by writing down several alternatives to see if one spoke to her more than the others.


I recently finished Elizabeth Berg’s Dream When You’re Feeling Blue. I enjoyed the book, a WWII-era story featuring three very different sisters, who embark on letter-writing campaigns to soldiers, including two of their recently-deployed fiancés. Berg weaves the tight narrative with touching emotion and believable wartime observation. It was a fast read and when I breezed toward the end, I did a double take at the twist. The story forwarded about thirty years, which was a little unexpected in itself. But I hadn't anticipated the outcome, filled with sacrifice and love. There were subtle hints along the way that I later recognized as key. Not liking my endings pink and neatly-tied, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the conclusion. There might have been other ways to end the book, maybe Berg wrote a list of her own possibilities, but this one felt perfect.

At the conclusion of the 944-page Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber’s bawdy Victorian tale of love, lust, greed, and sorrow, I actually thought the dance stopped too abruptly and wondered why he’d jilted free the reader. There again, after some contemplation, I wondered how I would have ended it differently? Here I am, years later, pondering the story. And I haven't even mentioned Sarah Waters’ Little Stranger and Poppy Adams’ Sister! I’m still reeling from those endings!

Just as beginnings must entice the reader into a long and winding dance, endings must release the reader, satiated and somewhat spinning. As writers, we need to deliver what we’ve promised, whether it be a ballet, hip-hop, salsa or, yes, the twist.

A perfectly crafted last line can sear a book into our memory. Here’s a list, originally from the American Book Review.

And from the lovely novel, The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton (who will in two weeks stop by WWW!):

“The door closes behind her, leaving the ghostly lovers alone once more in the quiet and the warm.”

If you have a favorite ending or last line, tell us about it.

Seeing it all

By Pamela

I'm a very visual person. I can remember names and dates pretty well if I hear them, but when I write something down, I can recall it even better.

I know some of us at What Women Write depend on visual cues to help with our writings.

Kim is neck-deep in writing her great-grandparents' life story, and since her great-grandfather Carl Ahrens was a painter, she has some pretty powerful images to inspire her with her writings. As she describes a painting Madonna (her great-grandmother) inspects over the shoulder of her future husband, I know Kim is most likely studying the painting herself as she writes--either viewing it on her website or staring at it as it hangs on her wall.

About this particular Carl Ahrens painting, she writes: 

I grew up with this painting hanging on my living room wall. The canvas was filthy, web cracking everywhere. The colors were drab, the frame beat-up, but when my parents offered to give me one of Carl’s paintings for my 21^st birthday, this was the one I chose, the largest oil they owned at the time. The sticker on the back of the frame indicated that the title was Summer, and it was at an exhibition in 1931 priced at $450. That was a lot of money back then and, each time I looked at it, I sensed there was something special under decades worth of dirt. In 1999 I took it to a conservator recommended by the Dallas Museum of Art and got it cleaned and restored. The photograph actually does it no justice at all. This is the first of his canvasses that I ever saw in the state Carl painted them—grime yellows the varnish and dulls the pigments over time. There are over fifty distinct colors, including purple. Other cleaned paintings have revealed shocking dabs of hot pink, which I certainly didn’t expect to see in such masculine paintings. A hint at Carl’s sense of humor?

 

I stood in front of the painting and cried. It made me re-examine my life and the lack of creativity in it at the time. Looking at it made me itch to write his story. It also made me pick up my own sketchbook again.

 

An interesting thing I learned while researching for The Oak Lovers is that the real Summer doesn’t hang on my wall. In 1934, Carl promised his friend Prime Minister Mackenzie-King a painting in exchange for his help in securing passage to England. Carl was too sick to paint anything he deemed worthy of sending, so he changed the date on Summer and put it in a new frame. The painting that now sits in a vault in the National Archives was once in the frame currently hanging on my wall!

As Susan weaves the multi-generational story that revolves around a Kentucky bootlegger, she draws visual inspiration from a nearby bookcase. About it she writes:

This bookcase houses my collection of a few books from Thomas Merton, Silas House and some poetry from Wendell Berry. I also have a stack of research books including The Kentucky Encyclopedia, A New History of Kentucky, and some short works written by people I know from home. There are a couple of books on bourbon there, too. I have books on writing by Lamott, Hemingway and Stephen King on the second shelf. It has two bourbon bottles from Maker's Mark Distillery (one that I dipped in wax myself and one with a personalized label that was a gift from a friend), my rosary from the Abbey of Gethsemanie, and coffee cups from The Bourbon Trail. In there somewhere is a coaster with the recipe for the perfect mint julep, some pottery from Louisville Stoneware, and pebbles from a Kentucky creek that I know.

I have a photo of my grandparents together from a political fundraiser in the 1970s, another more recent shot of my grandmother (now 90), photos of me with my mother and sisters, and pics of my children. You might also find the photos of us gals from our two retreats. It looks rather cluttered but everything there is significant (to me).

This is right next to my monitor, so the reference books are invaluable when I need a quick answer on a timeline or date (example: When was the last reporting lynching in Kentucky?). Books by Kentucky authors are inspirational. The pictures of my family keep me going... and the bourbon bottles remind me that when the book is completed I will have something to celebrate!

My current WIP has been ignored for far too long. So this week, after seeing some amazing new releases by new-found friends and drooling over their covers, I decided I needed some visual inspiration. While the bookshelves in my office hold similar trinkets--pictures of family and sister-friends, books I adore--what I needed this week was to visualize my story as a book. If I could see the final product (hold it in my mind, if not my hands), then possibly I would begin to see the potential that putting the final words on the pages will bring. While I'm realistic enough to know that most authors have minimal input when it comes to their cover art--and many titles are changed during the publishing process--for today this is how I see my book.

What inspires you?

A visit with Sara J. Henry, author of Learning to Swim

By Julie

Today, we welcome Sara J. Henry, author of Learning to Swim (Random House/2-22-11). Sara is getting lots of good buzz and great placement for her debut novel. It's a featured alternate of Doubleday Book Club, Literary Guild, Book of the Month Club, Mystery Guild, and Doubleday Large Print.

I’ve “known” Sara from the Backspace writers’ forum for a few years and have watched her journey from posting first chapters for critique to posting cover art and links to thrilling reviews and interviews for Learning to Swim. Sara was also the thread that connected me with Quinn Cummings, providing us with our very first author interview at What Women Write back in 2009.

From the publisher:
When she witnesses a small child tumbling from a ferry into Lake Champlain, Troy Chance dives in without thinking. Harrowing moments later, she bobs to the surface, pulling a terrified little boy with her. As the ferry disappears into the distance, she begins a bone-chilling swim nearly a mile to shore with a tiny passenger on her back.

Surprisingly, he speaks only French. He’ll acknowledge that his name is Paul; otherwise, he’s resolutely mute.

Troy assumes that Paul’s frantic parents will be in touch with the police or the press. But what follows is a shocking and deafening silence. And Troy, a freelance writer, finds herself as fiercely determined to protect Paul as she is to find out what happened to him. What she uncovers will take her into a world of wealth and privilege and heedless self-indulgence – a world in which the murder of a child is not unthinkable. She’ll need skill and courage to survive and protect her charge and herself.

Sara J. Henry’s powerful and compelling Learning to Swim will move and disturb readers right up to its shattering conclusion.

About Sara:
Sara J. Henry has been a columnist, soil scientist, book and magazine editor, Web designer, writing instructor, and bicycle mechanic. Learning to Swim is her first novel.

JK: Welcome, Sara, to What Women Write! The inciting incident in Learning to Swim happens in the very first few paragraphs:

If I’d blinked, I would have missed it.

But I didn’t, and I saw something fall from the rear deck of the other ferry. It could have been a bundle of trash; it could have been a child-size doll. Either was more likely than what I thought I saw: a small wide‑eyed human face, in one tiny frozen moment as it plummeted toward the water.

What I did next was a visceral reaction to those small eyes I thought I saw. Without conscious thought I vaulted onto the railing I was leaning against, took a deep breath, and dived. It’s amazing what you can do if you don’t stop to think.

(Hooked? Read the rest of chapter 1 here!)

Talk about a heart-pounding dive into the story. Readers often want to know where writers get their ideas in general, but I’d love to know how, specifically, this idea was born.

SJH: I had lived in the Adirondacks for four years, and was on a return visit, driving along Lake Champlain, the huge lake that separates New York state and Vermont, on a misty, overcast day. For some reason I imagined a woman on one of the big ferries that crosses the lake at its widest part, seeing a child fall in from the opposite ferry and making the split-second decision to dive in after him.

Then I had to build an entire novel around that one scene, which wasn’t particularly easy, I’ll admit.

JK: Learning to Swim crosses genre lines in ways. It’s generally classified as suspense, but it’s also a good old-fashioned whodunit with a bit of a literary feel and a love story at its heart. This could sound like a novel with a split personality, but never fear, readers, it works and works well.

How did you and your veteran agent, Barney Karpfinger (who also represents author John Lescroart and for decades represented Jonathan and Faye Kellerman – not bad company, Sara!) decide to pitch it to editors when it went out on submission?

SJH: I grew up reading old suspense novels by Mary Stewart (Nine Coaches Waiting; This Rough Magic; The Ivy Tree; Madam, Will You Talk?) as well as my father’s Travis McGee books by John D. MacDonald, and they definitely shaped my writing. The two of them were masters at blending genres – Stewart is considered one of the founders of romantic suspense and MacDonald was an extraordinary storyteller with a deeply introspective hero and gritty plots.

I never wanted to write a run-of-the-mill mystery or thriller, although I certainly enjoy reading them. And I wanted a heroine who could be any woman, an ordinary woman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. One agent who read the first forty or so pages told me I needed to cut out anything that wasn’t suspense, but I thought that agent was wrong – that all the additional elements were what made this novel work and would make it resonate for readers, and I stuck to my guns.

One advantage of well-established and greatly respected agents is that they don’t need to pitch hard, because editors know them well and know the type of authors and projects they represent. (They pitch well, but not hard, if that makes sense.) Barney told editors over the phone how the book opens, and the gist of his cover letter was this one sentence: By turns disturbing and moving—and always compelling—this novel of suspense marks the beginning of a significant new career. I had discussions with editors from three houses and no one had a problem with the blurring of genres – or if they did, they didn’t mention it!

JK: In one of your first blog interviews with Dawn Kurtagich, you tell the interesting story of writing and then rewriting Learning to Swim, stating that the rewriting is when the story really came together. We have lots of aspiring writers in our reader audience, and many of us have heard that famous mantra: “Writing is rewriting.” But that can be a bit of a mysterious concept. In your situation, what did rewriting really mean? Did you throw away the manuscript and start from scratch? Or …?

SJH: Definitely not from scratch. In fact the first chapter is pretty much how I wrote it originally, as are other key chapters. I’ll answer this question in two parts, because I really rewrote in two basic ways. The first was straightening out a very muddled middle part of the book: characters were thin, the pacing was slow, and the plot needed a lot of work. I’d written the book very quickly, because I knew if I’d slowed down I would have convinced myself I couldn’t do it.

But then I had to work out an involved plotline and re-engineer it into a book that was already written. As I’ve said elsewhere, I thought my brain would break, and I’ll never again do it that way. I also had to improve the pacing – at one point the characters go off to Home Depot, and there the book slowed to a crawl. (Going to Home Depot is now code for pace slowing down.) But at the end of this, I had a book that worked.

What I did next – and this was in several passes – was a complete relayering. Some scenes remained untouched, but others needed life breathed into them. In places I’d done what I call “cheating” – skipping over details or how a character felt, sometimes because the scene made me uncomfortable or was difficult to write. I reworked each of these scenes, imagining it from each character’s perspective. And along the way I truly learned to write. I learned the power that one word has to change the impact or flow of a scene, and I learned how moving a paragraph from one place to another can alter readers’ perception entirely. And I’d say I fell in love with writing all over again.

Finally – and this was well after the manuscript was accepted – I took a good look at the last four chapters, in which I’d crammed in every possible detail of explanation. (Reed Farrel Coleman told me, “I’m surprised you didn’t explain nuclear fission while you were at it.”) I told my editor I had to redo them, and he didn’t object. I rewrote those chapters, condensed them to three, and read them aloud over the phone to Reed – who is the best critique partner imaginable – and kept honing them until they worked.

Never underestimate the value of reading aloud, even if just to yourself.

JK: I know a little about your own world from interacting with you on Facebook and reading your blog posts on occasion. Would you share with our readers how your own unique world reflects that of Troy’s?

SJH: Like Troy, I rented a big house on Main Street in Lake Placid, New York, and rented out rooms to a batch of mostly athlete roommates. And like Troy, I was the sports editor at the local daily newspaper, and had a wonderful golden retriever/German shepherd mix dog named Tiger.

Troy likes computers and likes to work on bicycles, as I do - and she likes being able to do a lot of things. My dad gave me a fully stocked toolbox when I was 11 – but also gave me a sewing box and showed me how to knit. So while I can darn socks and cut hair, I also know how to roof a house, because my father showed me how to snap a chalk line, lay shingles, and pound in roofing nails. He was a nuclear physicist, not a roofer – but he strongly believed that people ought to know how to do all sorts of things.

JK: From that photo, I think it's obvious Tiger has been one of a long line of well-loved dogs!

Sara, when we try to define that mysterious quality known as writer’s voice, we know it has something to do with who we are and where we’ve been. How have other aspects of your own history informed your writing in general and also in writing Learning to Swim?

SJH: In one way or another, just about everything I’ve ever done and every person I’ve met has informed my writing. I can’t explain it any better than that. Clearly I never dived off a ferry after a small child, but I’ve experienced many of the emotions my characters have, and knowing a wide variety of people certainly helps you develop believable characters.

JK: I’ve pitched Backspace to our readers at What Women Write many times over the last few years. I’ve witnessed the value of being involved in an active community of writers, both online and at a local level. Of course you need to be a fantastic writer with a lot of good ideas and a lot of perseverance to become a published author, but what has being an active member of the Backspace forum meant for you on your journey to publication?

SJH: I followed my friend Jamie Ford to Backspace, but because my novel was in the final stages of polishing when I joined and I acquired an agent soon thereafter, my experience there isn’t quite that of some other unpublished writers (and because I’d written and cowritten several nonfiction books, I wasn’t technically unpublished).

What Backspace has given me is friendships, and an enormous amount of support from the people I’ve met there. Backspacers have been marvelous to respond to posts and generous in their praise. Writing is a solitary occupation and Backspace has made it markedly less so.

JK: Finally, what’s up next for you?

SJH: I am finishing up the sequel to Learning to Swim, and then I’ll be polishing that and doing some publicity and book touring for the first novel. And I have Books 3 and 4 roughed out in my head, and I’m eager to start writing those.

JK: Sara, thanks so much for being our guest on What Women Write. We wish you great things as a fiction author, and I can't wait to read the sequel to Learning to Swim.

Learning to Swim is available for preorder at all major and independent booksellers, and will be available to buy next Tuesday, February 22.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received an advanced copy of the book mentioned above gratis. Regardless, I only recommend books I've read and believe will appeal to our readers. I am making this statement in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

From Sixteen Candles to (edited to prevent embarrasment to the author)

by Elizabeth

Allison Pearson got me thinking. Her latest novel, I Think I Love You, was released last week, paying homage to her own teenage crush on David Cassidy. (For you young 'uns, he was in a show called The Partridge Family, about a family band that traveled around in a semi-psychedelic converted school bus--oh, never mind.) I myself was too young for him, and the younger brother Danny was hardly heartthrob material (then or now). Instead, I simply wished to be the triangle-tapping younger daughter. At least until the actress who played her appeared in a teenage pregnancy warning film when I was in tenth grade. Oh, Tracy.

But crushes. Oh, crushes! Especially those early ones. I watched Hairspray with my daughter this past weekend, and when Tracy Turnblad sings "I hear the bells," I felt all tingly myself. The lyricist did a knock-down job of tapping into his own adolescence. Nikki Blonsky, playing Tracy, flapped her lashes so convincingly, she must secretly have harbored the hots for Zac Effron. And if she didn't, she deserved every dime she made just for reviving the bubble of infatuation I once felt when David and Darren (real people, last names edited to prevent the embarrassment of the author) bumped past me in the high school hallways.

But celebrity crushes especially. Like with Pearson's book (and to an extent, Tracy Turnblad's love interest, Link, as well--he is on local daytime television, after all), there is something about those crushes that sticks with us. We believe, fiercely, that we are different, that if only the object of our desire could meet us, he would see it too. He would realize we are The One for Him.

Or maybe not.

Nonetheless, those celebrity crushes--early ones, and maybe even contemporary ones, because our taste improves with age, right?--stick with us. And even if I never write a novel titled Better Off Dead, my early (ahem) crush on John Cusack surely informs my work, at least obliquely. There's a scene in one of my novels in which the character's heart does a flip, and I can tell you this: writing it wasn't just Serendipity.

Okay, so my taste is still the same. I have a fantasy that if I were ever widowed due to a tragic accident, I could write a memoir based on the tragedy, and John Cusack would play my husband in the movie. I'd be a consultant, of course, and then we'd finally meet, and he'd fall madly in love with me, and I'd have his babies, and...

Or not. Still, it's fun to pretend, fun to remember, and since my husband is smart enough to rent a Cusack movie just for me every now and again, no harm or foul. I guess there have been other celebrity crushes along the way (my first, and I can't believe I'm admitting this, was on Richard Dawson. When I was about six. Which was before Family Feud--I adored him on Match Game, before he started demanding liplocks with every female he encountered. Forget that, you lost me at hello.) (So much for sparing the author embarrassment.) A little Eric Stoltz, maybe--do you remember how he gripped his friend Watts' hips when she practiced kissing with him?! And get in line, ladies: I'll take a little Colin Firth, you betcha.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I asked the other ladies here at What Women Write what celebrities had rocked their worlds, now and then. And not surprisingly, their choices reflect their writing tastes to a certain extent. Pamela's number one choice, for instance, is a master of romantic comedy. As is she.

Okay, this is so easy. Hugh Grant. I even forgave him of his brush with The Law and the androgynous drag queen/hooker years ago. It's the accent. It's the sense of humor. It's the crinkles around his eyes--his blue, blue eyes.

I'd follow him to Notting Hill and back, let him write the Music and Lyrics of my life and, with less than Two Weeks' Notice even attend Four Weddings and a Funeral if he were present. It's Love, Actually that allowed me to forgive him films such as Did You Hear About the Morgans? and Mickey Blue Eyes. It's all About a Boy who grew up on the screen before me and captured my heart.

I don't remember a teenage crush. No Tiger Beat or other mags either. Couldn't afford them. I do remember liking Peter Frampton--probably The Hair. :) And then in high school, after seeing Richard Gere in American Gigolo...my, my. But I'm sticking with Hugh.

I was hardly surprised to learn that Joan, who can't write a book without a ghost in it, includes someone who died too young.

My list is way too long. Let's see, teenage crushes: Donny Osmond and Bobby Sherman (how embarrassing, not to mention I just gave away my age). Celebrity crush(es), narrowing the list: Javier Bardem, Colin Firth, and the late Heath Ledger. Even in ghost form.

Susan, a classic herself, goes for the classics of the day, now and then. Just as her work captures the essence of the time she writes, so do her celebrity crushes:

Hmm... Teenage? Totally Scott Baio. Modern day? George Clooney. I could go on and on about my boyfriend George.

Kim, whose work in progress is a love story featuring a Canadian protagonist and a much younger woman, didn't have a single American on her list. (But she's got nothing against them! Her marriage license is proof.)

My celebrity crush would be Colin Firth. I adored him even before he was Mr. Darcy. It's not that he's drop-dead gorgeous, but there's just something about him. The accent, the smile...sigh. He comes across as a romantic in interviews as well.

I never had 'pinups' on my wall in the typical sense, but I had a subscription to GQ at 15. I liked men, not boys! My teenage crush was Rupert Everett--glad I didn't know he was gay then! I actually have quite a list now--Colin Firth, Alex O'Loughlin, Matthew Good, Antonio Banderas and Stephen Moyer.

And Julie, who left our first retreat early to get to a concert, and who has more than one character who struggles with "being good" surely reflected on her own past in conjuring dilemmas for her novels.

I'm sad to say I never owned a copy of Teen Beat or Tiger Beat. I was into British Invasion music, so the mainstream music heartthrobs never caught my eye. A few movie stars popped up here and there and show an interesting pattern. I was a preacher's daughter, and guess what? They were the teen bad boys or the ones getting the girls in trouble even if they weren't actually bad. Matt Dillon was my first big Hollywood crush. I fell long and hard, and was ever so jealous of Kristy McNichol playing opposite him in Little Darlings.

Now? Any folk rock singer or movie star with a British/Scottish/Irish accent gets my vote. I'm right there with Pamela and Kim on Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, but I can even be won over with a decently faked accent, so I'll add Jeffrey Dean Morgan to the list.

So Hugh, if you are listening...or Colin or George or especially John...

Or your crush. Readers, care to chime in? It's Valentine's Day. Share the love.