Cheri's Little-Known

Writer Facts!

I love being a writer. People actually pay you to stare out the window and daydream. All that time when you were in school? Your teacher was frustrated and  your parents were terrified that your career path would eventually include a paper hat or a guy named Sweets in a purple velvet suit and hat because -- dammit! -- you just didn't pay attention!

Heh, heh. Yeah, well, who's got the last lau...

...umm. That Sweets guy might make a good villain. I need to write that down.

If you have no problem with lying, you can be a writer, too. There's no end of fun to be had, especially when everybody knows and expects that you're lying. Plus, you have the fun of convincing them that what you're lying about really could have happened! And they want you to do it! Sometimes they pay you to do it! (And some people think there's no God.)

How to turn adverse circumstances into creative fulfillment. People ask me why I wrote three books about werewolves. Beats me. First of all, you need to understand that I’m afraid of heights, so how someone talked me into one of those glass-sided elevators leading up to a revolving glass tower restaurant is beyond me. (He must have been exceptionally attractive, but total fear has wiped my memory.) Anyway, I was trying to concentrate on the metal doors while everyone else was admiring the view as twilight slowly took over into night. And for no reason I thought, What if this elevator got stuck and there was a full moon tonight and one of the people in here was a werewolf? Expanding on that thought was enough to get me through dinner without actually looking out the windows. 

What's your favorite type of hero? Mine is self-confident and cerebral, not necessarily formula alpha. Comfortable in his own style.  John Cusack. Edward Norton.  Paul Newman in Hud: there’ll never be anyone more dangerously erotic than Hud nor anyone more charismatic than Newman: an unbeatable combination. And for sheer physical beauty and fearlessness – and I know you ladies will all agree – Johnny Depp, whom I’ve loved since his glorious tongue-in-cheek performance in Crybaby. And how could I leave out that hottest of hot vamps on Moonlight, Alex O'Loughlin? I'm gonna miss that show. Here's a guilty revelation: I love Tom Cruise. I don't care what his religion is or that he believes that space aliens are living in our upper g.i. tracts. He had me at "I did not. Shoplift. The pootie." Oh, and that dancing in his underwear thing.

 I've got to mention Brad Pitt not because of his looks (although...daaayum), but because of his unselfish efforts to rebuild New Orleans. A social conscience is the most attractive attribute a man can have. A true hero.

Slothing around and reading is actually working, if you're a writer. Isn't that great? Some favorites of mine:  Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys. How can you not love a book about writer's block where a guy has written over 2000 pages and still isn't finished?  And I’m hooked on Lindsey Davis’ hilarious mystery series about Marcus Didius Falco, a tough-guy private eye in ancient Rome whose eccentric family, Imperial employer, and patrician girlfriend drive him nuts. Falco and the characters have changed so much since the first book that Davis’ readers feel that they know these people.  I just finished Sarah Dunant’s In the Company of the Courtesan, set in a 16th century Venice so real you could almost smell it. Every character glows with life. A fabulous achievement. If you want to learn more about writing, Stephen King has some down-to-earth advice in his On Writing.  

Okay, and Harry Potter. Who doesn’t like Harry Potter?

See ya later, read my books, buy several, even for people you hate. A bargain at only seven bucks! I don't wanna have to fall back on Sweets.