What an exciting time to be an artist, writer, film maker.  Not to mention all those other professions or hobbies where imagination reigns.

This afternoon a friend and I regaled each other with stories about the way our beloved publishing profession has changed.  Even though publishers don’t always acknowledge this, no longer do authors listen and nod when they’re told what to write, how to write it and for what audience.  While most of us continue to respect the publishing houses and professionals we’ve worked with, we know there are other viable ways to publish our work.  Some people even believe “better” ways.  We’re watching closely.

But that’s not the point of this blog.  I want to talk about one of my favorite television shows, Veronica Mars, and an exceptional, powerful new idea called Kickstarter, which is really a symptom of change and an outcome.

Here’s Kickstarter’s own definition of who they are and what they do:

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others.  Since our launch on April 28, 2009, over $500 million has been pledged by more than 3 million people, funding more than 35,000 creative projects. If you like stats, there’s lots more.

So what does this mean and where does the money come from?  Well, anybody with a truly wonderful idea can try to raise money to fund it on Kickstarter.  The money?  Well, that comes from you and me.  It’s called crowdfunding.  That’s right.  If you believe in a project and want it to become a living, breathing entity, then you pledge money to see that dream come true.  A little, most likely.  Sometimes a whole lot.

Crazy, right?  Crazy fabulous.

Kickstarter has launched more than 91,000 projects with nearly half of them a success.  By the way, if you look at the stats you’ll see that over 10,000 of these were publishing projects, and 24,000+ were film projects. Success means the artist/writer/producer raised what he or she set out to raise or more.  Can you the donor waste your money?  No, because if a project doesn’t meet it’s goal, the money is never collected.

Now, about Veronica Mars?  If you were a fan–I came to it late on Netflix–then you know that the series was on the Warner Bros. channel for three seasons.  Veronica is the daughter of Keith Mars who’s a sheriff and later, after he lands in trouble, a private investigator.  Veronica, a high school senior, is a modern day Nancy Drew, and boy, does she have a lot of material to work with in snooty Neptune, California.  But the series is wickedly clever; the repartee some of the best on television, and the characters are engaging to the max.  Why the show never caught on enough to warrant more seasons is hard to explain.  Veronica did go to college in the last season, and after that she was clearly heading for the FBI.  So why didn’t we get to see it?

Well, now we just might.  Veronica Mars, the movie, is now a Kickstarter project, and holy moly, is it going to town!  As I write this the movie has nearly 60,000 backers, and 100 of them have pledged $1,000.  In fact the thousand dollar category’s closed now.

The hope was to raise two million dollars.  So far they’ve raised almost TWICE that much, and the fund raising continues until April 12th.

In the words of Rob Thomas, the guy behind all this:  Kristen and I met with the Warner Bros. brass, and they agreed to allow us to take this shot. They were extremely cool about it, as a matter of fact. Their reaction was, if you can show there’s enough fan interest to warrant a movie, we’re on board. So this is it. This is our shot. I believe it’s the only one we’ve got.

Kristen, of course, is Kristen Bell, Veronica herself.

So there you have it.  Fans funding the projects they want to see.  A new era for the arts?  I hope so.  Because when it comes right down to it, Kickstarter is a sign of the times.  The arts are undergoing a revolution.  Not all of that will be good or result in quality work, but some will change the creative world as we know it.

Now, if you excuse me, I have to donate some money.  I can’t help myself.  I’m dying to see this movie.

I’ll confess I rarely go to the movies. Or rather I rarely DID. Then in the fall we moved ten minutes away from a wonderful theater with stadium seating, wide aisles, comfy chairs and discounted rates on Tuesday evenings. That coincided nicely with a surprising trend. Suddenly there were movies I actually wanted to see. Not Comic Book 3, Return of the Bad Guy, but original films, with more happening than car chases (in or out of outer space) or heroes with superpowers fighting villains with superpowers.

2012, though, saw a resurgence of beautifully filmed and acted dramas and musicals. I’ve been mesmerized. And now some of my favorite films of the year will be butting heads at the Academy Awards ceremonies.

I haven’t seen them all, but here are my thoughts. Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis was breathtaking. From the moment he came on screen Daniel Day-Lewis WAS Lincoln. The dialogue, the costumes, the acting, the cinematography were magnificent. Really, how could it get any better?

Well, wait. Les Miserables with Hugh Jackman was breathtaking. (Yes, I already used that word, I know.) I am a confirmed Les Mis addict. I never grow tired of the story or the music. In fact I’ll see it on the stage (again) next month. But the movie was extraordinary. (New adjective.) While not everyone agrees, I thought it was brilliant (keeping count?) to film the real actors singing the roles at that actual moment and not dubbing in voices, even theirs. This was real time performance, and while not one of the actors had a Broadway quality voice–whether they’ve sung on Broadway or not–they had real voices (far better than most of us real folks singing in the shower) and the emotion carried the day.

Then I went to see Argo. I really didn’t expect Argo to be great. Good, yes. But wow, what a ride. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire second half. And yes, I was pretty sure I knew how it was going to end. But, you know, the filmmaker might have had a different view of this event than my memory provided. Who knew exactly how the ending had come about? My paltry grasp of Iranian hostage history went skittling out the door and I was putty in the hands of Ben Affleck, the director.

I’ll see two more of the films before Saturday. We’ve just rented the DVD of Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Tuesday we hope to see Zero Dark Thirty. I read Silver Linings Playbook and only just liked it, so I’m waiting for the DVD. I will have missed Life of Pi (which gets superb reviews), Django Unchained (I don’t do Quentin Tarantino) and Amour, which is 45 minutes across town and terribly sad.  My time was limited and I chose the films I most wanted to see.

So what does a novelist get from watching such fine films? Besides hours of quality entertainment?  I can tell you what I’ve gotten.

• An appreciation for the power of storytelling.
• An appreciation for quickly creating memorable characters.
• An appreciation for editing.
• An appreciation for the value of creating suspense by doing all the above well.

So which movie should win the Best Picture?  My vote would go to Les Mis, simply because of the breadth and power of the story which was so well captured in the film.  But I won’t be surprised or disappointed if I’m wrong.

What about you?

1. What television network began in 1984, envisioning itself as a commercial alternative to PBS?
2. What television network commissioned double Emmy winner Horatio Hornblower and produced outstanding classics such as as Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and The Great Gatsby?
3. What television network claims that last year, their most watched series was a reality show titled Storage Wars, in which teams of bidders attempt to score big in the high stakes world of storage auctions?

If you marked A&E on questions 1-3, you’ve earned a night in front of the television watching classic entertainment like Gene Simmons Family Jewels about rock star Simmons and his Playmate wife and family, or Hoarders, which highlights the inner challenges of people-who-collect-too-much.

Unfortunately that last show hits home for me. This week as I recovered from some bug or other, I began condensing my hoarded four foot stack of quilt magazines into several three ring binders. As I ripped and clipped and suffered accordingly, I surfed a million cable channels, settling on Flip This House. More astonishing than the show were commercials for the other shows now airing on A&E.

A&E is no longer the Arts and Entertainment Network.  These days it’s the Art of Entertainment Network.  In a quest to interest younger viewers, A&E now specializes in “reality” programming.  After all, the world needs more televised screaming matches and fewer Emmy winning classics. 

As an entertainer myself, I’m trying to analyze the appeal of some of the most “colorful” shows in the A&E fall lineup.  After all, this stuff sells, right?  So in no particular order, and with an invitation to add your own analysis under comments:

• American Hoggers: real-life series that follows the Campbell family and their struggle to rescue Texas residents and ranches from the devastating chaos caused by millions of invasive wild boars.  To be followed soon by Lady Hoggers.  From the clip I viewed, the show features lots of squealing and shouting.  At least on the show I was “rooting” for the hogs.

Analysis: These are difficult times, and many of us feel under attack by forces we can’t control.  Watching strong, earthy men and flashy young women take matters into their own hands makes us believe our world can still be set to rights.

• Billy The Exterminator: Billy runs Vexcon, one of Louisiana’s busiest pest removal companies, with the help of his brother Ricky, his father Bill Sr., and his sassy mom Donnie who runs the office.  The ad shows a man face-up with millions of creepy crawlies covering him.

Analysis: See American Hoggers.

• Monster-In-Laws: A&E Network shines a light on married couples dealing with meddling in-laws as they try to make peace with the help of an unconventional, no-nonsense relationship expert. 

Analysis: Family life is messy, but no matter how bad yours gets, watching shows like this help you see that things could be worse.  These hateful, rotten people could be your in-laws.  And if they can be set on the road to recovery, then maybe your own family’s not hopeless.  OTOH, if they look good to you and their unhappy home looks like an oasis, then it’s clear you need immediate Intervention. (There’s a show for that on A&E, too.)

• Parking Wars: In the trenches with the men and women of the Philadelphia Parking Authority and Detroit Municipal Parking Department as they ticket, boot, tow and impound the cars of problem parkers, with unexpected and outrageous results.

Analysis: This one’s the toughest to understand.  On one hand, Parking Wars is about the law prevailing, despite total disregard by citizens who believe they’re too good to obey it.  Haven’t we all wished a cop would pull over a crazy driver?  On the other hand, we’ve all probably parked illegally.  So I think this show’s about ambivalence.  We want the bad guys to get caught and the not-so-bad guys to get away. And we want to decide who’s who. Kind of  like watching politicians debate.

If you love these shows or others like them, please don’t feel belittled.  Remember, this week I was riveted in front of Flip This House while Armando Montelongo shouted at contractors and a family’s dream disintegrated into foreclosure.  There’s something about other people’s problems that make us feel better about our own.  It’s human and perplexing. 

And that puts the ”reality” in “reality television.”

Press Conference

Author Casey Daniels once referred to an event in a mutual friend’s writing career as a “Murder She Wrote” moment.  Not because our friend Diane found a dead body or solved a murder (although she certainly has written wonderful novels about both) but because she had actually been treated like the star she is during a visit to Manhattan.  Jessica Fletcher, star of the classic television series about a mystery novelist, was always treated like a celebrity, no matter where she went.  And Jessica went everywhere.

Let’s face it, most of the time we author-types are  found at home in front of our computers wearing sweats, not false eyelashes.  We don’t spend our days with glamorous people, and most of us don’t need disguises when we shop for discount canned goods at the supermarket.  We’re so ordinary people not only don’t recognize us, they don’t believe us when we tell them what we do for a living.  This keeps us blissfully modest and our sneaker-clad feet solidly on the ground.  But every once in a while. . .  Voila, Jessica Fletcher for the day.

Photographers at the photo shoot

This past week I had the opportunity to visit Germany to help publicize the film version of my novel Rainbow Fire.  I landed on Sunday and left on Thursday, and in between I gave interviews and met with publishers and the good people at both ZDF (the network) and Polyphon International (the producer.)  I was wined and dined and most “Jessica Fletcher” of all, I had my photo taken during our press conference by a group of about 15 professional photographers.  Flat out amazing.

Most fun of all I even had a professional makeup artist for the shoot, who took my “I want to look like me, only better” advice to heart and did her best to make it happen.  She also rescued me when my curling iron–plugged into a converter I’d brought along–overheated and threatened to singe my hair.  Remember the scene in Little Women when Jo leaves the curling iron in the fire too long, and off comes one of Meg’s beautiful curls?   Close call and a warning that converters don’t always, well, convert.

Helmut with creative producer and gourmet cook, Carsten Kelber

I loved meeting the two male leads in the film.  Wayne Carpendale, who plays Dillon and Helmut Zierl, who plays Jake were both charming.  In the book Jake’s in a coma in the hospital most of the time, and how glad am I that in this version, Helmut got a larger role.  Of course the book’s about opal mining in Australia and the film’s about treasure diving in New Zealand, but you see the connection, right?  A change here, a change there. . .

Emilie and Wayne with the German edition of Rainbow Fire

Part of the fun was getting to meet the great staff at my German publisher, CORA Verlag.   Stefanie Kruschandl is my German editor, and she and editor Bettina Steinhage were so knowledgeable about my books.  I particularly enjoyed finding out what sells best in Germany.  CORA Verlag publishes not only my MIRA novels, but also my Ministry is Murder series.  They are particularly fond of Aggie, which was delightful to hear.  They treated me to a wonderful dinner at the Hamburg harbor (2nd largest in Europe) and an evening of good conversation.

Publicists Conny of CORA Verlag and Tina with Polyphon organized non-stop interviews.  The journalists I spoke with were unfailingly polite and interested in what I had to say.  I loved my interview for Tina magazine in particular since my daughter-in-law is Tina, too.

Emilie and Markus Dietsch from Tina magazine

Stefanie, Tina and Conny

So I’ve had my Murder She Wrote moment, and actually almost a week of them.  My thanks to everyone in Germany who worked so hard to make my stay there the delight that it was.  Back to sweats, cheese sandwiches and constant trips outside with the crazy beagle, as I write my next novel, but trust me, I’ll trot out these memories often.

Now the winners have their books and I have twenty-nine good suggestions.  While I probably don’t have enough  to say about every subject submitted, some of them leaped right out at me.  Today’s idea was proposed by Audrey Bonnell, who asked:  ”How do you know when a book you write is going to be a series?  Do the people just keep shouting in your head wanting to get out? Or is there just too much about each one to make it into just one book?”

This suggestion comes at such a good time.  Last night I finished the rough draft of Sunset Bridge, the third and final Happiness Key novel.  Usually at the end of a rough draft I’m writing so fast and furiously I’m shocked when I finish, taken by surprise and instantly deflated.  This time, not so much.  Because Sunset Bridge was the final book of three, I had a slew of plot threads to tie up in that final chapter.  What I’d expected to be a brief epilogue turned into a twenty page extravaganza.  I truly began to think this was the book that would never end.  At 9:30PM it finally did, although I’m already making lists of the things I must rewrite and change before I even begin my normal edits.

The Happiness Key series was unusual for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.  I’ve done a lot of interconnected books, beginning back in (gulp) 1985, with a traditional romance titled Sweet Georgia Gal, which was recently made into a film for German TV.  (You can read more about that here.)  Sweet Georgia Gal introduced a young woman who was the oldest girl in a large family.  That background was important for her character development, but after I finished the novel, I realized there were four other sisters hanging around Gainesville, GA, waiting for their own novels.  Eventually each of them got one.

The “Sweet” series hooked me.  If I was going to spend that much time developing characters and intricate plots, why not explore them a bit more and use what I knew in connected  novels?  So began a history of doing just that, as well as a history of NOT planning ahead.  The exception was a series for Silhouette Intimate Moments that we called the Tales of the Pacific series.  I’m delighted to add that it looks like every one of those Tales novels will also be made into a TV movie in Germany, and three have already aired.  In fact, if your German is up to speed, you can view the third (actually the first of my series) right here: Zeit de Vergebung.  It premiered on Sunday and will be available on the Internet for about a week.

When I began writing longer women’s fiction novels, I followed the same path.  I blogged recently about the way one book became two: Iron Lace and Rising Tides, when the original manuscript was too long to publish.  That was unusual.  More often I wrote a novel, then, when readers asked for an update, I happily gave them one.  I guess I’m easy.

The Shenandoah Album series grew the same way, one book, then another.  As most of you know, we stopped after five, a publisher decision.  I am still hoping to write that sixth and final novel.  Stay tuned.

I told you that Happiness Key was different.  As it turns out, not different in the way it grew.  It, too, was intended to be a single title.  Once it was finished, though, my publisher liked it so well, they asked for “more like this.”  Considering I had four major characters whose lives still weren’t smooth sailing, I offered two more novels to create a trilogy, an offer that was happily snapped up.  Fortunate Harbor, book two, came out this past July, and the aforementioned Sunset Bridge, will be published next summer. 

So in what way is the Happiness Key series different?  And why did Sunset Bridge become the book that would not end?  Happiness Key is a friendship novel, and the relationship among the characters WAS the plot.  So when the time came to move forward and do two more, I moved forward with all the same characters, all of whom had plots of their own that moved forward, too.  The Donaghue sisters stories were similar (Whiskey Island and The Parting Glass) but Happiness Key had a twist.  There was a “fifth” house in their beachfront community, and the characters who moved in and out of it were also important to each novel.  This meant I had a “cast of thousands” to work with at a time when publishers are demanding shorter novels.

Yikes!  So what have I learned?  Well, it’s possible to stay sane and produce stories I’m proud of under these conditions.  I know that anyone who enjoyed the first two Happiness Key novels will be happy with Sunset Bridge, as well.  And I think anyone picking it up, without reading the others, will also be happy they did.  Even with all those characters who need final conclusion to their personal stories, the book still moves quickly.  And the “new” character, who comes to live in the fifth house, was great fun to introduce.  I’m proud of this novel, and proud of the series.  But what else did I learn?

Here comes the big revelation.  As much fun as it is to take a single title idea and turn it into a series, this is probably not the easiest way to begin one.  Clearly I love to write connected books, and sixty something later, I ought to remember that before I begin.  The upshot?  For the next series I plan to propose, there will be interconnected characters, but every one of them will NOT need his or her own story in each and every novel.   

Want to know more about that?  Well, stay tuned, so do I.  I love this new idea so much.  We’ll see if my publisher agrees.  Fingers crossed.

We have two televisions, an ancient big screen with the potential for high definition cable–once we figure out how to hook it up without TiVo as the mediator.  And a small (?) 27″ with minimal cable access.  Our evenings have changed drastically.  What, watch what’s actually ON?  I think not.  Or pull the big TV away from the wall and try to figure out how to get it working again?  Horrors! 

So as we wait for one of our many sons to visit and hook it up in approximately six seconds, we marvel at the way our reliance on technology has affected (infected?) our lives.  And we read.  No punishment there.

Recently, watching yet another young mother pushing a stroller with one hand and chatting on her cell phone with another, I tried to remember the last time I saw any mom pushing a stroller without phone in hand.  I could not. Having been an isolated, starved-for-conversation young mother, I can understand this, even as I wonder if anyone ever talks to the baby.  Nor have I recently been in a restaurant without at least one diner on the phone shoveling food between cell phone sentences.  Often while their dinner partner sits idly with no one left to converse with.  The point of dinner together being?

This summer, in a lakeside community in which everyone is privy to whatever is said on nearby porches, I listened as several people habitually walked up and down the street conducting business at top volume on cell phones. I was just sorry they weren’t giving stock tips. I once sat in a  hotel shuttle as a particularly ruthless and egotistical businessman loudly, gleefully fired someone on the other end of the line, as those of us imprisoned with him were forced to listen.  I’ve waited in airports while fellow-passengers-to-be divulged sensitive information about the agencies they work for.  Sadly, I now know more about the intricate workings of a certain branch of the Red Cross than I ever hoped to.

I write on a computer, own a first generation iPhone, and I enjoy all the wonders that technology has brought into my life.  But at what point do we own it, and at what point does it own us?  Exactly when have we sacrificed the joys of human interaction for the wonders of machinery?  While we remain TV impaired, this is something I’ll ponder. 

Pondering, by the way, is much easier to do when the cell phones are closed, the television is off, the iPad is put away, and crickets or the laughter of neighbors, are the only soundtrack.  Pondering may be a lost art.  I sincerely hope not.

The video was for German television channel ZDF, and Katie and I are the two authors whose novels have been chosen for Sunday night movies for that station.  Five of mine are now a reality, and two of Katie’s.  Ironically, Katie who lives in the UK is having her novels filmed in upstate NY.  I, who live in the US and have a summer cottage in NY, am having my novels filmed in New Zealand.  Katie and I assume this is because ZDF wants us to have the pleasures of visiting faraway places when we are invited to visit the sets.

I visited New Zealand this past winter and blogged extensively about the trip.  Katie is in the states now watching her movie being made, and so the sharp minds at ZDF saw a great promo opportunity.  Katie and I would meet in Manhattan and discuss our books on camera for the ZDF website.  What fun.  Once it’s posted, I’ll let you know.

Just a few minutes into our meeting Katie and I felt like old friends.  I was amazed at how similar we are in so many ways.  Did ZDF look for certain qualities when they were reviewing authors and their novels?  Coincidence?  Most likely, but after awhile we just marvelled that we work in such similar ways and have similar outlooks.  When she mentioned that she played “Spider Patience” when she needed to regroup during her writing day, I stopped the interview.  “Don’t tell me that’s the same thing as Spider Solitaire.  We can’t have that in common, too.”

It is, indeed.   After all, with so much attention to relationships and romance in our novels and solitaire on our computers,  Katie and I could both be dubbed the Queen of Hearts.

However, our  mutual admiration of Spider Solitaire (bless Bill Gates) did bring up one difference between us.  Katie is quite capable of putting a game on her computer and going back to it whenever she needs the break.  Emilie is SO not capable.  If I start a game, I almost always have to finish it right that moment.  And I play to win.  So this means, well, playing is not a tiny break, it’s a vacation.  Emilie needs a little more Katie in her soul.

Still, this obsessive streak in my psychological makeup has served me well.  Somehow, despite all the other attractions and obligations of my life, I’ve managed to turn out a number of books.  Part of this is my inability to stop writing when a story is finally careening to conclusion, usually in the last third of the novel.  By then, everything’s set up, and I’m anxious to keep moving.  At last I can reveal those surprises for which I’ve so carefully laid the groundwork.  And while I’m an inveterate outliner, and have a strong idea how my book will end, there’s always that little voice that says “But maybe it won’t turn out like that after all.”  And of course, Little Voice is sometimes quite right.  

Right now I’m nearing the end of Sunset Bridge, the final novel in the Happiness Key trilogy.  I’m in that final third, and I’m going strong.  But PR trips, and the beginning of vacation at our summer place, will wreak havoc with any writing schedule.  We have family galore who’ve signed up to visit us.  We have lectures and concerts and hours relaxing on the porch to look forward to.  Will the book be finished in time, even with all those interruptions?

You bet it will.  For the same reasons I must finish a game of Spider Solitaire before I move on to something else, I must finish Sunset Bridge.  I find myself looking forward to those hours at the computer no matter what else is going on.  Will I sacrifice everything else?  Wave away friends and forget those long walks along the lake?  No chance.  Because when a book is going well, I can write any time and any place. 

So picture me at my laptop computer in August, during the hottest part of the afternoon or during the hours just before midnight when the world is quiet and everyone else has gone to bed.  But don’t feel sorry for me.  I’ll have the best possible company.  Tracy, Wanda, Alice, Janya and Maggie will be right there with me.  After all Sunset Bridge is their story.  They’re as anxious to find out what happens as I am.

Understanding seemed to be a given on both sides, and those involved in filming this movie and those to follow wanted to be certain we were on the same page–or frame.  The production company was most concerned that I might be unhappy about changes that were being made to my story.  Lots of changes, beginning with setting. 

You might ask how a novel set in rural Georgia came to be filmed in New Zealand.  This was never a serious question for me.  New Zealand has a spectacular, varied landscape and a flourishing film industry.  In fact if you look at the original cover–yesterday’s blog–you could mistake that background for New Zealand.  Except for my novels in which setting is almost a character itself (Iron Lace and Rising Tides, for instance) the “flavor” of almost any setting can be met on either the North or South Islands. Sweet Georgia Gal is not about Georgia. It’s about love and the way it sometimes surprises us. It’s a traditional romance with a marriage of convenience plot. 

But not anymore.  At least not on film.

We’ve all read marriage of convenience novels, even if we didn’t peg them that way.  The plotline isn’t limited to romances.  It can be a catalyst in literary novels, in mysteries, in fantasy and more.  In a marriage of convenience, a couple is “forced” into marriage by some outside event.  Then slowly, despite a boatload of problems, they fall in love.  Reasons for the marriage tend to revolve around inheritances, safety, deportation, or cultural expectations–like Janya and Rishi’s marriage in Happiness Key. 

The marriage of convenience in Sweet Georgia Gal is based on a child custody issue, also a popular device.  In this case, Ryan, the hero, has temporary custody of his nieces and nephews after their parents’ death, but he’s afraid he’ll lose them to a scheming relative unless he presents a more traditional lifestyle to the courts.  So Stacey, the children’s temporary nanny, agrees to marry him.  She has her reasons, of course, and not all of them are because he’s incredibly attractive and she’s incredibly innocent–which she is.

The film touches on this, but in a completely different way.  There IS no actual marriage of convenience in the film version.  This surprised me at first, since marriage of convenience plots are still popular and that seemed to be the point of the story.  But after reacquainting myself with the novel, I tried to imagine how to make what I had written work on the screen.  I couldn’t.

You’ve seen some of your favorite novels made into films, haven’t you, and wondered at the changes, even been angered by them?  Film and novels are different mediums.  In this case there’s a “fantasy” quotient in a traditional romance novel, an assurance that our readers will suspend disbelief and give us leeway to make our magic work for them.  Not so in film.  Stacey as I’d written her, was far too good to be true, too innocent to survive in the real world, too–sorry as I am to say so–lacking in backbone.  Stacey as portrayed in the film is stronger and more realistic.  The story is more realistic, too.

Will it keep the magic?  The actors–to the right in the above photo–are wonderfully attractive, perfect for their roles, and the air sizzles when they’re on camera together.  John, the director–on the left–is a creative taskmaster working hard to get the best out of everybody on set.  And the screenwriters worked hard to keep essential parts of the novel in place.  Could I ask for more?

Novelists learn very early that if they are lucky enough to have their books filmed, they should stand back quietly and watch. I learned my lesson well.  This is no longer MY story.  It’s OUR story, a lesson in collaboration.  It’s a lesson I’m enjoying immensely.

A movie set is a village, complete with solutions to all life’s pressing problems.  Places to eat, rest, clothe yourself, and, of course, a place where that most primal of needs, the telling of stories, comes to life in a very special way.

We arrived in New Zealand in the morning, rested and showered then headed to the set where my novel . . . but wait, I can’t tell you which one yet, can I?  See two blogs ago to find out why and enter my giveaway.

“The film being produced for German television” is based on one of my earliest novels, what publishers called a “sweet” romance, meaning there’s an absence of steamy love scenes and the heroine is often young and innocent.  Fascinated by family life, I often, even then, wrote about domestic issues, a habit that served me well in this novel.  The moment we arrived on set we watched a scene with the movie’s male lead and three young children. 
And watched.  And watched.  Because if I learned anything in the hours while I stood in the rain as two different scenes were filmed and refilmed, I learned movie making is an exacting and exhausting business that requires an enormous number of people from the inception (where I came in) to the conclusion, when the film makes its debut.

On any number of levels, I’ve been so impressed with the film people I’ve met.  They have been, to a person, warm, interested and interesting.  They are cosmopolitan, creative and in the case of the German production team, flawlessly bilingual.

And did I mention great with children?  The kids in the production are having such fun, and the adults clearly enjoy having them around.

Even in the moments when nothing was going right, rain was falling, closeups revealed problems with continuity, there were none of the much publicized personal theatrics we’re told to expect on film sets.  Just hard work, attention to detail and creative solutions. I am left with a new respect for a medium I, as a viewer. often take for granted.

Which reminds me of another group of films made here in New Zealand that no one will ever take for granted.  But we just pulled up to the Shire, so that story will have to wait for the next blog.

Stay tuned for photos.