What do aging rock stars do when their heyday is past? They open a chain of coffeehouses, of course.

I watched two episodes of ANGEL today that got me to thinking about how writers wring emotions out of their readers/viewers. There are lots of books I’ve really enjoyed, ones that have earned a place on my keeper shelf, but I can’t think of one off the top of my head that squeezed my heart so much that I actually cried. I’ve felt for characters, but I can’t recall actual tears. That’s not so of movies and TV shows. Perhaps it’s because I tend to read books that have happy endings. No matter what happens in a romance, you know the couple is going to get a happily ever after. But in movies and TV shows, you don’t know that. Add on top of that the actual ability to see the characters’ expressions, to hear their voices, and soundtracks written with the purpose of eliciting the raw emotions of scenes, and the visual medium seems to be able to draw tears from me much more easily. Think Beaches, Steel Magnolias, Titanic, The Patriot, House of Flying Daggers, Legends of the Fall, Gladitor, Braveheart, Glory, Last of the Mohicans, Sommersby, Serenity. They all have tearjerker moments.

TV series can do the same thing. The back-to-back episodes of ANGEL has to be one of the biggest one-two punch of tearjerkers in TV history. First, in “I Will Remember You”, Angel is made mortal and can have exactly what he wants — a life with Buffy. They share a wonderful, loving day together, but he has to give it up when he realizes that his mortality puts Buffy in danger. He gives up what he wants most in the world, to be able to love and be with Buffy, to save her and countless others. To make matters worse, he will be the only one who’ll remember their day together. As they watch the seconds tick down to the moment when the clock will be turned back and she’ll forget, their tears and kisses and her words that she’ll never forget are absolutely heart-wrenching.

The next episode, “Hero”, was the last for the wonderful character of Doyle. Just as he’s on the verge of getting what he wants, a date with Cordy, he steps up to the plate to save a group of persecuted half-demons like himself. After his one and only kiss with Cordy, he sacrifices himself so Angel won’t.

I’ve loved these movies and TV shows with tearjerker moments, but there’s still that part of me that wishes everyone got their happy ending. I guess that’s why I read and write romance. At least there, I know they’ll get it.

So, how do you think we can wring out the emotions of our readers while still promising them that happy ending? How can we make them feel that maybe, just this once, that happy ending might not be guaranteed and then leave them happy when it is?

While out running errands today, I made a stop by the local Barnes & Noble to see if they had the soundtrack to the TV series ANGEL, half expecting that they wouldn’t since the show has been off the air for a few years now. But lucky me, they did. And it’s great! It has a wonderful extended version of the theme song “Sanctuary” by Darling Violetta; “I’m Game” by Christophe Beck (who also did the Angel and Buffy love theme on Buffy the Vampire Slayer), which is the song from the series premiere where Angel accepts his new purpose of helping the hopeless in L.A.; and the great “Touched” by Vast, not to mention some other beautiful and haunting instrumental pieces. If you’d like hear snippets of the tracks, check them out here.

Still working on the newest YA manuscript, and for some reason it’s like pulling teeth. Usually the last 30-40 pages of a book are fast, but that’s not happening now. Phooey.

No secret I’ve gotten addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in the past week. Two of the best books I’ve read in the past year are J.R. Ward’s Dark Lover and Lover Eternal. I really enjoyed the movies Underworld and Underworld: Evolution, even liked Queen of the Damned with Stuart Townsend as Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat. Having heard great things about several other book series, I’ve just requested three novels from the library:

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton (first in the Anita Blake series)
Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison
Dark Prince by Christine Feehan (first of the Carpathians, I believe; first in the Dark series)

It’s still several months away from release (January 2007), but I’m also looking forward to buddy Colleen Gleason’s The Rest Falls Away, the first in her Gardella Legacy series and described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Pride and Prejudice.

Oh, and I’m currently listening to the hard rock soundtrack to Underworld: Evolution.

And because there can never be too many pictures of Angel…

It’s that time of year when kids join summer reading programs at the local library, vacationers pack their fun beach reads, and it’s just fun to grab a good book and curl up on a lawn lounger on the deck or beneath a shade true. The Wet Noodle Posse is doing a summer reading program of our own, trying to whittle down our to-be-read piles. My personal goal is to get caught up on the reading of all the Noodlers’ books and a few others. I’m reading Stephanie Rowe’s fun Date Me Baby, One More Time right now and should finish sometime in the next couple of days. Then I’ll consult my stack and see what strikes my fancy next.

So, what is the best book you’ve read so far this year? Any summer reading goals?

Am happy to report I wrote a little more today. No stunning page counts, but I think that’s because I’m coming back to the book after a two-week break and at a point that isn’t as clear in my head as the previous material. I know where I’m going, just have to figure out how to get there.

Watched the season three finale of Buffy today. Was so sad when Angel left.

I wish I knew why it’s so hard to start writing again after a break, but it is every time. After a break while I did freelance work and then battled the sickies, it’s been hard to dive back into my story but I’m doing so tonight. May just start out with a couple of pages, but it seems that if I just write something one day it’s always easier to pick up the next. If I go more than a day or two without writing, it’s easy to just fall into the habit of doing other things (oh, say, surfing the Internet and watching Buffy episodes for instance) and avoiding the manuscript-in-progress. It’s just such a strange phenomenon that we writers will avoid writing even though we like being writers. I know I’ve wished more than once that I could just plug into my brain and download the stories in my head, which inevitably are more perfect there than when they seep out the ends of my fingers onto the computer keyboard. If we could figure out what the disconnect between brain and computer is, we’d certainly have things a lot easier.

Watched the prom episode of Buffy tonight and am not ashamed to admit I shed tears.

Hopefully I am on the mend, so tomorrow it’s back to work on the young adult novel that I had planned to have finished this week. I still lack about 50 pages to hit the word count I’m shooting for, but it might go over that depending on the rate at which the rest of the story unfolds. I’m at a big turning point now, so hopefully it’ll be easy to hop back into the story. And hopefully my fingers will be flying on the laptop keyboard tomorrow. Now that I can breathe relatively well for a human and don’t sound like Darth Vader quite so much, I’m going to use the Buffy episodes as rewards for getting my pages written each day rather than how I passed my entire days while sick on the couch. You know, watching two seasons of Buffy and part of a third in one week has got to be some sort of record. The storylines do make me want to be a better writer, and a writer can learn a lot from the characterization, dialogue and emotion on that show, so the week definitely wasn’t a total waste in the writing department.

Because they’ve kept me company this week, another tribute to Buffy and Angel…

What do you do when you’re so sick that all you feel like doing is vegging on the couch for several days in a row? Well, you introduce yourself to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course.

I’ve heard the praises of Buffy for years, particularly when in the company of other writers. They loved the show, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the Angel vs. Spike debate. I always felt out of the loop, but for some reason I never watched Buffy or its spin-off Angel. But after loving Firefly and Serenity, I began to suspect I’d like Buffy too since Joss Whedon created all of them and I think he’s an extremely talented writer. And thanks to the wonders of TV shows on DVD, I’m now thoroughly addicted to Buffy. While I’ve been fighting the fever and wheezing that comes with sinus infections and bronchitis, I’ve watched the entire first season and several episodes of the second. I like the mixture of teenage “troubles” and genuine, save-the-world type trouble. I like Xander’s goofiness, Willow’s and Giles’ brainyness, Cordelia’s self-absorption with the hint of a better person underneath, the fact that Buffy kicks butt and takes names all while wearing cute shoes. And, being the romance writer I am, I love the love story between Buffy and Angel. I know there’s a Spike thing later on in the series, but I soooo don’t want to think about it now. Can’t imagine it really. But I know there are loads of Spike devotees out there. Whenever I manage to get through all seven seasons, I’ll blog about my view on the Angel vs. Spike debate, but unless something truly amazing happens, I think I know where I’ll be.

Hubby sent me a link to this article about introverts because, well, he’s an introvert. If you’re an extrovert, as the majority of people are, this article gives some good insights into understanding why introverts are the way they are. As I read it, I thought this would also be useful information for writers wanting to do characterization work for an introverted character.

After a very busy week of copyediting freelance projects and reading Mary’s fabulous manuscript (someone buy this woman’s books already!), I finally had time to reconstruct the rest of the blog sidebar tonight. I believe I got all the links back up and running and added a couple of extra tidbits such as a link to the Crusie-Mayer blog and a Clustrmap, which will show where visitors to my blog are from — generally. Don’t worry, Big Brother isn’t watching you.

For those attending the RWA National Conference this summer, you’ll want to make sure you buy some raffle tickets at the Literacy Signing on Wednesday night. The Wet Noodle Posse is putting together a fabulous “basket” to be given away during the raffle. You won’t be able to miss it — a big, red colander filled with books by the Noodlers, pasta, gift cards, and a ton of other great stuff! And if you win and aren’t too shy, I’ll take your picture with the basket and put it up on the WNP blog on my regular Aug. 1 blog date.