I hope everyone had a great 4th. Having done our cookout and partying last weekend, we didn’t even leave the house except to step out onto the front porch to watch the neighbors shoot off fireworks. And as you can tell from my lack of blogging the past couple of days, I’ve been in the writing cave. I’ve written 33 pages in the past two days. I’m really pushing to have a rough draft done by the time I head to San Fran so I can do editing on the train.

You know how you get those meme things in e-mail and are tagged by other bloggers all the time. You know the ones that ask things like — tell us six random things about you? Well, I’ve decided to start my own and see how long it takes the world of the Internet to send it back to me. So, here goes:

Famous People Meme — Which famous person in each of the following categories would you like to meet?

Author — J.K. Rowling

Movie Actor — Orlando Bloom

TV Actor — Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, also Sarah Michelle Gellar

Musician/Singer — Bon Jovi

Historical Figure — Queen Elizabeth I and Sacajawea

Fictional Book Character — J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood brothers

Fictional Movie or TV Character — Buffy Sommers

Okay, if you have a blog, go forth and blog. Everyone, including the bloggers, share your answers in the comments section. I’m verrry curious.

Did you hear the sigh of relief today? That was me after I finished my chapter outline for my new YA book. I’ve now sent it off to my friend Monica for a read before I make final edits and send it to my editor. Yay! Of course, then it’s on to revisions on my second Harlequin American and my Supernatural essay. I did get good news from my YA editor. Heartbreak River came back from the copyeditor so clean that it’s now off to the printer! I may have bound galleys next month!

Thursday was my birthday, so I took that day off. Hubby took the day off from work. I had lunch with friends, then hubby and I went to see Prince Caspian, which I really enjoyed. In fact, I’m basing the hero in this new YA on Ben Barnes, who plays Caspian. Then I zipped into Books-a-Million to pick up my friend Jeanne Adams’ debut novel, Dark and Dangerous. Finally, we went out to dinner at Olive Garden, which was yummy. It was nice to have a day off to just play in the middle of hectic deadlines, and I think it actually helped me be fresh enough to power through to the end of my outline last night.

Okay, I’ve mentioned before how much I LOVE Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and how I’m eagerly anticipating the movie Twilight this December. So, I did a little squee when I saw the gorgeous new poster for the movie and discovered there’s a new trailer available for viewing. You can see these at the movie’s new Web site, and you can also download the poster image as your computer’s wallpaper, like I did. Now the image below of Bella and Edward will greet me each time I turn on my computer.

I’m working on an essay for Benbella Books, for a compilation they’re doing for their SmartPop series on the show Supernatural, my favorite show on TV. So, I’ve been re-watching the first two seasons, taking notes to support the theme of my essay. It’s interesting what you catch when you’re watching something analytically versus just for fun. And though I already knew it, it’s striking me again just how good this show really is — great writing, great acting, totally fun and believable relationship between the brothers. Thank you, Eric Kripke!

I was talking to my husband yesterday about how different our TV viewing choices are. I like certain shows and don’t want to miss a single episode. That’s because I like shows that have a developing story arc over time. If you miss an episode, you miss a valuable part of the arc. Hubby, on the other hand, watches programs at random as he’s surfing, stuff you can miss and it won’t matter. For instance: Me (Supernatural or Moonlight) versus Hubby (South Park or The Colbert Report). I think our viewing choices are also reflected in our reading choices. Hubby watches Book TV on C-SPAN on the weekends, which makes sense because he’s almost exclusively a nonfiction reader (and really smart dude). I like shows that have stories to tell, just like my preference for fiction. I do think I’m more likely to read a nonfiction work than he is a fiction work, though he will be reading my published books — good hubby that he is. Same goes for TV. I’ve watched some Book TV, and I really enjoy The Daily Show. But I don’t see hubby giving in to weekly watching of Bones anytime soon.

Pretty much everyone has heard of the conspiracy theories involving aliens, the U.S. government and Roswell, New Mexico. In these theories, the aliens are usually of the little green men variety. But what if there really were aliens from the Roswell crash among us and they looked like high school students? That’s the premise behind Roswell, a teen-targeted TV show that ran from 1999-2002. It’s another of those teen shows (like Buffy) that I missed when it was in first-runs. But I watched the entire three seasons recently and really enjoyed it. Like most teen-centered shows I watch, it caused ideas for future YA books to start crackling in my head. Nothing about Roswell itself or aliens, but it was a jumping-off point for my imagination.

I like how the show took the idea of star-crossed lovers to a whole different level. As Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby), one of the leads, said in one of the promos: “Romeo and Juliet came from two different worlds. Max and I have them beat. We come from two different planets.”

The story revolves around Max (Jason Behr), his sister Isabel (Katherine Heigl, before Grey’s Anatomy fame), and their friend Michael (Brenden Fehr), all three aliens from a planet they can’t remember. They were in the 1947 crash at Roswell, but they remained in incubation pods until they popped out in time to be teenagers for the show. Max and Isabel were adopted by a loving family, but Michael got stuck in the foster care system. They lead pretty normal teenage lives in Roswell, but they’re always aware that if anyone becomes aware of who and what they are, they’ll have to leave and not come back. They tell no one their secret — until Max has to save Liz with his super-duper alien healing powers. Thus begins the love story of Max and Liz. It’s definitely not an easy one as they try to figure out if they can even be together.

I enjoyed the Max/Liz story, but I was at least equally attracted to the love story between Michael and Maria (Majandra Delfino), Liz’s best friend. Their relationship is more bumpy, even when they’re together, but there’s a vulnerability about Michael behind all his macho bluster that made Maria’s love for him all that more powerful. He was this wounded guy, and Maria was what he needed to heal, even though he didn’t realize it for awhile. He’s not exactly introspective guy.

You know how Buffy had the Scoobies? Well, the aliens have a small circle of human friends who are in the know — Liz and Maria initially, then their friend Alex (Colin Hanks, Tom’s son), then Sheriff Valenti and his son, Kyle. This group often works together to foil the efforts of the feds and other various baddies who are after the aliens for horrible lab purposes.

Since you know I love YouTube fan vids, here are a couple for Roswell. The first is for Max and Liz, set to Dido’s “Here With Me,” which was the show’s theme song. The second is for Michael and Maria, set to “Ice Dance” from the movie Edward Scissorhands.

I’m a total sucker for stories of star-crossed lovers, even though those types of relationships are typically doomed from the start. The trouble is I always want to rewrite them so that the couple in love gets their happily ever after. Hey, that’s why I write romance. There are classic examples like Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere. Newer examples are Buffy and Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jack and Rose from Titanic, and Anakin and Padme in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

That last example is freshest in my mind because hubby and I finally got around to watching Revenge of the Sith on Friday night. Padme and Anakin’s story broke my heart. In the original three Star Wars movies that came out when I was a kid, Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker) was just a bad guy — bad, bad, bad. At least until the end of Return of the Jedi when he’s redeemed by killing Emperor Palpatine before the emperor can kill Luke. All we ever see of Anakin is his Darth Vader mask, until at the very end when he’s dying and asks Luke to remove it. We see a scarred, shriveled old man, and at least to my recollection we don’t know why he has to wear the mask and the rest of his black armor.

(Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen Revenge of the Sith.)

In the new trilogy, we get Anakin’s backstory, the harshness and loss he dealt with as a youth, how he constantly struggled with the incredible power within him, how he was manipulated by Palpatine, and how even though Jedi were forbidden to do so, he fell in love. In fact, one of the main reasons he went to the dark side was because of his incredible love for Padme and desire to protect her at all costs. So he wasn’t one-dimensional and evil to the core. He loved and was loved, so much so that when he was lost, Padme lost the desire to live. She gives birth to Luke and Leia, then dies — just as a near-death Anakin is reborn as Darth Vader in the mask we all know from those early Star Wars movies. Even as she takes her last breaths, though, she still loves and believes in her Ani. She tells Obi-Wan that she knows there’s still good in him — a sentiment that is echoed by Luke in Return of the Jedi. Because the two trilogies were made out of order and so far apart in years, we only hear one vague reference to Padme in the earlier films, and that from Leia. It would have been more satisfying if as Anakin was dying he’d said something about Padme, or when Luke sees Anakin’s image at the celebration on Endor at the end of Return of the Jedi, it would have been fitting to see Padme beside him (though I know the reason she wasn’t was because she wasn’t a Jedi).

The Star Wars series wouldn’t have played out as it did had Anakin and Padme gotten their happily ever after, but I can’t help wishing they had. Yes, I’m a total sap.

Here are a couple of good YouTube fan videos about Padme and Anakin. The first is more about them falling in love during Attack of the Clones. The second is darker, fitting the tone of Revenge of the Sith as Anakin begins to lose his battle to remain good and descends into the dark side.

I’ve blogged about favorite fictional couples before, so I thought I’d share another — Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

I’ve been listening the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End soundtrack a lot while doing revisions the past several days, and I always perk up at the songs that evoke parts of the movie devoted to Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth’s (Keira Knightly) love story. They’re great characters, each willing to do put their own lives in jeopardy and dive into a life (that of pirates) largely foreign to them at the beginning of their story in order to save and protect and be with each other. They are different people at the end of the trilogy, but their love is stronger than ever for all the trials they’ve been through. Ah, dreamy sigh.

Here’s a fun fan video on YouTube devoted to Will and Elizabeth. The song is a good choice, and I like the video editing job.

I’ve been SO busy the past few days on freelance editing that I decided to just see how many comments my previous post about Superman/Clark/Lois would generate. I too grew up with Christopher Reeve as Superman and was so saddened when he was first paralyzed and later died. It was fun recently, while watching older Smallville episodes, to see him guest star in a few before his death. Margot Kidder also has guest starred a couple of times.

I know Meankitty doesn’t like Erica Durance’s Lois, but I actually do. I think she’s funny, and she can kick butt. I agree that Chloe is more like how we’ve all grown up with Lois in our minds, but Smallville is set in the teen years, back before even Clark had any idea he’d be a reporter. We see glimpses of who Lois will become as she helps out Chloe when she sneaks into LutherCorp or when they go undercover at a strip club. I hate to even think it because I love Chloe’s character, but there is the possibility that Chloe won’t survive at the end of the Smallville run. If that’s so, I can see this Lois honoring her cousin by stepping into her shoes. That would seem appropriate since Chloe has loved Clark all these years, and we all know that Clark and Lois will end up together.

I went into watching Superman Returns wondering how Brandon Routh would do in the role. I must say I really like this new Superman, and I’m glad they’re making a sequel, Man of Steel, due out in 2009. And I like Kate Bosworth’s Lois, though I really hope Bosworth adds a little weight before the next movie. I must say in the movie she didn’t look as painfully thin as she does in most shots I see of her. I’m very curious how they will resolve a major obstacle to Lois and Superman’s relationship in the next movie.

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As I mentioned, I have been the queen of editing since Friday. I freelance for a publishing company, and I have edited roughly 700 pages for them since Friday, plus two shorter projects for another firm. I think my brain is smoking out my ears. In the midst of all this editing, however, my toasty brain actually produced a new story idea. I’m going to break out the laptop tomorrow and get started on a partial. It’ll feel good to write something new.

Several actors have played Clark Kent (aka Superman) and his love, Lois Lane, through the years. Which pairing is your favorite, and why?

Noel Neill and George Reeves (Adventures of Superman)

Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve (the Superman movies)

Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman)

Kate Bosworth and Brandon Routh (Superman Returns)

Tom Welling and Erica Durance (Smallville)

While having an e-mail discussion with a friend earlier today, I happened upon an interesting blog topic — the reluctant hero. In the midst of our conversation, I compared Clark Kent in Smallville and Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are teens dealing with normal teen issues — friends, school, dating, parents. But they also have that extra burden of knowing they have this bigger destiny of fighting evil and saving people from the baddies, and they’re not always happy to have that burden. Both often long to just be normal with no super abilities, but whenever that wish is fleetingly granted it doesn’t turn out how they had hoped. (The same can be said of Angel in the episode “I Will Remember You”, a real tearjerker from season 1 of Angel.) They realize that you can’t escape big destinies, no matter how much you wish you could. They are reluctant heroes, and I think we love them more for it. We admire how they long for what we all long for — normalcy, safety and love — but they put their own desires aside when the greater good has to be served. Buffy sacrifices Angel, her true love.

When Clark loses his powers as a result of defying Jor-El, he quickly realizes that he can’t protect the people he loves as effectively if he is mortal and superpower-less. Angel sacrifices mortality and life so that Buffy doesn’t put herself in danger while worrying about protecting him.

The reluctant hero is actually part of the Hero’s Journey, a concept made famous (at least in writers’ circles) by mythologist Joseph Campbell. The third and fourth steps in the hero’s journey are the Call to Adventure and the Refusal of the Call. I’ve seen the movie Star Wars and the character of Luke Skywalker used many times to illustrate the hero’s journey. To me, Han Solo is more of a classic reluctant hero as is Indiana Jones and Wolverine in the X-Men movies.

Who are some of your favorite reluctant heroes/heroines? Why do you think we love them so much?