Glynn and I are traveling this Thanksgiving. If you’re not in the USA, 11/26/2015 isn’t a holiday for you, get back to work.  
 
Once our plans were set, I decided to title today’s post, Nothing to see here. I planned to tell readers that we were away and please come back next week. Because images always spice up a page, I wanted to include a cute little picture with the text.
 
I'd write four, maybe five, lines and I'd be out. It wouldn't be my greatest blog, I realized that, but I was looking at a six hour car trip just to reach my Thanksgiving destination. There would be another six hours on the return. Glynn would want to listen to sports channels on the journey, I’d want to listen to the Broadway station so, in a terrible compromise, we’d make the long trek in radio silence. I was tired in advance.
 
The picture I wanted to grace this post was a turkey driving a car. If you’ll take a second to peek at this post’s upper left hand corner, you’ll discover that there's no sign of a goofy Meleagris gallopavo lounging behind the wheel of a snazzy convertible. If you're feeling generous, you might say it's close but...no. Not really.
 
There’s a reason for this. Let me explain.
 
When making my plans, I started with the assumption that somebody somewhere would have created the very image I wanted. As long as graphic was in the public domain (i.e., free), I’d use it. As it turned out, there was good news and bad news. When I went to Bing Images – Google and I have had a fight, don’t ask, I don’t want to even talk about G. right now – and typed in the words, “Turkey driving a car”, I found many fun options. People can be so creative.
 
That was the good news.
 
There were multiple depictions of cartoon turkeys driving cartoon cars, and I would have happily used almost any of them.  So, still in Bing Images, I went to the little menu that is placed above the pictures. On the menu, a blogger can select Color or Type or Layout or...I forget what right now...but I knew to hit License. License has a dropdown menu of its own. When it opened, I selected: Public domain.
 
So, now, the bad news. All of the cartoon turkeys vanished. What remained were a few photos of cars. The top of the page featured a red Hyundai. In strange coincidence, I kid you not, we are driving our red Hyundai to Thanksgiving dinner.
 
I wondered if our car would be insulted by its doppelganger appearing here. Then Glynn called out, asking if I could help pack, and I made my decision.
 
Next week, let's discuss writers who can't be bothered to work on holidays. Those slackers. See you then.
 

Okay, it appears ADF won’t man up and meet my vampire romance novel writing challenge. No big deal. He’s busy with his own projects and, besides, if he’s collecting royalties from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, you can bet he won’t even be on this continent for the next two years. When the guy has some cash in hand, he loves to travel...or so he suggested, from the one talk I attended.
 
You can tell EVERYTHING you need to know about a person, as long as they’ve given one casual talk that you happened to attend. Don’t you think?
 
I always knew the offer had a snowball’s chance. As a fellow writer, I still think he’s pretty terrific. Not because of his Spellsinger books, or his Pip stories, or even his novel, Into the Out of (which Glynn loved and I liked but, ugh, that cover on Amazon). As an author, he’s done more than all right. I’m even more impressed that he’s considered a Grand Master. A few years ago, he was awarded the title by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
 
Being a Grand Master of anything is pretty darn impressive, but have you ever heard of the Tie-In Association? The Good Witch says she has, but she is SUCH a fibber. No one who isn’t professionally associated with those people has ever heard of this group. No one.
 
Still, once a Grand Master, always a Grand Master. The title tells me that Foster has written a carload of television and movie-based books, and he’s done his work well. I’m guessing, if you don’t do a good job the first time, no one lines up to hire you for a second time – and, as the upcoming SW novel shows, his talents are still in demand. If Wikipedia is to be believed, Foster has finished almost forty media tie-in novelizations. I don’t care who you are, that’s an impressive number of novels for any writer.
 
As Nathaniel commented on last week’s blog, ADF attempts to bring his own color and flavor to the stories he adapts. He’s often made them richer and more interesting than the actual movie itself. I don’t know if this will happen with The Force Awakens – mix LucasFilm with the Disney Company and “freedom of expression” isn’t the first thought that occurs – but reviews of his earlier adaptions give me hope.
 
Because, I want you to know, it isn’t easy working with someone else’s creation. When Glynn and I stumbled onto a work-for-hire project, we learned that lesson. Even before we signed the contract, we were advised that we wouldn’t be allowed to give the Famous Characters an interesting new quirk, or a fun new friend, or introduce any significant changes to their well-established living situation. The status quo would forever remain the status quo. As long as we worked within those guidelines, however, we could do whatever we wanted. The story’s plot was ours, it was a twist on the familiar and got us the job, and we loved playing with it.
 
Still, the restrictions rubbed at us. Plus, private gripe, the editor added a nonsensical bit of business that did nothing to advance the story; she just had to mark her territory. Even though the novel sold well, even for those Famous Characters, we never wrote another one. Deciding we wrote too slowly to spend so many months in another person’s world, we went off to do our own thing. We’ve never regretted it.
 
Of course, Foster has the speed and talent to work on both types of projects. Both Glynn and I believe he can do anything as a writer – except, apparently, pen a vampire romance novel. Which is totally okay, ADF. Sure, the average person might think a Grand Master would be up for anything…but, no, no, I get it. It’s cool.
 
The Force Awakens comes out as an e-book when the movie launches, and as a hardcover in early January. I’ll bet it’s a good one.

Alan Dean Foster is a writer, of fiction mostly, and he’s good at it. Glynn loved his INTO THE OUT OF horror/sci-fi novel, and Sue’s son eagerly devoured Foster’s Pip and Flinx series. There are a dozen books to date in the P&F run. Foster has chops.
 
If you’ve come to my site but don’t recognize ADF’s name, it’s probably because he isn’t noted for writing romance novels – on his website, he says, “And I couldn't write a romantic vampire novel if I tried…” – and…wait a minute. Let me stop myself right there. I’d intended to post on something else today but I’ve just changed my mind. This blog is about to go rogue.
 
I was going to write about ADF’s adventures in movie novelizations. On the radio the other day, I heard that Foster was tapped to write the novelization of the upcoming STAR WARS movie so I thought I’d blog about it. I was going to do this because (a) Foster once came to my local library, gave a fun talk about writing, and I liked him for that, so I occasionally check to see how his career is doing (spoiler: just fine); and (b) I imagined that doing a novelization for LucasFilm had to be an incredible challenge. A roll-up the sleeves, wipe the brow, scream at the moon kind of challenge.
 
More on that next week. This week, I’ve got a bone to pick with the guy.
 
Strolling through his website, increasingly impressed by ADF’s work and travels, I happen to see our hero claim that tapping out a vampire romance novel is beyond his ability. Turns out, such stories aren't his cup of blood…his joke, not mine. He’s been writing for 40-plus years, he’s created entire fictional universes, but he can’t imagine kicking up his Apple computer and inventing a vampire who knows how to deep kiss.
 
Pardon me, Mr. Foster, if I don’t buy the assertion. If the good folks at Del Rey Books offered to send me a six-figure check for 50 SHADES OF BLOODSUCKER, my Dracula wanna-be would be smooching in their inbox by March of next year. April at the latest.
 
I’ll bet you’d have the manuscript completed by February. Because you have a very particular set of skills; skills you have acquired over a very long career – but no writer grows up, eager to do novelizations. A writer tackles a movie novelization because they think they can pull it off and somebody else thinks they can deliver, too. No one involved is doing this for the love of the game. This kind of work is done because there’s a guaranteed check at the end of the gig. (And, sometimes, royalties. If you’re getting royalties on this next SW novel…well, 2016 is going to be a very good year in the Foster household.)
 
So how do I know you can write a vampire romance novel? Glynn and I did it. Okay, Twisted Games isn’t exactly the same, Mr. Stickler, but let’s be honest here: a werewolf romance novella isn’t too far afield. Plus, the werewolf sparkles. (Or maybe not. Buy it and you’ll see.) What happened was, a small publisher sent out word that she was looking for shape-shifter romances, 20,000 word minimum, and Glynn came across the notice. He would never have seen it if it was football season but it wasn’t, so he did, and he brought it to me.
 
I reminded my honey that we’d never written a shape-shifter romance. That I’d never even read a romance with supernatural elements. He reminded me that I’d always claimed, a good writer could write any genre, any day, if they didn’t get in their own way. Five weeks later, we finished the first draft. It was not wonderful. Two weeks later, we’d upped our game. We sent in our submission, signed a contract, even got to pick our cover artist. It sold okay, too. The people that read the story seemed to like it; at least, the reviewers did.
 
The thing is, we discovered that writing a romance is a lot of fun. So we tried writing another, then another, and then romance stories became our focus. Our next two years are pretty much booked, fictionally-speaking, with several more novellas and at least one more novel. All of them in the romance genre. No vampires yet but I’ll tell you, ADF, you write one, we’ll write one.
 
It’ll be a sparkle-off. I dare you.
 
Next week, the blog I was supposed to write: Why Alan Dean Foster rocks.

So the Good Witch says, I need to rethink this blog. I tell her, I'm not completely certain that "rethink" is a real word.
 
She isn't amused, and she mentions, probably correctly, that I need to know my audience. The Good and Wise People who pass by my blog aren't doll collectors, and certainly won't be interested in a blog about doll shows. I shouldn't waste their time.
 
Otherwise, I might lose my website visitors forever.
 
But I have more faith in you, so I want to tell you about my visit to a doll show. Not just any doll show, mind you, but the only doll show I've ever seen. I wanted to title this blog, Doll Show!!!!, but GW said, it was okay if I ignored her advice but I needed to lower my geek factor by a power of ten. 
 
This is me, behaving, by holding in my enthusiasm and using a more appropriate blog title. But still feeling pretty darned enthusiastic about seeing a doll show, anyway.
 
GW doesn't get the joy I find in ancient Barbie dolls and she is completely befuddled by my Monster High mania -- will Finnegan Wake ever come to a toy store near me? -- but she agreed to go with me to the doll show, anyway. Glynn had refused to go, noting that it was a two hour trip each way. He also shared that he could think of roughly a million other things he'd rather do  -- including self-dentistry -- but somehow didn't include any of the chores on the list I left. So, Glynn, if you get around to reading this, the tree in the backyard isn't going to trim itself, you know.
 
Glynn was certain that wouldn't be any other men at the show, no matter what, which just goes to show what he knows. If you look at this picture, you can clearly see a man in the foreground, a couple in the background, and there were at least six that I saw while we were there. There were about four hundred women there, too, which indicates to me that doll collecting attracts highly intelligent collectors of both sexes.
 
I had the most wonderful time. I'd never seen so many dolls. I'd never met so many people who were enthused about dolls. G.W. tried to feign indifference about the event, but I saw the interest in her face. She kept tugging on my sleeve and whispering things like, "I remember that doll!" and "Oh, that's so cute!" and "Oh my God, did you see the price tag on THAT doll?" 
 
She said the price tag thing quite a bit. It got to where she was afraid to even pick up one of the dolls.
 
I thought I might have converted her when she took out her cell phone and snapped a picture. But then I saw the photo and knew it was just GW being GW.

She wanted to know if the image sparked any story ideas for me. I told her, yes, only one, and that tale was about a weird friend who snapped photos of headless dolls for no known reason, so maybe she wasn't right in the head. She smiled. The next day, I saw that she'd made the pic her screen saver. Later that same day, it did give me a story idea.
 
I think maybe I'm not quite right in the head.