imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
CHICK LIT IS NOT A CHEWING GUM
My mother used to carry Chiclets in her purse and chew only half of one at a time. HALF! That drove me crazy because, as a kid, I used to cram an entire pack of gum into my mouth at one time. Blackjack was my favorite. When I began to hear about chick lit, I couldn't help but flash back to my mother's tidbits of gum.
I had never read chick lit, and I didn't really want to because it sounded like something men-hating bitter women would read. I love men and I'm not bitter. (I could get all cute here and say I'm really sweet -- but I won't.) Then I read my first chick lit, Jennifer's Weiner's Good In Bed, and I decided that the genre wasn't half bad. In fact, I really like it!
Josephine Gillis could easily write chick lit with what she's experienced: When I was scorned by my husband a monster emerged in me. He didn’t just end the relationship by bringing in a new woman, he had to pour salt into the wound while he was at it, flippantly joking about expediting a paycheck by telling his employer that he was “going through a divorce” two days after I had been given the news of said divorce. It was old news to him, he’d already been shacking up with the interloper for a couple of weeks.
Today, thanks to POD-dyMouth, I've discovered another chick lit author, Laurie Notaro. She wrote that book up there, the one with the hilarious cover.
I'm not certain if I'd be any good at writing chick lit. After all, I haven't been embittered by a louse, at least not terminally. In fact, I think my long-term marriage to the same guy would probably disqualify me. But I'm going to try anyway. Just my luck, I'll put all my efforts into writing about a dumped woman and it will end up being nothing more than a pack of Chiclets.
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