State of the Union by Liz

I'm not a super political person so my friends might find the fact that I'm giving a State of the Union pretty damn funny.  However, I think it was almost impossible not to feel passionate about the electoral process this past year!  But don't worry, I'm not going to bore you with the State of that Union.  Rather, I'm going to be talking about the State of my union! And like Lisa, I struggled with what to write in my first entry on this blog.  I feel like I'm being introduced to the world and anyone who knows me would agree that the people pleaser part of me really, really wants your approval...

So in an effort to help you get to know me better and in the spirit of politics,  I've compiled a list of what I'm "For" and what I'm "Against".

Liz is for:  Teeny bopper movies, cute scarves on cold, rainy days, The Biggest Loser, hot sourdough bread with butter, Facebook, Perez Hilton, tall men (I married one), sushi, the environment, inner beauty, Reese Witherspoon, Angelina Jolie, Dogs, Macs, Angels, forgiveness, family, H&M, ANTM, The Haitan guy from Heroes, Josh Duhamel(broke my heart when he married Fergie!), Access Hollywood, self-awareness, American Idol and using the F word when appropriate.

Liz is against:  Evites (Sorry if you've recently sent me one...), MySpace, TMZ, Tyra Banks, Elizabeth Hasselback, short men with Napoleon complexes, (sorry about that too!) reptiles, motorcycles, passive-aggressive behavior, tardiness, PCs, The Wiggles, Spongebob Squarepants, bickering, laziness, grudges and hypocrisy.(Or is it hypocritical to be against hypocrisy?)

As Lisa mentioned previously, we started this site because we want the publishing world to know that Chick Lit is alive and well!  Let's face it ladies-we are supposed to be everything to everyone-supermom, superwife, super-employee and do it all while looking super-hot.  So when I'm done being trying to be all those things, the last thing I want to do is sit down and read some depressing Oprah's Book Club shit! Sorry Ms. O, I love you, but I gave up on the book club after The Poisonwood Bible many years ago. If  I want to cry I'll turn on the eleven o'clock news or Dateline!

The women I know and love want to escape and be lost in a story about people they can relate to!  That is why we decided to write I'll Have Who She's Having.  We wanted to read about characters that we would want to be friends with.  Most people can relate to Kate and Kelly, the two sisters depicted in our novel.  Kelly is a new mom who decides to quit her job and stay home and struggles to fit in to her new life and snobby neighbors.  Kate is single, recently dumped and struggling to figure out why all the men in her life are afraid to commit, not realizing that she's looking in all the wrong places. Like many of us, both Kate and Kelly are struggling to find their happy ending!

So let's say it loud and proud! Give women QUALITY movies and books to choose from! Make 2009 is the year of Chick lit!  Happy endings and hot men for everyone! All self-proclaimed "bad-boys" will be tamed by the women who want to change them!  All men will leave the beautiful, mean girl for the mousy underdog!  I mean, come on, with everything going on in the world these days, don't we all deserve a happy ending now and then?

Yes, damnit, you do!  And we're going to give it to you!

Blogger's Block by Lisa

I’ve had a lot of anxiety about writing my first blog. “What will I write about?”“What do I know that anyone gives a sh** about?” and “What is a blog anyway?”
The truth is, I was and still am to a degree, “blog challenged". Liz, who is very
blog proficient, has always effortlessly used this word as she’s told me about
“reading this blog” or "commenting on that blog” during our search for an agent
and a publisher.

I'd heard of blogs of course, but had no idea how they worked. What was the
difference between a blog and a website? Didn't I need to know such things
before I could spew my opinions across the web, or more realistically, to our
five projected readers? I'd heard that you could subscribe to them, even post
on them, but I'd never even seen one up close. Liz said to check out a few blogs
to familiarize myself and I wondered, “how?” 

So, after some research and coming dangerously close to purchasing a book called
Blogging for Dummies, (yes, there is one!) I got a partial handle on things. I also
developed a case of blog envy, which I suppose is not hard to do when you're a
complete blog novice. 

There is one particular blog out there that is undeniably good and I'm obsessed
with--Stephanie Klein’s Greek Tragedy. She seems to blog with ease and humor
and I care about what she has to say whether it's her running nose or her living
room redesign. Admittedly, I've been studying it for ideas on how to do this
whole blog thing. She was discovered from her blog and dubbed the "Internet Queen"
and has since written two books, Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir and Moose: A
Memoir of Fat Camp. (Definitely go buy both of them right now!) Like her blog,
both books are honest and funny. 

I can only hope that you care what Liz and I have to say or are at the very least
entertained by our love of the fluffy beach read and silly observations about life.
We are simply looking for others like us….others that aren't afraid to admit out
loud that Chick lit is still very much alive and not buried six feet under like many
in the publishing world will tell you. 

Believe me I get it, it's hard to sell, but it's not dead.  And it certainly can't be so
dire that you have to write it "with a twist” like we were told. Agents argued that,
although regular Chick lit wasn't selling, other kinds like paranormal Chick lit were. 
Come again? Did we have to change our lead characters to witches who, instead of
buying Manolo Blahniks, went shopping for chic black cloaks and trendy brooms?
(No offense to anyone who writes that but it just wasn't what we wanted to hear.)
We remained true to ourselves and continued to believe in our story all while being
told by agent after agent that if only we’d written this book a few years ago, it
would've been "a snap" to publish. They said that it was funny, had great dialogue,
blah blah blah. BUT…there just wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of selling it unless
we were already published. 

I'm sure there's a lot of truth to that. But isn’t there something to be said for
Chick lit fans who crave material from new authors? Remember when Emily Giffin’s
first book came out not that many years ago? We’d never heard of her and it hit
the NY Times best seller list.  And even though we love Candace Bushnell, those who
weren’t following her column in the NY Observer maybe hadn’t heard of her either.
Her first book was so popular it spawned the creation of arguably one of the most
popular TV shows of all time...and currently there’s another show on the air based on
another book she wrote that, BTW, I’m praying doesn’t get cancelled. (I mean is
there anyone better to look at than Kirby Atwood?)

But I digress. A major blog faux pas, I'm sure.  My point is that every published
author was at one time unpublished and someone took a chance on them. At the
end of the day, I think fans of Chick lit care just as much about reading a good
story as who wrote the book. And when they go to the bookstore they aren’t thinking
about the stigma many have attached to these “frivolous and trashy” books, as
they’re often described. They don’t feel guilty that they’re bypassing books like
Freakonomics. They buy Chick lit because they want the predictable tale where hot,
rich, good-looking boy meets terribly lonely, but incredibly well dressed, single girl,
and they live happily ever after. I love to read... all kinds of books...but these are the
nuggets on paper that I crave...where I can turn off my brain and escape into a world
where, by the end of the book, everything is tied up in a perfect red bow.  I know
there are others out there who want more Chick lit... who want to read new authors
who tell sassy versions of a very old story...who agree that, as long as there are chick
flicks, there will be Chick lit.

Coming soon!

Don't worry, Lisa and Liz will start blogging in January 2009!