Hello there friends! Some of you may have looked at my blog in the past weeks and thought, “Why the hell isn’t Jenny saying anything about [random awful thing happening my country right now].” Well, there’s a reason.
First of all, the speed at which the awful shit keeps happening is so fast, I simply couldn’t keep up with it here. While I finish one exhausting and terrible post, six other exhausting and terrible things will have taken place. I would be the blogging equivalent of Sisyphus, pushing a wrinkly orange rock that I don’t really want to think about, let alone touch.
Second, it seems like there’s nowhere anyone can go to escape the worldwide crises caused by our ridiculous conservative right. If this space can be one of those precious few spaces, then I’ll let it be. If things change in the future, they change, but for now, I’d like to spend at least a couple hours of my day writing frivolous stuff and sharing it with you guys, to give my eyeballs a rest from watching my country burn.
I am intensely vocal (some might say overly so) about politics on Twitter, so you can always find me there. No, really. Always. It’s like it’s plugged into my brain.
Moving on to a subject that’s less horrifying. Or more horrifying, depending on how you feel about my novels. Some time ago, I mentioned that I was writing an erotic romance about a screenwriter adapting the bestselling erotic novel of an egomaniacal author. I am pleased to report that, while it won’t release the first week of February as I had originally hoped, it is nearing completion. That said, it took a bit of a turn from an erotic romance to a contemporary romance, and then arrived somewhere in the valley between “novel with romantic elements” and “women’s fiction.” It has been a ride, let me tell you.
Because the content is so different from what I write as Abigail Barnette, Say Goodbye To Hollywood will be released as a Jenny Trout novel. And since this is Jenny Trout’s blog, here are some fun facts to gear you up for the book.
Does the egomaniacal author sound familiar? There’s no way I can pretend that the premise of the novel isn’t based on the rumored behind-the-scenes struggles with the adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, but fictional author Lynn Baldwin isn’t a carbon copy of E.L. James. In fact, the only thing they have in common are similar career situations. Baldwin is an amalgamation of several literary divas I’ve met in my career. You can have fun guessing who inspired her personality.
You said you were done with Fifty Shades. Why write a book inspired by it? So much gossip swirled around about the making of the first movie that it was almost inescapable. Some bits that inform scenes in the novel were almost too ridiculous to be believed, so I knew they would make great fiction (although I suspect some of them were fiction to begin with). After I read Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s The Royal We, I realized that “write what you know” isn’t necessarily bad advice. In fact, it can make for really fun writing (and hopefully, reading)!
Are there going to be as many sex scenes as in the Neil and Sophie books? Nope. At this point, there are two sex scenes. This novel won’t be as long as the Neil and Sophie books, either. And don’t expect my usual May/December pairing.
You announced this project ages ago! Why has it taken so long? Burn out. Emotional and creative burn out. And it’s not like anything else I’ve written, so I’ve had to take my time, adapt my voice, and listen harder to characters I don’t know as well as my ongoing series casts.
So, when will it be out? I can only say soon. Until then, I’ll give you updates and maybe even share little bits until I can comfortably tell you when the book will be delivered.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print, at the moment.