Jessica asks: If Schuyler’s mom will ever get out of her coma?

You will have to read the rest of the series to find out! 🙂 I promise this question will be answered in the series. But I can’t answer plot-specific questions on Book Question Wednesdays. I think it’s so much more fun to find out through reading the books, don’t you think? For instance, I would like to know if everything on Lost got re-started because they exploded the nuke. But I’m going to have to wait until next year to find out, just like everyone else. I actually screamed “THIS IS PAYBACK FOR WHAT I DO TO MY READERS!” at the season finale. So you know, karma, I am her byatch. Heh. Do not worry, all questions will be resolved at some point in the series.

Felisa, Maliha and Michael and many others who sent emails in the past before BQW started all have roughly the same question: They want to know if the Van Alen Legacy is the last book of the saga? And are there any plans of this saga to be put into film?

Not the last book by far. Right now I have ideas for at least a gazillion Blue Bloods books, but I don’t know if I can write a gazillion. I will most likely write at least ten. If not more, I can’t say a final count because I kind of really like writing this series, and I’m the type of person who reads every freaking sequel of everything that I love, so um, if you love it, you will have many Blue Bloods books to read from me. I aim to please. Mostly myself. But I’m SO GLAD there are others along for the ride too.

As for film, there are many bites (as in producers interested) but nothing concrete yet. I’m patient. I just hope I’m still alive when it happens. Not holding my breath but keeping a hopeful optimism. I find if I really want something bad enough, I usually get it. And I’m starting to get really itchy about seeing the characters on screen, which I never felt this huge compulsion to before. I am and forever will be, a the-book-is-better-than-the-film person. (Although Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings comes soooo close.)

I think I kind of really want to see Blue Bloods on the big or small screen right now because so many people ask me if this is going to happen and then when I say, “I don’t know”, they look at me with disappointment or maybe pity. As if I haven’t really “made” it as an author until it’s been made into a movie or TV show. And that just REALLY annoys me. Because there are many many LAME books that sold bupkes and made into other media and lots of GREAT GREAT books that have never been made into anything.

So I just don’t think it’s a barometer, whether it gets made. Because here’s what I want to happen: it gets made into a TV or movie. It is INSANELY popular and becomes a POP CULTURE PHENOMENON. That is what people are asking. (And by people I mean, my peers and frenemies and cocktail party chit chatters – not you—not my readers—you, like me, really want this to happen.) The people who ask me this question just want to figure out how successful/how much money I have. You know? And really, as my mother always said, The answer to that kind of nosy, rank-y question is Very Successful and A Lot of Money. Which was the answer to that question ALL THE TIME, even during the times when the answer is Quite a Failure, Actually, and Not A Lot of Money At All.

And here’s what I don’t want to happen: It gets turned into something. No one watches it. It gets canceled after an episode. Meh. What’s the big deal then? You know? And how many pop culture phenoms are there in one lifetime? We already have Twilight and Sookie…not to say there’s no room for the Bloods, but you know, it’s a crowded (or as Mike says: crow-dread) field.

Anyway…that’s a long vent-y tangent. But I’m just a bit tired of that question. But not from you guys. More from the status-obsessed people I come in contact with. Sigh. Next!

Rebecca’s question is related to the above. She wants to know: Are you in the process of writing a new book for a new series or thinking about it?

Yes! I am currently writing the first book in the Blue Bloods spinoff WOLF PACT. I also have several ideas for new series that I am kicking around…I always have 1000 things I want to do/write. Hopefully some of them will be coming to a bookstore near you in the not-too-far future. The great thing about being a voracious reader is that I am also a voracious writer.

Thanks everyone for your questions! I will answer more next Wednesday.

Also: I just read about Charlane Harris in the New York Times. I love me some Sookie Stackhouse, don’t you? And this line stuck in my craw: “Like many a commercial writer, Ms. Harris wishes the literary establishment would pay more attention. “I think there is a place for what I do,” she said. “And I think it’s honorable.”” Miss Harris—it is more than honorable!! You write books people actually READ! And there’s no reason to apologize! I for one, as a commercial writer, have never felt that way. I like Stephen King’s answer to how come he’s now a huge figure in the bonafide literary establishment when he started out as a horror writer totally trashed by critics. He said “Those critics who hated my books have died. The young generation grew up reading me and they’re in charge now.” So you know, you just have to OUTLIVE your fiercest critics. Heh. So all you young people out there, don’t you, forget about me…ok? OK.

xoxo
Mel

PS-I’m sorry if I sound cranky in this blog! I just am tired of the whole one-upmanship in the striver world. Maybe I’ve been to too many preschool confabs about the “right kindergarten”? Argh! I have made it to the Times Bestseller List. If I never make it again, I will still die happy. Goal: achieved. Everything else is just gravy at this point. I for one, do not need to be on the hamster wheel all the time. I like to work and I like to write books and I like to shop. As long as I get to do those things and have my family around me, that’s all there is to it. See you on Writing Friday!