And I don’t mean the weather. Although it is going up into the 70s here.

I’m referring to the rank of The Girls Next Door episode guide on Amazon. It’s been as high as number 116 on the sales chart thanks, in large part, to the book being seen on the show itself last week in the episode “Glued to the Sets.”

Not that we writers pay any attention to the ranking system on Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s website (where the book has been as high as 34!!!) Nope. Don’t care about those things at all.

But it is a nice way to end the year.

(Oh, I was supposed to be in that episode too, but I mercifully wound up on the cutting room floor. Seriously. MAJOR sigh of relief. Although it was fun being filmed for a reality show. Even though Holly poured a heaping handful of Booberry cereal into my hands as soon as I walked in the dining room. Who wants Booberry cereal in their teeth when they’re being filmed? And when did my life reach a point where I would be worried about cereal in my teeth when I’m being filmed for a reality show at the Playboy Mansion? Sur. Real.)

Of course, The Girls Next Door episode guide is available in actual bookstores as well as the virtual ones. In case anyone’s looking for something to spend those gift cards on.

On this, the Winter Solstice, I want to wish everyone the happiest of holidays–whichever ones you celebrate–and all the very best wishes for 2009!!

For some holiday gift advice, check out my latest post on the Ro Com Blog.

Okay, I admit it. I’m cheap. I didn’t get you anything for the holidays. And I’m lazy. I haven’t updated my website in FOREVER. Well, I’m not updating the site yet, but I do want to give a little (emphasis on the little) holiday gift to all the DRAMA! fans out there. Here’s some fun from Show, Don’t Tell that I intend to add to the “Book Bits” page whenever I manage to get around to it…

DRAMA! Show, Don’t Tell

Book Bits

Yes, I really did name Marq’s parents Sandy and Danny (okay, Daniel). This was in honor of the high school production of Grease I was in that first truly developed my love of theatre … it was also the show where I realized that I was intended more for “behind-the-scenes” work. Although I did have a killer dance break in the middle of “Greased Lighting.” (That’s sarcasm, in case it doesn’t translate on the page.)

Embers, the club that Bryan and Marq go to in the book does not exist. The reason it does not exist and the reason it’s called “Embers” is that the actual club that I initially wanted to set the scene in closed down because of a fire as I was writing the book. I wasn’t sure at the time if or when the club would reopen, so I felt it best to make up a place … and give it a fire theme.

Chapter Title: Measure for Measure. I directed a scene from this Shakespearean play in my college Directing II class. Although I was working with some really great actors, the way I staged the scene … it was definitely not one of the highlights of my educational career.

Chapter Title: Damn Yankees! Though I only recently saw the movie of this musical for the first time, the song “Whatever Lola Wants” has always been one of my favorite songs from a musical.

Chapter Title: The Tap Dance Kid. When I worked on a book about The West Wing, I had the chance to interview Dule Hill, who played Charlie on the show and who performed in The Tap Dance Kid on Broadway. Dule’s now in the USA Network show, Psych, which I strongly recommend everyone to check out. Hilarity will ensue, I assure you.

Show, Don’t Tell was partially (minorly?) inspired by a great friend I had in college who ate, slept, and breathed the Ren Faire life. She was one of those people who would slip into character and stay in that character no matter what. Only actors and Ren Faire people can get away with that kind of thing. In the real world, I believe it’s called having a split personality.

I’ve subscribed to TV Guide pretty much my entire adult life. From just about the moment I moved out of my parents’ house, I had a subscription, which should be no shock considering how much I love television.

TV Guide has changed dramatically over the years. From the format to the content, it is a very different publication from the one I used to read at my grandparents’ house. (At my house, we relied on the free one that came in the Sunday paper.) Current technology has pretty much rendered the TV listings as superfluous. So, after much deliberation, I decided to let my subscription run out.

This was the first week in the past fifteen years that I did not receive my regularly scheduled issue of TV Guide. And wouldn’t you know that this is the week that I’M IN THE DARN MAGAZINE!!!!!!!

I mean, seriously! You can’t write this stuff. It’s just too big a coincidence. I wasn’t in last week’s issue. I’m not in the following week’s issue. No. I’m in the very first issue that I no longer get as a subscriber.

The sound you now hear is my head pounding on my desk. I have to go out and buy it at the full cover price because I’M IN IT!

Okay, “I’m” not actually in the issue, but my next book is. The magazine is highlighting upcoming celebrity books in time for the holiday season and they’ve got a shot of The Girls Next Door episode guide with a brief description. And my name. In bold print. It’s in the issue with Christina Applegate on the cover. So, check it out … or just go on Amazon.com and look at the cover there. It cute. And kind of a little dirty.

Not only do I apparently dine at the Peach Pit, but I used to hang out at the park where the characters in Privileged get their coffee (because it’s on the Paramount lot, where I used to work), the Buy More on Chuck is supposedly located near me in Burbank, which is also where John Connor was driving through on Monday night’s Sarah Connor Chronicles.

I love living in L.A. (I also love my two VCRs that allow me to stay up-to-date on all this shows.)

Aside from seeing my favorite places on TV, one of the things I like most about series television is that the writers get to tell so many different stories … so long as their show is successful and lasts more than two episodes. They get to explore different relationships, which brings new opportunities to the storytelling. What they did on Gossip Girl the other night is a prime example of why series television is so much fun. (Caution: If you haven’t caught Monday’s episode yet, you might want to skip the rest of this until you do.)

The writers took two characters that normally hate each other (Dan and Chuck) and stuck them together for an episode to try out an entirely new dynamic. The reasoning may have been a little forced for my tastes, but I can easily overlook that when it provides so much to explore for the characters and the actors. In much the same way, that’s how I approached (DRAMA! spoiler coming if you haven’t read the last book) the casting of Hope’s play in Entrances and Exits. It wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun if I had given Tasha a role in the play instead of Belle. For those aspiring writers out there, this is not just good advice for writing a book series or TV series. It’s something you can try in a standalone project too. If you have a scene that isn’t working, bring in a character who has absolutely no reason to be there. Someone who would change the entire plot of your story simply by walking in the room. It could be a horrible mistake that kills your story, but it could also be something that brings a fresh take on the idea and leads you off in a multitude of directions.

On the flipside, I think breaking up a pairing and making Blair and Serena enemies on Gossip Girl is going to make for much more exciting television. It’s already making for a much more exciting Serena. I just hope they tread carefully, move slowly, and don’t overdo it. Blair and Chuck are two of my favorite characters on TV right now. It’s such a challenge to create characters that you can love and hate all in the same sentence. And Serena had a wonderful moment of that in her speech to Blair that had Blair say something like “Can you even hear what you’re saying?” Obviously, I want Blair and Serena to be friends again in the end, but there are loads of different opportunities to examine before we get there.

In other news, to find out what I did on my end-of-summer vacation, check out the Ro Com blog.

By now, I think it’s pretty clear that I’m a pop culture junkie and TV addict. I suspect that some of you might be that way too. So I’m guessing you’ll understand my excitement when I say…

I hang out at the Peach Pit!!

I was watching 90210 the other night when I noticed something rather familiar about the Peach Pit set. Admittedly, The Peach Pit on this new version isn’t as retro cool as the original, BUT it’s still owned by Nat and it’s the place the regulars regularly hang. It appears to be filmed at an actual restaurant in Hollywood (or West Hollywood. I’m never sure where one ends and the other begins). And it’s a restaurant that I’ve been to several times. They just changed the signs, but it looks pretty much the same as when I dine there. To which, I repeat…

I hang out at the Peach Pit!!!

I do realize that there is a difference between real life and a fictional television show, but I’m totally going to be waiting for Dixon to take my order the next time I go there for lunch.

And with an assist from me,
To be who you’ll be,
Instead of dreary who you were… uh, are…
AAARRRGGHHH! Still can’t get that song out of my head!

Just wanted to jump in with one last post about Micol Ostow’s cyber launch party for Popular Vote and maybe talk a little about the book too. Again, I must warn: I’ve known Micol for years and years (well, maybe just “years,” we’re not THAT old) so what follows is a completely biased review of a totally enjoyable book.

Popular Vote by Micol Ostow

You’ll have more fun reading this book than you’ll have putting lipstick on a pig.

Not that I imagine giving a pig a makeover to be all that enjoyable a way to spend a Saturday night. And I strongly doubt that the pig would enjoy it either. Although Miss Piggy seems to like the dress up. Which reminds me, the L.A. County Fair is in town. They’ve been running this hysterical ad campaign for a few years about L.A. Girls at the fair who text while bumper car driving, bake an entirely organic pie from leaves and twigs, and pretty much skewer all kinds of other L.A. type traditions in the ads.

But I seem to have gotten off point.

Popular Vote takes place in a small town and tells the story of the mayor’s daughter, Bristol … I mean Erin Bright. Erin’s dating the incumbent class president who is once again running unopposed. When an issue involving big oil comes to the small town, Erin finds herself disheartened by her boyfriend’s hand’s off response and decides that the only way to save a beloved field from becoming a gas station is by throwing her hat into the ring and running against the guy she’s dating. If only she’d talked to her mayor father for some campaign advice first.

Real world hot topics meet relationship politics in this entertaining read about being true to your heart even if it means going up against the ones you love. Once again, it’s a book that takes a serious topic and presents it in a lighthearted manner. (Can you tell those are the kinds of books I like. Which is why I write them.) I don’t want to give too much away, but the thing I love the most about this book is how Micol handles Erin’s campaign supporters and, more specifically, those who SHOULD be supporters, but aren’t. Soon after Erin makes her decision to run she finds out who has her back, who doesn’t, and who realizes politics is not always an easy choice between this guy or that gal.

Considering the current political climate, I can’t think of a more topical teen read.

So, go NOW, check out the party and comment to win a FULL SET OF DRAMA! BOOKS Signed by me.

I’ll help you be popular!
You’ll hang with the right cohorts,
You’ll be good at sports,
Know the slang you’ve got to know…

Sorry, channeling Kristin Chenoweth in Wicked.

Just wanted to remind you all to check out Micol Ostow’s blog for the cyber-launch party of her latest book, Popular Vote.

I mentioned in my last post that there’d be prizes, right? Prizes every day. Well, tomorrow (Friday, September 12th) the prizes include signed copies of all four of the DRAMA! books. All you have to do is post a comment under my little section of her blog. Could it get any easier?

In case the link doesn’t work for some odd reason, cut and paste this address into your browser and I’ll see you there: http://micolz.livejournal.com/

I said, yes, yes, YES!

No, this is not true confessions. I’m not about to make any startling admissions. I’m talking about the teen novel Rehab by my friend, Randi Reisfeld. [Disclaimer: Totally biased and utterly heartfelt review ahead. Proceed with caution.]

Rehab by Randi Reisfeld

Rehab is a teen version of Entourage mixed with Intervention and served over ice with a shot of The Hills. It’s a story about the excesses of Hollywood and how one young girl can easily be overwhelmed. And it’s one of the most entertaining books about a serious topic that you’re likely to find.

Randi’s biting wit takes a bit ol’ chomp at the celebrity world, dishing out a faux Hollywood story of a good girl gone party girl. Kenzie Cross is about to cross over from popular TV star to tabloid sensation and she’s developing the drug and alcohol dependency that comes with it. At the point her career is about to break, her partying ways start to eclipse her work. Threatened with the loss of a primo role, Kenzie goes in for what her handlers term “pre-hab” to stop the growing problem that she doesn’t see that she has.

Randi captures the Hollywood fakery so well you’d think she lived out here. What I love about Rehab is that it’s a message book that presents the message in an entertaining way. Sure, there are a million little books out there that show the ugly side of rehab and withdrawal: the vomiting … the shakes … the root canal without anesthesia. If that’s what you’re looking for, don’t look here. This is a book that is meant to entertain as well as educate. It’s laugh out loud funny at times, bringing a much appreciated lightness to a touching story of romance and rehabilitation.

So check out Randi’s book. And Randi’s website … which I’ll add to the links page as soon as I do that long promised website update.

And speaking of my writer friends, check out Micol Ostow’s blog all this week for the cyber launch party for her new book, Popular Vote. I’ll be popping in on Friday to join the party that promises to have a bunch of young adult authors stopping by. You should drop in too. There’s going to be prizes galore!

If I’ve learned anything from all the medical dramas I’ve watched over the years it’s that the governing rule of doctors is: “First, do no harm.” And that’s all I really needed from the new 90210. That it do no harm to the memory of a show I once raced back to my dorm room to watch immediately after intermission ended while ushering for a college production of Crimes of the Heart to find out which character was going to die a tragic death! (Even though we all knew it was going to be a cop out and be Scott who we hardly saw at all during the second season!!)

I loved the old pre-graduation 90210. All that I wanted was for the new one not to besmirch the memory. (Wow. I just used besmirch in a sentence.) To do no harm. And it didn’t. In fact, I kinda liked it. Didn’t love it, but it’s got room to grow.

What I enjoyed the most—aside from the shout outs to the original show (Andrea’s daughter!)—was that they kept the brother/sister angle. In the original 90210, Brandon and Brenda were freakishly close. Almost best friends, even. Which is kind of weird, but kind of the core of the show. At least in the early days. The new Brandon and Brenda (Dixon and Annie) have that potential. Again, it’s not there yet, but the writers are writing it in that direction and I’ll be tuning it to see how it goes.

Is it just me or is it beginning to look like a great time for the teen dramas? The season premiere of Gossip Girl made me absolutely giddy in the pure evil of Blair and her “mother Chucker.” Jenny’s slowly making her way back into the spotlight with Eric’s tentative help. Nate didn’t grate. In fact, he was the most fun I’ve ever seen him be. I can’t WAIT for Vanessa to get back into town to see what she brings to that mixed up mix. And Serena and Dan were kind of fun in their maudlin, whiny way. I love these two characters, I just wish they weren’t suffering from the dreaded curse of “Well, we got them together, now we’ve got to find ways to keep them apart” plot device (See: Roswell, Dawson Creek … any teen dramas, really.)

And then there’s Greek. I can encapsulate my love for this show in one line of dialogue from last week’s episode: “Help me Toby Kwan, you’re my only hope.”

Awesome.

I’m always wary when people go around saying one show is like another show. Like how they’ve been calling Privilege, “Gilmore Girls meets Gossip Girl.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was even going to watch it. Until I saw the first commercial for it during Gossip Girl. One clip in particular had me laughing out loud and immediately adding it to my TV viewing schedule. All I’ll say is that it has to do with a taser. I just hope the rest of the first hour lives up to that moment. If it does, I’ll definitely be back.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll be back even if it doesn’t.